And I will admit another reason for telling you about this quiet country. It concerns our own people, for whom I speak. I would gladly do what I can to make life easier for the deaf. Their lot is usually made harder through the failure of others to understand the affliction, and to realize what it means to live in the silence. In my own case I can make no complaint. I am confident that society has treated me better than I deserve, given me more than I have returned. I have been blessed with family and friends who have made my affliction far easier than it might have been. I realize that it is not easy for the ordinary person to be patient and fair with the deaf. We may so easily become nuisances. I presume that there is no harder test of a woman’s character and ability than for her to serve as the wife of a deaf man, to endure his moods and oddities and suspicions with gentleness and patience and loving help. A woman may well hesitate to enter such a life unless the man is of very superior character.
Now and then I meet deaf people who complain bitterly at the treatment which society metes out to them. In most cases I think they are wrong, for we must all admit squarely the foundation fact of our affliction, which is that we may very easily become a trouble and a nuisance socially. We represent perhaps two per cent of the nation’s population, and we can hardly expect the other ninety-eight per cent always to understand us. I have had people move away from me as though they expected me to bite them. Some sensitive souls might feel that they were thus associated with mad dogs, but it is better to see the humor of it. For my part, I have come to realize that I am barred from terms of social equality with those who live in the kingdom of sound. I have come to be prepared for a certain amount of impatience and annoyance. I am often myself impatient with those dull souls who depend so entirely upon their ears that they have failed to cultivate the instinct or the intuition which enables us to grasp a situation at a glance. But I do ask for our people a fair hearing, if I may put it that way. While we are deprived of many of your opportunities and possibilities, we think we have developed something which you lack, perhaps unconsciously. We can turn our experience over to you if you will be patient.