Thus I learned from life itself. At the beginning I was only a little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them. When she came, everything about me breathed of love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never since let pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is in everything, nor has she ceased trying in thought and action and example to make my life sweet and useful.
高知大学
ヘレン・ケラーの The Story of My Life の一節ですね。my teacher とは Miss Sullivan（サリバン先生）のことです。
ポレポレの例題50題は全て，文脈から切り離した英文ですから，話の流れが分からないぶん，和訳は難しい（というより厳密には不可能？）ですが，今回も挑戦してみます。
Contents
【第1文】文構造を分析してみた
(Ⓜ Thus) Ⓢ I Ⓥ learned (Ⓜ from life itself). (Ⓜ At the beginning) Ⓢ I Ⓥ was (Ⓜ only) Ⓒ a little mass <Ⓜ of possibilities>.
［訳してみた］
このようにして私は人生そのものから学んだ。最初，私はあらゆる可能性を秘めた小さな存在にすぎなかった。
［気をつけたところ］
a little mass of possibilities 「可能性の小さな塊」を「あらゆる可能性を秘めた小さな存在」と意訳したのは，この英文の著者が，見えない・聞こえない・話せないの三重苦を乗り越えたことで知られるヘレン・ケラー（Helen Keller）であること知っているからです。
ポレポレにはそういったコンテキスト情報は載せていないので「何の話？」「どう訳せばいいの？」と悩む（というか，厳密には特定できない）のも仕方ありません。
そのようなコンテキスト（文脈）に影響される細かな箇所はさておき，only の訳は注意が必要です。
まず only は品詞の識別が大切です。ここでは形容詞でしょうか，副詞でしょうか。
形容詞の only は「唯一の」ですが，形容詞ならば，an only ＋ 単数名詞 というご順位， only + a little mass という語順になっていることから，副詞だと判断できます。副詞の only の訳は「ただ〜に過ぎない」
only の訳は頻繁に出てきますが，ペンギンは頻繁に忘れてしまいます。なので以下のように例文で理解，記憶するようにしています。
【形容詞】「唯一の」He is an only child = he has no siblings
【副詞】「ただ〜に過ぎない」He is only a child = he is young and immature.
【第2文】文構造を分析してみた
強調構文 It was Ⓢ my teacher who Ⓥ unfolded and developed Ⓞ them. (Ⓜ When she came), Ⓢ everything <Ⓜ about me> Ⓥ breathed (Ⓜ of love and joy) and Ⓥ was Ⓒ full (Ⓜof meaning).
［訳してみた］
私の可能性を見つけて広げてくれたのは，先生であった。先生が来てから，自分のありとあらゆる部分が，愛と喜びを吸い込んで，自尊心で満たされた。
［気をつけたところ］
ここもヘレン・ケラーとサリバン先生の関係を知っていれば難しくはないけれど，知らないと訳に苦労するかもしれません。
まず語彙に関していくつか。 unfold = un（反対の動作）+ fold（折りたたむ）なので，折りたたんであるものを広げる・開く ➡ 「包まれているものを明らかにする」という訳なので，可能性を「見つける」という訳を当てました。them が前文の possibilities を指していることは明らか。
接続詞 when は「〜の時」だけでは対応できないことの方が多いです。条件「〜すれば」や譲歩「〜する時なのに」などの訳をしなくてはならない場面も多いです。
サリバン先生と出会ってヘレン・ケラーの人生が変わったという文脈情報がないのでそこまでこだわるのは難しいですが，ペンギンはここで「先生がきてから」という訳を当てました。
everything about me は「私に関するすべてのこと」ですが，ヘレン・ケラーは見えない・聞こえない・話せないの三重苦をサリバン先生と共に乗り越えたことからも，そういったハンデを負っている部分も含めてというニュアンスを出すために，「自分のありとあらゆる部分」と訳してみました。
breathed が動詞，「of は格判断が重要」なので，目的格だと判断して「愛と喜び を 吸い込んで」と訳します。
等位接続詞 and の直後が was なので，前で動詞の過去形を探すと，breathed があります。この２つを結んでいるので「愛と喜びを吸い込んで，full of meaning になった」ということ be full of〜 は熟語で 「〜で一杯だ」というのは基本熟語ですが，それよりも meaning の和訳が難しいですね。
「意味で一杯になる」というと，よく分からない。いや，文脈を考慮しないポレポレの和訳であれば，それでもいいとは思うのですが，ヘレン・ケラーとサリバン先生という関係を知っている以上，この苦し紛れな訳では納得がいきません。
meaning には意味という訳以外にも意義，価値，重要性と訳せる場合もありますが，いずれもイマイチ納得のいく訳にならないので「ヘレン・ケラーの中で一杯になった価値」ということから「自尊心」と意訳をしました。これが意訳の許容範囲なのか，飛躍でアウトなのかは分かりませんが。
【第3文】文構造を分析してみた
Ⓢ She Ⓥ has never (Ⓜ since) let Ⓒ pass Ⓞ an opportunity <Ⓜ to point out the beauty <Ⓜ that is in everything>>, nor Ⓥ has Ⓢ she Ⓥ ceased Ⓞ trying (Ⓜ in thought and action and example) to make my life sweet and useful.
