Sound is a very special modality. We cannot handle it. We cannot push it away. We cannot turn our backs to it. We can close our eyes, hold our noses, withdraw from touch, refuse to taste. We cannot close our ears though we can partly muffle 15 L. N. Jayson, Mania (New York: Funk and Wagnall, 1937), pp. 1-3. T H E B I C A M E R A L M I N D 97 them. Sound is the least controllable of all sense modalities, and it is this that is the medium of that most intricate of all evolutionary achievements, language.

• language