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diff --git a/698-h/698-h.htm b/698-h/698-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a558c6c --- /dev/null +++ b/698-h/698-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6731 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, by Robert Louis Stevenson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, by Robert Louis +Stevenson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: September 14, 2012 [eBook #698] +[This file was first posted on October 25, 1996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1901 Charles Scribner’s Sons +edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>MEMOIR<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OF</span><br /> +FLEEMING JENKIN</h1> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">NEW +YORK</span><br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br /> +1901</p> +<h2>PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the death of Fleeming Jenkin, +his family and friends determined to publish a selection of his +various papers; by way of introduction, the following pages were +drawn up; and the whole, forming two considerable volumes, has +been issued in England. In the States, it has not been +thought advisable to reproduce the whole; and the memoir +appearing alone, shorn of that other matter which was at once its +occasion and its justification, so large an account of a man so +little known may seem to a stranger out of all proportion. +But Jenkin was a man much more remarkable than the mere bulk or +merit of his work approves him. It was in the world, in the +commerce of friendship, by his brave attitude towards life, by +his high moral value and unwearied intellectual effort, that he +struck the minds of his contemporaries. His was an +individual figure, such as authors delight to draw, and all men +to read of, in the pages of a novel. His was a face worth +painting for its own sake. If the sitter shall not seem to +have justified the portrait, if Jenkin, after his death, shall +not continue to make new friends, the fault will be altogether +mine.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">R. L S.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Saranac</span>, <i>Oct.</i>, 1887.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">The Jenkins of Stowting—Fleeming’s +grandfather—Mrs. Buckner’s +fortune—Fleeming’s father; goes to sea; at St. +Helena; meets King Tom; service in the West Indies; end of his +career—The Campbell-Jacksons—Fleeming’s +mother—Fleeming’s uncle John.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the reign of Henry VIII., a +family of the name of Jenkin, claiming to come from York, and +bearing the arms of Jenkin ap Philip of St. Melans, are found +reputably settled in the county of Kent. Persons of strong +genealogical pinion pass from William Jenkin, Mayor of Folkestone +in 1555, to his contemporary ‘John Jenkin, of the Citie of +York, Receiver General of the County,’ and thence, by way +of Jenkin ap Philip, to the proper summit of any Cambrian +pedigree—a prince; ‘Guaith Voeth, Lord of +Cardigan,’ the name and style of him. It may suffice, +however, for the present, that these Kentish Jenkins must have +undoubtedly derived from Wales, and being a stock of some +efficiency, they struck root and grew to wealth and consequence +in their new home.</p> +<p>Of their consequence we have proof enough in the fact that not +only was William Jenkin (as already mentioned) Mayor of +Folkestone in 1555, but no less than twenty-three times in the +succeeding century and a half, a Jenkin (William, Thomas, Henry, +or Robert) sat in the same place of humble honour. Of their +wealth we know that in the reign of Charles I., Thomas Jenkin of +Eythorne was more than once in the market buying land, and +notably, in 1633, acquired the manor of Stowting Court. +This was an estate of some 320 acres, six miles from Hythe, in +the Bailiwick and Hundred of Stowting, and the Lathe of Shipway, +held of the Crown <i>in capite</i> by the service of six men and +a constable to defend the passage of the sea at Sandgate. +It had a chequered history before it fell into the hands of +Thomas of Eythorne, having been sold and given from one to +another—to the Archbishop, to Heringods, to the +Burghershes, to Pavelys, Trivets, Cliffords, Wenlocks, +Beauchamps, Nevilles, Kempes, and Clarkes: a piece of Kentish +ground condemned to see new faces and to be no man’s +home. But from 1633 onward it became the anchor of the +Jenkin family in Kent; and though passed on from brother to +brother, held in shares between uncle and nephew, burthened by +debts and jointures, and at least once sold and bought in again, +it remains to this day in the hands of the direct line. It +is not my design, nor have I the necessary knowledge, to give a +history of this obscure family. But this is an age when +genealogy has taken a new lease of life, and become for the first +time a human science; so that we no longer study it in quest of +the Guaith Voeths, but to trace out some of the secrets of +descent and destiny; and as we study, we think less of Sir +Bernard Burke and more of Mr. Galton. Not only do our +character and talents lie upon the anvil and receive their temper +during generations; but the very plot of our life’s story +unfolds itself on a scale of centuries, and the biography of the +man is only an episode in the epic of the family. From this +point of view I ask the reader’s leave to begin this notice +of a remarkable man who was my friend, with the accession of his +great-grandfather, John Jenkin.</p> +<p>This John Jenkin, a grandson of Damaris Kingsley, of the +family of ‘Westward Ho!’ was born in 1727, and +married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Frewen, of Church House, +Northiam. The Jenkins had now been long enough +intermarrying with their Kentish neighbours to be Kentish folk +themselves in all but name; and with the Frewens in particular +their connection is singularly involved. John and his wife +were each descended in the third degree from another Thomas +Frewen, Vicar of Northiam, and brother to Accepted Frewen, +Archbishop of York. John’s mother had married a +Frewen for a second husband. And the last complication was +to be added by the Bishop of Chichester’s brother, Charles +Buckner, Vice-Admiral of the White, who was twice married, first +to a paternal cousin of Squire John, and second to Anne, only +sister of the Squire’s wife, and already the widow of +another Frewen. The reader must bear Mrs. Buckner in mind; +it was by means of that lady that Fleeming Jenkin began life as a +poor man. Meanwhile, the relationship of any Frewen to any +Jenkin at the end of these evolutions presents a problem almost +insoluble; and we need not wonder if Mrs. John, thus exercised in +her immediate circle, was in her old age ‘a great +genealogist of all Sussex families, and much +consulted.’ The names Frewen and Jenkin may almost +seem to have been interchangeable at will; and yet Fate proceeds +with such particularity that it was perhaps on the point of name +that the family was ruined.</p> +<p>The John Jenkins had a family of one daughter and five +extravagant and unpractical sons. The eldest, Stephen, +entered the Church and held the living of Salehurst, where he +offered, we may hope, an extreme example of the clergy of the +age. He was a handsome figure of a man; jovial and jocular; +fond of his garden, which produced under his care the finest +fruits of the neighbourhood; and like all the family, very choice +in horses. He drove tandem; like Jehu, furiously. His +saddle horse, Captain (for the names of horses are piously +preserved in the family chronicle which I follow), was trained to +break into a gallop as soon as the vicar’s foot was thrown +across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in the nine miles +between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the +man’s proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the +chancel of his church; and the speed of Captain may have come +sometimes handy. At an early age this unconventional parson +married his cook, and by her he had two daughters and one +son. One of the daughters died unmarried; the other +imitated her father, and married ‘imprudently.’ +The son, still more gallantly continuing the tradition, entered +the army, loaded himself with debt, was forced to sell out, took +refuge in the Marines, and was lost on the Dogger Bank in the +war-ship <i>Minotaur</i>. If he did not marry below him, +like his father, his sister, and a certain great-uncle William, +it was perhaps because he never married at all.</p> +<p>The second brother, Thomas, who was employed in the General +Post-Office, followed in all material points the example of +Stephen, married ‘not very creditably,’ and spent all +the money he could lay his hands on. He died without issue; +as did the fourth brother, John, who was of weak intellect and +feeble health, and the fifth brother, William, whose brief career +as one of Mrs. Buckner’s satellites will fall to be +considered later on. So soon, then, as the <i>Minotaur</i> +had struck upon the Dogger Bank, Stowting and the line of the +Jenkin family fell on the shoulders of the third brother, +Charles.</p> +<p>Facility and self-indulgence are the family marks; facility +(to judge by these imprudent marriages) being at once their +quality and their defect; but in the case of Charles, a man of +exceptional beauty and sweetness both of face and disposition, +the family fault had quite grown to be a virtue, and we find him +in consequence the drudge and milk-cow of his relatives. +Born in 1766, Charles served at sea in his youth, and smelt both +salt water and powder. The Jenkins had inclined hitherto, +as far as I can make out, to the land service. +Stephen’s son had been a soldier; William (fourth of +Stowting) had been an officer of the unhappy Braddock’s in +America, where, by the way, he owned and afterwards sold an +estate on the James River, called, after the parental seat; of +which I should like well to hear if it still bears the +name. It was probably by the influence of Captain Buckner, +already connected with the family by his first marriage, that +Charles Jenkin turned his mind in the direction of the navy; and +it was in Buckner’s own ship, the <i>Prothée</i>, +64, that the lad made his only campaign. It was in the days +of Rodney’s war, when the <i>Prothée</i>, we read, +captured two large privateers to windward of Barbadoes, and was +‘materially and distinguishedly engaged’ in both the +actions with De Grasse. While at sea Charles kept a +journal, and made strange archaic pilot-book sketches, part plan, +part elevation, some of which survive for the amusement of +posterity. He did a good deal of surveying, so that here we +may perhaps lay our finger on the beginning of Fleeming’s +education as an engineer. What is still more strange, among +the relics of the handsome midshipman and his stay in the +gun-room of the <i>Prothée</i>, I find a code of signals +graphically represented, for all the world as it would have been +done by his grandson.