All the circumstances of this death were pathetic—­my brain is worn to rags rehearsing them.  The mere death would have been cruelty enough, without overloading it and emphasizing it with that score of harsh and wanton details.  The child was taken away when her mother was within three days of her, and would have given three decades for sight of her.

In my despair and unassuageable misery I upbraid myself for ever parting
with her.  But there is no use in that.  Since it was to happen it would
have happened. 
                         With love
                                        S. L. C.

The life at Tedworth Square that winter was one of almost complete privacy.  Of the hundreds of friends which Mark Twain had in London scarcely half a dozen knew his address.  He worked steadily on his book of travels, ‘Following the Equator’, and wrote few letters beyond business communications to Mr. Rogers.  In one of these he said, “I am appalled!  Here I am trying to load you up with work again after you have been dray-horsing over the same tiresome ground for a year.  It’s too bad, and I am ashamed of it.”

     But late in November he sent a letter of a different sort—­one that
     was to have an important bearing on the life of a girl today of
     unique and world-wide distinction.

To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in New York City: 

For and in behalf of Helen Keller,
stone blind and deaf, and formerly dumb.

Dear Mrs. Rogers,—­Experience has convinced me that when one wishes to set a hard-worked man at something which he mightn’t prefer to be bothered with, it is best to move upon him behind his wife.  If she can’t convince him it isn’t worth while for other people to try.

Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at Lawrence Hutton’s house when she was fourteen years old.  Last July, in Boston, when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for admission to Radcliffe College.  She passed without a single condition.  She was allowed the same amount of time that is granted to other applicants, and this was shortened in her case by the fact that the question papers had to be read to her.  Yet she scored an average of 90 as against an average of 78 on the part of the other applicants.

It won’t do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty.  If she can go on with them she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries.  Along her special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages.

There is danger that she must retire from the struggle for a College degree for lack of support for herself and for Miss Sullivan, (the teacher who has been with her from the start—­Mr. Rogers will remember her.) Mrs. Hutton writes to ask me to interest rich Englishmen in her case, and I would gladly try, but my secluded life will not permit it.  I see nobody.  Nobody knows my address.  Nothing but the strictest hiding can enable me to write my long book in time.