perhaps, so familiar.

HELEN KELLER AT HOME.

By kind permission of her teacher, Miss Sullivan, I was granted the privilege of an interview with Miss Keller at her residence on Newbury street, Boston, where she was busily at work preparing for the entrance examinations to Radcliffe College.

After a cordial greeting, Miss Sullivan, whose gracious, kindly manner makes the visitor feel perfectly at home, introduced me to her pupil. Seated on a low rocking-chair, in a large, sunny bay-window, the young girl, fresh as the morning, in her dainty pink shirt-waist over a dress of plain, dark material, with the sunshine glinting through her waving brown hair, and kissing her broad white forehead and pink cheeks, made a picture which one will not willingly forget. On her lap was a small red cushion, to which wires, representing the geometrical figures included in the problem on which she was engaged, were fastened. Laying this aside at a touch from Miss Sullivan, she arose, and, stretching out her hand, pronounced my name softly, with a peculiar intonation, which at first makes it a little difficult to understand her words, but to which the listener soon becomes accustomed. Of course, her teacher acted as an interpreter during our conversation, though much of what Helen says is perfectly intelligible even to the untrained ear.

“Yes,” she said, “it is a very difficult problem, but I have a little light on it now.”

HER AMBITION.

“What will your ambition be when your college course is completed?” I asked.

“I think I should like to write,—for children. I tell stories to my little friends a great deal of the time now, but they are not original,—not yet. Most of them are translations from the Greek, and I think no one can write anything prettier for the young. Charles Kingsley has written some equally good things, like ‘Water Babies,’ for instance. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is a fine story, too, but none of them can surpass the Greek tales.”

Many of our advanced thinkers are fond of advancing the theory that the medium of communication in the future will not be spoken words, but the more subtle and genuine, if mute, language of the face, the eyes, the whole body. Sarah Bernhardt forcibly illustrates the effectiveness of this method, for even those who do not understand a word of French derive nearly as much pleasure from the great actress’s performances as those who are thoroughly familiar with the language. Helen Keller’s dramatic power of expression is equally telling.

She is enthusiastic in her admiration of everything Greek. The language, the literature, the arts, the history of the classic land fascinate and enthrall her imagination.

“Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, eagerly, in answer to my query if she expected to go to Greece sometime, “it is one of my air castles. Ever since I was as tall as that,” (she held her hand a short distance from the floor) “I have dreamed about it.”

“Do you believe the dream will some day become a reality?”

“I hope so, but I dare not be too sure,”—and the sober words of wisdom that followed sounded oddly enough on the girlish lips,—“the world is full of disappointments and vicissitudes, and I have to be a little conservative.”

“Which of your studies interest you most?”

“Latin and Greek. I am reading now Virgil’s ‘Eclogues,’ Cicero’s ‘Orations,’ Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey,’” she said, and ran rapidly over a list of classic books which she likes.

Her readiness to perceive a joke and her quickness to detect the least carelessness in language are distinguishing traits, which she illustrated even during our brief conversation. Commenting on her love of everything pertaining to Greece, I remarked that a believer in the doctrine of metempsychosis might imagine that she possessed the soul of an old Greek. Instantly she noticed the little slip, and, laughing gayly, cried: “Oh, no, not the soul of an old Greek, the soul of a young Greek.”

Helen’s merriment was infectious, and we all joined heartily in the laugh, Miss Sullivan saying, “She caught you there,” as I was endeavoring to explain that, of course, I meant the soul of an ancient Greek.

While taking so deep an interest in matters intellectual, and living in a world of her own, penetrated by no outward sight or sound, Miss Keller’s tastes are as normal as those of any girl of nineteen. She is full of animal spirit, dearly loves a practical joke, is fond of dancing, enjoys outside exercise and sport, and has the natural desire of every healthy young maiden to wear pretty things and look her best.

In answer to a question on this latter subject, she said:—

“I used to be very fond of dress, but now I am not particularly so; it is such a bother. We ought to like dress, though, and wear pretty things, just as the flowers put on beautiful colors. It would be fine,” she continued, laughing gleefully, “if we were made with feathers and wings, like the birds. Then we would have no trouble about dress, and we could fly where we pleased.”

“You would fly to Greece, first, I suppose?”

“No,” she replied, and her laughing face took on a tender, wistful look, “I should go home first, to see my loved ones.”

HEREDITY AND CHILDHOOD.

Miss Keller’s home is at Tuscumbia, Alabama, where she was born on June 27, 1880. Some of the best blood of both the north and the south flows in her veins, and it is probable that her uncommon mental powers are in no small degree due to heredity. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, a polished southern gentleman, with a large, chivalrous nature, fine intelligence and attractive manners, was the descendant of a family of Swiss origin, which had settled in Virginia and mixed with some of the oldest families in that state. He served as a captain in the Confederate army during the Civil War, and, at the time of Helen’s birth, was the owner and editor of a paper published at Tuscumbia. On the maternal side she is descended from one of the Adams families of Massachusetts, and the same stock of Everetts from which Edward Everett and Reverend Edward Everett Hale sprang.

Helen Keller was not born deaf and blind, although, at the age of eighteen months, when a violent fit of convulsions deprived her of the faculties of seeing and hearing, she had not attempted to speak. When a child, she was as notable for her stubbornness and resistance to authority as she is to-day for her gentleness and amiability. Indeed, it was owing to an exhibition of what seemed a very mischievous spirit that her parents sought a special instructor for her. Having discovered the use of a key, she locked her mother into a pantry in a distant part of the house, where, her hammering on the door not being heard by the servants, she remained imprisoned for several hours. Helen, seated on the floor outside, felt the knocking on the door, and seemed to be enjoying the situation intensely when at length jailer and prisoner were found. She was then about six years old, and, after this escapade, Mr. and Mrs. Keller felt that the child’s moral nature must be reached and her mental powers cultivated, if possible.

HELEN’S FIRST TEACHER.

On the recommendation of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind at South Boston, sent Miss Annie Mansfield Sullivan to Tuscumbia to undertake the difficult task of piercing the veil behind which the intelligence of the little girl lay sleeping.