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Photograph by Falk, 1895 
HELEN KELLER AND MISS SULLIVAN 



THE 
STORY OF MY LIFE 

BY 

HELEN KELLER 




BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



\^ '-^ '' >fARVARO UKiVErrsiTY 

DEPT.OF EOUCATIOW LIBRARY 
GIFTOFTH£PUBL.fSHEfl 

MAY 1? 191? 

TITAIISrEtrREO TO 
HARVAR0 COLLEGE UBRARf 

Co|«yri$ht X9c«4.by 
The Centuxy Company 

Oopydsht, xgoa, Z903« X905 bf 
Helen Keller 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

CHAPTER I 

IT is with a kind of fear that I begin to write 
the history of my life. I have, as it were;, 
a superstitious hesitation in lifting* the veil 
that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. 
The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult 
one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions^ 
I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years 
that link the past with the present. The woman 
paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A 
few impressions stand out vividly from the first 
years of my life; but "the shadows of the prison- 
house are on the rest." Besides, many of the joys 
and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; 
and many incidents of vital importance in my early 
education have been forgotten in the excitement of 
great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be 
tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches 
only the episodes that seem to me to be the most 
interesting and important. 

I was bom on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a 
little town of northern Alabama. 

The family on my father's side is descended from 
Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland, who settled 
in Maryland. One of my Swiss ancestors was the 
first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a book 
on the subject of their education — ^rather a singular 

3 



4 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

coincidence ; though it is true that there is no king 
who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and 
no slave who has not had a king among his. 

My grandfather, Caspar Keller's son, "entered" 
large tracts of land in Alabama and finally settled 
there. I have been told that once a year he went 
from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback to 
purchase supplies for the pl^tation, and my aunt 
has in her possession many of the letters to his 
family, which give charming and vivid accounts of 
these trips. 

My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one 
of Lafayette's aides, Alexander Moore, and' grand- 
daughter of Alexander Spotswood, an early Colonial 
Governor of Virginia. She was also second cousin 
to Robert E. Lee. 

My father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the 
Confederate Army, and my mother, Kate Adams, 
was his second wife and many years younger. Her 
grandfather, Benjamin Adams, married Susanna E. 
Goodhue, and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts, for 
many years. Their son, Charles Adams, was bom in 
Newburyport, Massachusetts, and moved to Helena, 
Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out, he fought 
on the side of the South and became a brigadier- 
general. He married Lucy Helen Everett, who 
belonged to the same family of Everetts as Edward 
Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. After 
the war was over the family moved to Memphis, 
Tennessee. 

I lived, up to the time of the illness that deprived 
me of my sight and hearing, in a tiny house consist- 
ing of a large square room and a small one, in which 
the servant slept. It is a custom in the South to 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 5 

build a small house near the homestead as an annei 
to be used on occasion. Such a house my father 
built after the Civil War, and when he married my 
mother they went to live in it. It was completely 
covered with vines, climbing roses and honeysuckles. 
From the garden it looked like an arbour. The little 
porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow 
roses and Southern smilax. It was the favourite 
haunt of humming-birds and bees. 

The Keller homestead, where the family lived, 
was a few steps from our little rose-bower. It was 
called " Ivy Green" because the house and the sur- 
rounding trees and fences were covered with 
beautiftd English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden 
was the paradise of my childhood. 

Even in the days before my teacher came, I used 
to feel along the square stiff boxwood hedges, and, 
guided by the sense of smell, would find the first 
violets and lilies. There, too, after a fit of temper, I 
went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the 
cool leaves and grass. What joy it was to lose 
myself in that garden of flowers, to wander happily 
from spot to spot, until, coming suddenly upon a 
beautiful vine, I recognized it by its leaves and 
blossoms, and knew it was the vine which covered 
the tumble-down summer-house at the farther end 
of the garden ! Here, also, were trailing clematis, 
drooping jessamine, and some rare sweet flowers 
called butterfly lilies, because their fragile petals 
resemble butterflies' wings. But the roses — ^they 
were loveliest of all. Never have I found in the 
greenhouses of the North such heart-satisfying roses 
as the climbing roses of my southern home. They 
ased to hang in long festoons from our porch, filling 



6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any 
earthy smell ; and in the early morning, washed in 
the dew, they felt so soft, so pure, I could not help 
wondering if they did not resemble the asphodels of 
God's garden. 

The beginning of my life was simple and much 
like every other little life. I came, I saw, I con- 
quered, as the first baby in the family always does. 
There was the usual amount of discussion as to a 
name for me. The first baby in the family was not 
to be lightly named, every one was emphatic about . 
that. My father suggested the name of Mildred 
Campbell, an ancestor whom he highly esteemed, 
and he declined to take any further part in the dis-. 
cussion. My mother solved the problem by giving 
it as her wish that I should be called after her mother, 
whose maiden name was Helen Everett. But in the 
excitement of carrying me to church my father 
lost the name on the way, veiy naturally, since it 
was one in which he had declined to have a part. 
When the minister asked him for it, he just remem- 
bered that it had been decided to call me after my 
grandmother, and he gave her name as Helen 
Adams. 

I am told that while I was still in long dresses 
I showed many signs of an eager, self-asserting 
disposition. Everything that I saw other people do 
I insisted upon imitating. At six months I could 
pipe out " How d'ye, '' and one day I attracted every 
one's attention by saying "Tea, tea, tea" quite 
plainly. Even after my illness I remembered one of 
the words I had learned in these early months. It 
was the word ** water," and I continued to make 
some sotmd for that word after all other speech was 



. THE STORY OF MY LIFE 7 

lost. I ceased making the sound "wah-wah" only 
when I learned to spell the word. 

They tell me I walked the day I was a year old. 
My mother had just taken me out of the bath-tub 
and was holding me in her lap, when I was suddenly 
attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves that 
danced in the sunlight on the smooth floor. I 
slipped from my mother's lap and almost ran toward 
them. The impulse gone, I fell down and cried 
for her to take me up in her arms. 

These happy days did not last long. One brief 
spring, musical with the song of robin and mocking- 
bird, one summer rich in fruit and roses, one autumn 
of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at 
the feet of an eager, delighted child. Then, in the 
dreary month of February, came the illness which 
closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the 
unconsciousness of a new-bom baby. They called 
it acute congestion of the stomach and brain. The 
doctor thought I could, not live. Early one morning, 
however, the fever left me as suddenly and mysteri- 
ously as it had come. There was great rejoicing in 
the family that morning, but no one, not even the 
doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again. 

I fancy I still have confused recollections of that 
illness. I especially remember the tenderness with 
which my mother tried to soothe me in my waking 
hours of fret and pain, and the agony and bewilder- 
ment with which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, 
and turned my eyes, so dry and hot, to the wall, 
away from the once-loved Ught, which came to me 
dim and yet more dim each day. But, except foi 
these fleeting memories, if, indteed, they be memories, 
it all seems very tmreal, like a nightmare. Gr^OtiaJt' 



8 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

T got iised to the sHence and darkness that stirrotindea 
me and forgot that it had ever been different, until 
she' came — ^my teacher — ^who was to set my spirit 
free< But during the first nineteen months of my 
life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, 
q. luminous sky, trees and fiowers which the dark- 
ness that followed could not wholly blot out. If 
we have once seen, "the day is ours, and what the 
day has shown, " 



CHAPTER II 

[ CANNOT recall what happened during the first 
Ei^onths after my illness. I only know that I sat in 
my mother's lap or cltmg to her dress as she went 
about her household duties. My hands felt every 
object and observed every motion, and in this way I 
learned to know many things. Soon I felt the need 
of some communication with others and began to 
make crude signs. A shake of the head meant " No' * 
and a nod, ** Yes, " a pull meant ** Come " and a push, 
" Go. '' Was it bread that I wanted ? Then I would 
imitate the acts of cutting the slices and buttering 
them. If I wanted my mother to make ice-cream 
for dinner I made the sign for working the freezer 
and shivered, indicating cold. My mother, more- 
over, succeeded in making me understand a good 
deal. I always knew when she wished me to bring 
her something, and I would rtin upstairs or any- 
where else she indicated. Indeed, I owe to her 
loving wisdom all that was bright and good in my 
long night. 

I understood a good deal of what was going on 
about me. At five I learned to fold and put away 
the clean clothes when they were brought in from 
the laundry, and I distinguished my own from the 
rest. I knew by the way my mother and aunt 
dressed when they were going out, and I invariably 
begged to go with them. I was always sent for 
when there was company, and when the guests took 



lo THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

their leave, I waved my hand to them, I think with 
a vague remembrance of the meaning of the gesture. 
One day some gentlemen called on my mother, and 
I felt the shutting of the front door and other sounds 
that indicated their arrival. On a sudden thought 
I ran upstairs before any one could stop me, to put 
on my idea of a company dress. Standing before 
the mirror, as I had seen others do, I anointed mine 
head with oil and covered my face thickly with 
powder. Then I pinned a veil over my head so 
that it covered my face and fell in folds down to my 
shoulders, and tied an enormous bustle round my 
small waist, so that it dangled behind, almost 
meeting the hem of my skirt. Thus attired I went 
down to help entertain the company. 

I do not remember when I first realized that I was 
different from other people ; but I knew it before my 
teacher came to me. I had noticed that my mother 
and my friends did not use signs as I did when they 
wanted anything done, but talked with their mouths. 
Sometimes I stood between two persons who were . 
conversing and touched their lips. I could not 
understand, and was vexed. I moved my lips and 
gesticulated frantically without result. This made 
me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed 
until I was exhausted. 

I think I knew when I was naughty, for I knew 
that it hurt Ella, my nurse, to kick her, and when 
my fit of temper was over I had a feeling akin to 
regret. But I cannot remember any instance in 
which this feeling prevented me from repeating 
the naughtiness when I failed to get what I wanted. 

In those days a little coloured girl, Martha Wash- 
ington, the child of otu: cook, and Belle, an old settei 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE n 

and a great htmter in her day, were my constant 
companions. Martha Washington understood my 
signs, and I seldom had any difficulty in making her 
do just as I wished. It pleased me to domineer over 
her, and she generally submitted to my tyranny 
rather than risk a hand-to-hand encoimter. I was 
strong, active, indifferent to consequences. I knew 
my own mind well enough and always had my own 
way, even if I had to fight tooth and nail for it. We 
spent a great deal of time in the kitchen, kneading 
dough balls, helping make ice-cream, grinding coffee, 
quarreling over the cake-bowl, and feeding the hens 
and turkeys that swarmed about the kitchen steps. 
Many of them were so tame that they would eat 
from my hand and let me feel them. One big 
gobbler snatched a tomato from me one day and 
ran away with it. Inspired, perhaps, by Master 
Gobbler's success, we carried off to the woodpile a 
cake which the cook had just frosted, and ate every 
bit of it. I was quite ill afterward, and I wonder 
if retribution also overtook the turkey. 

The guinea-fowl likes to hide her nest in out-of- 
the-way places, and it was one of my greatest 
delights to himt for the eggs in the long grass. I 
could not tell Martha Washington when I wanted 
to go egg-h\mting, but I would double my hands 
and put them on the groimd, which meant some- 
thing rotmd in the grass, and Martha always under- 
stood. When we were forttmate enough to find a 
nest I never allowed her to carry the eggs home, 
making her imderstand by emphatic signs that she 
might fall and break them. 

The sheds where the com was stored, the stable 
where the horses were kept, and the yard where the 



12 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

cows were milked morning and evening were unfail- 
ing sources of interest to Martha and me. The 
milkers would let me keep my hands on the cows 
while they milked, and I often got well switched by 
the cow for my curiosity. 

The making ready for Christmas was always a 
delight to me. Of course I did not know what it 
was all about, but I enjoyed the pleasant odours 
that filled the house and the tidbits that were given 
to Martha Washington and me to keep us quiet. 
We were sadly in the way, but that did not interfere 
with our pleasure in the least. They allowed us to 
grind the spices, pick over the raisins and lick the 
stirring spoons. I hting my stocking because the 
others did; I cannot remember, however, that the 
ceremony interested me especially, nor did my 
curiosity cause me to wake before daylight to look 
for my gifts. 

Martha Washington had as great a love of mischief 
as I. Two little children were seated on the veranda 
steps one hot July afternoon. One was black as 
ebony, with little bunches of fuzzy hair tied with 
shoestrings sticking out all over her head like cork- 
screws. The other was white, with long golden 
curls. One child was six years old, the other two or 
three years older. The yoimger child was blind — 
that was I — and the other was Martha Washington. 
We were busy cutting out paper dolls ; but we sooii 
wearied of this amusement, and after cutting up 
our shoestrings and clipping all the leaves off the 
honeysuckle that were within reach, I turned my 
attention to Martha's corkscrews. She objected at 
first, but finally submitted. Thinking that turn 
and turn about is fair play, she seized the scissors 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 13 

and cut ofl one of my curls, and would have cut them- 
all off but for my mother's timely interference. 

Belle, our dog, my other companion, was old and 
lazy and liked to sleep by the open fire rather than 
to romp with me. I tried hard to teach her my sign 
language, but she was dull and inattentive. « She 
sometimes started and quivered . with excitement, 
then she became perfectly rigid, as dogs do when 
they point a bird. I did not then know why 
Belle acted in this way; but I knew she was not 
doing as I wished. This vexed me and the lesson 
always ended in a one-sided boxing match. Belle 
would get up, stretch herself lazily, give one or two 
contemptuous sniffs, go to the opposite side of the 
hearth and lie down again, and I, wearied and 
disappointed, went off in search of Martha. 

Many incidents of those early years are fixed in 
my memory, isolated, but clear and distinct, making 
the sense of that silent, aimless, dayless life all the 
more intense. 

One day I happened to spill water on my apron, 
and I spread it out to dry before the fire which was 
flickering on the sitting-room hearth. The apron 
did not dry quickly enough to smt me, so I drew 
nearer and threw it right over the hot ashes. The 
fire leaped into life ; the flames encircled me so that 
in a moment my clothes were blazing. I made a. 
terrified noise that brought Viny, my old nurse, 
to the rescue. Throwing a blanket over me, she 
almost suffocated me, but she put out the fire. 
Except for my hands and hair I was not badly 
burned. 

About this time I fovmd out the use of a key. 
One morning I locked my mother up in the pantry, 



X4 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

where she was obliged to remain three hours, as the 
servants were in a detached part of the house. She 
kept pounding on the door, while I sat outside on 
the porch steps and laughed with glee as I felt the 
jar of the pounding. This most naughty prank of 
mine convinced my parents that I must be taught 
as soon as possible. After my teacher, Miss Sullivan, 
came to me, I sought an early opportunity to lock 
her in her room. I went upstairs with something 
which my mother made me understand I was to 
give to Miss Sullivan ; but no sooner had I given it to 
her than I slammed the door to, locked it, and hid 
the key under the wardrobe in the hall. I could not 
be induced to tell where the key was. My father 
was obliged to get a ladder and take Miss Sullivan 
out through the window — much to my delight. 
Months after I produced the key. 

When I was about five years old we moved from 
the little vine-covered house to a large new one. 
The family consisted of my father and mother, two 
older half-brothers, and, afterward, a little sister, 
Mildred. My earliest distinct recollection of my 
father is making my way through great drifts 
of newspapers to his side and finding him alone, 
holding a sheet of paper before his face. I was 
greatly puzzled to know what he was doing. I 
imitated this action, even wearing his spectacles, 
thinking they might help solve the mystery. But I 
did not find out the secret for several years. Then 
I learned what those papers were, and that my 
father edited one of them. 

My father was most loving and indulgent, devoted 
to his home, seldom leaving us, except in the hunting 
season. He was a great hunter, I have been told, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 15 

and a celebrated shot. Next to his family he loved 
his dogs and gtin. His hospitality was great, almost 
to a fault, and he seldom came home without bring- 
ing a guest. His special pride was the big garden 
where, it was said, he raised the finest watermelons 
and strawberries in the coimty ; and to me he brought 
the first ripe grapes and the choicest berries. I 
remember his caressing touch as he led me from tree 
to tree, from vine to vine, and his eager delight in 
whatever pleased me. 

He was a famous story-teller; after I had acqtiired 
language he used to spell clumsily into my hand 
his cleverest anecdotes, and nothing pleased him 
more than to have me repeat them at an opportune 
moment. 

I was in the North, enjoying the last beautifuj 
days of the summer of 1 896, when I heard the news of 
my father's death. He had had a short illness, there 
had been a brief time of acute suffering, then all was 
over. This was my first great sorrow — my first 
personal experience with death. 

How shall I write of my mother ? She is so near 
to me that it almost seems indelicate to speak of her. 

For a long time I regarded my little sister as an 
intruder. I knew that I had ceased to be my 
mother's only darling, and the thought filled me with 
jealousy. She sat in my mother's lap constantly, 
where I used to sit, and seemed to take up all her 
care and time. One day something happened which 
seemed to me to be adding insult to injury. 

At that time I had a much-petted, much-abused 
doll, which I afterward named Nancy. She was, 
alas, the helpless victim of my outbursts of temper 
and of affection, so that she became much the wor; 



i6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

for wear. I had dolls which talked, and cried, and 
opened and shut their eyes ; yet I never loved one of 
them as I loved poor Nancy. She had a cradle, and 
I often spent an hour or more rocking her. I 
guarded both doll and cradle with the most jealous 
care ; but once I discovered my little sister sleeping 
peacefully in the cradle. At this presumption on 
the part of one to whom as yet no tie of love botind 
me I grew angry. I rushed upon the cradle and 
overturned it, and the baby might have been killed 
had my mother not caught her as' she fell. Thus it 
is that when we walk in the valley of twofold solitude 
we know little of the tender affections that grow out 
of endearing words and actions and companionship. 
But afterward, when I was restored to my human 
heritage, Mildred and I grew into each other's hearts, 
so that we were content to go hand-in-hand wherever 
caprice led us, although she could not understand 
my finger language, nor I her childish prattle. 



CHAPTER III 

Meanwhile the desire to express myself grew. 
The few signs I used became less and less adeqxiate, 
and my failures to make myself tinderstood were in- 
variably followed by outbursts of passion. I felt as if 
invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic 
efforts to free myself. I struggled — ^not that strug- 
gling helped matters, but the spirit of resistance was 
strong within me ; I generally broke down in tears and 
physical exhaustion. If my mother happened to be 
near I crept into her arms, too miserable even to 
remember the cause of the tempest. After awhile 
the need of some means of communication became 
so urgent that these outbursts occurred daily, some- 
times hourly. 

My parents were deeply grieved and perplexed. 
We lived a long way from any school for the blind 
or the deaf, and it seemed tinlikely that any one 
would come to such an out-of-the-way place as 
Tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and 
blind. Indeed, my friends and relatives sometimes 
doubted whether I could be taught. My mother's 
only ray of hope came from Dickens's "American 
Notes. *' She had read his account of Laura Bridg- 
man, and remembered vaguely that she was deaf 
and blind, yet had been educated. But she also 
remembered with a hopeless pang that Dr. Howe, 
who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and 
blind, had been dead many years. His methods had 

17 



i8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

probably died with him ; and if they had not, how 
was a little girl in a far-off town in Alabama to receive 
the benefit of them ? 

When I was about six years old, my father heard 
of an eminent oculist in Baltimore, who had been 
successfiil in many cases that had seemed hopeless. 
My parents at once determined to take me to 
Baltimore to see if anything could be done for 
my eyes. 

The jotimey, which I remember well, was very 
pleasant. I made friends with many people on the 
train. One lady gave me a box of shells. My father 
made holes in these so that I could string them, and 
for a long time they kept me happy and contented. 
The conductor, too, was kind. Often when he went 
his rotmds I clung to his coat tails while he collected 
and ptmched the tickets. His ptmch, with which 
he let me play, was a delightful toy. Curled up in 
a comer of the seat I amused myself for hours 
making fimny little holes in bits of cardboard. 

My a\mt made me a big doll out of towels. It was 
the most comical, shapeless thing, this improvised 
doll, with no nose, mouth, ears or eyes — nothing 
that even the imagination of a child could convert 
into a face. Curiously enough, the absence of eyes 
struck me more than all the other defects put 
together. I pointed this out to everybody with 
provoking persistency, but no one seemed equal to 
the task of providing the doll with eyes. A bright 
idea, however, shot into my mind, and the problem 
was solved. I tumbled off the seat and searched 
under it until I found my aunt's cape, which w:as 
trimmed with large beads. I pulled two beads off 
and indicated to her that I wanted her to sew them 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 19^ 

.jn my doll. She raised my hand to her eyes in a 
questioning way, and I nodded energetically. The 
beads were sewed in the right place and I could not 
contain myself for joy; but immediately I lost all 
interest in the doll. During the whole trip I did not 
have one fit of temper, there were so many things 
to keep my mind and fingers busy. 

When we arrived in Baltimore, Dr. Chisholm 
received us kindly : but he could do nothing. He said, 
however, that I could be educated, and advised my 
father to consult Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, of 
Washington, who would be able to give him infor- 
mation about schools and teachers of deaf or blind 
children. Acting on the doctor's advice, we went 
immediately to Washington to see Dr. Bell, my 
father with a sad heart and many misgivings, I 
wholly unconscious of his anguish, finding pleasure 
in the excitement of moving from place to place. 
Child as I was, I at once felt the tenderness and 
sympathy which endeared Dr. Bell to so many 
hearts, as his wonderfiil achievements enlist their 
admiration. He held me on his knee while 
I examined his watch, and he made it strike 
»for me. He imderstood my signs, and I knew it 
and loved him at once. But I did not dream that 
that interview would be the door through which I 
should pass from darkness into light, from isolation 
to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love. 

