The most important day I remember in all my life is the one in which my teacher and Mansfield Sullivan came to me I am filled with wonder when I consider the
immeasurable contrast between the two lives which it connects it was the third of march 1887 three months before I was seven years old on the afternoon of that eventful day I stood on the porch dumb expectant i guessed vaguely from my mother's sides and from her hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen so I went to the door and waited on the steps the afternoon sun penetrated the massive honeysuckle that covered the porch and fell on my upturned face my fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring did not know that the future held on marble or surprise for me anger and bitterness had preyed on me continually for weeks and a deep language had succeeded this passionate struggle have you ever been at sea in a dense fog when it seemed as if tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship tense and anxious wrote away toward the shore with plummet and sounding mind and you waited with beating heart for something to happen i was like that ship before my education began only I was without compass or sounding light and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was light gives me light as a wordless cry of my soul and the light of love shone on me in that very hour i felt approaching the steps i stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother someone took it and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me and more than all things else to love me the morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll the little blind children at the perkins institution had sent it and laura bridgeman had dressed it but I did not know this until afterward when I had played with it a little while Miss Sullivan slowly spelt into my hand the word d-o-l-l (doll) i was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it when I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll i did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed i was simply making my fingers go in a monkey-like imitation in the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words among them pin hat cup and a few verbs like sit stand and walk but my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name one day while I was playing with my new doll Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also spelled d-o-l-l (doll) and tried to make me understand that doll applied to both earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words mug and water Miss Sullivan had tried to impress upon me that m-u-g is a (mug) and that w-a-t-e-r is (water) but I persisted in confounding the two in despair, she dropped the subject for at the time only to renew it at the first opportunity i became impatient at her repeated attempts and seizing the new doll I dashed it upon the floor I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst I had not loved the doll in the still dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness i felt my teachers sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed she brought me my hat and I knew I was going outside into the warm sunshine.
this thought if a wordless sensation may be called a thought made me hop and skip with pleasure walked down the path to the good house attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout as the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water first slowly then rapidly i stood still my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten a thrill of returning thought and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me i knew then that w a t e r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand that living world awakened my soul gave it light hope joy set it free there were barriers still it is true but barriers could in time be swept away i left the good house eager to learn everything had a name and each name gave birth to a new thought as we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life that was because I saw everything with the strange new sight that had come to me on entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken i felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces i tried vainly to put them together then my eyes filled with tears for I realized what I had done and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow i learned to grate many new words that day I do not remember what they all were but I do know that mother father sister teacher was among them words that were to make the world blossom for me like aaron's rod with flowers it would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys.
Meanwhile, the desire to express myself grew the few signs I used became less and less adequate and my failures to make myself understood were invariably
followed by outbursts of passion I felt as if invisible hands were holding me and I made frantic efforts to free myself i struggled not that struggling helped matters but the spirit of resistance was strong within me i generally broke down in tears and physical exhaustion if my mother happened to be in here I crept into her arms too miserable even to remember the cause of the tempest after a while the need for some means of communication became so urgent that these outbursts occurred daily sometimes hourly my parents were deeply grieved and perplexed we lived a long way from any school for the blind or the deaf and it seemed unlikely that anyone would come to such an out-of-the-way place as tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and blind indeed my friends and relatives sometimes doubted as to whether I could be taught my mother's only rare hope came from dickens's american notes she had read his account at laura bridgeman and remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind and yet had been educated but she also remembered with a hopeless pain that dr howell who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and blind had been dead for many years his methods had probably died with him and if they had not I was a little girl in a flower of town in alabama to receive the benefit of them when I was about six years old my father heard of an eminent oculus in Baltimore who had been successful in many cases that it seemed hopeless my parents at once determined to take me to baltimore to see if anything could be done for my eyes the journey which I remember well was very pleasant i made friends with many people on the train one lady gave me a box of shells my father made holes in these so that I could string them and for a long time they kept me happy and contented the conductor too was kind of when he went his rounds i clung to his coattails while he collected and punched the tickets his punch which he let me play was a delightful toy curled up in a corner of the seat I amused me for hours making funny little holes in bits of cardboard my aunt made me a big doll out of towels it was the most comical shapeless thing this improvised doll with no nose mouth ears or eyes nothing that even the imagination of a child could convert into a face curiously enough the absence of ice struck me more than all the other defects put together i pointed this out to everybody with provoking persistency but no one seemed equal to the task of providing the doll with eyes a bright idea however shot into my mind and the problem was solved I tumbled off the seat and searched under it.
Until I found my aunt's cape which was trimmed with large beads i pulled two beads off and indicated to her that I wanted to sew them on my doll she raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way and I nodded nodded energetically the beads were sewed in the right place and I could not contain myself for joy but immediately I lost all interest in the doll during the trip I did not have one fit of temper there were so many things to keep my mind and fingers busy when we arrived in baltimore dr chisholm received us kindly but he could do nothing he said however that I could be educated and advised my father to consult dr alexander graham bell of Washington who would be able to give him some information about schools and teachers of deaf or blind children acting on the doctor's advice we went immediately to washington to see dr bill my father with a sad heart and many misgivings i wholly unconscious of his anguish finding pleasure in the excitement of moving from place to place child as I was i at once felt the tenderness and sympathy endeavored dr bell to so many hearts as his wonderful achievements enlist their admiration he held me on his knee while I examined his watch and he made it strike for me he understood my signs and I knew it and loved him at once but I did not dream that that interview would be the door through which I would pass from darkness into the light from isolation to friendship companionship knowledge and Dr Bill advised my father to write to Mr Anagnos director of the Perkins institution in Boston the scene of doctor howe's great labors for the blind and asked him if he had a teacher competent to begin my education this, my father, did it once and in a few weeks there came to a kind letter from Mr ronagnos with comforting assurance that a teacher had been found this was in the summer of 1886 but miss sullivan did not arrive until the following march thus I came out of egypt and stood before sinai and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight so that I beheld many wonders and from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said knowledge is love and light and vision.
