An Excerpt from “Optimism”
by Helen Keller

1 Could we choose our environment, and were desire in human undertakings synonymous with
endowment, all men would, I suppose, be optimists. Certainly most of us regard happiness as
the proper end of all earthly enterprise. The will to be happy animates alike the philosopher, the
prince and the chimney-sweep. No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels
that happiness is his indisputable right.
2 It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular
places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some
in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the
exploration of their own minds, or in the search for knowledge.
3 Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession.
Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they would be!
Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so
measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and
weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so
thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life,—if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to
the creed of optimism is worth hearing....
4 Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then
love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and
joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the
consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven. My life was without past or future; death,
the pessimist would say, “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” But a little word from the
fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the
rapture of living. Night fled before the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a
passion of obedience to knowledge. Can anyone who has escaped such captivity, who has felt
the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist?
5 My early experience was thus a leap from bad to good. If I tried, I could not check the
momentum of my first leap out of the dark; to move breast forward is a habit learned suddenly
at that first moment of release and rush into the light. With the first word I used intelligently, I
learned to live, to think, to hope. Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have had a glimpse of the
shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it.
6 So my optimism is no mild and unreasoning satisfaction. A poet once said I must be happy
because I did not see the bare, cold present, but lived in a beautiful dream. I do live in a
beautiful dream; but that dream is the actual, the present,—not cold, but warm; not bare, but
furnished with a thousand blessings. The very evil which the poet supposed would be a cruel


6) Read the last sentence from the text.
Only by contact with evil could I have learned to feel by contrast the beauty of truth and love and goodness.
Explain how Helen Keller develops this idea in the text. Use specific details to
support your answer.

Could we choose our environment, and were desire in human undertakings synonymous with

endowment, all men would, I suppose, be optimists. Certainly most of us regard happiness as

the proper end of all earthly enterprise. The will to be happy animates alike the philosopher, the

prince and the chimney-sweep. No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels

that happiness is his indisputable right.

2 It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular

places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some

in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the

exploration of their own minds, or in the search for knowledge.

3 Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession.

Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they would be!

Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so

measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and

weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so

thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life,—if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to

the creed of optimism is worth hearing....

4 Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then

love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and

joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the

consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven. My life was without past or future; death,

the pessimist would say, “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” But a little word from the

fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the

rapture of living. Night fled before the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a

passion of obedience to knowledge. Can anyone who has escaped such captivity, who has felt

the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist?

5 My early experience was thus a leap from bad to good. If I tried, I could not check the

momentum of my first leap out of the dark; to move breast forward is a habit learned suddenly

at that first moment of release and rush into the light. With the first word I used intelligently, I

learned to live, to think, to hope. Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have had a glimpse of the

shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it.

6 So my optimism is no mild and unreasoning satisfaction. A poet once said I must be happy

because I did not see the bare, cold present, but lived in a beautiful dream. I do live in a

beautiful dream; but that dream is the actual, the present,—not cold, but warm; not bare, but

furnished with a thousand blessings. The very evil which the poet supposed would be a cruel

6) Read the last sentence from the text.

Only by contact with evil could I have learned to feel by contrast the beauty of truth and love and goodness.

Explain how Helen Keller develops this idea in the text. Use specific details to

support your answer.

The sin of witchcraft is the primary evil of this play, yet ironically the least
destructive. What are at least three other evils in Salem that the play
explores? Explain these other “evils.” ( Crucible by Arthur Miller )

please help to solve it

Use this dictionary entry to answer the question.

equi- (prefix): equal or equally; [Latin]

What does the word equilibrium mean in the following sentence?

After being jostled by the crowd at the mall, John had to sit down for a minute to get his equilibrium back.

a.
health

b.
balance

c.
memory

d.
strength

Now answer the following questions in the text box below: 1. What is the purpose of a transition sentence? 2. What does a transition sentence tell the reader? 3. Give two examples of good-quality transition sentences.

Pls Help Me with this answer

We may want to go later but not now? Which supports the vetb

In the words politician and musician, -ian means

Group of answer choices

C. act of

D. in favor of.

B. state of

A. relating to, specializing in

On a resume, besides your contact information, what five other major pieces of
information are imperative to building a proper resume?

