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bduci
LUi.cT -^C^^.S^.lSO (^-2 5^)
3&ar&arl» College iLiirarg
LIBRARY OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
COLLECTION OF TEXT-BOOKS
CONTRIBUTED BY THE PUBLISHERS
TRANSFERRED
r
HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY
3 2044 102 847 951
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.