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My progress in lip-reading and speech was not what my teachers and I had hoped and expected it would be. It was my ambition to speak like other people, and my teachers believed that this could be accomplished; but, although we worked hard and faithfully, yet we did not quite reach our goal. I suppose we aimed too high, and disappointment was therefore inevitable. I still regarded arithmetic as a system of pitfalls. I hung about the dangerous frontier of "guess," avoiding with infinite trouble to myself and others the broad valley of reason. When I was not guessing, I was jumping at conclusions, and this fault, in addition to my dullness, aggravated my difficulties more than was right or necessary.
我在唇读和讲话方面取得的进步同老师们的授课并没有直接关系，我的动力只有一个，我希望能像其他人一样开口说话。而我的老师们也相信这个目标一定能够实现，但是，尽管我们同心协力携手向前，我们仍然没有达到理想目标。我想，或许是目标定得太高，因此失望也就在所难免了。我依然把算术当做一门充满陷阱的学科，我徘徊在竖立着“猜想”标牌的危险边境，还要避免给自己，以及身在宽阔幽谷中的人们惹一身麻烦。当我不再猜想时，我便欣然接受各种结论，而这样做的结果只能是错上加错。另外，我感官上的迟钝更加剧了我的理解困难。
But although these disappointments caused me great depression at times, I pursued my other studies with unflagging interest, especially physical geography. It was a joy to learn the secrets of nature: how—in the picturesque language of the Old Testament—the winds are made to blow from the four corners of the heavens, how the vapours ascend from the ends of the earth, how rivers are cut out among the rocks, and mountains overturned by the roots, and in what ways man may overcome many forces mightier than himself. The two years in New York were happy ones, and I look back to them with genuine pleasure.
虽然种种失望令我一度消沉沮丧，但是我对其他科目的学习兴趣依旧未减，尤其是自然地理学。了解自然界的奥秘是一种乐趣：比如风如何——就像《圣经·旧约》中所描绘的那样——自天堂的四个角落遍吹四方，水蒸气如何从大地的尽头飘升至天空，河流如何在巉岩峭壁间劈风斩浪，群山如何被大地所倾覆，人类又是以何种方式战胜比自己强大得多的自然之力的。在纽约的这两年是一段令人愉快的时光，每每想起，我都会感到由衷地开心。
I remember especially the walks we all took together every day in Central Park, the only part of the city that was congenial to me. I never lost a jot of my delight in this great park.
我尤其记得我们每天在中央公园的集体散步，对我而言，这是这个城市唯一令我感到称心如意的所在。我从未在这个大公园里遗漏掉半点快乐。
