 15. 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 autumn, and the musk-scented grapes that covered the arbor at the end of the garden were turning 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 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 found that all this was written by someone 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 disquietude. 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 which I am only just beginning to understand. It was with the hope of restoring my self-confidence that she persuaded me to write for the youth's companion a brief account of my life. 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 persevere feared, 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 Fair. Under such circumstances my studies were constantly interrupted and often put aside for many weeks so that it is impossible for me to give a connected 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 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, Ms. Sullivan and I visited the World Fair with Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. I recalled with a mixed 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, treasuries of industry and skill and all the activities of human life actually passed under my fingertips. I like to visit the midway pleasant. It seemed like the Arabian Nights. It was crammed so full of novelty and interest. Here was the India of my books in the curious Bazaar with its sheavers and elephant guards. There was the land of the pyramids concentrated in the muddle 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 illuminated. 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 undaunted heart and gave chase to whosoever re-echoed his cry, we are of the sea and fought with brains and sinews self-reliant, self-sufficient instead of being thrust into the background by an intelligent machinery as Jack is today. So it always is, man only is interesting to man. At a little distance from this ship there was a model of the Santa Maria which I also examined. The captain showed me Columbus' cabin and the desk with an hourglass on it. This small instrument 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. Higginbotham, president of the World's Fair, kindly gave me permission to touch the exhibits and with an eagerness as insatiable as that with which Pissarro sees 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 bronzers. They were so lifelike, I thought they were angel visions which the artist had caught and bound 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 found 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 delightful 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 understand how it is possible to send a message on wires that mock space and outrun time and, like Prometheus, to draw fire from the sky. We also visited the anthropological department and I was much interested in the relics of ancient Mexico in the rude stone implements that are so often the only record of an age, the simple monuments of nature's unlettered children, so I thought, as I fingered them, that seem bound to last while the memorials of kings and sages crumble in dust away and in the Egyptian mummies which I shrunk from touching. From these relics I learned more about the progress of man than I have heard or read since. All these experiences added a great many new terms to my vocabulary and in the three weeks I spent at the fair I took a long leap from the little child's interest in fairy tales and toys to the appreciation of the real and the earnest in the workaday world. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of the story of my life Before October 1893 I had studied various subjects by myself in a more or less desultory manner. 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 often 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 pronunciation as I found all the letters and sounds 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 Médicin, Malgrès, Lui and Passages from Attali. I also gave considerable time to the improvement of my speech. I read aloud to Miss Salivan and recited passages from my favorite poets which I had committed to memory. She corrected my pronunciation 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 have lessons in special subjects at fixed hours. Miss Salivan and I were at that time in Halton, Pennsylvania, visiting the family of Mr. William Wade. Mr. Irons, a neighbor of theirs, was a good 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, to recognize his style as I recognize the clasp of a friend's hand. At first I was rather unwilling 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 plain. 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, individual 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 understood 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 presented by a language one is just becoming familiar with, ideas that flit across the mental sky shaped and tinted by capricious fancy. Miss Sullivan sat beside me at my lessons, spelling into my hand whatever Mr. Irons said, and looking up new words for me. I was just beginning to read Caesar's Gallic War when I went to my home in Alabama. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of the Story of My Life This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller Chapter 17 In the summer of 1894, I attended the meeting 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-Humerson 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 the 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 Remy, 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 understand 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 Madam Olivier, a French lady who did not know the manual alphabet and who was obliged to give her instruction orally. I could not read her lips easily, so my progress was much slower than in German. I managed, however, to read Le Médicin malgré lui again. It was very amusing, but I did not like it nearly so well as Wilhelm Tell. 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 accomplished, but although we worked hard and faithfully, yet we did not quite reach our goal. I suppose we aimed too high, and disappointment was therefore inevitable. I still regarded arithmetic as a system of pitfalls. I hung 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 corners of the heavens, how the vapours ascend from the ends of the earth, how rivers are cut out among the rocks and mountains 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 all took together every day in Central Park, the only part of the city that was congenial to me. I never lost a jutt 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 were 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, Tarrytown, the home of Washington Irving, where I walked through Sleepy Hollow. The teachers at the Wright-Humerson School were always planning how they might give the pupils every advantage that those who here 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. Spalding 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 everyone happy in a beautiful and obtrusive 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 could not be discouraged. His going away left a vacancy in our lives that has never been filled. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of the Story of My Life This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller Chapter 18 In October 1896, I entered the Cambridge School of Young 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. 