In preparing for her first communion, an anonymous writer[25] became sober and studious, proposing to model her life on that of each fresh saint and to spend a week in retreat examining her conscience with vengeance. She wanted to revive the custom of public confession and wrote letters of penitence and submission, which she tore up later, finding her mind not "all of a piece." She lay prostrate on her prie-dieu weeping from ecstasy, lying on the rim of heaven held by angels, wanting to die, now bathed in bliss or aching intolerably with spiritual joy, but she was only twelve and her old nature often reasserted itself. Religion at that time became an intense emotion nourished on incense, music, tapers, and a feeling of being tangible. It was rapturous and sensuous. While under its spell, she seemed to float and touch the wings of angels. Here solemn Gregorian chants are sung, so that when one comes back to earth there is a sense of hunger, deception, and self-loathing. Now she came to understand how so many sentimental and virtuous souls sought oblivion in the narcotic of religious excitement. Here, at the age of twelve, youth began and childhood ended with her book.
Pathetic is the account of Helen Keller's effort to understand the meaning of the word "love" in its season.[26]
Is it the sweetness of flowers? she asked. No, said her teacher. Is it the warm sun? Not exactly. It can not be touched, "'but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love, you would not be happy or want to play.' The beautiful truth burst upon my mind. I felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirit of others." This period seems to have came gradually and naturally to this wonderful child, whose life has been perhaps the purest ever lived and one of the sweetest. None has ever loved every aspect of nature accessible to her more passionately, or felt more keenly the charm of nature or of beautiful sentiments. The unhappy Frost King episode has been almost the only cloud upon her life, which unfortunately came at about the dawn of this period, that is perhaps better marked by the great expansion of mind which she experienced at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, when she was thirteen. About this time, too, her great ambition of going to college and enjoying all the advantages that other girls did, which, considering her handicap, was one of the greatest human resolutions, was strengthened and deepened. The fresh, spontaneous, and exquisite reactions of this pellucid mind, which felt that each individual could comprehend all the experiences and emotions of the race and that chafed at every pedagogical and technical obstacle between her soul and nature, and the great monuments of literature, show that she has conserved to a remarkable degree, which the world will wish may be permanent, the best impulses of this golden age.