［訳してみた］
【訳】それ以来先生は，機会があれば必ずあらゆるものが持つ美しさを教えてくれたし，どう考えたらよいか，どう行動したらよいか，どのようにして良い手本になるのかという点について教えてくれて，私の人生を，有意義で満足いくものにしようと努力を続けてくれた。
［気をつけたところ］
１つの文に倒置が２つも入っています。
まず１つ目が let O+C の Oが長いため後置して let C+O という形になったもの。もう１つは Nor という否定語が文頭にあることにより疑問文語順に倒置して Nor V+S という形になったもの。どちらの倒置も気づきやすく，倒置自体は問題ありません。問題は和訳のしずらさでした。
まず，has never let + an opportunity + pass なので「〜する機会を1つとして決して逃さなかった」という直訳から，「機会があれば必ず〜した」という意訳はうまく訳ができたと思っています。
しかし，後半部分の意訳が許容されるかは分かれるかもしれません。
わかりやすくするために，倒置をなくし，副詞句を後ろに置くと ➡ she has never ceased trying to make my life sweet and useful in thought and action and example. となります。
骨格のみ直訳すると「先生は，私の人生が満足ゆくもの(=sweet)になるように，そして有意義なもの(=useful)になるようにすることを決してやめなかった」となります。
問題は副詞句の和訳です。
in thought and action and example を直訳すると「思考と行動と実例の点おいて」でしょうか。困ったので，名詞を動詞化して訳をみてみると「考え(=think)，行動し(=act)，よい例になる(=exemplify)点において」となります。これでもまだうまく訳せないので，サリバン先生がヘレン・ケラーに教えたという文脈を用いて自然な訳を考えます。文脈を切り離したポレポレでも，前文で「私の可能性を見つけて広げてくれたのは，先生であった」とありますから，そういった情報を使います。
先生が生徒に教えたのだから，「どう考えたらよいか，どう行動したらよいか，どのようにして良い手本になるのかという点について」として，これら３点の教えを通じて，ヘレン・ケラーの人生を有意義なものにしようと努力を続けたという意訳を完成させました。
今回ポレポレで抜粋されたのは，ヘレン・ケラーの The Story of My Life の CHAPTER VII です。今，ネット上でも自由にアクセスできます。こちらからどうぞ。該当チャプターのみ貼り付けしておきます。抜粋部分は赤い部分です。
Further Reading
CHAPTER VII
THE next important step in my education was learning to read.
As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher gave me slips of cardboard on which were printed words in raised letters. I quickly learned that each printed word stood for an object, an act, or a quality. I had a frame in which I could arrange the words in little sentences; but before I ever put sentences in the frame I used to make them in objects. I found the slips of paper which represented, for example, “doll,” “is,” “on,” “bed” and placed each name on its object; then I put my doll on the bed with the words is, on, bed arranged beside the doll, thus making a sentence out of the words, and at the same time carrying out the idea of the sentence with the things themselves.
One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pinned the word girl on my pinafore and stood in the wardrobe. On the shelf I arranged the words, is, in, wardrobe. Nothing delighted me so much as this game. My teacher and I played it for hours at a time. Often everything in the room was arranged in object sentences.
From the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book. I took my “Reader for Beginners” and hunted for the words I knew; when I found them my joy was like that of a game of hide-and-seek. Thus I began to read. Of the time when I began to read connected stories I shall speak later.
For a long time I had no regular lessons. Even when I studied most earnestly it seemed more like play than work. Everything Miss Sullivan taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a poem. Whenever anything delighted or interested me she talked it over with me just as if she were a little girl herself. What many children think of with dread, as a painful plodding through grammar, hard sums and harder definitions, is to-day one of my most precious memories.
I cannot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with my pleasures and desires. Perhaps it was the result of long association with the blind. Added to this she had a wonderful faculty for description. She went quickly over uninteresting details, and never nagged me with questions to see if I remembered the day-before-yesterday’s lesson. She introduced dry technicalities of science little by little, making every subject so real that I could not help remembering what she taught.
