TWO RECEPTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26842, 5 August 1948, Page 4

TWO RECEPTIONS

DISTINGUISHED BLIND AUTHOR P.A. WELLINGTON, Aug. 4. Miss Helen Keller, accompanied bv Miss Polly Thompson, was received at Government House yesterday by their Excellencies, when the GovernorGeneral placed her hand on his lips in order that she might converse with him. “No one could have been more kind, sympathetic and understanding' than the Governor-General,” Miss Keller remarked following the audience. “I had quite a long conversation with his Excellency, and we both enjoyed our visit very much. Of course, I had known of his distinguished record as a soldier.” “The gods have given Miss Helen Keller less sight but more vision than to ordinary mortals,” said the United States Minister, Mr R. M. Scotten, at a civic reception to-day in her honour. “As a small boy when my mother used to read to me the story of her life,” said the Minister, “I regarded her not as a mortal being, but in some sense a supernatural being. What I failed to recognise at that time was that she was a human being with more than her share of mortal affliction and more than her share of immortal genius.”