Yesterday I went to dress myself to go to the Bois, and twice I was on the point of giving up, I was so overcome with weakness.

I succeeded at last, however.

Mme. Bastien-Lepage has been at Damvillers since Monday last, for the vintage, and, although there are women enough about him, he was glad to see us.

Sunday, October 12.-I have not been able to go out for the past few days. I am very ill, although I am not confined to bed.

Potain and his substitute come to see me on alternate days. Ah, my God! and my picture, my picture, my picture!

Julien has come to see me. They have told him, then, that I was ill.

Alas! how could it be concealed? And how shall I be able to go see Bastien-Lepage?

Thursday, October 16.-I have a constant fever that is sapping my strength. I spend the whole day in the drawingroom, going from the easy-chair to the sofa and back again.

Dina reads novels to me. Potain came yesterday, and is to come again to-morrow. This man is no longer in need of money, and if he comes to see me so often, it must be because he takes some little interest in me.

I cannot leave the house at all, but poor Bastien-Lepage is still able to go out, so he had himself brought here and installed in an easy-chair, his feet supported by cushions. I was by his side, in another easy-chair, and so we remained until six o'clock.

I was dressed in a white plush morning-gown, trimmed with white lace, but of a different shade; Bastien-Lepage's eyes dilated with pleasure as they rested on me.

"Ah, if I could only paint!" he said.

And I

There is an end to this year's picture!

Saturday, October 18.-Bastien-Lepage comes almost every day. His mother has returned, and all three came to-day. Potain came yesterday: I am no better.

Sunday, October 19.-Tony and Julian are to dine with us to-night.

Monday, October 20.-Although the weather is magnifi

cient, Bastien-Lepage comes here instead of going to the Bois. He can scarcely walk at all now; his brother supports him under each arm; he almost carries him.

By the time he is seated in his easy-chair the poor fellow is exhausted. Woe is me! And how many porters there are who do not know what it is to be ill! Emile is an admirable brother. He it is who carries Jules on his shoulders up and down their three flights of stairs. Dina is equally devoted to me. For the last two days my bed has been in the drawingroom, but as this is very large, and divided by screens, poufs, and the piano, it is not noticed. I find it too difficult to go upstairs.

[The journal stops here-Marie Bashkirtseff died eleven days afterward, on the 31st of October, 1884.]

THE END

CLARENCE HAWKES

A MAN WHO TRIUMPHED OVER BLINDNESS, LAMENESS AND ILL

HEALTH

1869

(INTRODUCTORY NOTE)

There could be no better lesson for boy or man than reading the life of Clarence Hawkes. He was born in December, 1869, in Goshen, Massachusetts, an American of old New England stock. When only nine years old he lost a leg by amputation. Then, as though this first misfortune had not sufficiently handicapped him, at thirteen he was blinded by a shooting accident. Despite the darkness in which his life has ever since been lived, Mr. Hawkes has made of himself a well-known writer of nature stories, tales of the birds and beasts he had known as a child. He has also won for himself a reputation as a poet, supporting himself by his books and his lectures.

In 1915 Mr. Hawkes wrote the story of his own life, which he called "Hitting the Dark Trail." Only the simple straightforward account of the tragedy of his blinding can be given here; but every reader is urged to seek for himself the entire book. It has made Mr. Hawkes famous; for the world possesses few stories of so brave a fight in face of such overwhelming odds, few pictures of such suffering, such depths of agony endured and such triumphant evidence of the power of the soul of man to rise superior to its environment.

HITTING THE DARK TRAIL1

I

[The opening chapters tell of Mr. Hawkes' childhood, of his intense joy of living as a child, his watchful observation of all the nature-life around him. Then follows the account of a sprained ankle, of erysipelas setting in, and of a surgical operation, supposed to be trifling, but in the midst of which the child came out from the influence of ether to discover that conditions had compelled amputation.]

A FEW weeks later a pair of crutches were procured for me and I began life hobbling about upon them. These crutches went with me everywhere I traveled for two years, and I finally exchanged them for a peg leg, a makeshift artificial leg, which, while it was not ornamental, and the wearing of it greatly hurt my pride, yet gave me the free use of my arms, which the crutches had denied me. But whether it was on crutches or the peg leg, erect, or crawling on my hands and knees in some difficult place, I always went into the battle of life with all my energy.

It was during those cripple days, when I was so different from the other children, that I learned much of that hard law of nature, the survival of the fittest. For while most of the children with whom I came in contact were unusually kind to me, yet there was occasionally a boy who would pick upon me, making sport of my deficiency, or even jostling me about. I soon discovered that tact and forbearance will carry one only so far. One can smile and laugh things off, and plead and reason up to a certain point, but there are some people who only understand brute force, so upon this class I gave back blow for blow. A crutch is a very handy weapon of defense, and is very easily converted into a club, and I sometimes had to use it as such to keep my place in this fighting world, that can be so kind, and likewise so brutal.

But the heart of youth is naturally strong. The young die hard, and optimism is theirs by reason of their youth, so I soon went back to my childish games and sports on crutches, playing them all as hard, if not quite as successfully, as before. There were some things that I could not do things that the other boys did-and it was in this connection that I learned one of the hardest lessons of life; as Stevenson says, to renounce if necessary and not be embittered. It took good courage to stand on the coaching line and yell oneself hoarse while the other fellow made your own home run, or to hand the other fellow the compliment for the high jump; but all those things I managed.

I also learned that by special dexterity, and by using one's head, mere physical strength can be overcome. So if I could go into the box and pitch so cleverly that the other boys could not hit my balls, I did not need to field the position. Then

there was always the schoolroom where my out-of-doors defeats, if there were any, could be avenged, and I often punished the brute strength that had been too much for me on the playground, there. The very fact that I was weak in athletics drove me to books, of which I was very fond, so I read omnivorously and studied prodigiously, and thus did two years' work for every year I attended school.

But it must not be imagined that I forsook nature and her ways, for both upon crutches and upon the peg leg I tramped the woods in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and became even more intimate with the furred and feathered folks. . . .

So with farming and tramping the fields and woods in all seasons, and attending the district school when it was in session, I came to my thirteenth year, to that never-to-be-forgotten day of August 12th, the day of my Waterloo, when the current of my life was forever changed, for better or for worse. That it was for worse as far as my life's happiness and bodily comfort were concerned there can be no question, but that I have accomplished infinitely more because of what befell me on that terrible day I do not doubt.

That was the day that God plunged me into a crucible, and the scars of it will go with me to the grave.

It must not be imagined that after my lameness I gave up any of my outdoor sports and recreations, for I did not. Although it was much harder to pursue them, yet I clung to everything that I had possessed before with the grip of a bulldog, and was enabled to do about everything that I had done before. So the Spring after my misfortune saw me back upon the trout streams fishing, and on the lakes boating and canoeing, and the Autumn, back in the woods following my father with the game bag.

I even went so far as to tie snowshoes upon my rude wooden leg and lope off across the country through the deep snow following the hounds. Skating I managed in the same manner so I rounded out the life of a vigorous boy quite well.

About the first of August, 1893, my father bought me a new gun. I had always been allowed to use his guns, but this