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 and 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 purpose, 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 instructions 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 have been well-drilled in English by Miss Sullivan, and it soon became evident to my teachers that I needed no special instruction in this subject beyond the 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 textbooks 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 tedium of that work is hard to conceive. Frau Gruerte, my German teacher, and Mr. Gilman, 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 Gruerte how slow and inadequate her spelling was. Nevertheless, in the goodness of her heart, she laboriously spelled out her instructions to me in special lessons twice a week to give Miss Sullivan a little rest. But though everybody was kind and ready to help us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery into pleasure. That here 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, Heiner's Herzreise, Freitag's Austenstaat Friedlichs des Großen, Reels Flucht der Schönheit, Lessing's Minner von Bernhelm, and Goethe's Ausmeinung Lieben. I took the greatest delight in these German books, especially Schiller's wonderful lyrics, the history of Frederick the Great's magnificent achievements, and the account of Goethe's life. I was sorry to finish the Herzreise, 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. Gilman instructed me part of the year in English literature. We read together As You Like It, Burke's Speech and Consoliation with America, and Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. Mr. Gilman'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 the necessarily brief explanations given in the classes. Burke's speech was more instructive than any other book on a political subject that I had ever read. My mind stirred with the stirring times, and the characters around which the life of two contending nations centered seemed to move right before me. I 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 his warning prophecy of our victory 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 tears 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 Grubbs 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 unlike the attitude of reverence in which I had listened to the dimasthenes of Great Britain. At the Cambridge School, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed the companionship of seeing and hearing girls of my own age. I lived with several others 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 Ms. Sullivan did not have to repeat their conversation. At Christmas, my mother and little sister spent the holidays with me, and Mr. Gilman kindly offered to let Mildred study in its 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 examination for Radcliffe from the 29th of June to the 3rd of July in 1897. The subjects I offered were elementary and advanced German, French, Latin, English, and Greek and Roman history, making nine hours in all. I passed in everything, and received honors 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 number 233, but as I had to use a typewriter, my identity could not be concealed. It was thought advisable for me to have my examinations in the room by myself, because the noise of the typewriter might disturb the other girls. Mr. Gilman 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. Gilman 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. Gilman 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 opportunity 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 major familiar before my work in the Cambridge School, for at the beginning of the year I had passed examinations in English, History, French and German, which Mr. Gilman gave me from previous Harvard papers. Mr. Gilman sent my written work to the examiners with a certificate that I, candidate number 233, had written the papers. All the other preliminary examinations were conducted in the same manner. None of them was so difficult as the first. I remember that the day 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 19 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 confronted with unforeseen difficulties. Mr. Gilman had agreed that that year I should study mathematics principally. I had physics, algebra, geometry, astronomy, Greek and Latin. Unfortunately, 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. Ms. 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 brailed 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 blackboard, 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 the proof. In a word, every study had its obstacles. Sometimes I lost all courage and betrayed my feelings in a way I am ashamed to remember, especially as the signs of my trouble were afterward used against Ms. 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 apparatus 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, because I could not see the relation of the different parts to one another, even on the cushion. It was not until 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 everything. Just before the books came, Mr. Gilman had begun to remonstrate with Ms. Sullivan on the ground that I was working too hard, and in spite of my earnest protestations, he reduced the number 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 Ms. Sullivan, Ms. Harble, Mr. Gilman's head teacher, and one other, that I could, without too much effort, complete my preparation in two years more. Mr. Gilman at first agreed to this, but when my tasks had become somewhat perplexing, he insisted that I was overworked and that I should remain at his school three years longer. I did not like his plan, for I wished to enter college with my class. On the 17th of November, I was not very well and did not go to school. Although Ms. Sullivan knew that my indisposition was not serious, yet Mr. Gilman, 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. Gilman and Ms. 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. Ms. Sullivan and I spent the rest of the winter with our friends the Chamberlains in Rentham, 25 miles from Boston. From February to July 1898, Mr. Keith came out to Rentham twice a week and taught me algebra, geometry, Greek, and Latin. Ms. Sullivan interpreted 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 hour. He explained each time what I did not understand in the previous lesson, assigned new work, and took home with him the Greek exercises which I had written during the week on my typewriter, corrected them fully, and returned them to me. In this way, my preparation for college went on without interruption. I found it much easier and pleasanter to be taught by myself than to receive instruction in class. There was no hurry, no confusion. 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 mathematics 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 mathematics, 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 Mr. 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 communicate with me except by writing Braille. The proctor was also a stranger and did not attempt to communicate with me in any way. The Braille worked well enough in the languages, but when it came to geometry and algebra, difficulties rose. 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 immediately and wrote to Mr. Vining asking him to explain the signs. I received 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 complicated examples, I could not tell the combinations of bracket, brace, and radical. Both Mr. Keith and I were distressed and full of forebodings for the morrow, but we went over to the college a little before the examination began and had Mr. Vining explain more fully the American symbols. 