For one year I could hear but little. In that year I was
comparatively humble, and one day I heard a workman say, 'If the boss
gets his hearing back there will be no peace about the mine.' This set
me to thinking. 'How much of my suspicion and anger,' I said, 'is the
result of my own speaking. I provoked the distemper of which I am
afflicted. I start the inquiries which make me distrustful. I hear the
echo of my own idle words, and impeach my fellow-man upon it. Until I
find a strong reason for speech, I will remain deaf as I have been.'
That strong reason never arrived, my little girl, until all reason
ceased to be and love supplanted it."
"There is no reason, then, in your present passion," said Podge dryly.
"No. I am so absolutely in love that there is no resisting it. It is
boyishness wholly."
"I think I should be afraid of a man," said Podge, "who could have so
much will as to hold his tongue for seven years. Suppose you had a
second attack, it might never come to an end. What were you thinking
about all that time?"
"I thought how deaf, blind, and dumb was any one without love. I found
the world far better than it had seemed when I was one of its
chatterers. By my voluntary silence I had banished the disturbing
element in Nature; for our enemy is always within us, not without.
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