‘I would suggest your directing your attention to subjects of a philosophical and speculative character, such as any branch of mental science and the history of its progress; the Philosophy of Physical Science, as Herschel’s work in _Lardner’s Encyclopædia_, Whewell’s _Inductive Philosophy_, etc., or any work treating on the general principles, views, and results of physical science. Political Economy, statistics, and social science in general are assuming interesting forms in the present day. ‘What a wide range of speculative study, full of interest, do these subjects present to us! For any part of which, if I mistake not, your mind is well qualified. ‘The evil that has fallen upon you, like all other evils, will lose half its terror if regarded steadfastly in the face with the determination to subdue it as far as it may be possible to do so. ‘Cultivate your intellectual resources (how thankful you may be for them!) and cultivate them systematically: they will avail you much in your many hours of trial. Under any circumstances I hope you will visit Cambridge from time to time. I’ll lend you my aid to amuse you by talking philosophy or reading an act of Shakespeare or a canto from Byron. I shall certainly avail myself of the first opportunity I have of paying you a visit at Longford, and shall engage you for my guide across the chalk hills. I may then perhaps find the means of indoctrinating you with a few healthy geological principles.’ Hopkins had struck the right chord. He roused his pupil from his depression and gave him new hope and ambition. ‘Keep that letter for me,’ he said to his sister, and from its arrival dated his returning zeal and the spontaneous cheerfulness which heretofore had been so skilfully assumed. [Sidenote: A Rigid Resolution.] Though the sanity and wisdom of this letter aroused Fawcett as nothing had before, it is not to be understood that his taking up life again depended upon the spur given to his hope and self-confidence by his old friend, but this did come at the psychological moment. It enabled him to shoulder his burden with more courage, and to begin again climbing towards the ambitions he had entertained before his blindness. Unhelped he had planned to travel the road already begun, deviating as little as possible from the course before mapped out; and he would have done so without the comfort from his friend’s advice. But the letter was undoubtedly a first milestone on his race towards the goal which he had set himself. Much has been said of the philosophy which is apt to accompany blindness, of the resignation and calm of those afflicted with it. The unusual feature in the bravery with which Fawcett met his calamity was his almost instantaneous resolution to disregard it, and to make good just as he would have made good without it. Too much honour cannot be given him for this extraordinary and immediate courage.