others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were,
delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and
often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is
wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step
until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered
syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.

At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very few
questions. My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but
as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more and more words, my
field of inquiry broadened, and I would return again and again to the
same subject, eager for further information. Sometimes a new word
revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on my brain.

I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the word,
"love." This was before I knew many words. I had found a few early
violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher. She tried to
kiss me; but at that time I did not like to have any one kiss me except
my mother. Miss Sullivan put her arm gently round me and spelled into
my hand, "I love Helen."

"What is love?" I asked.

She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my heart,
whose beats I was conscious of for the first time. Her words puzzled
me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I
touched it.

I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in
signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of flowers?"

"No," said my teacher.

Again I thought. The warm sun was shining on us.

"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which the
heat came, "Is this not love?"

It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the
sun, whose warmth makes all things grow. But Miss Sullivan shook her
head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I thought it strange
that my teacher could not show me love.

A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes in
symmetrical groups--two large beads, three small ones, and so on. I
had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again
and again with gentle patience. Finally I noticed a very obvious error
in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the
lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads. Miss
Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decid