LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2006 October Grand Format Autographs #629  / 

25337

Helen Keller Typed Letter Signed

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:375.00 USD Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,500.00 USD
Helen Keller Typed Letter Signed
<B>Helen Keller Typed Letter Signed.</B></I> Three pages, 7" x 10.5", Westport, Connecticut, July 29, 1946. Keller became deaf and blind at nineteen months, but, educated by Anne Sullivan, she learned to speak. She became a crusader for better treatment of the handicapped and attained a high distinction as a lecturer, writer and scholar. This letter is typed and signed boldly in indelible purple pencil, to Ethel Freeman, a childhood friend, accompanied by the original transmittal envelope hand-addressed by Polly Thomson, Keller's secretary and assistant. It reads: "What a lovely gift and what a darling giver! I cherish the statuette, for which my most loving thanks, not only because your hands moulded it but even more because your soul breathed into it a life-giving ideal. To me it symbolizes hope. Not according to the dim light of wishing or optimism we usually call hope, but the sublime declaration: 'And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three'. The sweet young face with brave eyes resting on a goal, so appealing to the imagination-kindled fingers, reflects hope which takes greater courage than cheerfulness - the strength to wait steadfastly and never give up, but rather to keep on developing one's best as God reveals that Best and trusting that one's high purpose will approach ever nearer to achievement. Beside the lesson that hope is action both of the mind and the heart, you have imaged a profound truth in history. Unfulfilled desire is the flame with which the God of hope lights mankind onward from one cycle of progress to another. Wonderful, is it not, that even where the Ideal seems quenched in a community or a nation, it rises again, and, guided by it as a pillar of fire, humanity presses on to a brighter future. This is the thought I find very comforting in days dark with reaction and the unloosing of evil forces that follow a war, however noble the ends maybe fore which it was fought...In addition to the work for the blind I have started helping the deaf-blind, and this year Polly and I undertook our longest hospital tour...now however the incubus is dwindling...and I have jumped back into the 'Teacher' biography, and I 'pray the Lord my soul to keep' until I complete the last quarter of the book. Polly send her love, as warm as mine with happy memories of 'Journey's End' and your exquisite hospitality to us..." Very fine condition overall.
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