The Story of My Life - Helen Keller (top rated ebook readers .txt) 📗

Venice, as I surely shall some day, that Mr. Munsell will go with me. That is my castle in the air. You see, none of my friends describe things to me so vividly and so beautifully as he does….

 

Her visit to the World’s Fair she described in a letter to Mr.

John P. Spaulding, which was published in St. Nicholas, and is much like the following letter. In a prefatory note which Miss Sullivan wrote for St. Nicholas, she says that people frequently said to her, “Helen sees more with her fingers than we do with our eyes.” The President of the Exposition gave her this letter: TO THE CHIEFS OF THE DEPARTMENTS AND OFFICERS IN CHARGE OF

BUILDINGS AND EXHIBITS

 

GENTLEMEN—The bearer, Miss Helen Keller, accompanied by Miss Sullivan, is desirous of making a complete inspection of the Exposition in all Departments. She is blind and deaf, but is able to converse, and is introduced to me as one having a wonderful ability to understand the objects she visits, and as being possessed of a high order of intelligence and of culture beyond her years. Please favour her with every facility to examine the exhibits in the several Departments, and extend to her such other courtesies as may be possible.

 

Thanking you in advance for the same, I am, with respect, Very truly yours,

(signed) H. N. HIGINBOTHAM,

President.

 

TO MISS CAROLINE DERBY

Hulton, Penn., August 17, 1893.

 

…Every one at the Fair was very kind to me… Nearly all of the exhibitors seemed perfectly willing to let me touch the most delicate things, and they were very nice about explaining everything to me. A French gentleman, whose name I cannot remember, showed me the great French bronzes. I believe they gave me more pleasure than anything else at the Fair: they were so lifelike and wonderful to my touch. Dr. Bell went with us himself to the electrical building, and showed us some of the historical telephones. I saw the one through which Emperor Dom Pedro listened to the words, “To be, or not to be,” at the Centennial.

Dr. Gillett of Illinois took us to the Liberal Arts and Woman’s buildings. In the former I visited Tiffany’s exhibit, and held the beautiful Tiffany diamond, which is valued at one hundred thousand dollars, and touched many other rare and costly things.

I sat in King Ludwig’s armchair and felt like a queen when Dr.

Gillett remarked that I had many loyal subjects. At the Woman’s building we met the Princess Maria Schaovskoy of Russia, and a beautiful Syrian lady. I liked them both very much. I went to the Japanese department with Prof. Morse who is a well-known lecturer. I never realized what a wonderful people the Japanese are until I saw their most interesting exhibit. Japan must indeed be a paradise for children to judge from the great number of playthings which are manufactured there. The queer-looking Japanese musical instruments, and their beautiful works of art were interesting. The Japanese books are very odd. There are forty-seven letters in their alphabets. Prof. Morse knows a great deal about Japan, and is very kind and wise. He invited me to visit his museum in Salem the next time I go to Boston. But I think I enjoyed the sails on the tranquil lagoon, and the lovely scenes, as my friends described them to me, more than anything else at the Fair. Once, while we were out on the water, the sun went down over the rim of the earth, and threw a soft, rosy light over the White City, making it look more than ever like Dreamland….

 

Of course, we visited the Midway Plaisance. It was a bewildering and fascinating place. I went into the streets of Cairo, and rode on the camel. That was fine fun. We also rode in the Ferris wheel, and on the ice-railway, and had a sail in the Whale-back….

 

In the spring of 1893 a club was started in Tuscumbia, of which Mrs. Keller was president, to establish a public library. Miss Keller says:

 

“I wrote to my friends about the work and enlisted their sympathy. Several hundred books, including many fine ones, were sent to me in a short time, as well as money and encouragement.

This generous assistance encouraged the ladies, and they have gone on collecting and buying books ever since, until now they have a very respectable public library in the town.”

 

TO MRS. CHARLES E. INCHES

Hulton, Penn., Oct. 21, 1893.

…We spent September at home in Tuscumbia… and were all very happy together…. Our quiet mountain home was especially attractive and restful after the excitement and fatigue of our visit to the World’s Fair. We enjoyed the beauty and solitude of the hills more than ever.

 

And now we are in Hulton, Penn. again where I am going to study this winter with a tutor assisted by my dear teacher. I study Arithmetic, Latin and literature. I enjoy my lessons very much.

It is so pleasant to learn about new things. Every day I find how little I know, but I do not feel discouraged since God has given me an eternity in which to learn more. In literature I am studying Longfellow’s poetry. I know a great deal of it by heart, for I loved it long before I knew a metaphor from a synecdoche. I used to say I did not like arithmetic very well, but now I have changed my mind. I see what a good and useful study it is, though I must confess my mind wanders from it sometimes! for, nice and useful as arithmetic is, it is not as interesting as a beautiful poem or a lovely story. But bless me, how time does fly. I have only a few moments left in which to answer your questions about the “Helen Keller” Public Library.

