56 ACCOUNT OF HUBER, 



arrive at the most brilliant results, in spite of every physical 

 disadvantage. 



FREDERICK. 







Pray, aunt, tell us more about Huber. 



MRS. F. 



Huber was a native of Geneva, and early began to culti- 

 vate his taste for literature and science; thus laying up a store 

 of ideas and impressions for the pilgrimage of darkness he 

 was called upon later to endure. At fifteen, his sight began 

 to fail, and the oculists pronounced the probability of ap- 

 proaching blindness. Mademoiselle Lullin and Huber were 

 mutually attached to each other from the age of seventeen; 

 and, determined not to abandon her friend in his misfortunes, 

 this heroic young lady resolved to marry him as soon as she 

 should attain her majority.* Her married life realised the 

 promise of her early devotion ; and Madame Huber, during 

 the forty years of happiness they were permitted to enjoy, 

 was his secretary, his companion, the partner of his studies 

 and of his pursuits. Indeed, such was her unwearied atten- 

 tion, so many ways did she find to gladden his darkened 

 existence, that, as he feelingly observed in his declining 

 years" While she lived, I never was conscious of the mis- 

 fortune of being blind." f We have seen the blind illustrious 

 as poets and musicians, as philosophers and mathematicians;^: 

 but it was reserved to Huber first to distinguish himself in 

 the sciences of observation, and upon objects so minute as to 

 be perceived with difficulty by even the most clear-sighted 

 observers. The works of Reaumur and Bonnet first directed 

 his curiosity to the study of bees, and the desire of verifying 

 some of the facts in their history, led him to a series of ob- 

 servations on their economy. 



* Then fixed at twenty-five. 



j- During the war, Madame Huber used to put her husband in pos- 

 session of the movements of the armies by arranging squadrons of 

 pins on a map, so as to represent the different bodies of troops. 



J Homer, Milton, Salinas (Professor of music at the University of 

 Salamanca), Saunderson, Euler, &c. 



With whom he was personally acquainted. 



