Adventures in Silence

by Herbert W. Collingwood

When I asked my aurist about this he wanted to know if any particular incidents of my childhood were connected with the ringing of bells. I could remember two. It was the custom, years ago, for the sexton of the Unitarian Church to come and strike the bell when any member of the community died. There was one stroke for each year of their age. That was the method of carrying the news. The sexton did not pull the rope, but climbed into the belfry and pulled the tongue of the bell with a string. It was my duty to count the strokes, and thus convey the news to my deaf aunt. In that community we knew each other so well that this tolling the age gave us as much about it as one would now get over the telephone. And then the bell on the Orthodox Church over in the next valley! That always rang on Sunday, before our bell did, and I heard it softly and musically as the sound floated over us. I had been taught to believe that the Orthodox people had a very hard and cruel religion, and I used to wonder how their bell could carry such soft music. When I spoke of this the aurist smiled understandingly and said it fully explained why these musical sounds now come back to my weary brain.

Actual voices come to us at times. I have had words or sentences shouted lustily in my ears. In several cases while sitting alone at night reading or writing this conversation of the unseen has seemed so clear and natural that I have stopped and glanced about the room, or even moved about the house, half expecting to find some visitor. As a rule the sentences are incoherent, and are not closely connected with everyday life; they sometimes refer to things which have preyed upon my mind in previous days. Deaf friends have told me of direct and important warnings and suggestions they have received in this way, but I have known nothing of the sort. It does seem to me, however, that this shouting and incoherent talking usually refers to matters which I have deeply considered at times of depression, fatigue or strong excitement. I consider that, as in the case of the bells, it may mean the sudden stirring of brain cells which have stored up strongly expressed thoughts, and are in some way able to give them audible rendition to the deaf.

My aurist offers an ingenious explanation. He says that I can hear my own voice, and undoubtedly it is at some times clearer than at others. I may unconsciously “think out loud”; that is, go through the interesting performance of talking to myself without knowing that I am doing it. Perhaps if he were deaf himself he would not be quite so sure of his theory—nothing is so convincing as a fact. I remember that at one time my dentist was trying to persuade me that I ought to have a plate.

“But that is merely your theory,” I said. “You tell me that you can make a plate which will enable me to eat and talk in a natural manner. How do I know? I think a dentist, to be entirely successful, should be able to prove such statements from his own experience.”

For answer he gravely took a good-sized plate out of his own mouth. I had no idea that he had one! I have often wished that some of our skilled aurists might graft their theory of head noises upon practical experience.

Scientists and psychologists refer to these noises as subjective audition. I shall attempt no scientific discussion of the matter, as this book is intended to be a record of personal or related experience. All students of deafness seem to agree that we can hear sounds, definite noises and even words that are purely subjective. Certainly in some forms of insanity the victims hear voices commanding them to do this or that. I have known several persons apparently sane in all other matters who insist that unseen friends talk to them and give advice.

Some years ago I was permitted to make a careful study of members of a small religious community which was established near my farm. Its members were ordinary country people, for the most part of rather low mentality and narrow thought, yet with a curiously shrewd power of intuition. They were fanatics, and among other practices or “self-denials” they refused to eat anything which had to do with animal life. Thus they limited their diet to grain, vegetables and fruit. One man, who called himself “John the Baptist,” found this restriction a rigorous punishment, for he “liked to eat up hearty!” He wrestled in spirit for weeks, and finally told me that he had received an unanswerable argument straight from the Lord. In a moment of depression he had heard a voice from Heaven saying very distinctly:

“John, look at that big black horse!”

“I can see him right now!”

“Look at him! He is big and strong and can pull a plow all alone. Does he eat meat? No, he lives on grain and hay—the grass of the field! Now if that big horse can keep up his strength without meat, you can do the same, John!”