Conversation between Hellen Keller and Douglass.

Group Members: Yiyi Ge, Abdulrahman Almukhaizeem, Mashari Aljasser.

Douglass:“ My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another.

Keller’ teacher translating: I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives, which it connects.

Keller’s teacher again: Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began.

Douglass: When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman.

Keller’s teacher: Light! give me light!

Douglass:  If I was in a separate room any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book.

Keller’s teacher: she led me into her room and gave me a doll

Keller’s teacher: During the time I had played with it, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l.”

Douglass: It was some time before I found what the word meant. It was always used in such connections as to make it an interesting word to me.

Keller’s teacher: "w-a-t-e-r.”

Douglass: For larboard aft, it would be marked thus- “L.A.”

Keller’s teacher: Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water

Douglass: I soon learned the names of these letters, and for what they were intended.

Keller’s teacher: I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll.

Douglass: I don’t believe you; Let me see you try it.

Keller’s teacher: I left the well-house eager to learn.

Douglass: I would then make the letters, which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to beat that.

Keller’s teacher:  I learned a great many new words that day.

Douglass: In this way I got a good many lessons in writing which is quite possible I should never have gotten in any another way.

Keller’s teacher: Like Aaron's rod, with flowers.








Work cited

Hellen Keller, website, "The Story of My Life." American

Foundation For the Blind. October 30, 2012