PALLIATIVES OF DEAFNESS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR, —It is a fact, though perhaps a paradoxical one, that only confirmed sufferers can perceive the bright side of their afflictions. The idea that deafness is unmitigated evil is very general, and society convinces itself of this so unreservedly, that for the sake of those who may be easily depressed, the subject seems to warrant a little extenuation. A periodical so open to the exigencies of humanity, in all their aspects, as the Spectator is, will perhaps admit a few words from one who has been partially deaf long enough to have lost all hope of ever hearing again, without painful effort, the sounds that fill the earth with wisdom and harmony. Everything that reaches the car now must be out of joint, strained, and incoherent, deprived of half its sense, and nearly all its music, and yet no evil so permanent and decided could ever have been inflicted with
out some softening or remunerative properties. The brain does not become dull of necessity through deafness ; for the concentration of the perceptive faculties will stimulate it, of course, though its manner may be changed and unusual. It may become morbidly active, especially in those cases of nervous deafness that arc so frequent now. At any rate, it will set itself to its work of compensation, and with a little external help from our social conditions, the suffering would soon be palliated. While admitting fully that a deaf person is a sufferer himself and an inflictor of suffering to all about him, I must suggest that this need not be so, and would not if the old knightly courtesies were not giving place to much impatience of other people's feelings and requirements, and a restless self-assertion, quite incompatible with patience or forbearance. The shyness that comes over a deaf person with such painful intensity sometimes, would not be, if he were sure of his fellow-creatures. If he were free to make his own way, exempt from the cold half-frightened glances of ill-natured people, and the still more graceless forced attentions of others, he would find a place easily enough, and even enjoy society in his own observant and unpretending manner. 'Though any responsive solitary occupation will naturally become rather absorbing, social interchanges need not be given up or rendered painfully difficult. The man need not be prematurely lost to his kind, if instead of being forced out of the ranks, either by ostentatious attentions or unkind indifference, some friend would interpret for him now and then any salient point in an entertainment ; or if people would listen to him, when he has anything to say, with the same silent ease with which they would regard a hearing speaker. A deaf talker is almost sure to be a good talker if listened to, for he is more likely to be well read and to have matured his judgment, than one whose mind is open to all the little waifs and strays of ordinary chatter. Of course, I ton inferring that there are still some people who have enough of "the enthusiasm of humanity" to forget themselves and their ambitions for awhile, who will listen as well as talk, and who can receive an influence as well as make continual efforts to irradiate one.
There are other palliatives neither negative nor contingent upon the courtesy of others. There are some positive advantages in this incident of deafness even to a self-seeking society and to the sufferer. He is a good sounding-board for the cleverness of the wise and witty, from which the wisdom and the wit may rebound for the benefit of all. By his need for annihilating space, he may be an exciting or ameliorating power in an assembly, or a useful negative in a small coterie, where a whole would be too positive to be welcome. Ile may be ornamental, for lie is well appointed generally, and almost always invested with that graciousness of demeanour a consciousness of any patent deficiency will create, and his unassuming, gentle courtesy is a pleasing foil. His acquirements being usually intrinsic, are not likely to clash with those of ordinary people ; he will be modest over his mental resources, not knowing what intellectual light may be scintillating about him, and he is almost inevitably a reflective person. Deafness is certainly a disturbing element in the smooth flow of cultivated society, and must be inharmonious and surprising. Still, few people really care for an unbroken calm, a discord is not unfrequently an addition to the grandeur of a composition ; and the inconsistency of an irreevant remark, the oddity of a new and sudden idea quite detached from the conventionalisms of the hour, may be hailed as an inspiring thing, a premiss of price. There are palliatives of a more certain and individual character, dependent only upon the will of the sufferer. His powers of observation are intensified in proportion as they are undivided. He is sure to see everything. Every little shade that passes over the face of society,—every quiver of feeling, every pulse of sentiment, has had a sympathetic observer ; and because he has not been frittered away by small talk and minute self-evolvement, he has gained an insight into humanity's innermost heart that has amused and instructed, perhaps tended
to a larger love. A deaf person possesses pre-eminently the capacity for intense and high self-culture. He must draw for himself, from his own well-spring ; but if he has not failed to render that spring a perennial source, and if he has nerve to possess his own soul in peace, the result cannot fail to be ennobling and good. A DEAF MAX.
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