The Story of My Life
with Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. I recall with unmixed delight those days
when a thousand childish fancies became beautiful realities. Every day
in imagination I made a trip round the world, and I saw many wonders
from the uttermost parts of the earth--marvels of invention, treasuries
of industry and skill and all the activities of human life actually
passed under my finger tips.
I liked to visit the Midway Plaisance. It seemed like the "Arabian
Nights," it was crammed so full of novelty and interest. Here was
the India of my books in the curious bazaar with its Shivas and
elephant-gods; there was the land of the Pyramids concentrated in a
model Cairo with its mosques and its long processions of camels; yonder
were the lagoons of Venice, where we sailed every evening when the city
and the fountains were illuminated. I also went on board a Viking
ship which lay a short distance from the little craft. I had been on
a man-of-war before, in Boston, and it interested me to see, on this
Viking ship, how the seaman was once all in all--how he sailed and took
storm and calm alike with undaunted heart, and gave chase to whosoever
reechoed his cry, "We are of the sea!" and fought with brains and
sinews, self-reliant, self-sufficient, instead of being thrust into the
background by unintelligent machinery, as Jack is to-day. So it always
is--"man only is interesting to man."
At a little distance from this ship there was a model of the Santa
Maria, which I also examined. The captain showed me Columbus's cabin and
the desk with an hour-glass on it. This small instrument impressed me
most because it made me think how weary the heroic navigator must have
felt as he saw the sand dropping grain by grain while desperate men were
plotting against his life.
Mr. Higinbotham, President of the World's Fair, kindly gave me
permission to touch the exhibits, and with an eagerness as insatiable
as that with which Pizarro seized the treasures of Peru, I took in
the glories of the Fair with my fingers. It was a sort of tangible
kaleidoscope, this white city of the West. Everything fascinated me,
especially the French bronzes. They were so lifelike, I thought they
were angel visions which the artist had caught and bound in earthly
forms.
At the Cape of Good Hope exhibit, I learned much about the processes of
mining diamonds. Whenever it was possible, I touched the machinery
while it was in motion, so as to get a clearer idea how the stones were
weighed, cut, and polished. I searched in the washings for a diamond and
found it myself--the only true diamond, they said, that was ever found
in the United States.
Dr. Bell went everywhere with us and in his own delightful way described
to me the objects of greatest interest. In the electrical building we
examined the telephones, autophones, phonographs, and other inventions,
and he made me understand how it is possible to send a message on wires
that mock space and outrun time, and, like Prometheus, to draw fire from
the sky. We also visited the anthropological department, and I was much
interested in the relics of ancient Mexico, in the rude stone implements
that are so often the only record of an age--the simple monuments of
nature's unlettered children (so I thought as I fingered them) that seem
bound to last while the memorials of kings and sages crumble in dust
away--and in the Egyptian mummies, which I shrank from touching. From
these relics I learned more about the progress of man than I have heard
or read since.
All these experiences added a great many new terms to my vocabulary,
and in the three weeks I spent at the Fair I took a long leap from the
little child's interest in fairy tales and toys to the appreciation of
the real and the earnest in the workaday world.
CHAPTER XVI
Before October, 1893, I had studied various subjects by myself in a more
or less desultory manner. I read the histories of Greece, Rome and the
United States. I had a French grammar in raised print, and as I already
knew some French, I often amused myself by composing in my head short
exercises, using the new words as I came across them, and ignoring rules
and other technicalities as much as possible. I even tried, without
aid, to master the French pronunciation, as I found all the letters and
sounds described in the book. Of course this was tasking slender powers
for great ends; but it gave me something to do on a rainy day, and
I acquired a sufficient knowledge of French to read with pleasure
La Fontaine's "Fables," "Le Medecin Malgre Lui" and passages from
"Athalie."
I also gave considerable time to the improvement of my speech. I read
aloud to Miss Sullivan and recited passages from my favourite poets,
which I had committed to memory; she corrected my pronunciation and
helped me to phrase and inflect. It was not, however, until October,
1893, after I had recovered from the fatigue and excitement of my visit
to the World's Fair, that I began to have lessons in special subjects at
fixed hours.
Miss Sullivan and I were at that time in Hulton, Pennsylvania, visiting
the family of Mr. William Wade. Mr. Irons, a neighbour of theirs, was
a good Latin scholar; it was arranged that I should study under him. I
remember him as a man of rare, sweet nature and of wide experience.
He taught me Latin grammar principally; but he often helped me in
arithmetic, which I found as troublesome as it was uninteresting. Mr.
Irons also read with me Tennyson's "In Memoriam." I had read many books
before, but never from a critical point of view. I learned for the first
time to know an author, to recognize his style as I recognize the clasp
of a friend's hand.
