The Story of My Life

I have thus far sketched the events of my life, but I have not shown how much I have depended on books not only for pleasure and for the wisdom they bring to all who read, but also for that knowledge which comes to others through their eyes and their ears.  Indeed, books have meant so much more in my education than in that of others, that I shall go back to the time when I began to read.

I read my first connected story in May, 1887, when I was seven years old, and from that day to this I have devoured everything in the shape of a printed page that has come within the reach of my hungry finger tips.  As I have said, I did not study regularly during the early years of my education; nor did I read according to rule.

At first I had only a few books in raised print—­“readers” for beginners, a collection of stories for children, and a book about the earth called “Our World.”  I think that was all; but I read them over and over, until the words were so worn and pressed I could scarcely make them out.  Sometimes Miss Sullivan read to me, spelling into my hand little stories and poems that she knew I should understand; but I preferred reading myself to being read to, because I liked to read again and again the things that pleased me.

It was during my first visit to Boston that I really began to read in good earnest.  I was permitted to spend a part of each day in the Institution library, and to wander from bookcase to bookcase, and take down whatever book my fingers lighted upon.  And read I did, whether I understood one word in ten or two words on a page.  The words themselves fascinated me; but I took no conscious account of what I read.  My mind must, however, have been very impressionable at that period, for it retained many words and whole sentences, to the meaning of which I had not the faintest clue; and afterward, when I began to talk and write, these words and sentences would flash out quite naturally, so that my friends wondered at the richness of my vocabulary.  I must have read parts of many books (in those early days I think I never read any one book through) and a great deal of poetry in this uncomprehending way, until I discovered “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” which was the first book of any consequence I read understandingly.

One day my teacher found me in a corner of the library poring over the pages of “The Scarlet Letter.”  I was then about eight years old.  I remember she asked me if I liked little Pearl, and explained some of the words that had puzzled me.  Then she told me that she had a beautiful story about a little boy which she was sure I should like better than “The Scarlet Letter.”  The name of the story was “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” and she promised to read it to me the following summer.  But we did not begin the story until August; the first few weeks of my stay at the seashore were so full of discoveries and excitement that I forgot the very existence of books.  Then my teacher went to visit some friends in Boston, leaving me for a short time.

When she returned almost the first thing we did was to begin the story of “Little Lord Fauntleroy.”  I recall distinctly the time and place when we read the first chapters of the fascinating child’s story.  It was a warm afternoon in August.  We were sitting together in a hammock which swung from two solemn pines at a short distance from the house.  We had hurried through the dish-washing after luncheon, in order that we might have as long an afternoon as possible for the story.  As we hastened through the long grass toward the hammock, the grasshoppers swarmed about us and fastened themselves on our clothes, and I remember that my teacher insisted upon picking them all off before we sat down, which seemed to me an unnecessary waste of time.  The hammock was covered with pine needles, for it had not been used while my teacher was away.  The warm sun shone on the pine trees and drew out all their fragrance.  The air was balmy, with a tang of the sea in it.  Before we began the story Miss Sullivan explained to me the things that she knew I should not understand, and as we read on she explained the unfamiliar words.  At first there were many words I did not know, and the reading was constantly interrupted; but as soon as I thoroughly comprehended the situation, I became too eagerly absorbed in the story to notice mere words, and I am afraid I listened impatiently to the explanations that Miss Sullivan felt to be necessary.  When her fingers were too tired to spell another word, I had for the first time a keen sense of my deprivations.  I took the book in my hands and tried to feel the letters with an intensity of longing that I can never forget.

Afterward, at my eager request, Mr. Anagnos had this story embossed, and I read it again and again, until I almost knew it by heart; and all through my childhood “Little Lord Fauntleroy” was my sweet and gentle companion.  I have given these details at the risk of being tedious, because they are in such vivid contrast with my vague, mutable and confused memories of earlier reading.

