Imaginary Fears, Stuffed Lions and Bogus “Wild Men”—Sound as Stimulating Emotions, Even of Animals—The Brazen Courage of the Deaf—The Rum-crazed Men—The Overflowing Brook—The Drunken Prizefighter Challenged by a Deaf Man—The Terrors Lurking Within—Demons of Depression—The Deaf Man and the Only Girl.

Most of our fears are imaginary. I am convinced of this after a long study of deaf people, and a careful analysis of my own experience in the silence. I believe that physical fear is almost invariably induced by sound. We all see lions in the way. The man with good ears hears the roaring and hesitates, or turns aside. The horrible sound does not reach the deaf man, and he feels more inclined to go ahead and investigate. Most frequently the frightful object turns out to be a stuffed lion, a creature without effective claws or teeth, with nothing but wind in its roaring!

With a little thought every man can remember incidents which tend to prove this statement, but in time of threatened danger he is likely to forget them. Years ago in my boyhood days a couple of us youngsters went to a circus in the country town. In one of the side-shows was a fierce-looking creature labelled “The Wild Man of Borneo.” It appeared to be a human being of medium size with long claws, rolling eyes, and a dreadful, discolored, hairy countenance. His most frightful characteristic was his voice, which was exhibited by a horrible roar, a sound well calculated to chill the simple hearts of the country people who listened to the “manager’s” tale of a thrilling capture. There had been a bloody fight in which the wild man had killed several dogs and wounded a number of hunters. He would never have surrendered had they not first captured his mate; he followed her into voluntary slavery—“Thus proving that love is the primal and ruling force of the universe. The love-song of this devoted couple, ringing over the hills and dales, would have daunted the stoutest heart.” In proof of which the two caged creatures started a chorus of roars which would have sent the country people home to shudder in the darkness, had not a very practical deaf man been moved to investigate. He heard nothing of the explanation, and but little of the roaring; he only saw a couple of undersized creatures, exceedingly dirty and not particularly interesting. The “love song” gave them no glamour for him. So he idly lifted a curtain which hung at one corner of the tent, and, lo, the fountain of sound was revealed at its true source. A hot and perspiring fat man was working industriously at the pedal of a “wind machine,” a device resembling an old-fashioned parlor organ. Here was the real explanation of those primitive cries proving the deep affection which the “Wild Man of Borneo” felt for his mate. The deaf man pulled the curtain completely down and exposed the humbug.

Well, it broke up the show! Next to the fury of a woman scorned is the wrath of a crowd of country people who have paid their money for a thrill only to find themselves served with a very thin trick. They see no humor in the situation, and an exposure of this sort is a cruel blow at their pride and judgment. People with humor and philosophy would have laughed at the joke and polished it up for the benefit of their friends, but this hard-headed, serious folk could only find relief by pulling down the tent. In a far larger way this is what the solid, unreasoning and unimaginative element of a population will do to a state or a national government when some political trick has been exposed.

It was the “wild man” himself who saved the situation in the circus tent, and tamed the outraged audience. He pulled off his wig and beard and shed the claws which were fitted to his fingers like gloves. Then there stood revealed a small Irishman with a freckled, good-natured face.

“Sure,” he said, “the game’s up and I’m glad, because it’s a tiresome job. I’ve worked on a farm in my day, and I’d like to do it again. If any of you farmers here will give me a job, I’ll take it.”

“And me, too!” said the “mate”; when “her” frowsy head dress came off there was a red-haired young fellow of pleasant countenance. They both got farm jobs and lived in that community for several years. The “mate” finally married a farmer’s daughter!

It has been said that the primary effect of sound is the creating of moods; psychologists have spent much time in analyzing the connection between sound and fear and kindred emotions. It is easy enough to realize that sight must inform or directly affect the intellect. Theater managers prove the necessity of supplementing sight with sound when they obtain a full play of emotion by giving the audience appropriate music, which they stress during emotional passages. Perhaps what we are is determined by what we see, while what we feel is decided by what we hear. The deaf are frequently termed hard-hearted and even cold-blooded. I have known deaf persons actually to smile at cases of grief or injury which seemed tragic to those who could hear what the unfortunate victims were saying. They saw only the physical contortions. Suppose you with good ears and I in my silence, walking together, meet a little crying child. I can only observe the outward signs of distress; I see her tears and watch the little chest rise and fall with her sobs. My sympathy can be only vague and general—I may even smile to myself over the shallow sorrows of childhood. It will pay you to stoop over and hear the whole story, to catch every tone of the little, grief-stricken voice. I have no means of offering intelligent consolation, perhaps you can explain the trouble away or offer a quick diversion.