Dr. Bell advised my father to write to Mr. 
Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institution in 
Boston, the scene of Dr. Howe's great labours 
for the blind, and ask him if he had a teacher com- 
petent to begin my education. This my father did 
at once, and in a few weeks there came a kind letter 



20 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

from Mr. Anagnos with the comforting asstirance 
that a teacher had been fotmd. This was in the 
summer of 1886. But Miss Sullivan did not arrive 
until the following March. 

Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before 
Sinai, and a power divine touched my spirit and 
gave it sight, so that I beheld many wonders. And 
from the sacred moimtain I heard a voice which 
said, *' Knowledge is love and light and vision. " 



CHAPTER IV 

The most important day I remember in all my 
life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield 
StiUivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when 
I consider the immeasurable contrast between the 
two lives which it connects. It was the third of 
March, 1887, three months before I was seven years 
old. 

On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood 
on the porch, dtmib, expectant. I guessed vaguely 
from my mother's signs and from the hurrying to and 
fro in the house that something unusual was about 
to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the 
steps. The afternoon sim penetrated the mass of 
honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my 
upturned face. My fingers lingered almost imcon- 
sciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which 
had just come forth to greet the sweet southern 
spring. I did not know what the future held of 
marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness 
had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a 
deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle. 

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it 
seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, 
and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her 
way toward the shore with plummet and sounding- 
line, and you waited with beating heart for some- 
thing to happen? I was like that ship before my 
education began, only I was without compass or 

21 



22 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

'sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how neat 
the harbotir was. " Light I give me light ! " was the 
wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone 
on me in that very hour. 

I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my 
hand as I supposed to my. mother. Some one took 
it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of 
her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, 
more than all things else, to love me. 

The morning after my teacher came she led me 
into her room and gave me a doll. The little 
blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent 
it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it ; but I did 
not know this until afterward. When I had played 
with it a little while. Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into 
my hand the word **d-o-l-l.'' I was at once inter- 
ested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. 
When I finally succeeded in making the letters 
correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and 
pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up 
my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not 
know that I was spelling a word or even that words 
existed ; I was simply making my fingers go in 
monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed 
I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a 
great many words, among them pin^ hat^ cup and 
a few verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my 
teacher had been with me several weeks before I 
tmderstood that everything has a name. 

One day, while I was playing with my new doll, 
Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, 
spelled **d-o-l-r' and tried to make me understand 
that **d-o-l-r' applied to both. Earlier in the day 
we had had a tussle over the words **m-u-g'* and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 23 

**w-a-t-€-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress 
it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that 
"w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confound- 
ing the two. In despair she had dropped the 
subject for the time, only to renew it at the first 
opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated 
attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon 
the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the 
fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither 
sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. 
I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in 
which I lived there was no strong sentiment or 
tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments 
to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satis- 
faction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. 
She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out 
into the warm stinshine. This thought, if a wordless 
sensation may be called a thought, made me hop 
and skip with pleasure. 

We walked down the path to the well-house, 
attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with 
which it was covered. Some one was drawing water 
and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. 
As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled 
into the other the word water, first slowly, then 
rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed 
upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a 
misty consciousness as of something forgotten — a 
thrill of returning thought; and somehow the 
mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew 
then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool 
something that was flowing over my hand. That 
living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, 
joy, set it free ! There were barriers still, it 



34 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

is true, but barriers that could in time be swept 
away, 

I left the well-house eager to leam. Everything 
had a name, and each name gave birth to a new 
thought. As we returned to the house every object 
which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That 
was because I saw everything with the strange, new 
sight that had come to me. On entering the door 
I remembered the doU I had broken. I felt my way 
to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried 
vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled 
with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for 
the first time I felt repentance and sorrow. 

I learned a great many new words that day. I do 
not remember what they all were; but I do know 
that mother, father, sister, teacher were among 
them — ^words that were to make the world blos- 
som for me, "like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It 
would have been difficult to find a happier child than 
I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful 
day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and 
for the first time longed for a new day to come. 



CHAPTER V 

I RECALL many incidents of the summer of 
1887 that followed my soul's sudden awaken- 
ing. I did nothing but explore with my hands 
and leam the name of every object that I touched; 
and the more I handled things and learned their 
names and uses, the more joyous and confident 
grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the world. 

When the time of daisies and buttercups came 
Miss Sullivan took me by the hand across the fields, 
where men were preparing the earth for the seed, to 
the banks of the Tennessee River, and there, sitting 
on the warrii grass, I had my first lessons in the 
beneficence of nature. I learned how the stm and 
the rain make to grow out of the ground every tree 
that isL pleasant to the sight and good for food, how 
birds build their nests and live and thrive from land 
to land, how the squirrel, the deer, the lion and 
every other creature finds food and shelter. As my 
knowledge of things grew 1 felt more and more the 
delight of the world I was in. Long before I learned 
to do a sum in arithmetic or describe the shape of 
the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught me to find 
beauty in the fragrant woods, in eveiy blade of grass, 
and in the curves and dimples of my baby sister's 
hand. She linked my earliest thoughts with nature, 
and made me feel that " birds and flowers and I were 
happy peers." 

But about this time I had an experience which 

as 



26 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

taught me that nature is not always kind. One 
day my teacher and I were returning from a long 
ramble. The morning had been fine, but it was 
growing warm and sultry when at last we turned our 
faces homeward. Two or three times we stopped to 
rest under a tree by the wayside. Our last halt was 
under a wild cherry tree a short distance from the 
house. The shade was grateful, and the tree was 
so easy to climb that with my teacher's assistance 
I was able to scramble to a seat in the branches. It 
was so cool up in the tree that Miss Sullivan proposed 
that we have our luncheon there. I promised to 
keep still while she went to the house tcf fetch it. 

Suddenly a change passed over the tree. All the 
sun's warmth left the air. I knew the sky was 
black, because all the heat, which meant light to 
me, had died out of the atmosphere. A strange 
odour came up from the earth. I knew it, it was the 
odour that always precedes a thunderstorm, and a 
nameless fear clutched at my heart. I felt abso- 
lutely alone, cut off from my friends and the firm 
earth. The immense, the unknown, enfolded me. 
I remained still and expectant; a chilling terror 
crept over me. I longed for my teacher's return; 
but above all things I wanted to get down from 
that tree. 

There was a moment of sinister silence, then a 
multitudinous stirring of the leaves. A shiver ran 
through the tree, and the wind sent forth a blast that 
would have knocked me off had I not clung to the 
branch with might and main. The tree swayed and 
strained. The small twigs snapped and fell about 
me in showers. A wild impulse to jump seized me, 
but terror held me fast. I crouched down in the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE ' 27 

fork of the tree. The branches lashed about me. I 
felt the intermittent jarring that came now and then, 
as if something heavy had fallen and the shock had 
traveled up till it reached the limb I sat on. It 
worked my suspense up to the highest point, and 
just as I was thinking the tree and I should fal] 
together, my teacher seized my hand and helped 
me down. I clung to her, trembling with joy to feel 
the earth under my feet once more. I had learned 
a new lesson — ^that nature ** wages open war 
against her children, and under softest touch hides 
treacherous claws." 

After this experience it was a long time before I 
climbed another tree. The mere thought filled me 
with terror. It was the sweet allurement of the 
mimosa tree in full bloom that finally overcame my 
fears. One beautiful spring morning when I was 
alone in the stmmier-house, reading, I became 
aware of a wonderful subtle fragrance in the air. I 
started up and instinctively stretched out my hands. 
It seemed as if the spirit of spring had passed through 
the summer-house. ** What is it ? " I asked, and the 
next minute I recognized the odour of the mimosa 
blossoms. I felt my way to the end of the garden, 
knowing that the mimosa tree was near the fence, 
at the turn of the path. Yes, there it was, all quiver- 
ing in the warm sunshine, its blossom-laden branches 
almost touching the long grass. Was there ever 
anything so exquisitely beautiful in the world before ! 
Its delicate blossoms shrank from the slightest 
e-«rthly touch; it seemed as if a tree of paradise 
had been transplanted to earth. I made my way 
through a shower of petals to the great trtmk and 
for one minute stood irresolute ; then, putting my foot 



28 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

in the broad space between the forked branches, I 
pulled myself up into the tree. I had some difficulty 
in holding on, for the branches were very large and 
the bark hurt my hands. But I had a delicious 
sense that I was doing something tmusual and 
wonderful, so I kept on climbing higher and higher, 
until I reached a little seat which somebody had 
built there so long ago that it had grown part of the 
tree itself. I sat there for a long, long time, feeling 
like a fairy on a rosy cloud. After that I spent many 
happy hours in my tree of paradise, thinking fair 
thoughts and dreaming bright dreams. 



CHAPTER VI 

I HAD now the key to all language, and I was 
eager to leam to use it. Children who hear acquire 
language without any particular effort; the words 
that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, 
as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child 
must trap them by a slow and often painful process. 
But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. 
Gradually from naming an object we advance step 
by step until we have traversed the vast distance 
between our first stammered syllable and the sweep 
of thought in a line of Shakespeare. 

At first, when my teacher told me about a new 
thing I asked very few questions. My ideas were 
vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but as 
my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more 
and more words, my field of inquiry broadened, 
and I would return again and again to the same 
subject, eager for further information. Sometimes 
a new word revived an image that some earlier 
experience had engraved on my brain. 

I remember the morning that I first asked the 
meaning of the word, **love." This was before I 
knew many words. I had fotmd a few early violets 
in the garden and brought them to my teacher. 
She tried to kiss me; but at that time I did not like 
to have any one kiss me except my mother. Miss 
Sullivan put her arm gently rotmd me and spelled 
into my hand, **I love Helen." 

29 



30 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

r What is love ?" I asked. 

She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," 
pointing to my heart, whose beats I was conscious 
of for the first time. Her words puzzled me very 
much because I did not then tmderstand anjrthing 
imless I touched it. 

I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half 
in words, half in signs, a question which meant, 
"Is love the sweetness of flowers?" 

"No," said my teacher. 

Again I thought. The warm sun was shining 
onus. 

"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the 
direction from which the heat came, "Is this not 
love?" 

It seemed to me that there could be nothing more 
beautiful than the sun, whose warmth makes all 
things grow. But Miss Sullivan shook her head, 
and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I 
thought it strange that my teacher could not shew 
me love. 

A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of 
different sizes in symmetrical groups — two large 
beads, three small ones, and so on. I had made 
many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed 
them out again and again with gentle patience. 
Finally I noticed a very obvious error in the 
sequence and for an instant I concentrated my atten- 
tion on the lesson and tried to think how I should 
have arranged the beads. Miss Sullivan touched 
my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, 
"Think." 

In a flash I knew that the word was the name of 
the process that was going on in my head. Thiy 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 31 

was my first conscious perception of an abstract 
idea. 

For a long time I was still — I was not thinking of 
the beads in my lap, but trying to find a meaning 
for "love" in the light of this new idea. The sim 
had been under a cloud all day, and there had been 
brief showers ; but suddenly the sun broke forth in 
all its southern splendour. 

Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love ?" 

"Love is something like the clouds that were in 
the sky before the sun came out," she replied. 
Then in simpler words than these, which at that 
time I could not have tmderstood, she explained: 
"You caimot touch the clouds, you know; but you 
feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the 
thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You 
cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness 
that it pours into everything. Without love you 
would not be happy or want to play." 

The beautiful truth burst upon my mind — I felt 
that there were 'invisible lines stretched between 
my spirit and the spirits of others. 

From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan 
made it a practice to speak to me as she would speak 
to any hearing child ; the only difference was that 
she spelled the sentences into my hand instead of 
speaking them. If I did not know the words and 
idioms necessary to express my thoughts she sup- 
plied them, even suggesting conversation when 
1 was unable to keep up my end of the dialogue. 

This process was continued for several years; for 
the deaf child does not learn in a month, or even 
in two or three years, the numberless idioms and 
expressions used in the simplest daily intercourse. 



32 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

The little hearing child learns these from constant 
repetition and imitation. The conversation he 
hears in his home stimulates his mind and suggests 
topics and calls forth the spontaneous expression of 
his own thoughts. This natural exchange of ideas is 
denied to the deaf child. My teacher, realizing this, 
determined to supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. 
This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, 
verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how 
I could take part in the conversation. But it was a 
long time before I ventured to take the initiative, 
and still longer before I could find something 
appropriate to say at the right time. 

The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to 
acquire the amenities of conversation. How much 
more this difficulty must be augmented in the .case of 
those who are both deaf and blind I They cannot 
distinguish the tone of the voice or, without assist- 
ance, go up and down the gamut of tones that 
give significance to words; nor can they watch 
the expression of the speaker's face, and a look is 
often the very soul of what one says. 



CHAPTER VII 

The next important step in my education was 
learning to read. 

As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher 
gave me slips of cardboard on which were printed 
words in raised letters. I quickly learned that each 
printed word stood for an object, an act^ or a quality, 
I had a frame in which I could arrange the words 
in little sentences; but before I ever put sentences 
in the frame I used to make them in objects. I 
fotmd the slips of paper which represented, for 
example, "doll," **is," "on," "bed" and placed 
each name on its object ; then I put my doll on the 
bod with the words is, on, bed arranged beside the 
doll, thus making a sentence of the words, and at 
the same time carrying out the idea of the sentence 
with the things themselves. 

One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pinned the word 
girl on my pinafore and stood in the wardrobe. 
On the shelf I arranged the words, is^ in, 
wardrobe. Nothing delighted me so much as 
this game. . My teacher and I played it for hours 
at. a time. Often everything in the room was 
arranged in object sentences. 

From the printed slip it was but a step to the 
printed book. I took my "Reader for Beginners'* 
and himted for the words I knew; when I found 
them my joy was like that of a game of hide- 
and-seek Thus I began to read. Of the time 

33 



34 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

when I began to read connected stories I shall 
speak later. 

For a long time I had no regtilar lessons. Even 
when I studied most earnestly it seemed more 
like play than work. Everything Miss Sullivan 
* taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a 
poem. Whenever anything delighted or interested 
me she talked it over with me just as if she were a 
little girl herself. What many children think of 
with dread, as a painful plodding through grammar, 
hard sums and harder defim'tions, is to-day one of 
my most precious memories. 

I cannot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss 
SulKvan had with my pleasures and desires. Perhaps 
it Avas the result of long association with the 
blind. Added to this she had a wonderful faculty 
for devseription. She went quickly over uninterest- 
ing derails, and never nagged me with questions 
to see if I remembered the day-before-yesterday's 
lesson. She introduced dry technicalities of science 
little by little, making every subject so real that I 
could not help remembering what she taught. 

We read and studied out of doors, preferring the 
simlit woods to the house. All my early lessons have 
in them the breath of the woods — ^the fine, resinous 
odour of pine needles, blended with the perfimie of 
wild grapes. Seated in the gracious shade of a wild 
tulip tree, I learned to think that everything has a 
lesson and a suggestion. "The loveliness of things 
taught me all their use." Indeed, everything that 
could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom, had a part in 
my education — ^noisy-throated frogs, katydids and 
crickets held in my hand until, forgetting their 
embarrassment, they trilled their reedy note, little 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 35 

'lon'Tiy chickens and wildflowers, the dogwood 
^dossonis, meadow-violets and budding fruit trees. 
I felt the bursting cotton-bolls and fingered their soft 
fiber and fuzzy seeds ; I felt the low soughing of the 
wind through the cornstalks, the silky rustling of 
the long leaves, and the indignant snort of my pony, 
as we caught him in the pasture and put the bit in 
his mouth — ah me ! how well I remember the spicy, 
clovery smell of his breath ! 

Sometimes I rose at dawn and stole into the 
garden while the heavy dew lay on the grass and 
flowers Few know what joy it is to feel the roses 
pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion 
of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze. 
Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was 
plucking, and I felt the faint noise of a pair of wings 
rubbed together in a sudden terror, as the little 
creature became aware of a pressure from without. 

Another favourite haunt of mine was the orchard, 
where the fruit ripened early in July. The large, 
downy peaches would reach themselves into my 
hand, and as the joyous breezes flew about the trees 
the apples ttunbled at my feet. Oh, the delight 
with which I gathered up the fruit in my pinafore, 
pressed my face against the smooth cheeks of the 
apples, still warm from the sun, and skipped back 
to the house ! 

Our favourite walk was to Keller's Landing, an old 
tumble-down lumber-wharf on the Tennessee River, 
used during the Civil War to land soldiers. There 
we spent many happy hours and played at learning 
geography. I built dams of pebbles, made islands 
and lakes, and dug river-beds, all for fun, and never 
dreamed that I was learning a lesson. I listened 



36 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

with increasing wonder to Miss Sullivan's descrip- 
tions of the great round world with its burning 
mountains, buried cities, moving rivers of ice, a^ixd 
many other things as strange. She made raised 
maps in clay, so that I could feel the mountain 
ridges and valleys, and follow with my fingers the 
devious course of rivers. I liked this, too ; but thd 
division of the earth into zones and poles confused 
and teased my mind. The illustrative strings and 
the orange stick representing the poles seemed iso 
real that even to this day the mere mention of 
temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; 
and I believe that if any one should set about it 
he could convince me that white bears actually 
climb the North Pole. 

Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I 
did not like. From the first I was not interested 
in the science of numbers. Miss Sullivan tried to 
teach me to count by stringing beads in groups, and 
by arranging kintergarten straws I learned to add 
and subtract. I never had patience to arrange 
more than five or six groups at a time. When I 
had accomplished this my conscience was at rest 
for the day, and I went out quickly to find my 
playmates. 

In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology 
and botany. 

Once a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, 
sent me a collection of fossils — ^tiny moUusk shells 
beautifully marked, and bits of sandstone with the 
print of birds' claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief. 
These were the keys which unlocked the treasures 
of the antediluvian world for me. With trembling 
fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's descriptions of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 37 

the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable 
names, which once went tramping through the 
primeval forests, tearing down the branches of 
gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal 
swamps of an unknown age. For a long time these 
strange creatures hatinted my dreams, and this 
gloomy period formed a somber background to 
the joyous Now, filled with stmshine and roses 
and echoing with the gentle beat of my pony's 
hoof. 

Another time a beautiful shell was given me, and 
with a child's surprise and delight I learned how a 
tiny moUusk had built the lustrous coil for his dwell- 
ing place, and how on still nights, when there is no 
breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on the 
blue waters of the Indian Ocean in his **ship of 
pearl." After I had learned a great many interest- 
ing things about the life and habits of the children 
of the sea — ^how in the midst of dashing waves the 
little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the 
Pacific, and the foraminifera have made the chalk- 
hills, of many a land — ^my teacher read me '*The 
Chambered Nautilus," and showed me that the 
shell-building process of themoUusks is symbolical 
of the development of the mind. Just as the wonder- 
working mantle of the Nautilus changes the material 
it absorbs from the water and makes it a part of 
itself, so the bits of knowledge one gathers 
undergo a similar change and become pearls of 
thought. 

Again, it was the growth of a plant that furnished 
the text for a lesson. We bought a lily and set it in 
a sunny window. Very soon the green, pointed buds 
showed signs of opening. The slender, fingerlike 



38 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

leaves on the outside opened slowly, reluctant, I 
thought, to reveal the loveliness they hid;. once 
having made a start, however, the opening process 
went on rapidly, but in order and systematically. 
There was always one bud larger and more beau- 
tiful than the rest, which pushed her outer covering 
back with more pomp, as if the beauty in soft, silky 
robes knew that she was the lily-queen by right 
divine, while her more timid sisters doffed their 
green hoods shyly, tintil the whole plant was one 
nodding bough of loveliness and fragrance. 

Once there were eleven tadpoles in a glass globe 
liet in a window full of plants. I remember the 
eagerness with which I made discoveries about them. 
It was great ftm to plunge my hand into the bowl 
and feel the tadpoles frisk about, and to let them 
slip and slide between my fingers. One day a more 
ambitious fellow leaped beyond the edge of the bowl 
and fell on the floor, where I fotmd him to all 
appearance more dead than alive. The only sign of 
life was a slight wriggling of his tail. But no sooner 
had he returned to his element than he darted to 
the bottom, swimming round and round in joyous 
activity. He had made his leap, he had seen the 
great world, and was content to stay in his pretty 
glass house under the big fuchsia tree until he 
attained the dignity of froghood. Then he went to 
live in the leafy pool at the end of the garden, 
where he made the summer nights musical with his 
quaint love-song. 

Thus I learned from life itself. At the beginning 
I was only a little mass of possibilities. It was my 
teacher who unfolded and developed them. When 
she came, everything about me breathed of love and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 39 

joy and was full of meaning. She has never since 
let pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that 
is in eveiything, nor has she ceased trjring in thought 
and action and example to make my life sweet and 
useful. 

It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, 
her loving tact which made the first years of my 
education so beautiful. It was because she seized 
the right moment to impart knowledge that made 
it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized 
that a child's mind is like a shallow brook which 
ripples and dances merrily over the stony course of 
its education and reflects here a flower, there a 
bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to 
guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a 
brook it should be fed by moimtain streams and 
hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep 
river, capable of reflecting in its placid surface, 
billowy hills, the limiinous shadows of trees and 
the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a 
little flower. 

Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, 
but not every teacher can make him learn. He 
will not work joyously imless he feels that liberty is 
his, whether he is busy or at rest ; he mtist feel the 
flush of victory and the heart-sinldng of disappoint- 
ment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful 
to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through 
a dull routine of textbooks. 

