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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen of the Story of My Life. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. The Story of My
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  Speaker 1: Life by Helen Keller, Chapter fifteen. The summer and winter
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  Speaker 1: following the Frost King incident I spent with my family
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  Speaker 1: in Alabama. I recall with delight that homegoing everything had
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  Speaker 1: budded and blossomed. I was happy the Frost King was forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: When the ground was strewn with the crimson and golden
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  Speaker 1: leaves of autumn, and the musk scented grapes that covered
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  Speaker 1: the arbor at the end of the garden were turning
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  Speaker 1: golden brown in the sunshine. I began to write a
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  Speaker 1: sketch of my life. A year after I had written
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  Speaker 1: The Frost King. I was still excessively scrupulous about everything
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  Speaker 1: I wrote. The thought that what I wrote might not
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  Speaker 1: be absolutely my own tormented me. No one knew of
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  Speaker 1: these fears except my teacher. A strange sensitiveness prevented me
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  Speaker 1: from referring to the Frost King, and often when an
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  Speaker 1: idea flashed out in the course of conversation, I would
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  Speaker 1: spell softly to her, I am not sure it is mine.
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  Speaker 1: At other times, in the midst of a paragraph, I
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  Speaker 1: was writing, I said to myself, suppose it should be
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  Speaker 1: found that all this was written by some one long ago.
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  Speaker 1: An impish fear clutched my hand so that I could
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  Speaker 1: not write any more that day, and even now I
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  Speaker 1: sometimes feel the same uneasiness and disquietude. Miss Sullivan consoled
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  Speaker 1: and helped me in every way she could think of.
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  Speaker 1: But the terrible experience I had passed through left a
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  Speaker 1: lasting impression on my mind, the significance of which I
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  Speaker 1: am only just beginning to understand. It was with the
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  Speaker 1: hope of restoring my self confidence that she persuaded me
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  Speaker 1: to write for the Youth's Companion a brief account of
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  Speaker 1: my life. I was then twelve years old. As I
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  Speaker 1: look back on my struggle to write that little story,
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  Speaker 1: it seems to me that I must have had a
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  Speaker 1: prophetic vision of the good that would come of the undertaking,
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  Speaker 1: or I should surely have failed. I wrote timidly, fearfully,
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  Speaker 1: but resolutely, urged on by my teacher, who knew that
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  Speaker 1: if I persevered, I should find my mental foothold again
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  Speaker 1: and get a grip on my faculties. Up to the
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  Speaker 1: time of the Frostking episode, I had lived the unconscious
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  Speaker 1: life of a little child. Now my thoughts were turned inward,
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  Speaker 1: and I beheld things invisible. Gradually I emerged from the
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  Speaker 1: penumber of that experience with a mind made clearer by trial,
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  Speaker 1: and with a truer knowledge of life. The chief events
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  Speaker 1: of the year eighteen ninety three were my trip to
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  Speaker 1: Washington during the inauguration of President Cleveland, and visits to
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  Speaker 1: Niagara and the World Fair. Under such circumstances, my studies
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  Speaker 1: were constantly interrupted and often put aside for many weeks,
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  Speaker 1: so that it is impossible for me to give a
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  Speaker 1: connected account of them. We went to Niagara in March
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  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three. It is difficult to describe my emotions
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  Speaker 1: when I stood on the point which overhangs the American
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  Speaker 1: Falls and felt the air vibrate and the earth tremble.
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  Speaker 1: It seems strange to many people that I should be
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  Speaker 1: impressed by the wonders and beauties of Niagara. They are
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  Speaker 1: always asking what does this beauty or that music mean
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  Speaker 1: to you. You cannot see the waves rolling up the
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  Speaker 1: beach or hear their roar, What do they mean to you?
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  Speaker 1: In the most evident sense, they mean everything. I cannot
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  Speaker 1: fathom or define their meaning any more than I can
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  Speaker 1: fathom or define love, or religion or goodness. During the
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  Speaker 1: summer of eighteen ninety three, Miss Sullivan and I visited
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  Speaker 1: the World's Fair with doctor Alexander Graham Bell. I recalled
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  Speaker 1: with a mixed delight those days when a thousand childish
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  Speaker 1: fancies became beautiful realities. Every day in imagination. I made
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  Speaker 1: a trip round the world, and I saw many wonders
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  Speaker 1: from the uttermost parts of the earth, Marvels of invention,
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  Speaker 1: treasuries of industry and skill, and all the activities of
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  Speaker 1: human life actually passed under my finger tips. I liked
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  Speaker 1: to visit the Midway Pleasants. It seemed like the Arabian nights.
