"Magic in Your Fingers!" - by Helen Keller

Magic in Your Fingers! as published in Home Magazine, (May, 1932)

Transcription

"Magic in Your Fingers!"
by Helen Keller

Few people who see realize how many and how great are the marvels of touch. Blinded by their eyes, they never stop to think how vital the sense of touch is in all the processes of their physical development, what a potent ally it is in all the activities of life. They attach far less importance to it than to sight, hearing or even smell. I have to smile when some one pities me, saying, "She has only the sense of touch." "Only," indeed, when touch is the key that opens to me the world of nature -- leaf, bud and flower, fluttering wings, singing, cool streams, the sun's warmth, the voice of the violin, fields of wheat swept like AEolian harps by light breeze-fingers! All the time I pity those who look at things with their hands in their pockets and do not take the trouble to explore the delights of touch or understand how it ministers to their growth, strength and mental balance.

Yet it was with this sense that the earliest forms of life began upon earth and developed into higher organisms. To make this clearer, it is necessary to define touch. It is that peculiar sensibility which causes us to feel the resistance of external matter and perceive the qualities of objects -- hard or soft, big or small, rough or smooth, liquid or solid, hot or cold. The baby learns all this through touch in the cradle. He has also a muscular sense which gives touch its amazing power.

The sense of touch resides in every part of the body, but it is most sensitive and efficacious in the palm of the hand and the finger-tips. Perhaps the chief marvel of the hand is the long, mobile thumb with its easy lateral movement which gives man a vast physical superiority over the monkey. It is pretty clear that without the long thumb and its power of opposing each and all the fingers few inventions would be possible, and human arts would probably not be far above the monkey stage. It invents wonderful machines with which it spins and weaves, ploughs and reaps, converts clay into walls and builds the roof over our heads. At its command huge titans of steel lift and carry incredible burdens and never grow weary.

Look upon your hand, reader, and consider the incalculable power folded up in it! Think how the hand of man sends forth the waters to irrigate the desert, builds canals between the seas, captures the winds, the sun, the lightnings and dispatches them upon errands of commerce. Before its blows great mountains disappear, derricks -- the hand's power embodied in digits of steel -- rear factories, palaces, monuments and raise cathedral spires.

The hand of the blind man goes with him as an eye to his work and by its silent reading with finger on the raised page shortens his long hours of ennui. It ministers as willingly to the deaf, educates them, and if they cannot speak, its fingers speak words of cheer to their eye, which thus becomes an ear.

The Buddhist monks have a symbolism built up on the hand. Each finger signifies a quality essential to human well-being. The first finger stands for benevolence and filial obedience, the second for seemly behavior and wedded happiness, the third for righteousness and loyalty. The little finger means wisdom and family affection, the thumb sincerity and faithfulness to friends.

We may smile at this elaborate symbolism, but it is a poet's perception of the power of the hand for good and evil. With all our five fingers strong and swift in noble action we can grasp what we will. Opportunity and the precious treasures of the world are ours, but if we are selfish, disloyal or lacking in the community spirit, we break off the fingers one by one. The hand becomes helpless, "it is only a club," as the Japanese put it.

I have experienced marvelously the qualities of the spirit in the hand during my dark, silent life. For it is my hand that binds me to humanity. The hand is my feeler with which I seize the beauty and the activity of the world. The hands of others have touched the shadows in my life with the divine light of love and upheld me with steadfast faith. Truly, as seers say, the hand of a good man is beneficence made visible and tangible.

Blessed be the hand! Blessed thrice be the hands that work!

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1204

"The Dreams That Come True"(4) - by Helen Keller

Dreams That Come True, as published in Personality, (December, 1927)

Transcription

"The Dreams That Come True"
--When One who Can neither See nor Hear Finds Joy in a Flower Garden
by Helen Keller

IV

There was another world of beauty for me in those gardens in the evergreens. There is plenty of room for them, and consequently they have a chance to grow unhampered. Every kind of conifer which will make friends with our climate has been brought there, and planted where it shows to the best advantage. My fingers revelled in many new forms from a superb giant pine with thick, bright green needles to an exquisite small white pine with thin, soft foliage, almost like a silk fringe. A light breeze followed us as we passed from one to the another, and I listened to them as they played the invisible violins of the air -- an inexpressibly restful music. Then there were the firs and spruces John Ruskin had so enthusiastically described with their branches extending in magnificent ridge upon ridge and the sunbeams dancing in and out, offsetting the darker greens. I have always loved evergreens with a deep love. There is nothing in nature which has such a potent, deep-rooted appeal for me. They seem human, and at the same time they symbolize whatever is imperishable and uplifting in life -- hope, courage, and serene faith. Their unfading greenness and fragrance breathe immortality, and are a blessing to me amid the grim monotony of winter. It may be imagined how gratified I was when Mr. Doubleday said that he also found peculiar happiness in the companionship of pines and firs, and had worked for many years to have that wonderful retreat of evergreens made possible right in the heart of a restrictive, machine-driven civilization. He also told me how several men who had visited him, among them John Burroughs and John Muir, had planted a tree in that garden.