</p> +<p>On the declaration of peace, Charles, because he had suffered +from scurvy, received his mother’s orders to retire; and he +was not the man to refuse a request, far less to disobey a +command. Thereupon he turned farmer, a trade he was to +practice on a large scale; and we find him married to a Miss +Schirr, a woman of some fortune, the daughter of a London +merchant. Stephen, the not very reverend, was still alive, +galloping about the country or skulking in his chancel. It +does not appear whether he let or sold the paternal manor to +Charles; one or other, it must have been; and the sailor-farmer +settled at Stowting, with his wife, his mother, his unmarried +sister, and his sick brother John. Out of the six people of +whom his nearest family consisted, three were in his own house, +and two others (the horse-leeches, Stephen and Thomas) he appears +to have continued to assist with more amiability than +wisdom. He hunted, belonged to the Yeomanry, owned famous +horses, Maggie and Lucy, the latter coveted by royalty +itself. ‘Lord Rokeby, his neighbour, called him +kinsman,’ writes my artless chronicler, ‘and +altogether life was very cheery.’ At Stowting his +three sons, John, Charles, and Thomas Frewen, and his younger +daughter, Anna, were all born to him; and the reader should here +be told that it is through the report of this second Charles +(born 1801) that he has been looking on at these confused +passages of family history.</p> +<p>In the year 1805 the ruin of the Jenkins was begun. It +was the work of a fallacious lady already mentioned, Aunt Anne +Frewen, a sister of Mrs. John. Twice married, first to her +cousin Charles Frewen, clerk to the Court of Chancery, Brunswick +Herald, and Usher of the Black Rod, and secondly to Admiral +Buckner, she was denied issue in both beds, and being very +rich—she died worth about 60,000<i>l.</i>, mostly in +land—she was in perpetual quest of an heir. The +mirage of this fortune hung before successive members of the +Jenkin family until her death in 1825, when it dissolved and left +the latest Alnaschar face to face with bankruptcy. The +grandniece, Stephen’s daughter, the one who had not +‘married imprudently,’ appears to have been the +first; for she was taken abroad by the golden aunt, and died in +her care at Ghent in 1792. Next she adopted William, the +youngest of the five nephews; took him abroad with her—it +seems as if that were in the formula; was shut up with him in +Paris by the Revolution; brought him back to Windsor, and got him +a place in the King’s Body-Guard, where he attracted the +notice of George III. by his proficiency in German. In +1797, being on guard at St. James’s Palace, William took a +cold which carried him off; and Aunt Anne was once more left +heirless. Lastly, in 1805, perhaps moved by the Admiral, +who had a kindness for his old midshipman, perhaps pleased by the +good looks and the good nature of the man himself, Mrs. Buckner +turned her eyes upon Charles Jenkin. He was not only to be +the heir, however, he was to be the chief hand in a somewhat wild +scheme of family farming. Mrs. Jenkin, the mother, +contributed 164 acres of land; Mrs. Buckner, 570, some at +Northiam, some farther off; Charles let one-half of Stowting to a +tenant, and threw the other and various scattered parcels into +the common enterprise; so that the whole farm amounted to near +upon a thousand acres, and was scattered over thirty miles of +country. The ex-seaman of thirty-nine, on whose wisdom and +ubiquity the scheme depended, was to live in the meanwhile +without care or fear. He was to check himself in nothing; +his two extravagances, valuable horses and worthless brothers, +were to be indulged in comfort; and whether the year quite paid +itself or not, whether successive years left accumulated savings +or only a growing deficit, the fortune of the golden aunt should +in the end repair all.</p> +<p>On this understanding Charles Jenkin transported his family to +Church House, Northiam: Charles the second, then a child of +three, among the number. Through the eyes of the boy we +have glimpses of the life that followed: of Admiral and Mrs. +Buckner driving up from Windsor in a coach and six, two +post-horses and their own four; of the house full of visitors, +the great roasts at the fire, the tables in the servants’ +hall laid for thirty or forty for a month together; of the daily +press of neighbours, many of whom, Frewens, Lords, Bishops, +Batchellors, and Dynes, were also kinsfolk; and the parties +‘under the great spreading chestnuts of the old fore +court,’ where the young people danced and made merry to the +music of the village band. Or perhaps, in the depth of +winter, the father would bid young Charles saddle his pony; they +would ride the thirty miles from Northiam to Stowting, with the +snow to the pony’s saddle girths, and be received by the +tenants like princes.</p> +<p>This life of delights, with the continual visible comings and +goings of the golden aunt, was well qualified to relax the fibre +of the lads. John, the heir, a yeoman and a fox-hunter, +‘loud and notorious with his whip and spurs,’ settled +down into a kind of Tony Lumpkin, waiting for the shoes of his +father and his aunt. Thomas Frewen, the youngest, is +briefly dismissed as ‘a handsome beau’; but he had +the merit or the good fortune to become a doctor of medicine, so +that when the crash came he was not empty-handed for the war of +life. Charles, at the day-school of Northiam, grew so well +acquainted with the rod, that his floggings became matter of +pleasantry and reached the ears of Admiral Buckner. +Hereupon that tall, rough-voiced, formidable uncle entered with +the lad into a covenant: every time that Charles was thrashed he +was to pay the Admiral a penny; everyday that he escaped, the +process was to be reversed. ‘I recollect,’ +writes Charles, ‘going crying to my mother to be taken to +the Admiral to pay my debt.’ It would seem by these +terms the speculation was a losing one; yet it is probable it +paid indirectly by bringing the boy under remark. The +Admiral was no enemy to dunces; he loved courage, and Charles, +while yet little more than a baby, would ride the great horse +into the pond. Presently it was decided that here was the +stuff of a fine sailor; and at an early period the name of +Charles Jenkin was entered on a ship’s books.</p> +<p>From Northiam he was sent to another school at Boonshill, near +Rye, where the master took ‘infinite delight’ in +strapping him. ‘It keeps me warm and makes you +grow,’ he used to say. And the stripes were not +altogether wasted, for the dunce, though still very +‘raw,’ made progress with his studies. It was +known, moreover, that he was going to sea, always a ground of +pre-eminence with schoolboys; and in his case the glory was not +altogether future, it wore a present form when he came driving to +Rye behind four horses in the same carriage with an +admiral. ‘I was not a little proud, you may +believe,’ says he.</p> +<p>In 1814, when he was thirteen years of age, he was carried by +his father to Chichester to the Bishop’s Palace. The +Bishop had heard from his brother the Admiral that Charles was +likely to do well, and had an order from Lord Melville for the +lad’s admission to the Royal Naval College at +Portsmouth. Both the Bishop and the Admiral patted him on +the head and said, ‘Charles will restore the old +family’; by which I gather with some surprise that, even in +these days of open house at Northiam and golden hope of my +aunt’s fortune, the family was supposed to stand in need of +restoration. But the past is apt to look brighter than +nature, above all to those enamoured of their genealogy; and the +ravages of Stephen and Thomas must have always given matter of +alarm.</p> +<p>What with the flattery of bishops and admirals, the fine +company in which he found himself at Portsmouth, his visits home, +with their gaiety and greatness of life, his visits to Mrs. +Buckner (soon a widow) at Windsor, where he had a pony kept for +him, and visited at Lord Melville’s and Lord +Harcourt’s and the Leveson-Gowers, he began to have +‘bumptious notions,’ and his head was ‘somewhat +turned with fine people’; as to some extent it remained +throughout his innocent and honourable life.</p> +<p>In this frame of mind the boy was appointed to the +<i>Conqueror</i>, Captain Davie, humorously known as Gentle +Johnnie. The captain had earned this name by his style of +discipline, which would have figured well in the pages of +Marryat: ‘Put the prisoner’s head in a bag and give +him another dozen!’ survives as a specimen of his commands; +and the men were often punished twice or thrice in a week. +On board the ship of this disciplinarian, Charles and his father +were carried in a billy-boat from Sheerness in December, 1816: +Charles with an outfit suitable to his pretensions, a +twenty-guinea sextant and 120 dollars in silver, which were +ordered into the care of the gunner. ‘The old clerks +and mates,’ he writes, ‘used to laugh and jeer me for +joining the ship in a billy-boat, and when they found I was from +Kent, vowed I was an old Kentish smuggler. This to my +pride, you will believe, was not a little offensive.’</p> +<p>The <i>Conqueror</i> carried the flag of Vice-Admiral Plampin, +commanding at the Cape and St. Helena; and at that all-important +islet, in July, 1817, she relieved the flagship of Sir Pulteney +Malcolm. Thus it befel that Charles Jenkin, coming too late +for the epic of the French wars, played a small part in the +dreary and disgraceful afterpiece of St. Helena. Life on +the guard-ship was onerous and irksome. The anchor was +never lifted, sail never made, the great guns were silent; none +was allowed on shore except on duty; all day the movements of the +imperial captive were signalled to and fro; all night the boats +rowed guard around the accessible portions of the coast. +This prolonged stagnation and petty watchfulness in what Napoleon +himself called that ‘unchristian’ climate, told +cruelly on the health of the ship’s company. In +eighteen months, according to O’Meara, the <i>Conqueror</i> +had lost one hundred and ten men and invalided home one hundred +and seven, being more than a third of her complement. It +does not seem that our young midshipman so much as once set eyes +on Bonaparte; and yet in other ways Jenkin was more fortunate +than some of his comrades. He drew in water-colour; not so +badly as his father, yet ill enough; and this art was so rare +aboard the <i>Conqueror</i> that even his humble proficiency +marked him out and procured him some alleviations. Admiral +Plampin had succeeded Napoleon at the Briars; and here he had +young Jenkin staying with him to make sketches of the historic +house. One of these is before me as I write, and gives a +strange notion of the arts in our old English Navy. Yet it +was again as an artist that the lad was taken for a run to Rio, +and apparently for a second outing in a ten-gun brig. +These, and a cruise of six weeks to windward of the island +undertaken by the <i>Conqueror</i> herself in quest of health, +were the only breaks in three years of murderous inaction; and at +the end of that period Jenkin was invalided home, having +‘lost his health entirely.’