LAURA BRIDGE MAN. 27 



personage is by no means entirely free. She is already aware that she has 

 attracted much observation and inquiry; and, being an object of uninterrupted 

 solicitude, she might easily become selfish. 



Her oral sounds indicate persons only. She never attempts to designate 

 individuals by the clapping of her hands, or by stamping her feet. The 

 reason seems clear. These sounds would be intentional in their origin; and 

 how could she know that by bringing her hands violently together she would 

 produce a sign ? The uttered sounds were spontaneous in their origin ; and 

 finding that somehow or other they were perceived by others, they became signs 

 or names. 



Sometimes she produces these phonetic names involuntarily, as I have men- 

 tioned an instance when she affectionately thought of a friend. So, whenever 

 she meets unexpectedly an acquaintance, I found that she repeatedly uttered 

 the sound for that person before she began to speak. It was the utterance of 

 pleasurable recognition. When she perceives, by the jar produced by the pecu- 

 liar step of a person entering the room, who it is, she utters the sound for that 

 person. At other times, when she is in search of somebody, she will enter a 

 room uttering the sound belonging to the person ; and receiving no answering 

 touch, will pass on. In this case, the sound has become a complete word: 

 that is, a sound to which a definite idea is attached, intentionally uttered to 

 designate that idea. 



All the sounds of Laura now designating persons are monosyllabic. Not 

 one of the names thus bestowed by her consists of a composition of two syl- 

 lables, each of which separately might designate another person. Nor does 

 she use the same syllable differently uttered, in the Chinese manner, for different 

 persons. But this monosyllabic name is repeated several times ; for instance, 

 Foo — Foo — Foo; or. Too — too — too. She has no name Foo-Too. All im- 

 pulsive utterance is probably at first monosyllabic, and the aid of the ear, as 

 well as phonetic intercourse, may be necessary to connect different syllables in 

 order to designate one idea. In the constant repetition, Laura resembles chil- 

 dren and uncivihzed tribes. Most of our nursery names for animals consist of 

 repetitions of the same syllable, while the languages of savages abound in redu- 

 phcations of the same sound. I observed the same when the different armies 

 entered France, and the soldiers of different nations came in frequent contact, 

 so that a jargon was produced, intelligible, as far as it went, to all. In it repe- 

 titions, too, were frequent. When the paucity of language furnishes the speaker 

 with but one meagre word, the idea, so to express it, is longer than the word, 

 and an unconscious desire exists to make up for the want by repetition. We 

 see a somewhat similar process in the oi*ator, who repeats the same idea twice 

 or three times in different words, when the thought to be uttered is too preg- 

 nant to be despatched in one short sentence, which might indeed be sufficient 

 in reading, but is not so for mere hearing; or in dull men, who repeat the same 

 thing over and over, because they lack the energy of finishing, and cannot detach 

 themselves from a thought which has once got possession of their sluggish intel- 

 lect. 



