But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could not die, nor be maimed, nor mutilated; and, though most of its avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to manifest itself through the others.  As soon, as she could walk she began to explore the room, and then the house.  She became familiar with the form, density, weight, and heat of every article she could lay her hands upon.  She followed her mother, and felt her hands and arms as she was occupied about the house; and her disposition to imitate led her to do everything herself.  She even learned to sew a little, and knit.  The reader need scarcely be told, however, that the opportunities of communicating with her were very, very limited, and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began to appear.  Those who cannot be enlightened by reason can only be controlled by force; and this, coupled with her great privations, must soon have reduced her to a worse condition than that of the beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped-for aid.  At this time I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and immediately hastened to Hanover to see her.  I found her with a well-formed figure, a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine temperament, a large and beautifully-shaped head, and the whole system in healthy action.  The parents were easily induced to consent to her coming to Boston; and on the 4th October, 1837, they brought her to the Institution.  For a while she was much bewildered; and after waiting about two weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality and somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange thoughts with others.  There was one of two ways to be adopted—­either to go on to build up a language of signs on the basis of the natural language which she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely arbitrary language in common use:  that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters, by combination of which she might express her idea of the existence, and the mode and condition of existence, of anything.  The former would have been easy, but very ineffectual:  the latter seemed very difficult, but, if accomplished, very effectual.  I determined, therefore, to try the latter.

The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting upon them labels with their names printed in raised letters.  These she felt very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked lines spoon differed as much from the crooked lines key as the spoon differed from the key in form.  Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, were put into her hands, and she soon observed that they were similar to the ones pasted on the articles.  She showed her perception of this similarity by laying the label key upon the key, and the label spoon