REMARKABLE POWERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 288, 30 July 1932, Page 6

REMARKABLE POWERS

/ DEAF AND DUMB WOMAN CONQUERS HER . / DISABILITY. j Blind,' yet can see. Deaf, yet can hear. These are the riexxxarkable attributes of Miss Helen Keller, Axnerica's "wonder woman," whoxn a London Stlliday Chronicle correspondent had the privilege of xneeting on the oceasion pf her visit to Glasgow to receive' the honorary degree of L.L.D. from the university. Miss Keller lost Ber sight and her hearirig at the age of 19 months, but now, at ths age of 52, she is educated and cultured, a world-renowned authoress, able to follow conversations and to articulate distinctly if a trifling haltingly. Talking to her is an unforgettable eXperience. MiSf? Keller converses with visitors through her secretary, Miss Mary Thomson, or her lifelong companion, Mrs. Macey, who translate conversations into her hand in the deaf and dumb alphabet. She ako reads the lips and listens with her hand resting lightly on the mouth of Miss Thomson as she repeats the interviewer's words. "I love Scotland," she told me. And she has read much of the country, 'especially in Sir Walter Scott's xxovels. And .she can quote Burns, too. She knows Edinburgh— she wai there two years agO-—and there was something a trifle uftcanny in hearing this blind woman describing Pxunces Street — "with its fine shops on one side and its famous gard'sns on th'e other" . . . and recalling in vivid terms and nxinute detail the features of the heautiful Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle. "I like reading about your Highland clans," she added, "and I should love to kee' something of your Highland scenery if time permits." Her transition from physical incapacity to world-famed culture is the measure of her earnest rnind. To hex', seulpture (through her touch) is a pleasure, and she enjoys lalso music (by letting her hands rest on the instrument producing it). But she is not a "liighbrow." She likes jazz. "It rhythm appeals to xne," she said. "I think there are great possibilities in it."