From “Little Lord Fauntleroy” I date the beginning of my true interest in books.  During the next two years I read many books at my home and on my visits to Boston.  I cannot remember what they all were, or in what order I read them; but I know that among them were “Greek Heroes,” La Fontaine’s “Fables,” Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book,” “Bible Stories,” Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare,” “A Child’s History of England” by Dickens, “The Arabian Nights,” “The Swiss Family Robinson,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Little Women,” and “Heidi,” a beautiful little story which I afterward read in German.  I read them in the intervals between study and play with an ever-deepening sense of pleasure.  I did not study nor analyze them—­I did not know whether they were well written or not; I never thought about style or authorship.  They laid their treasures at my feet, and I accepted them as we accept the sunshine and the love of our friends.  I loved “Little Women” because it gave me a sense of kinship with girls and boys who could see and hear.  Circumscribed as my life was in so many ways, I had to look between the covers of books for news of the world that lay outside my own.

I did not care especially for “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” which I think I did not finish, or for the “Fables.”  I read La Fontaine’s “Fables” first in an English translation, and enjoyed them only after a half-hearted fashion.  Later I read the book again in French, and I found that, in spite of the vivid word-pictures, and the wonderful mastery of language, I liked it no better.  I do not know why it is, but stories in which animals are made to talk and act like human beings have never appealed to me very strongly.  The ludicrous caricatures of the animals occupy my mind to the exclusion of the moral.

Then, again, La Fontaine seldom, if ever, appeals to our highest moral sense.  The highest chords he strikes are those of reason and self-love.  Through all the fables runs the thought that man’s morality springs wholly from self-love, and that if that self-love is directed and restrained by reason, happiness must follow.  Now, so far as I can judge, self-love is the root of all evil; but, of course, I may be wrong, for La Fontaine had greater opportunities of observing men than I am likely ever to have.  I do not object so much to the cynical and satirical fables as to those in which momentous truths are taught by monkeys and foxes.

But I love “The Jungle Book” and “Wild Animals I Have Known.”  I feel a genuine interest in the animals themselves, because they are real animals and not caricatures of men.  One sympathizes with their loves and hatreds, laughs over their comedies, and weeps over their tragedies.  And if they point a moral, it is so subtle that we are not conscious of it.

My mind opened naturally and joyously to a conception of antiquity.  Greece, ancient Greece, exercised a mysterious fascination over me.  In my fancy the pagan gods and goddesses still walked on earth and talked face to face with men, and in my heart I secretly built shrines to those I loved best.  I knew and loved the whole tribe of nymphs and heroes and demigods—­no, not quite all, for the cruelty and greed of Medea and Jason were too monstrous to be forgiven, and I used to wonder why the gods permitted them to do wrong and then punished them for their wickedness.  And the mystery is still unsolved.  I often wonder how

God can dumbness keep
While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time.

It was the Iliad that made Greece my paradise.  I was familiar with the story of Troy before I read it in the original, and consequently I had little difficulty in making the Greek words surrender their treasures after I had passed the borderland of grammar.  Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart.  Would that the host of those who make the great works of the poets odious by their analysis, impositions and laborious comments might learn this simple truth!  It is not necessary that one should be able to define every word and give it its principal parts and its grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine poem.  I know my learned professors have found greater riches in the Iliad than I shall ever find; but I am not avaricious.  I am content that others should be wiser than I. But with all their wide and comprehensive knowledge, they cannot measure their enjoyment of that splendid epic, nor can I. When I read the finest passages of the Iliad, I am conscious of a soul-sense that lifts me above the narrow, cramping circumstances of my life.  My physical limitations are forgotten—­my world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of the heavens are mine!

My admiration for the Aeneid is not so great, but it is none the less real.  I read it as much as possible without the help of notes or dictionary, and I always like to translate the episodes that please me especially.  The word-painting of Virgil is wonderful sometimes; but his gods and men move through the scenes of passion and strife and pity and love like the graceful figures in an Elizabethan mask, whereas in the Iliad they give three leaps and go on singing.  Virgil is serene and lovely like a marble Apollo in the moonlight; Homer is a beautiful, animated youth in the full sunlight with the wind in his hair.