Truly, I left those gardens immensely refreshed, with a crowd of bright thoughts tumbling out of their hidden nests and burrows to put me in the right mood for my work again.

Such is the world I live in, and yet how few people understand the simplest truths about it! I have learned many things which stand out boldly in my mind, and when I think of some of them, I wonder, and say to myself, "Do other people have similar thoughts and emotions? Are they as conscious as I am of the life of the spirit?" From what the people tell me I must needs (sic) conclude that physical limitations somehow strengthen and clarify intellectual processes. I confess, it appears paradoxical that weakness should develop strength. Still, there is scriptural authority for this belief. St. Paul says, "When I am weak, then am I strong" -- which is an exceedingly comforting thought to those who are physically damaged.

The explanation undoubtedly is that limitations drive one inward for diversion, with the result that one's own thoughts become absorbingly interesting. The small events of daily life take on extraordinary importance when Celestial Artist combines them with spiritual elements in the Laboratory of Mind. It is a miracle how an incident of no particular value comes out of the mental crucible beautiful and precious. Little by little the transformation and classification of ideas take place in the brain, where are registered the beings and the events which give delight to circumscribed lives. Stored in the memory, they furnish plentiful entertainment for solitary hours; and that is why I never feel "deaf blind." I left that horrible abyss of hopelessness long, long ago.

My life has been happy because I have had wonderful friends and plenty of interesting work to do. I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among the flowers. The wind passes, and the flowers are content. But into the sweet night of my individual blindness has come the call -- the urge of others' need. It is as persistent as the love-note which the mother-bird hears when her nestlings are in trouble, and I know that it will never cease until I have done the utmost of which I am capable to help others break down the walls of darkness and pour the sweet waters of joy into the deserts of silence.

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1190

(The end)

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"The Dreams That Come True"(3) - by Helen Keller

Dreams That Come True, as published in Personality, (December, 1927)

Transcription

"The Dreams That Come True"
--When One who Can neither See nor Hear Finds Joy in a Flower Garden
by Helen Keller

III

Are you amazed, O reader, that I should sympathize with the boy's enthusiasm for the circus? Well, I have a perennial desire myself to get under a circus-tent, and be a part of the riotous pageant -- the segregated wonders of the world. I remember that when I was a little girl, not quite seven years old, my teacher took me to the circus. It was the greatest object-lesson of my childhood. My vocabulary was very limited. Miss Sullivan had been teaching me only two months; but I had learned enough words to understand that I was going to touch "very tall, very large, very strong animals." The phaeton came around to the front door, and I touched Charlie, the old horse. He had been in the family longer than I had. I asked if the "animals" were as tall as Charlie. When Miss Sullivan told me that one of them, the elephant, was as high as the phaeton itself, I became so excited I could hardly sit still. Charlie was very slow. I had observed that when the whip was applied to his fat sides, he went a little faster. I seized the whip, and before Miss Sullivan could stop me, I had given the poor old fellow a terrible whack which made him rear, and nearly upset the phaeton. My teacher quieted Charlie, and delayed our progress long enough to make me understand that if I did that again, I should go right home and never, never, never see the huge elephant.

The first thing of which I was conscious when we finally got inside the tent was a strange, terrifying smell. I clutched Miss Sullivan's skirt, and for a moment my impulse to run away was stronger than my curiosity. But, her hand on one side and the big hand of the circus man on the other side reassured me. They gave me a bag of peanuts and took me at once to see the elephant. I felt his huge forelegs, and the circus man lifted me up on his shoulder, so that I could touch the creature's head and fan-like ears and his broad back, on which there was an Oriental silk covering with tassels and bells. (Some one was going to ride him later.) I was told to give him some peanuts, and perhaps he would let me touch his "long nose" and put it into his mouth. I was amazed, and a little angry; for I liked peanuts, and I had intended to eat some myself. But my disappointment was only for a second or two. Some one gave me another bag of peanuts, and I was allowed to feel my benefactress's beautiful, slim body. She was a trapeze performer, and wore only pink tights. She laughed with pretty confusion at my scrutiny, and kissed me.

