Years of Blindness. 5 1 



but little less legible than the most beautiful chirogra- 

 phy. The strokes, gnarled and jagged as they were, 

 had a method in their madness, and every pithy sen- 

 tence went straight as an arrow to its mark. 



I have already mentioned Youmans's strong sympa- 

 thy with the little party of abolitionists, then held in 

 such scornful disfavour by all other parties. He was 

 also interested in the party of temperance, which, as 

 he and others were afterward to learn, compounded 

 for its essential uprightness of purpose by indulging 

 in very gross intemperance of speech and action. 

 The disinterestedness which always characterized him 

 was illustrated by his writing many articles for a tem- 

 perance paper which could not afford to pay its con- 

 tributors, although he was struggling with such disad- 

 vantages in earning his own livelihood and carrying 

 on his scientific studies. It was not often, however, 

 that he was called upon to work for nothing. 



Among the friends whom he made at the home of 

 the Ketchams was William Baner, a stereotyper, and 

 in a small way a publisher. Through him Mr. You- 

 mans had occasional employment on liberal terms. 

 One day, for example, Baner sent to him an old sea 

 captain who had an original system of the universe 

 wrapped up in a bandanna handkerchief ; this compre- 

 hensive effort received grammatical and other revision 

 for a very satisfactory honorarium. Mr. Baner pub- 

 lished on his own account a history of the life and 

 times of Madame de Pompadour, revised and edited 

 by his literary coadjutor. 



The rare conversational powers which from the 

 first had interested so many people in Mr. Youmans 

 were constantly ripening and expanding. Especial 

 development was observed in his power of explaining 



