The World As I Have Found It

ꪄ The World As I Have Found It

Project Gutenberg's The World As I Have Found It, by Mary L. Day Arms This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The World As I Have Found It Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl
Author: Mary L. Day Arms
Release Date: February 7, 2005 [EBook #14963]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation have been retained as in the original.]
[Illustration: MARY L. DAY ARMS]

THE WORLD AS I HAVE FOUND IT.
SEQUEL TO Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl.
BY MARY L. DAY ARMS.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
By Rev. Charles F. Deems, LL.D.
BALTIMORE: PUBLISHED BY JAMES YOUNG, 112 West Baltimore Street.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by MARY L. DAY ARMS, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

INTRODUCTION.
Mrs. Arms has asked me to write an introduction to her book. It hardly seems to need it. The title-page shows that it was written by one who is blind. It is a sequel to another volume. That volume has been widely sold, and all who read it will, I am sure, have some desire to see how the stream of the life of its writer has been flowing since her first book was written. Her patient perseverance under privations has won her a large circle of personal friends, who will take pleasure in procuring and preserving this fresh memento of the Blind Girl.
Such a book as this has a value which, probably, has not occurred to its author. She has put on record the phenomena of her life as she has recollected them, with great simplicity, merely for the entertainment of her readers, without attaching any importance to the value which every such memoir has in the department of science. But it is just from the study of such phenomena as these that the students in mental and moral philosophy learn the laws of mind and the operations of a human soul under a divine, moral government. As a matter of taste we might omit the writer's description of her husband, whom she never yet has seen, p. 45, and her account of her love affairs, p. 49; and if we had discretionary editorship, and the volume had been written by one having always had her sight, we should unhesitatingly exclude such passages. But, as the records of the impressions, consciousnesses and general mental phenomena of a blind girl in love, they stand to be, perhaps, quoted hereafter in some abstruse scientific treatise, or bloom out in some perennial poem.
There is an immediate practical usefulness in such a book as this. It has its wholesome lesson for the young. It shows what strength of character and vigor of purpose will accomplish under even extraordinary embarrassments. The young lady had a hard early life. She had neither friends nor money nor sight, but she unwhiningly took up the task of taking care of herself, and discharged it so nobly as to make for herself a wide circle of friends, and keep for herself that sense of self-reliance as toward man, and of faith as toward God, which are worth more than all the dirty dollars that wickedness can give to weakness.
Let our young women who are in straitened circumstances, in circumstances that seem absolutely exclusive of all hope of retaining virtue and keeping life, read this book and its predecessor, and pluck up faith and hope. Let all our young ladies, daughters of loving parents, daughters who have no care for the morrow, daughters of delicious ease and happy opportunity, read this book, and then let their consciences ask them how they are to carry their idleness to be examined at the judgment sent of Christ, in contrast with this blind girl's industry, fidelity and perseverance.
CHARLES F. DEEMS. CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS, New York, 4th July, 1878.

CHAPTER I.
"Warriors and statesmen have their meed of praise, And what they do, or suffer, men record; While the long sacrifice of woman's days Passes without a thought, without a word: And many a holy struggle for the sake Of duty, sternly, faithfully fulfil'd; For which the anxious soul must watch and wait, Goes by unheeded as the summer wind, And leaves no memory, and no trace behind! Yet, it may be, more lofty courage dwells In one meek heart that braves an adverse fate, Than his whose ardent soul indignant swells, Warmed by the fight, or cheered