I also made the acquaintance of the Arabian marvels and their gorgeous riders, and felt the splendid chariots. I was allowed to sit in one of them like a gypsy princess. The camel was made to kneel, and let me climb up on his queer, humpy back. But oh, the smell of him! At last the wonderful hour came to an end, and we had to leave. My dejection was a little lightened by my teacher's assurance that the circus would came (sic) back after days and days, and I should be taken there again. Of course all the details of this strange nomadic caravan are intensely interesting to any child, and to one who had almost no contact with the outer world they were overwhelmingly fascinating.

What a far cry it is from the automobile which bore me along at the rate of twenty miles in half an hour to that slow horse plodding a mile in the same period of time and an old-fashioned circus in an out-of-the-way village! But it is one way to illustrate the magical changes I have witnessed in the past forty years, and the piled up interest and novelty of my present experiences. When my friends and I arrived at the great publishing- house, Mr. Doubleday received us with cordial kindness, and from his personality and conversation I judged he was a lover of nature as well as a collector and distributor of books.

After a few minutes' chat we went out into the gardens, and smell roses I did! Multitudes of them. There seemed to be as many kinds and scents and ways of growing as there were roses. Gorgeous ramblers climbed up with insatiate desire and tossed great clusters in the breeze. Long-petalled, curly-headed roses romped and spread themselves out like active, eager children seeking adventure. Delicate roses with single petals and slender stems trembled in my hand, while large, full roses exacted tribute with stately grace. All roses that are most fondly twined with memories of home and simple joys grew there, and my fingers thrilled as I recognized the moss-rose of my childhood. Some of the roses were so high and large that they seemed like cascades dancing softly down from the sky.

But I did much more than smell roses. For there were quantities of peonies, in all their splendor and stateliness, all kinds of lilies and pinks and larkspur and masses of honeysuckle. Every breath was a delight, and every flower touched glowed with tints of inexhaustible beauty which no mortal eye may behold.

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1190

(3)

"The Dreams That Come True"(2) - by Helen Keller

Dreams That Come True, as published in Personality, (December, 1927)

Transcription

"The Dreams That Come True"
--When One who Can neither See nor Hear Finds Joy in a Flower Garden
by Helen Keller

II

"Where the soul need not repress
Its music, Lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind."

This is a drowsy day when the summer breeze comes languidly to my cheek, tempting me to go out to my little screened tent, stretch out and dream with the irises and bee-haunted pinks.

There is the hour when the morning sun kisses me awake, and the hour when the burden of material things drops from my shoulder, and I drift to Slumberland. There are hours of breathless haste to catch up with the letters that cover my desk, hours of glad expectancy when a beautiful dream seems about to come true, hours fragrant with tender memories; and always there are the endlessly varied hours I spend with the thinkers and poets and philosophers of all times! How can there be a dull moment when my books are all about me!

I live in a thought-filled world. Those who have all their faculties have no idea what wonderful gardens lie hidden behind the dark silent walls. The very silence vibrates to my every mood and to every consciousness I have of other's existence!

Because silence is such a sublime kind of poetry, it puts soul and meaning into all the vibrations which find their way to me through the channels of touch. There are footsteps of those I love in the house passing and repassing, there is the sudden bark of my beautiful long-eared Great Dane. Every now and then huge trucks filled with material for the new boulevard that is being built not far from this street rumble by, shaking the house and sending little showers of dust down upon the furniture, and instantly I feel astir with the fierce, splendid, never-resting activity of New York. Some time ago I had a breathless moment when twenty aeroplanes rushed by on their way to the Lindbergh parade, and several of them came so near the house I distinctly perceived the roar of the motor through the walls of my study. What a crowd of admiring, far-gazing thoughts that vibration started on the wing. As the birds follow summer, so my mind again followed in the vision the dauntless youth who had crossed the Atlantic alone. Out there, on trackless levels of the night, I again saw him. In my own soul I recreated that agony of solitude, the lurking herd of fears and doubts, the awful abysmal dark. I tried to imagine his thoughts as he drove on and on, sensing the primal mystery -- darkness as inaccessible as God's light. In the world's market, where they sell all things, he had bought a dream, and carried it on dewy wings into the shining east, his plane swaying with the winds and curving with the clouds! My spirit seemed to stand still as I imaged him losing the celestial trail and leaping into the unmeasured void, with a million white-faced deaths blowing across his path! Because I know the dark so deeply, I had peculiar sympathy with him guiding his plane that like a lamp grimly burned in ice -- now rising above the treachery of fog and sleet, now swooping seaward, hunting an unseen course as a blind man feels his way in the dark! But at last, fluttering down the golden bar of dawn, he glimpsed the dim rim of earth, and all the glory of a mighty day shone upon him! All this the Artist within brought thrillingly to my consciousness as I felt the sonorous roar of those planes speeding over Long Island to do him honor. And what other marvelous pictures he conjured up for my delight! They come fast, they come fast -- the Fliers crossing the Pacific, fliers who seek to read the baffling secrets of mist and snow and airy heights, fliers who overtake the swiftest fires and quench them, fliers who shall charm shut clouds to pour bounty upon thirsty fields, fliers who shall bear messages weaving a chain of friendship to encircle the world -- peacebringers who shall outspeed strife and hate, and dare and dare, and yet again dare until all men walk the earth unafraid, brothers one to another!

