I
All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to
live. Sometimes it was as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours. But always
we were interested in discovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his
last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose
sphere of activities is strictly delimited.
Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What
events, what experiences, what associations, should we crowd into those last hours as mortal
beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, what regrets?
Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die
tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each
day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time
stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come.
There are those, of course, who would adopt the epicurean motto of “Eat, drink, and be
merry,”but most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.
In stories, the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune,
but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the
meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who
live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do.
Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually
we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but
unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go
about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.
The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses. Only
the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight.
Particularly does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult
life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the
fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds
hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not
being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we
are ill.
I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and
deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him
more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.
Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I was
visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I
asked her what she had observed. "Nothing in particular," she replied. I might have been
incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced
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that the seeing see little.
How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing
worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere
touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth
skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of
trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's
sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable
convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I
am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a
bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open
fingers. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the
most luxurious Persian rug. To me the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending
drama, the action of which streams through my finger tips.
At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much
pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight. Yet, those
who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and action which fills the world
is taken for granted. It is human, perhaps, to appreciate little that which we have and to
long for that which we have not, but it is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of
sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.
If I were the president of a university I should establish a compulsory course in "How to
Use Your Eyes.” The professor would try to show his pupils how they could add joy to
their lives by really seeing what passes unnoticed before them. He would try to awake their
dormant and sluggish faculties.
II
Perhaps I can best illustrate by imagining what I should most like to see if I were given the
use of my eyes, say, for just three days. And while I am imagining, suppose you, too, set
your mind to work on the problem of how you would use your own eyes if you had only
three more days to see. If with the oncoming darkness of the third night you knew that the
sun would never rise for you again, how would you spend those three precious intervening
days? What would you most want to let your gaze rest upon?
I, naturally, should want most to see the things which have become dear to me through my
years of darkness. You, too, would want to let your eyes rest long on the things that have
become dear to you so that you could take the memory of them with you into the night that
loomed before you.
If, by some miracle, I were granted three seeing days, to be followed by a relapse into
darkness, I should divide the period into three parts.
On the first day, I should want to see the people whose kindness and gentleness and
companionship have made my life worth living. First I should like to gaze long upon the
face of my dear teacher, Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who came to me when I was a child and
opened the outer world to me. I should want not merely to see the outline of her face, so
that I could cherish it in my memory, but to study that face and find in it the living evidence
of the sympathetic tenderness and patience with which she accomplished the difficult task
of my education. I should like to see in her eyes that strength of character which has
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enabled her to stand firm in the face of difficulties, and that compassion for all humanity
which she has revealed to me so often.
I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that "window of the soul,"
the eye. I can only "see" through my finger tips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter,
sorrow, and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces.
But I cannot really picture their personalities by touch. I know their personalities, of
course, through other means, through the thoughts they express to me, through whatever of
their actions are revealed to me. But I am denied that deeper understanding of them which
I am sure would come through sight of them, through watching their reactions to various
expressed thoughts and circumstances, through noting the immediate and fleeting reactions
of their eyes and countenance.
Friends who are near to me I know well, because through the months and years they reveal
themselves to me in all their phases; but of casual friends I have only an incomplete
impression, an impression gained from a handclasp, from spoken words which I take from
their lips with my finger tips, or which they tap into the palm of my hand.
How much easier, how much more satisfying it is for you who can see to grasp quickly the
essential qualities of another person by watching the subtleties of expression, the quiver of
a muscle, the flutter of a hand. But does it ever occur to you to use your sight to see into
the inner nature of a friend or acquaintance? Do not most of you seeing people grasp
casually the outward features of a face and let it go at that?
For instance, can you describe accurately the faces of five good friends? Some of you can,
but many cannot. As an experiment, I have questioned husbands of long standing about the
color of their wives' eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that
they do not know. And, incidentally, it is a chronic complaint of wives that their husbands
do not notice new dresses, new hats, and changes in household arrangements.
The eyes of seeing persons soon become accustomed to the routine of their surroundings,
and they actually see only the startling and spectacular. But even in viewing the most
spectacular sights the eyes are lazy. Court records reveal every day how inaccurately
"eyewitnesses" see. A given event will be "seen" in several different ways by as many
witnesses. Some see more than others, but few see everything that is within the range of
their vision.