</p> +<p>As he left the deck of the guard-ship the historic part of his +career came to an end. For forty-two years he continued to +serve his country obscurely on the seas, sometimes thanked for +inconspicuous and honourable services, but denied any opportunity +of serious distinction. He was first two years in the +<i>Larne</i>, Captain Tait, hunting pirates and keeping a watch +on the Turkish and Greek squadrons in the Archipelago. +Captain Tait was a favourite with Sir Thomas Maitland, High +Commissioner of the Ionian Islands—King Tom as he was +called—who frequently took passage in the +<i>Larne</i>. King Tom knew every inch of the +Mediterranean, and was a terror to the officers of the +watch. He would come on deck at night; and with his broad +Scotch accent, ‘Well, sir,’ he would say, ‘what +depth of water have ye? Well now, sound; and ye’ll +just find so or so many fathoms,’ as the case might be; and +the obnoxious passenger was generally right. On one +occasion, as the ship was going into Corfu, Sir Thomas came up +the hatchway and cast his eyes towards the gallows. +‘Bangham’—Charles Jenkin heard him say to his +aide-de-camp, Lord Bangham—‘where the devil is that +other chap? I left four fellows hanging there; now I can +only see three. Mind there is another there +to-morrow.’ And sure enough there was another Greek +dangling the next day. ‘Captain Hamilton, of the +<i>Cambrian</i>, kept the Greeks in order afloat,’ writes +my author, ‘and King Tom ashore.’</p> +<p>From 1823 onward, the chief scene of Charles Jenkin’s +activities was in the West Indies, where he was engaged off and +on till 1844, now as a subaltern, now in a vessel of his own, +hunting out pirates, ‘then very notorious’ in the +Leeward Islands, cruising after slavers, or carrying dollars and +provisions for the Government. While yet a midshipman, he +accompanied Mr. Cockburn to Caraccas and had a sight of +Bolivar. In the brigantine <i>Griffon</i>, which he +commanded in his last years in the West Indies, he carried aid to +Guadeloupe after the earthquake, and twice earned the thanks of +Government: once for an expedition to Nicaragua to extort, under +threat of a blockade, proper apologies and a sum of money due to +certain British merchants; and once during an insurrection in San +Domingo, for the rescue of certain others from a perilous +imprisonment and the recovery of a ‘chest of money’ +of which they had been robbed. Once, on the other hand, he +earned his share of public censure. This was in 1837, when +he commanded the <i>Romney</i> lying in the inner harbour of +Havannah. The <i>Romney</i> was in no proper sense a +man-of-war; she was a slave-hulk, the bonded warehouse of the +Mixed Slave Commission; where negroes, captured out of slavers +under Spanish colours, were detained provisionally, till the +Commission should decide upon their case and either set them free +or bind them to apprenticeship. To this ship, already an +eye-sore to the authorities, a Cuban slave made his escape. +The position was invidious; on one side were the tradition of the +British flag and the state of public sentiment at home; on the +other, the certainty that if the slave were kept, the +<i>Romney</i> would be ordered at once out of the harbour, and +the object of the Mixed Commission compromised. Without +consultation with any other officer, Captain Jenkin (then +lieutenant) returned the man to shore and took the +Captain-General’s receipt. Lord Palmerston approved +his course; but the zealots of the anti-slave trade movement +(never to be named without respect) were much dissatisfied; and +thirty-nine years later, the matter was again canvassed in +Parliament, and Lord Palmerston and Captain Jenkin defended by +Admiral Erskine in a letter to the <i>Times</i> (March 13, +1876).</p> +<p>In 1845, while still lieutenant, Charles Jenkin acted as +Admiral Pigot’s flag captain in the Cove of Cork, where +there were some thirty pennants; and about the same time, closed +his career by an act of personal bravery. He had proceeded +with his boats to the help of a merchant vessel, whose cargo of +combustibles had taken fire and was smouldering under hatches; +his sailors were in the hold, where the fumes were already heavy, +and Jenkin was on deck directing operations, when he found his +orders were no longer answered from below: he jumped down without +hesitation and slung up several insensible men with his own +hand. For this act, he received a letter from the Lords of +the Admiralty expressing a sense of his gallantry; and pretty +soon after was promoted Commander, superseded, and could never +again obtain employment.</p> +<p>In 1828 or 1829, Charles Jenkin was in the same watch with +another midshipman, Robert Colin Campbell Jackson, who introduced +him to his family in Jamaica. The father, the Honourable +Robert Jackson, Custos Rotulorum of Kingston, came of a Yorkshire +family, said to be originally Scotch; and on the mother’s +side, counted kinship with some of the Forbeses. The mother +was Susan Campbell, one of the Campbells of Auchenbreck. +Her father Colin, a merchant in Greenock, is said to have been +the heir to both the estate and the baronetcy; he claimed +neither, which casts a doubt upon the fact, but he had pride +enough himself, and taught enough pride to his family, for any +station or descent in Christendom. He had four +daughters. One married an Edinburgh writer, as I have it on +a first account—a minister, according to another—a +man at least of reasonable station, but not good enough for the +Campbells of Auchenbreck; and the erring one was instantly +discarded. Another married an actor of the name of Adcock, +whom (as I receive the tale) she had seen acting in a barn; but +the phrase should perhaps be regarded rather as a measure of the +family annoyance, than a mirror of the facts. The marriage +was not in itself unhappy; Adcock was a gentleman by birth and +made a good husband; the family reasonably prospered, and one of +the daughters married no less a man than Clarkson +Stanfield. But by the father, and the two remaining Miss +Campbells, people of fierce passions and a truly Highland pride, +the derogation was bitterly resented. For long the sisters +lived estranged then, Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Adcock were +reconciled for a moment, only to quarrel the more fiercely; the +name of Mrs. Adcock was proscribed, nor did it again pass her +sister’s lips, until the morning when she announced: +‘Mary Adcock is dead; I saw her in her shroud last +night.’ Second sight was hereditary in the house; and +sure enough, as I have it reported, on that very night Mrs. +Adcock had passed away. Thus, of the four daughters, two +had, according to the idiotic notions of their friends, disgraced +themselves in marriage; the others supported the honour of the +family with a better grace, and married West Indian magnates of +whom, I believe, the world has never heard and would not care to +hear: So strange a thing is this hereditary pride. Of Mr. +Jackson, beyond the fact that he was Fleeming’s +grandfather, I know naught. His wife, as I have said, was a +woman of fierce passions; she would tie her house slaves to the +bed and lash them with her own hand; and her conduct to her wild +and down-going sons, was a mixture of almost insane +self-sacrifice and wholly insane violence of temper. She +had three sons and one daughter. Two of the sons went +utterly to ruin, and reduced their mother to poverty. The +third went to India, a slim, delicate lad, and passed so wholly +from the knowledge of his relatives that he was thought to be +long dead. Years later, when his sister was living in +Genoa, a red-bearded man of great strength and stature, tanned by +years in India, and his hands covered with barbaric gems, entered +the room unannounced, as she was playing the piano, lifted her +from her seat, and kissed her. It was her brother, suddenly +returned out of a past that was never very clearly understood, +with the rank of general, many strange gems, many cloudy stories +of adventure, and next his heart, the daguerreotype of an Indian +prince with whom he had mixed blood.</p> +<p>The last of this wild family, the daughter, Henrietta Camilla, +became the wife of the midshipman Charles, and the mother of the +subject of this notice, Fleeming Jenkin. She was a woman of +parts and courage. Not beautiful, she had a far higher +gift, the art of seeming so; played the part of a belle in +society, while far lovelier women were left unattended; and up to +old age had much of both the exigency and the charm that mark +that character. She drew naturally, for she had no +training, with unusual skill; and it was from her, and not from +the two naval artists, that Fleeming inherited his eye and +hand. She played on the harp and sang with something beyond +the talent of an amateur. At the age of seventeen, she +heard Pasta in Paris; flew up in a fire of youthful enthusiasm; +and the next morning, all alone and without introduction, found +her way into the presence of the <i>prima donna</i> and begged +for lessons. Pasta made her sing, kissed her when she had +done, and though she refused to be her mistress, placed her in +the hands of a friend. Nor was this all, for when Pasta +returned to Paris, she sent for the girl (once at least) to test +her progress. But Mrs. Jenkin’s talents were not so +remarkable as her fortitude and strength of will; and it was in +an art for which she had no natural taste (the art of literature) +that she appeared before the public. Her novels, though +they attained and merited a certain popularity both in France and +England, are a measure only of her courage. They were a +task, not a beloved task; they were written for money in days of +poverty, and they served their end. In the least thing as +well as in the greatest, in every province of life as well as in +her novels, she displayed the same capacity of taking infinite +pains, which descended to her son. When she was about forty +(as near as her age was known) she lost her voice; set herself at +once to learn the piano, working eight hours a day; and attained +to such proficiency that her collaboration in chamber music was +courted by professionals. And more than twenty years later, +the old lady might have been seen dauntlessly beginning the study +of Hebrew. This is the more ethereal part of courage; nor +was she wanting in the more material. Once when a +neighbouring groom, a married man, had seduced her maid, Mrs. +Jenkin mounted her horse, rode over to the stable entrance and +horsewhipped the man with her own hand.</p> +<p>How a match came about between this talented and spirited girl +and the young midshipman, is not very I easy to conceive. +Charles Jenkin was one of the finest creatures breathing; +loyalty, devotion, simple natural piety, boyish cheerfulness, +tender and manly sentiment in the old sailor fashion, were in him +inherent and inextinguishable either by age, suffering, or +injustice. He looked, as he was, every inch a gentleman; he +must have been everywhere notable, even among handsome men, both +for his face and his gallant bearing; not so much that of a +sailor, you would have said, as like one of those gentle and +graceful soldiers that, to this day, are the most pleasant of +Englishmen to see. But though he was in these ways noble, +the dunce scholar of Northiam was to the end no genius. +Upon all points that a man must understand to be a gentleman, to +be upright, gallant, affectionate and dead to self, Captain +Jenkin was more knowing than one among a thousand; outside of +that, his mind was very largely blank. He had indeed a +simplicity that came near to vacancy; and in the first forty +years of his married life, this want grew more accentuated. +In both families imprudent marriages had been the rule; but +neither Jenkin nor Campbell had ever entered into a more unequal +union. It was the captain’s good looks, we may +suppose, that gained for him this elevation; and in some ways and +for many years of his life, he had to pay the penalty. His +wife, impatient of his incapacity and surrounded by brilliant +friends, used him with a certain contempt. She was the +managing partner; the life was hers, not his; after his +retirement they lived much abroad, where the poor captain, who +could never learn any language but his own, sat in the corner +mumchance; and even his son, carried away by his bright mother, +did not recognise for long the treasures of simple chivalry that +lay buried in the heart of his father. Yet it would be an +error to regard this marriage as unfortunate. It not only +lasted long enough to justify itself in a beautiful and touching +epilogue, but it gave to the world the scientific work and what +(while time was) were of far greater value, the delightful +qualities of Fleeming Jenkin. The Kentish-Welsh family, +facile, extravagant, generous to a fault and far from brilliant, +had given the father, an extreme example of its humble +virtues. On the other side, the wild, cruel, proud, and +somewhat blackguard stock of the Scotch Campbell-Jacksons, had +put forth, in the person of the mother all its force and +courage.