The Story of My Life: With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert MacyKeller, Helen
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The Story of My Life: With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy
Keller, Helen
Deafblind women -- United States -- Biography; Keller, Helen, 1880-1968
I have already written of my first meeting with Dr. Alexander Graham
Bell. Since then I have spent many happy days with him at Washington and
at his beautiful home in the heart of Cape Breton Island, near Baddeck,
the village made famous by Charles Dudley Warner's book. Here in Dr.
Bell's laboratory, or in the fields on the shore of the great Bras d'Or,
I have spent many delightful hours listening to what he had to tell me
about his experiments, and helping him fly kites by means of which he
expects to discover the laws that shall govern the future air-ship. Dr.
Bell is proficient in many fields of science, and has the art of making
every subject he touches interesting, even the most abstruse theories.
He makes you feel that if you only had a little more time, you, too,
might be an inventor. He has a humorous and poetic side, too. His
dominating passion is his love for children. He is never quite so happy
as when he has a little deaf child in his arms. His labours in behalf of
the deaf will live on and bless generations of children yet to come; and
we love him alike for what he himself has achieved and for what he has
evoked from others.
During the two years I spent in New York I had many opportunities to
talk with distinguished people whose names I had often heard, but whom I
had never expected to meet. Most of them I met first in the house of my
good friend, Mr. Laurence Hutton. It was a great privilege to visit him
and dear Mrs. Hutton in their lovely home, and see their library and
read the beautiful sentiments and bright thoughts gifted friends had
written for them. It has been truly said that Mr. Hutton has the faculty
of bringing out in every one the best thoughts and kindest sentiments.
One does not need to read "A Boy I Knew" to understand him--the most
generous, sweet-natured boy I ever knew, a good friend in all sorts of
weather, who traces the footprints of love in the life of dogs as well
as in that of his fellowmen.
Mrs. Hutton is a true and tried friend. Much that I hold sweetest, much
that I hold most precious, I owe to her. She has oftenest advised
and helped me in my progress through college. When I find my work
particularly difficult and discouraging, she writes me letters that make
me feel glad and brave; for she is one of those from whom we learn that
one painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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