 

1. I think there are about 3,000 people in Tuscumbia, Ala., and perhaps half of them are colored people. 2. At present there is no library of any sort in the town. That is why I thought about starting one. My mother and several of my lady friends said they would help me, and they formed a club, the object of which is to work for the establishment of a free public library in Tuscumbia.

They have now about 100 books and about $55 in money, and a kind gentleman has given us land on which to erect a library building.

But in the meantime the club has rented a little room in a central part of the town, and the books which we already have are free to all. 3. Only a few of my kind friends in Boston know anything about the library. I did not like to trouble them while I was trying to get money for poor little Tommy, for of course it was more important that he should be educated than that my people should have books to read. 4. I do not know what books we have, but I think it is a miscellaneous (I think that is the word) collection….

 

P.S. My teacher thinks it would be more businesslike to say that a list of the contributors toward the building fund will be kept and published in my father’s paper, the “North Alabamian.”

H. K.

 

TO MISS CAROLINE DERBY

Hulton, Penn., December 28, 1893.

…Please thank dear Miss Derby for me for the pretty shield which she sent me. It is a very interesting souvenir of Columbus, and of the Fair White City; but I cannot imagine what discoveries I have made,—I mean new discoveries. We are all discoverers in one sense, being born quite ignorant of all things; but I hardly think that is what she meant. Tell her she must explain why I am a discoverer….

 

TO DR. EDWARD EVERETT HALE

Hulton, Pennsylvania, January 14, [1894].

My dear Cousin: I had thought to write to you long before this in answer to your kind letter which I was so glad to receive, and to thank you for the beautiful little book which you sent me; but I have been very busy since the beginning of the New Year. The publication of my little story in the Youth’s Companion has brought me a large number of letters,—last week I received sixty-one!—and besides replying to some of these letters, I have many lessons to learn, among them Arithmetic and Latin; and, you know, Caesar is Caesar still, imperious and tyrannical, and if a little girl would understand so great a man, and the wars and conquests of which he tells in his beautiful Latin language, she must study much and think much, and study and thought require time.

 

I shall prize the little book always, not only for its own value; but because of its associations with you. It is a delight to think of you as the giver of one of your books into which, I am sure, you have wrought your own thoughts and feelings, and I thank you very much for remembering me in such a very beautiful way….

 

In February Helen and Miss Sullivan returned to Tuscumbia. They spent the rest of the spring reading and studying. In the summer they attended the meeting at Chautauqua of the American Association for the Promotion of the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, where Miss Sullivan read a paper on Helen Keller’s education.

 

In the fall Helen and Miss Sullivan entered the Wright-Humason School in New York, which makes a special of lip-reading and voice-culture. The “singing lessons” were to strengthen her voice. She had taken a few piano lessons at the Perkins Institution. The experiment was interesting, but of course came to little.

 

TO MISS CAROLINE DERBY

The Wright-Humason School.

42 West 76th St.

New York. Oct. 23, 1894.

…The school is very pleasant, and bless you! it is quite fashionable…. I study Arithmetic, English Literature and United States History as I did last winter. I also keep a diary. I enjoy my singing lessons with Dr. Humason more than I can say. I expect to take piano lessons sometime….

 

Last Saturday our kind teachers planned a delightful trip to Bedloe’s Island to see Bartholdi’s great statue of Liberty enlightening the world…. The ancient cannon, which look seaward, wear a very menacing expression; but I doubt if there is any unkindness in their rusty old hearts.

 

Liberty is a gigantic figure of a woman in Greek draperies, holding in her right hand a torch…. A spiral stairway leads from the base of this pedestal to the torch. We climbed up to the head which will hold forty persons, and viewed the scene on which Liberty gazes day and night, and O, how wonderful it was! We did not wonder that the great French artist thought the place worthy to be the home of his grand ideal. The glorious bay lay calm and beautiful in the October sunshine, and the ships came and went like idle dreams; those seaward going slowly disappeared like clouds that change from gold to gray; those homeward coming sped more quickly like birds that seek their mother’s nest….

 

TO MISS CAROLINE DERBY

The Wright-Humason School.

New York, March 15, 1895.

…I think I have improved a little in lip-reading, though I still find it very difficult to read rapid speech; but I am sure I shall succeed some day if I only persevere. Dr. Humason is still trying to improve my speech. Oh, Carrie, how I should like to speak like other people! I should be willing to work night and day if it could only be accomplished. Think what a joy it would be to all of my friends to hear me speak naturally!! I wonder why it is so difficult and perplexing for a deaf child to learn