Children's Ways / Being selections from the author's "Studies of childhood," with some additional matter

by James Sully

Fear proper shows itself in such signs as these, in the stare, the grave look, the movement of turning away and hiding the face against the nurse's or mother's shoulder, or of covering it with the hands. In the severer forms, known as terror, it leads to trembling and to wild shrieking. Changes of colour also occur, the child's face turning white, or possibly in some cases red. When frightened by anything an older child will commonly run from the object of his fear, though the violence of the feeling may sometimes paralyse the limbs and chain the would-be fugitive to the spot. This often happens, I fancy, with a sudden oncoming of dread at discovering oneself alone in the dark.

The Battery of Sounds.

As is well known, sudden and loud sounds, such as that of a door banging, will give a shock to an infant in the first weeks of life, which though not amounting to fear is its progenitor. A clearer manifestation occurs when a new and unfamiliar sound calls forth the grave look, the trembling lip, and possibly the fit of crying. Darwin noticed these in one of his own boys at the age of four and a half months, when he produced the new sound of a loud snoring.

It is not every new sound which is thus disconcerting to the little stranger. Sudden sharp sounds of any kind seem to be especially disliked, as those of a dog's bark. A little girl burst out crying on first hearing the sound of a baby rattle; and she did the same two months later on accidentally ringing a hand bell. Children often show curious caprices in their objections to sounds. Thus a little girl when taken into the country at the age of nine months took a liking to most of the animals she saw, but on hearing the bleating of the sheep showed a distinct germ of fear by sheltering herself against her nurse's shoulder.

So disturbing are new sounds apt to be to the young child that even musical ones are often disliked at first. The first hearing of the tones of a piano has upset the comfort of many a child. A child of five and a half months conceived a kind of horror for a banjo, and screamed if it were played or only touched.

Animals may show a similar dread of musical sounds. I took a young cat of about eight weeks into my lap and struck some chords not loudly on the piano. It got up, moved uneasily from side to side, then bolted to a corner of the room and seemed to try to get up the walls. Many dogs, too, certainly appear to be put out, if not to be made afraid, on hearing the music of a brass band.

Fear of nature's great sounds, more especially the wind and thunder, which is common among older children, owes its intensity not merely to their volume, which seems to surround and crush, but also to the mystery of their origin. We should remember too that sounds are, for the child still more than for the adult, expressive of feeling and intention. Hence religious ideas readily graft themselves on to the noisy utterances of wind and thunder. Wind is conceived of, for example, as the blowing of God when angry, and thunder, as we have seen, as his snoring, and so forth.

I am far from saying that all children manifest this fear of sounds. Many babies welcome the new and beautiful sounds of music with a joyous greeting. Even the awful thunder-storm may gladly excite and not frighten. Children will sometimes get through the first months without this fear, and then develop it as late as the second year.

I think, then, that in these disturbing effects of sound we have to do with something more than a mere nervous shock or a start. They involve a rudiment of the feeling of uneasiness at what is unexpected and disturbing, and so may be said to be the beginning of true childish fears. This element of anxiety becomes more clearly marked where the sound is not only disturbing but mysterious, as when a toy emits a sound, or water produces a rushing noise in some hidden pipe.

There is another kind of disturbance which shows itself also in the first year, and has a certain analogy to the discomposing effect of sound. This is the feeling of bodily insecurity which appears very early when the child is awkwardly carried, or when in dandling it, it is let down back-foremost. One child in her fifth month was observed when carried to hold on to the nurse's dress as if for safety. And it has been noticed by more than one observer that on dandling a baby up and down in one's arms, it will on descending, that is when the support of the arms is being withdrawn, show signs of discontent in struggling movements. This is sometimes regarded as an inherited fear; yet it seems possible that, like the jarring effect of noise on the young nerves, it is the result of a rude disturbance. A child accustomed to the support of its cradle, the floor, or somebody's lap, might be expected to be put out when the customary support is withdrawn wholly or partially. The sense of equilibrium is disturbed in this case.