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 found the Braille confusing and could not fix clearly in 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 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 and 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 all the signs correctly. I found it very hard to keep my wits about me. But I do not blame anyone. The administrative board of Radcliffe did not realize how difficult they were making my examinations, nor did they understand the peculiar difficulties I had to surmount. But if they unintentionally placed obstacles in my way, I have the consolation of knowing that I overcame them all. End of CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 20 The struggle for admission to college was ended, and I could 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 stunders 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 outside of Rome. Debored 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 by-paths 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 living tangible interpreters of 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 quite the romantic lyceum I had imagined. Many of the dreams that had delighted my young and experience 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 hoarding 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 Corneille, Molière, Racine, Alfred de Musée and Saint Boeuf, 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 18th century, and in English literature studied critically Milton's poems and Ariopagitica. I am frequently asked how I overcome the peculiar conditions under which I work in college. In the classroom I am of course practically alone. The professor is as remote as if he was speaking through a telephone. The lectures are spelled into my hand as rapidly as possible, and much of the individuality of the lecturer is lost to me in the effort to keep in the race. The words rush through my hand like hounds in pursuit of a hair 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 pale mel speed, I should not think one could 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 listening. 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 media and final examinations on my typewriter so that the professors 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 of 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 writing 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 a laughing and singing and dancing makes me rebellious. But I soon recover my buoyancy and laugh the discontent out of my heart. For after all everyone who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the hill difficulty alone and since 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 climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud the blue depths of the sky the uplands of my desire. I am not always alone however 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 encouragement to me than they can ever know. Last year my second year at Radcliffe I studied the English composition the Bible as English literature the governments of America and Europe the Oase of Horus and Latin comedy. The class in composition was the pleasantest. It was very lively the lectures were always interesting vivacious witty for the instructor Mr. Charles Towns and Copeland more than anyone 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 interpretation or exposition. You revel in their fine thoughts you enjoy with all your soul the sweet thunder of the Old Testament forgetting the existence of Yahweh and Elohim and you go home feeling that you have had the glimpse of that perfection in which spirit informed well in immortal harmony 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 and the professor George L. Kitteridge and the history of philosophy and the professor Josiah Royce. Through philosophy one enters with sympathy of comprehension into the traditions of remote ages and other modes of thought which air while 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 living 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 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 understanding the trouble is that very few of their laborious explanations stick in the memory the mind 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 appreciation 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 dither 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 interminable 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 Kittridge 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 had 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 lewd 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-a-brac for which there seems to be little use at the present time my mind is so full of heterogeneous 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 niceties 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 bug bears 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 until like bob acres I feel my courage woozing out at my finger ends the days before these or deals take place are spent in cramming your mind with mystic formulae and indigestible dates unpalatable diets until you wish that books and science and you were buried in the depths of the sea at last the dreaded hour arrives and you are a favored being indeed if you feel prepared and are able at the right time to call your standard thoughts that will aid you in that supreme effort it happens too often that your trumpet 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 the 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 of historic facts much as you would hunt for a bit of silk in the ragbag 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 revolutions sisms 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 corner 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 into a corner and go home your head full of revolutionary schemes to abolish the divine right of professors to ask questions without a consent of the questioned it comes over me that in the last two or three pages of this chapter 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 and unanalyzed species let them walk on the words describe so exactly the atmosphere of jostling tumbling ideas I live in that I will wink at them for once and put on a deliberate air to say that my ideas of college have changed while my days at Radcliffe were still in the future they were encircled with a halo of romans which they have lost but in the transition from romantic 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 allegedly our minds hostably open to impressions of every sort such knowledge floods the soul and seen 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 falls 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 pulsations or heaven words striving one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life end of chapter 20 chapter 21 of the story of my life this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the story of my life by Helen Keller chapter 21 I have 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 knowledge 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 fingertips as I have said I did not study regularly 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 understand but I preferred reading myself to being read to because I like 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 was permitted to 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 10 or two words on the 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 vocabulary 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 uncomprehending way until I discovered little Lord Fontleroy which was the first book of any consequence I read understandingly one day my teacher found me in a corner 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 little 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 like better than the scarlet letter the name of the story was little Lord Fontleroy and she promised to read it to me the following summer but we did not begin the story until 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 when she returned almost the first thing we did was to begin the story of little Lord Fontleroy 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 the hammock which swung from two solemn pines at a short distance from the house we had hurried through the dishwashing 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 warmed about us and fastened themselves on their clothes and I remember 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 