</p> +<p>The marriage fell in evil days. In 1823, the bubble of +the Golden Aunt’s inheritance had burst. She died +holding the hand of the nephew she had so wantonly deceived; at +the last she drew him down and seemed to bless him, surely with +some remorseful feeling; for when the will was opened, there was +not found so much as the mention of his name. He was deeply +in debt; in debt even to the estate of his deceiver, so that he +had to sell a piece of land to clear himself. ‘My +dear boy,’ he said to Charles, ‘there will be nothing +left for you. I am a ruined man.’ And here +follows for me the strangest part of this story. From the +death of the treacherous aunt, Charles Jenkin, senior, had still +some nine years to live; it was perhaps too late for him to turn +to saving, and perhaps his affairs were past restoration. +But his family at least had all this while to prepare; they were +still young men, and knew what they had to look for at their +father’s death; and yet when that happened in September, +1831, the heir was still apathetically waiting. Poor John, +the days of his whips and spurs, and Yeomanry dinners, were quite +over; and with that incredible softness of the Jenkin nature, he +settled down for the rest of a long life, into something not far +removed above a peasant. The mill farm at Stowting had been +saved out of the wreck; and here he built himself a house on the +Mexican model, and made the two ends meet with rustic thrift, +gathering dung with his own hands upon the road and not at all +abashed at his employment. In dress, voice, and manner, he +fell into mere country plainness; lived without the least care +for appearances, the least regret for the past or discontentment +with the present; and when he came to die, died with Stoic +cheerfulness, announcing that he had had a comfortable time and +was yet well pleased to go. One would think there was +little active virtue to be inherited from such a race; and yet in +this same voluntary peasant, the special gift of Fleeming Jenkin +was already half developed. The old man to the end was +perpetually inventing; his strange, ill-spelled, unpunctuated +correspondence is full (when he does not drop into cookery +receipts) of pumps, road engines, steam-diggers, steam-ploughs, +and steam-threshing machines; and I have it on Fleeming’s +word that what he did was full of ingenuity—only, as if by +some cross destiny, useless. These disappointments he not +only took with imperturbable good humour, but rejoiced with a +particular relish over his nephew’s success in the same +field. ‘I glory in the professor,’ he wrote to +his brother; and to Fleeming himself, with a touch of simple +drollery, ‘I was much pleased with your lecture, but why +did you hit me so hard with Conisure’s’ +(connoisseur’s, <i>quasi</i> amateur’s) +‘engineering? Oh, what presumption!—either of +you or <i>my</i>self!’ A quaint, pathetic figure, +this of uncle John, with his dung cart and his inventions; and +the romantic fancy of his Mexican house; and his craze about the +Lost Tribes which seemed to the worthy man the key of all +perplexities; and his quiet conscience, looking back on a life +not altogether vain, for he was a good son to his father while +his father lived, and when evil days approached, he had proved +himself a cheerful Stoic.</p> +<p>It followed from John’s inertia, that the duty of +winding up the estate fell into the hands of Charles. He +managed it with no more skill than might be expected of a sailor +ashore, saved a bare livelihood for John and nothing for the +rest. Eight months later, he married Miss Jackson; and with +her money, bought in some two-thirds of Stowting. In the +beginning of the little family history which I have been +following to so great an extent, the Captain mentions, with a +delightful pride: ‘A Court Baron and Court Leet are +regularly held by the Lady of the Manor, Mrs. Henrietta Camilla +Jenkin’; and indeed the pleasure of so describing his wife, +was the most solid benefit of the investment; for the purchase +was heavily encumbered and paid them nothing till some years +before their death. In the meanwhile, the Jackson family +also, what with wild sons, an indulgent mother and the impending +emancipation of the slaves, was moving nearer and nearer to +beggary; and thus of two doomed and declining houses, the subject +of this memoir was born, heir to an estate and to no money, yet +with inherited qualities that were to make him known and +loved.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II. 1833–1851.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Birth and +Childhood—Edinburgh—Frankfort-on-the-Main—Paris—The +Revolution of 1848—The Insurrection—Flight to +Italy—Sympathy with Italy—The Insurrection in +Genoa—A Student in Genoa—The Lad and his Mother.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin</span> +(Fleeming, pronounced Flemming, to his friends and family) was +born in a Government building on the coast of Kent, near +Dungeness, where his father was serving at the time in the +Coastguard, on March 25, 1833, and named after Admiral Fleeming, +one of his father’s protectors in the navy.</p> +<p>His childhood was vagrant like his life. Once he was +left in the care of his grandmother Jackson, while Mrs. Jenkin +sailed in her husband’s ship and stayed a year at the +Havannah. The tragic woman was besides from time to time a +member of the family she was in distress of mind and reduced in +fortune by the misconduct of her sons; her destitution and +solitude made it a recurring duty to receive her, her violence +continually enforced fresh separations. In her passion of a +disappointed mother, she was a fit object of pity; but her +grandson, who heard her load his own mother with cruel insults +and reproaches, conceived for her an indignant and impatient +hatred, for which he blamed himself in later life. It is +strange from this point of view to see his childish letters to +Mrs. Jackson; and to think that a man, distinguished above all by +stubborn truthfulness, should have been brought up to such +dissimulation. But this is of course unavoidable in life; +it did no harm to Jenkin; and whether he got harm or benefit from +a so early acquaintance with violent and hateful scenes, is more +than I can guess. The experience, at least, was formative; +and in judging his character it should not be forgotten. +But Mrs. Jackson was not the only stranger in their gates; the +Captain’s sister, Aunt Anna Jenkin, lived with them until +her death; she had all the Jenkin beauty of countenance, though +she was unhappily deformed in body and of frail health; and she +even excelled her gentle and ineffectual family in all amiable +qualities. So that each of the two races from which +Fleeming sprang, had an outpost by his very cradle; the one he +instinctively loved, the other hated; and the life-long war in +his members had begun thus early by a victory for what was +best.</p> +<p>We can trace the family from one country place to another in +the south of Scotland; where the child learned his taste for +sport by riding home the pony from the moors. Before he was +nine he could write such a passage as this about a +Hallowe’en observance: ‘I pulled a middling-sized +cabbage-runt with a pretty sum of gold about it. No witches +would run after me when I was sowing my hempseed this year; my +nuts blazed away together very comfortably to the end of their +lives, and when mamma put hers in which were meant for herself +and papa they blazed away in the like manner.’ Before +he was ten he could write, with a really irritating precocity, +that he had been ‘making some pictures from a book called +“Les Français peints par euxmêmes.” . . +. It is full of pictures of all classes, with a description +of each in French. The pictures are a little caricatured, +but not much.’ Doubtless this was only an echo from +his mother, but it shows the atmosphere in which he +breathed. It must have been a good change for this art +critic to be the playmate of Mary Macdonald, their +gardener’s daughter at Barjarg, and to sup with her family +on potatoes and milk; and Fleeming himself attached some value to +this early and friendly experience of another class.</p> +<p>His education, in the formal sense, began at Jedburgh. +Thence he went to the Edinburgh Academy, where he was the +classmate of Tait and Clerk Maxwell, bore away many prizes, and +was once unjustly flogged by Rector Williams. He used to +insist that all his bad schoolfellows had died early, a belief +amusingly characteristic of the man’s consistent +optimism. In 1846 the mother and son proceeded to +Frankfort-on-the-Main, where they were soon joined by the father, +now reduced to inaction and to play something like third fiddle +in his narrow household. The emancipation of the slaves had +deprived them of their last resource beyond the half-pay of a +captain; and life abroad was not only desirable for the sake of +Fleeming’s education, it was almost enforced by reasons of +economy. But it was, no doubt, somewhat hard upon the +captain. Certainly that perennial boy found a companion in +his son; they were both active and eager, both willing to be +amused, both young, if not in years, then in character. +They went out together on excursions and sketched old castles, +sitting side by side; they had an angry rivalry in walking, +doubtless equally sincere upon both sides; and indeed we may say +that Fleeming was exceptionally favoured, and that no boy had +ever a companion more innocent, engaging, gay, and airy. +But although in this case it would be easy to exaggerate its +import, yet, in the Jenkin family also, the tragedy of the +generations was proceeding, and the child was growing out of his +father’s knowledge. His artistic aptitude was of a +different order. Already he had his quick sight of many +sides of life; he already overflowed with distinctions and +generalisations, contrasting the dramatic art and national +character of England, Germany, Italy, and France. If he +were dull, he would write stories and poems. ‘I have +written,’ he says at thirteen, ‘a very long story in +heroic measure, 300 lines, and another Scotch story and +innumerable bits of poetry’; and at the same age he had not +only a keen feeling for scenery, but could do something with his +pen to call it up. I feel I do always less than justice to +the delightful memory of Captain Jenkin; but with a lad of this +character, cutting the teeth of his intelligence, he was sure to +fall into the background.