How easy it is to fly on paper wings!  From “Greek Heroes” to the Iliad was no day’s journey, nor was it altogether pleasant.  One could have traveled round the word many times while I trudged my weary way through the labyrinthine mazes of grammars and dictionaries, or fell into those dreadful pitfalls called examinations, set by schools and colleges for the confusion of those who seek after knowledge.  I suppose this sort of Pilgrim’s Progress was justified by the end; but it seemed interminable to me, in spite of the pleasant surprises that met me now and then at a turn in the road.

I began to read the Bible long before I could understand it.  Now it seems strange to me that there should have been a time when my spirit was deaf to its wondrous harmonies; but I remember well a rainy Sunday morning when, having nothing else to do, I begged my cousin to read me a story out of the Bible.  Although she did not think I should understand, she began to spell into my hand the story of Joseph and his brothers.  Somehow it failed to interest me.  The unusual language and repetition made the story seem unreal and far away in the land of Canaan, and I fell asleep and wandered off to the land of Nod, before the brothers came with the coat of many colours unto the tent of Jacob and told their wicked lie!  I cannot understand why the stories of the Greeks should have been so full of charm for me, and those of the Bible so devoid of interest, unless it was that I had made the acquaintance of several Greeks in Boston and been inspired by their enthusiasm for the stories of their country; whereas I had not met a single Hebrew or Egyptian, and therefore concluded that they were nothing more than barbarians, and the stories about them were probably all made up, which hypothesis explained the repetitions and the queer names.  Curiously enough, it never occurred to me to call Greek patronymics “queer.”

But how shall I speak of the glories I have since discovered in the Bible?  For years I have read it with an ever-broadening sense of joy and inspiration; and I love it as I love no other book.  Still there is much in the Bible against which every instinct of my being rebels, so much that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end.  I do not think that the knowledge which I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention.  For my part, I wish, with Mr. Howells, that the literature of the past might be purged of all that is ugly and barbarous in it, although I should object as much as any one to having these great works weakened or falsified.

There is something impressive, awful, in the simplicity and terrible directness of the book of Esther.  Could there be anything more dramatic than the scene in which Esther stands before her wicked lord?  She knows her life is in his hands; there is no one to protect her from his wrath.  Yet, conquering her woman’s fear, she approaches him, animated by the noblest patriotism, having but one thought:  “If I perish, I perish; but if I live, my people shall live.”

The story of Ruth, too—­how Oriental it is!  Yet how different is the life of these simple country folks from that of the Persian capital!  Ruth is so loyal and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn.  Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night of a dark and cruel age.  Love like Ruth’s, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in all the world.

The Bible gives me a deep, comforting sense that “things seen are temporal, and things unseen are eternal.”

I do not remember a time since I have been capable of loving books that I have not loved Shakespeare.  I cannot tell exactly when I began Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare”; but I know that I read them at first with a child’s understanding and a child’s wonder.  “Macbeth” seems to have impressed me most.  One reading was sufficient to stamp every detail of the story upon my memory forever.  For a long time the ghosts and witches pursued me even into Dreamland.  I could see, absolutely see, the dagger and Lady Macbeth’s little white hand—­the dreadful stain was as real to me as to the grief-stricken queen.

I read “King Lear” soon after “Macbeth,” and I shall never forget the feeling of horror when I came to the scene in which Gloster’s eyes are put out.  Anger seized me, my fingers refused to move, I sat rigid for one long moment, the blood throbbing in my temples, and all the hatred that a child can feel concentrated in my heart.

I must have made the acquaintance of Shylock and Satan about the same time, for the two characters were long associated in my mind.  I remember that I was sorry for them.  I felt vaguely that they could not be good even if they wished to, because no one seemed willing to help them or to give them a fair chance.  Even now I cannot find it in my heart to condemn them utterly.  There are moments when I feel that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil, are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be made whole.

It seems strange that my first reading of Shakespeare should have left me so many unpleasant memories.  The bright, gentle, fanciful plays—­the ones I like best now—­appear not to have impressed me at first, perhaps because they reflected the habitual sunshine and gaiety of a child’s life.  But “there is nothing more capricious than the memory of a child:  what it will hold, and what it will lose.”