I have other sensations which bring me warm, human contacts with the outer world. The sense of smell is most precious and important in my every day world. It brings within my reach a multitude of little joys which take the place of color and light. The atmosphere is charged with countless odors, from which I learn much about places and objects. I recognize many flowers by their graceful shapes and fragrance, and it is amazing how many kinds of sweetness there are in leaves, fruits, and seeds! Even the same plant gives forth a different scent in sunshine and in rainy weather. In spring and autumn there are qualities which I can describe only approximately, as I have not found anything like a satisfactory vocabulary of smell terms -- or touch terms either. There are tender odors like the lilac. The honeysuckle seems to lavish its fragrance upon one with something like affection. The odor of the lily when once captured is a precious satisfaction, but how shy and elusive it can be even though one stands close to the flower! There are sunshine and calm for me in the smell of a new-mown hayfield, the woods and mountains are full of quiet, eternal odors that make me want to worship. There are many beautiful odors that seem to reach out to me like friendly greetings each time I pass, and this is a sweet compensation for the void I feel when I cannot see loved objects unless I stretch my hand and touch them. Smell is like a friend who gossips with me about little every day things as well as the Spirit of Beauty. It tells me when it rains, when the grass is cut, when automobiles pass in the street, what new houses are going up in this growing town -- and when it is mealtime. It is the thousand scents I perceive which differentiate one house or a street from another, and always I prefer to be as near the country as possible.

I should like the city pretty well if it were not for my exacting touch and odor perception. But the avalanche of noises and the turmoil of New York weary me, and the heavy smells of crowded shops and sultry streets and air congested with gasoline oppress me. Give me the noiseless little noises of growing things and the morning and evening odors of my tiny garden, and I am content in a world flooded with the harmony and the brilliancy of the spirit. Imagination gives eyes and ears to those who lack a sense or two, builds a satisfying whole out of the fragmentary and often unrelated details which drift into one's consciousness out of a dark silent chaos. I had an experience recently which I should like to relate because it brought out in a most happy manner the delightful sensations and the witchery of the soul which render my life as full and liveable as that of any one with all his powers intact.

I was sitting at my typewriter the other day, waiting rather impatiently for an idea which I desperately needed to finish a chapter in my autobiography, when I received an invitation from Mr. Doubleday to come and smell the roses in his garden. "Bless my soul," I said to myself, "this welcome interruption has saved my life! It has put to flight the recalcitrant thoughts that were destroying me utterly. What better thing could I do than go out there to smell roses!"

The drive to Garden City was beautiful. Long Island is always beautiful under the touch of June. The caressing air makes one realize the uselessness of toilsome effort when all out-of-doors breathes an irresistible invitation to come and be a child again, when even the most diligent finds work irksome, when every live boy dreams of playing "hookey." I thought, "Perish the task that would keep one indoors on such a day!" They are rare enough as one grows older. Running away like the boy with the circus is our only chance of being young again.

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1190

(2)

"The Dreams That Come True"(1) - by Helen Keller

Dreams That Come True, as published in Personality, (December, 1927)

Transcription

"The Dreams That Come True"
--When One who Can neither See nor Hear Finds Joy in a Flower Garden
by Helen Keller

I

Swedenborg says that "many arts in this world derive their laws and harmonies from Heaven."

Certainly,there is something divine in the art which some human beings possess to shape life for themselves, no matter what the outward circumstances may be. That is the power of the Celestial Artist, the Will, to find life worth living, despite the handicap imposed.

I have for many years endeavored to make this vital truth clear; and still people marvel when I tell them that I am happy. They imagine that my limitations weigh heavily upon my spirit, and chain me to the rock of despair. Yet, it seems to me, happiness has very little to do with the senses. If we make up our minds that this is a drab and purposeless universe, it will be that, and nothing else. On the other hand, if we believe that the earth is ours, and that the sun and moon hang in the sky for our delight, there will be joy upon the hills and gladness in the fields because the Artist in our souls glorifies creation. Surely, it gives dignity to life to believe that we are born into this world for noble ends, and that we have a higher destiny than can be accomplished within the narrow limits of this physical life.