</p> +<p>The family removed in 1847 to Paris, where Fleeming was put to +school under one Deluc. There he learned French, and (if +the captain is right) first began to show a taste for +mathematics. But a far more important teacher than Deluc +was at hand; the year 1848, so momentous for Europe, was +momentous also for Fleeming’s character. The family +politics were Liberal; Mrs. Jenkin, generous before all things, +was sure to be upon the side of exiles; and in the house of a +Paris friend of hers, Mrs. Turner—already known to fame as +Shelley’s Cornelia de Boinville—Fleeming saw and +heard such men as Manin, Gioberti, and the Ruffinis. He was +thus prepared to sympathise with revolution; and when the hour +came, and he found himself in the midst of stirring and +influential events, the lad’s whole character was +moved. He corresponded at that time with a young Edinburgh +friend, one Frank Scott; and I am here going to draw somewhat +largely on this boyish correspondence. It gives us at once +a picture of the Revolution and a portrait of Jenkin at fifteen; +not so different (his friends will think) from the Jenkin of the +end—boyish, simple, opinionated, delighting in action, +delighting before all things in any generous sentiment.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">‘February 23, +1848.</p> +<p>‘When at 7 o’clock to-day I went out, I met a +large band going round the streets, calling on the inhabitants to +illuminate their houses, and bearing torches. This was all +very good fun, and everybody was delighted; but as they stopped +rather long and were rather turbulent in the Place de la +Madeleine, near where we live’ [in the Rue Caumartin] +‘a squadron of dragoons came up, formed, and charged at a +hand-gallop. This was a very pretty sight; the crowd was +not too thick, so they easily got away; and the dragoons only +gave blows with the back of the sword, which hurt but did not +wound. I was as close to them as I am now to the other side +of the table; it was rather impressive, however. At the +second charge they rode on the pavement and knocked the torches +out of the fellows’ hands; rather a shame, +too—wouldn’t be stood in England. . . .</p> +<p>[At] ‘ten minutes to ten . . . I went a long way along +the Boulevards, passing by the office of Foreign Affairs, where +Guizot lives, and where to-night there were about a thousand +troops protecting him from the fury of the populace. After +this was passed, the number of the people thickened, till about +half a mile further on, I met a troop of vagabonds, the wildest +vagabonds in the world—Paris vagabonds, well armed, having +probably broken into gunsmiths’ shops and taken the guns +and swords. They were about a hundred. These were +followed by about a thousand (I am rather diminishing than +exaggerating numbers all through), indifferently armed with rusty +sabres, sticks, etc. An uncountable troop of gentlemen, +workmen, shopkeepers’ wives (Paris women dare anything), +ladies’ maids, common women—in fact, a crowd of all +classes, though by far the greater number were of the better +dressed class—followed. Indeed, it was a splendid +sight: the mob in front chanting the +“<i>Marseillaise</i>,” the national war hymn, grave +and powerful, sweetened by the night air—though night in +these splendid streets was turned into day, every window was +filled with lamps, dim torches were tossing in the crowd . . . +for Guizot has late this night given in his resignation, and this +was an improvised illumination.</p> +<p>‘I and my father had turned with the crowd, and were +close behind the second troop of vagabonds. Joy was on +every face. I remarked to papa that “I would not have +missed the scene for anything, I might never see such a splendid +one,” when <i>plong</i> went one shot—every face went +pale—<i>r-r-r-r-r</i> went the whole detachment, [and] the +whole crowd of gentlemen and ladies turned and cut. Such a +scene!—ladies, gentlemen, and vagabonds went sprawling in +the mud, not shot but tripped up; and those that went down could +not rise, they were trampled over. . . . I ran a short time +straight on and did not fall, then turned down a side street, ran +fifty yards and felt tolerably safe; looked for papa, did not see +him; so walked on quickly, giving the news as I +went.’ [It appears, from another letter, the boy was +the first to carry word of the firing to the Rue St. +Honoré; and that his news wherever he brought it was +received with hurrahs. It was an odd entrance upon life for +a little English lad, thus to play the part of rumour in such a +crisis of the history of France.]</p> +<p>‘But now a new fear came over me. I had little +doubt but my papa was safe, but my fear was that he should arrive +at home before me and tell the story; in that case I knew my +mamma would go half mad with fright, so on I went as quick as +possible. I heard no more discharges. When I got half +way home, I found my way blocked up by troops. That way or +the Boulevards I must pass. In the Boulevards they were +fighting, and I was afraid all other passages might be blocked up +. . . and I should have to sleep in a hotel in that case, and +then my mamma—however, after a long <i>détour</i>, I +found a passage and ran home, and in our street joined papa.</p> +<p>‘. . . I’ll tell you to-morrow the other facts +gathered from newspapers and papa. . . . Tonight I have given you +what I have seen with my own eyes an hour ago, and began +trembling with excitement and fear. If I have been too long +on this one subject, it is because it is yet before my eyes.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Monday, 24.</p> +<p>‘It was that fire raised the people. There was +fighting all through the night in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, +on the Boulevards where they had been shot at, and at the Porte +St. Denis. At ten o’clock, they resigned the house of +the Minister of Foreign Affairs (where the disastrous volley was +fired) to the people, who immediately took possession of +it. I went to school, but [was] hardly there when the row +in that quarter commenced. Barricades began to be +fixed. Everyone was very grave now; the <i>externes</i> +went away, but no one came to fetch me, so I had to stay. +No lessons could go on. A troop of armed men took +possession of the barricades, so it was supposed I should have to +sleep there. The revolters came and asked for arms, but +Deluc (head-master) is a National Guard, and he said he had only +his own and he wanted them; but he said he would not fire on +them. Then they asked for wine, which he gave them. +They took good care not to get drunk, knowing they would not be +able to fight. They were very polite and behaved extremely +well.</p> +<p>‘About 12 o’clock a servant came for a boy who +lived near me, [and] Deluc thought it best to send me with +him. We heard a good deal of firing near, but did not come +across any of the parties. As we approached the railway, +the barricades were no longer formed of palings, planks, or +stones; but they had got all the omnibuses as they passed, sent +the horses and passengers about their business, and turned them +over. A double row of overturned coaches made a capital +barricade, with a few paving stones.</p> +<p>‘When I got home I found to my astonishment that in our +fighting quarter it was much quieter. Mamma had just been +out seeing the troops in the Place de la Concorde, when suddenly +the Municipal Guard, now fairly exasperated, prevented the +National Guard from proceeding, and fired at them; the National +Guard had come with their muskets not loaded, but at length +returned the fire. Mamma saw the National Guard fire. +The Municipal Guard were round the corner. She was +delighted for she saw no person killed, though many of the +Municipals were. . . . .</p> +<p>‘I immediately went out with my papa (mamma had just +come back with him) and went to the Place de la Concorde. +There was an enormous quantity of troops in the Place. +Suddenly the gates of the gardens of the Tuileries opened: we +rushed forward, out gallopped an enormous number of cuirassiers, +in the middle of which were a couple of low carriages, said first +to contain the Count de Paris and the Duchess of Orleans, but +afterwards they said it was the King and Queen; and then I heard +he had abdicated. I returned and gave the news.</p> +<p>‘Went out again up the Boulevards. The house of +the Minister of Foreign Affairs was filled with people and +“<i>Hôtel du Peuple</i>” written on it; the +Boulevards were barricaded with fine old trees that were cut down +and stretched all across the road. We went through a great +many little streets, all strongly barricaded, and sentinels of +the people at the principal of them. The streets were very +unquiet, filled with armed men and women, for the troops had +followed the ex-King to Neuilly and left Paris in the power of +the people. We met the captain of the Third Legion of the +National Guard (who had principally protected the people), badly +wounded by a Municipal Guard, stretched on a litter. He was +in possession of his senses. He was surrounded by a troop +of men crying “Our brave captain—we have him +yet—he’s not dead! <i>Vive la +Réforme</i>!” This cry was responded to by +all, and every one saluted him as he passed. I do not know +if he was mortally wounded. That Third Legion has behaved +splendidly.</p> +<p>‘I then returned, and shortly afterwards went out again +to the garden of the Tuileries. They were given up to the +people and the palace was being sacked. The people were +firing blank cartridges to testify their joy, and they had a +cannon on the top of the palace. It was a sight to see a +palace sacked and armed vagabonds firing out of the windows, and +throwing shirts, papers, and dresses of all kinds out of the +windows. They are not rogues, these French; they are not +stealing, burning, or doing much harm. In the Tuileries +they have dressed up some of the statues, broken some, and stolen +nothing but queer dresses. I say, Frank, you must not hate +the French; hate the Germans if you like. The French laugh +at us a little, and call out <i>Goddam</i> in the streets; but +to-day, in civil war, when they might have put a bullet through +our heads, I never was insulted once.</p> +<p>‘At present we have a provisional Government, consisting +of Odion [<i>sic</i>] Barrot, Lamartine, Marast, and some others; +among them a common workman, but very intelligent. This is +a triumph of liberty—rather!</p> +<p>‘Now then, Frank, what do you think of it? I in a +revolution and out all day. Just think, what fun! So +it was at first, till I was fired at yesterday; but to-day I was +not frightened, but it turned me sick at heart, I don’t +know why. There has been no great bloodshed, [though] I +certainly have seen men’s blood several times. But +there’s something shocking to see a whole armed populace, +though not furious, for not one single shop has been broken open, +except the gunsmiths’ shops, and most of the arms will +probably be taken back again. For the French have no +cupidity in their nature; they don’t like to steal—it +is not in their nature. I shall send this letter in a day +or two, when I am sure the post will go again. I know I +have been a long time writing, but I hope you will find the +matter of this letter interesting, as coming from a person +resident on the spot; though probably you don’t take much +interest in the French, but I can think, write, and speak on no +other subject.