Mrs. Sigourney of Hartford: Poems and Prose on the Early American Deaf Community

“Opinions of the Uneducated Deaf and Dumb” (1827)

82 Part 2 The first stanza of this short poem provides the typical sentimentalist view that “affections” created ideas—“fount[s] of thought”—in the deaf girl’s mind. The second, and final, stanza suggests that Fanny is dying, though we probably should not take that literally, since sentimentalists always bore in mind that we all face death. Here, Sigourney returns to her well-worn notion of the joy that a deaf person will experience when the first thing she hears, after death, is the song of the heavenly hosts. • To Fanny The silent lip is thine, The ear divorc’d from sound, Yet many a tuneful fount of thought Is in thy nature found, Deep melodies are there, By sweet affections wove, And angels teach thee in thy dreams Their dialect of love. So , - pure in heart pass on, Seeking thy Saviour’s clime, But who the rapturous joy can paint, The extasy, sublime, When on thy soul shall burst Where skies unclouded shine The glorious song thou first shall hear The speech thou first shall join. L. H. Sigourney “Opinions of the Uneducated Deaf and Dumb” (1827) The ideas in this poem, and in the 1835 story “The Mute Boy” (see p. 111), are taken from an anonymous essay that was printed in the Sigourney Main Pgs 1-162.indd 82 4/4/2013 12:35:31 PM Deaf Hartford 83 Asylum’s Eighth Annual Report (for 1824), from which Sigourney quotes in her prose introduction to the poem. Though Sigourney does not say so, that source essay was composed by a twenty-sevenyear -old woman who had been a pupil at the Asylum. This young woman’s essay is reprinted here, because it gives us a rare chance to see how Sigourney used her deaf source. By a Young Lady 27 Years of Age. WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS, BEFORE I CAME TO THE ASYLUM. I wished to look at the sun which was very brilliant as the gold, but I could not see it. I thought the sun was like a man who was a soldier. He wore his crimson dress, and stood on the sun, while he governed over all mankind every day. I was much troubled by the heat of the sun. I told my sister that he was very cruel to us, and I wanted to touch him, but I was disappointed, because I was too far from him. While the sun was coming up, I pursued to catch him in the East but I could not do it. I believed that he was very artful.* I was playing in the garden in the summer without a bonnet. My friends told me that he would make me black, and I did not believe about it. There was a reason that he could make the brown cloth on the grass white. They were excited to laugh. In the afternoon the clouds began to become very black, and I considered that the sun was melted with the lightning . The thunder was heard, and I could feel it. He threw a large ball going down the sky. Then the sunset was running under the earth, and he became the moon all night. In the morning he held a large candle which was hot all day, while he was walking towards the west. I sat on the door of the house in the evening pleasantly, and I looked up the new moon going down the west. A few days ago, when I was walking alone to the neighborhood, the half moon followed me, and I did not wish her to come. I thought I was deaf and dumb, and she was very curious. The moon was full, and became the darkness in her face like a picture. I asked my friends what was the matter with *cunning.—Eds. Sigourney Main Pgs 1-162.indd 83 4/4/2013 12:35:31 PM 84 Part 2 her? They said that they did not know what. When I went to my chamber, I extinguished a candle, and was afraid of her, and I shut the windows all night, because I disliked to be seen by her. I was very anxious to take refuge. I advised her not to follow me, but she was still obstinate. When it was dark, the moon would not come up all night, and I was glad to hear...