Latest / Story of My Life / 21 - Story of My Life by Helen Keller

Transcript

21 - Story of My Life by Helen Keller · Story of My Life

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty one of the Story of My Life. This
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Story of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My Life by Helen Keller, Chapter twenty one. I have
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: thus far sketched the events of my life, but I
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: have not shown how much I have depended on books,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: not only for pleasure and for the wisdom they bring
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to all who read, but also for that knowledge which
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: comes to others through their eyes and their ears. Indeed,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: books have meant so much more in my education than
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: in that of others, that I shall go back to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the time when I began to read. I read my
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: first connected story in May eighteen eighty seven, when I
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: was seven years old, and from that day to this
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I have devoured everything in the shape of a printed
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: page that has come within the reach of my hungry
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: finger tips. As I have said, I did not study
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: regularly during the early years of my education, nor did
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I read according to rule. At first, I had only
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a few books in raised print, readers for beginners, a
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: collection of stories for children, and a book about the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: earth called Our World. I think that was all. But
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I read them over and over until the words were
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: so worn and pressed I could scarcely make them out.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Sometimes Miss Sullivan read to me, spelling into my hand
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: little stories and poems that she knew I should understand.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But I preferred reading myself to being read to, because
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I liked to read again and again the things that
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: pleased me. It was during my first visit to Boston
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that I really began to read. In good earnest. I
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: was permitted to spend the part of each day in
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the institution library, and to wander from bookcase to bookcase
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and take down whatever book my fingers lighted upon, and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: read I did, whether I understood one word in ten
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: or two words on the page. The words themselves fascinated me,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: but I took no conscious account of what I read.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: My mind must, however, have been very impressionable at that period,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: for it retained many words and whole sentences to the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: meaning of which I had not the faintest clue. And afterward,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: when I began to talk and write, these words and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: sentences would flash out quite naturally, so that my friends
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: wondered at the richness of my vocabulary. I must have
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: read parts of many books in those early days. I
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: think I never read any one book through, and a
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: great deal of poetry in this uncomprehending way until I
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: discovered Little Lord Fauntleroy, which was the first book of
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: any consequence I read understandingly. One day, my teacher found
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: me in a corner of the library, poring over the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: pages of The Scarlet Letter. I was then about eighty
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: years old. I remember she asked me if I liked
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Little Pearl, and explained some of the words that had
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: puzzled me. Then she told me that she had a
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: beautiful story about a little boy, which she was sure
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I should like better than The Scarlet Letter. The name
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of the story was Little Lord Fauntleroy, and she promised
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to read it to me the following summer, but we
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: did not begin the story until August. The first few
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: weeks of my stay at the Sea Shore were so
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: full of discoveries and excitement that I forgot the very
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: existence of books. Then my teacher went to visit some
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: friends in Boston, leaving me for a short time. When
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: she returned, almost the first thing we did was to
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: begin the story of Little Lord Fauntleroy. I recall distinctly
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the time and place when we read the first chapters
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of the fascinating child's story. It was a warm afternoon
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: in August, we were sitting together in a hammock which
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: swung from two solemn pines at a short distance from
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the house. We had hurried through the dish washing after
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: luncheon in order that we might have as long an
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: afternoon as possible for the story. As we hastened through
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the long grass toward the hammock, the grasshoppers swarmed about
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: us and fastened themselves on their clothes, and I remembered
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that my teacher insisted upon picking them all off before
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: we sat down, which seemed to me an unnecessary waste
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of time. The hammock was covered with pine needles, for
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: it had not been used while my teacher was away.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: The warm sun shone on the pine trees and drew
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: out all their fragrance. The air was balmy, with the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: tang of the sea in it. Before we began the story,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Miss Sullivan explained to me the things that she knew
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I should not understand, and as we read on she
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: explained the unfamiliar words. At first, there were many words
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I did not know, and the reading was constantly interrupted.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: But as soon as I thoroughly comprehended the situation, I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: became too eagerly absorbed in the story to notice mere words,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and I am afraid. I listened impatiently to the explanations
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: that Miss Sullivan felt to be necessary when her fingers
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: were too tired to spell another word. I had, for
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the first time a keen sense of my deprivations. I
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: took the book in my hands and tried to feel
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the letters with an intensity of longing that I can
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: never forget. Afterward, at my eager request, mister Anagnos had
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the story embossed, and I read it again and again
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: until I almost knew it by heart. And all through
