Bessie went frequently to the workshop "to talk to A." He would repeat aloud the letters formed upon his hand, and guess words and even sentences in a surprising manner. It was instructive to remark how soon an intelligent listener knows all you are going to say, and how unnecessary are many of our long explanations. Valuable lessons in brevity and conciseness were to be learnt from A., and the blind and deaf man soon brought you down to the bare bones of the information you had to give. An angry glance was thrown away upon him, and finger talk has no equivalent for that slight and incisive raising of the voice which implies that the speaker intends a listener to hear him to the end.
The slow, monotonous utterance of the deaf man, a pronunciation which, as years passed on, became strangely unreal, and a sense of the loneliness to which he was condemned, attracted much attention to this intelligent man.
After a time he married. His wife, a widow with a little girl, was no comfort to him; but the child soon became his inseparable and devoted companion. When work was over she used to read a newspaper to him. She uttered no sound, but sat with the paper in her lap, whilst her little fingers fluttered about his hand like the wings of a bird, and his slow monotonous voice followed her, repeating words and sentences, or telling her to go on to something else.
One day Bessie, who was often accompanied by a friend, took with her Miss Elizabeth Wordsworth, daughter of the late Bishop of Lincoln, to have a chat with A.
Miss Wordsworth sent her the following poem in memory of the visit:
A MINISTRY OF LOVE TO ONE BLIND AND DEAF.
Near him she stands, her fingers light In quick succession go Across his yielding palm, as white, As swift, as flakes of snow.
The diamond on her hand, that gleams And flashes when it stirs, Toward other eyes may fling its beams, But never gladden hers.
No word she speaks, no whisper soft His inner mind to reach; No glances casts, tho' looks are oft More eloquent than speech.
The smile that gilds a friendly face Shall never meet his eye; Songs, footsteps, laughter, tears, give place To dreary vacancy.
Silence and darkness, brethren twain For ever at his side, Still hold him in their double chain Inexorably tied.