Where Silence Is Eloquent 



quence Nature has taken her gift away, as she 

 atrophies a muscle that is no longer used, or de- 

 vitalizes the nerve of sight in creatures, such as 

 the fishes of Mammoth Cave, that have lived long 

 time in darkness. 



In previous chapters we have noted, as rare 

 examples of telepathy in human society, that a 

 mother may at times know when an absent son 

 or husband is in danger, or that an African savage 

 often knows when a stranger is approaching his 

 village hid in the jungle; but there is another mani- 

 festation of the same faculty which is much more 

 common, and which we have thus far overlooked, 

 leaving it as an odd and totally unrelated thing 

 without explanation. I refer to the man, known 

 in almost every village, who has some special gift 

 for training or managing animals, who seems to 

 know instinctively what goes on in a brute's head, 

 and who can send his own will or impulse into the 

 lower mind. I would explain that unrelated man, 

 naturally, by the simple fact or assumption that 

 he has inherited more than usual of the animals' 

 gift of silent communication. 



I knew one such man, a harmless, half-witted 

 creature, who loved to roam the woods alone by 

 day or night, and whom the wild birds and beasts 

 met with hardly a trace of the fear or suspicion 

 they manifest in presence of other human beings. 



[i39] 