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: my childhood, Little Lord Fauntleroy was my sweet and gentle companion.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I have given these details at the risk of being tedious,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: because they are in such vivid contrast with my vague, mutable,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and confused memories of earlier reading from Little Lord Fauntleroy.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I date the beginning of my true interest in books.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: During the next two years, I read many books at
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: my home and on my visits to Boston. I cannot
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: remember what they all were, or in what order I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: read them, but I know that among them were Greek heroes,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: la Fontaine's Fables, Hawthorn's Wonder Book, Bible Stories, Lamb's Tales
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: from Shakespeare, A child's History of England by Dickens, The
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Arabian Knights, the Swiss Family, Robinson, The Pilgrim's Progress Robinson Crusoe,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Little Women, and Heidi, a beautiful little story which I
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: afterward read in German. I read them in the intervals
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: between study and play, with an ever deepening sense of pleasure.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I did not study nor analyze them. I did not
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: know whether they were well written or not. I never
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: thought about style or authorship. They laid their treasures at
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: my feet, and I accepted them as we accept the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: sunshine and the love of our friends. I loved Little
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Women because it gave me a sense of kinship with
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: girls and boys who could see and hear. Circumscribed, as
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: my life was in so many ways, I had to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: look between the covers of books for news of the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: world that lay outside my own. I did not care,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: especially for The Pilgrim's Progress, which I think I did
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: not finish, or for the Fables. I read La Fontaine's
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Fables first in an English translation, and enjoyed them only
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: after our half hearted fashion. Later I read the book
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: again in French and I found that, in spite of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the vivid word pictures and the wonderful mastery of language,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I liked it no better. I do not know why
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it is, but stories in which animals are made to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: talk and act like human beings have never appealed to
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: me very strongly. The ludicrous caricatures of the animals occupy
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: my mind, and to the exclusion of the moral Then again,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Lafontaine seldom, if ever, appeals to our higher moral sense.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: The highest chords he strikes are those of reason and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: self love. Through all the fables runs the thought that
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: man's morality springs wholly from self love, and that if
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: that self love is directed and restrained by reason, happiness
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: must follow. Now so far as I can judge, self
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: love is the root of all evil. But of course
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I may be wrong, for la Fontaine had greater opportunities
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of observing men than I am likely ever to have.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I do not object so much to the cynical and
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: satirical fables as to those in which momentous truths are
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: taught by monkeys and foxes. But I love the jungle
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: book and wild animals I have known. I feel a
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: genuine interest in the animals themselves, because they are real
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: animals and not caricatures men. One sympathizes with their loves
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and hatreds, laughs over their comedies, and weeps over their tragedies,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: And if they point a moral, it is so subtle
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: that we are not conscious of it. My mind opened
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: naturally and joyously to a conception of antiquity. Greece, Ancient
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Greece exercised the mysterious fascination over me. In my fancy,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the pagan gods and goddesses still walked on earth and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: talked face to face with men, And in my heart
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I secretly built shrines to those I loved best. I
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: knew and loved the whole tribe of nymphs and heroes
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and demigods. No, not quite all, for the cruelty and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: greed of Media and Jason were too monstrous to be forgiven.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And I used to wonder why the gods permitted them
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: to do wrong and then punish them for their wickedness.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And the mystery is still unsolved. I often wonder how
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: God can dumbness keep while sincreeps grinning through his house
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: of time. It was the Iliad that made Greece my Paradise.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I was familiar with the story of Troy before I
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: read it in the original, and consequently I had little
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: difficulty in making the Greek words surrender their treasures after
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I had passed the borderland of grammar. Great poetry, whether
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: than a responsive heart. Would that the host of those
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: who make the great works of the poets odious by
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the analysis, impositions and laborious comments, might learn this simple truth.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: It is not necessary that one should be able to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: define every word and give it its principal parts and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: its grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and appreciate a fine poem. I know my learned professors
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: have found greater riches in the Iliad than I shall
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: ever find. But I am not a varcious I am
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: content that others should be wise than I. But with
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: all their wide and comprehensive knowledge, they cannot measure their
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: enjoyment of that splendid epoch, nor can I. When I
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: read the finest passages of the Iliad, I am conscious
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: of a soul sense that lifts me above the narrow,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: cramping circumstances of my life. My physical limitations are forgotten.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: My world lies upward. The length and the breath and
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the sweep of the heavens are mine. My admiration for
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the Eneid is not so great, but it is none
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the less real. I read it as much as possible
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: without the help of notes or dictionary, and I always
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: like to translate the episodes that pleased me, especially the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: word painting of Virgil is wonderful sometimes, but his gods
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and men move through the scenes of passion and strife
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and pity and love, like the graceful figures in an
