Excerpt from Earl Rupert, and Other Tales and Poems It was about this period that an accident occurred which has thrown a cloud over his whole life, and in a measure shut him out from the intimate communion of his fellow-beings. While descending a flight Of stairs, with a little playmate in his arms, his foot slipped in his fall he caught at a heavy piece of fur mitare which fell upon his head, crushing and mangling it so severely, that for several hours no sign of life appeared, and many weeks elapsed before consciousness returned. The tym panum of the ear being injured, his hearing was irrevocably lost, and as a natural consequence, the faculty Of speech gra dually declined. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.