During these rides, and especially when we were walking our horses along a quiet, shady stretch of road, J. P. sometimes became reminiscent.  On one of these occasions he told me the story of how he lost his sight.  As I wrote it down as soon as we got back to the house, I can tell it almost in his own words.

We had been discussing the possibility of his writing an autobiography, and he said, throwing his head back and smiling reflectively: 

“Well, I sometimes wish it could be done.  It would make an interesting book; but I do not think I shall ever do it.  My God!  I work from morning to night as it is.  When would I get the time?” Then suddenly changing his mood:  “It won’t do any harm for you to make a few notes now and then, and some day, perhaps, we might go through them and see if there is anything worth preserving.  Has any one ever told you how I lost my sight?  No?  Well, it was in November, 1887.  The World had been conducting a vigorous campaign against municipal corruption in New York—­a campaign which ended in the arrest of a financier who had bought the votes of aldermen in order to get a street railroad franchise.”

At this point he paused.  His jaws set, and his expression became stern, almost fierce, as he added:  “The man died in jail of a broken heart, and I .. and I ...”  He took a deep breath and continued as though he were reciting an experience which he had heard related of some stranger.

“I was, of course, violently attacked; and it was a period of terrible strain for me.  What with anxiety and overwork I began to suffer from insomnia, and that soon produced a bad condition of my nerves.  One morning I went down to The World and called for the editorials which were ready for me to go over.  I always read every line of editorial copy.  When I picked up the sheets I was astonished to find that I could hardly see the writing, let alone read it.  I thought it was probably due to indigestion or to some other temporary cause, and said nothing about it.  The next morning on my way downtown I called in at an oculist’s.  He examined my eyes and then told me to go home and remain in bed in a darkened room for six weeks.  At the end of that time he examined me again, said that I had ruptured a blood vessel in one of my eyes, and ordered me to stop work entirely and to take six months’ rest in California.

“That was the beginning of the end.  Whatever my trouble had been at first, it developed into separation of the retina in both eyes.  From the day on which I first consulted the oculist up to the present time, about twenty-four years, I have only been three times in The World building.  Most people think I’m dead, or living in Europe in complete retirement.  Now go on and give me the morning’s news.  I’ve had practically nothing, so you can just run over it briefly, item by item.”