Very soon after the accident he took up walking, and at once showed his fearlessness while going between his brother and a friend who has recorded the brave adventure. [Sidenote: Walking.] On leaving the house, he struck out at once with the long, quick strides of his old walking era, and naturally stumbled almost at the first step. One of the party caught him by the arm, and begged him to pick his steps more carefully. ‘Leave me alone!’ was his reply; ‘I’ve got to learn to walk without seeing, and I mean to begin at once—only tell me when I am going off the road.’ To say that he knew not fear would be to give an impression of callousness which would be entirely false; but it can be truly said that fear never kept him from carrying out his purpose. An early glimpse of the hard conflict and longing of his soul was given when walking with his dearly loved sister. He turned to her suddenly as if he had been thinking, and asked if she knew Southey’s ‘Hymn before Sunrise in the Valley of Chamounix.’ When she replied that she did not, he astonished her by reciting the poem with rare beauty and fervour. The vibrant voice gathered intensity as, with that wistful expression so often on his newly blinded face, he repeated the last lines: ‘Rise, O ever rise! Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.’ [Illustration: MISS MARIA FAWCETT] [Sidenote: Social Ways.] After his accident Fawcett took his meals with his sister from a tray in the drawing-room. When some weeks had passed, he was persuaded to venture out with her to a quiet supper at the home of friends. Finding that it was not a formidable undertaking after all, and that he had an extremely interesting time, he determined to see as much of people as possible, and resumed his social ways. It was inevitable that at first his merriment and cheerfulness were a little bit laboured, but in an astonishingly short time they became invariable, and those closest to him detected no permanent depression. About everything but his sadness under his affliction, Fawcett was frank, but about this sadness he remained bravely reticent. He soon began candidly to enjoy life, and he seems to have gotten infinitely more of its beauty and happiness than the average person who is without handicaps. He had only had one fear, which he confided to his sister: it would be unbearable for him if through loss of physical force he should become useless.