My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think 
of myself apart from her. How much of my delight 
in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is 
due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that 
her being is inseparable from my ^wn, and that 



40 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best 
of me belongs to her — ^there is not a talent, or an 
aspiration or a joy in me that has not been awakened 
by her loving touch. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The first Christmas after Miss Sullivan came to 
Tusctmibia was a great event. Every one in the 
family prepared surprises for me ; but what pleased 
me most, Miss Sullivan and I prepared surprises for 
everybody else. The mystery that surrotmded the 
gifts was my greatest delight and amusement. My 
friends did all they could to excite my curiosity by 
hints and half-spelled sentences which they pre- 
tended to break off in the nick of time. Miss Sullivan 
and I kept up a game of guessing which taught me 
more about the use of language than any set lessons 
could have done. Every evening, seated round a 
glowing wood fire, we played our guessing game, 
which grew more and more exciting as Christmas 
approached. 

On Christmas Eve the Tusctmibia schoolchildren 
had their tree, to which they invited me. In the 
centre of the schoolroom stood a beautiful tree 
ablaze and shimmering in the soft light, its branches 
loaded with strange, wonderful fruit. It was a 
moment of supreme happiness. I danced and 
capered rotmd the tree in an ecstasy. When I 
learned that there was a gift for each child, 1 was 
delighted, and the kind people who had prepared 
the tree permitted me to hand the presents to the 
children. In the pleasure of doing this, I did not 
stop to look at my own gifts; but when I was ready 
for them, my impatience for the real Christmas to 
begin almost got beyond control. I knew the gifts 

41 



42 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

I already had were not those of which friends had 
thrown out such tantalizing hints, and my teacher 
said the presents I was to have would be even nicer 
than these. I was persuaded, however, to content 
myself with the gifts from the tree and leave the 
others until morning. 

That night, after I had htmg my stocking, I 
lay awake a long time, pretending to be asleep 
and keeping alert to see what Santa Claus would 
do when he came. At last I fell asleep with a 
new doll and a white bear in my arms. Next morn- 
ing it was I who waked the whole family with 
my first "Merry Christmas!" I fotmd surprises, 
not in the stocking only, but on the table, on all the 
chairs, at the door, on the very window-sill ; indeed, 
I cotdd hardly walk without sttmibling on a bit of 
Christmas wrapped up in tissue paper. But when 
my teacher presented me with a canary, my cup of 
happiness overflowed. 

Little Tim was so tame that he would hop on 
my finger and eat candied cherries out of my hand. 
Miss Stdlivan taught me to take all the care of my 
new pet. Every morning after breakfast I prepared 
his bath, made his cage clean and sweet, filled his 
cups with fresh seed and water from the well-house, 
and himg a spray of chickweed in his swing. 

One morning I left the cage on the window-seat 
while I went to fetch water for his bath. When 
I returned I felt a big cat brush past me as I opened 
the door. At first I did not realize what had hap- 
pened; but when I put my hand in the cage and 
Tim's pretty wings did not meet my touch or his 
small pointed claws take hold of my finger, I knew 
that I should never see my sweet little singer again. 



CHAPTER IX 

The next important event in my life was my visit 
to Boston, in May, 1888. As if it were yesterday I 
remember the preparations, the departure with my 
teacher and my mother, the journey, and finally the 
arrival in Boston. How different this journey was 
from the one I had made to Baltimore two years 
before ! I was no longer a restless, excitable little 
creature, requiring the attention of everybody on the 
train to keep me amused. I sat quietly beside Miss 
Sullivan, taking in with eager interest all that she 
told me about what she saw out of the car window: 
the beautiful Tennessee River, the great cotton- 
fields, the hills and woods, and the crowds of laughing 
negroes at the stations, who waved to the people on 
the train and brought delicious candy and popcorn 
balls through the car. On the seat opposite me sat 
my big rag doll, Nancy, in a new gingham dress 
and a beruffled sunbonnet, looking at me out of two 
bead eyes. Sometimes, when I was not absorbed 
in Miss Sullivan's descriptions, I remembered 
Nancy's existence and took her up in my arms, but 
I generally calmed my conscience by making myself 
believe that she was asleep. 

As I shall not have occasion to refer to Nancy 
again, I wish to tell here a sad experience she had 
soon after our arrival in Boston. She was covered 
with dirt — ^the remains of mud pies I had com- 
pelled her to eat, although she had never shown 

43 



44 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

any special liking for them. The laundress at the 
Perkins Institution secretly carried her off to give 
her a bath. This was too much for poor Nancy. 
When I next saw her she was a formless heap of 
cotton, which I should not have recognized at all 
except for the two bead eyes which looked out at me 
reproachfully. 

When the train at last pulled into the station at 
Boston it was as if a beautiftd fairy tale had come 
true. The "once upon a time" was now; the "far- 
away country" was here. 

We had scarcely arrived at the Perkins Institution 
for the Blind when I began to make friends with the 
little blind children. It delighted me inexpressibly 
to find that they knew the manual alphabet. What 
joy to talk with other children in my own language 1 
Until then I had been like a foreigner speaking 
through an interpreter. In the school where Laura 
Bridgman was taught I was in my own coimtry. It 
took me some time to appreciate the fact that my 
new friends w^ere blind. 1 knew I could not see; 
but it did not feeem possible that all the eager, loving 
children who gathered roimd me and joined heartily 
in my frolics were also blind. I remember the sur- 
prise and the pain I felt as I noticed that they placed 
their hands over mine when I talked to them and 
that they read books with their fingers. Although 
I had been told this before, and although I tmder- 
stood my o\^ti deprivations, yet I had thought 
vaguely that since they could hear, they must 
have a sort of **second sight," and I was not 
prepared to find one child and another and yet 
another deprived of the same precious gift. 
But they were so happy and contented that 1 lost 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 45 

all sense of pain in the pleasure of their com- 
panionship. 

One day spent with the blind children made me 
feel thoroughly at home in my new environment, 
and I looked eagerly from one pleasant experience 
to another as the days flew swiftly by. I could not 
quite convince myself that there was much world 
left, for I regarded Boston as the beginning and the 
end of creation. 

While we were in Boston we visited Bunker 
Hill, and there I had my first lesson in 
history. The story of the brave men who had 
fought on the spot where we stood excited me 
greatly. I climbed the monument, counting 
the steps, and wondering as I went higher and 
yet higher if the soldiers had climbed this great 
stairway and shot at the enemy on the ground 
below. 

The next day we went to Plymouth by water. 
This was my first trip on the ocean and my first 
voyage in a steamboat, How full of Ufe and 
motion it was ! But the rumble of the machinery 
made me think it was thtmdering, and I began to 
cry, because I feared if it rained we should not be 
able to have our picnic out of doors. I was more 
interested, I think, in the great rock on which the 
Pilgrims landed than in anything else in Plymouth. 
I could touch it, and perhaps that made the coming 
of the Pilgrims and their toils and great deeds seem 
more real to me. I have often held in my hand a 
little model of the Plymouth Rock which a kind 
gentleman gave me at Pilgrim Hall, and I have 
fingered its curves, the split in the centre ard the 
embossed figiires **i62o/' nnd turned over in my 



46 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

mind all that I knew about the wonderful story 
of the Pilgrims. 

How my childish imagination glowed with the 
splendour of their enterprise I I idealized them as 
the bravest and most generous men that ever sought 
a home in a strange land. I thought they desired 
the freedom of their fellow men as well as their own. 
I was keenly surprised and disappointed years later 
to learn of their acts of persecution that make us 
tingle with shame, even while we glory in the courage 
and energy that gave us our "Country Beautiful." 

Among the many friends I made in Boston were 
Mr, William Endicott and his daughter. Their 
kindness to me was the seed from which many 
pleasant memories have since grown. One day we 
visited their beautiftd home at Beverly Farms. 
I remember with delight how I went through their 
rose-garden, how their dogs, big Leo and little 
curly-haired Fritz with long ears, came to meet me, 
and how Nimrod, the swiftest of the horses, poked 
his nose into my hands for a pat and a lump of 
sugar. I also remember the beach, where for the 
first time I played in the sand. It was hard, smooth 
sand, very different from the loose, sharp sand, 
mingled with kelp and shells, at Brewster. Mr. 
Endicott told me about the great ships that came 
sailing by from Boston, boimd for Europe. I saw 
him many times after that, and he was always a 
good friend to me; indeed, I was thinking of him 
when I called Boston "the City of Kind Hearts." 



CHAPTER X 

Just before the Perkins Institution closed for the 
summer, it was arranged that my teacher and I 
shotdd spend our vacation at Brewster, on Cape 
Cod, with our dear friend, Mrs. Hopkins. I was 
delighted, for my mind was full of the prospective 
joys and of the wonderful stories I had heard about 
the sea. 

My most vivid recollection of that stmimer is the 
ocean. I had always lived far inland and had never 
had so much as a whiii of salt air ; but I had read in a 
big book called "Our World" a description of the 
ocean which filled me with wonder and an intense 
longing to touch the mighty sea and feel it roar. 
So my little heart leaped high with eager excitement 
when I knew that my wish was at last to be realized, 

No sooner had I been helped into my bathing-suit 
than I sprang out upon the warm sand and without 
thought of fear plunged into the cool water. I felt 
the great billows rock and sink. The buoyant 
motion of the water filled me with an exquisite, 
quivering joy. Suddenly my ecstasy gave place to 
terror; for my foot struck against a rock and the 
next instant there was a rush of water over my head. 
I thrust out my hands to grasp some support, I 
clutched at the water and at the seaweed which 
the waves tossed in my face. But all my frantic 
efforts were in vain. The waves seemed to be 
playing a game with me, and tossed me from one to 

47 



48 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

another in their wild frolic. It was fearful ! The 
good, firm earth had slipped from my feet, and 
everything seemed shut out from this strange, 
all-enveloping element — life, air, warmth and love. 
At last, however, the sea, as if weary of its new toy, 
threw me back on the shore, and in another instant I 
was clasped in my teacher's arms. Oh, the comfort 
of the long, tender embrace ! As soon as I had 
recovered from my panic sufficiently to say anything, 
I demanded: **Who put salt in the water?" 

After I had recovered from my first experience 
in the water, I thought it great fim to sit on a big 
rock in my bathing-suit and feel wave after wave 
dash against the rock, sending up a shower of spray 
which quite covered me. I felt the pebbles rattling 
as the waves threw their ponderous weight against 
the shore ; the whole beach seemed racked by their 
terrific onset, and the air throbbed with their pulsa- 
tions. The breakers would swoop back to gather 
themselves for a mightier leap, and I clung to the 
rock, tense, fascinated, as I felt the dash and roar of 
the rushing sea ! 

I could never stay long enough on the shore. The 
tang of the tmtainted, fresh and free sea air was like 
a cool, quieting thought, and the shells and pebbles 
and the seaweed with tiny living creatures attached 
to it never lost their fascination for me. One day 
Miss Sullivan attracted my attention to a strange 
object which she had captured basking in the shallow 
water. It was a great horseshoe crab — ^the first one 
I had ever seen. I felt of him and thought it very 
strange that he should carry his house on his back. 
It suddenly occurred to me that he might make a 
delightful pet; so I seized him by the tail with both 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 49 

hands and carried him home. This feat pleased me 
highly, as his body was very heavy, and it took all 
my strength to drag him half a mile. I would not 
leave Miss Siillivan in peace until she had put the 
crab in a trough near the well where I was confident 
he would be secure. But next morning I went to 
the trough, and lo, he had disappeared ! Nobody 
knew where he had gone, or how he had escaped. 
My disappointment was bitter at the time ; but little 
by little I came to realize that it was not kind or 
wise to force this poor dumb creature out of his 
element, and after awhile I felt happy in the thought 
that perhaps he had returned to the sea. 



CHAPTER XI 

In the autumn I returned to my Southern home 
with a heart full of joyous memories. As I recall 
that visit North I am filled with wonder at the 
richness and variety of the experiences that cluster 
about it. It seems to have been the beginning of 
everything. The treasures of a new, beautiful world 
were laid at my feet, and I took in pleasure and infor- 
mation at every ttun. I lived myself into all things. 
I was never still a moment; my life was as full of 
motion as those little insects that crowd a whole 
existence into one brief day. I met many people 
who talked with me by spelling into my hand, and 
thought in joyous sympathy leaped up to meet 
thought, and behold, a miracle had been Wrought ! 
The barren places between my mind and the minds 
of others blossomed like the rose. 

I spent the autimin months with my family at our 
summer cottage, on a moimtain about fourteen mile? 
from Tusctmibia. It was called Fern Quarry, 
.because near it there was a limestone quarry, long 
since abandoned. Three frolicsome little streams 
ran through it from springs in the rocks above, leap- 
ing here and ttmibUng there in laughing cascades 
wherever the rocks tried to bar their way. The 
opening was filled with ferns which completely 
covered the beds of limestone and in places hid the 
streams. The rest of the motmtain was thickly 
wooded. Here were great oaks and splendid ever 

50 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 51. 

greens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the 
branches of which htmg garlands of ivy and mistletoe, 
and persimmon trees, the odour of which pervaded 
every nook and comer of the wood — ^an illusive, 
fragrant something that made the heart glad. In 
places the wild muscadine and scuppemong vines 
stretched from tree to tree, making arbours which 
were always full of butterflies and buzzing insects. 
It was delightftd to lose ourselves in the green 
hollows of that tangled wood in the late afternoon, 
and to smell the cool, delicious odours that came 
up from the earth at the close of day. 

Our cottage was a sort of rough camp, beautiftilly 
situated on the top of the moimtain among oaks 
and pines. The small rooms were arranged on 
each side of a long open hall. Rotind the house 
was a wide piazza, where the mountain winds blew, 
sweet with all wood-scents. We lived on the piazza 
most of the time — ^there we worked, ate and played. 
At the back door there was a great butternut tree, 
rotmd which the steps had been built, and in front 
the trees stood so close that I could touch them and 
feel the wind shake their branches, or the leaves twirl 
downward in the autumn blast. 

Many visitors came to Fern Quarry. In the 
evening, by the campfire, the men played cards and 
whiled away the hours in talk and sport. They told 
stories of their wonderful feats with fowl, fish and 
quadruped — ^how many wild ducks and turkeys they 
had shot, what " savage trout *' they had caught, and 
how they had bagged the craftiest foxes, outwitted 
the most clever 'possums and overtaken the fleetest 
deer, until I thought that surely the lion, the tiger, 
the bear and the rest of the wild tribe would not be 



52 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

at le io stand before these wily hunters. * * To-morrow 
to the. chase!" was their good-night shout as the 
circle of merry friends broke up for the night. The 
men slept in the hall outside our door, and I could 
feel the deep breathing of the dogs and the hunters 
as they lay on their improvised beds. 

At dawn I was awakened by the smell of coffee, 
the rattling of guns, and the heavy footsteps of the 
men as they strode about, promising themselves the 
greatest luck of the season. I cotdd also feel the 
stamping of the horses, which they had ridden out 
from town and hitched tinder the trees, where they 
stood all night, neighing loudly, impatient to be 
off. At last the men moimted, and, as they say in 
the old songs, away went the steeds with bridles 
ringing arid whips cracking and hounds racing 
ahead, and away went the champion hunters "with 
hark and whoop and wild halloo !*' 

Later in the morning we made preparations for a 
barbecue. A fire was kindled at the bottom of a 
deep hole in the ground, big sticks were laid cross- 
wise at the top, and meat was himg from them and 
turned on spits. Arotmd the fire squatted negroes, 
driving away the flies with long branches. The 
savoury odour of the meat made me hungry long 
before the tables were set. 

When the bustle and excitement of preparation 
was at its height, the htmting party made its appear- 
ance, struggling in by twos and threes, the men hot 
and weary, the horses covered with foam, and the 
jaded hotmds panting and dejected — and not a 
single kill ! Every man declared that he had seen 
at least one deer, and that the animal had come very 
close ; but however hotly the dogs might pursue the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 53 

game, however well the guns might be aimed, at the 
snap of the trigger there was not a deer in sight. 
They had been as forttmate as the little boy who 
said he came very near seeing a rabbit — he saw his 
tracks. The party soon forgot its disappointment, 
however, and we sat down, not to venison, but to a 
tamer feast of veal and roast pig. 

One simmier I had my pony at Fern Quarry. I 
called him Black Beauty, as I had just read the book, 
and 'he resembled his namesake in every way, from 
his glossy black coat to the white star on his fore- 
head. I spent many of my happiest hours on his 
back. Occasionally, when it was quite safe, my 
teacher would let go the leading-rein, and the pony 
sauntered on or stopped at his sweet will to eat grass 
or nibble the leaves of the trees that grew beside the 
narrow trail. 

On mornings when I did not care for the ride, my 
teacher and I would start after breakfast for a ramble 
in the woods, and allow oiirselves to get lost amid 
the trees and vines, with no road to follow except 
the paths made by cows and horses. Frequently 
we came upon impassable thickets which forced us 
to take a roundabout way. We always returned to 
the cottage with armftils of laurel, goldenrod, ferns 
and gorgeous swamp-flowers such as grow only in 
the South. 

Sometimes I would go with Mildred and my little 
cousins to gather persimmons. . I did not eat them ; 
but I -loved their fragrance and enjoyed hunting 
for them in the leaves and grass. We also went 
nutting, and I helped them open the chestnut burrs 
and break the shells of hickory-nuts and walnu+^ 
— ^the big, sweet walnuts 1 



S4 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

At the foot of the motintain there was a raihoad, 
and the children watched the trains whiz by. 
Sometimes a terrific whistle brought us to the steps, 
and Mildred told me in great excitement that a cow 
or a horse had strayed on the track. About a mile 
distant there was a trestle spanning a deep gorge. 
It was very diffictdt to walk over, the ties were wide 
apart and so narrow that one felt as if one were 
walking on knives. I had never crossed it until 
one day Mildred, Miss Sullivan and I were lost in 
the woods, and wandei-ed for hours without finding 
a path. 

Suddenly Mildred pointed with her little hand and 
exclaimed, " There's the trestle V We would have 
taken any way rather than this ; but it was late and 
growing dark, and the trestle was a short cut home. 
I had to feel for the rails with my toe ; but I was not 
afraid, and got on very well, until all at once there 
came a faint *' puff, puff" from the distance. 

"I see the train !*' cried Mildred, and in another 
minute it would have been upon us had we not 
climbed down on the crossbraces while it rushed over 
our heads. I felt the hot breath from the engine 
on my face, and the smoke and ashes almost choked 
us. As the train rumbled by, the trestle shook and 
swayed until I thought we should be dashed to the 
chasm below. With the utmost difficulty we 
regained the track. Long after dark we reached 
home and f otind the cottage empty ; the family wert 
all out hunting for us. ^ 



CHAPTER Xir 

After my first visit to Boston, I spent almost 
every winter in the North. Once 1 went on a visit 
to a New England village with its frozen lakes and 
vast snow fields. It was then that I had oppor- 
tunities such as had never been mine to enter into 
the treasures of the snow. 

I recall my surprise on discovering that a mys- 
terious hand had stripped the trees and bushes, 
leaving only here and there a wrinkled leaf. The 
birds had flown, and their empty nests in the bare 
trees were filled with snow. Winter was on hill 
and field. The earth seemed benumbed by his icy 
touch, and the very spirits of the trees had with- 
drawn to their roots, and there, curled up in the 
dark, lay fast asleep. All life seemed to have ebbed 
away, and even when the sun shone the day was 

Shrunk and cold. 
As if her veins were sapless and old. 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 

The withered grass and the bushes were transformed 
into a forest of icicles. 

Then came a day when the chill air portended 
a snowstorm. We rushed out-of-doors to feel the 
first few tiny flakes descending. Hour by hotir 
the flakes dropped silently, softly from their airy 
height to the earth, and the country became more 
nnd more level. A snowy night closed upon the 



$6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

world, and in the morning one could scarcely recog- 
nize a feature of the landscape. All the roads were 
hidden, not a single landmark was visible, only a 
waste of snow with trees rising out of it. 

In the evening a wind from the northeast sprang 
up, and the flakes rushed hither and thither in 
furious mel6e. Arotmd the great fire we sat and 
told merry tales, and frolicked, and quite forgot that 
we were in the midst of a desolate solitude, shut in 
from all communication with the outside world. 
But during the night the fury of the wind increased 
to such a degree that it thrilled us with a vasarue 
terror. The rafters creaked and strained, and the 
branches of the trees surrounding the house rattled 
and beat against the windows, as the winds rioted up 
and down the country. 

On the third day after the beginning of the storm 
the snow ceased. The sun broke through the clouds 
and shone upon a vast, undtdating white plain. 
High motmds, pyramids heaped in fantastic shapes, 
and impenetrable drifts lay scatttered in every 
direction. 

Narrow paths were shoveled through the drifts. 
I put on my cloak and hood and went out. The 
air sttmg my cheeks like fire. Half walking in the 
paths, half working our way through the lesser 
drifts, we succeeded in reaching a pine grove just 
outside a broad pasture. The trees stood motion- 
less and white like figures in a marble frieze. There 
was no odour of pine-needles. The rays of the sun 
fell upon the trees, so that the twigs sparkled like 
diamonds and dropped in showers when we touched 
them. So dazzling was the Ught, it penetrated even 
the darkness that veils my eyes. 



THE STORY OP MY LIFE 5) 

As the days wore on, the drifts gradually shrunk, 
but before they were wholly gone another storm 
came, so that I scarcely felt the earth tinder my 
feet once all winter. At intervals the trees lost their 
icy covering, and the bulrushes and underbrush 
were bare ; but the lake lay frozen and hard beneath 
the sun. 

