Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/85

Rh the close of day" In a camping party: "At dawn I was awakened by the smell of coffee, the rattling of guns, and the heavy footsteps of the men as they strode about, promising themselves the greatest luck of the season." "The air was balmy with a tang of the sea in it." "I felt the low soughing of the wind through the cornstalks, the silky rustling of the long leaves, and the indignant snort of my pony as we caught him in the pasture and put the bit in his mouth—ah me! how well I remember the spicy, clovery smell of his breath!" In describing her visit to Dr. Holmes, she writes: "There was an odor of print and leather in the room which told me that it was full of books." Miss Sullivan relates that when she took Helen, as a child, to church, she smelled the wine, when the communion service began 'and sniffed so loud that every one in the church could hear.' When rowing on the lake at Wrentham in the summer time, she recognizes the direction in which the nearest shore lies by the odors from the shrubbery on the shore. She may even recognize the part of the lake by the specific recognition of some blossoms that grow at some known spot.

While it thus becomes sufficiently evident that the deprivation of the two most intellectual of the senses leaves an indelible impress upon the habits and manners of the mind, yet the community of the mental economy as well as of the materials which it employs and of the language in which it finds expression, is by far the more notable factor in the comparison. Whether we travel by train or by diligence or on foot, the destination is the same when reached. The one mode of conveyance is swift, the other cumbersome, and the third arduous; each requires an equipment with which the others may dispense. For all the view from the mountain top is much the same, however wearisome the climb. What Miss Keller records of her resolution to go to college is true in large measure of her whole career. "I knew that there were obstacles in the way; but I was eager to overcome them. I had taken to heart the words of the wise Roman who said, 'To be banished from Rome is but to live outside of Rome.' Debarred from the great highways of knowledge, I was compelled to make the journey across country by unfrequented roads—that was all; and I knew that in college there were many bypaths where I could touch hands with girls who were thinking, loving and struggling like me."

And yet the 'journey across country by unfrequented roads' is not quite the same as the bustling traffic along the highway. It is because of this difference that we admire the perseverance and testify to the inherent endowment of one who has reached the goal in spite of disabilities profound. It is difficult, in limited compass, to set forth the dominant traits of Miss Keller's personality; it is the less necessary as the reading of the autobiography will convey a far more convincing