Oh, the things that I should see if I had the power of sight for just three days!
The first day would be a busy one. I should call to me all my dear friends and look long
into their faces, imprinting upon my mind the outward evidences of the beauty that is
within them. I should let my eyes rest, too, on the face of a baby, so that I could catch a
vision of the eager, innocent beauty which precedes the individual's consciousness of the
conflicts which life develops.
And I should like to look into the loyal, trusting eyes of my dogs -- the grave, canny little
Scottie, Darkie, and the stalwart, understanding Great Dane, Helga, whose warm, tender,
and playful friendships are so comforting to me.
On that busy first day I should also view the small simple things of my home. I want to see
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the warm colors in the rugs under my feet, the pictures on the walls, the intimate trifles that
transform a house into home. My eyes would rest respectfully on the books in raised type
which I have read, but they would be more eagerly interested in the printed books which
seeing people can read, for during the long night of my life the books I have read and those
which have been read to me have built themselves into a great shining lighthouse, revealing
to me the deepest channels of human life and the human spirit.
In the afternoon of that first seeing day, I should take a long walk in the woods and
intoxicate my eyes on the beauties of the world of Nature, trying desperately to absorb in a
few hours the vast splendor which is constantly unfolding itself to those who can see. On
the way home from my woodland jaunt my path would lie near a farm so that I might see
the patient horses ploughing in the field (perhaps I should see only a tractor!) and the
serene content of men living close to the soil. And I should pray for the glory of a colorful
sunset.
When dusk had fallen, I should experience the double delight of being able to see by
artificial light, which the genius of man has created to extend the power of his sight when
Nature decrees darkness.
In the night of that first day of sight, I should not be able to sleep, so full would be my mind
of the memories of the day.
III
The next day -- the second day of sight -- I should arise with the dawn and see the thrilling
miracle by which night is transformed into day. I should behold with awe the magnificent
panorama of light with which the sun awakens the sleeping earth.
This day I should devote to a hasty glimpse of the world, past and present. I should want to
see the pageant of man's progress, the kaleidoscope of the ages. How can so much be
compressed into one day? Through the museums, of course. Often I have visited the New
York Museum of Natural History to touch with my hands many of the objects there
exhibited, but I have longed to see with my eyes the condensed history of the earth and its
inhabitants displayed there -- animals and the races of men pictured in their native
environment; gigantic carcasses of dinosaurs and mastodons which roamed the earth long
before man appeared, with his tiny stature and powerful brain, to conquer the animal
kingdom; realistic presentations of the processes of evolution in animals, in man, and in the
implements which man has used to fashion for himself a secure home on this planet; and a
thousand and one other aspects of natural history.
I wonder how many readers of this article have viewed this panorama of the face of living
things as pictured in that inspiring museum. Many, of course, have not had the opportunity,
but I am sure that many who have had the opportunity have not made use of it. There,
indeed, is a place to use your eyes. You who see can spend many fruitful days there, but I,
with my imaginary three days of sight, could only take a hasty glimpse, and pass on.
My next stop would be the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for just as the Museum of Natural
History reveals the material aspects of the world, so does the Metropolitan show the myriad
facets of the human spirit. Throughout the history of humanity the urge to artistic
expression has been almost as powerful as the urge for food, shelter, and procreation. And
here, in the vast chambers of the Metropolitan Museum, is unfolded before me the spirit of
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Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as expressed in their art. I know well through my hands the
sculptured gods and goddesses of the ancient Nile land. I have felt copies of Parthenon
friezes, and I have sensed the rhythmic beauty of charging Athenian warriors. Apollos and
Venuses and the Winged Victory of Samothrace are friends of my finger tips. The gnarled,
bearded features of Homer are dear to me, for he, too, knew blindness.
My hands have lingered upon the living marble of Roman sculpture as well as that of later
generations. I have passed my hands over a plaster cast of Michelangelo's inspiring and
heroic Moses; I have sensed the power of Rodin; I have been awed by the devoted spirit of
Gothic wood carving. These arts which can be touched have meaning for me, but even
they were meant to be seen rather than felt, and I can only guess at the beauty which
remains hidden from me. I can admire the simple lines of a Greek vase, but its figured
decorations are lost to me.
