The opening paragraph of Chapter 1 of The Story of My Life contains a great example of alliteration, a device that gives the text a poetic feel:
When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present.
Alliterative phrases include "fact and fancy" and "past with the present." The consonance of these phrases gives the passage a memorable poetic quality. They also evoke childhood by making the text a bit sing-songy. This combination of intelligence and childlike whimsy perfectly reflects the meaning of Helen's phrases, as they conform respectively to fancy and fact, past and present, and childhood and adulthood. Epic poets used alliteration to aid their listeners' memories, and old English poets used it to help structure their stanzas. Helen, in turn, intentionally opens her book with alliteration to give her story a sonorous and intelligent preface.
Later in that same passage, she continues to use alliteration:
Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important.
Alliterative phrases here include "incidents of vital importance," "Series of sketches," and "interesting and important." As in the passage above, this one includes many short alliterative phrases with the like-lettered words very close together. The concurrence of so many such phrases in a single paragraph permits the conclusion that the alliteration was intentional and should inspire the reader to read Helen's work not only for its inspiring content but also its methodical style. The way in which Helen told her story seems almost as important to her as the story itself.