"I can understand," I hear some one interrupting me, "that you enjoy flowers and sunshine and that sort of thing; but when you sit by yourself in that little study on the top of the house all day, aren't you dreadfully bored? You can't see a bit of color from the window, or hear a sound! Don't you get tired of the -- well, the sameness of the objects you touch when you can't see the play of light and shadow upon them? Aren't the days and the hours all alike to you?"

Never! My days are all different, and no hour is quite like another.

Through my sense of touch I am keenly alive to all changes and movements of the atmosphere, and I am sure the days vary for me as much as they do for my friend who observes the skies -- often not caring about their beauty, but only to see if it is going to rain. There are days when the suns pours into my study, and I feel all of life's joys crowded into each beam. There are rainy days when a sort of shade clings about me and lays a cool hand upon my face, and the smell of the moist earth and damp objects lingers everywhere. There are days really "dark" for me when I feel the ten windows in the study shudder and sob with the winter blast. Then glad days that feel like light come when the sonorous west wind booms its message of spring into my hand as I lay it against the pane, and I am eager to be away in the woods-

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1190

(1)

"My Animal Friends"(draft) - by Helen Keller

My Animal Friends, as published in the Zoological Society Bulletin, (September 1923, draft)

Transcription

Zoological Society Bulletin
September 1923
Volume XXVI
No. 5

"My Animal Friends" by Helen Keller

Part II: My Acquaintance with Zoologica1 Park Animals

"On my first visit to Boston, soon after my eighth birthday, I was taken to a menagerie, and formally introduced to an elephant, a cageful of monkeys and three baby lions. The monkeys were very mischievous. They pulled my hair and snatched at the flowers in my hat. Their queer, cold hands made me shiver, and I did not like their teasing antics a bit.

"The elephant was an enormous fellow with a breath like the blast from furnace. He helped himself to a bag of peanuts I held in my hand, and swallowed them, bag and all. When I tried to feel his trunk, he objected and lifted it out of reach. His keeper assisted me to climb up on Jumbo's back, where I sat frightened, but proud of the adventure. I felt like a little boat afloat upon a great sea, and secretly I was glad to climb back to the firm earth again.

"The young lions were docile and playful. They rolled over on their backs and purred like kittens. I could not believe they would grow up into ferocious beasts of prey. But when I saw two of them years later, I was convinced. As I stood by their cage, I realized that my innocent, pretty, good-natured lion kittens had undergone a great change, not only in their physical appearance, but also in mind and disposition. The lioness was still slender, and more quiet than the male, which had developed into a powerful, aggressive creature with an imposing mane. His baby purr was now a roar that terrified me. I was not permitted to touch him even through the bars.

2 　　

"I have, however, touched two grown lions since then, also Trilby, the famous lioness in the Washington Zoological Park. She was as gentle and as beautiful as a great Dane. She pressed her body against me affectionately and licked my hand. One lion, a splendid fellow, held out a huge paw to me in a friendly manner, let me feel his great head and even growled amiably for my entertainment. His keeper made him walk up and down the cage so that I might feel his stride."

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1220

"Three Days to See"(4) - by Helen Keller

Three Days to See, as published in Atlantic Monthly, (January, 1933)

Transcription

"Three Days to See"
by Helen Keller

IV

The following morning, I should again greet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights, for I am sure that, for those who have eyes which really see, the dawn of each day must be a perpetually new revelation of beauty.

This, according to the terms of my imagined miracle, is to be my third and last day of sight. I shall have no time to waste in regrets or longings; there is too much to see. The first day I devoted to my friends, animate and inanimate. The second revealed to me the history of man and Nature. To-day I shall spend in the workday world of the present, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life. And where one can find so many activities and conditions of men as in New York? So the city becomes my destination.

I start from my home in the quiet little suburb of Forest Hills, Long Island. Here, surrounded by green lawns, trees, and flowers, are neat little houses, happy with the voices and movements of wives and children, havens of peaceful rest for men who toil in the city. I drive across the lacy structure of steel which spans the East River, and I get a new and startling vision of the power and ingenuity of the mind of man. Busy boats chug and scurry about the river - racy speed, boats, stolid, snorting tugs. If I had long days of sight ahead, I should spend many of them watching the delightful activity upon the river.

I look ahead, and before me rise the fantastic towers of New York, a city that seems to have stepped from the pages of a fairy story. What an awe-inspiring sight, these glittering spires, these vast banks of stone and steel - sculptures such as the gods might build for themselves! This animated picture is a part of the lives of millions of people every day. How many, I wonder, give it so much as a second glance? Very few, I fear. Their eyes are blind to this magnificent sight because it is so familiar to them.

