Visual impairment men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement. "Three Blind Mice" is a medieval English nursery rhyme about three blind mice whose tails are cut off after chasing the farmer's wife. The work is explicitly incongruous, ending with the comment "Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three blind mice?" Poet John Milton, who went blind in mid-life, composed On His Blindness,
Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes the year and accepted "Cecily Parsley" as the new book for Christmas 1922. By spring 1922, Potter had recopied the rhymes she wanted to use and sent them to Warne. Potter chose the pictures of the Gardening Guinea Pigs and Nanny Netticoat from an 1897 version of the book. A friend, Louie Choyce, provided the rhyme for the illustrations of the guinea pigs and another rhyme about a rose which was not used. Fruing Warne was a cautious editor and asked that the line about cutting off the tails of the mice in "Three Blind Mice" be dropped. Potter complied