Read this excerpt from Helen Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life. Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great
ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with
beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or
sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of
my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour. . . .
The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the
Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had
played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-1-1." I was at once interested in this
finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish
pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know
that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In
the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup
and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk.
Based on this excerpt, which words best describe Helen Keller?
O lonely and timid