At first I was rather unwilling to study Latin grammar. It seemed absurd
to waste time analyzing every word I came across--noun, genitive,
singular, feminine--when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might
just as well describe my pet in order to know it--order, vertebrate;
division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat;
individual, Tabby. But as I got deeper into the subject, I became more
interested, and the beauty of the language delighted me. I often amused
myself by reading Latin passages, picking up words I understood and
trying to make sense. I have never ceased to enjoy this pastime.
There is nothing more beautiful, I think, than the evanescent fleeting
images and sentiments presented by a language one is just becoming
familiar with--ideas that flit across the mental sky, shaped and tinted
by capricious fancy. Miss Sullivan sat beside me at my lessons, spelling
into my hand whatever Mr. Irons said, and looking up new words for me. I
was just beginning to read Caesar's "Gallic War" when I went to my home
in Alabama.
CHAPTER XVII
In the summer of 1894, I attended the meeting at Chautauqua of the
American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf.
There it was arranged that I should go to the Wright-Humason School for
the Deaf in New York City. I went there in October, 1894, accompanied
by Miss Sullivan. This school was chosen especially for the purpose
of obtaining the highest advantages in vocal culture and training in
lip-reading. In addition to my work in these subjects, I studied, during
the two years I was in the school, arithmetic, physical geography,
French and German.
Miss Reamy, my German teacher, could use the manual alphabet, and after
I had acquired a small vocabulary, we talked together in German
whenever we had a chance, and in a few months I could understand almost
everything she said. Before the end of the first year I read "Wilhelm
Tell" with the greatest delight. Indeed, I think I made more progress
in German than in any of my other studies. I found French much more
difficult. I studied it with Madame Olivier, a French lady who did not
know the manual alphabet, and who was obliged to give her instruction
orally. I could not read her lips easily; so my progress was much slower
than in German. I managed, however, to read "Le Medecin Malgre Lui"
again. It was very amusing but I did not like it nearly so well as
"Wilhelm Tell."
My progress in lip-reading and speech was not what my teachers and I had
hoped and expected it would be. It was my ambition to speak like other
people, and my teachers believed that this could be accomplished; but,
although we worked hard and faithfully, yet we did not quite reach our
goal. I suppose we aimed too high, and disappointment was therefore
inevitable. I still regarded arithmetic as a system of pitfalls. I hung
about the dangerous frontier of "guess," avoiding with infinite
trouble to myself and others the broad valley of reason. When I was not
guessing, I was jumping at conclusions, and this fault, in addition
to my dullness, aggravated my difficulties more than was right or
necessary.
But although these disappointments caused me great depression at times,
I pursued my other studies with unflagging interest, especially physical
geography. It was a joy to learn the secrets of nature: how--in the
picturesque language of the Old Testament--the winds are made to blow
from the four corners of the heavens, how the vapours ascend from the
ends of the earth, how rivers are cut out among the rocks, and mountains
overturned by the roots, and in what ways man may overcome many forces
mightier than himself. The two years in New York were happy ones, and I
look back to them with genuine pleasure.
I remember especially the walks we all took together every day in
Central Park, the only part of the city that was congenial to me. I
never lost a jot of my delight in this great park. I loved to have
it described every time I entered it; for it was beautiful in all its
aspects, and these aspects were so many that it was beautiful in a
different way each day of the nine months I spent in New York.
In the spring we made excursions to various places of interest. We
sailed on the Hudson River and wandered about on its green banks, of
which Bryant loved to sing. I liked the simple, wild grandeur of the
palisades. Among the places I visited were West Point, Tarrytown, the
home of Washington Irving, where I walked through "Sleepy Hollow."
The teachers at the Wright-Humason School were always planning how they
might give the pupils every advantage that those who hear enjoy--how
they might make much of few tendencies and passive memories in the cases
of the little ones--and lead them out of the cramping circumstances in
which their lives were set.
Before I left New York, these bright days were darkened by the greatest
sorrow that I have ever borne, except the death of my father. Mr. John
P. Spaulding, of Boston, died in February, 1896. Only those who knew and
loved him best can understand what his friendship meant to me. He, who
made every one happy in a beautiful, unobtrusive way, was most kind and
tender to Miss Sullivan and me. So long as we felt his loving presence
and knew that he took a watchful interest in our work, fraught with so
many difficulties, we could not be discouraged. His going away left a
vacancy in our lives that has never been filled.
CHAPTER XVIII
In October, 1896, I entered the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, to be
prepared for Radcliffe.
When I was a little girl, I visited Wellesley and surprised my friends
by the announcement, "Some day I shall go to college--but I shall go
to Harvard!" When asked why I would not go to Wellesley, I replied that
there were only girls there. The thought of going to college took root
in my heart and became an earnest desire, which impelled me to enter
into competition for a degree with seeing and hearing girls, in the face
of the strong opposition of many true and wise friends. When I left
New York the idea had become a fixed purpose; and it was decided that