Dreams That Come True, as published in Personality, (December, 1927)
Transcription
"The Dreams That Come True"
--When One who Can neither See nor Hear Finds Joy in a Flower Garden
by Helen Keller
I
Swedenborg says that "many arts in this world derive their laws and harmonies from Heaven."
Certainly,there is something divine in the art which some human beings possess to shape life for themselves, no matter what the outward circumstances may be. That is the power of the Celestial Artist, the Will, to find life worth living, despite the handicap imposed.
I have for many years endeavored to make this vital truth clear; and still people marvel when I tell them that I am happy. They imagine that my limitations weigh heavily upon my spirit, and chain me to the rock of despair. Yet, it seems to me, happiness has very little to do with the senses. If we make up our minds that this is a drab and purposeless universe, it will be that, and nothing else. On the other hand, if we believe that the earth is ours, and that the sun and moon hang in the sky for our delight, there will be joy upon the hills and gladness in the fields because the Artist in our souls glorifies creation. Surely, it gives dignity to life to believe that we are born into this world for noble ends, and that we have a higher destiny than can be accomplished within the narrow limits of this physical life.
"I can understand," I hear some one interrupting me, "that you enjoy flowers and sunshine and that sort of thing; but when you sit by yourself in that little study on the top of the house all day, aren't you dreadfully bored? You can't see a bit of color from the window, or hear a sound! Don't you get tired of the -- well, the sameness of the objects you touch when you can't see the play of light and shadow upon them? Aren't the days and the hours all alike to you?"
Never! My days are all different, and no hour is quite like another.
Through my sense of touch I am keenly alive to all changes and movements of the atmosphere, and I am sure the days vary for me as much as they do for my friend who observes the skies -- often not caring about their beauty, but only to see if it is going to rain. There are days when the suns pours into my study, and I feel all of life's joys crowded into each beam. There are rainy days when a sort of shade clings about me and lays a cool hand upon my face, and the smell of the moist earth and damp objects lingers everywhere. There are days really "dark" for me when I feel the ten windows in the study shudder and sob with the winter blast. Then glad days that feel like light come when the sonorous west wind booms its message of spring into my hand as I lay it against the pane, and I am eager to be away in the woods-
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