human
There are occasions--and those the most terrible in life--when the lips are fairly absolved from using them, and when, if the eye cannot express what the muffled tongue refuses to tell, the tongue seeks any stammering compassionate circumlocution rather than utter the dreaded syllable. 'Is there no hope?' says the mother, hanging over her dying child, to the physician, in whose looks are life and death. He dare not say 'yes;' but to such a question silence and dejection can alone say 'no.'