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13. Did I not, then, growing out of the state of infancy, come
to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me, and succeed to infancy?
Nor did my infancy depart (for whither went it?); and yet it did no
longer abide, for I was no longer an infant that could not speak, but
a chattering boy. I remember this, and I afterwards observed how I
first learned to speak, for my elders did not teach me words in any set
method, as they did letters afterwards; but myself, when I was
unable to say all I wished and to whomsoever I desired, by means of
the whimperings and broken utterances and various motions of my limbs,
which I used to enforce my wishes, repeated the sounds in my memory by
the mind, O my God, which Thou gavest me. When they called
anything by name, and moved the body towards it while they spoke, I
saw and gathered that the thing they wished to point out was called by
the name they then uttered; and that they did mean this was made plain
by the motion of the body, even by the natural language Of all nations
expressed by the countenance, glance of the eye, movement of other
members, and by the sound of the voice indicating the affections of the
mind, as it seeks, possesses, rejects, or avoids. So it was that
by frequently hearing words, in duly placed sentences, I gradually
gathered what things they were the signs of; and having formed my mouth
to the utterance of these signs, I thereby expressed my will? Thus
I exchanged with those about me the signs by which we express our
wishes, and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life,
depending the while on the authority of parents, and the beck of
elders.
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