海倫‧凱勒 著  東年 譯 

我的生命開始得單純，和每個其他生命也幾乎相同；我來了，我觀看，我贏得喝采，就像所有家庭的新生兒通常那樣。關於我的名字，家裡也是有一些討論。家裡第一個嬰兒的命名，不能草率；每個人都這麼強調。我父親建議為蜜德莉‧坎貝爾，這名字出自我們一位很受尊敬的祖先；他並且婉拒其他人分享命名的樂趣而不討論別的建議。我母親化解這個問題，表示她希望我應該用她母親的名字，她母親婚前叫海倫‧艾佛雷。但是，帶我去教堂的途中，我父親因為興奮把我的名字忘了；這非常自然，因為這個名字是他謝絕別人參與的命名之一。當牧師問他我的名字，他只想起我已經被決定用我外祖母在娘家時的名字，而他將它說成海倫‧亞當斯。 

據說，當我還穿寬鬆的嬰兒服，就已經顯現急切、堅持主見的性格。看到別人行事，我一定會加以模仿。出生第六個月，我已經會發出聽起來像「你好可愛」的聲音；有一天，我還十分清楚的說出「茶，茶，茶」引起大家注目。甚至於在我生病後，喪失了所有說話能力，我還記得我在這早期幾個月中學到的「水」這個字，就持續的發這個字的聲音，直到我開始學習拼字，我才停止只是「嘶－嘶」作響。 

The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other little life. I came, I saw, I conquered, as the first baby in the family always does. There was the usual amount of discussion as to a name for me. The first baby in the family was not to be lightly named, every one was emphatic about that. My father suggested the name of Mildred Campbell, an ancestor whom he highly esteemed, and he declined to take any further part in the discussion. My mother solved the problem by giving it as her wish that I should be called after her mother, whose maiden name was Helen Everett. But in the excitement of carrying me to church my father lost the name on the way, very naturally, since it was one in which he had declined to have a part. When the minister asked him for it, he just remembered that it had been decided to call me after my grandmother, and he gave her name as Helen Adams.

I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many signs of an eager, self-asserting disposition. Everything that I saw other people do I insisted upon imitating. At six months I could pipe out "How d'ye," and one day I attracted every one's attention by saying "Tea, tea, tea" quite plainly. Even after my illness I remembered one of the words I had learned in these early months. It was the word "water," and I continued to make some sound for that word after all other speech was lost. I ceased making the sound "wah-wah" only when I learned to spell the word.