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Miss Canby herself wrote kindly, "Some day you will write a great story out of your own head, that will be a comfort and help to many." But this kind prophecy has never been fulfilled. I have never played with words again for the mere pleasure of the game. Indeed, I have ever since been tortured by the fear that what I write is not my own. For a long time, when I wrote a letter, even to my mother, I was seized with a sudden feeling of terror, and I would spell the sentences over and over, to make sure that I had not read them in a book. Had it not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.
肯拜小姐亲自写信安慰我：“有朝一日，你也会用自己的头脑写出一篇伟大的故事，它将会抚慰很多人，也会对他们助益匪浅。”但是这个预言从来没有实现，我不再做仅仅为了娱乐而玩弄辞藻的游戏了。实际上，自那以后，我被恐惧折磨着，我害怕我写的东西不是我自己的。有很长一段时间，即便是在给母亲写信的时候，我也会感到如临大敌般惴惴不安。我会反反复复地拼写句子，以确信我并没有在某本书中读到过这些话。如果没有苏立文小姐持久的鼓励，我想我肯定无法把那些单词组合成句。
I have read "The Frost Fairies" since, also the letters I wrote in which I used other ideas of Miss Canby's. I find in one of them, a letter to Mr. Anagnos, dated September 29, 1891, words and sentiments exactly like those of the book. At the time I was writing "The Frost King," and this letter, like many others, contains phrases which show that my mind was saturated with the story. I represent my teacher as saying to me of the golden autumn leaves, "Yes, they are beautiful enough to comfort us for the flight of summer"—an idea direct from Miss Canby's story.
事实上，那时我不但读了《冰雪仙子》，我还在我写的信中借用了肯拜小姐的一些观点。我在一封信中找到了佐证，这封信是写给阿纳戈诺斯先生的，时间是1891年9月29日，信中的措辞和观点确实很像那本书的语言。当时，我正在写《冰雪之王》，就像我写的很多别的信一样，这封信中也包含了那篇故事所使用的语句。当然，这些成语都是被我融会贯通后，能够代表我思想的词句。比如，我是这样描述老师所说的秋日中的金黄色的树叶的：“是的，它们的美丽足以安抚我们对逝去夏日的眷恋之情。”——这样的一个观点直接来自于肯拜小姐的故事。
This habit of assimilating what pleased me and giving it out again as my own appears in much of my early correspondence and my first attempts at writing. In a composition which I wrote about the old cities of Greece and Italy, I borrowed my glowing descriptions, with variations, from sources I have forgotten. I knew Mr. Anagnos's great love of antiquity and his enthusiastic appreciation of all beautiful sentiments about Italy and Greece. I therefore gathered from all the books I read every bit of poetry or of history that I thought would give him pleasure. Mr. Anagnos, in speaking of my composition on the cities, has said, "These ideas are poetic in their essence." But I do not understand how he ever thought a blind and deaf child of eleven could have invented them. Yet I cannot think that because I did not originate the ideas, my little composition is therefore quite devoid of interest. It shows me that I could express my appreciation of beautiful and poetic ideas in clear and animated language.
这种深受周围事物同化的习性令我乐此不疲，我在早期通信和最初的写作中无不透露出同化因素的影响。我曾在自己的作文中写到了希腊和意大利的古老城市，我借用了多姿多彩的生动描述，但是我已经不记得它们的出处了。我知道阿纳戈诺斯先生对古代希腊和罗马的遗迹情有独钟，并且对它们所创造的古代文明推崇备至。于是，我便从我读过的所有书本中搜集出相关的诗歌和历史，我想这一定会令他很开心。阿纳戈诺斯先生则说我描写古代城市的作文“诗意地再现了其内在特质”。但我并不知晓他是如何看待一个十一岁的盲聋小孩的遣词造句的。总之，我并不认为我有创作的本事，因为我无法创造自己的观点，所以我的作文空泛而无趣也就在所难免了。这反倒提醒了我，我应该使用清晰而生动的语言来描述美好的事物，品评诗意的思想。
Those early compositions were mental gymnastics. I was learning, as all young and inexperienced persons learn, by assimilation and imitation, to put ideas into words. Everything I found in books that pleased me I retained in my memory, consciously or unconsciously, and adapted it. The young writer, as Stevenson has said, instinctively tries to copy whatever seems most admirable, and he shifts his admiration with astonishing versatility. It is only after years of this sort of practice that even great men have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging through every byway of the mind.
那些作文构成了我早期的智力训练课程。像所有缺乏经验的年轻人一样，我通过吸收和模仿将自己的思想诉诸文字。书本中任何给我留下愉悦记忆的事物——无论是有意还是无意——都适用于这个原则。有一个年轻的作家史蒂文森曾说过，受本能驱使，他总是尽其所能地再现那些最令人景仰的崇高思想，而且，他会令人惊讶地将这种崇高转化为千变万化的文字效果。即使是伟大的人物，也只有经年累月地持续训练，才能汇聚起攻往每一条思想小径的文字大军。
