Adventures in Silence

by Herbert W. Collingwood

The deaf have one advantage at least. They have explored the pleasant roads and the dark alleys of both worlds. If they are of true heart, in doing so they have gained at least a glimpse of that other dim, mysterious country which lies hidden beyond us all. To the blind, the deaf, or to those who carry bravely the cross of some deep trouble, there will surely come vision and promise which never appear to those who are denied the privilege of passing through life under the shadow of a great affliction. But these visions do not come to those who pass on with downcast eyes, permitting their affliction to bear them down. They are reserved for those who defy fate and march through the dark places with smiling faces and uplifted eyes.

Someone has said that the deaf man is half dead, because he is unable to separate in his life the living memory or sound from the deadness of the silence.

“I must walk softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul.”

That was the old prophet’s dismal view of life, and how often have I heard hopeless sufferers, half insane with the jangle of head noises, quote that passage.

“Cut out the bitterness, and I’ll walk softly with you,” was the comment of one brave soul who would not subscribe to the whole doctrine. I have had two deaf men quote that and tell me that their condition reminded them of what they had read of prison life in the Russian mines. Formerly, in some of these mines, men were chained together at their work below ground. Sometimes, when one member of the hideous partnership died, the survivor did not have his chains removed for days! One of my friends told me that he felt as though his life was passed dragging about wherever he went the dead body of sound, and what it had meant to his former life. Unless he could keep his mind fully occupied there would rise up before him the dim picture of the prisoner dragging his dead partner through the horrors of their underground prison. The other man who made the comparison had a happier view of life. He told me that he had read all he could find on the subject, and that when these men were released from their hateful prison and brought up into the sunlight, they seemed to know much about the great mystery into which we all must enter. So he felt that he was not carrying the dead around with him, but rather the living, for the spirit of the old life, the best of it in memory and inspiration, remained with him. So we deaf are like you of the sound-world in that some of us sink under our afflictions, while to others of us they are stepping-stones.

I have come to think that of all the human faculties, sound is the most closely associated with life. The blind man may say that light means more than sound; I do not know how the question can be fairly argued, but I think in most cases deafness removes us further from the real joy of living. You will notice that the blind are usually more cheerful than the deaf. But at any rate, all the seriously afflicted have lost something of life and are not on terms of full equality with those who are normal. Their compensations must come largely from another world.

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!

While the inhabitants of every locality are usually anxious to increase their population, I am very frank to say that some of the recruits wished upon us are not a full credit to our community. The world in which we must live is naturally gloomy, where canned sunshine must be used about as canned fruit is carried into the northern snows. It is no help to have our ranks filled with discontented, unhappy beings who spend the years which might be made the best of their lives in bemoaning their fate and reminding the rest of us of our affliction. What we are trying to do is to forget it as far as we can. The deaf man does not want the world’s pity. That is the most distasteful thing you can hand him, even though it be wrapped in gold. For the expressed pity of our friends only leads to self-pity, and that, sooner or later, will pit the face of the soul like a case of moral smallpox. The most depressing thing I have to encounter is the well-meant pity of friends and acquaintances. I know from their faces that they are shuddering at the thought of my affliction, and I see them discussing it, as they look at me! Why can they not stop cultivating my trouble? All we ask is a fair chance to make a self-respecting living and to be treated as human beings. This compassion makes me feel that I am being analyzed and separated like an anatomical specimen; there will come to me out of the distant past of sound the bitter words of a great actor, who said as Shylock: