The Mirror.
From the French of Léo Lespès.
[Léo Lespès was born at Bonchain, June the 18th, 1815—the day of Waterloo. At seventeen he was compelled to take up arms as a conscript of Fusiliers, and for eight years passed his life amidst the scenes of camps and guard-rooms. But Lespès was not born to be a soldier; nature had meant him for a man of letters As soon as he obtained his liberty, he began to write or newspapers and magazines; and from that time until his death in 1875 he lived a busy but uneventful life, as one of the most popular of authors. He was one of the chief founders of the Petit Journal, which, owing largely to the tales and articles which he wrote under the signature of "Timothy Trimm," attained at once to a gigantic circulation. During his lifetime, his brilliant little stories were the delight of thousands; but beyond the limits of his native country his fame has never been so great as it deserves.]
LETTER I.
YOU wish me to write to you, my dear Anaïs—me, a poor blind creature whose hand moves faltering in the darkness? Are you not afraid of the sadness of my letters, written as they are in gloom? Have you no fear of the sombre thoughts which must beset the blind?
Dear Anaïs, you are happy; you can see. To see! Oh, to see! to be able to distinguish the blue sky, the sun, and all the different colours—what a joy! True, I once enjoyed this privilege, but when I was struck with blindness, I was scarcely ten years old. Now I am twenty-five. It is fifteen long years since everything around me became as black as night! In vain, dear friend, do I endeavour to recall the wonders of nature. I have forgotten all her hues. I smell the scent of the rose, I guess its shape by the touch; but its boasted colour, to which all beautiful women are compared, I have forgotten—or, rather, I cannot describe. Sometimes under this thick veil of darkness strange gleams flit. The doctors say that this is the movement of the blood, and that this may give some promise of a cure. Vain delusion! When one has lost for fifteen years the lights which beautify the earth, they are never to be found again except in heaven.
The other day I had a rare sensation. In groping in my room I put my hand upon—oh! you would never guess—upon a mirror! I sat down in front of it, and arranged my hair like a coquette. Oh! what would I have given to be able to regard myself!—to know if I was nice!—if my skin is as white as it is soft, and if I have pretty eyes under my long lashes!—Ah! they often told us at school that the devil comes in the glasses of little girls who
