我的生活海伦凯勒摘抄 海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第1期

海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第1期  

Chapter 1
It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have
as it were
a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions
I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life; but "the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest." Besides
many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been fotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order
therefore
not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important.
I was born on June 27
1880
in Tuscumbia
a little town of northern Alabama.
我于1880年6月27日出生在亚拉巴马州北部的一个叫做图斯康比亚的小镇。
The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller
a native of Switzerland
who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a book on the subject of their education—rather a singular coincidence; though it is true that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors
and no slave who has not had a king among his.
My grandfather
Caspar Keller's son
"entered" large tracts of land in Alabama and finally settled there. I have been told that once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback to purchase supplies for the plantation
and my aunt has in her possession many of the letters to his family
which give charming and vivid accounts of these trips.
My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one of Lafayette's aides
Alexander Moore
and granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood
an early Colonial Governor of Virginia. She was also second cousin to Robert E. Lee.
My father
Arthur H. Keller
was a captain in the Confederate Army
and my mother
Kate Adams
was his second wife and many years younger. Her grandfather
Benjamin Adams
married Susanna E. Goodhue
and lived in Newbury
Massachusetts
for many years. Their son
Charles Adams
was born in Newburyport
Massachusetts
and moved to Helena
Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out
he fought on the side of the South and became a brigadier-general. He married Lucy Helen Everett
who belonged to the same family of Everetts as Edward Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. After the war was over the family moved to Memphis
Tennessee.
I lived
up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my sight and hearing
in a tiny house consisting of a large square room and a small one
in which the servant slept. It is a custom in the South to build a small house near the homestead as an annex to be used on occasion. Such a house my father built after the Civil War
and when he married my mother they went to live in it. It was pletely covered with vines
climbing roses and honeysuckles. From the garden it looked like an arbour. The little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and Southern smilax. It was the favourite haunt of humming-birds and bees.
The Keller homestead
where the family lived
was a few steps from our little rose-bower. It was called "Ivy Green" because the house and the surrounding trees and fences were covered with beautiful English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise of my childhood.