barmy 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 understand and as we read on she explained them familiar 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'm 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 depravations I took the book in my hands and tried to feel the letters with an intensity of longing that I can never forget afterward at my eager request Mr. Anagnos had the story embossed and I read it again and again until I almost knew it by heart and all through my childhood little Lord Fauntleroy 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 earlier reading from little Lord Fauntleroy I date the beginning 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 Lafontaine's Fables Hawthorne's Wonder Book Bible Stories Lambs 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 Pilgrim's Progress which I think I did not finish or for the Fables I read Lafontaine's Fables first in an English 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 Lafontaine 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 all evil but of course I may be wrong for Lafontaine had greater opportunities of observing 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 I 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 conception of antiquity grease ancient grease exercise the 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 media and jason were two monstrous to be forgiven and I used to wonder why the gods permitted them to do wrong and then punish them for their wickedness and the mystery it's still unsolved I often wonder how god can dumbness keep while sin creeps grinning through his house of time it was the Iliad that made grease 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 responsive 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 appreciate a fine poem I know my learned professors have found greater riches in the Iliad than I shall ever find but I am not a varicious 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 splendid epic nor can I when I read the finest passages of the Iliad I am conscious of a soul sense that lifts me above the narrow cramping circumstances of my life my physical limitations are forgotten my world lies upward the length and the breath and the sweep of the heavens are mine my admiration for the Iliad is not so great but it is nonetheless 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 wonderful 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 sunlight 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 around 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 pilgrims 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 turn in the road I began to read the Bible long before I could understand it now it seems strange to me that there 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 understand she began to spell into my hand the story 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 off to the land of nod before the brothers came with the coat of many colors unto the tent of Jacob and told 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 acquaintance 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 curiously enough it never occurred 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 I 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 compensates 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 anyone to have these great works weakened or falsified there is something impressive awful in the simplicity 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 forks 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 corn her beautiful and selfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night or a dark and cruel age love like roofs 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 unseen 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 lambed tales from Shakespeare but I know that I read them at first with a child understanding and a child's wonder Macbeth seems to have impressed me 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 dreadful 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 Gloucester's eyes are put out anger seized me my fingers refuse to move I sat rigid for one long moment the blood throbbing in my temples and all the hatred that the child can feel concentrated in my heart I must have made the acquaintance of Shylock and Satan about the same time for the two characters 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 no 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 judices 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 Shakespeare should have left me so many unpleasant 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 and no parts of them by heart but I cannot tell which of them I like best my delight in them is as varied as my mood 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 interpretations but they discouraged and vexed me so I made a secret compact with myself not to try anymore this compact I have only just broken in my study of Shakespeare and the professor Kittridge I know there are many things in Shakespeare and in the world that I do not understand and I am glad to see veil after veil lift gradually 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 drier dates to greens impartial picturesque history of the English people from Freeman's history of Europe to Amiton's Middle Ages the first book that gave me any real sense of the value of history was Swinton's world history which I received on my 13th 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 open the gates of happiness for millions and close them upon millions more how different nations pioneered in art and knowledge and broke ground for the mightier growths of coming 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 literature the German put strength before beauty and truth before convention both in life and in literature there is a vehement sledgehammer vigor 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 burn in its 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 self-sacrificing love this thought pervades all German literature and is mystically expressed in Goethe's Faust all things transitory but the symbols are sent earth's insufficiency here grows to event the indescribable here it is done the woman's soul leads us upward and on of all the French writers that I have read I like Molière and Racine the best there are fine things in Balzac and passages in Mary May which strike one like a keen blast of sea air Alfred de Musée 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 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 goodness 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 undemocratic 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 harrick's quaintness and the palpable scent of lily and rose in his verses I like Whittier for his enthusiasm and moral rectitude I knew him and the gentle remembrance of a 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 sunshine of optimism fountains of joy and goodwill with occasionally a splash of anger and here and there are healing spray of sympathy and pity in a word literature is my utopia here I am not disfranchised no barrier of the censors shuts me out from the sweet gracious discourse of my book friends they talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness the things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their large loves and heavenly charities end of chapter 21 chapter 22 of the story of my life this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the story of my life by Helen Keller chapter 22 I trust that my readers have not concluded from the preceding chapter on books that reading is my only pleasure my pleasures 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 Rentham Massachusetts I almost live in my boat nothing gives me greater pleasure than to take my friends out rowing when they come to visit me of course I cannot guide the boat very well someone usually