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Elizabethan mask, whereas in the Iliad they give three leaps
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: and go on singing. Virgil is serene and lovely, like
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: a marble Apollo in the moonlight. Homer is a beautiful
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: animated youth in the full sunlight, with the wind in
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: his hair. How easy it is to fly on paper wings.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: From Greek heroes to the Iliad was no day's journey,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: nor was it altogether pleasant. One could have traveled round
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the world many times while I trudged my weary way
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: through the labyrinthine mazes of grammars and dictionaries, or fell
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: into those dreadful pitfalls called examinations set by schools and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: colleges for the confusion of those who seek after knowledge.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I suppose this sort of pilgrim's progress was justified by
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the end, but it seemed interminable to me, in spite
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of the pleasant surprises that met me now and then,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: at a turn in the road, I began to read
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the Bible long before I could understand it. Now it
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: seems strange to me that there should have been a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: time when my spirit was deaf to its wondrous harmonies.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: But I remember well a rainy Sunday morning, when having
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: nothing else to do, I begged my cousin to read
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: me a story out of the Bible. Although she did
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: not think I should understand, she began to spell into
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: my hand the story of Joseph and his Brothers. Somehow
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: it failed to interest me. The unusual language and repetition
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: made the story seem unreal and far away in the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: land of Canaan, and I fell asleep and wandered off
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to the land of Nod before the brothers came with
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the coat of many colors unto the tent of Jacob
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and told their wicked lie. I cannot understand why the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: stories of the Greeks should have been so full of
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: charm for me, and those of the Bible so devoid
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: of interest, unless it was that I had made the
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: acquaintance of several Greeks in Boston and been inspired by
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: their enthusiasm for the stories of their country, whereas I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: had not met a single Hebrew or Egyptian, and therefore
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: concluded that they were nothing more than barbarians, and the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: stories about them were probably all made up. Curiously enough,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it never occurred to me to call Greek patronymics queer.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But how shall I speak of the glories I have
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: since discovered in the Bible. For years I have read
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it with an ever broadening sense of joy and inspiration,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and I love it as I love no other book. Still,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: there is much in the Bible against which every instinct
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of my being rebels, so much that I regret the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: necessity which has compelled me to read it through from
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: beginning to end. I did not think that the knowledge
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: which I have gained of its history and sources compensates
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: For my part, I wish, with mister Howeld, that the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: literature of the past might be purged of all that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: is ugly and barbarous in it. Although I should object
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: as much as any one to have these great works
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: weakened or falsified, there is something impressive awful in the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: simplicity and terrible directness of the Book of Esther. Could
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: there be anything more dramatic than the scene in which
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Esther stands before her wicked lord. She knows her life
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: is in his hands, there is no one to protect
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: her from his wrath. Yet, conquering her woman's fear, she
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: approaches him, animated by the noblest patriotism, having but one thought.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: If I perish, I perish. But if I live, my
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: people shall live. The story of Ruth too, how oriental
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: it is, yet how different is the life of these
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: simple country forks from that of the Persian capital. Ruth
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is so loyal and gentle hearted we cannot help loving
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: her As she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Her beautiful and selfish spirit shines out like a bright
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: star in the night, or a dark and cruel age.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Love like Rufe's love, which can rise above conflicting crees
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and deep seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: all the world. The Bible gives me a deep, comforting
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: sense that things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I do not remember a time since I have been
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: capable of loving books that I have not loved Shakespeare.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell exactly when I began lambed tales from Shakespeare,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: but I know that I read them at first with
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a child's understanding and a child's wonder. Macbeth seems to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: have impressed me most. One reading was sufficient to stamp
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: every detail of the story upon my memory forever. For
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: a long time. The ghosts and witches pursued me, even
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: into dreamland. I could see, absolutely see the dagger and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Lady Macbeth's little white hand. The dreadful stain was as
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: appeal to me as to the grief stricken Queen. I
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: read King Lear soon after Macbeth, and I shall never
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: forget the feeling of horror. When I came to the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: scene in which Gloucester's eyes are put out, anger seized me.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: My fingers refused to move. I sat rigid for one
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: long moment, the blood throbbing in my temples, and all
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the hatred that the child can feel concentrated in my heart.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I must have made the acquaintance of Shylock and Satan
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: about the same time, for the two characters were long
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: associated in my mind. I remember that I was sorry
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: for them. I felt vaguely that they could not be good,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: even if they wished to, because no one seemed willing
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: to help them or to give them a fair chance.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Even now I cannot find it in my heart to
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: condemn them utterly. There are moments when I feel that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil are broken
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: spokes in the great weal of good, which shall in