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Feb. 25.</p> +<p>‘There is no more fighting, the people have conquered; +but the barricades are still kept up, and the people are in arms, +more than ever fearing some new act of treachery on the part of +the ex-King. The fight where I was was the principal cause +of the Revolution. I was in little danger from the shot, +for there was an immense crowd in front of me, though quite +within gunshot. [By another letter, a hundred yards from +the troops.] I wished I had stopped there.</p> +<p>‘The Paris streets are filled with the most +extraordinary crowds of men, women and children, ladies and +gentlemen. Every person joyful. The bands of armed +men are perfectly polite. Mamma and aunt to-day walked +through armed crowds alone, that were firing blank cartridges in +all directions. Every person made way with the greatest +politeness, and one common man with a blouse, coming by accident +against her immediately stopped to beg her pardon in the politest +manner. There are few drunken men. The Tuileries is +still being run over by the people; they only broke two things, a +bust of Louis Philippe and one of Marshal Bugeaud, who fired on +the people. . . . .</p> +<p>‘I have been out all day again to-day, and precious +tired I am. The Republican party seem the strongest, and +are going about with red ribbons in their button-holes. . . . +.</p> +<p>‘The title of “Mister” is abandoned; they +say nothing but “Citizen,” and the people are shaking +hands amazingly. They have got to the top of the public +monuments, and, mingling with bronze or stone statues, five or +six make a sort of <i>tableau vivant</i>, the top man holding up +the red flag of the Republic; and right well they do it, and very +picturesque they look. I think I shall put this letter in +the post to-morrow as we got a letter to-night.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">(On Envelope.)</p> +<p>‘M. Lamartine has now by his eloquence conquered the +whole armed crowd of citizens threatening to kill him if he did +not immediately proclaim the Republic and red flag. He said +he could not yield to the citizens of Paris alone, that the whole +country must be consulted; that he chose the tricolour, for it +had followed and accompanied the triumphs of France all over the +world, and that the red flag had only been dipped in the blood of +the citizens. For sixty hours he has been quieting the +people: he is at the head of everything. Don’t be +prejudiced, Frank, by what you see in the papers. The +French have acted nobly, splendidly; there has been no brutality, +plundering, or stealing. . . . I did not like the French +before; but in this respect they are the finest people in the +world. I am so glad to have been here.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And there one could wish to stop with this apotheosis of +liberty and order read with the generous enthusiasm of a boy; but +as the reader knows, it was but the first act of the piece. +The letters, vivid as they are, written as they were by a hand +trembling with fear and excitement, yet do injustice, in their +boyishness of tone, to the profound effect produced. At the +sound of these songs and shot of cannon, the boy’s mind +awoke. He dated his own appreciation of the art of acting +from the day when he saw and heard Rachel recite the +‘<i>Marseillaise</i>’ at the Français, the +tricolour in her arms. What is still more strange, he had +been up to then invincibly indifferent to music, insomuch that he +could not distinguish ‘God save the Queen’ from +‘Bonnie Dundee’; and now, to the chanting of the mob, +he amazed his family by learning and singing ‘<i>Mourir +pour la Patrie</i>.’ But the letters, though they +prepare the mind for no such revolution in the boy’s tastes +and feelings, are yet full of entertaining traits. Let the +reader note Fleeming’s eagerness to influence his friend +Frank, an incipient Tory (no less) as further history displayed; +his unconscious indifference to his father and devotion to his +mother, betrayed in so many significant expressions and +omissions; the sense of dignity of this diminutive ‘person +resident on the spot,’ who was so happy as to escape +insult; and the strange picture of the household—father, +mother, son, and even poor Aunt Anna—all day in the streets +in the thick of this rough business, and the boy packed off alone +to school in a distant quarter on the very morrow of the +massacre.</p> +<p>They had all the gift of enjoying life’s texture as it +comes; they were all born optimists. The name of liberty +was honoured in that family, its spirit also, but within +stringent limits; and some of the foreign friends of Mrs. Jenkin +were, as I have said, men distinguished on the Liberal +side. Like Wordsworth, they beheld</p> +<blockquote><p>France standing on the top of golden hours<br /> +And human nature seeming born again.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>At once, by temper and belief, they were formed to find their +element in such a decent and whiggish convulsion, spectacular in +its course, moderate in its purpose. For them,</p> +<blockquote><p>Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,<br /> +But to be young was very heaven.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And I cannot but smile when I think that (again like +Wordsworth) they should have so specially disliked the +consequence.</p> +<p>It came upon them by surprise. Liberal friends of the +precise right shade of colour had assured them, in Mrs. +Turner’s drawing-room, that all was for the best; and they +rose on January 23 without fear. About the middle of the +day they heard the sound of musketry, and the next morning they +were wakened by the cannonade. The French who had behaved +so ‘splendidly,’ pausing, at the voice of Lamartine, +just where judicious Liberals could have desired—the +French, who had ‘no cupidity in their nature,’ were +now about to play a variation on the theme rebellion. The +Jenkins took refuge in the house of Mrs. Turner, the house of the +false prophets, ‘Anna going with Mrs. Turner, that she +might be prevented speaking English, Fleeming, Miss H. and I (it +is the mother who writes) walking together. As we reached +the Rue de Clichy, the report of the cannon sounded close to our +ears and made our hearts sick, I assure you. The fighting +was at the barrier Rochechouart, a few streets off. All +Saturday and Sunday we were a prey to great alarm, there came so +many reports that the insurgents were getting the upper +hand. One could tell the state of affairs from the extreme +quiet or the sudden hum in the street. When the news was +bad, all the houses closed and the people disappeared; when +better, the doors half opened and you heard the sound of men +again. From the upper windows we could see each discharge +from the Bastille—I mean the smoke rising—and also +the flames and smoke from the Boulevard la Chapelle. We +were four ladies, and only Fleeming by way of a man, and +difficulty enough we had to keep him from joining the National +Guards—his pride and spirit were both fired. You +cannot picture to yourself the multitudes of soldiers, guards, +and armed men of all sorts we watched—not close to the +window, however, for such havoc had been made among them by the +firing from the windows, that as the battalions marched by, they +cried, “Fermez vos fenêtres!” and it was very +painful to watch their looks of anxiety and suspicion as they +marched by.’</p> +<p>‘The Revolution,’ writes Fleeming to Frank Scott, +‘was quite delightful: getting popped at and run at by +horses, and giving sous for the wounded into little boxes guarded +by the raggedest, picturesquest, delightfullest, sentinels; but +the insurrection! ugh, I shudder to think at [<i>sic</i>] +it.’ He found it ‘not a bit of fun sitting +boxed up in the house four days almost. . . I was the only +<i>gentleman</i> to four ladies, and didn’t they keep me in +order! I did not dare to show my face at a window, for fear +of catching a stray ball or being forced to enter the National +Guard; [for] they would have it I was a man full-grown, French, +and every way fit to fight. And my mamma was as bad as any +of them; she that told me I was a coward last time if I stayed in +the house a quarter of an hour! But I drew, examined the +pistols, of which I found lots with caps, powder, and ball, while +sometimes murderous intentions of killing a dozen insurgents and +dying violently overpowered by numbers. . . . .’ We +may drop this sentence here: under the conduct of its boyish +writer, it was to reach no legitimate end.</p> +<p>Four days of such a discipline had cured the family of Paris; +the same year Fleeming was to write, in answer apparently to a +question of Frank Scott’s, ‘I could find no national +game in France but revolutions’; and the witticism was +justified in their experience. On the first possible day, +they applied for passports, and were advised to take the road to +Geneva. It appears it was scarce safe to leave Paris for +England. Charles Reade, with keen dramatic gusto, had just +smuggled himself out of that city in the bottom of a cab. +English gold had been found on the insurgents, the name of +England was in evil odour; and it was thus—for strategic +reasons, so to speak—that Fleeming found himself on the way +to that Italy where he was to complete his education, and for +which he cherished to the end a special kindness.</p> +<p>It was in Genoa they settled; partly for the sake of the +captain, who might there find naval comrades; partly because of +the Ruffinis, who had been friends of Mrs. Jenkin in their time +of exile and were now considerable men at home; partly, in fine, +with hopes that Fleeming might attend the University; in +preparation for which he was put at once to school. It was +the year of Novara; Mazzini was in Rome; the dry bones of Italy +were moving; and for people of alert and liberal sympathies the +time was inspiriting. What with exiles turned Ministers of +State, universities thrown open to Protestants, Fleeming himself +the first Protestant student in Genoa, and thus, as his mother +writes, ‘a living instance of the progress of liberal +ideas’—it was little wonder if the enthusiastic young +woman and the clever boy were heart and soul upon the side of +Italy. It should not be forgotten that they were both on +their first visit to that country; the mother still child enough +‘to be delighted when she saw real monks’; and both +mother and son thrilling with the first sight of snowy Alps, the +blue Mediterranean, and the crowded port and the palaces of +Genoa. Nor was their zeal without knowledge. Ruffini, +deputy for Genoa and soon to be head of the University, was at +their side; and by means of him the family appear to have had +access to much Italian society. To the end, Fleeming +professed his admiration of the Piedmontese and his unalterable +confidence in the future of Italy under their conduct; for Victor +Emanuel, Cavour, the first La Marmora and Garibaldi, he had +varying degrees of sympathy and praise: perhaps highest for the +King, whose good sense and temper filled him with +respect—perhaps least for Garibaldi, whom he loved but yet +mistrusted.