Keller, Helen. Typed letter signed ("Helen Keller") , in pencil, 2 pages (10.5 x 7.25 in.; 267 x 184 mm.), Westport, Connectic...

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Keller, Helen. Typed letter signed ("Helen Keller") , in pencil, 2 pages (10.5 x 7.25 in.; 267 x 184 mm.), Westport, Connecticut, 26 February 1939, to Katharine Cornell; with original envelope. Keller, Helen. Typed letter signed ("Helen Keller") , in pencil, 2 pages (10.5 x 7.25 in.; 267 x 184 mm.), Westport, Connecticut, 26 February 1939, to Katharine Cornell; with original envelope. An adoring note of thanks to famed Broadway actress, Katharine Cornell, for hosting Keller and a friend for an evening. Keller writes in full: From a heart still palpitating with the emotions of that marvelous Friday evening I thank you and Guthrie McClintic for being so charmingly kind to Polly and me. It was all an unforgettable drama-four hours of our companionship, Katharine, your fragrant home, Guthrie's wholesouled enthusiasm over the Teacher I feel always at my side, though unseen, the love-mighty tragedy storming through my fingers as Polly spelled out "Mamba's Daughters." That play impressed me the more poignantly because when I was a child, I had little negro playmates. Their darling patience with my wild ways before Teacher subdued me, their joy in my deliverance, their laughter and tears are touching to remember. Tenderness moistens my eyes as I think of Hagar, primitive, flaming up in catastrophal anger, guarding Lissa's wronged but pure soul and golden voice with her own life. How startlingly Hagar resembles Rodin's "Thinker" in her bondage to the earth and to society, her elemental struggle from passive animality up to articulate thought! And what a divine gift Ethel Waters must possess to lose her gentle, artistic self utterly in embodying Hagar's uncouth womanhood with its feet entangled in the more, its spirit straining towards God! I thank you also for the privilege of meeting such a superb actress. May her work travel far, revealing to eyes that will see the unfathomable appeal, the power and creative capabilities of the negro race! Please tell Guthrie, I feel that I have seen "Mamba's Daughters" twice-once in his magnificent, gripping rendering of the story that enabled me to follow the play, and again at the theatre. He has rare insight into the depths of man's nature and the still more rare faculty to impart a new idea of human values. Polly and I look forward happily to welcoming you in the cosiness of "Harvard House" Wednesday. I am enclosing directions, hoping you may not have trouble in finding us. Anyway we shall be on the lookout for you. With our love to you both, and with a pat for Illo, (I am glad he can't take offence at my getting his name wrong, since he can't spell) I am, Affectionately your friend, Helen Keller. Katharine Cornell was a renowned stage actress who met Keller en route from Boston to New York by train. Cornell was to finish her final tour of a series of plays in Brooklyn, NY. While walking on the street, Cornell and a friend ran into Keller and her friend, Polly. Cornell recognized Keller from numerous public pictures and they became friends. Cornell writes in the 24 June 1956 issue of Parade that Keller "enriched my whole life, deepened my sympathies and understandings."