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: due time be made whole. It seems strange that my
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: first reading of Shakespeare should have left me so many
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: unpleasant memories. The bright, gentle, fanciful plays, the ones I
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: like best now appear not to have impressed me at first,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: perhaps because they reflected the habitual sunshine and gaiety of
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a child's life. But there is nothing more capricious than
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the memory of a child, what it will hold and
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: what it will lose. I have since read Shakespeare's plays
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: many times, and no parts of them by heart, but
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell which of them I like best. My
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: delight in them is as varied as my moods. The
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: little songs and the sonnets have a meaning for me
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: as fresh and wonderful as the dramas. But with all
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: my love for Shakespeare, it is often weary work to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: read all the meanings into his lines which critics and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: commentators have given them. I used to try to remember
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: their interpretations, but they discouraged and vexed me, so I
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: made a secret compact with myself not to try any more.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: This compact I have only just broken in my study
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: of Shakespeare under Professor Kittridge. I know there are many
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: things in Shakespeare and in the world that I do
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: not understand, and I am glad to see veil after
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: veil lift gradually revealing new realms of thought and beauty.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Next to poetry, I love history. I have read every
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: historical work that I have been able to lay my
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: hands on, from a catalog of dry facts and drier
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: dates to Greene's impartial, picturesque history of the English People,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: from Freeman's History of Europe to Emerton's middled Ages. The
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: first book that gave me any real sense of the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: value of history was Swinton's World's History, which I received
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: on my thirteenth birthday. Though I believe it is no
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: longer considered valid, yet I have kept it ever since
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: as one of my treasures. From it I learned how
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the races of men spread from land to land and
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: built great cities. How are few great rulers earthly titans
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: put everything under their feet, and with a decisive word
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: opened the gates of happiness for millions and closed them
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: upon millions more. How different nations pioneered in art and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: knowledge and broke ground for the mightier growths of coming ages.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: How civilization underwent, as it were, the holocaust of a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: degenerate age, and rose again like the phoenix among the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: nobler sons of the North. And how by liberty, tolerance,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and education, the great and the wise have opened the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: way for the salvation of the whole world. In my
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: college reading I have become somewhat familiar with French and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: German literature. The German put strength before beauty and truth
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: before convention. Both in life and in literature. There is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a vehement, sledge hammer vigor about everything that he does.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: When he speaks, it is not to impress others, but
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: because his heart would burst if he did not find
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: an outlet for the thoughts that burn in its soul.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Then too, there is in German literature a fine reserve
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: which I like. But its chief glory is the recognition
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I find in it of the redeeming potency of woman's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: self sacrificing love. This thought perveys all German literature, and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: is mystically expressed in Gerty's Faust. All things transitory, but
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: as symbols are sent, Earth's insufficiency here grows to event
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the indescribable. Here it is done. The woman's soul leads
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: us upward and on. Of all the French writers that
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I have read, I like Moliere and Racine best. There
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: are fine things in Baltac, and passages in Merry May
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: which struck like a keen blast of sea air. Alfred
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: de Muse is impossible. I admire Victor Hugo. I appreciate
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: his genius, his brilliancy, his romanticism, though he is not
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: one of my literary passions. But Hugo and Gerty and Schiller,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and all great poets of all great nations are interpreters
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of eternal things, and my spirit reverently follows them into
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the regions where beauty and truth and goodness are one.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I am afraid I have written too much about my
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: book friends, and yet I have mentioned only the authors
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I love most. And from this fact one might easily
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: suppose that my circle of friends was very limited and undemocratic,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: which would be a very wrong impression. I like many
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: writers for many reasons. Carlyle for his ruggedness and scorn
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of shams, Wordsworth, who teaches the oneness of man and nature.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I find an exquisite pleasure in the oddity and surprises
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: of hood. In Herrick's quaintness and palpable scent of lily
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and rose in his verses. I like Quittier for his
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: enthusiasms and moral rectitude. I knew him, and the gentle
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: remembrance of our friendship doubles the pleasure I have in
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: reading his poems. I love Mark Twain, who does not
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the gods too loved him and put into his heart
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: all manner of wisdom. Then, fearing lest he should become
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a pessimist, they spanned his mind with a rainbow of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: love and faith. I like Scott for his freshness, dash
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and large honesty. I love all writers whose minds like
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Loworld's bubble up in the sunshine of optimism, fountains of
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: joy and good will, with occasionally a splash of anger,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and here and there are healing spray of sympathy and pity.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: In a word, literature is my utopia. Here I am
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: have learned and the things I have been taught, seem
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of ridiculously little importance compared with their large loves and
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: heavenly charities. End of Chapter twenty one