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18 John Robertson Burnet My Sister’s Funeral THE SCENES WHICH I am about to describe are not imaginary scenes, neither are they colored in the hues of fancy to awaken interest or excite sympathy. They are pictures of reality, as many hearts can feelingly testify, and drawn in the unadulterated colors of the truth. It was my lot to be bereft of my hearing at an early age. For years I have found myself cut off from nearly all communication with the busy world around me, left solitary even in the social circle, a sad spectator of mirth I cannot comprehend, and pleasure I cannot share; deaf, and, except to a few familiar ears, dumb; yet denied that sad privilege of the deaf and dumb, who, blessed in ignorance, know not what they lose in losing the sense of hearing. Those who have never experienced the delights of that sense through which the earth is made one vast harp of a million strings, by the least touch, by the slightest breath, wakened into thrilling music; of that sense which lets in the mingled current of thought and feeling that flows from mind to mind, and gathers strength, and depth as it flows, till it bears on its ample tide the whole wealth of the intellectual world; or the bolder torrent of eloquence or poetry, that wraps the heart in wild delirium, and sweep each passion in its course; of that sense which, more than all, thrills the heart to its inmost core, with “the sober certainty of waking bliss.” When the voice of love whispers in the ear the mutual feelings of kindred hearts; those who never experienced any part of this, are insensible, happily insensible, to the withering power of that spell, which the doom of perpetual silence throws round the deaf who once heard. Still the deep night of my mind was not altogether starless, a bright and constant ray still continued to shine on me through the darkness of my fate and that star was my sister’s love. How few are there who can appreciate the full value of a sister’s love! But also, how few have been placed, as I have been, in circumstances to call for the utmost manifestation of that disinterested, that heavenly feeling (if anything earthly can be so called) in all its purity and strength. No Love, save a mother’s, can compare with a sister’s. While ordinary charities of our nature lie on the surface, and are so exhausted by frequent demands, the love of a mother or sister gushes forth from the very depth of the heart, and never ceases to flow till the heart itself runs dry! Mine was such a sister as few are blessed with. Nature had made her with delicate frame, but on the other hand, had gifted her with uncommon strength of mind. To a “My Sister’s Funeral” is from Tales of the Deaf and Dumb with Miscellaneous Poems (Newark, NJ: B. Olds, 1835). My Sister’s Funeral 19 heart overflowing with all a sister’s sympathies for the misfortunes of a brother, she joined a degree of intelligence such greater than is usually met with, even among those who have enjoyed much higher advantages of education than fell to her lot, and a strength of judgment not often found in her sex. For years she willingly devoted herself to become “ears to the deaf and a tongue to the dumb.” With unwearied patience she would reply to all the teasing questions of a curiosity the more anxious to know what was passing around because it was hidden. With unwearied pains did she again and again endeavor to preserve to me the faculty of speech, to correct a pronunciation, when no longer corrected by the ear, became like the efforts of a blind man to walk straight on a rugged path. To her I owe a large part of the little I know. To her I owe that my mind, instead of being left groveling in the narrow dominions of sense, can soar into the boundless universe of intellect, can glow with the high conceptions of poetry, and revel in the countless stores of thought. It is only when the stern hand of misfortune has crushed down the immortal mind, and chained the aspiring spirit to earth, that we can feel the full value of such a sister’s love; and, not till we have felt its inappreciable worth, can...

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