There are hundreds of instances where the deaf have undergone battles, shipwrecks or other frightful adventures with composure, while their companions were stumbling or jabbering with fear. These latter would tell you that the most horrible part of their experience was the cries of the suffering who faced death in agony and fear. The mere spectacle of the suffering did not upset the cool judgment of the deaf.

It seems evident that sound also has a greater stimulating effect upon the emotions of animals than do the other senses. A friend who has studied this subject says:

“I have imitated different animals many thousand times, and can easily deceive them at their own game, but cannot long deceive the average person. A dog relying on sight, smell and hearing—and maybe a little, a very little reasoning—although he may be very brave—can easily be made to flee in terror by the right sort of growling and noises connecting first wonder, then anger or terror. He hears a very ferocious dog, but can neither see nor smell him; here is something new, which he cannot reason out—he curls his tail, gives a frightened yelp, registers fear in other ways and runs with all his might.

“Recently I was out hunting wild turkeys, and had nearly induced one to come near to me when a stick fell from a tree, and without waiting to reason, away he went. My call would not deceive a person, but any sort of an amateur squawk easily deceives a gobbler. Not long ago, a friend of mine, while calling a gobbler, called also a wildcat who was trying to get the gobbler for breakfast. Animal sight may be ultra-human, but I am very sure that animal hearing is not.”

Doubtless we all rely on hearing to keep us informed concerning the fear instinct. Children hear a great deal subjectively, aided by their fears plus imagination. I am almost prepared to state that deafness is connected with fearlessness above the average, but I am not yet sure of my ground. Any defect of the five senses strengthens in a measure the remaining channels, and deafness cannot but assist concentration in those persons of studious contemplative habit, since it closes one avenue of interruption. I have noticed that with those of a philosophical turn plus strong will—or won’t—deafness saves nerve fatigue, from hearing many noises or remarks.

I have observed the habits of several deaf cats and dogs, and have noted instances of exceptional bravery, and evidences of a new sense, probably the substitute for the one they have lost. Some of my own experiences also show how sound dominates physical fear.

During my Winter in a large lumber camp of Northern Michigan I found how far life can swing from the ideal republic even in this country. The snow had shut in our little community for the Winter. The majority of our choppers were French Canadians and Swedes, strains of humanity which are completely unlike until whiskey breeds in both a desire to fight and kill. In some way the Canadians had obtained a supply of “white whiskey” (a mixture of grain alcohol and water) at Christmas, and the entire outfit prepared to celebrate gloriously. The boss prepared to follow Grant’s famous plan of campaign. He cut off the enemy’s base of supplies by locking the door of the cook’s shanty and refusing to feed the rioters. This brought the revolution to a head. A crowd of savage men gathered in front of the buildings with their axes, and threatened to cut the doors out and to kill the few of us who were left on guard. After it was all over I was told that the cursing and the threatening of these rum-crazed men was frightful, but as I could not hear a syllable of it I walked up to them, entered the group and talked the situation over with French Charlie, Joe the Devil and the Blue Swede. The rest of my side expected to see me chopped into pieces, but most men who threaten before they act will talk a full dictionary before they kill. These drunken men were so astonished at a deaf man’s disregard of their threats that they were diverted from their anger, and I was able to make terms with them. I probably should not have dared to go near them if I had received the curses and threats direct.

Years later a sudden cloudburst in the hills above our farm filled the streams to overflowing. The little river near our home jumped out of its bed and spread over the road—a rushing, roaring, shallow sheet of water. I had to cross that part of the road in order to get my train, and I took a steady horse, with one of the little boys in the buggy with me. At the edge of this overflow we found a group of excited men who were listening to the roaring, and were afraid to venture over. I used my eyes calmly and observed that the bridge was quite sound, and the water was too shallow to be really dangerous. So in I drove with my boy—who was white with terror—while most of the men tried to stop me. The old horse waded calmly and safely, and we crossed without trouble. The water never reached the hub of the wheel! Yet on the other side men stood half paralyzed because they heard the roaring water and stopped to listen. On the other side my boy said, “But you never would have done it if you could hear that water!”

As I look from the silent land out into the busy world I see men hesitate, falter and fall back at terrors which appear to me imaginary. They stop to listen—and are lost. Like my boy on the edge of the river, they hear the roaring water and become unfit for calm judgment, or keen analysis of actual danger. Most people with good hearing stop too frequently to listen. A scarecrow may have been making a noise like a fighting man! If you listen long enough to the tales of a liar you will come to regard him as a lion.