So on this, my second day of sight, I should try to probe into the soul of man through his
art. The things I knew through touch I should now see. More splendid still, the whole
magnificent world of painting would be opened to me, from the Italian Primitives, with
their serene religious devotion, to the Moderns, with their feverish visions. I should look
deep into the canvases of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Rembrandt. I should want to
feast my eyes upon the warm colors of Veronese, study the mysteries of El Greco, catch a
new vision of Nature from Corot. Oh, there is so much rich meaning and beauty in the art
of the ages for you who have eyes to see!
Upon my short visit to this temple of art I should not be able to review a fraction of that
great world of art which is open to you. I should be able to get only a superficial
impression. Artists tell me that for a deep and true appreciation of art one must educate the
eye. One must learn through experience to weigh the merits of line, of composition, of
form and color. If I had eyes, how happily would I embark upon so fascinating a study!
Yet I am told that, to many of you who have eyes to see, the world of art is a dark night,
unexplored and unilluminated.
It would be with extreme reluctance that I should leave the Metropolitan Museum, which
contains the key to beauty -- a beauty so neglected. Seeing persons, however, do not need a
Metropolitan to find this key to beauty. The same key lies waiting in smaller museums,
and in books on the shelves of even small libraries. But naturally, in my limited time of
imaginary sight, I should choose the place where the key unlocks the greatest treasures in
the shortest time.
The evening of my second day of sight I should spend at a theatre or at the movies. Even
now I often attend theatrical performances of all sorts, but the action of the play must be
spelled into my hand by a companion. But how I should like to see with my own eyes the
fascinating figure of Hamlet, or the gusty Falstaff amid colorful Elizabethan trappings!
How I should like to follow each movement of the graceful Hamlet, each strut of the hearty
Falstaff! And since I could see only one play, I should be confronted by a many-horned
dilemma, for there are scores of plays I should want to see. You who have eyes can see any
you like. How many of you, I wonder, when you gaze at a play, a movie, or any spectacle,
realize and give thanks for the miracle of sight which enables you to enjoy its color, grace,
and movement?
I cannot enjoy the beauty of rhythmic movement except in a sphere restricted to the touch
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of my hands. I can vision only dimly the grace of a Pavlowa, although I know something
of the delight of rhythm, for often I can sense the beat of music as it vibrates through the
floor. I can well imagine that cadenced motion must be one of the most pleasing sights in
the world. I have been able to gather something of this by tracing with my fingers the lines
in sculptured marble; if this static grace can be so lovely, how much more acute must be the
thrill of seeing grace in motion.
One of my dearest memories is of the time when Joseph Jefferson allowed me to touch his
face and hands as he went through some of the gestures and speeches of his beloved Rip
Van Winkle. I was able to catch thus a meagre glimpse of the world of drama, and I shall
never forget the delight of that moment. But, oh, how much I must miss, and how much
pleasure you seeing ones can derive from watching and hearing the interplay of speech and
movement in the unfolding of a dramatic performance! If I could see only one play, I
should know how to picture in my mind the action of a hundred plays which I have read or
had transferred to me through the medium of the manual alphabet.
So, through the evening of my second imaginary day of sight, the great figures of dramatic
literature would crowd sleep from my eyes.
IV
The following morning, I should again greet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights,
for I am sure that, for those who have eyes which really see, the dawn of each day must be
a perpetually new revelation of beauty.
This, according to the terms of my imagined miracle, is to be my third and last day of sight.
I shall have no time to waste in regrets or longings; there is too much to see. The first day I
devoted to my friends, animate and inanimate. The second revealed to me the history of
man and Nature. Today I shall spend in the workaday world of the present, amid the haunts
of men going about the business of life. And where can one find so many activities and
conditions of men as in New York? So the city becomes my destination.
I start from my home in the quiet little suburb of Forest Hills, Long Island. Here,
surrounded by green lawns, trees, and flowers, are neat little houses, happy with the voices
and movements of wives and children, havens of peaceful rest for men who toil in the city.