I hurry to the top of one of those gigantic structures, the Empire State Building, for there, a short time ago, I 'saw' the city below through the eyes of my secretary. I am anxious to compare my fancy with reality. I am sure I should not be disappointed in the panorama spread out before me, for to me it would be a vision of another world.

Now I begin my rounds of the city. First, I stand at a busy corner, merely looking at people, trying by sight of them to understand something of their lives. I see smiles, and I am happy. I see serious determination, and I am proud. I see suffering, and I am compassionate.

I stroll down Fifth Avenue. I throw my eyes out of focus, so that I see no particular object but a seething kaleidoscope of color. I am certain that the colors of women's dresses moving in a throng must be a gorgeous spectacle of which I should never tire. But perhaps if I had sight I should be like most other women - too interested in styles and the cut of individual dresses to give much attention to the splendor of color in the mass. And I am convinced, too, that I should become an inveterate window shopper, for it must be a delight to the eye to view the myriad articles of beauty on display.

From Fifth Avenue I make a tour of the city - to Park Avenue, to the slums, to factories, to parks where children play. I take a stay-at-home trip abroad by visiting the foreign quarters. Always my eyes are open wide to all the sights of both happiness and misery so that I may probe deep and add to my understanding of how people work and live. My heart is full of the images of people and things. My eye passes lightly over no single trifle; it strives to touch and hold closely each thing its gaze rests upon. Some sights are pleasant, filling the heart with happiness; but some are miserably pathetic. To these latter I do not shut my eyes, for they, too are part of life. To close the eye on them is to close the heart and mind.

My third day of sight is drawing to an end. Perhaps there are many serious pursuits to which I should devote the few remaining hours, but I am afraid that on the evening of that last day I should run away to the theatre, to a hilariously funny play, so that I might appreciate the overtones of comedy in the human spirit.

At midnight my temporary respite from blindness would cease, and permanent night would close in on me again. Naturally in those three short days I should not have seen all I wanted to see. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how much I had left unseen. But my mind would be so overcrowded with glorious memories that I should have little time for regrets. Thereafter the touch of every object would bring a glowing memory of how that object looked.

Perhaps this short outline of how I should spend three days of sight does not agree with the programme you would set for yourself if you knew that you were about to be stricken blind. I am, however, sure that if you actually faced that fate your eyes would open to things you had never seen before, storing up memories for the long night ahead. You would use your eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you. Your eyes would touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at last, you would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.

I who am blind can give one hint to those who see - one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf to-morrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1215

(END)

"Three Days to See"(3) - by Helen Keller

Three Days to See, as published in Atlantic Monthly, (January, 1933)

Transcription

"Three Days to See"
by Helen Kelle

III

The next day - the second day of sight - I should arise with the dawn and see the thrilling miracle by which night is transformed into day. I should behold with awe the magnificent panorama of light with which the sun awakens the sleeping earth.

This day I should devote to a hasty glimpse of the world, past and present. I should want to see the pageant of man's progress, the kaleidoscope of the ages. How can so much compressed into one day? Through the museums, of course. Often I have visited the New York Museum of Natural History to touch with my hands many of the objects there exhibited, but I have longed to see with my eyes the condensed history of the earth and its inhabitants displayed there - animals and the races of men pictured in their native environment; gigantic carcasses of dinosaurs and mastodons which roamed the earth long before man appeared, with his tiny stature and powerful brain, to conquer the animal kingdom; realistic presentations of the processes of evolution in animals, and in the implements which man has used to fashion for himself a secure home on this planet; and a thousand and one other aspects of natural history.

I wonder how many readers of this article have viewed this panorama of the face of living things as pictured in that inspiring museum. Many, of course, have not had the opportunity, but, I am sure that many who have had the opportunity have not made use of it. There, indeed, is a place to use your eyes. You who can see can spend many fruitful days there, but I, with my imaginary three days of sight, could only take a hasty glimpse, and pass on.

My next stop would be the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for just as the Museum of Natural History reveals the material aspects of the world, so does the Metropolitan show the myriad facets of the human spirit. Throughout the history of humanity the urge to artistic expression has been almost as powerful as the urge for food, shelter, and procreation. And here, in the vast chambers of the Metropolitan Museum, is unfolded before me the spirit of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as expressed in their art. I know well through my hands the sculptured gods and goddesses of the ancient Nile-land. I have a few copies of Parthenon friezes, and I have sensed the rhythmic beauty of charging Athenian warriors. Apollos and Venuses and the winged victory of Samothrace are friends of my finger tips. The gnarled, bearded features of Homer are dear to me, for he, too, knew blindness.

