_By Helen Keller_
_America's famous blind girl, who has come to see more than most
people with normal eyes._
Step by step my investigation of blindness _led_ me into the
industrial world. And what a world it _is_. I _faced_ unflinchingly a
world of facts--a world of misery and degradation, of blindness,
crookedness, and sin, a world _struggling_ against the elements,
against the unknown, against itself. How _could_ I _reconcile_ this
world of fact with the bright world of my _imagining_? My darkness
_had been filled_ with the light of intelligence, and, _behold_, the
outer day-lit world _was stumbling_, _was groping_ in social
blindness. At first, I _was_ most unhappy, but deeper study _restored_
my confidence. By _learning_ the _suffering_ and burdens of men, I
_became_ aware as never before of the life-power which _has survived_
the forces of darkness--the power which, though never completely
victorious, _is_ continuously _conquering_. The very fact that we
_are_ still carrying on the contest against the hosts of annihilation
_proves_ that on the whole the battle _has gone_ for humanity. The
world's great heart _has proved_ equal to the prodigious undertaking
which God _set_ it. _Rebuffed_, but always _persevering_;
_self-reproached_, but ever _regaining_ faith; undaunted, tenacious,
the heart of man _labors_ towards immeasurably distant goals.
_Discouraged_ not by difficulties without, or the anguish of ages
within, the heart _listens_ to a secret voice that _whispers_: "_Be_
not _dismayed_; in the future _lies_ the _Promised_ Land."