</p> +<p>But this is to look forward: these were the days not of Victor +Emanuel but of Charles Albert; and it was on Charles Albert that +mother and son had now fixed their eyes as on the sword-bearer of +Italy. On Fleeming’s sixteenth birthday, they were, +the mother writes, ‘in great anxiety for news from the +army. You can have no idea what it is to live in a country +where such a struggle is going on. The interest is one that +absorbs all others. We eat, drink, and sleep to the noise +of drums and musketry. You would enjoy and almost admire +Fleeming’s enthusiasm and earnestness—and, courage, I +may say—for we are among the small minority of English who +side with the Italians. The other day, at dinner at the +Consul’s, boy as he is, and in spite of my admonitions, +Fleeming defended the Italian cause, and so well that he +“tripped up the heels of his adversary” simply from +being well-informed on the subject and honest. He is as +true as steel, and for no one will he bend right or left. . . . +. Do not fancy him a Bobadil,’ she adds, ‘he is +only a very true, candid boy. I am so glad he remains in +all respects but information a great child.’</p> +<p>If this letter is correctly dated, the cause was already lost +and the King had already abdicated when these lines were +written. No sooner did the news reach Genoa, than there +began ‘tumultuous movements’; and the Jenkins’ +received hints it would be wise to leave the city. But they +had friends and interests; even the captain had English officers +to keep him company, for Lord Hardwicke’s ship, the +<i>Vengeance</i>, lay in port; and supposing the danger to be +real, I cannot but suspect the whole family of a divided purpose, +prudence being possibly weaker than curiosity. Stay, at +least, they did, and thus rounded their experience of the +revolutionary year. On Sunday, April 1, Fleeming and the +captain went for a ramble beyond the walls, leaving Aunt Anna and +Mrs. Jenkin to walk on the bastions with some friends. On +the way back, this party turned aside to rest in the Church of +the Madonna delle Grazie. ‘We had remarked,’ +writes Mrs. Jenkin, ‘the entire absence of sentinels on the +ramparts, and how the cannons were left in solitary state; and I +had just remarked “How quiet everything is!” when +suddenly we heard the drums begin to beat and distant +shouts. <i>Accustomed as we are</i> to revolutions, we +never thought of being frightened.’ For all that, +they resumed their return home. On the way they saw men +running and vociferating, but nothing to indicate a general +disturbance, until, near the Duke’s palace, they came upon +and passed a shouting mob dragging along with it three +cannon. It had scarcely passed before they heard ‘a +rushing sound’; one of the gentlemen thrust back the party +of ladies under a shed, and the mob passed again. A +fine-looking young man was in their hands; and Mrs. Jenkin saw +him with his mouth open as if he sought to speak, saw him tossed +from one to another like a ball, and then saw him no more. +‘He was dead a few instants after, but the crowd hid that +terror from us. My knees shook under me and my sight left +me.’ With this street tragedy, the curtain rose upon +their second revolution.</p> +<p>The attack on Spirito Santo, and the capitulation and +departure of the troops speedily followed. Genoa was in the +hands of the Republicans, and now came a time when the English +residents were in a position to pay some return for hospitality +received. Nor were they backward. Our Consul (the +same who had the benefit of correction from Fleeming) carried the +Intendente on board the <i>Vengeance</i>, escorting him through +the streets, getting along with him on board a shore boat, and +when the insurgents levelled their muskets, standing up and +naming himself, ‘<i>Console Inglese</i>.’ A +friend of the Jenkins’, Captain Glynne, had a more painful, +if a less dramatic part. One Colonel Nosozzo had been +killed (I read) while trying to prevent his own artillery from +firing on the mob; but in that hell’s cauldron of a +distracted city, there were no distinctions made, and the +Colonel’s widow was hunted for her life. In her grief +and peril, the Glynnes received and hid her; Captain Glynne +sought and found her husband’s body among the slain, saved +it for two days, brought the widow a lock of the dead man’s +hair; but at last, the mob still strictly searching, seems to +have abandoned the body, and conveyed his guest on board the +<i>Vengeance</i>. The Jenkins also had their refugees, the +family of an <i>employé</i> threatened by a decree. +‘You should have seen me making a Union Jack to nail over +our door,’ writes Mrs. Jenkin. ‘I never worked +so fast in my life. Monday and Tuesday,’ she +continues, ‘were tolerably quiet, our hearts beating fast +in the hope of La Marmora’s approach, the streets +barricaded, and none but foreigners and women allowed to leave +the city.’ On Wednesday, La Marmora came indeed, but +in the ugly form of a bombardment; and that evening the Jenkins +sat without lights about their drawing-room window, +‘watching the huge red flashes of the cannon’ from +the Brigato and La Specula forts, and hearkening, not without +some awful pleasure, to the thunder of the cannonade.</p> +<p>Lord Hardwicke intervened between the rebels and La Marmora; +and there followed a troubled armistice, filled with the voice of +panic. Now the <i>Vengeance</i> was known to be cleared for +action; now it was rumoured that the galley slaves were to be let +loose upon the town, and now that the troops would enter it by +storm. Crowds, trusting in the Union Jack over the +Jenkins’ door, came to beg them to receive their linen and +other valuables; nor could their instances be refused; and in the +midst of all this bustle and alarm, piles of goods must be +examined and long inventories made. At last the captain +decided things had gone too far. He himself apparently +remained to watch over the linen; but at five o’clock on +the Sunday morning, Aunt Anna, Fleeming, and his mother were +rowed in a pour of rain on board an English merchantman, to +suffer ‘nine mortal hours of agonising +suspense.’ With the end of that time, peace was +restored. On Tuesday morning officers with white flags +appeared on the bastions; then, regiment by regiment, the troops +marched in, two hundred men sleeping on the ground floor of the +Jenkins’ house, thirty thousand in all entering the city, +but without disturbance, old La Marmora being a commander of a +Roman sternness.</p> +<p>With the return of quiet, and the reopening of the +universities, we behold a new character, Signor Flaminio: the +professors, it appears, made no attempt upon the Jenkin; and thus +readily italianised the Fleeming. He came well recommended; +for their friend Ruffini was then, or soon after, raised to be +the head of the University; and the professors were very kind and +attentive, possibly to Ruffini’s +<i>protégé</i>, perhaps also to the first +Protestant student. It was no joke for Signor Flaminio at +first; certificates had to be got from Paris and from Rector +Williams; the classics must be furbished up at home that he might +follow Latin lectures; examinations bristled in the path, the +entrance examination with Latin and English essay, and oral +trials (much softened for the foreigner) in Horace, Tacitus, and +Cicero, and the first University examination only three months +later, in Italian eloquence, no less, and other wider +subjects. On one point the first Protestant student was +moved to thank his stars: that there was no Greek required for +the degree. Little did he think, as he set down his +gratitude, how much, in later life and among cribs and +dictionaries, he was to lament this circumstance; nor how much of +that later life he was to spend acquiring, with infinite toil, a +shadow of what he might then have got with ease and fully. +But if his Genoese education was in this particular imperfect, he +was fortunate in the branches that more immediately touched on +his career. The physical laboratory was the best mounted in +Italy. Bancalari, the professor of natural philosophy, was +famous in his day; by what seems even an odd coincidence, he went +deeply into electromagnetism; and it was principally in that +subject that Signor Flaminio, questioned in Latin and answering +in Italian, passed his Master of Arts degree with first-class +honours. That he had secured the notice of his teachers, +one circumstance sufficiently proves. A philosophical +society was started under the presidency of Mamiani, ‘one +of the examiners and one of the leaders of the Moderate +party’; and out of five promising students brought forward +by the professors to attend the sittings and present essays, +Signor Flaminio was one. I cannot find that he ever read an +essay; and indeed I think his hands were otherwise too +full. He found his fellow-students ‘not such a bad +set of chaps,’ and preferred the Piedmontese before the +Genoese; but I suspect he mixed not very freely with +either. Not only were his days filled with university work, +but his spare hours were fully dedicated to the arts under the +eye of a beloved task-mistress. He worked hard and well in +the art school, where he obtained a silver medal ‘for a +couple of legs the size of life drawn from one of Raphael’s +cartoons.’ His holidays were spent in sketching; his +evenings, when they were free, at the theatre. Here at the +opera he discovered besides a taste for a new art, the art of +music; and it was, he wrote, ‘as if he had found out a +heaven on earth.’ ‘I am so anxious that +whatever he professes to know, he should really perfectly +possess,’ his mother wrote, ‘that I spare no +pains’; neither to him nor to myself, she might have +added. And so when he begged to be allowed to learn the +piano, she started him with characteristic barbarity on the +scales; and heard in consequence ‘heart-rending +groans’ and saw ‘anguished claspings of hands’ +as he lost his way among their arid intricacies.</p> +<p>In this picture of the lad at the piano, there is something, +for the period, girlish. He was indeed his mother’s +boy; and it was fortunate his mother was not altogether +feminine. She gave her son a womanly delicacy in morals, to +a man’s taste—to his own taste in later +life—too finely spun, and perhaps more elegant than +healthful. She encouraged him besides in drawing-room +interests. But in other points her influence was +manlike. Filled with the spirit of thoroughness, she taught +him to make of the least of these accomplishments a virile task; +and the teaching lasted him through life. Immersed as she +was in the day’s movements and buzzed about by leading +Liberals, she handed on to him her creed in politics: an enduring +kindness for Italy, and a loyalty, like that of many clever +women, to the Liberal party with but small regard to men or +measures. This attitude of mind used often to disappoint me +in a man so fond of logic; but I see now how it was learned from +the bright eyes of his mother and to the sound of the cannonades +of 1848. To some of her defects, besides, she made him +heir. Kind as was the bond that united her to her son, kind +and even pretty, she was scarce a woman to adorn a home; loving +as she did to shine; careless as she was of domestic, studious of +public graces. She probably rejoiced to see the boy grow up +in somewhat of the image of herself, generous, excessive, +enthusiastic, external; catching at ideas, brandishing them when +caught; fiery for the right, but always fiery; ready at fifteen +to correct a consul, ready at fifty to explain to any artist his +own art.