第1章 序言 Preface

19世纪有两位伟大的人物，一位是拿破仑，一位是海伦·凯勒。

——马克·吐温

人类的精神之美一旦被认识，我们就永远不会忘记。海伦·凯勒小姐的生活和生活乐趣，给我们这些没有那么多困难需要克服的人上了永远难忘的一课——我们希望这本书有越来越多的读者，并让她的精神传播得越来越广。

——罗斯福夫人

当我提起笔来，记下从出生到现在的生命历程，真觉得惶恐不安。童年往事犹如笼罩在雾一般轻柔的薄幕下，现在要把它掀开，的确让我疑虑重重。写自传本身是件很难的事，更何况童年早已久远，我已经无法分清楚哪些是事实，哪些只是我的幻觉想象。不过，在我的大脑记忆中，有些事情仍然鲜明生动地闪现出来，虽然某些画面只是片断的、零碎的，但对于我的人生却有或多或少的影响。为了避免冗长乏味，我将节选一些最有趣和最有价值的情节，来讲述我生活的故事。

——海伦·凯勒

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 forgotten 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.

Helen Keller