Our favourite amusement during that winter was 
tobogganing. In places the shore of the lake riseg 
abruptly from the water's edge. Down these steep 
slopes we used to coast. We would get on our 
toboggan, a boy would give us a shove, and off we 
went ! Plunging through drifts, leaping hollows, 
swooping down upon the lake, we would shoot across 
its gleaming surface to the opposite bank. What 
joy ! What exhilarating madness 1 For one wild, 
glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to 
earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt 
cmrselves divine 1 



CHAPTER XIII 

It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to 
speak. The impulse to utter audible sounds had 
always been strong within me. I used to make 
noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the 
other hand felt the movements of my lips. I was 
pleased with anything that made a noise and liked 
to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. I also liked 
to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano 
when it was being played. Before I lost my sight 
and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after 
my illness it was f oimd that I had ceased to speak 
because I could not hear. I used to sit in my 
mother's lap all day long and keep my hands on her 
face because it amused me to feel the motions of her 
lips; and I moved my lips, too, although I had for- 
gotten what talking was. My friends say that I 
laughed and cried naturally, and for awhile I made 
many sounds and word-elements, not because they 
were a means of commimication, but because the 
need of exercising my vocal organs was imperative. 
There was, however, one word the meaning of 
which I still remembered, water. I pronounced 
it **wa-wa." Even this became less and less 
intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan 
began to teach me. I stopped using it only after 
I had learned to spell the word on my fingers. 

I had known for a long time that the people about 

S8 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE S9 

me used a method of communication different from 
mine ; and even before I knew that a deaf child could 
be taught to speak, I was conscious of dissatisfac- 
tion with the means of commimication I already 
possessed. One who is entirely dependent upon the 
manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of 
narrowness. This feeling began to agitate me with 
a vexing, forward reaching sense of a lack that 
should be filled. My thoughts would often rise and 
beat up like birds against the wind; and I persisted 
in using my lips and voice. Friends tried to dis- 
courage this tendency, fearing lest it would lead 
to disappointment. But I persisted, and an acci- 
dent soon occurred which resulted in the breaking 
down of this great barrier — I heard the story of 
Ragnhild Kaata. 

In 1890 Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of 
Laura Bridgman's teachers, and who had just 
returned from a visit to Norway and Sweden, came 
to see me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf 
and blind girl in Norway who had actually been 
taught to speak. Mrs. Lamson had scarcely 
finished telling me about this girl's success before 
I was on fire with eagerness. I resolved that I, too, 
would learn to speak. I would not rest satisfied 
until my teacher took me, for advice and assistance, 
to Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann 
School. This lovely, sweet-natured lady offered to 
teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth of 
March, 1890. 

Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my 
hand lightly over her face, and let me feel the posi- 
tion of her tongue and lips when she made a sound. 
I was eager to imitate every motion and in an hout 



6o THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

had learned six elements of speech : M, P, A, S, T, I. 
Miss Fuller gave me eleven lessons in all, I shaU 
never forget the surprise and delight I felt when I 
uttered my first comaected sentence, *lt is warm." 
True, they were broken and stammering syllables; 
but they were human speech. • My sotd, conscious of 
new strength, came out of bondage, and was 
reaching through those broken symbols of speech 
to all knowledge and all faith. 

No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak 
the words which he has never heard — ^to come out 
of the prison of silence, where no tone of love, on 
song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the 
stillness — can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of 
discovery which came over him when he uttered 
his first word. Only such a one can appreciate the 
eagerness with which I talked to my toys, to stones, 
trees, birds and dumb animals, or the delight I felt 
when at my call Mildred ran to me or my dogs 
obeyed my commands. It is an unspeakable boon 
to me to be able to speak in winged words that need 
no interpretation. As I talked, happy thoughts 
fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps 
have struggled in vain to escape my fingers. 

But it must not be supposed that I could really 
talk in this short time. I had learned only the 
elements of speech. Miss Fuller and Miss Sullivan 
could understand me, but most people would not 
have understood one word in a hundred. Nor is it 
true that, after I had learned these elements, I did 
the rest of the work myself. But for Miss Sullivan's 
genius, tmtiring perseverance and devotion, I could 
not have progressed as far as I have toward natural 
speech. In the first place. I laboiu^d night and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 61 

day before I could be understood even by my most 
intimate friends ; in the second place, I needed Miss 
Sullivan's assistance constantly in my efforts to 
artictilate each sound clearly and to combine all 
sounds in a thousand ways. Even now she calls 
my attention every day to mispronounced words. 

All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and 
only they can at all appreciate the peculiar diffi- 
culties with which I -had to contend. In reading 
my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on my 
fingers: I had to use the sense of touch in catching 
the vibrations of the throat, the movements of the 
mouth and the expression of the face; and often 
this sense was at fault. In such cases I was forced 
to repeat the words or sentences, sometimes for 
hours, imtil I felt the proper ring in my own 
voice. My work was practice, practice, practice. 
Discouragement and weariness cast me down fre- 
quently; but the next moment the thought that I 
should soon be at home and show my loved ones 
what I had accomplished, sputrred me on, and I 
eagerly looked forward to their pleasure in my 
achievement. 

"My little sister will understand me now," was a 
thought stronger than all obstacles. I used to 
repeaX ecstatically, **I am not dtimb now.'' I could 
not be despondent while I anticipated the delight of 
talking to my mother and reading her responses from 
her lips. It astonished me to find how much easier 
it is to talk than to spell with the fingers, and I dis- 
carded the manual alphabet as a meditim of com- 
munication on my part ; but Miss Sullivan and a few 
friends still use it in speaking to me, for it is more 
convenient and more rapid than lip-reading. 



6a THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

Jtist here, perhaps, I had better explain our tise 
<if the manual alphabet, which seems to puzzle 
people who do not know us. One who reads or talks 
to me spells with his hand, using the single-hand 
manual alphabet generally employed by the deaf. 
I place my hand on the hand of the speaker so 
lightly as not to impede its movements. The 
position of the hand is as easy to feel as it is to see. 
I do not feel each letter any more than you see each 
letter separately when you read. Constant practice 
makes the fingers very flexible, and some of my 
friends spell rapidly — about as fast as an expert 
writes on a typewriter. The mere spelling is, of 
course, no more a conscious act than it is in writing. 

When I had made speech my own, I could not wait 
to go home. At last the happiest of happy moments 
arrived. I had made my homeward journey, talking 
constantly to Hiss Sulhvan, not for the sake of talk- 
ing, but determined to improve to the last minute. 
Almost before I knew it, the train stopped at the 
Tuscumbia station, and there on the platform stood 
the whole family. My eyes fill with tears now as I 
think how my mother pressed me close to her, 
speechless and trembling with delight, taking in 
every syllable that I spoke, while Uttle Mildred 
seized my free hand and kissed it and danced, and 
my father expressed his pride and affection in a big 
silence. It was as if Isaiah's prophecy had been 
fulfilled in me, *The moimtains and the hills shall 
break forth before you into singing, and all the 
trees of the field shall clap their hands l" 



CHAPTER XIV 

The winter of 1892 was darkened by the one cloud 
in my childhood's bright sky. Joy deserted my 
heart, and for a long, long time I lived in doubt, 
anxiety and fear. Books lost their charm for me, 
and even now the thought of those dreadful da3rs 
chills my heart. A little story called "The Frost 
King," which I wrote and sent to Mr. Anagnos, of 
the Perkins Institution for the Blind, was at the 
root of the trouble. In order to make the matter 
clear, I must set forth the facts connected with this 
episode, which justice to my teacher and to myself 
compels me to relate. 

I wrote the story when I was at home, the autumn 
after I had learned to speak. We had stayed up at 
Pern Quarry later than usual. While we were there, 
Miss Sullivan had described to me the beauties of the 
late foliage, and it seems that her descriptions revived 
the memory of a story, which must have been read to 
me, and which I must have unconsciously retained. 
I thought then that I was "making up a story," as 
children say, and I eagerly sat down to write it 
before the ideas should slip from me. My thoughts 
flowed easily ; I felt a sense of joy in the composition. 
Words and images came tripping to my finger ends, 
and as I thought out sentence after sentence, I 
wrote them on my braille slate. Now, if words 
and images come to me without effort, it is a pretty 



63 



64 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

sure sign that they are not the offspring of my own 
mind, but stray waifs that I regretfully dismiss. 
At that time I eagerly absorbed everything I read 
without a thought of authorship, and even now I 
cannot be quite sure of the boundary line between 
my ideas and those I find in books. I suppose that 
is because so many of my impressions come to me 
through the medium of others' eyes and ears. 

When the story was finished, I read it to my 
teacher, and I recall now vividly the pleasure I felt 
in the more beautiful passages, and my annoyance 
at being interrupted to have the pronounciation of 
a word corrected. At dinner it was read to the 
assembled family, who were surprised that I could 
write so well. Some one asked me if I had read it 
in a book. 

This question surprised me very much ; for I had 
not the faintest recollection of having had it read 
to me. I spoke up and said, " Oh, no, it is my story, 
and I have written it for Mr. Anagnos." 

Accordingly I copied the story and sent it to him 
for his birthday. It was suggested that I should 
change the title from "Autunin Leaves'' to "The 
Frost King," which I did. I carried the little story 
to the post-office myself, feeling as if I were walking 
on air. I little dreamed how cruelly I should pay 
for that birthday gift. 

Mr. Anagnos was delighted with "The Frost 
Kmg,'' and published it in one of the Perkins 
Institution reports. This was the pinnacle of my 
happiness, from which I was in a little while dashed 
to earth. I had been in Boston only a short time 
ivhen it was discovered that a story similar to "The 
Frost King,'' called "The Frost Fairies '' by Miss 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 65 

Margaret T. Canby, had appeared before I was bom 
in a book called " Birdie and His Friends." The two 
stories were so much alike in thought and language 
that it was evident Miss Canby's story had been 
read to me, and that mine was — a, plagiarism. It 
was difficult to make me tmderstand this ; but when 
I did understand I was astonished and grieved. No 
child ever drank deeper of the cup of bitterness 
than I did. I had disgraced myself; I had brought 
suspicion upon those I loved best. And yet how 
could it possibly have happened? I racked my 
brain until I was weary to recall anything about the 
frost that I had read before I wrote "The Frost 
King"; but I could remember nothing, except the 
common reference to Jack Frost, and a poem for 
children, "The Freaks of the Frost," and I knew I 
had not used that in my composition. 

At first Mr. Anagnos, though deeply troubled, 
seemed to believe me. He was unusually tender 
and kind to me, and for a brief space the shadow 
lifted. To please him I tried not to be unhappy, 
and to make myself as pretty as possible for the 
celebration of Washington's birthday, which took 
place very soon after I received the sad news. 

I was to be Ceres in a kind of masque given 
by the blind girls. How well I remember the grace- 
ful draperies that enfolded me, the bright autumn 
leaves that wreathed my head, and the fruit and 
grain at my feet and in my l>ands, and beneath all 
the gaiety of the masque le oppressive sense of 
coming ill that made my ht«.it heavy. 

The night before the ce..eoration, one of the 
teachers of the Institution h-id asked me a ques- 
tion connected with "The Frost King," and I was 



66 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

itelling her that Miss Sullivan had talked to me 
about Jack Frost and his wonderful works. Some- 
thing I said made her think she detected in my 
words a confession that I did remember Miss 
Canby's story of * ' The Frost Fairies,'' and she laid 
her conclusions before Mr. Anagnos, although I had 
told her most emphatically that she was mistaken. 

Mr. Anagnos, who loved me tenderly, thinking that 
he had been deceived, turned a deaf ear to the plead- 
ings of love and innocence. He believed, or at 
least suspected, that Miss Sullivan and I had delib- 
erately stolen the bright thoughts of another and 
imposed them on him to win his admiration. I was 
brought before a court of investigation composed 
of the teachers and officers of the Institution, and 
Miss Sullivan was asked to leave me. Then I was 
questioned and cross-questioned with what seemed 
to me a determination on the part of my judges to 
force me to acknowledge that I remembered having 
had ** The Frost Fairies " read to me. I felt in every 
question the doubt and suspicion that was in their 
minds, and I felt, too, that a loved friend was looking 
at me reproachfully, although I could not have put 
all this into words. The blood pressed about my 
thumping heart, and I could scarcely speak, except 
in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it 
was only a dreadftd mistake did not lessen my suffer- 
ing, and when at last I was allowed to leave the 
room, I was dazed and did not notice my teacher's 
caresses, or the tender words of my friends, who said 
I was a brave little girl and they were proud of me. 

As I lay in my bed that night, I wept as I hope 
few children have wept. I felt so cold, I imagined 
I should die before morning, and the thought con)- 



THE S^TORY OF MY LIFE 67 

foirt6dmt. I think if this sorrow had come to me 
when I was older, it would have broken my spirit 
beyond repairing. But the angel of forgetfulness 
has gathered up and carried away much of 
the misery and all the bitterness of those sad 
days. 

Miss Sullivan had never heard of "The Frost 
Fairies'' or of the book in which it was published. 
With the assistance of Dr. Alexander Graham 
Bell, she investigated the matter carefully, and at 
last it came out that Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins had a 
copy of Miss Canby's "Birdie and His Friends" in 
1888, the year that we spent the summer with her 
at Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to find her 
copy; but she has told me that at that time, while 
Miss SulHvan was away on a vacation, she tried to 
amuse me by reading from various books, and 
although she could not remember reading * * The 
Frost Fairies" any more than I, yet she felt sure 
that "Birdie and His Friends" was one of them. 
She explained the disappearance of the book by the 
fact that she had a short time before sold her house 
and disposed of many juvenile books, such as old 
schcx)l-books and fairy tales, and that *' Birdie and 
His Friends" was probably among them. 

The stories had little or no meaning for me then ; 
but the mere spelling of the strange words was suffi- 
cient to amuse a little child who could do almost 
nothing to amuse herself; and although I do not 
recall a single circumstance connected with the read- 
ing of the stories, yet I cannot help thinking that I 
made a great effort to remember the words, with the 
intention of having my teacher explain them when 
she returned. One thing is certain, the language 



68 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

was ineffaceably stamped upon my brain, though for 
a long time no one knew it, least of all myself. 

When Miss Sullivan came back, I did not speak 
to her about "The ?rost Fairies," probably because 
she began at once to read ** Little Lord Fatmtlercy," 
which filled my mind to the exclusion of eveiything 
else. But the fact remains that Miss Canby's story 
was read to me once, and that long after I had 
forgotten it, it came back to me so naturally tlaat I 
never suspected that it was the child of another 
mind. 

In my trouble I received many messages of love 
and sympathy. All the friends I loved best, except 
one, have remained my own to the present time. 
Miss Canby herself wrote kindly, **Some day you 
will write a great story out of your own head, that 
will be a comfort and help to many." But this kind 
prophecy has never been ftalfilled. I have never 
played with words again for the mere pleasure of 
the game. Indeed, 1 have ever since been tortured 
by the fear that wnat i write is not my own. For a 
long time, when I wrote a letter, even to my mother, 
I was seized with a sudden feeling of terror, and I 
would spell the sentences over and over, to make 
sure that I had not read them in a book. Had it 
not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss 
Sullivan, I think I should have given up trjring to 
write altogether. 

I have read *'The Frost Fairies" since, also the 
letters I wrote in which I used other ideas of Miss 
Canby's I find in one of them, a letter to Mr. 
Anagnos, dated September 29, 1891, words and senti- 
ments exactly like those of the book. At the time 
I was writing **The Frost King," and this letter. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 69 

like many others, contains phrases which show that 
my mind was saturated with the story. I represent 
my teacher as saying to me of the golden autumn 
leaves, " Yes, they are beautiful enough to comfort 
us for the flight of summer'* — ^an idea direct from 
Miss Canby's story. 

This habit of assimilating what pleased me and 
giving it out again as my own appears in much of 
my early correspondence and my first attempts at 
writing. In a composition which I wrote about 
the old cities of Greece and Italy, I borrowed my 
glowing descriptions, with variations, from sotirces 
I have forgotten. I knew Mr. Anagnos's great love 
of antiqtiity and his enthusiastic appreciation of all 
beautiful sentiments about Italy and Greece. I 
therefore gathered from all the books I read every 
bit of poetry or of history that I thought would give 
him pleasure. Mr. Anagnos, in speaking of my 
composition on the cities, has said, "These ideas are 
poetic in their essence." But I do not understand 
how he ever thought a blind and deaf child of eleven 
could have invented them. Yet I cannot think that 
because I did not originate the ideas, my little com- 
position is therefore quite devoid of interest. It 
shows me that I could express my appreciation of 
beautiful and poetic ideas in clear and animated 
language. 

Those early compositions were mental g3rmnastics. 
I was learning, as all young and inexperienced 
persons learn, by assimilation and imitation, to put 
ideas into words. Everything I foimd in books that 
pleased me I retained in my memory, consciously 
or tmconsciously, and adapted it. The yotmg 
writer, ay Stevenson has said, instinctively tries to 



70 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

copy whatever seems most admirable, and he shifts 
his admiration with astonishing versatiUty. It is 
only after years of this sort of practice that even 
great men have learned to marshal the legion of 
words which come thronging through every bjnvay 
of the mind. 

I am afraid I have not yet completed this process. 
It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my 
own thoughts from those I read, because what I read 
become the very substance and texture of my mind. 
Consequently, in nearly all that I write, I produce 
something which very much resembles the crazy 
patchwork I used to make when I first learned to 
sew. This patchwork was made of all sorts of odds 
and ends — pretty bits of silk and velvet; but the 
coarse pieces that were not pleasant to touch always 
predominated. Likewise my compositions are made 
up of crude notions of my own, inlaid with the 
brighter thoughts and riper opinions of the authors 
I have read. It seems to me that the great difficulty 
of writing is to make the language of the educated 
mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half 
thoughts, when we are Uttle more than btmdles of 
instinctive tendencies. Trying to write is very 
much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. 
We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work 
out in words ; but the words will not fit the spaces, 
or, if they do, they will not match the design. But 
we keep on trying because we know that others 
have succeeded, and we are not willing to acknowl- 
edge defeat. 

* There is no way to become original, except tc 
be bom so,'* says Stevenson, and although I may 
not be original, I hope sometime to outgrow mj? 



THE Story of my life ^ ji 

artificial, periwigged compositions. Then, perhaps, 
my own thoughts and experiences will come to 
the surface. Meanwhile I trust and hope and 
persevere, and try not to let the bitter memory 
of "The Frost King" trammel my eflEorts. 
. So this sad experience may have done me good 
and set me thinking on some of the problems of 
composition. My only regret is that it resulted in . 
the loss of one of my dearest friends, Mr. Anagnos. 

Since the publication of **The Story of My Life" 
in the Ladies* Home Journal, Mr. Anagnos has made 
a statement, in a letter to Mr. Macy, that at the 
time of the "Frost King" matter, he believed I 
was innocent. He says, the court of investigation 
before which I was brought consisted of eight people: 
four blind, four seeing persons. Four of them, 
he says, thought I knew that Miss Canby's story 
had been read to me, and the others did not hold 
this view. Mr. Anagnos states that he cast his vote 
with those who were favourable to me. 

But, however the case may have been, with 
whichever side he may have cast his vote, when I 
went into the room where Mr. Anagnos had so often 
held me on his knee and, forgetting his many cares, 
had shared in my frolics, and foimd there persons 
who seemed to doubt me, I felt that there was some- 
thing hostile and menacing in the very atmosphere, 
and subsequent events have borne out this impres- 
sion. For two years he seems to have held the belief 
that Miss Sullivan and I were innocent. Then he 
evidently retracted his favourable judgment, why 
I do not know. Nor did I know the details of the 
investigation. I never knew even the names of the 
members of the "court" who did not speak to me. 



-72 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

I was too excited to notice anything, too frightened 
to ask questions. Indeed, I could scarcely think 
what I was saying, or what was being said to me. 

I have given this account of the "Frost King" 
affair because it was important in my life and edu- 
cation; and, in order that there might be no mis- 
imderstanding, I have set forth all the facts as 
they appear to me, without a thought of defending 
myself or of laying blame on any on^. 



CHAPTER XV 

The summer and winter following the "Frost 
King*' incident I spent with my family in Alabama. 
I recall with delight that home-going. Everything 
had budded and blossomed. I was happy. "The 
Frost King" was forgotten. 

When the ground was strewn with the crimson 
and golden leaves of auttmm, and the miisk-scented 
grapes that covered the arbour at the end of the 
garden were ttiming golden brown in the sunshine, 
I began to write a sketch of my life — a year after I 
had written "The Frost King." 

I was still excessively scrupulous about everything 
I wrote. The thought that what I wrote might 
not be absolutely my own tormented me. No 
one knew of these fears except my teacher. A 
strange sensitiveness prevented me from referring 
to the " Frost King " ; and often when an idea flashed 
out in the course of conversation I would spell softly 
to her, " I am not sure it is mine." At other times, 
in the midst of a paragraph I was writing, I said to 
myself, "Suppose it should be foimd that all this 
was written by some one long ago ! " An impish fear 
clutched my hand, so that I could not write any more 
that day. And even now I sometimes feel the same 
uneasiness and disqtiietude. Miss Sullivan consoled 
and helped me in every way she could think of ; but 
the terrible experience I had passed through left a 
lasting impression on my mind, the significance of 

73 



74 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

which I am only jtist beginning to tmderstand. It 
was with the hope of restoring my self-confidence 
that she perstiaded me to write for the Youth's 
Companion a brief account of my Kfe. I was then 
twelve years old. As I look back on my struggle 
to write that little story, it seems to me that I must 
have had a prophetic vision of the good that would 
come of the undertaking, or I should surely have 
failed. 

I wrote timidly, fearfully, but resolutely, urged 
on by my teacher, who knew* that if I persevered, I 
should find my mental foothold again and get a grip 
on my faculties. Up to the time of the "Frost 
King" episode, I had lived the unconscious life 
of a little child; now my thoughts were turned 
inward, and I beheld things invisible. Gradually 
I emerged from the penumbra of that experience 
with a mind made clearer by trial and with a 
truer knowledge of life. 

