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A Letter To Mark Twain

From: Out Of The Dark
Creator: Helen Keller (author)
Date: 1920
Publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, New York
Source: Available at selected libraries

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*Read by Mark Twain at a meeting of the New York Association for the Blind, March 29, 1906.

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My Dear Mr. Clemens:

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It is a great disappointment to me not to be with you and the other friends who have joined their strength to uplift the blind. The meeting in New York will be the greatest occasion in the movement which has so long engaged my heart, and I regret keenly not to be present and feel the inspiration of living con- tact with such an assembly of wit, wisdom, and philanthropy.

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I should be happy if I could have spelled into my hand the words as they fall from your lips, and receive, even as it is uttered, the eloquence of our newest ambassador to the blind. We have not had such advocates before.

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My disappointment is softened by the thought that never at any meeting was the right word so sure to be spoken. But superfluous as all other appeal must seem after you and Mr. Choate have spoken, nevertheless, as I am a woman, I cannot be silent, and I ask you to read this letter, knowing that it will be lifted to eloquence by your kindly voice.

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To know what the blind man needs, you who can see must imagine what it would be not to see, and you can imagine it more vividly if you remember that before your journey's end you may have to go the dark way yourself. Try to realize what blindness means to those whose joyous activity is stricken to inaction.

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It is to live long, long days -- and life is made up of days. It is to live immured, baffled, impotent, all God's world shut out. It is to sit helpless, defrauded, while your spirit strains and tugs at its fetters and your shoulders ache for the burden they are denied, the rightful burden of labour.

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The seeing man goes about his business confident and self -dependent. He does his share of the work of the world in mine, in quarry, in factory, in counting-room, asking of others no boon save the opportunity to do a man's part and to receive the labourer's guerdon.

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In an instant accident blinds him. The day is blotted out. Night envelops all the visible world. The feet which once bore him to his task with firm and confident stride stumble and halt and fear the forward step. .1 He is forced to a new habit of idleness, which like a canker consumes the mind and destroys its beautiful faculties.

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Memory confronts him with his lighted past. Amid the tangible ruins of his life as it promised to be he gropes his pitiful way. You have met him on your busy thoroughfares, with faltering feet and outstretched hands, patiently dredging the universal dark, holding out for sale his petty wares, or his cap for your pennies; and this was a man with ambitions and capabilities.

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It is because we know that these ambitions and capabilities can be fulfilled that we are working to improve the condition of the adult blind. You cannot bring back sight to the vacant eyes; but you can give a helping hand to the sightless along their dark pilgrimage.

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You can teach them new skill. For work they once did with the aid of their eyes you can substitute work that they can do with their hands.

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They ask only opportunity, and opportunity is the torch of darkness. They crave no charity, no pension, but the satisfaction that comes from lucrative toil, and this satisfaction is the right of every human being.

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At your meeting New York will speak its word for the blind, and when New York speaks, the world listens. The true message of New York is not the commercial ticking of busy telegraphs, but the mightier utterances of such gatherings as yours.

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Of late our periodicals have been filled with depressing revelations of great social evils. Querulous critics have pointed to every flaw in our civic structure. We have listened long enough to the pessimists.

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You once told me you were a pessimist, Mr. Clemens; but great men are usually mistaken about themselves. You are an optimist. If you were not, you would not preside at the meeting. For it is an answer to pessimism.

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It proclaims that the heart and the wisdom of a great city are devoted to the good of mankind, that in this, the busiest city in the world, no cry of distress goes up but receives a compassionate and generous answer. Rejoice that the cause of the blind has been heard in New York, for the day after it shall be heard around the world.