were placed against a strong light; but he could no longer see to
read; and thus his eager appetite for knowledge and information
of all kinds was severely balked. He continued to preach. I have
heard that he was led up into the pulpit, and that his sermons
were never so effective as when he stood there, a grey sightless
old man, his blind eyes looking out straight before him, while
the words that came from his lips had all the vigour and force of
his best days. Another fact has been mentioned to me, curious as
showing the accurateness of his sensation of time. His sermons
had always lasted exactly half an hour. With the clock right
before him, and with his ready flow of words, this had been no
difficult matter as long as he could see. But it was the same
when he was blind; as the minute-hand came to the point, marking
the expiration of the thirty minutes, he concluded his sermon.

Under his great sorrow he was always patient. As in times of far
greater affliction, he enforced a quiet endurance of his woe upon
himself. But so many interests were quenched by this blindness
that he was driven inwards, and must have dwelt much on what was
painful and distressing in regard to his only son. No wonder that
his spirits gave way, and were depressed. For some time before
this autumn, his daughters had been collecting all the
information they could respecting the probable success of
operations for cataract performed on a person of their father's
age. About the end of July, Emily and Charlotte had made a
journey to Manchester for the purpose of searching out an
operator; and there they heard of the fame of the late Mr. Wilson
as an oculist. They went to him at once, but he could not tell,
from description, whether the eyes were ready for being operated
upon or not. It therefore became necessary for Mr. Bronte to