Page 68 - The Story of My Lif

puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words;

but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the
design. But we keep on trying because we know that others have succeeded, and
we are not willing to acknowledge defeat.

“There is no way to become original, except to be born so,” says Stevenson, and
although I may not be original, I hope sometime to outgrow my artificial,

periwigged compositions. Then, perhaps, my own thoughts and experiences will
come to the surface. Meanwhile I trust and hope and persevere, and try not to let
the bitter memory of “The Frost King” trammel my efforts.

So this sad experience may have done me good and set me thinking on some of
the problems of composition. My only regret is that it resulted in the loss of one

of my dearest friends, Mr. Anagnos.

Since the publication of “The Story of My Life” in the Ladies’

Home Journal, Mr. Anagnos has made a statement, in a letter to Mr. Macy, that
at the time of the “Frost King” matter, he believed I was innocent. He says, the
court of investigation before which I was brought consisted of eight people: four
blind, four seeing persons. Four of them, he says, thought I knew that Miss
Canby’s story had been read to me, and the others did not hold this view. Mr.

Anagnos states that he cast his vote with those who were favourable to me.

But, however the case may have been, with whichever side he may have cast his
vote, when I went into the room where Mr. Anagnos had so often held me on his
knee and, forgetting his many cares, had shared in my frolics, and found there
persons who seemed to doubt me, I felt that there was something hostile and

menacing in the very atmosphere, and subsequent events have borne out this
impression. For two years he seems to have held the belief that Miss Sullivan
and I were innocent. Then he evidently retracted his favourable judgment, why I
do not know. Nor did I know the details of the investigation. I never knew even