Believe it or not, but among the art treasures at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace are exquisite miniatures of members of the Royal family painted by Miss Sarah Biffen, who was entirely limbless.
Yet though born without hands, without even rudimentary arms or legs, her skill with pencil and brush wielded by her mouth gives her a place in Redgrave's "Dictionary of British Artists" and the still greater honour of inclusion in that most austere of reference books, "The Dictionary of National Biography," in company with Reynolds and Turner, Romney, Millais and Sargent.
In that same high company of statesmen, explorers and big-game hunters, Arthur Kavanagh, M. P., has a full length record of his private and public life, though he, too, was born, and lived actively through his sixty years, entirely without limbs. Yet he was both Irish squire and Member of Parliament, riding, hunting, shooting (including tiger in India), fishing, writing and drawing better without arms and legs than most men with them.
The admitted eminence of these to people, so widely different, but alike in being limbless, gives each a particular interest. Sarah Biffen was the child of a simple farming family near Bridgewater. The birth of that armless and legless baby girl just a mere trunk - was the wonder of that Somerset countryside, as she was later to become noted through the land, honoured by nobles and Queen Victoria herself.
But in some way that dwarfed girl, without a leg or an arm she never grew to be more than 37 inches high, or rather long learnt to read from the village schoolmistress, and later to write with a pen held between her teeth.
More marvellously she, by infinite effort and patience, mastered the use of a needle, thread and scissors with her mouth. Then from a Mr. Dukes she learnt similarly to draw and paint, and under his guidance began to travel all over England.
She held exhibitions and sales of her work, of demonstrations of how she wrote, sewed, drew and painted. In addition to these admission fees from spectators she sold her autograph, and drew landscapes or painted miniature portraits on ivory. One of her sitters in London was the Earl of Marton, who, after each sitting, took the unfinished portrait with him.
When he had thus convinced himself that Sarah's work was genuinely hers and unaided, the Earl not only doubled her fee but paid for her to recollect lessons from the then fashionable painter, Craig, of the Royal Academy.
The Society of Artists awarded its medal to little Miss Biffen of no arms and legs. The Royal Family, including Queen Victoria, had miniatures painted by her, and she became a pet of the fashionable world. But her rascally manager secured almost the whole of that financial harvest for himself. However, following ill-health, she was awarded a small Civil List Pension by the Queen, and retired to private life in Liverpool.
What is more, she married and some dozen years later she returned to her artistic life as Mrs. Wright. As such she lacked the attraction of Miss Sarah Biffen, and a public subscription in Liverpool ensured her comfort until death at the age of 66.
The example of her success and courage in facing life steeled the resolution of a young Irishman, born armless and legless like Miss Biffen. Arthur Kavanagh was 20 when she died, unlike her, of an old and wealthy family. He was the third son of the Squire of Borris, and a grandson of Lord Clanearty.
Into a family of normal, healthy children, came this baby without limbs. The highest surgical skill could do nothing for the boy, who cheerfully and determinedly set himself to live exactly as if he had no affliction.
Where other lads would have moped, Arthur Kavanagh denied his limitations and attacked study and sports with equal zest. Under private tutors he read, wrote and drew.
Strapped in a chair-saddle, he mastered horsemanship and became an accomplished, daring rider over any country. With the reins round his arm-stumps, he could ride as if he had fingers, and he could also use even the whip with effect.
For years he hunted, taking walls and hedges with equal daring, despite the danger of a broken girth or the horse's fall. Long practice made his fingerless arm-stumps as strong, supple and nervous as most men's hands. From a boat or mounted on a pony (remember he could not walk or stand) he was a dexterous and successful angler.
He could just manage to make his fin-like arms meet across his chest; and with a special gun he became a fine shot; whether birds or deer in Ireland or Scotland, or tiger and ion in India.
He spent three years on a journey through Russia, Persia, Mesopotamia and India, chiefly on horseback, for railways were few then. When remittances were delayed, he earned his living for a time as dispatch rider in Aurungabad and as a map-maker at Poona.
Years later he drew all the plans for the rebuilding of villages on his estate at Borris, and the Royal Dublin Society awarded its medal for his designs. He married happily, and all his children were healthily normal.
Walk he could not, so he was necessarily carried on the back of a servant to and from his carriage or horse; but he contrived a chair in which he could move himself about a room. He had handsome features and an unfailing cheerfulness which charmed everyone, including even the House of Commons during his fourteen years' service as M.P. He was carried to and from his seat, made his speeches sitting down, and neatly turned his notes between his fin-like stumps.
In that respect Major Brunel Cohen, now in the House, has advantage over Mr. Kavanagh, for while that ex-Service champion lost both legs in France, his arms are intact. Recent years have brought immense strides in the education of people who have lost a limb or limbs, to adapt themselves to their new life.
Only a month ago one-armed golfers held a tournament between themselves; while lawn-tennis, billiards, cycling, swimming and other feats, are almost now as common among people who lack a leg or arm as twenty years ago they would have been impossible.
Artists with one hand exhibit at the Royal Academy so frequently as to escape notoriety, but in all such cases the lose of one limb is not comparable with the handicap of a person born without legs and arms.
Yet what courage and patience can achieve is proved by Helen Keller who, when a 15-months-old baby, lost her sight, hearing and speech after scarlet fewer.
When she was nearly ten years old someone taught her how to use the finger alphabet, and so how to read and write. Slowly, by infinite patience, she learnt how to speak. She is stone deaf, but by placing her finger lightly against the lips of anyone speaking she reads off the words from the movements of the speakers mouth.
So she graduated at university and has written books, while her lectures describing the story of her life and awakening make this blind, deaf and dumb woman famous throughout Europe and America to-day.