A friend of mine relates a strange adventure which befell him on a New York subway train. He was a “strap-hanger” in a crowded express car rushing up town. As is the habit of the deaf he forgot the throng around him and let his mind become absorbed in the business he was engaged in. This is the privilege of us deaf; we may be near enough to a dozen men to touch them with our hands, yet the mind can take us miles away from all distractions. This man was rudely shaken from his oblivion by a great commotion in the car. The passengers rushed forward past him, stumbling over each other in their eagerness to get away to the front of the train. Two so-called “guards” fled with the rest. The deaf man did not join the stampede because he had no idea what it was all about, and long experience of the vagaries of people who can hear had taught him the wisdom of keeping out of the rush. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the back of the car was empty save for one man, who stood quite near to him. This was a thick-set individual with a small, bullet-shaped head, set firmly on a bull neck. He had a heavy red face, and small, deep-set eyes, but his most singular feature was his right ear—it did not look human at all, but resembled a small cauliflower. The eyes of the deaf are quick to seize upon the most unusual or conspicuous part of an object—my deaf friend noted first of all that cauliflower ear.

Its owner advanced and shook his fist menacingly, shouting words which only served to increase the confusion of the stampeders. The deaf man merely hung to his strap and over his shoulder shouted into the cauliflower ear:

“Oh, shut up! Give us a rest!”

The “guard” who was trying to jam through the door nearly fell with astonishment. As the man continued to approach from behind, the deaf man turned and pointed a finger at him.

“I can’t hear a word you say, and I don’t know who you are—but shut up, and stop your noise!”

The antagonist glanced sharply at him—then the deaf man read on his lips:

“Don’t you know who I am?”

“No, and I don’t care!”

“Can’t you hear what I say?”

“No, and I don’t want to! Mind your own business!”

The bullet-headed man uttered one short expressive word and sat down. At Forty-second Street two good-sized policemen appeared, but they waited for reinforcements before arresting the disturber. However, he went willingly, casting back a look of mingled fear and admiration at the deaf man. My friend did not know he was a hero until he learned that the belligerent gentleman was a champion middle-weight boxer, very drunk and very ugly. He had threatened to clean out the crowd—hence the sudden stampede. This deaf man tells me that if he had really known to whom the cauliflower ear belonged he would have been the first man out of the car. As it happened he gained a reputation for being the only man who ever told a “champ” to shut up, and then cooled him off by shaking a finger. I have known many deaf men who have escaped from such situations most marvelously uninjured.

Yet while the deaf man is smiling at most of the terrors which approach him from without, he falls an easy prey to those which attack from within. Imagination will often lead a sensitive man into untold misery. Our hardest struggles come when we must strangle the imps of depression, our personal devils. They come with evil suggestion, frequently with actual voices, eager to poison the will and paralyze the courage. I have no doubt that Whittier’s great poem beginning:

“Spare me, dread angel of reproach”

was written as the result of subjective audition. I suppose the average person can never know how close the deaf are driven to temporary insanity in their struggles to overcome doubts and imaginary fears. Sometimes the fear concentrates upon the idea that they will lose sight as well as hearing! Or perhaps doubt of wife, children or friends will present itself forcibly. Little incidents, a feeling that people are laughing at their expense, some unintentional slight, a misunderstanding or a rude nervous shock, any of these may start the hateful imps which live in one part of the brain at their fearful work of poisoning the mind and the will. At times the deaf man finds it almost impossible to wrench free from these accursed influences.

Some readers become so completely absorbed in books that they cannot take the mind from a sad or an exciting story. I have known deaf men to enter into such a story as George Eliot’s “Mill on the Floss” so that they lived through the lives of the various characters and found that they could not shake off the depression. Usually I can tell when the author is deaf by the general character of the story. The dialogue is as a rule unnatural and the tone is apt to be gloomy. Music, or light, aimless conversation would clear the mind and make the reader remember that it is only a story—but to the deaf man, deprived of these aids, the tragedy depicted on the printed page becomes shockingly real. The best remedy for me is to “read in streaks.” Whenever I find that a book is liable to have this powerful effect on me I do not read continuously, but after a few chapters I take up something in lighter vein, or even a serious volume of solid thought. Some of us deaf acquire a morbid desire to read sad or sombre literature. This mistake should be overcome even if it requires a supreme effort. If one can acquire faith in the Bible and reverence for its teachings it will give greater comfort to the deaf than will any other book. I place Shakespeare next, then Milton and the other great poets. But let a deaf man read what interests him, if it be nothing but the local paper. If he lives in the country let him become a correspondent for his local paper, and join the hunt for local news. He should leave out of his list all tales of depression and sin. The deaf person should make a point of reading half a dozen of the “best sellers” each year. They are likely to be stories of human nature, and they will undoubtedly contain natural dialogue; these elements are sadly needed by the deaf, yet they are the least likely to come into the silent world.

