Page 195 - The Story of My Lif

New York. Oct. 23, 1894.

…The school is very pleasant, and bless you! it is quite fashionable…. I study
Arithmetic, English Literature and United States History as I did last winter. I
also keep a diary. I enjoy my singing lessons with Dr. Humason more than I can

say. I expect to take piano lessons sometime….

Last Saturday our kind teachers planned a delightful trip to Bedloe’s Island to
see Bartholdi’s great statue of Liberty enlightening the world…. The ancient
cannon, which look seaward, wear a very menacing expression; but I doubt if
there is any unkindness in their rusty old hearts.

Liberty is a gigantic figure of a woman in Greek draperies, holding in her right
hand a torch…. A spiral stairway leads from the base of this pedestal to the
torch. We climbed up to the head which will hold forty persons, and viewed the
scene on which Liberty gazes day and night, and O, how wonderful it was! We
did not wonder that the great French artist thought the place worthy to be the

home of his grand ideal. The glorious bay lay calm and beautiful in the October
sunshine, and the ships came and went like idle dreams; those seaward going
slowly disappeared like clouds that change from gold to gray; those homeward
coming sped more quickly like birds that seek their mother’s nest….

TO MISS CAROLINE DERBY

The Wright-Humason School.

New York, March 15, 1895.

…I think I have improved a little in lip-reading, though I still find it very
difficult to read rapid speech; but I am sure I shall succeed some day if I only
persevere. Dr. Humason is still trying to improve my speech. Oh, Carrie, how I
should like to speak like other people! I should be willing to work night and day
if it could only be accomplished. Think what a joy it would be to all of my
friends to hear me speak naturally!! I wonder why it is so difficult and