1. How does Beowulf speak about his youth? What kinds of activities did he
enjoy? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
2. What visual components does the author use to illustrate Beowulf's
heroism and might? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
3. The King says he has never "left the hall of great Danes for any man to
keep." What can you infer about his feelings toward his kingdom? Use
evidence from the text to support your answer.
4. Use context clues to determine the meaning of the word valorous as it is
used in Beowulf. Write your definition of valorous here, along with those
words or phrases from the text that helped
most. Then check a dictionary
to confirm your understanding.
5. What is the meaning of the word devour as it is used in the text? Write
your best definition here, along with a brief explanation of how you arrived
at its meaning.

What is a limitation of first-person narration in a story?

A.The reader is too far removed from the story’s action
B.The other characters views and thoughts are left out.
C.The thoughts of too many characters are displayed
D.The reader does not feel a connection to the narrator

Am I correct? I will give brainilest :-)

Which topic should appear in a conclusion?

Could i get help? for this question

1. Albert works out at the gym. He is practicing basketball every day. a. barber shop c. car center b. beach resort d. sports center pls help ​

In the Native American Trickster tale, "Rabbit's Short Tale," the rabbit loses his tail

when the coyote bites it off.
when he sticks it in a hole to catch fish.
when a hunter shoots it off.

"Not a crumb to be found

On the snow covered ground;

Not a flower could he see,

Not a leaf on a tree."

(a) Who is ‘he’ in the above lines? What does he need?


(b) What does ‘he’ decide to do to fulfil his need?


(c) From where has this poem been adapted?


(d) What is the rhyme scheme of the stanza?

( Correct ans will be marked as brainliest) and plz dont send spam

You are a student at an English language university in Hanoi and you have been experiencing some problems in the dormitory. Write a letter to the manager of the dormitory

pĺź_hèĺp_mè_j.o.i.n.f.a.s.t
xgb-mjpq-yak​

If I gave you the word ‘successful’ does that word have a prefix or suffix? What would it be?

considering the implications of a decision includes:

Does anyone have a account for Lezhin i can use to read manga?

A mission to send humans to Mars is set for the 2030s. Perhaps you could be riding that rocket to the Red Planet. Who knows? You might even be piloting the ship yourself! Which means almost the same as mission? A. parade B. trip C. announcement D. contest​

15.When it fomes to the plot of a literary piece, what does the rising action immediately lead to?
O A. Climax
O B. Introduction
O C. Conclusion
O D. Falling action

Question 32 (Essay Worth 10 points)
(LC)

The War of the Worlds
by H. G. Wells [1898]
But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be
inhabited?…Are we or they Lords of the
World?…And how are all things made for man?—
KEPLER (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy)

BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS
CHAPTER ONE: THE EVE OF THE WAR, excerpt

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end.

The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas.

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.

In three to five complete sentences, explain why the inhabitants of Mars are interested in Earth. Use information from the text to support your answer.

Chapter 11:
S/Q
1. How was the appearance of the shopkeeper? 3
2. How was Charlie eating the chocolate? 2
3. Why did the shopkeeper advice Charlie to take it easy? 1
4. What type of change was returned by the shopkeeper? 1
5. What was Charlie thinking about after getting the changes back? 1
6. What could Charlie see underneath the wrapper? 1
7. Why were the people clustering around Charlie? 1
8. How did the children show their jealousy towards Charlie? 3
9. How did people try to bribe Charlie for the ticket? 2
10. How was Charlie feeling after getting the golden ticket? 2

please help i’ll give brainlist

Why does D-503 consider life in the previous society to have been
"actually wholesale murder" (Paragraph 20)? Cite evidence in your
answer.

Which response best explains how the authors of queen of the falls and where is Niagara falls view Annie Taylor's efforts to prepare for her stunt

complete the sentence with your own ideas:
1. I thought Maria was a vegetarian but acctually

In the Canterbury tales what Pilgrims does he approve of

brainliestt for right answer, help nowww
What is the function of the prepositional phrase "in the freezer" in this sentence? It’s hot, so put the ice cream in the freezer to keep it cold.
It modifies the verb put.
It modifies the adjective hot.
It answers the question "Why is the ice cream kept cold?"
It modifies the noun ice cream.