8 VOCAL SOUNDS OF 



up to the head," as she very justly describes it. One day she entered the room, 

 affecting the same step ; and when asked by the young lady why she did so, she 

 promptly replied, " You walk thus, and I thought of you." Here the question 

 made her conscious that her imitative step was a symphenomenon, and nothing 

 more, of the idea of that young friend of hers, then uppermost in her mind. 



On page 37 of Dr. Howe's tenth report, we find the account of a conversation 

 between Laura and one of her teachers on an insect. Laura asked, " Has he 

 think .''" touching at the same time her forehead — (for a reason similar to that 

 by which Dr. Spurzheim explained the fact, that Sterne's portrait represents 

 him pointing unconsciously to the spot which the phrenologists believe to cor- 

 respond to the organ of wit.) Laura continued to ask, " Does he breathe 

 much.?" at the same time putting her hand on her chest and breathing hard. 

 On page 44 of the thirteenth report, an account is given of Laura's relation of a 

 dream. She said, "I dreamed that God took away my breath to heaven," ac- 

 companying her words with a sign of taking something away from her mouth. 

 Who can help remembering here the fresco paintings of the Campo Santo, at 

 Pisa, where, with an equally infantine conception of the removal of human 

 souls, angels are represented drawing the souls out of the mouths of the 

 dead .'' Or who does not at once recollect the many languages, ancient and 

 modern, in which breath and spirit are designated by the same word } 



In none of these cases does the remarkable girl, blind, deaf and dumb, as she 

 is, intend to illustrate by gesture, or any other sign, the meaning of her words, 

 no more than we do by most of our gesticulations, frowns, smiles, or other 

 expressions, which, indeed, we often show unconsciously ; so much so, that they 

 actually betray us. In one word, they are, as has been repeatedly said, sym- 

 phenomena. 



But the symphenomena of an agitated mind, or of strong afl:ections, show 

 themselves most readily, and in the greatest variety, as effects of the respiratory 

 organs, because these are most easily affected, being of a peculiarly delicate 

 character ; because the voice can be modulated almost without end ; and 

 because, in fact, comparatively few affections suggest images to be imitated by 

 ocular signs. Strong emotion requires exterior manifestation : it will out, to use 

 a colloquial term, and utterance of some sort is the consequence. We have 

 this process in common with the brutes ; but the affections of the latter are cir- 

 cumscribed, and their organs of utterance infinitely more limited than those of 

 man. Uncouth, or, at any rate, inarticulate sounds are uttered by man before 

 his hp is blessed with the rational word, or his mind with verbal thought, and 

 man falls back upon the inarticulate sounds when his emotion overflows the 

 usual channels of expression — when unspeakable love or convulsive wrath, stun- 

 ning fear or transcending admiration, overpowers him. A parent who clasps 

 his lost child again within his arms ; a person who beholds the sea for the first 

 time ; a man suddenly insulted to the quick by stupendous falsehood ; a maiden 

 to whom, unwarned, a hideous death presents itself — these are not apt to give 

 utterance in words, but they breathe forth their emotions in primitive and inar- 



