評論
打印
Sometimes I lost all courage and betrayed my feelings in a way I am ashamed to remember, especially as the signs of my trouble were afterward used against Miss Sullivan, the only person of all the kind friends I had there, who could make the crooked straight and the rough places smooth.
有時候我感到勇氣盡失，而且脾氣惡劣，我的壞脾氣甚至指向了蘇立文小姐，而在我所有的良師益友當中，她是唯一一個能撫平我內心傷痛的人，她能夠“將曲線捋直，令崎嶇之地變成坦途”。
Little by little, however, my difficulties began to disappear. The embossed books and other apparatus arrived, and I threw myself into the work with renewed confidence. Algebra and geometry were the only studies that continued to defy my efforts to comprehend them. As I have said before, I had no aptitude for mathematics; the different points were not explained to me as fully as I wished. The geometrical diagrams were particularly vexing because I could not see the relation of the different parts to one another, even on the cushion. It was not until Mr. Keith taught me that I had a clear idea of mathematics.
漸漸地，我的困難開始消失了。隨著凸版書籍和一些輔助用具的增添，我帶著重拾的信心重新投入到學習之中。代數和幾何這兩門課程仍在繼續同我的努力相抗衡。正如我以前說過的那樣，我天生缺乏數學頭腦，對不同的點面關系總是不能很好地理解。那些幾何圖形很是令人頭痛，因為我無法看到不同圖形之間的關系，即使在墊子上擺放也不行。直到凱斯先生教了我一些數學知識之后，我才踏進了幾何學的門檻。
I was beginning to overcome these difficulties when an event occurred which changed everything.
正當我開始克服種種困難的時候，隨后發生的一件事改變了一切。
Just before the books came, Mr. Gilman had begun to remonstrate with Miss Sullivan on the ground that I was working too hard, and in spite of my earnest protestations, he reduced the number of my recitations. At the beginning we had agreed that I should, if necessary, take five years to prepare for college, but at the end of the first year the success of my examinations showed Miss Sullivan, Miss Harbaugh (Mr. Gilman's head teacher), and one other, that I could without too much effort complete my preparation in two years more.
就在我需要的（盲人）專用書快要到位的時候，吉爾曼先生不顧我的嚴詞反對，對蘇立文小姐縱容我的用功過度提出了忠告，他還削減了我背誦課文的次數。起初，我們曾達成協議，如果有必要的話，我應該用五年的時間為上大學做準備。但是在第一年年終的時候，我以優良的考試成績向蘇立文小姐、哈勃小姐（吉爾曼先生聘用的院長），還有其他任何人證明，我并不需要那么漫長的準備時間，有兩年時間足矣。
