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    Optimism An Essay
    Optimism An Essay
    Optimism An Essay
    Ebook56 pages42 minutes

    Optimism An Essay

    By Helen Keller

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateMay 1, 2003
    Optimism An Essay
    Author

    Helen Keller

    Helen Keller (1880-1968) was an American author, activist, and lecturer. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Keller suffered a sudden illness at nineteen months old that left her both deaf and blind. Her parents brought her to Baltimore to consult with Alexander Graham Bell, then a teacher for deaf children. He referred them to the Perkins Institute for the Blind, which paired Keller with Anne Sullivan, a visually impaired instructor who would remain by Helen’s side for the next half century as her governess and companion. With Sullivan’s help, she learned to read and write, as well as to speak using the Tadoma method. Between 1888 and 1900, Keller attended specialist schools for the deaf and blind before being admitted to Radcliffe College, then Harvard University’s school for women. In 1903, she published her autobiography, The Story of My Life, with the help of Sullivan and her husband John. A year later, Keller became the first deafblind person to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts. She joined the Socialist Party of America in 1909 and spent the next twelve years speaking and writing on topics such as women’s suffrage, pacifism, and workers’ rights. In addition, she joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1915. Keller was also a prominent activist for African American civil rights, supporting the NAACP and joining the American Civil Liberties Union. From 1924 on, she dedicated herself to lecturing and organizing for the American Foundation for the Blind, traveling to thirty-five countries and across the United States to speak on behalf of those living with blindness. Major written works include Out of the Dark (1913), a collection of essays on socialism, and My Religion (1927), a spiritual autobiography expressing her relationship with the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

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      Book preview

      Optimism An Essay - Helen Keller

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Optimism, by Helen Keller

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Optimism

      An Essay

      Author: Helen Keller

      Release Date: March 13, 2010 [EBook #31622]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OPTIMISM ***

      Produced by Mark C. Orton, Irma Spehar and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

      file was produced from images generously made available

      by The Internet Archive)

      Optimism

      Optimism

      An Essay

      By Helen Keller

      Author of

      The Story of My Life

      New York

      T. Y. Crowell and Company

      Mdcccciii

      Copyright, 1903, by Helen Keller

      Published November, 1903

      D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston

      To My Teacher

      Part i. Optimism Within

      Part i

      Optimism Within

      ould we choose our environment, and were desire in human undertakings synonymous with endowment, all men would, I suppose, be optimists. Certainly most of us regard happiness as the proper end of all earthly enterprise. The will to be happy animates alike the philosopher, the prince and the chimney-sweep. No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

      It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in the search for knowledge.

      Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they would be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life,—if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. As sinners stand up in meeting and testify to the goodness of God, so one who is called afflicted may rise up in gladness of conviction and testify to the goodness of life.

      Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven. My life was without past or future; death, the pessimist would say, a consummation devoutly to be wished. But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. Night

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