VISION ASSISTED BY fHE OTHER SENSES. 165 



it may appear trifling, I will relate. Having often for- 

 gotten which was the cat, and which the clog, he was 

 ashamed to ask ; but catching the cat, which he knew 

 by feeling, he was observed to look steadfastly at her, 

 and then setting her down, said, so puss, I shall know 

 you another time. He was very much surprised that 

 those things which he liked best, did not appear most 

 agreeable to his eyes expecting those persons would 

 appear most beautiful whom he loved most, and such 

 things to be most agreeable to his sight, that were so to 

 his taste. We thought he soon knew what pictures rep- 

 resented, when showed to him, but we found afterwards 

 that we were mistaken ; for about two months after he 

 was couched, he discovered that they represented solid 

 bodies, when to that time, he considered them as party- 

 coloured planes, or surfaces diversified with a variety of 

 paint. But even then he was no less surprised, expect- 

 ing the pictures would feel like the things they represent- 

 ed, and was amazed when he found those parts, which 

 by their light and shadow appeared now round and un- 

 even, felt only flat like the rest, and asked which was the 

 lying sense, feeling or seeing ? Being shown his father's 

 picture in a locket in his mother's watch, and told what 

 it was, he acknogwledged a likeness but was vastly sur- 

 prised ; asking how it could be, that a large face could 

 be expressed in so little room, and saying it would have 

 seemed as impossible to him, as to put a bushel of any 

 thing into a pint. At first he could bear but very little 

 light, and the things he saw he thought extremely large ; 

 but upon seeing things larger, those first seen he con- 

 ceived less. He never was able to imagine any lines 

 beyond the bounds he saw ; the room he was in, he 

 said, he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could 

 not conceive that the whole house could look any big- 

 ger." 



Emily. It must have been very amusing truly, to 

 have seen him so intently examining the cat, and express- 

 ing his wonder at his father's picture. 



