Library Collections: Document: Full Text

The waves are subsiding. The wind is favorable. We bend towards our destined port. The morning is clear. All is serene and cheerful. Let our hearts overflow with gratitude to God for his goodness. May his grace make our voyage towards eternity equally promising. May a sense of his love calm the tumult of our breasts. May his wisdom guide and his spirit continually keep us in our course toward Heaven. May no clouds of unbelief or of sin obscure the beams of the sun of righteousness, but always rejoicing in his light, may our path be like that of the just and shine more and more unto the perfect day. Amen.

A PRAYER IN ENGLISH

Almighty God! I thank thee that thou hast kept me in safety during the past night. Be near me this day. Teach me to understand what I must do to secure thy love. I am ignorant, will thou enlighten me. I am sinful, will thou pardon me. Purify my heart by faith in Jesus Christ. Enable me to keep all thy commandments. Help me to love and to serve thee while I am in the world, to do good to others and when I die, receive me where thou art. I ask all for Christ's sake. Amen.

I must do it; if I do not, my master will punish me. When we shall arrive at New York, our friends will be glad to see us. Do you think that you can understand the gestures of the deaf and dumb in America?

CONVERSATION BETWEEN M. GALLAUDET AND MYSELF

M. Gallaudet

At what age do you think it will be best to admit the deaf and dumb into our institution?

You can admit at all ages those who will pay their board, because they will be able to remain there as long as they may wish. For those who may be at the expense of the Government, I think that it will be best not to admit them, except at ten years of age.

How long a time do you think that the Government will grant to the deaf and dumb persons who may be at its expense?

Answer

I shall endeavor to have them. continue 7 or 8 years. The children of the rich can stay longer. I shall write some few directions for parents who have deaf and dumb children, that they may teach them the alphabet and the names of material things before they come to us. What do you think of this? I mean for such as cannot be sent to us when young.

But if the children are ten years of age, the parents can send them immediately. If, on the contrary, the children are too young, that is, if they are 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 years of age, what you have just said will produce a good effect.

Take care of that little book, do not suffer the writing to be effaced, for I wish to preserve it.

God alone is omnipotent, no other being is so. God is displeased only with the wicked and with no other beings.

Do any of the passengers wear spectacles? I, alone, of all the passengers wear spectacles. Do you wear spectacles? Yes, and I only of all the passengers wear them.

He is only laughing. He only is laughing. He alone is laughing. He is laughing alone.

In winter he wears only a coat and never puts on a surcoat. In winter he alone wears a coat, the rest of the savages wear a blanket.

You alone understand French. You understand French alone. You understand only French.

When alone or only qualifies a substantive, that substantive stands by itself and is separated from all other beings or things of the same kind.

When alone or only qualifies a verb, the quality expressed by that verb is separated from all other qualities.

The King alone is supreme. The King is only a man. The King only rides, he never walks. The King alone rides, his attendants walk.

Friday, June the 28th. The sun shone brightly when I rose. Its beams penetrated even into my chamber and seemed to announce fair weather for all the day: in effect it was so. The wind blew softly; the waves were calm, the ship navigated the sea peaceably; in a word, the day was one of the finest in the world. We were very glad of it, because it enabled us to be well. The latter part of the breakfast, being yet at table, M. Gallaudet and I took occasion to speak of London, and he asked me what I thought of the Houses of Peers and of Commons in England and of those of France, and if I had seen each one. I answered him that I had seen all; that I was at the English House of Peers when the Prince Regent came there to announce in a fine discourse the victory of Waterloo, the flight of the Emperor Napoleon and his second abdication of the Throne of France, and the future happiness and repose of all the nations of Europe; and that I was at the House of Commons when a member of that illustrious assembly proposed to raise a monument to the honour of the Hero of Waterloo (the Duke of Wellington). I questioned afterwards Mr. Gallaudet on our own houses of France. He told me that he had seen each one, with this difference, that when he was at the Chamber of Peers, there was nobody in it, and that when he was in that of Commons, there was a crowd. He found the exterior of the House fine and yet the interior finest. He praised the uniforms and regular manner in which the members were dressed. He did them the justice to acknowledge the dignity of their character and their talents. He admired the place distinguished and raised in the middle of the House, where every orator can conveniently pronounce his discourse; but that the same time, he censured their motions of body and their gestures, and the manner in which they discoursed. He found that they made too much noise. He would wish that they did not shake the head, nor hand, nor arm so much: in a word, he would seem to wish that they would stand like statues. I rejected Mr. Gallaudet's argument and assured him that the manners of the French orators were much better than those of the English, who, though celebrated by their light and knowledge, made their discourse but little interesting, since they do not accompany it with some motion of the body to give some idea of the beauty of expression, and since they discourse with their head fixed and arms crossed. M. Gallaudet and I were going to continue to speak for and against, when one gave the sign of rising from table and that caused our debate to cease. We are not yet agreed. Every one of us wishes to have reason in what he says. I leave it to the reader who may read my paper to say who had the best of the argument.