Читать книгу Voices for the Speechless - Various - Страница 16

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I can hardly express to you how much I feel there is to be thought of, arising from the word "dumb" applied to animals. Dumb animals! What an immense exhortation that is to pity. It is a remarkable thing that this word dumb should have been so largely applied to animals, for, in reality, there are very few dumb animals. But, doubtless, the word is often used to convey a larger idea than that of dumbness; namely, the want of power in animals to convey by sound to mankind what they feel, or, perhaps, I should rather say, the want of power in men to understand the meaning of the various sounds uttered by animals. But as regards those animals which are mostly dumb, such as the horse, which, except on rare occasions of extreme suffering, makes no sound at all, but only expresses pain by certain movements indicating pain—how tender we ought to be of them, and how observant of these movements, considering their dumbness. The human baby guides and governs us by its cries. In fact, it will nearly rule a household by these cries, and woe would betide it, if it had not this power of making its afflictions known. It is a sad thing to reflect upon, that the animal which has the most to endure from man is the one which has the least powers of protesting by noise against any of his evil treatment.

Arthur Helps.