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Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have had a glimpse of the shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it.

I love the good that others do; for their activity is an assurance that whether I can help or not, the true and the good will stand sure.

Then love came and set my soul free.

My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to coöperate with the good, that it may prevail.

In the midst of my perplexity I read an essay of Stevenson which made me feel as if I had been "outing" in the sunshine, instead of losing heart over a difficult task. I tried again with new courage and succeeded almost before I knew it.

But during the first nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out.

But afterward, when I was restored to my human heritage, Mildred and I grew into each other's hearts, so that we were content to go hand-in-hand wherever caprice led us, although she could not understand my finger language, nor I her childish prattle.

Debarred from the great highways of knowledge, I was compelled to make the journey across country by unfrequented roads--that was all; and I knew that in college there were many bypaths where I could touch hands with girls who were thinking, loving and struggling like me.

I loved "Little Women" because it gave me a sense of kinship with girls and boys who could see and hear.

Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, "There is joy in self-forgetfulness." So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.

Those are red-letter days in our lives when we meet people who thrill us like a fine poem, people whose handshake is brimful of unspoken sympathy, and whose sweet, rich natures impart to our eager, impatient spirits a wonderful restfulness which, in its essence, is divine.

I can say with conviction that the struggle which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings. It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women.

Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand.

A man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before he can write himself an optimist and expect others to believe that he has reason for the faith that is in him.

But I have found out that though the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet the work open to me is endless.

I am never discouraged by absence of good. I never can be argued into hopelessness.

I, too, can work, and because I love to labor with my head and my hands, I am an optimist in spite of all.

It lets us into the soul of things and teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Now I know hope and joy.

Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven.

Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things.

Had it not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.

But I did not dream that that interview would be the door through which I should pass from darkness into light, from isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.

I slip back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon.

With the first word I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think, to hope.