The chief events of the year 1893 were my trip 
to Washington during the inauguration of President 
Cleveland, and visits to Niagara and the World's 
Fair. Under such circtimstances my studies were 
constantly interrupted and often put aside for many 
weeks, so that it is impossible for me to give a con- 
nected account of them. 

We went to Niagara in March, 1893. It is difficult 
to describe my emotions when I stood on the point 
which overhangs the American Falls and felt the air 
vibrate and the earth tremble. 

It seems strange to many people that I should be 
impressed by the wonders and beauties of Niagara. 
They are always asking: "What does this beauty 
or that music mean to you? You cannot see the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 73 

waves rolling up the beach or hear their roar. 
What do they mean to you?" In the most evident 
sense they mean everything. I cannot fathom or 
define their meaning any more than I can fathom 
or define love or religion or goodness. 

During the summer of 1893, Miss Sullivan and I 
visited the World's Fair with Dr. Alexander 
Graham Bell. I recall with unmixed delight those 
days when a thousand childish fancies became 
beautiful realities. Every day in imagination I 
made a trip round the world, and I saw many 
wonders from the uttermost parts of the earth — 
marvels of invention, treasures of industry and skill 
and all the activities of htiman life act^ialiy passed 
under my finger tips. 

I liked to visit the Midway Plaisance. It seemed 
like the "Arabian Nights," it v/as crammed so full 
of novelty and interest. Here was the India of my 
books in the curious bazaar with its Shivas and 
elephant-gods; there was the land of the Pyramids 
concentrated in a model Cairo with its mosques 
and its long processions of camels ; yonder were the 
lagoons of Venice, where we sailed every evening 
when the city and the fountains were illtmiinated. 
I also went on board a Viking ship which lay a short 
distance from the little craft. I had been on a 
man-of-war before, in Boston, and it interested me 
to see, on this Viking ship, how the seaman was once 
all in all — ^how he sailed and took storm and calm 
alike with undatinted heart, and gave chase to 
whosoever reechoed his cry, "We are of the sea !" 
and fought with brains and sinews, self-reliant, 
self-sufficient, instead of being thrust into the back-i 
ground by unintelligent machinery, as Jack ift 



76 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

to-day. So it always is — " man only is interesting 
to man." 

At a little distance from this ship there was a 
model of the Santa Mariay w^hich I also examined. 
The captaia showed me Columbus's cabin and the 
desk with an hour-glass on it. This small instru- 
ment impressed me most because it made me think 
how weary the heroic navigator must have felt as 
he saw the sand dropping grain by grain while 
desperate men were plotting against his life. 

Mr. Higinbotham, President of the World's 
Fair, kindly gave me permission to touch the 
exhibits, and with an eagerness as insatiable as 
that with which Pizarro seized the treasures of 
Peru, I took in the glories of the Fair with my 
fingers. It was a sort of tangible kaleidoscope, 
this white city of the West. Everything fascinated 
me, especially the French bronzes. They were so 
lifelike, I thought they were angel visions which the 
artist had caught and botmd in earthly forms. 

At the Cape of Good Hope exhibit, I learned much 
about the processes of mining diamonds. Whenever 
it was possible, I touched the machinery while it 
was in motion, so as to get a clearer idea how the 
stones were weighed, cut, and polished- I searched 
in the washings for a diamond and fotind it myself 
— the only true diamond, they said, that was ever 
found in the United States. 

Dr. Bell went everywhere with us and in his 
own delightftil way described to me the objects of 
greatest interest. In the electrical building we 
examined the telephones, autophones, phonographs, 
and other inventions, and he made me tinderstand 
how it is possible to send a message on wires that 



THE STORY OP MY LIFE 77 

mock space and outrun time, and, like Prometheus, 
to draw fire from the sky. We also visited the 
anthropological department, and I was much inter 
ested in the relics of ancient Mexico, in the rud^ stone 
implements that are so often the only record of an 
age — ^the simple monuments of nature's tinleHered 
children (so I thought as I fingered them) that »eem 
bound to last while the memorials of kings and 
sages crumble in dust away — ^and in the EgjrpMan 
mtmamies, which I shrank from touching. Fr>m 
these relics I learned more about the progress of 
man than I have heard or read since. 

All these experiences added a great many m-^ 
terms to my vocabtilary, and in the three weeks I 
spent at the Fair I took a long leap from the litt>-^ 
child's interest in fairy tales and toys to the apprr • 
elation of the real and the earnest in the workada; 
world- 



CHAPTER XVI 

Before October, 1893, 1 had studied varioiis sub- 
jects by myself in a more or less desultory mamier. 
I read the histories of Greece, Rome and the United 
States. I had a French grammar in raised print, 
and as I already knew some French, I of ten amused 
myself by composing in my head short exercises, 
using the new words as I came across them, and 
ignoring rules and other technicalities as much as 
possible. I even tried, without aid, to master the 
French pronimciation, as I found all the letters and 
soimds described in the book. Of course this was 
tasking slender powers for great ends ; but it gave me 
something to do on a rainy day, and I acquired a 
sufficient knowledge of French to read with pleasure 
La Fontaine's *' Fables," **Le Medecin Malgre Lm" 
and passages from "Athalie." 

I also gave considerable time to the improvement 
of my speech. I read aloud to Miss Sullivan and 
recited passages from my favourite poets, which I 
had committed to memory; she corrected my pro- 
nimciation and helped me to phrase and inflect. 
It was not, however, until October, 1893, after I 
had recovered from the fatigue and excitement of 
my visit to the World's Fair, that I began to hav^e 
lessons in special subjects at fixed hours. 

Miss Sullivan and I were at that time in Hulton* 
Pennsylvania, \dsiting the family of Mr. William 
Wade. Mr. Irons, a neighbour of theirs, was a good 

78 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 79 

Latin scholar; it was arranged that I should study 
under him. I remember him as a man of rare, 
sweet nature and of wide experience. He taught 
me Latin grammar principally ; but he often helped 
me in arithmetic, which I found as troublesome as 
it was uninteresting. Mr. Irons also read with me 
Tennyson's **In Memoriam." I had read many 
books before, but never from a critical point of view. 
I learned for the first time to know an author, tc 
recognize his style as I recognize the clasp of* a 
friend's hai?d. 

At first I was rather tmwilling to study Latin 
grammar. It seemed absurd to waste time analyzing 
every word I came across — noun, genitive, singular, 
feminine — ^when its meaning was quite plaino I 
thought I might just as well describe my pet in order 
to know it — order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; 
class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; indi- 
vidual, Tabby. But as I got deeper into the subject^ 
I became more interested, and the beauty of the 
language delighted me. I often amused myself by 
reading Latin passages, picking up words I tmder- 
stood and trying to make sense. I have never 
ceased to enjoy this pastime. 

There is nothing more beautiful, I think, than 
the evanescent fleeting images and sentiments pre- 
sented by a language one is just becoming familiar 
with — ^ideas that flit across the mental sky, shaped 
and tinted by capricious fancy. Miss Stillivan 
sat beside me at my lessons, spelling into my 
hand whatever Mr. Irons said, and looking up 
new wordfi for me. I was just beginning to read 
Caesar's "Gallic War" when I went to my home ir 
Alabama. 



CHAPTER XVII 

In the summer of 1894, I attended the meet 
mg at Chautauqua of the American Association 
to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. 
There it was arranged that I should go to the 
Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York 
City. I went there in October, 1894, accompanied 
by Miss Sullivan. This school was chosen especially 
for the purpose of obtaining the highest advantages 
in vocal culture and training in lip-reading. In 
addition to my work in these subjects, I studied, 
during the two years I was in the school, arithmetic, 
physical geography, French and German. 

Miss Reamy, my German teacher, could use the 
manual alphabet, and after I had acquired a small 
vocabulary, we talked together in German whenever 
we had a chance, and in a few months I could under- 
stand almost everything she said. Before the end 
of the first year I read " Wilhelm Tell" with the 
greatest delight. Indeed, I think I made more 
progress in German than in any of my other studies. 
I found French much more difficult. I studied it 
with Madame Olivier, a French lady who did not 
know the manual alphabet, and who was obliged to 
give her instruction orally. I cotild no^ read hel 
lips easily; so my progress was much slower than in 
German. I managed, however, to read " Le Medecin 
Malgre Lui" again. It was very amusing; but I did 
not like it nearly so well as " Wilhelm Tell." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 8i 

My progress in lip-reading and speech was not what 
my teachers and I had hoped and expected it would 
be. It was my ambition to speak like other people, 
and my teachers believed that this could be accom- 
plished ; but, although we worked hard and faithfully 
yet we did not qtiite reach our goal. I suppose we 
aimed too high, and disappointment was therefore 
inevitable. I still regarded arithmetic as a system 
of pitfaUs. I himg about the dangerous frontier 
of ** guess," avoiding with infinite trouble to myself 
and others the broad valley of reason. When 
I was not guessing, I was jumping at conclusions, 
and this fault, in addition to my dullness, 
aggravated my difficulties more than was right or 
necessary. 

But although these disappointments caused me 
great depression at times, I pursued my other 
studies with unflagging interest, especially physical 
geography. It was a joy to learn the secrets of 
nature: how — in the picturesque language of the 
Old Testament — ^the winds are made to blow from 
the four comers of the heavens, how the vapours 
ascend from the ends of the earth, how rivers are 
cut out among the rocks, and motintains overturned 
by the roots, and in what ways man may overcome 
many forces mightier than himself. The two years 
in New York were happy ones, and I look back to 
them with genuine pleasure. 

I remember especially the walks we aU took 
together every day in Central Park, the only part of 
the city that was congenial to me. 1 never lost a 
jot of my delight in this great park. I loved to have 
it described every time I entered it; for it was 
beautiful in all its aspects, and these aspects werf 



82 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

so many that it was beautiful in a different way each 
day of the nine months I spent in New York. 

In the spring we made excursions to various 
places of interest. We sailed on the Hudson River 
and wandered about on its green banks, of which 
Bryant loved to sing. I liked the simple, wild 
grandeur of the palisades. Among the places I 
visited were West Point, Tarry town, the home 
of Washington Irving, where I walked through 
"Sleepy Hollow." 

The teachers at the Wright-Humason School were 
always planning how they might give the pupils 
every advantage that those who hear enjoy — how 
they might make much of few tendencies and 
passive memories in the cases of the little ones — 
and lead them out of the cramping circumstances 
in which their lives were set. 

Before I left New York, these bright days were 
darkened by the greatest sorrow that I have ever 
borne, except the death of my father. Mr. John P. 
Spaulding, of Boston, died in February, 1896. 
Only those who knew and loved him best can 
understand what his friendship meant to me. 
He, who made every one happy in a beautiful, 
unobtrusive way, was most kind and tender to Miss 
Sullivan and me. So long as we felt his loving 
presence and knew that he took a watchful interest 
in our work, fraught with so many difficulties, we 
cotdd not be discotiraged. His going away left a 
vacancy in our lives that has never been filled. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

In October, 1896, 1 entered the Cambridge School 
for Yoting Ladies, to be prepared for Radcliffe. 

When I was a little girl, ' I visited Wellesley 
and surprised my friends by the announcement, 
"Some day I shall go to college — but I shall go to 
Harvard r* When asked why I would not go to 
Wellesley, I replied that there were only girls there. 
The thought of going to college took root in my heart 
and became an earnest desire, which impelled me to 
enter into competition for a degree with seeing arid 
hearing girls, in the face of the strong opposition of 
many true and wise friends. When I left New York 
the idea had become a fixed ptirpose; and it was 
decided that I should go to Cambridge. This was 
the nearest approach I could get to Harvard and to 
the fulfillment of my childish declaration. 

At the Cambridge School the plan was to have 
Miss Sullivan attend the classes with me and 
interpret to me the instruction given. 

Of course my instructors had had no experience 
in teaching any but normal pupils, and my only 
means of conversing with them was reading 
their lips. My studies for the first year were 
English history, English literature, German, Latin, 
arithmetic, Latin composition and occasional 
themes. Until then I had never taken a course of 
study with the idea of preparing for college ; but I 
had been well drilled in Enghsh by Miss Sullivan, 

83 



84 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

and it soon became evident to my teachers that I 
needed no special instruction in this subject beyond 
a critical study of the books prescribed by the 
college. I had had, moreover, a good start in 
French, and received six months' instruction in 
Latin; but German was the subject with which I 
was most familiar. 

In spite, however, of these advantages, there 
were serious drawbacks to my progress. Miss 
Sullivan could not spell out in my hand all that the 
books required, and it was very difficult to have 
text-books embossed in time to be of use to me, 
although my friends in London and Philadelphia 
were willing to hasten the work. For a while, 
indeed, I had to copy my Latin in braille, so that 
I could recite with the other girls. My instructors 
soon became sufficiently familiar with my imperfect 
speech to answer my questions readily and correct 
mistakes. I could not make notes in class or write 
exercises; but I wrote all my compositions and 
translations at home on my typewriter. 

Each day Miss Sullivan went to the classes with 
me and spelled into my hand with infinite patience 
all that the teachers said. In study hours she had 
to look up new words for me and read and reread 
notes and books I did not have in raised print. The 
teditun of that work is hard to conceive. Fran 
Grote, my German teacher, and Mr. Oilman, the 
principal, were the only teachers in the school who 
learned the finger alphabet to give me instruction. 
No one realized more fully than dear Frau Grote 
how slow and inadequate her spelling was. Never- 
theless, in the goodness of her heart she labouriously 
expelled out her instructions to me in special lesson? 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 85 

twice a week, to give Miss Sullivan a little resto 
But, though everybody was kind and ready to help 
us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery 
into pleasure. 

That year I finished arithmetic, reviewed my 
Latin grammar, and read three chapters of Caesar's 
•'Gallic War/* In German I read, partly with my 
fingers and partly with Miss Sullivan's assistance, 
Schiller's **Lied von der Glocke" and "Taucher/* 
Heine's " Harzreise,** Freytag's "Aus dem Staat 
Friedrichs des Grossen," Riehl's "Fluch Dei^ 
Schonheit,*' Lessing's " Minna von Bamhelm," and 
Goethe's " Aus meinem Leben," I took the greatest 
delight in these German books, especially Schiller's 
wonderful Ijnrics, the history of Frederick the Great's 
magnificent achievements and the account of 
Goethe's life. I was sorry to finish "Die Harz^ 
reise," so full of happy witticisms and charming 
descriptions of vine-clad hills, streams that sing and 
ripple in the sunshine* and wild regions, sacred to 
tradition and legend, the gray sisters of a long- 
vanished, imaginative age — descriptions such as 
can be given only by those to whom nature is "a 
feeling, a love and an appetite.'* 

Mr. Oilman instructed me part of the year in 
English literature. We read together "As You 
Like It," Burke's "Speech on Conciliation with 
America," and Macaulay's "Life of Samuel 
Johnson." Mr, Oilman's broad views of history 
and literature and his clever explanations made 
my work easier and pleasanter than it could have 
been had I only read notes mechanically with thft 
necessarily brief explanations given in the classeSo 

Burke's speech was more instructive thar any 



S6 THE STORY OF MY LIFJB 

other book on a political subject that I had ever 
read. My mind stirred with the stirring times, and 
the characters rotmd which the life of two contend- 
ing nations centred seemed to move right before 
me. 1 wondered more and more, while Burke's 
masterly speech rolled on in mighty surges of 
eloquence, how it was that King George and his 
ministers could have turned a deaf ear to liis warn- 
ing prophecy of our victoiy and their humiliation. 
Then I entered into the melancholy details of the 
relation in which the great statesman stood to his 
party and to the representatives of the people. I 
thought how strange it was that such precious seeds 
of truth and wisdom should have fallen among the 
tares of ignorance and corruption. 

In a different way Macaulay's "Life of Samuel 
Johnson" was interesting. My heart went out to 
the lonely man who ate the bread of affliction in 
Grub Street, and yet, in the midst of toil and cruel 
suffering of body and soul, always had a kind word, 
and lent a helping hand to the poor and despised. 
I rejoiced over all his successes, I shut my eyes to 
his faults, and wondered, not that he had them, but 
that they had not crushed or dwarfed his soul. But 
in spite of Macaulay's brilliancy and his admirable 
faculty of making the commonplace seem fresh and 
picturesque, his positiveness wearied me at times, 
and his frequent sacrifices of truth to effect kept 
me in a questioning attitude very imlike the atti- 
tude of reverence in which I had listened to the 
Demosthenes of Great Britain. 

At the Cambridge school, for the first time in my 
life, I enjoyed the companionship of seeing and hear^ 
ing girls of my own age. I lived with several others 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE %^ 

in one of the pleasant houses connected with the 
school, the house where Mr. Howells used to live, 
and we all had the advantage of home life. I joined 
them in many of their games, even blind man's 
buff and frolics in the snow ; I took long walks with 
them; we discussed our studies and read aloud the 
things that interested us. Some of the girls learned 
to speak to me, so that Miss Sullivan did not have 
to repeat their conversation. 

At Christmas, my mother and little sister spent 
the holidays with me, and Mr. Oilman kindly offered 
to let Mildred study in his school. So Mildred 
stayed with me in Cambridge, and for six happy 
months we were hardly ever apart. It makes me 
most happy to remember the hours we spent helping 
each other in study and sharing our recreation 
together. 

I took my preliminary examinations for Radcliffe 
from the 2 9th of Jtme to the 3rd of July in 1 89 7 . The 
subjects I offered were Elementary and Advanced 
German, French, Latin, English, and Greek and 
Roman history, making nine hotirs in all, I passed 
in everything, and received "honours" in German 
and English. 

Perhaps an explanation of the method that was 
in use when I took my examinations will not be 
amiss here. The student was required to pass in 
sixteen hours — ^twelve hours being called elementary 
and four advanced. He had to pass five hours at 
a time to have them counted. The examination 
papers were given out at nine o'clock at Harvard 
and brought to Radcliffe by a special messenger. 
Each candidate was known, not by his name, 
but by a number. I was No. 233, but, as .1 



88 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

had to use a typewriter, my identity cotild not be 
concealed. 

It was thought advisable for me to have my 
examinations in a room by myself, because the noise 
of the typewriter might disturb the other girls. 
Mr. Oilman read all the papers to me by means of 
the manual alphabet. A man was placed on .guard 
at the door to prevent interruption. 

The first day I had German. Mr. Oilman sat 
beside me and read the paper through first, then 
sentence by sentence, while I repeated the words 
aloud, to make sure that I understood him perfectly. 
The papers were difficult, and I felt very anxious as 
I wrote out my answers on the typewriter. Mr. 
Oilman spelled to me what I had written, and I made 
such changes as I thought necessary, and he inserted 
them. I wish to say here that I have not had this 
advantage since in any of my examinations. At 
Radcliffe no one reads the papers to me after they 
are written, and I have no opportimity to correct 
errors unless I finish before the time is up. In 
that case I correct only such mistakes as I can 
recall in the few minutes allowed, and make notes 
of these corrections at the end of my paper. If I 
passed with higher credit in the preliminaries than 
in the finals, there are two reasons. In the finals, 
no one read my work over to me, and in the 
preliminaries I offered subjects with some of which 
I was in a measure familiar before my work in the 
Cambridge school ; for at the beginning of the year 
I had passed examinations in English, History, 
French and Oerman, which Mr. Oilman gave me 
from previous Harvard papers. 

Mr. Oilman sent my written work to the examiners 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 89 

with a certificate that I, candidate No. 233, had 
written the papers. 

All the other preliminary examinations were 
conducted in the same manner. None of them was 
so diJBficult as the first. I remember that the day 
the Latin paper was brought to us, Professor 
Schilling came in and informed me I had passed 
satisfactorily in German. This encouraged me 
greatly, and I sped on to the end of the ordeal 
with a light heart and a steady hand. 



CHAPTER XIX 

When I began my second year at the Gilman 
school, I was full of hope and determination to 
succeed. But during the first few weeks I was con- 
fronted with unforeseen difficulties. Mr. Gilman had 
agreed that that year I should study mathematics 
principally. I had physics, algebra, geometry, 
astronomy, Greek and Latin. Unforttmately, many 
of the books I needed had not been embossed in 
time for me to begin with the classes, and I lacked 
important apparatus for some of my studies. The 
classes I was in were very large, and it was impossible 
for the teachers to give me special instruction. 
Miss Sullivan was obliged to read all the books to me, 
and interpret for the instructors, and for the first 
time in eleven years it seemed as if her dear hand 
would not be equal to the task. 

It was necessary for me to write algebra and 
geometry in class and solve problems in physics, and 
this I could not do until we bought a braille writer, 
by means of which I could put down the steps and 
processes of my work. I could not follow with my 
eyes the geometrical figures drawn on the black- 
board, and my only means of getting a clear idea of 
them was to make them on a cushion with straight 
and curved wires, which had bent and pointed ends. 
I had to carry in my mind, as Mr. Keith says in his 
report, the lettering of the figures, the hypothesis 
and conclusion, the construction and the process of 

90 



THE STORY OF MY LIFF 91 

the proof. In a word, every study had its obstacles. 
Sometimes I lost all coxirage and betrayed my 
feelings in a way I am ashamed to remember, 
especially as the signs of my trouble were afterward 
used against Miss Sullivan, the only person of all the 
kind friends I had there, who could make the crooked 
straight and the rough places smooth. 

Little by little, however, my difficulties began to 
disappear. The embossed books and other appa- 
ratus arrived, and I threw myself into the work with 
renewed confidence. Algebra and geometry were 
the only studies that continued to defy my efforts 
to comprehend them. As I have said before, I 
had no aptitude for mathematics; the different 
points were not explained to me as fully as I wished. 
The geometrical diagrams were particularly vexing 
becatise I could not see the relation of the different 
parts to one another, even on the cushion. It was 
not tmtil Mr. Keith taught me that I had a clear 
idea of mathematics. 

I was beginning to overcome these difficulties 
when an event occurred which changed everj^hing. 

