Page 330 - The Story of My Lif

‘Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers;

But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among his worshipers.’”

She is at once transported into the midst of the events of a story. She rejoices
when justice wins, she is sad when virtue lies low, and her face glows with
admiration and reverence when heroic deeds are described. She even enters into
the spirit of battle; she says, “I think it is right for men to fight against wrongs
and tyrants.”

Here begins Miss Sullivan’s connected account in the report of 1891:

During the past three years Helen has continued to make rapid progress in the
acquisition of language. She has one advantage over ordinary children, that
nothing from without distracts her attention from her studies.

But this advantage involves a corresponding disadvantage, the danger of unduly
severe mental application. Her mind is so constituted that she is in a state of
feverish unrest while conscious that there is something that she does not
comprehend. I have never known her to be willing to leave a lesson when she
felt that there was anything in it which she did not understand.

If I suggest her leaving a problem in arithmetic until the next day, she answers,
“I think it will make my mind stronger to do it now.”

A few evenings ago we were discussing the tariff. Helen wanted me to tell her
about it. I said: “No. You cannot understand it yet.”

She was quiet for a moment, and then asked, with spirit: “How do you know that

I cannot understand? I have a good mind! You must remember, dear teacher, that