Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill HOUSEHOLD OCCUPATIONS Lathe and carpentry work are not beyond the reach of the blind; and I know some who are happy and proud in making wooden and pasteboard boxes and who do bookbinding: these are harmless pleasures dear to those born blind. Having practised, in my childhood, turning and other manual arts, I should not have the courage to spend much time making, rather badly, useless articles. He who loses his sight when relatively old has neither the patience nor the naive illusions of those born blind who take pleasure in manual occupations; he has not had the tune to become reconciled to the excessive slowness in everything which is forced upon those who work without seeing. The blind may make himself useful by contributing to the household work, particularly in families of small means. It wouldtake too much space to reproduce here all that was written me on this subject by M. Bonnet, of Toucy (Yonne), who after having had very bad sight became wholly blind at the age of thirty-two. Few of our companions will carry their skill as far as my correspondent, who does not fear, for example, to light and keep up the fire, and who assumes the greater part of the work of keeping the house tidy. He has gone so far as to invent a blacking easy for him to handle, the formula of which he will send to those who ask it. His greatest pleasure is to busy himself with the care of little children, being their companion as they grow up and taking them as guides on errands which are beyond their years. However that may be, nothing prevents the blind from sawing and splitting the kindling wood, laying the fires in the grates, going to the cellar for wine, uncorking the bottles, laying and clearing the table, washing and putting away the dishes, shelling the beans, making the beds, ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.