Just before the books came, Mr. Oilman had begun 
to remonstrate with Miss Sullivan on the ground 
that I was working too hard, and in spite of my 
earnest protestations, he reduced the ntimber of 
my recitations. At the beginning we had agreed 
that I should, if necessary, take five years to prepare 
for college, but at the end of the first year the 
success of my examinations showed Miss Sullivan, 
Miss Harbaugh (Mr. Oilman's head teacher), and 
one other, that I could without too much effort 
complete my preparation in two years more. Mr. 
Oilman at first agreed to this; bvtwhen my tasks 



92 THE STORY QF MY LIFE 

had become somewhat perplexing, he insisted that 
I was overworked, and that I shotdd remain at his 
school three years longer, I did not like his plan, 
for I wished to enter college with my class. 

On the seventeenth of November I was not very- 
well, and did not go to school. Although Miss 
Sullivan knew that my indisposition was not serious, 
yet Mr. Oilman, on hearing of it, declared that 
I was breaking down and made changes in my 
studies which would have rendered it impossible for 
me to take my. final examinations with my class. 
In the end the difference of opinion between Mr. 
Oilman and Miss Sullivan resulted in my mother's 
withdrawing my sister Mildred and me from the 
Cambridge School. 

After some delay it was arranged that I should 
continue my studies under a tutor, Mr. Merton S. 
Keith, of Cambridge. Miss Sullivan and I spent the 
rest of the winter with otir friends, the Chamberlins 
in Wrentham, twenty-five miles from Boston. 

From February to July, 1898, Mr. Keith came out 
to Wrentham twice a week, and taught me algebra, 
geometry, Oreek and Latin. Miss Sullivan inter- 
preited his instruction. 

In October, 1898, we returned to Boston. For 
eight months Mr. Keith gave me lessons five times a 
week, in periods of about an hotir. He explained 
each time what I did not understand in the previous 
lesson, assigned new work, and took home with him 
the Oreek exercises which I had written during th3 
week on my typewriter, corrected them fully, and 
returned them to me. 

In this way my preparation for college went 
on without interruption. I f oimd it much easier and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 93 

pleasanter to be taught by myself than to receive 
instruction in class. There was no hurry, no con- 
fusion. My tutor had plenty of time to explain 
what I did not understand, so I got on faster and did 
better work than I ever did in school. I still found 
more difficulty in mastering problems in mathe- 
matics than I did in any other of my studies. I 
wish algebra and geometry had been half as easy 
as the languages and literature. But even mathe- 
matics Mr. Keith made interesting; he succeeded in 
whittling problems small enough to get through 
my brain. He kept my mind alert and eager, and 
trained it to reason clearly, and to seek conclusions 
calmly and logically, instead of jumping wildly into 
space and arriving nowhere. He was always gentle 
and forbearing, no matter how dull I might be, and 
believe me, my stupidity would often have exhausted 
the patience of Job. 

On the 29th and 30th of June, 1899, I took my 
final examinations for Radcliffe College. The first 
day I had Elementary Greek and Advanced Latin, 
and the second day Geometry, Algebra and Advanced 
Greek. 

The college authorities did not allow Miss Sullivan 
to read the examination papers to me ; so Mr. Eugene 
C. Vining, one of the instructors at the Perkins 
Institution for the Blind, was employed to copy the 
papers for me in American braille. Mr. Vining was 
a stranger to me, and could not commtmicate with 
me, except by writing braille. The proctor was also 
a stranger, and did not attempt to commimicate 
with me in any way. 

The braille worked well enough in the languagres. 
but when it came to geometry and algebra, difficulties 



94 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

arose. I was sorely perplexed, and felt discouraged, 
wasting much precious time, especially in algebra. 
It is true that I was familiar with all literary 
braille in common use in this country — ^English, 
American, and New York Point; but the various 
signs and symbols in geometry and algebra in the 
three systems are very different, and I had used only 
the English braille in my algebra. 

Two days before the examinations, Mr. Vining 
sent me a braille copy of one of the old Harvard 
papers in algebra. To my dismay I found that it 
was in the American notation. I sat down immedi- 
ately and wrote to Mr. Vining, asking him to explain 
the signs. I rectived another paper and a table of 
signs by return mail, and I set to work to learn the 
notation. But on the night before the algebra 
examination, while I was struggling over some very 
compUcated examples, I could not tell the combina- 
tions of bracket, brace and radical. Both Mr. 
Keith and I were distressed and ftill of forebodings 
for the morrow; but we went over to the college 
a little before the exanunation began, and had 
Mr. Vining explain more fully the American 
s)mibols. 

In geometry my chief difficulty was that I had 
always been accustomed to read the propositions in 
line print, or to have them spelled into my hand; 
and somehow, although the propositions were right 
before me, I foimd the braille confusing, and could 
not fix clearly in my mind what I was reading. But 
when I took up algebra I had a harder time still. 
The signs, which I. had so lately learned, and which 
I thought I knew, perplexed me. Besides, I could 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 95 

not see what I wrote on my typewriter. I had 
always done my work in braille or in my head. 
Mr. Keith had relied too much on my ability to 
solve problems mentally, aiid had not trained me to 
write examination papers. Consequently my work 
was painfully slow, and I had to read the examples 
over and over before I could form any idea of 
what I was required to do. Indeed, I am not sure 
now that I read aU the signs correctly. I found it 
very hard to keep my wits about me. 

But I do not blame any one. The administrative 
board of Radclifle did not realize how difficult they 
were making my examinations, nor did they imder- 
stand the peculiar difficulties I had to surmotint. 
But if they tmintentionally placed obstacles in 
my way, I have the consolation of knowing that 
I overcame them all. 



CHAPTER XX 

The struggle for admission to college was ended, 
and I cotild now enter Radcliffe whenever I pleased. 
Before I entered college, however, it was thought 
best that I should study another year under Mr. 
Keith. It was not, therefore, until the fall of 1900 
that my dream of going to college was realized. 

I remember my first day at Radcliffe. It was a 
day full of interest for me. I had looked forward to 
it for years. A potent force within me, stronger 
than the persuasion of my friends, stronger even 
than the pleadings of my heart, had impelled me to 
'try my strength by the standards of those who see 
and hear. I knew that there were obstacles in the 
way; but I was eager to overcome them. I had 
taken to heart the words of the wise Roman who 
said, ** To be banished from Rome is but to live out- 
side of Rome." Debarred from the great highways 
of knowledge, I was compelled to make the journey 
across country by unfrequented roads — ^that was 
all; and I knew that in college there were many 
bypaths where I could touch hands with girls who 
were thinking, loving and struggling like me. 

I began my studies with eagerness. Before me 
I saw a new world opening in beauty and light, and 
I felt within me the capacity to know all things. 
In the wonderland of Mind I should be as free 
as another. Its people, scenery, manners, joys, 
tragedies should be Uving, tangible interpreters of 

96 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 97 

the real world. The lecture-halls seemed filled 
with the spirit of the great and the wise, and I 
thought the professors were the embodiment of 
wisdom. If I have since learned differently, I am 
not going to tell anybody. 

But I soon discovered that college was not qmte 
the romantic lyceum I had imagined. Many of the 
dreams that had deUghted my yoimg inexperience 
became beautifully less and "faded into the light 
of common day." Gradually I began to find that 
there were disadvantages in going to college. 

The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. 
I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and 
I. We would sit together of an evening and listen 
to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears 
only in leisure moments when the words of some 
loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that* 
until then had been silent. But in College there is 
no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes 
to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When 
one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the 
dearest pleasures — solitude, books and imagination 
—outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I 
ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am 
laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am 
improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoard- 
ing riches against a rainy day. 

My studies the first year were French, German, 
history, English composition and English literature. 
In the French course I read some of the works of 
Comeille, Molifere, Racine, Alfred de Musset and 
Sainte-Beuve, and in the German those of Goethe 
and Schiller. I reviewed rapidly the whole period 
of history from the fall of the Roman Empire to the 



98 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

eighteenth century, and in English literature studied 
critically Milton's poems and "Areopagitica." 

I am frequently asked how I overcome the pecu- 
Kar conditions under which I work in college. In 
the classroom I am of course practically alone. The 
professor is as remote as if he were speaking through 
a telephone. The lectures are spelled into my hand 
as rapidly as possible, and much of the individuality 
of the lecttirer is lost to me in the effort to keep in the 
race. The words rush through my hand like hotmds 
in pursuit of a hare which they often miss. But in 
this respect I do not think I am much worse off than 
the girls who take notes. If the mind is occupied 
with the mechanical process of hearing and putting 
words on paper at pell-mell speed, I should not 
think one cotild pay much attention to the subject 
under consideration or the manner in which it is 
presented. I cannot make notes during the lectures, 
because my hands are busy Ustening. Usually I 
jot down what I can remember of them when I 
get home. I write the exercises, daily themes, 
criticisms and hour-tests, the mid-j'^ear and final 
examinations, on m)'- typewriter, so that the profes- 
sors have no difficulty in finding out how little I 
know. When I began the study of Latin prosody, 
I devised and explained to my professor a system ot 
signs indicating the different meters and quantities. 

I use the Hammond typewriter. I have tried 
many machines, and I find the Hammond is the 
best adapted to the peculiar needs of my work. 
With this machine movable type shuttles can be 
used, and one can have several shuttles, each 
with a different set of characters — Greek, French, 
or mathematical, according to the. kind of writinjr 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 99 

one wishes to do on the typewriter. Without it, I 
doubt if I could go to college. 

Very few of the books required in the various 
courses are printed for the blind, and I am obliged 
to have them spelled into my hand. Consequently 
I need more time to prepare my lessons than other 
girls. The manual part takes longer, and I have 
perplexities which they have not. There are days 
when the close attention I must give to details chafes 
my spirit, and the thought that I must spend hours 
reading a few chapters, while in the world without 
other girls are laughing and singing and dancing, 
makes me rebellious; but I soon recover my buoy- 
rncy and laugh the discontent out of my heart 
For, after all, every one who wishes to gain truG 
knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, 
and si^ce there is no royal road to the summit, I 
must zigzag it in my own way. I slip back many 
times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of 
hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again 
and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel 
encouraged, I get more eager and cUmb higher and 
begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle 
is a victory. One more effort and I reach the 
luminotis cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the 
uplands of my desire. I am not always alone, how- 
ever, in these struggles. Mr. William Wade and 
Mr. E. E. Allen, Principal of the Pennsylvania 
Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, get 
for me many of the books I need in raised print. 
Their thoughtfulness has been more of a help and 
encoiiragement to me than they can ever know. 

Last year, my second year at Radcliffe, I studied 
English composition, the Bible as English literature, 



100 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

the governments of America and Etirope, the Odes of 
Horace, and Latin comedy. The class in composi- 
tion was the pleasantest. It was very lively. The 
lectures were always interesting, vivacious, witty; 
for the instructor, Mr. Cliarles Townsend Copeland, 
more than any one else I have had until this 
year, brings before you literature in all its 
original freshness and power. For one short 
hour you are permitted to drink in the eternal 
beauty of the old masters without needless inter- 
pretation or exposition. You revel in their fine 
thoughts. You enjoy with all your soul the sweet 
thunder of the Old Testament, forgetting the exist- 
ence of Jahweh and Elohim ; and you go home feel- 
ing that you have had '* a glimpse of that perfection 
in which spirit and form dwell in immortal har- 
mony; truth and beauty bearing a new growth 
on the ancient stem of time." 

This year is the happiest because I am 
studying subjects that especially interest me, 
economics, Elizabethan literature, Shakespeare 
under Professor George L. Kittredge, and the 
History of Philosophy under Professor Josiah 
Royce. Through philosophy one enters with sym- 
pathy of comprehension into the traditions of 
remote ages and other modes of thought, which 
erewhile seemed alien and without reason. 

But college is not the universal Athens I thought 
it was. There one does not meet the great and the 
wise face to face; one does not even feel their Hving 
touch. They are there, it is true; but they seem 
mummified. We must extract them from the, 
crannied wall of learning and dissect and analyze 
them before we can be sure that we have a Milton or 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE loi 

an Isaiah, and not merely a clever imitation. Many 
scholars forget, it seems to me, that our enjoyment of 
the great works of literature depends more upon the 
depth of our sympathy than upon our understand- 
ing. The trouble is that very few of their laborious 
explanations stick in the memory. The m.ind drops 
them as a branch drops its overripe fruit. It is 
possible to know a flower, root and stem and all, and 
all the processes of growth, and yet to have no appre- 
ciation of the flower fresh bathed in heaven's dew. 
Again and again I ask impatiently, " Why concern 
myself with these explanations and hypotheses?" 
They fly hither and thither in my thought like blind 
birds beating the air with ineffectual wings. I do not 
mean to object to a, thorough knowledge of the 
famous works we read. I object only to the inter- 
minable comments and bewildering criticisms that 
teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as 
there are men. But when a great scholar like 
Professor Kittredge interprets what the master said, 
it is "as if new sight were given the blind." He 
brings back Shakespeare, the poet. 

There are, however, times when I long to sweep 
away half the things I am expected to learn ; for the 
overtaxed mind cannot enjoy the treasure it has 
secured at the greatest cost. It is impossible, I 
think, to read in one day four or five different books 
in different languages and treating of widely different 
subjects, and not lose sight of the very ends for which 
one reads. When one reads hurriedly and nervously, 
having in mind written tests and examinations, 
one's brain becomes encumbered with a lot of choice 
bric-k-brac for which there seems to be little use. 
At the present time my mind is so full of hetero^ 



xoa THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

geneous matter that I almost despair of ever being 
able to put it in order. Whenever I enter the region 
that was the kingdom of my mind I feel like the 
proverbial bull in the china shop. A thousand odds 
and ends of knowledge come crashing about my head 
like hailstones, and when I try to escape them, 
theme-goblins and college nixies of all sorts pursue 
me, until I wish— oh, may I be forgiven the wicked 
wish!-^-that I might smash the idols I came to 
worship. 

But the examinations are the chief bugbears of 
my college life. Although I have faced them many 
times and cast them down and made them bite the 
dust, yet they rise again and menace me with pale 
looks, tmtil like Bob Acres I feel my courage oozing 
out at my finger ends. The days before these ordeals 
take place are spent in cramming your mind with 
mystic formulae and indigestible dates — ^unpalatable 
diets, tmtil you wish that books and science and you 
were buried in tjie depths of the sea. 

At last the ckeaded hour arrives, and you are a 
favoured being indeed if you feel prepared, and are 
able at the right time to call to your standard 
thoughts that will aid you in that supreme effort. 
It happens too often that your tnmapet call is 
unheeded. It is most perplexing and exasperating 
that just at the moment when you need your 
memory and a nice sense of discrimination, these 
faculties take to themselves wings and fly away 
The facts you have garnered with such infinite 
trouble invariably fail you at a pinch. 

"Give a brief account of Huss and his work." 
Huss ? Who was he and what did he do ? The name 
looks strangely familiar. You ransack your budget 



I THE STORY OF MY LIFE 1P3 

of historic facts much as you would hunt for a bit of 
silk in a rag-bag. You are sure it is somewhere in 
your mind near the top — ^you saw it there the other 
day when you were looking up the beginnings of the 
Reformation. But where is it now ? You fish out 
all manner of odds and ends of knowledge — ^revolu- 
tions, schisms, massacres, systems of government; 
but Huss — ^where is he ? You are amazed at all the 
things you know which are not on the examination 
paper. In desperation you seize the budget and 
dump everything out, and there in a comer is your 
man, serenely brooding on his own private thought, 
unconscious of the catastrophe which he has brought 
upon you. 

Just then the proctor informs you that the time 
is up. With a feeling of intense disgust you kick 
the mass of rubbish mto a comer and go home, your 
head full of revolutionary schemes to abolish the 
divine right of professors to ask questions without 
the consent of the questioned. 

It comes over me that in the last two or three 
pages of this chajAer I have used figures which will 
turn the laugh against me. Ah, here they are — ^the 
mixed metaphors mocking and strutting about before 
me, pointing to the bull in the china shop assailed 
by hailstones and the bugbears with pale looks, 
an unanalyzed species ! Let them mock on. The 
words describe so exactly the atmosphere of jostling, 
tumbling ideas I live in that I will wfek at them for 
once, and put on a deliberate air to say that my 
ideas of college have changed. 

While my days at Radcliff e were still in the future, 
they were encircled with a halo of romance, which 
they have lost ; but in the transition from romantic 



t64 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

to actual I have learned many things I should 
never have known had I not tried the experiment. 
One of them is the precious science of patience, 
which teaches us that we should take our education 
as we would take a walk in the country, leisurely, 
our minds hospitably open to impressions of every 
sort. Such knowledge floods the soul imseen with 
a soundless tidal wave of deepening thought. 
"Knowledge is power.*' Rather, knowledge is 
happiness, because to have knowledge — ^broad, deep 
knowledge — is to know true ends from false, and 
lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and 
deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel 
the great heart-throbs of humanity through the 
centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsa- 
tions a heavenward striving, one must indeed be 
dfiaf to the harmonies of life. 



CHAPTER XXI 

I HAVB thus far sketched the events of my life, 
but I have not shown how much I have depended 
on books not only for pleasure and for the wisdom 
they bring to all who read, but also for that knowl- 
edge which comes to others through their eyes and 
their ears. Indeed, books have meant so much 
more in my education than in that of others, that 
I shall go back to the time when I began to read. 

I read my first connected story in May, 1887, when 
I was seven years old, and from that day to this I 
have devoured everything in the shape of a printed 
page that has come within the reach of my hungry 
finger tips. As I have said, I did not study regu- 
larly during the early years of my education; nor 
did I read according to rule. 

At first I had only a few books in raised print — • 
"readers" for beginners, a collection of stories for 
children, and a book about the earth called **Our 
World." I think that was all ; but I read them over 
and over, until the words were so worn and pressed 
I could scarcely make them out. Sometimes Miss 
Sullivan read to me, spelling into my hand little 
stories and poems that she knew I should under- 
stand; but I preferred reading myself to being 
read to, because I liked to read again and again 
the things that pleased me. 

It was during my first visit to Boston that I really 
began to read in good earnest. I wa? permitted to 



io6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

Spend a part of each day in the Institution library, 
and to wander from bookcase to bookcase, and take 
down whatever book my fingers lighted upon. And 
read I did, whether I understood one word in ten 
or two words on a page. The words themselves 
fascinated me; but I took no conscious account of 
what I read. My mind must, however, have been 
very impressionable at that period, for it retained 
many words and whole sentences, to the meaning of 
which I had not the faintest clue; and afterward, 
when I began to talk and write, these words and 
sentences would flash out quite naturally, so that 
my friends wondered at the richness of my vocab- 
ulary. I must have read parts of many books (in 
those early days I think I never read any one book 
through) and a great deal of poetry in this uncom- 
prehending way, tmtil I discovered ** Little Lord 
Fauntleroy," which was the first book of any conse- 
quence I read imderstandingly. 

One day my teacher fotmd me in a comer of the 
library pouring over the pages of "The Scarlet 
Letter." I was then about eight years old. I 
remember she asked me if I liked Uttle Pearl, and 
explained some of the words that had puzzled me. 
Then she told me that she had a beautiful story 
about a little boy which she was sure I should hke 
better than ** The Scarlet Letter." The name of the 
story was "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and she 
promised to read it to me the following summer. 
But we did not begin the story imtil August; the 
first few weeks of my stay at the seashore were so full 
of discoveries and excitement that I forgot the very 
existence of books. Then my teacher went to visit 
some friends in Boston, leaving me for a short time. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 107 

When she returned almost the first thing we did 
wsiS to begin the story of ** Little Lord Fatintleroy." 
I recall distinctly the time and place when we read 
the first chapters of the fascinating child's story. It 
was a warm afternoon in August. We were sitting 
together in a hammock which swung from two solemn 
pines at a short distance from the house. We had 
hurried through the dish-washing after luncheon, 
in order that we might have as long an afternoon as 
possible for the story. As we hastened through the 
long grass toward the hammock, the grasshoppers 
sv/armed about us and fastened themselves on our 
clothes, and I rememoer that my teacher insisted 
upon picking them all off before we sat down, which 
seemed to me an unnecessary waste of time. The 
hammock was covered with pine needles, for it had 
not been used while my teacher was away. The 
warm sun shone on the pine trees and drew out all 
their fragrance. The air was balmy, with a tang of 
the sea in it. Before we began the story Miss 
Sullivan explained to me the things that she knew 
I should not tmderstand, and as we read on she 
explained the unfamiliar words. At first there were 
many words I did not know, and the reading was 
constantly interrupted ; but as soon as I thoroughly 
comprehended the situation, I became too eagerly 
absorbed in the story to notice mere words, and I 
am afraid I listened impatiently to the explanations 
that Miss Sullivan felt to be necessary. When her 
fingers were too tired to spell another word, I had for 
the first time a keen sense of my deprivations. I 
took the book in my hands and tried to feel 
the letters with an intensity of longing that I can 
never forget. 



ioS THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

Afterward, at my eager request, Mr. Anagnos had 
this story embossed, and I read it again and again, 
until I almost knew it by heart ; and all through my 
childhood "Little Lord Faimtleroy" was my sweet 
and gentle companion. I have given these details 
at the risk of being tedious, because they are in such 
vivid contrast with my vague, mutable and confused 
memories of earKer reading. 

