Optimism - An Essay by Helen Keller

Helen Keller (1880 - 1968) was an American author, political activist, lecturer and deaf and blind. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She was a prolific author, well-traveled, and was outspoken in her opposition to war. She campaigned for women's sufferage, worker's rights, and socialism, as well as many other progressive causes.

Chapters include "Optimism Within", Optimism Without", and "The Practice of Optimism".

The Publisher has copy-edited this book to improve the formatting, style and accuracy of the text to make it readable. This did not involve changing the substance of the text.

This book for the Kindle includes a page with a picture of Helen Keller and the title page with an illustration which are available for viewing at www.digitaltextpublishing.com

Excerpt:
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 testimont to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. As sinners stand up in a meeting and testify to the goodness of God, so one who is called afflicted, may rise up in gladness of conviction and testify to the
goodness of life."