Six Months in Reunion
by Patrick Beaton (9781458975157)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. A Deaf and Dumb Pole?Gift of a French Testament?An Accomplished Linguist and Experienced Traveller?Protestants in the French Army?English Grooms?Preference of Beer to Claret?Ignorance regarding Presbyte- rianism?Claims of the Protestants in Bourbon?Want of Pastoral Superintendence. I Made the acquaintance of a Polish Protestant who was deaf and dumb, but had received an excellent education. I presented him with a French Testament, which he accepted with gratitude, and began at once to read, pronouncing the different words, not with his lips, but with those appropriate signs with the fingers by which his unfortunate class are enabled to communicate with those around them. He had accom- 32 AN ACCOMPLISHED LINGUIST. panied a brother to this island; and when his brother died, a few years before, he was left in utter solitude. He was evidently a man of considerable intelligence, and his face was the most expressive 1 have ever seen. All the thoughts that were passing through his mind seemed mirrored in his face, so that his meaning could be divined by his gestures, without following the movements of his fingers. I met also another singular character, who called upon me, and professed himself a Protestant. He looked like an Englishman, but was the most thorough citizen of the world I ever came across. He seemed to have traversed as much space as the wandering Jew, and to have mastered more languages than the Admirable Crichton. At our first interview he addressed me in English, French, and German; and on finding that I could respond in these three languages, he proceeded to show that he could speak Italian, Hungarian, and Euss, when I was AN EXPERIENCED TRAVELLER. 33 glad to arrest the flow of his lingual acquirements by confessing my ignorance. Though ...

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