From " Little Lord Fauntleroy " I date the begin- 
ning of my true interest in books. During the next 
two years I read many books at my home and on my 
visits to Boston. I cannot remember what they all 
were, or in what order I read them; but I know that 
among them were "Greek Heroes," La Fontaine's 
"Fables," Hawthorne's "Wonder Book," "Bible 
Stories," Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare," "A 
Child's History of England" by Dickens, "The 
Arabian Nights," "The Swiss Family Robinson," 
"The Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe," 
"Little Women," and "Heidi," a beautiful little 
story which I afterward read in German. I read them 
in the intervals between study and play with an 
ever-deepening sense of pleasure. I did not study nor 
analyze them — I did not know whether they were 
well written or not ; I never thought about style or 
authorship. They laid their treasures at my feet, 
and I accepted them as we accept the sunshine and 
the love of our friends. I loved "Little Women" 
because it gave me a sense of kinship with girls and 
boys who could see and hear. Circumscribed as my 
life was in so many ways, I had to look between the 
covers of books for news of the world that lay 
outside my own. 

I did not care especially for "The PilgriiiL*s 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 109 

Progress," which I think I did not finish, or for the 
" Fables." I read La Fontaine's " Fables" first in an 
En;?lish translation, and enjoyed them only after a 
half-hearted fashion. Later I read the book again in 
French, and I found that, in spite of the vivid word- 
pictures, and the wonderful mastery of language, I 
liked it no better. I do not know why it is, but 
stories in which animals are made to talk and act like 
human beings have never appealed to me very 
strongly. The ludicrous caricatures of the animals 
occupy my mind to the exclusion of the moral. 

Then, again. La Fontaine seldom, if ever, appeals 
to our higher moral sense. The highest chords he 
strikes are those of reason and self-love. Through 
all the fables runs the thought that man's morality 
springs wholly from self-love, and that if that self- 
love is directed and restrained by reason, happiness 
must follow. Now, so far as I can judge, self-love 
is the root of aU evil ; but, of course, I may be wrong, 
for La Fontaine had greater opportunities of observ- 
ing men than I am likely ever to have. I do not 
object so much to the cynical and satirical fables as 
to those in which momentous truths are taught by 
monkeys and foxes. 

But I love " The Jungle Book" and *' Wild Animals 
I Have Known." 1 feel a genuine interest in the 
animals themselves, because they are real animals 
and not caricatures of men. One sympathizes with 
their loves and hatreds, laughs over their comedies, 
and weeps over their tragedies. And if they point 
a moral, it is so subtle that we are not conscious 
of it. 

My mind opened naturally and joyously to a con- 
ception of antiquity. Greece, ancient Greece, exer- 



no THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

cised a mysterious fascination over me. In my 
fancy the pagan gods and goddesses still walked on 
earth and talked face to face with men, and in my 
heart I secretly built shrines to those I loved best. 
I knew and loved the whole tribe of nymphs and 
heroes and demigods — ^no, not quite all, for the 
cruelty and greed of Medea and Jason were too 
monstrous to be forgiven, and I used to wonder why 
the gods permitted them to do wrong and then 
punished them for their wickedness. And the 
mystery is still imsolved. I often wonder how 

God can diimbness keep 

While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time. 

It was the Iliad that made Greece my paradise. 
I was familiar with the story of Troy before I read 
it in the original, and consequently I had little 
difficulty in making the Greek words surrender their 
treasures after I had passed the borderland of 
grammar. Great poetry, whether written in Greek or 
in English, needs no other interpreter than a respon- 
sive heart. Would that the host of those who 
make the great works of the poets odious by their 
analysis, impositions and laborious comments 
might learn this simple truth! It is not necessary 
that one should be able to define every word and give 
it its principal parts and its grammatical position in 
the sentence in order to understand and appre- 
ciate a fine poem. I know my learned professors 
have found greater riches in the Iliad than I 
shall ever find; but I am not avaricious. I am 
content that others should be wiser than I, But 
with all their wide and comprehensive knowledge, 
they cannot measure their enjoyment of that splen- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE iii 

did epic, nor can I. When I read the finest pass- 
ages of the Iliad, I am conscious of a sotd-sense 
that lifts me above the narrow, cramping circum- 
stances of my life.. My physical limitations are 
forgotten — ^my world lies upward, the length and 
the breadth and the sweep of the heavens are 
mine ! 

My admiration for the -^neid is not so great, 
but it is none the less real. I read it as much as 
possible without the help of notes or dictionary, and 
I always like to translate the episodes that pleased 
me especially. The word-painting of Virgil is won- 
derful sometimes; but his gods and men move 
through the scenes of passion and strife and pity 
and love like the graceful figures in an Elizabethan 
mask, whereas in the Iliad they give three leaps 
and go on singing. Virgil is serene and lovely 
like a marble Apollo in the moonlight ; Homer is a 
beautiful, animated youth in the full simlight with 
the wind in his hair. 

How easy it is to fly on paper wings ! From 
'* Greek Heroes" to the Iliad was no day's journey, 
nor was it altogether pleasant. One could have 
traveled round the world many times while I trudged 
my weary way through the labyrinthine mazes of 
grammars and dictionaries, or fell into those dreadful 
pitfalls called examinations, set by schools and 
colleges for the confusion of those who seek after 
knowledge. I suppose this sort of Pilgrim's Progress 
was justified by the end ; but it seemed interminable 
to me, in spite of the pleasant surprises that met me 
now and then at a ttim in the road. 

I began to read the Bible long before I could under- 
stand it. Now it seems strange to me that there 



112 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

should have been a time when my spirit was deaf 
to its wondrous harmonies ; but I remember well a 
rainy Sunday morning when, having nothing else to 
do, I begged my cousin to read me a story out of the 
Bible. Although she did not think I should under- 
stand, she began to spell into my hand the storj- 
of Joseph and his brothers. Somehow it failed to 
interest me. The unusual language and repetition' 
made the story seem unreal and far away in the 
land of Canaan, and I fell asleep and wandered 
oflE to the land of Nod, before the brothers came with 
the coat of many colours unto the tent of Jacob and 
tc'ld their wicked lie ! I cannot understand why the 
stories of the Greeks should have been so full of 
charm for me, and those of the Bible so devoid of 
interest, unless it was that I had made the acquaint- 
ance of several Greeks in Boston and been inspired 
by their enthusiasm for the stories of their country ; 
whereas I had not met a single Hebrew or Egyptian, 
and therefore concluded that they were nothing 
more than barbarians, and the stories about 
them were probably all made up, which hypothesis 
explained the repetitions and the queer names. 
Curiously enough, it never occtirred to me to call 
Greek patronymics ** queer. " 

But how shall I speak of the glories I have since 
discovered in the Bible? For years I have read it 
with an ever-broadening sense of joy and inspiration ; 
and I love it as I love no other book. Still there is 
much in the Bible against which every instinct of 
my being rebels, so much that 1 regret the necessity 
which has compelled me to read it through from 
beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge 
which I have gained of its history and sources com- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 113 

pensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced 
upon my attention. For my part, I wish, with Mr. 
Howells, that the literature of the past might be 
purged of all that is ugly and barbarous in it, 
although I should object as much as any one to 
having these great works weakened or falsified. 

There is something impressive, awful, in the sim- 
plicity and terrible directness of the book of Esther. 
Could there be anything more dramatic than the 
scene in which Esther stands before her wicked lord ? 
She knows her life is in his hands ; there is no one to 
protect her from his wrath. Yet, conquering her 
woman's fear, she approaches him, animated by the 
noblest patriotism, having but one thought : " If I 
perish, I perish ; but if I live, my people shall live. *' 

The story of Ruth, too — how Oriental it is ! Yet 
how different is the life of these simple country folks 
from that of the Persian capital ! Ruth is so loyal 
and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as 
she stands with the reapers amid the waving com. 
Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shmes out like a bright 
star in the night of a dark and cruel age. Love like 
Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds 
and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in 
all the world. 

The Bible gives me a deep, comforting sense that 
"things seen are temporal, and things tuiseen are 
eternal. " 

I do not remember a time since I have been capable 
of loving books that I have not loved Shakespeare. 
I cannot tell exactly when I began Lamb's "Tales 
from Shakespeare"; but I know that I read them 
at first with a child's understanding and a child's 
wonder. "Macbeth" seems to have impressed me 



114 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

most. One reading was sufficient to stamp every 
detail of the story upon my memory forever. For a 
long time the ghosts and witches pursued me even 
into Dreamland. I could see, absolutely see, the 
dagger and Lady Macbeth's little white hand — ^the 
drea.dfid stain was as real to me as to the grief- 
stricken queen. 

I read ** King Lear" soon after " Macbeth, " and I 
shall never forget the feeling of horror when I came 
to the scene in which Gloster's eyes are put out. 
Anger seized me, my fingers refused to move, I sat 
rigid for one long moment, the blood throbbing in 
my temples, and all the hatred that a child can feel 
concentrated in my heart. 

I must have made the acquaintance of Shylock 
and Satan about the same time, for the two charac- 
ters were long associated in my mind. I remember 
that I was sorry for them. I felt vaguely that they 
could not be good even if they wished to, because -*o 
one seemed willing to help them or to give them a 
fair chance. Even now I cannot find it in my heart 
to condemn them utterly. There are moments 
when I feel that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even 
the Devil, are broken spokes in the great wheel of 
good which shall in due time be made whole. 

It seems strange that my first reading of Shake- 
speare should have left me so many tmpleasant 
memories. The bright, gentle, fanciful plays — ^the 
ones I like best now — ^appear not to have impressed 
me at first, perhaps because they reflected the 
habitual sunshine and gaiety of a child's life. But 
" there is nothing more capricious than the memory 
of a child : what it will hold, and what it will lose." 

I have since read Shakespeare's plays many times 



THE STORY OF MY, LIFE 115 

and know parts of them by heart, but I cannot tell 
which of them I like best. My delight in them is as 
varied as my moods. The little songs and the sonnets 
have a meaning for me as fresh and wonderful as the 
dramas. . But, with all my love for Shakespeare, it 
is often weary work to. read all the meanings into 
his lines which critics and commentators have given 
them. I used to try to remember their interpreta- 
tions, but they discouraged and vexed me ; so I made 
a secret compact with myself not to try any more. 
This compact I have only just broken in my study 
of Shakespeare tmder Professor Kittredge. I know 
there are many things in Shakespeare, and in the 
world, that I do not tinderstand ; and I am glad to 
see veil after veil lift gradvially, revealing new realms 
of thought and beauty. 

Next to poetry I love history. I have read every 
historical work that I have been able to lay my hands 
on, from a catalogue. of dry facts and dryer dates 
to Green's impartial, picturesque "History of the 
English People**; from Freeman's "History of 
Europe" to Emerton's "Middle Ages." The first 
book that gave me any real sense of the value of 
history was Swinton's "World's History," which I 
received on my thirteenth birthday. Though I 
believe it is no longer considered valid, yet I have 
kept it ever since as one of my treasures. From it 
I learned how the races of men spread from land to 
land and built great cities, how a few great rulers, 
earthly Titans, put everything under their feet, and 
with a decisive word opened the gates of happiness 
for millions and closed them upon millions more; 
how different nations pioneered in art and knowledge 
and broke grotmd for the mightier growths of coming 



ii6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

ages; how civilization underwent, as it were, the 
holocaust of a degenerate age, and rose again, like 
the Phoenix, among the nobler sons of the North ; 
and how by liberty, tolerance and education the 
great and the wise have opened the way for the 
salvation of the whole world. 

In my college reading I have become somewhat 
familiar with French and German literattire. The 
German puts strength before beauty, and truth 
before convention, both in life and in literature. 
There is a vehement, sledge-hammer vigotir about 
everything that he does. When he speaks, it is not 
to impress others, but because his heart would burst 
if he did not find an outlet for the thoughts that bum 
in his soul. 

Then, too, there is in German literature a fine 
reserve which I like; but its chief glory is the 
recognition I find in it of the redeeming potency of 
woman's self-sacrificing love. This thought per- 
vades all German literature and is mystically 
expressed in Goethe's "Faust": 

All things transitory 

But as symbols are sent. 
Earth's insufficiency 

Here grows to event. 
The indescnbable 
Here it is done. 
The Woman Soul leads us upward and on f 

Of all the French writers that I have read, I like 
Moli^re and Racine best. There are fine things in 
Balzac and passages in M6rim6e which strike one 
like a keen blast of sea air. Alfred de Musset is 
impossible! I admire Victor Hugo — I appreciate 
his genius, his brilliancy, his romanticism; though he 
is not one of my literary passions. But Hugo and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 117 

Goethe and Schiller and all great poets of all 
great nations are interpreters of eternal things, 
and my spirit reverently follows them into the 
regions where Beauty and Truth and Gioodness 
are one. 

I am afraid I have written too much about my 
book-friends, and yet I have mentioned only the 
authors I love most; and from this fact one might 
easily suppose that my circle of friends was very 
limited and tmdemocratic, which would be a very 
wrong impression. I like many writers for many 
reasons — Carlyle for his ruggedness and scorn of 
shams ; Wordsworth, who teaches the oneness of man 
and nature ; I find an exquisite pleasure in the oddities 
and surprises of Hood, in Herrick's quaintness and 
the palpable scent of lily and rose in his verses; I 
like Whittier for his enthusiasms and moral rectitude. 
I knew him, and the gentle remembrance of our 
friendship doubles the pleasure I have in reading 
his poems. I love Mark Twain — ^who does not? 
The gods, too, loved him and put into his heart all 
manner of wisdom; then, fearing lest he should 
become a pessimist, they spanned his mind with a 
rainbow of love and faith. I like Scott for his 
freshness, dash and large honesty. I love all 
writers whose minds, like Lowell's, bubble /Up in 
the stmshine of optimism — ^fotmtains of joy and 
good will, with occasionally a splash of anger and 
here and there a healing spray of sympathy and 
pity. 

In a word, literature is my Utopia. Here I am not 
disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me 
out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book- 
friends. They talk to me without embarrassment ot 



ii8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

awkwardness. The things I have learned and the 
things I have been taught seem of ridicxilously little 
importance compared with their "large loves and 
heavenly charities« " 



CHAPTER XXII 

I TRUST that my readers have not concluded from ' 
the preceding chapter on books that reading is my; 
only pleasure ; my pleastires and amusements are > 
many and varied. 

More than once in the course of my story I have *• 
referred to my love of the country and out-of-door ' 
sports. When I was quite a little girl, I learned to 
row and swim, and during the summer, when I am 
at Wrentham, Massachusetts, I almost live, in my 
boat. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to 
take my friends out rowing when they visit me. Of 
course, I cannot guide the boat very well. Some one 
usually sits in the stem and manages the rudder 
while I row. Sometimes, however, I go rowing 
without the rudder. It is fun to try to steer by the 
scent of watergrasses and lilies, and of bushes that 
grow on the shore. I use oars with leather bands, 
which keep them in position in the oarlocks, and I 
know by the resistance of the water when the oars 
are evenly poised. In the same manner I can also 
tell when I am pulling against the current. I like to 
contend with wind and wave. What is more 
exhilarating than to make your staimch little boat, 
obedient to your will and muscle, go skimming 
lightly over glistening, tilting waves, and to feel the 
steady, imperiotis surge of the water 1 

I also enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smfle 
when I say that I especially like it on moonlight 



120 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

nights. I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up 
the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the 
heavens, making a shining p9.th for us to follow; but 
I know she is there, and as I lie back among the 
pillows and put my hand in the water, I fancy that 
I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes. 
' Sometimes a daring little fish slips between my 
fingers, and often a pond-lily presses shyly against 
my hand. Frequently, as we emerge from the 
shelter of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious 
of the spaciousness of the air about me. A lumin- 
ous warmth seems to enfold me. Whether it comes 
from the trees which have been heated by the sun, 
or from the water, I can never discover. I have had 
the same strange sensation even in the heart of the 
city. I have felt it on cold, stormy days and at 
night. It is like the kiss of warm lips on my face. 

My favourite amusement is sailing. In the sum- 
mer of 1 90 1 I visited Nova Scotia, and had oppor- 
timities such as I had not enjoyed before to make 
the acquaintance of the ocean. After spending a 
few days in Evangeline's coimtry, about which 
LongfeUow's beautiful poem has woven a spell of 
enchantment. Miss Sullivan and I went to Halifax, 
where we remained the greater part of the summer. 
The harbour was our joy, our paradise. What 
glorious sails we had to Bedford Basin, to McNabb's 
Island, to York Redoubt, and to the Northwest 
Arm ! And at night what soothing, wondrous hours 
we spent in the shadow of the great, silent men-of- 
war. Oh, it was all so interesting, so beautiful ! 
The memory of it is a joy forever. 

One day we had a thrilling experience. There 
was a regatta in the Northwest Arm, in which 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 121 

the boats from the different warships were engaged. 
We went in a sail-boat along with many others to 
watch the races. Hundreds of little sail-boats swung 
to and fro close by, and the sea was calm. When the 
races were over, and we turned our faces homeward, 
one of the party noticed a black cloud dritting in 
from the sea, which grew and spread and thickened 
until it covered the whole sky. The wind rose, and 
the waves chopped angrily at unseen barriers. Our 
little boat confronted the gale fearlessly ; with sails 
spread and ropes taut, she seemed to sit upon the 
wind. Now she swirled in the billows, now she 
sprang upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven 
down with angry howl and hiss. Down came the 
mainsail. Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with 
opposing winds that drove us from side to side with 
impetuous fury. Our hearts beat fast, and our 
hands trembled with excitement, not fear; for we 
had the hearts of vikings, and we knew that our 
skipper was master of the situation. He had steered 
through many a storm with firm hand and sea -wise 
eye. As they passed us, the large craft and the 
gunboats in the harbour saluted and the seamen 
shouted applause for the master of the only little 
sail-boat that ventured out into the storm. At last, 
cold, hungry and weary, we reached our pier. 

Last summer I spent in one of the loveliest nooks 
of one of the most charming villages in New England. 
Wrentham, Massachusetts, is associated with nearly 
all of my joys and sorrows. For many years Red 
Farm, by King Philip's Pond, the home of Mr. 
J. E. Chamber lin and his family, was my home. 
I remember with deepest gratitude the kindness of 
these dear friends and the happy days I spent with 



122 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

them. The sweet companionship of their children 
meant much to me. I joined in all their sports 
and rambles through the woods and froUcs in the 
water. The prattle of the little ones and their 
pleasure in the stories I told them of elf and 
gnome, of hero and wily bear, dxe pleasant things to 
remember. Mr. Chamberlin initiated me into the 
mysteries of tree and wild-flower, until with the 
little ear of love I heard the flow of sap in the 
oak, and saw the sun glint from leaf to leaf. Thus 
it is that 

Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth. 
Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive 
Of sunshine and wide air and wing6d things, 
By sympathy of nature, so do I 

have evidence of things unseen. 

It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity 
to comprehend the impressions and emotions which 
have been experienced by mankind from the begin- 
ning. Each individual has a subconscious memory 
of the green earth and murmuring waters, and blind- 
ness and deafness cannot rob him of this gift from 
past generations. This inherited capacity is a sort 
of sixth sense — a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, 
all in one. 

I have many tree friends in Wrentham. One of 
them, a splendid oak, is the special pride of my heart. 
I take all my other friends to see this king-tree. It 
stands on a bluff overlooking King Philip's Pond, 
and those who are wise in tree lore say it must have 
stood there eight hundred or a thousand years. 
There is a tradition that under this tree King 
Philip, the heroic Indian chief, gazed his last on 
earth and sky. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 123 

I had another tree friend, gentle and more 
approachable than the great oak — a linden that 
grew in the dooryard at Red Farm. One afternoon, 
during a terrible thtinderstorm, I felt a tremendous 
crash against the side of the house and knew, even 
before they told me, that the linden had fallen. 
We went out to see the hero that had withstood 
so many tempests, and it wnmg my heart to see 
him prostrate who had mightily striven and was 
now mightily fallen. 

But I must not forget that I was going to write 
about last stimmer in particular. As soon as my 
examinations were over. Miss Sullivan and I hastened 
to this green nook, where we have a little cottage on 
one of the three lakes for which Wrentham is famous. 
Here the long, stinny days were mine, and all 
thoughts of work and college and the noisy city 
were thrust into the background. In Wrentham we 
caught echoes of what was happening in the world 
— war, alliance, social conflict. We heard of the 
cruel, unnecessary fighting in the far-away Pacific, 
and learned of the struggles going on between capi- 
tal and labour. We knew that beyond the border 
of our Eden men were making history by the sweat 
of their brows when they might better make a 
holiday. But we little heeded these things. These 
things would pass away; here were lakes and woods, 
and broad daisy-starred fields and sweet-breathed 
meadows, and they shall endure forever. 

People who think that all sensations reach us 
through the eye and the ear have expressed stirprise 
that I should notice any difference, except possibly 
the absence of pavements, between walking in city 
streets and in covintry roads. They forget that my 



124 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

whole body is alive to the conditions about me. The 
rumble and roar of the city smite the nerves of my 
face, and I feel the ceaseless tramp of an unseen 
multitude, and the dissonant ttmiult frets my spirit. 
The grinding of heavy wagons on hard pavements 
and the monotonous clangour of machinery are all 
the more torturing to the nerves if one's attention is 
not diverted by the panorama that is always present 
in the noisy streets to people who can see. 

