Adventures in SilenceCollingwood, Herbert W. (Herbert Winslow)
Science
Adventures in Silence
Collingwood, Herbert W. (Herbert Winslow)
Deafness
Most people pass through life associating only with the living, and
thus give but little thought to any world beside their own. The great
majority of the people to whom I have talked about the other life are
Christians, more or less interested in church or charitable work, yet
they have no conception of what lies beyond. Many of them dimly imagine
a dark valley or a black hole in the wall through which they will grope
their way, hopeful that at some corner they may come upon the light. The
law of compensation must give those of us who have lost an essential
of human life a greater insight into that other shadowy existence. For
us who have entered the silence there must somewhere be substitutes
for music and for the charm of the human voice. Most of the deaf who
formerly heard carry with them memories of music or kindly words,
legacies from the world of sound. These are treasured in the brain, and
as the years go by they become more and more ideal. Just as the chemist
may by continued analysis find new treasures in substances which others
have discarded, the man whose ears are sealed may find new beauties in
an old song, or in some word lightly spoken, which you in your wild riot
of sound have never discovered. And perhaps out of this long-continued
analysis there may come fragments of a new language, a vision which
may give one a closer view or a keener knowledge of worlds beyond. Who
knows? Again, one may not only add the beauty of brightness to the past,
but one may, if he will, summon the very imps of darkness out of the
shadows for their hateful work of destroying faith and hope in the human
heart. The Kingdom of Heaven or the prison of hell will be built as one
may decide—and his tool is the brain.
“_For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!_”
It is my conviction that this proverb was written by a deaf man, who had
thoroughly explored the world of silence!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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