My hands have lingered upon the living marvel of Roman sculpture as well as that of later generations. I have passed my hands over a plaster cast of Michelangelo's inspiring and heroic Moses; I have sensed the power of Rodin; I have been awed by the devoted spirit of Gothic wood carving. These arts which can be touched have meaning for me, but even they were meant to be seen rather than felt, and I can only guess at the beauty which remains hidden from me. I can admire the simple lines of a Greek vase, but its figured decorations are lost to me.

So on this, my second day of sight, I should try to probe into the soul of man through his art. The things I knew through touch I should now see. More splendid still, the whole magnificent world of painting would be opened to me, from the Italian Primitives, with their serene religious devotion, to the Moderns, with their feverish visions. I should look deep into the canvases of Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci, Titian, Rembrandt. I should want to feast my eyes upon the warm colors of Veronese, study the mysteries of El Greco, catch a new vision of Nature from Corot. Oh, there is so much rich meaning and beauty in the art of the ages for you who have eyes to see!

Upon my short visit to this temple of art I should not be able to review a fraction of that great world of art which is open to you. I should be able to get only a superficial impression. Artists tell me that for a deep and true appreciation of art one must educate the eye. One must learn from experience to weigh the merits of line, of composition, of form and color. If I had eyes, how happily would I embark upon so fascinating a study! Yet I am told that, to many of you who have eyes to see, the world of art is a dark night, unexplored and unilluminated.

It would be with extreme reluctance that I should leave the Metropolitan Museum, which contains the key to beauty - a beauty so neglected. Seeing persons, however, do not need a Metropolitan to find this key to beauty. The same key lies waiting in smaller museums, and in books on the shelves of even small libraries. But naturally, in my limited time of imaginary sight, I should choose the place where the key unlocks the greatest treasures in the shortest time.

The evening of my second day of sight I should spend at a theatre or at the movies. Even now I often attend theatrical performances of all sorts, but the action of the play must be spelled into my hand by a companion. But how I should like to see with my own eyes the fascinating figure of Hamlet, or the gusty Falstaff amid colorful Elizabethan trappings! How I should like to follow each movement of the graceful Hamlet, each strut of the hearty Falstaff! And since I could see only one play, I should be confronted by a many-horned dilemma, for there are scores of plays I should want to see. You who have eyes can see any you like. How many of you, I wonder, when you gaze at a play, a movie, or any spectacle, realize and give thanks for the miracle of sight which enables you to enjoy its color, grace, and movement?

I cannot enjoy the beauty rythmic movement except in a sphere restricted to the touch of my hands. I can vision only dimly the grace of a Pavlowa, although I know something of the delight of rhythm, for often I can sense the beat of music as it vibrates through the floor. I can well imagine that cadenced motion must be one of the most pleasing sights in the world. I have been able to gather something of this by tracing with my fingers the lines in sculptured marble; if this static grace can be so lovely, how much more acute must be the thrill of seeing grace in motion.

One of my dearest memories is of the time when Joseph Jefferson allowed me to touch his face and hands as he went through some of the gestures and speeches of his beloved Rip Van Winkle. I was able to catch thus a meager glimpse of the world of drama, and I shall never forget the delight of that moment. But, oh, how much I must miss, and how much pleasure you seeing ones can derive from watching and hearing the interplay of speech and movement in the unfolding of a dramatic performance! If I could see only one play, I should know how to picture in my mind the action of a hundred plays which I have read or had transferred to me through the medium of manual alphabet.

So, through the evening of my second imaginary day of sight, the great figures of dramatic literature would crowd sleep from my eyes.

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1215

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"Three Days to See"(2) - by Helen Keller

Three Days to See, as published in Atlantic Monthly, (January, 1933)

Transcription

"Three Days to See"
by Helen Keller

II

Perhaps I can best illustrate by imagining what I should most like to see if I was given the use of my eyes, say, for just three days. And while I am imagining, suppose you, too, set your mind to work on the problem of how to work on the problem of how you would use your own eyes if you had only three days to see. If with the oncoming darkness if the third night you knew that the sun would never rise for you again, how would you spend those three intervening days? What would you most want to let your gaze rest upon?

I, naturally, should want most to see the things which have become dear to me through my years of darkness. You, too, would want to let your eyes rest long on the things that have become dear to you so that you could take the memory of them with you into the night that loomed before you.

If, by some miracle, I were granted three seeing days, to be followed by a relapse into darkness, I should divide the period into three parts.

