out of it with the happy instruments of youth and hope and music. With us the great adventure of life is to pass contentedly from the world of sound into the world of silence and there strive to prepare ourselves for the world of serenity which lies beyond. H. W. COLLINGWOOD. CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 3 TERRORS THAT ARE IMAGINARY 9 ON THE ROAD TO SILENCE 20 HEAD NOISES AND SUBJECTIVE AUDITION 38 FACING THE HARD SITUATION 52 A HEART FOR ANY FATE 73 MEMORIES OF EARLY LIFE 87 EXPERIMENTING WITH THE DEAF MAN 101 COMPANIONS IN TROUBLE 116 THE APPROACH TO SILENCE 133 MIXING WORD MEANINGS 147 THE WHISPERING WIRE 160 “NO MUSIC IN HIMSELF” 178 SILENCE NOT ALWAYS GOLDEN 194 CASES OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY 210 ALL IN A LIFETIME 223 “SUCH TRICKS HATH STRONG IMAGINATION” 239 “THE TERROR THAT FLIETH BY NIGHT” 256 “GROUCH” OR GENTLEMAN 274 ADVENTURES IN SILENCE CHAPTER I TERRORS THAT ARE IMAGINARY The World of Silence Uncharted—Two Initial Incidents, Darkness in the Tunnel, and at Home—Imaginary Terrors of the Deaf—When John Harlow Thought He Was a Murderer. For some years I have considered writing a book concerning the life of the deaf or the “hard of hearing.” It is hard to understand why our peculiar and interesting life in the silent world has not been more fully recorded. We read of adventures in strange lands, far away, yet here is a stranger country close by, with its mysteries and miseries uncharted. Having lived in this silent world for some years, I have often planned to make an effort to describe it. However, like many other writers, I could not get going. I was not able to start my story until two rather unusual incidents spurred me into action. Those of you who know industrial New York understand how the vast army of commuters is rushed to the city each day and rushed home again at night. From New Jersey alone a crowd of men and women larger by far than the entire population of the State of Vermont is carried to the banks of the Hudson from a territory sixty miles in diameter. Once at the river bank there are two ways by which these commuters may reach the city. They may float over in the great ferryboats, or they may dive under the river in rapid trains driven through a tube far below the water. This submarine travel is the quicker and more popular way, and during the rush hours the great tunnel makes one think of a mighty tube of vaseline or tooth paste with a giant hand squeezing a thick stream of humanity out of the end.