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  Speaker 1: It was crammed, so full of novelty and interest. Here
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  Speaker 1: was the India of my books, in the Curious BuzAr,
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  Speaker 1: with its shevers and elephant gods. There was the land
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  Speaker 1: of the Pyramids, concentrated in the model Cairo, with its
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  Speaker 1: mosques and its long processions of camels. Yonder were the
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  Speaker 1: lagoons of Venice, where we sailed every evening when the
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  Speaker 1: city and the fountains were illuminated. I also went on
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  Speaker 1: board a Viking ship which lay a short day distance
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  Speaker 1: from the little craft. I had been on a man
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  Speaker 1: of war before in Boston, and it interested me to
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  Speaker 1: see on this Viking ship how the seaman was once
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  Speaker 1: all in all, how he sailed and took storm and
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  Speaker 1: calm alike with undaunted heart, and gave chase to whosoever
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  Speaker 1: re echoed his cry, We are of the sea, and
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  Speaker 1: fought with brains and sinews, self reliant, self sufficient, instead
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  Speaker 1: of being thrust into the background by an intelligent machinery,
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  Speaker 1: as Jack is to day, so it always is. Man
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  Speaker 1: only is interesting to man. At a little distance from
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  Speaker 1: this ship there was a model of the Santa Maria,
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  Speaker 1: which I also examined. The captain showed me columbus cabin
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  Speaker 1: and the desk with an hour glass on it. This
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  Speaker 1: small instrument impressed me most because it made me think
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  Speaker 1: how weary the heroic navigator must have felt as he
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  Speaker 1: saw the sand dropping grain by grain while desperate men
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  Speaker 1: were plotting against his life. Mister Higginbotham, president of the
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  Speaker 1: World's Fair, kindly gave me permission to touch the exhibits,
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  Speaker 1: and with an eagerness as insatiable as that with which
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  Speaker 1: Bessarrow sees the treasures of Peru. I took in the
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  Speaker 1: glories of the fair with my fingers. It was a
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  Speaker 1: sort of tangible kaleidoscope, this white city of the West.
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  Speaker 1: Everything fascinated me, especially the French bronzes. They were so lifelike.
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  Speaker 1: I thought they were angel visions which the artist had
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  Speaker 1: caught and bound in earthly forms. At the Cape of
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  Speaker 1: Good Hope Exhibit, I learned much about the processes of
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  Speaker 1: mining diamonds. Whenever it was possible, I touched the machinery
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  Speaker 1: while it was in motion, so as to get a
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  Speaker 1: clearer idea how the stones were weighed, cut and polished.
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  Speaker 1: I searched in the washings for a diamond and found
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  Speaker 1: it myself, the only true diamond, they said, that was
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  Speaker 1: ever found in the unit United States. Doctor Bell went
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  Speaker 1: everywhere with us, and, in his own delightful way, described
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  Speaker 1: to me the objects of greatest interest. In the Electrical building,
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  Speaker 1: we examined the telephones, autophones, phonographs, and other inventions, and
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  Speaker 1: he made me understand how it is possible to send
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  Speaker 1: a message on wires that mock space and outrun time,
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  Speaker 1: and like Prometheus, to draw fire from the sky. We
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  Speaker 1: also visited the Anthropological Department and I was much interested
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  Speaker 1: in the relics of ancient Mexico, in the rude stone
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  Speaker 1: implements that are so often the only record of an age,
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  Speaker 1: the simple monuments of nature's unlettered children, so I thought
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  Speaker 1: as I fingered them, that seem bound to last, while
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  Speaker 1: the memorials of kings and sages crumbled in dust away,
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  Speaker 1: and in the Egyptian mummies, which I shrunk from touching.
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  Speaker 1: From these relics, I learned more about the progress of
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  Speaker 1: man than I have heard read. Since all these experiences
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  Speaker 1: added a great many new terms to my vocabulary, and
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  Speaker 1: in the three weeks I spent at the fair, I
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  Speaker 1: took a long leap from the little child's interest in
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  Speaker 1: fairy tales and toys to the appreciation of the real
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  Speaker 1: and the earnest in the workaday world. End of Chapter fifteen.