Of course you will contend, and truly, that it is supremely foolish for grown men and women to give way to imaginary fears and doubts. Yet the very absurdity makes it harder to bring cool reason into the fight against these imps. As Claude Melnotte in “The Lady of Lyons” puts it:

Again, my best remedy is to force the mind backward into familiar incidents which clearly show that these fierce lions of the imagination are at best mere scarecrows. There is one favorite adventure which usually serves to lift the spell.

Many years ago a certain young man met a certain young woman, and the young man was soon completely certain that here was “the only girl”. Ever since the world began young men have singled out young women by a process of selection, not usually scientific or always safe or sane; yet life has continued for many centuries with upward tendencies as a result. This young man’s ancestor, the cave man, would doubtlessly have taken a club (if he had been big enough), knocked down the male members of the family, and dragged the young woman off to his own hole in the rocks. The race has progressed since then, and the family must be approached in a more gentle manner. This young woman had a wide choice. She was bright and lively and pretty, with a long string of attendants. The man was serious-minded and poor, with prospects far from the best. His hearing was failing, and he knew that deafness was inevitable. He had reasoned out the whole situation with the greatest care. Here was the “only girl,” but the cold future lay on ahead. Have the deaf a right to marry? Is it fair to ask anyone to share the results of such an affliction? What he did was to go straight to the “only girl” with the truth. Probably the imps of depression had begun to talk to him even then. No doubt he made his future chances seem harder than he might have done. It is said that John G. Whittier made the same blunder of exaggerated honesty when he offered marriage to another “only girl.” The girl rejected him and Whittier never married. But in our case the “only girl” said that she would “think it over.”

Then came the lawn party. The young man was a little late, and dancing had begun when he came and looked through the window. Those were the good old Southern days when we swung about in the old-fashioned waltz; the happy days before the war were still in mind, and we danced to such plaintive tunes as “Old Kentucky Home,” and “Nellie Was a Lady.” The young man outside saw the “only girl” dancing with Henry. Henry was a good fellow, bright and clean; his mother was the richest woman in town. When the music stopped the couple came out onto the lawn. The waiting young man saw them find seats under a tree, back from the lights, where they sat down to talk earnestly. The watcher could think of but one probable topic for conversation. Once as he walked down a path under a lamp they looked at him and he saw the “only girl” smile. He lost all interest in the party. He walked on out along the lonely country road, and like Philip Ray of Enoch Arden, “had his dark hour alone.”

The imps came to him in the dark, but he mastered them and reasoned it out to a great peace. “It is better so. Henry can give her an easier life. She will be happier here in her old home town. I must fight for a place in the world, and she is not a fighter. I am handicapped. In the years to come, as a deaf man I shall be worse off than a man with one leg. I really have no right to ask her to share an uncertainty with me. Henry is the better man—and yet, she is the ‘only girl.’ I cannot stay here. I’ll go back North!”

The deaf spend less time on regrets after the struggle than do those who can hear. So the young man walked back to the house with a great peace in his heart. The “only girl” was sitting on the steps, one of a group of happy young people. And Henry came walking across the lawn straight to the deaf man. The latter braced himself and held out his hand to the rival—for what did it matter after all if the “only girl” could be satisfied? But Henry got in ahead. He put out his hand impulsively and said:

“Old man, I congratulate you! She has told me all about it. She’s not for me. She says she admires a self-made man, and that’s more than I can ever be. Mother took the job off my hands too early!”

This is undoubtedly the best antidote for my fears and imaginary vagaries, and I like to pass it in mental review. And this lady who sits at the other side of the fire! I wonder how much of it she remembers? Does it have the effect of an antidote for her? She is writing something for me now. No doubt she is remembering that night long ago—the music and the moonlight and all the rest of it. Here is proof of the power of mental communication. The good lady passes the message over to me. Let me rub my glasses a moment in pleasant anticipation. I read:

“You went away this morning without leaving me any money. I must have ten dollars to pay a few little bills!”

Remembering happier days appears to be a special privilege of the deaf!