50 Edivard Livingston Youmans. 



old friends who assisted and cheered me in days of 

 affliction, and I was most glad to see her. Yet our 

 talk revived so much that was painful that I was sad 

 all day afterward." 



Late in the summer of 1843, with his scanty vision 

 somewhat improved, he went home to Milton and 

 spent some pleasant weeks while his sister read to 

 him. In these days, along- with the reading of current 

 literature, the subjects which engaged his attention 

 were chemistry, pure and applied, the geology of 

 soils, mineralogy, botany, physiology, and astronomy. 

 " Our reading," says Miss Youmans, " constantly 

 outran our knowledge and kept us on the strain for 

 explanations." 



At this time Mr. Youmans had begun to support 

 himself by miscellaneous literary work precarious, 

 difficult to get, and difficult to do. He early began 

 writing for the press, which gave him practice in com- 

 position and brought him into journalistic relations 

 which grew in extent and in after years were of the 

 utmost importance. In writing reviews, popularized 

 citations from technical works, etc., his blindness 

 proved an almost insuperable obstacle. Aid from 

 friendly eyes and hands could of course be only occa- 

 sional. He had to resign himself to spending weary 

 weeks over tasks that with sound eyesight could have 

 been dispatched in as many days. He invented some 

 kind of writing machine, which held his paper firmly 

 and enabled his pen to follow straight lines at proper 

 distances apart. Long practice of this sort gave his 

 handwriting a peculiar character, which it retained in 

 later years. When I first saw it, in 1863, it seemed 

 almost undecipherable ; but that was far from being 

 the case, and after I had grown used to it I found it 



