To continue from the diary, we learn that ‘we elected the various school officers. J. Mansergh and I were elected without opposition editors of the _Queenwood Chronicle_.’ He had been at Queenwood but a fortnight, and was fourteen years old when this great honour came to him. Mr. Fawcett was delighted at this good news, and offered because of it and because Harry had been ’studying most determinedly’ to take the boy to Stonehenge. His aversion to books had distressed his family, and this new interest in his studies gave his father great pleasure. On reading a composition which Harry had sent home, Mr. Fawcett exclaimed to his wife, ‘I really think, mother, after all that there is something in that boy!’ His literary performances at this time indicate an increasing imagination, but in the main he never deviated from the practical paths of thought shown when as a tiny child he studiously investigated the Salisbury market. His schoolmates report him as ‘tall for his age, loose-limbed, and rather ungainly.’ He had become much of a bookworm, and though later good at games, at this time he preferred to wander off by himself and read. He was strongest in mathematics; languages did not much appeal to him; but he liked to learn long passages of poetry by heart. There was a disused chalk-pit near Queenwood where he would take refuge and declaim his lines. The extravagance of his gesticulations might well cause unexpecting passers-by to consider him the village loony. CHAPTER II THE BOY LECTURER A Lecture on the uses of Steam—Parliamentary Ambitions—King’s College—Politics in the Fifties—Cribbage and Cricket. Fawcett was interested in the scientific lectures, and he had a very good time. Professor Tyndall took them out surveying. Harry comments on a lecture at which he heard that there ‘is fire in everything, even ice’; he also records some chemical experiments in the laboratory. In September the diary states, ‘I began writing my lecture on phonography, on the uses of steam without copying any of it.’ There is an error here, as these were two lectures, not one. That on steam, in a blue marbled-covered copy-book, lies before the writer. The title, inscribed in tall, shaded handwriting, contained within scrupulously ruled lines, is: ================================= A Lecture delivered by H. Fawcett On Uses of Steam At Queenwood College September 27, 1847. ================================= The ink, which was black sixty-six years ago, is now much faded; but the essay of the fourteen-year-old schoolboy is still fresh and interesting, and so prophetic of the man that it is like a simple map indicating the chief features of the country we are about to see.