Annotated and Abridged Artifact

Abridged Text

PART FOUR

THE winter of 1892 was darkened by the one cloud in my chidhood's bright sky. Joy deserted my heart, and for a long, long time I lived in doubt, anxiety and fear. Books lost their charm for me, and even now the thought of those dreadful days chills my heart. A little story called "The Frost-King" which I wrote and sent to Mr. Anagnos, of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, was at the root of the trouble. In order to make the matter clear I must set forth the facts connected with this most painful episode, which justice to my teacher and to myself compels me to relate.

When I wrote the story I was at home the autumn after I had learned to speak.

At Fern Quarry Miss Sullivan had been describing to me the beauties of the late foliage, and it seems that her descriptions revived the memory of a story which must have been read to me and which I had unconsciously retained. I thought then that I was "making up a story," as the children say, and I eagerly sat down to write it before the ideas should slip from me. My thoughts flowed easily; I felt a sense of joy in the composition. Words and images came tripping to my finger-ends, and as I thought out sentence after sentence I wrote them on my Braille slate.

When the story was finished I read it to my teacher, and I recall now vividly the pleasure I felt in the more beautiful passages, and my annoyance at being interrupted to have the pronunciation of a word corrected. At dinner it was read to the assembled family, who were greatly amazed that I could write so well. Someone asked me if I had read it in a book. This question surprised me very much, for I had not the faintest recollection of having had it read to me. I spoke up and said, "Oh no, it is my story, and have written it for Mr. Anagnos." Accordingly I copied the story and sent it to him for his birthday. It was suggested that I should change the title from "Autumn Leaves" to "The Frost-King," which I did. I carried the little story to the post-office myself, feeling as if I were walking on air. I little dreamed how cruelly I should pay for that birthday gift.

MR. ANAGNOS was delighted with "The Frost-King" and published it in one of the Perkins Institution reports. This was the pinnacle of my happiness, from which I was in a little while dashed to the earth. I had been in Boston only a short time when it was discovered that a story similar to "The Frost-King," called "Frost-Fairies," by Miss Margaret T. Canby, had appeared before I was born. The two stories were so much alike in thought and language that it was evident that Miss Canby's story had been read to me, and that mine was -- a plagiarism. It was difficult to make me understand this; but when I did understand I was astonished and grieved. No child ever drank deeper of the cup of bitterness than I did. I had disgraced myself; I had brought suspicion upon those I loved best. And yet how could it possibly have happened? I racked my brain until I was weary, to recall anything about the frost that I had read before I wrote "The Frost-King," but I could remember nothing, except the common reference to Jack Frost, and a poem for children, "The Freaks of the Frost," and I knew I had not used that in my composition.

At first Mr. Anagnos, though deeply troubled, seemed to believe me. He was unusually tender and kind to me, and for a brief space the shadow lifted, revealing the splendor of love and trust and faith -- plants that bloom in the shady spots of our lives. To please him I tried not to be unhappy and to make myself as pretty as possible for the celebration of Washington's Birthday, which took place very soon after I received the sad news. I was to be "Ceres " in a kind of masque given by the blind girls. Ah, how well I remember the graceful draperies that enfolded me, the bright autumn leaves that wreathed my head, and the fruit and grain at my feet and in my hands, and beneath all the gayety and charm of the masque the oppressive sense of coming ill that chilled my heart.

The night before the celebration one of the teachers of the Institution had asked me a question connected with "The Frost-King," and I was telling her that Miss Sullivan had talked to me about Jack Frost and his wonderful works. [1 »] Something I said made her think she detected in my words an acknowledgment that I did remember Miss Canby's story of the "Frost-Fairies," and she laid her conclusions before Mr. Anagnos, although I had told her most emphatically that she was mistaken.

Mr. Anagnos, who loved me tenderly, thinking that he had been deceived, turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of love and innocence. He believed that Miss Sullivan and I had deliberately stolen the bright thoughts of another and imposed them on him to win his admiration. I was brought before a court of investigation composed of the teachers and officers of the Institution, and Miss Sullivan was asked to leave me. Then I was questioned and cross-questioned with what seemed to me a determination on the part of my judges to force me to acknowledge that I remembered having had the "Frost-Fairies" read to me. I felt in every question the doubt and suspicion in their minds, and I felt, too, that a loved friend was looking at me coldly and reproachfully, although I could not have put all this into words. The blood pressed about my thumping heart, and I could scarcely speak, except in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it was only a dreadful mistake did not lessen my suffering, and when at last I was allowed to leave the room I was dazed and did not notice my teacher's caresses, or the tender words of my friends.

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As I lay in my bed that night I wept as I hope few children have wept. I imagined I should die before morning, I felt so cold; and the thought comforted me. I think if this sorrow had come to me when I was older it would have broken my spirit beyond repairing. But, fortunately for me, the angel of forgetfulness has gathered up and carried away much of the misery and all the bitterness of those days.

Miss Sullivan had never heard of the "Frost-Fairies" or of the book, "Birdie and His Friends," in which it was published. She investigated the matter carefully, and at last it came out that Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins had had a copy of the book in 1888, the year that we spent the summer with her in Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to find her copy; but she has told me that at that time, while Miss Sullivan was away on a vacation, she tried to amuse me by reading from various books, and although she could not remember "Frost-Fairies" any more than I, yet she felt sure that "Birdie and His Friends" was one of the books she read. She explained the disappearance of her book by the fact that she had a short time before sold her house and disposed of many juvenile books, such as fairy-tales, etc.

