Helen keller brief biography of alexander

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I was happy. 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 information about schools and teachers of deaf or blind children.

When the races were over, and we turned our faces homeward, one of the party noticed a black cloud drifting in from the sea, which grew and spread and thickened until it covered the whole sky. Likewise my compositions are made up of crude notions of my own, inlaid with the brighter thoughts and riper opinions of the authors I have read.

My friends did all they could to excite my curiosity by hints and half-spelled sentences which they pretended to break off in the nick of time. It was not until Mr. Keith taught me that I had a clear idea of mathematics. I must have read parts of many books (in those early days I think I never read any one book through) and a great deal of poetry in this uncomprehending way, until I discovered "Little Lord Fauntleroy," which was the first book of any consequence I read understandingly.

I often tell them stories or teach them a game, and the winged hours depart and leave us good and happy. Whenever anything delighted or interested me she talked it over with me just as if she were a little girl herself. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks.

Ah, how well I understand his deprivation–the perpetual night in which he dwelt–

O dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day! The grinding of heavy wagons on hard pavements and the monotonous clangour of machinery are all the more torturing to the nerves if one's attention is not diverted by the panorama that is always present in the noisy streets to people who can see.

I spent the autumn months with my family at our summer cottage, on a mountain about fourteen miles from Tuscumbia. It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no interpretation.

My mind opened naturally and joyously to a conception of antiquity. The fire leaped into life; the flames encircled me so that in a moment my clothes were blazing.

I knew my own mind well enough and always had my own way, even if I had to fight tooth and nail for it. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I had to carry in my mind, as Mr. Keith says in his report, the lettering of the figures, the hypothesis and conclusion, the construction and the process of the proof. I use playing cards marked in the upper right-hand corner with braille symbols which indicate the value of the card.