On the first day, I should want to see the people whose kindness and gentleness and companionship have made my life worth living. First I should like to gaze long upon the face of my dear teacher, Mrs. Ann Sullivan Macy, who came to me when I was a child and opened the outer world to me. I should want not merely to see the outline of her face, so that I could cherish it in my memory, but to study that face and find in it the living evidence of the sympathetic tenderness and patience with which she accomplished the difficult task of my education. I should like to see in her eyes that strength of character which has enabled her to stand firm in the face of difficulties, and that compassion for all humanity which she has revealed to me so often.

I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that 'window of the soul,' the eye. I can only 'see' through my finger tips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter, sorrow, and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces. But I cannot really picture their personalities, of course, through the thoughts they express to me, through whatever of their actions are revealed to me. But I am denied that deeper understanding of them which I am sure would come through sight of them, through watching their reactions to various expressed and circumstances, through noting the immediate and fleeting reactions of their eyes and countenance.

Friends who are near to me I know well, because through the months and years they reveal themselves to me in all their phases; but of casual friends I have only an incomplete impression, an impression gained from handclasp, from spoken words which I take from their lips with my finger tips, or which they tap into the palm of my hand.

How much easier, how much more satisfying it is for you who can see to grasp quickly the essential qualities of another person by watching the subtleties of expression, the quiver of a muscle, the flutter of a hand. But does it ever occur to you to use your sight to see the inner nature of a friend or acquaintance? Do not most of you seeing people grasp casually the outward features of a face and let it go at that?

For instance, can you describe accurately the faces of five good friends? Some of you can, but many cannot. As an experiment, I have questioned husbands of long standing about the color of their wives' eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that they so not know. And, incidentally, it is a chronic complaint of wives that their husbands do not notice new dresses, new hats, and changes in household arrangements.

The eyes of seeing persons soon become accustomed to the routine of their surroundings, and they actually see only the startling and spectacular. But even in viewing the most spectacular sights the eyes are lazy. Court records reveal every day how inaccurately 'eyewitnesses' see. A given event will be 'seen' in several different ways by as many witnesses. Some see more than others, but few see everything that is within the range of their vision.

Oh, the things that I should see if I had the power of sight for just three days!

The first day would be a busy one. I should call to me all my dear friends and look long into their faces, imprinting upon my mind the outward evidence of the beauty that is within them. I should let my eyes rest, too, on the face of a baby, so that I could catch a vision of the eager, innocent beauty which precedes the individuals consciousness of the conflicts which life develops.

And I should like to look into the loyal, trusting eyes of my dogs - the grave, canny little Scottie, Darkie, and the stalwart, understanding Great Dane, Helga, whose warm, tender, and playful friendships are so comforting to me.

On that busy first day I should also view the small simple things of my home. I want to see the warm colors in the rugs under my feet, the pictures on the walls, the intimate trifles that transform a house into a home. My eyes would rest respectfully on the books in raised type which I have read, but they would be more eagerly interested in the printed books which seeing people can read, for during the long night of my life the books I have read and those which have been read to me have built themselves into a great shining lighthouse, revealing to me the deepest channels of human life and the human spirit.

In the afternoon of that first seeing day, I should take a long walk in the woods and intoxicate my eyes on the beauties of the world of Nature, trying desperately to absorb in a few hours the vast splendor which is constantly unfolding itself to those who can see. On the way home from my woodland jaunt my path would lie near a farm so that I might see the patient horses ploughing in the field (perhaps I should see only a tractor!) and the serene content of men living close to the soil. And I should pray for the glory of a colorful sunset.

When dusk had fallen, I should experience the double delight of being able to see by artificial light, which the genius of man has created to extend the power of his sight when Nature decrees darkness.

In the night of that first day of sight, I should not be able to sleep, so full would be my mind of the memories of the day.

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1215

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"Three Days to See"(1) - by Helen Keller

Three Days to See, as published in Atlantic Monthly, (January, 1933)

Transcription

"Three Days to See"by Helen Keller

I

All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours. But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.

Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations, should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, what regrets?

Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die to-morrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the epicurean motto of 'Eat, drink, and be merry,' but most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.

In stories, the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do.

Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.

The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our facilities and senses. Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill.

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.

Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. 'Nothing in particular,' she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.

How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open fingers. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. To me the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending drama, the action of which streams through my finger tips.

At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight. Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted. It is human, perhaps, to appreciate little that which have and to long for that which we have not, but it is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.

If I were the president of a university I should establish a compulsory course in 'How to Use Your Eyes'. The professor would try to show his pupils how they could add joy to their lives by really seeing what passes unnoticed before them. He would try to awake their dormant and sluggish faculties.

source:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=17&DocumentID=1215

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