it?)- and yet it was no more. For I was no longer a speechless infant,
but a speaking boy. This I remember; and have since observed how I
learned to speak. It was not that my elders taught me words (as,
soon after, other learning) in any set method; but I, longing by cries
and broken accents and various motions of my limbs to express my
thoughts, that so I might have my will, and yet unable to express
all I willed, or to whom I willed, did myself, by the understanding
which Thou, my God, gavest me, practise the sounds in my memory.
When they named any thing, and as they spoke turned towards it, I
saw and remembered that they called what they would point out by the
name they uttered. And that they meant this thing and no other was
plain from the motion of their body, the natural language, as it were,
of all nations, expressed by the countenance, glances of the eye,
gestures of the limbs, and tones of the voice, indicating the
affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses, rejects, or shuns.
And thus by constantly hearing words, as they occurred in various
sentences, I collected gradually for what they stood; and having
broken in my mouth to these signs, I thereby gave utterance to my
will. Thus I exchanged with those about me these current signs of
our wills, and so launched deeper into the stormy intercourse of human
life, yet depending on parental authority and the beck of elders.

O God my God, what miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when
obedience to my teachers was proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in
order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science,
which should serve to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches.
Next I was put to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch)
knew not what use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was
beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many,
passing the same course before us, framed for us weary paths,