sits in the stern 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 water grasses and lilies and of bushes that grow on the shore I use oars with leather bands which keep them in position in the ore locks 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 staunch little boat obedient to your will and muscle go skimming lightly over glistening tilting waves and to feel the steady imperious surge of the water I also enjoy canoeing and I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like it on moonlight nights I cannot it is true see the moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steel softly across the heavens making a shining path for us fellow 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 that 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 luminous 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 favorite amusement is sailing in the summer of 1901 I visited Nova Scotia and had opportunities such as I had not enjoyed before to make the acquaintance of the ocean after spending a few days in evangelist country about which long fellows beautiful poem has woven a spell of enchantment miss Sullivan and I went to Halifax where we remain the greater part of the summer the harbor was our joy our paradise what glorious sales 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 the thrilling experience there was a regatta in the northwest arm in which the boats from the different warships were engaged we went in a sailboat along with many others to watch the races hundreds of little sailboats 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 drifting 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 taught 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 gun boats in the harbor saluted and the seamen shouted applause for the master of the only little sailboat 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 rentham massachusetts is associated with nearly all of my joys and sorrows for many years red farm the home of mr j e chamberland and his family was my home i remember with deepest gratitude the kindness of these dear friends and the happy days i spent with them the sweet companionship of their children meant much to me i joined in all their sports and rambles through the woods and frolics in the water the throttle of the little ones and their pleasure in the stories i told them of elf and gnome of hero and wily bear are pleasant things to remember mr chamberland initiated me into the mysteries of tree and wildflower 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 dark some earth share in the treetops joints and conceive of sunshine and wide air and winged things by sympathy of nature so do i gave 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 beginning each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth and murmuring waters and blindness 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 rentham 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 law 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 i had another tree friend gentle and more approachable than the great oak a linden that grew in the doyard at red farm one afternoon during a terrible thunderstorm 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 rung 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 summer in particular as soon as my examinations were over miss salivan and i hastened to this green nook where we have a little cottage on one of the three lakes for which rentham is famous here the long sunny days were mine and all thoughts of work and college and the noisy city were thrust into the background in rentham we caught echoes of what was happening in the world war alliance social conflict we heard of the cruel and necessary fighting in the faraway pacific and learned of the struggles going on between capital and labor 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 breath meadows and they shall endure forever people who think that all sensations reach us through the eye and the ear have expressed surprise that i should notice any difference except possibly the absence of pavements between walking in city streets and in country roads they forget that my 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 trump of an unseen multitude and the dissonant tumult threats my spirit the grinding of heavy wagons on hard pavements and the monotonous clangor 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 sunless tenements and grow ugly withered and cringing the children who crowd these grimy alleys half clad and underfed 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 something 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 it's foul oh man how does thou forget and obstruct thy brother man and say give us this day our daily bread when he has none oh would that men would leave the city its splendor 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 return 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 the 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 iron 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 a ride or a sail i have had many dog friends huge mastiffs soft-eyed spaniels wood-wide 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 drawlist fizz 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 i love here and there are a line 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 maneuvers 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 corner with braille symbols which indicate the value of the card if there are children around 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 managed to read their lips if i do not succeed they resort to dump 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 winged 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 many that the hand unnaded 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 fingertips 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'm permitted to touch i feel in diana's posture the grace and freedom 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 barred'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 helas 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 oh 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 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 theater 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 impersonated our ideal of a queen and there was about her that divinity that hedged sublimest woe beside her stood sir henry erving wearing the symbols of kinship 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 winkel i had often read the story but i had never felt the charm of ripped 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 salivant 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 20 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 movements 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 sores and the waverings of poor bob as his courage woozed out at his finger end then the great actor gave his coat a hitch and his mouth a twitch and in an instance i was in the village of falling water and felt schneiderd's shaggy head against my knee mr jefferson recited the best dialogues of rip van winkel 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 a murmurs 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 irresolution 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 theater it was 12 years ago ld leslie the little actress was in boston and miss salivan 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 ld 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 immense 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 it 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 fate silent pitiless bars the way feign would i question his imperious decree for my heart it's still undisciplined 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 unshed 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 son the music in others ears my symphony the smile on others lips my happiness end of chapter 22