I drive across the lacy structure of steel which spans the East River, and I get a new and
startling vision of the power and ingenuity of the mind of man. Busy boats chug and scurry
about the river -- racy speed boats, stolid, snorting tugs. If I had long days of sight ahead, I
should spend many of them watching the delightful activity upon the river.
I look ahead, and before me rise the fantastic towers of New York, a city that seems to have
stepped from the pages of a fairy story. What an awe-inspiring sight, these glittering spires,
these vast banks of stone and steel -- structures such as the gods might build for
themselves! This animated picture is a part of the lives of millions of people every day.
How many, I wonder, give it so much as a second glance? Very few, I fear. Their eyes are
blind to this magnificent sight because it is so familiar to them.
I hurry to the top of one of those gigantic structures, the Empire State Building, for there, a
short time ago, I "saw" the city below through the eyes of my secretary. I am anxious to
compare my fancy with reality. I am sure I should not be disappointed in the panorama
spread out before me, for to me it would be a vision of another world.
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Now I begin my rounds of the city. First, I stand at a busy corner, merely looking at
people, trying by sight of them to understand something of their lives. I see smiles, and I
am happy. I see serious determination, and I am proud. I see suffering, and I am
compassionate.
I stroll down Fifth Avenue. I throw my eyes out of focus, so that I see no particular object
but only a seething kaleidoscope of color. I am certain that the colors of women's dresses
moving in a throng must be a gorgeous spectacle of which I should never tire. But perhaps
if I had sight I should be like most other women -- too interested in styles and the cut of
individual dresses to give much attention to the splendor of color in the mass. And I am
convinced, too, that I should become an inveterate window shopper, for it must be a delight
to the eye to view the myriad articles of beauty on display.
From Fifth Avenue I make a tour of the city -- to Park Avenue, to the slums, to factories, to
parks where children play. I take a stay-at-home trip abroad by visiting the foreign
quarters. Always my eyes are open wide to all the sights of both happiness and misery so
that I may probe deep and add to my understanding of how people work and live. My heart
is full of the images of people and things. My eye passes lightly over no single trifle; it
strives to touch and hold closely each thing its gaze rests upon. Some sights are pleasant,
filling the heart with happiness; but some are miserably pathetic. To these latter I do not
shut my eyes, for they, too, are part of life. To close the eye on them is to close the heart
and mind.
My third day of sight is drawing to an end. Perhaps there are many serious pursuits to
which I should devote the few remaining hours, but I am afraid that on the evening of that
last day I should again run away to the theatre, to a hilariously funny play, so that I might
appreciate the overtones of comedy in the human spirit.
At midnight my temporary respite from blindness would cease, and permanent night would
close in on me again. Naturally in those three short days I should not have seen all I
wanted to see. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how
much I had left unseen. But my mind would be so crowded with glorious memories that I
should have little time for regrets. Thereafter the touch of every object would bring a
glowing memory of how that object looked.
Perhaps this short outline of how I should spend three days of sight does not agree with the
programme you would set for yourself if you knew that you were about to be stricken blind.
I am, however, sure that if you actually faced that fate your eyes would open to things you
had never seen before, storing up memories for the long night ahead. You would use your
eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you. Your eyes would
touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at last, you
would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.
I who am blind can give one hint to those who see -- one admonition to those who would
make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken
blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices,
the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf
tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would
fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could
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never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of
pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact
which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most
delightful.
Copyright © 1997 by Helen Keller. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; January 1933; Three Days to See; Volume 151, No. 1; pages 35-42.
The story of Helen Keller (1880-1963) and her triumph, with the help of her teacher and
companion (Anne Sullivan Macy) over the twin handicaps of blindness and deafness has been
told many times. Once her mind had established contact with the outside world, Miss Keller
learned how to speak. In 1904, she graduated from Radcliff College (Harvard University) with
high honours, and proceeded to support herself by lecturing and writing. Always, she attempted
to interest the public in the problem of the handicapped, and to encourage the handicapped to
overcome their difficulties, to whatever extent they could. Although Helen Keller has published
several books, she is celebrated chiefly as a symbol of the strength of the high courage of the
human spirit.
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