What makes this observation remarkable is Keller's refusal to separate *our effort* from *its consequences*—she's not urging us to work hard and then hope for luck. Rather, she's suggesting that when we truly exhaust our capabilities, we become incapable of measuring what we've actually set in motion; the miracle might arrive years later, in someone else's story, in forms we'd never recognize. A teacher who spends an extra hour with a struggling student may never learn that this single afternoon became the moment that student found their confidence, went to college, and later mentored others—yet that unmeasured influence was already real. Keller understood, from her own experience of being written off as hopeless, that excellence rarely declares itself in the moment we offer it.