The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune — John Shaqi
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
_Duncan Campbell._ Yes, he did, and signified that he had several things
to predict to me concerning people, that he foreknew would come to me
the week following to ask me questions.
_My question._ But what was you staring at when I came in?
_Duncan Campbell._ Why, at that little boy that goes along with the lamb
I speak of, and it was then he made me the appointment.
_My question._ How does he do it? Does he write?
_Duncan Campbell._ No, he writes sometimes, but oftener he speaks with
his fingers, and mighty swift; no man can do it so quick, or write half
so soon; he has a little bell in his hand, like that which my mother
makes me a sign to shake when she wants the servants: with that he
tickles my brain strangely, and gives me an incredible delight of
feeling in the inside of my head; he usually wakes me with it in the
morning when he comes to make me an appointment. I fancy it is what you
call hearing, which makes me mighty desirous I could hear in your way;
it is sweeter to the feeling, methinks, than anything is to the taste;
it is just as if my head was tickled to death, as my nurse used to
tickle my sides; but it is a different feeling, for it makes things like
little strings tremble in my temples and behind my ears. Now I remember,
I will tell you what it is like, that makes me believe it is like your
hearing, and that strange thing which you that can speak, call sound or
noise: because, when I was at church with my mother, who told me the
bells could be heard ringing a mile off, as I was kneeling on the bench,
and leaning over the top of the pew and gnawing the board, every time
the man pulled the rope, I thought all my head beat as if it would come
to pieces, but yet it pleased me methought, rather than pained me, and I
would be always gnawing the board when the man pulled the rope, and I
told my mother the reason: the feeling of that was something like the
little bell, but only that made my head throb, as if it would break, and
this tickles me, and makes, as it were, little strings on the back of my
ears dance and tremble like anything; is not that like your way of
hearing? If it be, it is a sweet thing to hear; it is more pleasant than
to see the finest colours in the world; it is something like being
tickled in the nose with a feather till one sneezes, or like the feeling
after one strikes the leg when it has been numb, or asleep, only with
this difference, that those two ways give a pain, and the other a
pleasure. I remember, too, when I had a great cold, for about two
months, I had a feeling something like it, but that was blunt, dull,
confused, and troublesome. Is not this like what you call hearing?
_My question._--It is the finest kind of hearing, my dear: it is what we
call music. But what sort of a boy is that that meets you? and what sort
of a lamb?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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