Story of my life by Helen Keller, Dedicated to Alexander Graham Bell who has taught the deaf to speak and enabled the listening ear to hear a speech from the Atlantic to the Rockies I dedicate this story of my life.
Chapter one.
It is with the kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life i have as it were a superstitious hesitation and lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist the task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one when I try to classify my earliest impressions I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present the woman paints the child's experiences in their own fantasy a few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life but the shadows of the prison house are on the rest besides many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries in order therefore not to be tedious i shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important i was born on june 27 1880 in tuscumbia a little town of northern Alabama the family on my father's side is descended from kaspar keller a native of switzerland who settled in Maryland one of my swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in zurich and wrote a book on the subject of their education a rather singular coincidence though it is true that there is no king who has not had a slave among these ancestors and no slave who has not had a king among his my grandfather caspar keller son entered large tracts of land and finally settled there i have been told that once a year he went from tuscumbia to philadelphia on horseback to purchase supplies for the plantation and my aunt has in her possession many of these letters to his family which give charming and vivid accounts of these trips my grandmother keller was the daughter of one of the leiafet aide's alexander moore and a granddaughter of alexander spotswood an early colonial governor of virginia was also the second cousin to robert e lee my father arthur h keller was a captain in the confederate army and my mother kate adams was his second wife and many years younger her grandfather benjamin adams married susanna e guhu and lived in newbury massachusetts for many years their son charles adams was born in Newburyport massachusetts and moved to helena Arkansas when the civil war broke out he fought on the side of the south and became a brigadier general he married lucy helen everett who belonged to the same family of everetts as edward everett and dr edward everett hale after the war was over the family moved to memphis tennessee i lived up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my sight and hearing in a tiny house consisting of a large square room and a small one in which the servants slept it is a custom in the south to build a small house near the homestead as an annex to be used on occasion such a house my father built after the civil war and when he married my mother they went to live in it it was completely covered with vines
climbing roses and honeysuckle from the garden, it looked like an arbor the little porch was hidden from you by a screen of yellow roses and southern smilex it was a favorite haunt of hummingbirds and bees the killer homestead where the family lived was a few steps from our little rose bower it was called ivy green because the house and the surrounding trees and fences were covered in beautiful english ivy its old-fashioned garden was the paradise of my childhood even in the days before my teacher came i used to feel along with the square stiff boxwood hedges and guided by the sense of smell I would find the first violets and lilies there too after a fit of temper I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the cool leaves and grass what joy it was to lose myself in that garden of flowers to wander happily from spot to spot until coming suddenly upon a beautiful vine recognized by its leaves and blossoms and knew it was the vine which covered the tumbled down summer house at the farther end of the garden here also were trailing clematis drooping jessamine and some rare sweet flowers called butterfly lilies because their fragile petals resemble butterfly's wings but the roses were the loveliest of all never have I found in the greenhouses of the north such heart satisfying roses as the climbing roses of my southern home they used to hang in long festoons from our porch filling the whole air with their fragrance untainted by any earthly smell and in the early morning wash in the dew they felt so soft so pure I could not help to wonder if they did not resemble the asphodels of god's garden the beginning of my life was simple and much like every other little life I came i saw I conquered as the first baby in the family always does there was the usual amount of discussion as to a name for me the first baby in the family was not to be lightly named everyone was emphatic about that my father suggested the name of Mildred Campbell an ancestor whom he highly esteemed and he declined to take any further part in the discussion my mother solved the problem by giving it her as her wish that I should be called after her mother whose maiden name was helen everett but in the excitement of carrying me to church my father lost the name on the way very naturally since it was the one in which he had declined to have a part when the minister asked him for it he had just remembered that it had been decided to call me after my grandmother and he gave her her name as helen adams i'm told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many signs of an eager self-asserting disposition everything that I saw other people do I insisted upon imitating at six months I could pipe out how do you and one day.
I attracted everyone's attention by saying quite plainly even after my illness, i remembered one of the words i had learned in these early months it was the word water and I continued to make some sounds for that word after all other speech was lost i ceased making the sound only when I learned to spell the word they tell me I walked the day I was a year old my mother had just taken me out of the bathtub and was holding me in her lap when I was suddenly attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves that danced in the sunlight on the smooth floor i slipped from my mother's lap and almost ran towards them the impulse gone i fell down and cried for her to take me up in her arms these happy days did not last long one brief spring musical with the song of robin and mockingbird one summer rich in fruit and roses one autumn of golden crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager delighted child then in the dreary month of February came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a newborn baby they called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain the doctor thought I could not live early one morning however the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come there was great rejoicing in the family that morning but no one not even the doctor knew that I should never see or hear again i fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness i especially remembered the tenderness with which my mother tried to soothe me in my waking hours of threat and pain and the agony and bewilderment with which I awoke after a tossing half-sleep and turned my eyes so dry and hot to the wall away from the once-loved light which came to me dim and yet moored him each day but except for these fleeting memories if indeed they'd be memories it all seems very unreal like a nightmare gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different until she came my teacher who was to set my spirit free but during the first 19 months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad green fields and luminous sky trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out if we have once seen the day's hours and what the day has shown.
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