In the country one sees only Nature's fair works, 
and one's soul is not saddened by the cruel struggle 
for mere existence that goes on in the crowded city. 
Several times I have visited the narrow, dirty streets 
where the poor live, and I grow hot and indignant to 
think that good people should be content to live in 
fine houses and become strong and beautiful, while 
others are condemned to live in hideous, stinless 
tenements and grow ugly, withered and cringing. 
The children who crowd these grimy alleys, half -clad 
and imderfed,, shrink away from your outstretched 
hand as if from a blow. Dear little creatures, they 
crouch in my heart and haunt me with a constant 
sense of pain. There are men and women, too, all 
gnarled and bent out of shape. I have felt their 
hard, rough hands and realized what an endless 
struggle their existence must be — no more than a 
series of scrimmages, thwarted attempts to do some- 
thing. Their life seems an immense disparity 
between effort and opportunity. The sun and the 
air are God's free gifts to all, we say ; but are they so ? 
In yonder city's dingy alleys the sun shines not, and 
the air is foul. Oh, man, how dost thou forget and 
obstruct thy brother man, and say, **Give tis this 
day our daily bread," when he has none! Oh, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 125 

would that mien would leave the city, its splendour 
and its tumult and its gold, and return to wood and 
field and simple, honest living ! Then would their 
children grow stately as noble trees, and their 
thoughts sweet and pure as wayside flowers. It is 
impossible not to think of all this when I rettmti to 
the country after a year of work in town. 
' What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth 
under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads 
that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my 
fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber 
over a stone wall into green fields that tumble 
and roll and climb in riotous gladness ! 

Next to a leisurely walk I enjoy a *'spin" on my 
tandem bicycle. It is splendid to feel the wind 
blowing in my face and the springy motion of my 
fron steed. The rapid rush through the air gives 
me a delicious sense of strength and buoyancy, and 
the exercise makes my pulses dance and my heart 
sing. 

Whenever it is possible, my dog accompanies me 
on a walk or ride or sail. I have had many dog 
friends-7-huge mastiffs, soft-eyed spaniels, wood- 
wise setters and honest, homely bull terriers. At 
present the lord of my affections is one of these bull 
terriers. He has a long pedigree, a crooked tail and 
the drollest '*phiz*' in dogdom. My dog friends 
seem to understand my limitations, and always 
keep close beside me when I am alone. I love 
their affectionate ways and the eloquent wag of 
their tails. 

When a rainy day keeps me indoors, I amuse 
myself after the manner of other girls. I like to 
knit and crochet ; I read in the happy-go-lucky way 



126 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

I love, here and there a Kne; or perhaps I play a 
game or two of checkers or chess with a friend. I 
have a special board on which I play these games. 
The squares are cut out, so that the men stand in 
them firmly. The black checkers are flat and the 
white ones curved on top. Each checker has a hole 
in the middle in which a brass knob can be placed 
to distinguish the king from the commons. The 
chessmen are of two sizes, the white larger than the 
black, so that I have no trouble in following my 
opponent's manoeuvers by moving my hands lightly- 
over the board after a play. The jar made by 
shifting the men from one hole to another tells me 
when it is my turn. 

If I happen to be all alone and in an idle mood, I 
play a game of solitaire, of which I am very fond. 
I use playing cards marked in the upper right-hand 
comer with braille sjmibols which indicate the value 
of the card. 

I^ there are children arotmd, nothing pleases me 
so much as to frolic with them. I find even the 
smallest child excellent company, and I am glad to 
say that children usually like me. They lead me 
about and show me the things they are interested in. 
Of course the little ones cannot spell on their fingers ; 
but I manage to read their lips. If I do not succeed 
they resort to dimib show. Sometimes I make a 
mistake and do the wrong thing. A burst of childish 
laughter greets my blunder, and the pantomime 
begins all over again. I often tell them stories or 
teach them a game, and the wing6d hours depart 
and leave us good and happy. 

Museums and art stores are also sources of pleasure 
and inspiration. Doubtless it will seem strange to 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 127 

many that the hand tinaided by sight can feel action, 
sentiment, beauty in the cold marble ; and yet it is 
true that I derive genuine pleasure from touching 
great works of art. As my finger tips trace line and 
curve, they discover the thought and emotion which 
the artist has portrayed. I can feel in the faces of 
gods and heroes hate, courage and love, just as I 
can detect them in living faces I am permitted to 
touch. I feel in Diana's posture the grace and free- 
dom of the forest and the spirit that tames the 
mountain lion and subdues the fiercest passions. 
My soul delights in the repose and gracious curves 
of the Venus ; and in Barr6's bronzes the secrets of 
the jungle are revealed to me. 

A medallion of Homer hangs on the wall of my 
study, conveniently low, so that I can easily reach 
it and touch the beautiful, sad face with loving 
reverence. How well I know each line in that 
majestic brow — tracks of life and bitter evidences 
of struggle and sorrow ; those sightless eyes seeking, 
even in the cold plaster, for the light and the blue 
skies of his beloved Hellas, but seeking in vain; 
that beautiful mouth, firm and true and tender. 
It is the face of a poet, and of a man acquainted 
with sorrow. Ah, how well I understand his 
'deprivation — ^the perpetual night in which he 
dwelt — 

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, 
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse 
Without all hope of day ! 

In imagination I can hear Homer singing, as with 
unsteady, hesitating steps he gropes his way from 
camp to camp — singing of life, of love, of war, of the 
splendid achievements of a noble race. It was a 



Z28 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

wonderful, glorious song, and it won the blind poet 
an immortal crown, the admiration of all ages. 

I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more 
sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the 
eye. I should think the wonderful rhythmical 
flow of lines and curves could be more subtly, felt 
than seen. Be this as it may, I know that I can 
feel the heart-throbs of the ancient Greeks in 
their marble gods and goddesses. 

Another pleasure, which comes more rarely than 
the others, is going to the theatre. I enjoy having 
a play described to me while it is being acted on the 
stage far more than reading it, because then it seems 
as if I were living in the midst of stirring events. It 
has been my privilege to meet a few great actors and 
actresses who have the power of so bewitching you 
that you forget time and place and live again in the 
romantic past. I have been permitted to touch the 
face and costume of Miss Ellen Terry as she imper- 
sonated our ideal of a queen ; and there was about her 
that divinity that hedges sublimest woe. Beside her 
stood Sir Henry Irving, wearing the symbols of 
kingship ; and there was majesty, of intellect in his 
every gesture and attitude and the royalty that 
subdues and overcomes in every line of his sensitive 
face. In the king's face, which he wore as a mask, 
there was a remoteness and inaccessibility of grief 
which I shall never forget. 

I also know Mr. Jefferson. I am proud to count 
him among my friends. I go to see him whenever I 
happen to be where he is acting. The first time I 
saw him act was while at school in New York. He 
played "Rip Van Winkle." I had often read the 
story, but I had never felt the charm of Rip's 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 129 

slow, quaint, kind ways as I did in the play. Mr. 
Jefferson's beautiful, pathetic representation quite 
carried me away with delight. I have a picture of 
old Rip in my fingers which they will never lose. 
After the play Miss Sullivan took me to see him 
behind the scenes, and I felt of his curious garb and 
his flowing hair and beard. Mr. Jefferson let me 
touch his face so that I could imagine how he looked 
on waking from that strange sleep of twenty years, 
and he showed me how poor old Rip staggered to 
his feet. 

I have also seen him in " The Rivals. *' Once while 
I was calling on him in Boston he acted the most 
striking parts of * * The Rivals ' ' for me. The reception- 
room where we sat served for a stage. He and 
his son seated themselves at the big table, and Bob 
Acres wrote his challenge. I followed all his move- 
ments with my hands, and caught the drollery of his 
blunders and gestures in a way that would have been 
impossible had it all been spelled to me. Then they 
rose to fight the duel, and I followed the swift thrusts 
and parries of the swords and the waverings of poor 
Bob as his courage oozed out at his finger ends. 
Then the great actor gave his coat a hitch and his 
mouth a twitch, and in an instant I was in the 
village of Falling Water and felt Schneider's shaggy 
head against my knee. Mr. Jefferson recited the 
best dialogues of "Rip Van Winkle," in which the 
tear came close upon the smile. He asked me to 
indicate as far as I could the gestures and action 
that should go with the lines. Of course, I have no 
sense whatever of dramatic action, and could make 
only random guesses; but with masterful art he 
suited the action to the word. The sigh of Rip as he 



130 THE STORY OP MY LIFE 

murratirs, " Is a man so soon forgotten .when he is 
gone?" the dismay with which he searches for dog 
and gun after his long sleep, and his comical irreso- 
lution over signing the contract with Derrick — all 
these seem to be right out of life itself ; that is, the 
ideal life, where things happen as we think they 
should. 

I remember well the first time I went to the 
theatre. It was twelve years ago. Elsie Leslie, the 
little actress, was in Boston, and Miss Sullivan took 
me to see her in "The Prince and the Pauper." I 
shall never forget the ripple of alternating joy and 
woe that ran through that beautiful little play, or the 
wonderful child who acted it. After the play I was 
permitted to go behind the scenes and meet her in 
her royal costume. It would have been hard to 
find a lovelier or more lovable child than Elsie, as 
she stood with a cloud of golden hair floating over 
her shoulders, smiling brightly, showing no signs of 
shyness or fatigue, though she had been playing to 
an inmiense audience. I was only just learning to 
speak, and had previously repeated her name until I 
could say it perfectly. Imagine my delight when 
she understood the few words I spoke to her and 
without hesitation stretched her hand to greet me. 

Is it not true, then, that my life with all its 
limitations touches at many points the life of the 
World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, 
even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever 
state I may be in, therein to be content. 

Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds 
me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life's 
shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and 
sweet companionship ; but I may not enter, Pate^ 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 131 

silent, pitiless, bars the way. Fain would I question 
his imperious decree ; for my heart is still imdisci- 
plined and passionate ; but my tongue will not utter 
the bitter, futile words that rise to my lips, and 
they fall back into my heart like tmshed tears. 
Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes 
hope with a smile and whispers, ** There is joy in 
self-forgetfulness." So I try to make the light in 
others* eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my 
symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness 



CHAPTER XXIII 

WotJLD that I could enrich this sketch with the 
names of all those who have ministered to my happi- 
ness ! Some of them would be foimd written in our 
literature and dear to the hearts of many, while 
others would be wholly unknown to most of my 
readers. But their influence, though it escapes 
fame, shall live immortal in the lives that have been 
sweetened and ennobled by it. Those are red-letter 
days in our lives when we meet people who thrill us 
like a fine poem, people whose handshake is brimful 
of unspoken sympathy, and whose sweet, rich nattires 
impart to our eager, impatient spirits a wonderful 
restfulness which, in its essence, is divine. The 
perplexities, irritations and worries that have 
absorbed us pass like unpleasant dreams, and we 
wake to see with new eyes and hear with new ears 
the beauty and harmony of God's real world. The 
solemn nothings that fill our everyday life blossom 
suddenly into bright possibilities. In a word, while 
such friends are near us we feel that all is well. 
Perhaps we never saw them before, and they may 
never cross our life's path again ; but the influence 
of their calm, mellow natures is a libation poured 
upon our discontent, and we feel its healing touch, 
as the ocean feels the mountain stream freshening 
its brine. 

I have often been asked, '* Do not people bore 
you? " I do not understand quite what that means. 

132 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 133 

I suppose the calk of the stupid and curious, espe 
cially of newspaper reporters, are always inop^ 
portune. I also dislike people who try to talk down 
to my tinderstanding. They are like people who 
when walking with you try to shorten theif. steps 
to suit yours; the h5rpocrisy in both cases is equally 
exasperating. 

The hands of those I meet are dtunbly eloquent 
to me. The touch of some hands is an impertinence. 
I have met i)eople so empty of joy, that when I 
clasped their frosty finger-tips, it seemed as if I were 
shaking hands with a northeast storm. Others 
there are whose hands have sunbeams in them, so 
that their grasp warms my heart. It may be only 
the clinging touch of a child's hand ; but there is as 
much potential sunshine in it for me as there is in a 
loving glance for others. A hearty handshake or a 
friendly letter gives me genuine pleasure. 

I have many far-off friends whom I have never 
seen. Indeed they are so many that I have often 
been unable to reply to their letters ; but I wish to 
say here that I am always grateful for their kind 
words, however insufficiently I acknowledge them. 

I coimt it one of the sweetest privileges of my life 
to have known and conversed with many men of 
genius. Only those who knew Bishop Brooks can 
appreciate the joy his friendship was to those who 
possessed it. As a child I loved to sit on his knee 
and clasp his great hand with one of mine, while 
Miss Sullivan spelled into the other his beautiful 
words about God and the spiritual world. I heard 
him with a child's wonder and delight. My spirit 
could not reach up to his, but he gave me a real 
sense of joy in life, and I never left him without 



134 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

carr3ang away a fine thought that grew in beauty 
and depth of meaning as I grew. Once, v/hen I was 
puzzled to know why there were so many religions, 
he said: "There is one universal religion, Helen — 
the religion of love. Love your Heavenly Father 
with your whole heart and soul, love every child of 
God as much as ever you can, and remember that 
the possibilities of good are greater than the possi- 
bilities of evil; and you have the key to Heaven.'* 
And his life was a happy illustration of this great 
truth. In his noble soul love and widest knowledge 
were blended with faith that had become insight. 
He saw 

God in all ttiat liberates and lifts, 

In all that humbles, sweetens and consoles. 

Bishop Brooks taught me no special creed or 
dogma ; but he impressed upon my mind two great 
ideas — ^the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man, and made me feel that these truths underlie 
all creeds and forms of worship. God is love, God 
is our Father, we are His children; therefore the 
darkest clouds will break, and though right be 
worsted, wrong shall not triumph. 

I am too happy in this world to think much about 
the future, except to remember that I have cher- 
ished friends awaiting me there in God's beautiful 
Somewhere. In spite of the lapse of years, they 
seem so close to me that I should not think it 
strange if at any moment they should clasp my 
hand and speak words of endearment as they used 
to before they went away. 

Since Bishop Brooks died I have read the Bibl^ 
through; also some philosophical works on religio 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 135 

among them Swedenborg's *' Heaven and Hell*' 
and Drummond's "Ascent of Man,** and I have 
fotmd no creed or system more soul-satisfying than 
Bishop Brooks's creed of love. I knew Mr. Henry 
Drummond, and the memory of his strong, warm 
hand-clasp is like a benediction. He was the most 
sympathetic of companions. He knew so much 
and was so genial that it was impossible to feel dull 
m his presence. 

I remember well the first time I saw Dr. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes. He had invited Miss Sullivan and 
me to call on him one Sunday afternoon. It was 
early in the spring, just after I had learned to speak. 
We were shown at once to his library where we found 
him seated in a big armchair by an open fire which 
glowed and crackled on the hearth, thinking, he said^ 
of other days. 

"And listening to the murmur of the River 
Charles," I suggested. 

"Yes," he replied, "the Charles has many dear 
associations for me." There was an odour of print 
and leather in the room which told me that it was 
full of books, and I stretched out my hand instinc- 
tively to find them. My fingers lighted upon a 
beautiful volume of Tennyson's poems, and when 
Miss Sullivan told me what it was I began to recite ; 

Break, break, break 

On thy cold gray stones, O sea I 

But I stopped suddenly. I felt tears on my hand. 
I had made my beloved poet weep, and I was 
greatly distressed. He made me sit in his arm- 
chair, while he brought different interesting things 
for me to examine, and at his request I recited 



136 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

"The Chambered Nautilus," which was then my 
favorite poem. After that I saw Dr. Hobnes many 
times and learned to love the man as well as the poet. 

One beautiful stmmier day, not long after my 
meeting with Dr. Hohnes, Miss Sullivan and I 
visited Whittier in his quiet home on the Merrimac. 
His gentle courtesy and quaint speech won my heart. 
He had a book of his poems in raised print from 
which I read ** In School Days. ** He was delighted 
that I could pronounce the words so well, and 
said that he had no difficulty in understanding me. 
Then I asked many questions about the poem, and 
read his answers by placing my fingers on his lips. 
He said he was the little boy in the poem, and that 
the girl's name was Sally, and more which I have 
forgotten. I also recited "Laus Deo," and as I 
spoke the concluding verses, he placed in my hands 
a statue of a slave from whose crouching figure the 
fetters were falling, even as they fell from Peter's 
limbs when the angel led him forth out of prison. 
Afterward we went into his study, and he wrote his* 
autograph for my teacher and expressed his admira- 
tion of her work, saying to me, ** She is thy spiritual 
liberator. " Then he led me to the gate and kissed 
me tenderly on my forehead. I prondsed to visit 
him again the following summer; but he died before 
the promise was fulfilled. 

Dr. Edward Everett Hale is one of my very 
oldest friends. I have known him since I was eight, 
and my love for him has increased with my years. 
His wise, tender sympathy has been the support of 

♦ '* With great admiration of thy noble work in releasing from 
bondapre the mind of thy dear pupil, I am tnily thy mend, 
John G. Whittibr," 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 137 

Miss Sullivan and me in times of trial and sorrow, 
and his strong hand has helped us over many rough 
places ; and what he has done for us he has done for 
thousands of those who have difficult tasks to accom- 
plish. He has filled the old skins of dogma with 
the new wine of love, and shown men what it is to 
believe, live and be free. What he has taught we 
have seen beautifully expressed in his own life — 
love of country, kindness to the least of his brethren, 
and a sincere desire to live upward and onward. He 
has been a prophet and an inspirer of men, and a 
mighty doer of the Word, the friend of all his 
race — God bless him ! 

I have already written of my first meeting with 
Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. Since then I have 
spent many happy days with him at Washington 
and at his beautiful home in the heart of Cape 
Breton Island, near Baddeck, the village made 
famous by Charles Dudley Warner's book. Here 
in Dr. Bell's laboratory, or in the fields on the 
shore of the great Bras d'Or, I have spent many 
delightful hotirs listening to what he had to tell me 
about his experiments, and helping him fly kites by 
means of which he expects to discover the laws 
that shall govern the future air-ship. Dr. Bell is 
proficient in many fields of science, and has the 
art of making every subject he touches interesting, 
even the most abstruse theories. He makes you feel 
that if you only had a little more time, you, too, 
might be an inventor. He has a himiorous and 
poetic side, too. His dominating passion is his 
love for children. He is never quite so happy as 
when he has a little deaf child in his arms. His 
labours in behalf of the deaf will live on and bless 



138 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

generations of children yet to come ; and we love him 
alike for what he himself has achieved and for what 
he has evoked from others. 

During the two years I spent in New York I had 
many opporttmities to talk with distinguished 
people whose names I had often heard, but whom I 
had never expected to meet. Most of them I met 
first in the house of my good friend, Mr. Laurence 
Hutton. It was a great privilege to visit him and 
dear Mrs. Hutton in their lovely home, and see their 
library and read the beautiful sentiments and bright 
thoughts gifted friends had written for them. It 
has been truly said that Mr. Hutton has the faculty 
of bringing out in every one the best thoughts and 
kindest sentiments. One does not need to read 
"A Boy I Knew*' to tmderstand him — the most 
generous, sweet-natured boy I ever knew, a good 
friend in all sorts of weather, who traces the foot- 
prints of love in the life of dogs as well as in that 
of his fellowmen. 

Mrs. Hutton is a true and tried friend. Much that 
I hold sweetest, much that I hold most precious, 
I owe to her. She has oftenest advised and helped 
me in my progress through college. When I find 
my work particularly difficult and discouraging, 
she writes me letters that make me feel glad and 
brave ; for she is one of those from whom we learn 
that one painful duty fulfilled makes the next 
plainer and easier. 

Mr. Hutton introduced me to many of his literary 
friends, greatest of whom are Mr. William Dean 
Howells and Mark Twain. I also met Mr. Richard 
Watson Gilder and Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman. 
I also knew Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, the mos 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE 139 

delightful of story-tellers and the most beloved 
friend, whose sympathy was so broad that it may 
be truly said of him, he loved all living things and 
his neighbour as himself. Once Mr. Warner brought 
to see me the dear poet of the woodlands — Mr. John 
BtuTOughs. They were all gentle and sjnnpathetic 
and I felt the charm of their manner as much 
as I had felt the brilliancy of their essays and poems. 
I could not keep pace with all these literary folk as 
they glanced from subject to subject and entered into 
deep dispute, or made conversation sparkle with 
epigrams and happy witticisms. I was like little 
Ascanir,, who followed with unequal steps the 
heroic strides of iEneas on his march toward 
mighty destinies. But they spoke many gracious 
words to me. Mr. Gilder told me about his 
moonlight journeys across the vast desert to the 
Pyramids, and in a letter he wrote me he made 
his mark imder his signature deep in the paper so 
that I could feel it. This reminds me that Dr. Hale 
used to give a personal touch to his letters to me 
by pricking his signature in braille. I read from 
Mark Twain's lips one or two of his good stories. 
He has his own way of thinking, saying and doing 
everything. I feel the twinkle of his eye in his hand- 
shake. Even while he utters his cynical wisdom 
in an indescribably droll voice, he makes you feel 
that his heart is a tender Iliad of human sympathy. 
There are a host of other interesting people I met 
in New York: Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, the beloved 
editor of St. Nicholas, and Mrs. Riggs (Kate Douglas 
Wiggin), the sweet author of " Patsy.'* I received 
from them gifts that have the gentle concurrence of 
*#he heart, books containing their own thoughts 



I40 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

soul-illumined letters, and photographs that I 
love to have described again and again.. But there 
is not space to mention all my friends, and indeed 
there are things about them hidden behind the 
wings of cherubim, things too sacred to set forth in 
cold print. It is with hesitancy that I have spoken 
even of Mrs. Laurence Hutton. 

I shall mention only two other friends. One is 
Mrs. William Thaw, of Pittsburgh, whom I have often 
visited in her home, Lyndhurst. She is always 
doing something to make some one happy, and her 
generosity and wise counsel have never failed my 
teacher and me in all the years -we have knt wn her. 

To the other friend I am also deeply indebted. 
He is well known for the powerful hand with which 
he guides vast enterprises, and his wonderful abili- 
ties have gained for him the respect of all. Kind 
to every one, he goes about doing good, silent and 
unseen. Again I touch upon the circle of honoured 
names I must not mention ; but I would fain acknowl- 
edge his generosity and affectionate interest which 
make it possible for me to go to college. 

Thus it is that my friends have made the story of 
my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my 
limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled 
me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by 
my deprivation.