“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” These words cried Jesus, at the close of His parable of the Sower. And He went on to say that to some, to the many, He spake in parables, that seeing they might not see—not having eyes to see; and that hearing they might not understand—not having ears to hear in the Gospel sense. Nor in the Old Testament sense; for these very words are cited from Isaiah; in Deuteronomy too we read of those to whom the Lord hath not given ears to hear; and in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, of those who have ears to hear, and hear not. One apostle laments the destiny of those to whom God hath given the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear. And to another was entrusted the appeal, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” For only the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. The unwise is like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.
Give but interest in the theme, and the listener’s ear fulfils its natural function, that of hearing. “Mine ears hast Thou opened.” Intensify the interest, and the listener is all ears, all ear. Milton pictures a time—
“when, Adam first of men,
To first of women, Eve thus moving speech,
Turn’d him, all ear.”
So again the attendant spirit in his “Comus”:—
“... I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of Death.”
Webster’s ill-starred Duchess of Malfi assures her brother, “I will plant my soul in my ears to hear you.” Je t’écoute sans cligner la paupière, exclaims Marillac, in “Gerfaut,” dût ta narration durer sept jours et sept nuits. “Alarmed nature starts up in my heart, and opens a thousand ears to listen,” cries Colonel Talbot in an old play. Perplexed in the extreme, and cut to the heart, by a revelation of household treachery and wrong, an incredulous husband is described in a modern romance, with his hands clasped together, and with his head bent to catch every syllable of the harrowing news,—listening “as if his whole being were resolved into that one sense of hearing.” That reads like a literal translation of Balzac’s description of one whose whole vie se concentra dans le seul sens de l’ouïe. On another page he is not forgetful of certains hommes who se bouchent les oreilles pour ne plus rien entendre. None so deaf as those who will not hear. Next to them may rank those who do not care to. The familiar narrative of “Eyes and No Eyes” might easily have its pendent and parallel, point by point, and paragraph by paragraph, in one to be called Ears and No Ears.