Indeed, while reading his
descriptions, one would suppose that they were the work of a
singularly keensighted man, rather than of one who had been
entirely blind for twenty-five years at the time at which
he wrote them.
Not less touching was the devotion of Lady Hamilton to the service
of her husband, the late Sir William Hamilton, Professor of Logic
and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. After he had been
stricken by paralysis through overwork at the age of fifty-six,
she became hands, eyes, mind, and everything to him. She
identified herself with his work, read and consulted books for
him, copied out and corrected his lectures, and relieved him of
all business which she felt herself competent to undertake.
Indeed, her conduct as a wife was nothing short of heroic; and it
is probable that but for her devoted and more than wifely help,
and her rare practical ability, the greatest of her husband's
works would never have seen the light. He was by nature
unmethodical and disorderly, and she supplied him with method and
orderliness. His temperament was studious but indolent, while she
was active and energetic. She abounded in the qualities which he
most lacked. He had the genius, to which her vigorous nature
gave the force and impulse.
When Sir William Hamilton was elected to his Professorship, after
a severe and even bitter contest, his opponents, professing to
regard him as a visionary, predicted that he could never teach a
class of students, and that his appointment would prove a total
failure.
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