I have since read Shakespeare’s plays many times and know parts of them by heart, but I cannot tell which of them I like best.  My delight in them is as varied as my moods.  The little songs and the sonnets have a meaning for me as fresh and wonderful as the dramas.  But, with all my love for Shakespeare, it is often weary work to read all the meanings into his lines which critics and commentators have given them.  I used to try to remember their interpretations, but they discouraged and vexed me; so I made a secret compact with myself not to try any more.  This compact I have only just broken in my study of Shakespeare under Professor Kittredge.  I know there are many things in Shakespeare, and in the world, that I do not understand; and I am glad to see veil after veil lift gradually, revealing new realms of thought and beauty.

Next to poetry I love history.  I have read every historical work that I have been able to lay my hands on, from a catalogue of dry facts and dryer dates to Green’s impartial, picturesque “History of the English People”; from Freeman’s “History of Europe” to Emerton’s “Middle Ages.”  The first book that gave me any real sense of the value of history was Swinton’s “World History,” which I received on my thirteenth birthday.  Though I believe it is no longer considered valid, yet I have kept it ever since as one of my treasures.  From it I learned how the races of men spread from land to land and built great cities, how a few great rulers, earthly Titans, put everything under their feet, and with a decisive word opened the gates of happiness for millions and closed them upon millions more:  how different nations pioneered in art and knowledge and broke ground for the mightier growths of coming ages; how civilization underwent as it were, the holocaust of a degenerate age, and rose again, like the Phoenix, among the nobler sons of the North; and how by liberty, tolerance and education the great and the wise have opened the way for the salvation of the whole world.

In my college reading I have become somewhat familiar with French and German literature.  The German puts strength before beauty, and truth before convention, both in life and in literature.  There is a vehement, sledge-hammer vigour about everything that he does.  When he speaks, it is not to impress others, but because his heart would burst if he did not find an outlet for the thoughts that burn in his soul.

Then, too, there is in German literature a fine reserve which I like; but its chief glory is the recognition I find in it of the redeeming potency of woman’s self-sacrificing love.  This thought pervades all German literature and is mystically expressed in Goethe’s “Faust”: 

All things transitory
But as symbols are sent. 
Earth’s insufficiency
Here grows to event. 
The indescribable
Here it is done. 
The Woman Soul leads us upward and on!

Of all the French writers that I have read, I like Moliere and Racine best.  There are fine things in Balzac and passages in Merimee which strike one like a keen blast of sea air.  Alfred de Musset is impossible!  I admire Victor Hugo—­I appreciate his genius, his brilliancy, his romanticism; though he is not one of my literary passions.  But Hugo and Goethe and Schiller and all great poets of all great nations are interpreters of eternal things, and my spirit reverently follows them into the regions where Beauty and Truth and Goodness are one.

I am afraid I have written too much about my book-friends, and yet I have mentioned only the authors I love most; and from this fact one might easily suppose that my circle of friends was very limited and undemocratic, which would be a very wrong impression.  I like many writers for many reasons—­Carlyle for his ruggedness and scorn of shams; Wordsworth, who teaches the oneness of man and nature; I find an exquisite pleasure in the oddities and surprises of Hood, in Herrick’s quaintness and the palpable scent of lily and rose in his verses; I like Whittier for his enthusiasms and moral rectitude.  I knew him, and the gentle remembrance of our friendship doubles the pleasure I have in reading his poems.  I love Mark Twain—­who does not?  The gods, too, loved him and put into his heart all manner of wisdom; then, fearing lest he should become a pessimist, they spanned his mind with a rainbow of love and faith.  I like Scott for his freshness, dash and large honesty.  I love all writers whose minds, like Lowell’s, bubble up in the sunshine of optimism—­fountains of joy and good will, with occasionally a splash of anger and here and there a healing spray of sympathy and pity.

In a word, literature is my Utopia.  Here I am not disfranchised.  No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends.  They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.  The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their “large loves and heavenly charities.”