We read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to the house. All my early lessons have in them the breath of the woods–the fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the perfume of wild grapes. Seated in the gracious shade of a wild tulip tree, I learned to think that everything has a lesson and a suggestion. “The loveliness of things taught me all their use.” Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom, had a part in my education–noisy- throated frogs, katydids and crickets held in my hand until, forgetting their embarrassment, they trilled their reedy note, little downy chickens and wild-flowers, the dogwood blossoms, meadow-violets and budding fruit trees. I felt the bursting cotton-bolls and fingered their soft fiber and fuzzy seeds; I felt the low soughing of the wind through the cornstalks, the silky rustling of the long leaves, and the indignant snort of my pony, as we caught him in the pasture and put the bit in his mouth–ah me! how well I remember the spicy, clovery smell of his breath!
Sometimes I rose at dawn and stole into the garden while the heavy dew lay on the grass and flowers. Few know what joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze. Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was plucking, and I felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a sudden terror, as the little creature became aware of a pressure from without.
Another favourite haunt of mine was the orchard, where the fruit ripened early in July. The large, downy peaches would reach themselves into my hand, and as the joyous breezes flew about the trees the apples tumbled at my feet. Oh, the delight with which I gathered up the fruit in my pinafore, pressed my face against the smooth cheeks of the apples, still warm from the sun, and skipped back to the house!
Our favourite walk was to Keller’s Landing, an old tumble-down lumber-wharf on the Tennessee River, used during the Civil War to land soldiers. There we spent many happy hours and played at learning geography. I built dams of pebbles, made islands and lakes, and dug river-beds, all for fun, and never dreamed that I was learning a lesson. I listened with increasing wonder to Miss Sullivan’s descriptions of the great round world with its burning mountains, buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other things as strange. She made raised maps in clay, so that I could feel the mountain ridges and valleys, and follow with my fingers the devious course of rivers. I liked this, too; but the division of the earth into zones and poles confused and teased my mind. The illustrative strings and the orange stick representing the poles seemed so real that even to this day the mere mention of temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and I believe that if any one should set about it he could convince me that white bears actually climb the North Pole.
Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like. From the first I was not interested in the science of numbers. Miss Sullivan tried to teach me to count by stringing beads in groups, and by arranging kindergarten straws I learned to add and subtract. I never had patience to arrange more than five or six groups at a time. When I had accomplished this my conscience was at rest for the day, and I went out quickly to find my playmates.
In this same leisurely manner I studied zoölogy and botany.
Once a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a collection of fossils–tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked, and bits of sandstone with the print of birds’ claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief. These were the keys which unlocked the treasures of the antediluvian world for me. With trembling fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan’s descriptions of the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable names, which once went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing down the branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal swamps of an unknown age. For a long time these strange creatures haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a somber background to the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and echoing with the gentle beat of my pony’s hoof.
Another time a beautiful shell was given me, and with a child’s surprise and delight I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the lustrous coil for his dwelling place, and how on still nights, when there is no breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on the blue waters of the Indian Ocean in his “ship of pearl.” After I had learned a great many interesting things about the life and habits of the children of the sea–how in the midst of dashing waves the little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the Pacific, and the foraminifera have made the chalk-hills of many a land–my teacher read me “The Chambered Nautilus,” and showed me that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of the development of the mind. Just as the wonder-working mantle of the Nautilus changes the material it absorbs from the water and makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge one gathers undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought.
Again, it was the growth of a plant that furnished the text for a lesson. We bought a lily and set it in a sunny window. Very soon the green, pointed buds showed signs of opening. The slender, fingerlike leaves on the outside opened slowly, reluctant, I thought, to reveal the loveliness they hid; once having made a start, however, the opening process went on rapidly, but in order and systematically. There was always one bud larger and more beautiful than the rest, which pushed her outer covering back with more pomp, as if the beauty in soft, silky robes knew that she was the lily-queen by right divine, while her more timid sisters doffed their green hoods shyly, until the whole plant was one nodding bough of loveliness and fragrance.
Once there were eleven tadpoles in a glass globe set in a window full of plants. I remember the eagerness with which I made discoveries about them. It was great fun to plunge my hand into the bowl and feel the tadpoles frisk about, and to let them slip and slide between my fingers. One day a more ambitious fellow leaped beyond the edge of the bowl and fell on the floor, where I found him to all appearance more dead than alive. The only sign of life was a slight wriggling of his tail. But no sooner had he returned to his element than he darted to the bottom, swimming round and round in joyous activity. He had made his leap, he had seen the great world, and was content to stay in his pretty glass house under the big fuchsia tree until he attained the dignity of froghood. Then he went to live in the leafy pool at the end of the garden, where he made the summer nights musical with his quaint love-song.
Thus I learned from life itself. At the beginning I was only a little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them. When she came, everything about me breathed of love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never since let pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is in everything, nor has she ceased trying in thought and action and example to make my life sweet and useful.
It was my teacher’s genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child’s mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily over the stony course of its education and reflects here a flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower.
Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks.
My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her–there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch.
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