LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 7 



under the influence of volition (as the original impulsive tone is at a later period 

 voluntarily pronounced as a word) in the form of applause in large assembhes . 

 When Laura was speaking to me* of a cold bath, the idea prevaihng at the time 

 in her mind produced the motion of shivering. This was, for her, purely sym- 

 phenomenal ; but it became to me, who was looking at her, a sign, or symbol, 

 because it expressed the effect which the cold water had produced on her 

 system. 



When Laura is astonished, or amazed, she rounds and protrudes her lips, 

 opens them, breathes strongly, spreads her arms, and turns her hands with ex- 

 tended fingers upwards, just as we do when wondering at something very un- 

 common. I have seen her biting her lips with an upward contraction of the 

 facial muscles when roguishly listening at the account of some ludicrous mis- 

 hap, pi'ecisely as lively persons among us would do. She has not perceived 

 these phenomena in others ; she has not learned them by unconscious imitation ; 

 nor does she know that they can be perceived by the by-stander. I have fre- 

 quently seen her, while speaking of a person, pointing at the spot where he had 

 been sitting when Laura last conversed with him, and where she still believed 

 him to be, as we naturally turn our eye to the object of which we are speaking. 

 She frequently does these things with one hand, while the other receives or 

 conveys words. When Laura once spoke to me of her own crying, when a 

 little child, she accompanied her words with a long face, drawing her fingers 

 down the face, indicating the copious flow of tears ; and when, on New Years 

 day of 1844, she wished in her mind a happy new year to her benefactor. Dr. 

 Howe, then in Europe, she involuntarily turned toward the east, and made with 

 both her outstretched arms a waving and blessing motion, as natural to her as it 

 was to those who first accompanied a benediction with this symphenomenon of 

 the idea, that God's love and protection might descend in the fulness of a 

 stream upon the beloved fellow-being. This movement, though solemn, was as 

 spontaneous with Laura as another of a ludicrous character was to a lively Ita- 

 lian, who told me, at Rome, that a friend on whom I called had just left the 

 house on horseback, and accompanied the words by putting two fingers of the 

 right hand astride on the digit of the left. He had no fear that I might not 

 understand him, for he was freely conversing with me. With both, the gestures 

 were simply symphenomena of the ideas entirely occupying their minds at the 

 time. 



A young lady to whom Laura is affectionately attached has a short, delicate, 

 and quick step, which Laura has perceived by the jar " going through the feet 



* For those wholly unacquainted with Laura's case I will simply state, that Dr. Howe has suc- 

 ceeded in imparting to her a finger-language, or, to speak more correctly, finger-writing. She knows 

 the value of words, and freely communes with every one who knows her finger-alphabet, which is 

 formed in each other's hand. Her alphabet corresponds to our phonetic alphabet, although it repre- 

 sents no sound to her, but consists of signs of the touch, as the letters which the deaf-mute learns and 

 reads are exclusively ocular signs, and have no phonetic value for him. 