At that time the stories had little or no meaning for me; but the mere spelling of the strange words was sufficient to amuse a little child who could do almost nothing to amuse herself; and although I do not recall a single circumstance connected with the reading of the stories, yet I cannot help thinking that I made a great effort to remember the words, with the intention of having them explained when my teacher returned.

WHEN Miss Sullivan came back I did not speak to her about the "Frost-Fairies," probably because she began at once to read "Little Lord Fauntleroy," which filled my mind to the exclusion of everything else. But the fact remains that Miss Canby's story was read to me once, and that long after I had forgotten it it came back to me so naturally that I never suspected that it was the adopted child of another mind.

In my trouble I received many messages of love and sympathy which are precious to remember. All the friends I loved best, except one, have remained my own. Miss Canby herself wrote kindly, "Some day you will write a great story out of your own head, that will be a comfort and help to many." But this kind prophecy has never been fulfilled. Indeed, I have ever since been tortured by the fear that what I write is not my own. For a long time when I wrote a letter, even to my mother, I was seized with a sudden feeling of terror, and I would spell the sentences over and over, to make sure that I had not read them in a book. Had it not been for the persistent and constant encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.

I have read the "Frost-Fairies" since, also the letters I wrote in which I used other ideas of Miss Canby's. I find in one of them, a letter to Mr. Anagnos, dated September 29, 1891, words and sentiments exactly like those of the book. At this time I was writing "The Frost-King," and this letter, like many others, contains phrases which show that my mind was saturated with the story. For instance, I represent my teacher as saying to me of the golden autumn leaves, "Yes, they are beautiful enough to comfort us for the flight of summer" -- an idea direct from Miss Canby's story.

This habit of assimilating what pleased me and giving it out again as my own appears in much my early correspondence and my first attempts at writing. In a little essay which I wrote about the old cities of Greece and Italy, I borrowed my glowing descriptions with my variations from sources I have forgotten. I knew Mr. Anagnos's great love of antiquity and his enthusiastic appreciation of all beautiful sentiments about Italy and Greece. I therefore gathered from all the books that I read every bit of poetry or of history that I thought would give him pleasure. Mr. Anagnos, in speaking of my essay on the cities, has said, "These ideas are poetic in their essence." But I do not understand how he ever thought a blind and deaf child of eleven could have invented them. Yet I cannot think that, because I did not originate the ideas, my little composition is therefore quite devoid of interest. It shows me that I could express my appreciation of beautiful and poetic ideas in clear and animated language. Mr. Anagnos seems to ignore the fact that those early compositions were mental gymnastics. I was learning, as all young and inexperienced persons learn, by assimilation and imitation, to put ideas into words. Everything I found in books that pleased me I retained in my memory, consciously or unconsciously, and adapted it.

Writing Compared to Crazy Patchwork

I AM afraid I have not completed this process yet. It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those which I read, because what I read becomes the very substance and texture of my mind. Consequently, in nearly all that I write I produce something which very much resembles the crazy patchwork I used to make when I first learned to sew. This patchwork was made of all sorts of odds and ends -- pretty bits of silk and velvet; but the rough, coarse pieces that were not pleasant to touch always predominated. Likewise my compositions are made up of half-formed, crude notions of my own, inlaid with the brighter thoughts and riper opinions of the authors I have read. It seems to me that the great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the educated mind express the confused ideas, half feelings, half thoughts, which represent our mentality when we are little more than bundles of instinctive tendencies. Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together: We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design. But we keep on trying because we know that others have succeeded, and we are not willing to acknowledge that we are defeated. "There is no way to become original, except to be born so," says Stevenson. And although I may not be original I hope some time to outgrow my artificial, periwigged compositions. Then, perhaps, my own thoughts and experiences will come to the surface. Meantime I trust and hope and persevere, and try not to let the bitter memory of "The Frost-King" trammel my literary efforts. This sad experience may have done me good and set me thinking on some of the problems of composition. My only regret is that it resulted in the loss of one of my dearest friends. I mean Mr. Anagnos. The moment we met I loved him, and a friendship began which, though cruelly broken, I still cherish as one of my most precious memories. It is sweet to recall his goodness to me as a child -- how he held me on his knee, and, forgetting his many cares, made my happiness his own. He loved to talk to me about ancient Greece and Rome. It was he who guided my feet to the Ægean shore and showed me his beloved Hellas through the blue mist of time, still beautiful and statuesque amid the ashes of her dead splendor. But doubt and suspicion will blot out even the sweetest friendship.

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Constant Fear of Becoming a Plagiarist

THE summer and winter following "The Frost-King" incident I spent with my family in Alabama. I recall with delight that home-going. Everything had budded and blossomed. I was happy; "The Frost-King" was forgotten.

When the ground was strewn with the crimson and golden leaves of autumn, and the musk-scented grapes that covered the arbor at the end of the garden were turning golden brown in the sunshine, I began to write a sketch of my life -- a year after I had written "The Frost-King." I was still excessively scrupulous about everything I wrote. The thought that what I wrote might not be absolutely my own tormented me. No one knew of these fears except my teacher. A strange sensitiveness prevented me from referring to "The Frost-King"; but often when an idea flashed out in the course of conversation I would spell softly in her hand, "I am not sure it is mine." At other times, in the midst of a paragraph I was writing, I said to myself, "Suppose it should be found that all this was written by some one long ago!" An impish fear clutched hold of my hand, so that I could not write any more that day. And even now I sometimes feel the same uneasiness and disquietude.