A blind man's offering.

  • Bowen, B. B. (Benjamin B.), 1819-1905
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A blind man's offering. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    kim fully to realize his conception, but that he was sure what could not be accomplished on earth would be realized in heaven.” What we have said of the painter and sculptor, is equally true of the poet and musician. None can fully express the thought which it seems to have been their mission but to partly unfold. None ever succeeded in fully completing all that they had desired. But this is rendered even more striking, when we contemplate the daily life of the less gifted,— | when we leave the studio of the artist, the enchanted haunts of the poet and musician, and go forth into the broad theatre of the world. Everywhere do we be- hold the same disparity between the aim and the end; between what one essays to do and what is actually accomplished. ‘This is a universal fact, and forms a part of the experience of every individual soul. Every man seems to have a consciousness of an individual destiny, — of a purpose which he alone can, at best, but imperfectly express. And after the brief period of his earthly pilgrimage has passed, and he feels how little he has been able to effect, he realizes, what it would have been well if he could have learned before, that the present life is insufficient,—that the plans projected here can, for the most part, only be accomplished in a higher state of existence; yet it is interesting to witness, with what earnestness, with what deep sincerity, each ene labors in his own peculiar sphere of activity, and it is wonderful to observe how the failures of all contribute to a certain given result which could not be otherwise obtained. The individ- ual fails, but the race is always advancing. There is a unity, Gf we would but see it,) in the seeming desul- tory efforts that produce such fragmentary results. There is more truth than is generally supposed in