</p> +<p>The defects and advantages of such a training were obvious in +Fleeming throughout life. His thoroughness was not that of +the patient scholar, but of an untrained woman with fits of +passionate study; he had learned too much from dogma, given +indeed by cherished lips; and precocious as he was in the use of +the tools of the mind, he was truly backward in knowledge of life +and of himself. Such as it was at least, his home and +school training was now complete; and you are to conceive the lad +as being formed in a household of meagre revenue, among foreign +surroundings, and under the influence of an imperious +drawing-room queen; from whom he learned a great refinement of +morals, a strong sense of duty, much forwardness of bearing, all +manner of studious and artistic interests, and many ready-made +opinions which he embraced with a son’s and a +disciple’s loyalty.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III. 1851–1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Return to England—Fleeming at +Fairbairn’s—Experience in a Strike—Dr. Bell and +Greek Architecture—The Gaskells—Fleeming at +Greenwich—The Austins—Fleeming and the +Austins—His Engagement—Fleeming and Sir W. +Thomson.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1851, the year of Aunt +Anna’s death, the family left Genoa and came to Manchester, +where Fleeming was entered in Fairbairn’s works as an +apprentice. From the palaces and Alps, the Mole, the blue +Mediterranean, the humming lanes and the bright theatres of +Genoa, he fell—and he was sharply conscious of the +fall—to the dim skies and the foul ways of +Manchester. England he found on his return ‘a horrid +place,’ and there is no doubt the family found it a dear +one. The story of the Jenkin finances is not easy to +follow. The family, I am told, did not practice frugality, +only lamented that it should be needful; and Mrs. Jenkin, who was +always complaining of ‘those dreadful bills,’ was +‘always a good deal dressed.’ But at this time +of the return to England, things must have gone further. A +holiday tour of a fortnight, Fleeming feared would be beyond what +he could afford, and he only projected it ‘to have a castle +in the air.’ And there were actual pinches. +Fresh from a warmer sun, he was obliged to go without a +greatcoat, and learned on railway journeys to supply the place of +one with wrappings of old newspaper.</p> +<p>From half-past eight till six, he must ‘file and chip +vigorously in a moleskin suit and infernally dirty.’ +The work was not new to him, for he had already passed some time +in a Genoese shop; and to Fleeming no work was without +interest. Whatever a man can do or know, he longed to know +and do also. ‘I never learned anything,’ he +wrote, ‘not even standing on my head, but I found a use for +it.’ In the spare hours of his first telegraph +voyage, to give an instance of his greed of knowledge, he meant +‘to learn the whole art of navigation, every rope in the +ship and how to handle her on any occasion’; and once when +he was shown a young lady’s holiday collection of seaweeds, +he must cry out, ‘It showed me my eyes had been +idle.’ Nor was his the case of the mere literary +smatterer, content if he but learn the names of things. In +him, to do and to do well, was even a dearer ambition than to +know. Anything done well, any craft, despatch, or finish, +delighted and inspired him. I remember him with a twopenny +Japanese box of three drawers, so exactly fitted that, when one +was driven home, the others started from their places; the whole +spirit of Japan, he told me, was pictured in that box; that plain +piece of carpentry was as much inspired by the spirit of +perfection as the happiest drawing or the finest bronze; and he +who could not enjoy it in the one was not fully able to enjoy it +in the others. Thus, too, he found in Leonardo’s +engineering and anatomical drawings a perpetual feast; and of the +former he spoke even with emotion. Nothing indeed annoyed +Fleeming more than the attempt to separate the fine arts from the +arts of handicraft; any definition or theory that failed to bring +these two together, according to him, had missed the point; and +the essence of the pleasure received lay in seeing things well +done. Other qualities must be added; he was the last to +deny that; but this, of perfect craft, was at the bottom of +all. And on the other hand, a nail ill-driven, a joint +ill-fitted, a tracing clumsily done, anything to which a man had +set his hand and not set it aptly, moved him to shame and +anger. With such a character, he would feel but little +drudgery at Fairbairn’s. There would be something +daily to be done, slovenliness to be avoided, and a higher mark +of skill to be attained; he would chip and file, as he had +practiced scales, impatient of his own imperfection, but resolute +to learn.</p> +<p>And there was another spring of delight. For he was now +moving daily among those strange creations of man’s brain, +to some so abhorrent, to him of an interest so inexhaustible: in +which iron, water, and fire are made to serve as slaves, now with +a tread more powerful than an elephant’s, and now with a +touch more precise and dainty than a pianist’s. The +taste for machinery was one that I could never share with him, +and he had a certain bitter pity for my weakness. Once when +I had proved, for the hundredth time, the depth of this defect, +he looked at me askance. ‘And the best of the +joke,’ said he, ‘is that he thinks himself quite a +poet.’ For to him the struggle of the engineer +against brute forces and with inert allies, was nobly +poetic. Habit never dulled in him the sense of the +greatness of the aims and obstacles of his profession. +Habit only sharpened his inventor’s gusto in contrivance, +in triumphant artifice, in the Odyssean subtleties, by which +wires are taught to speak, and iron hands to weave, and the +slender ship to brave and to outstrip the tempest. To the +ignorant the great results alone are admirable; to the knowing, +and to Fleeming in particular, rather the infinite device and +sleight of hand that made them possible.</p> +<p>A notion was current at the time that, in such a shop as +Fairbairn’s, a pupil would never be popular unless he drank +with the workmen and imitated them in speech and manner. +Fleeming, who would do none of these things, they accepted as a +friend and companion; and this was the subject of remark in +Manchester, where some memory of it lingers till to-day. He +thought it one of the advantages of his profession to be brought +into a close relation with the working classes; and for the +skilled artisan he had a great esteem, liking his company, his +virtues, and his taste in some of the arts. But he knew the +classes too well to regard them, like a platform speaker, in a +lump. He drew, on the other hand, broad distinctions; and +it was his profound sense of the difference between one working +man and another that led him to devote so much time, in later +days, to the furtherance of technical education. In 1852 he +had occasion to see both men and masters at their worst, in the +excitement of a strike; and very foolishly (after their custom) +both would seem to have behaved. Beginning with a fair show +of justice on either side, the masters stultified their cause by +obstinate impolicy, and the men disgraced their order by acts of +outrage. ‘On Wednesday last,’ writes Fleeming, +‘about three thousand banded round Fairbairn’s door +at 6 o’clock: men, women, and children, factory boys and +girls, the lowest of the low in a very low place. Orders +came that no one was to leave the works; but the men inside +(Knobsticks, as they are called) were precious hungry and thought +they would venture. Two of my companions and myself went +out with the very first, and had the full benefit of every +possible groan and bad language.’ But the police +cleared a lane through the crowd, the pupils were suffered to +escape unhurt, and only the Knobsticks followed home and kicked +with clogs; so that Fleeming enjoyed, as we may say, for nothing, +that fine thrill of expectant valour with which he had sallied +forth into the mob. ‘I never before felt myself so +decidedly somebody, instead of nobody,’ he wrote.</p> +<p>Outside as inside the works, he was ‘pretty merry and +well to do,’ zealous in study, welcome to many friends, +unwearied in loving-kindness to his mother. For some time +he spent three nights a week with Dr. Bell, ‘working away +at certain geometrical methods of getting the Greek architectural +proportions’: a business after Fleeming’s heart, for +he was never so pleased as when he could marry his two devotions, +art and science. This was besides, in all likelihood, the +beginning of that love and intimate appreciation of things Greek, +from the least to the greatest, from the <i>Agamemnon</i> +(perhaps his favourite tragedy) down to the details of Grecian +tailoring, which he used to express in his familiar phrase: +‘The Greeks were the boys.’ Dr. Bell—the +son of George Joseph, the nephew of Sir Charles, and though he +made less use of it than some, a sharer in the distinguished +talents of his race—had hit upon the singular fact that +certain geometrical intersections gave the proportions of the +Doric order. Fleeming, under Dr. Bell’s direction, +applied the same method to the other orders, and again found the +proportions accurately given. Numbers of diagrams were +prepared; but the discovery was never given to the world, perhaps +because of the dissensions that arose between the authors. +For Dr. Bell believed that ‘these intersections were in +some way connected with, or symbolical of, the antagonistic +forces at work’; but his pupil and helper, with +characteristic trenchancy, brushed aside this mysticism, and +interpreted the discovery as ‘a geometrical method of +dividing the spaces or (as might be said) of setting out the +work, purely empirical and in no way connected with any laws of +either force or beauty.’ ‘Many a hard and +pleasant fight we had over it,’ wrote Jenkin, in later +years; ‘and impertinent as it may seem, the pupil is still +unconvinced by the arguments of the master.’ I do not +know about the antagonistic forces in the Doric order; in +Fleeming they were plain enough; and the Bobadil of these affairs +with Dr. Bell was still, like the corrector of Italian consuls, +‘a great child in everything but information.’ +At the house of Colonel Cleather, he might be seen with a family +of children; and with these, there was no word of the Greek +orders; with these Fleeming was only an uproarious boy and an +entertaining draughtsman; so that his coming was the signal for +the young people to troop into the playroom, where sometimes the +roof rang with romping, and sometimes they gathered quietly about +him as he amused them with his pencil.</p> +<p>In another Manchester family, whose name will be familiar to +my readers—that of the Gaskells, Fleeming was a frequent +visitor. To Mrs. Gaskell, he would often bring his new +ideas, a process that many of his later friends will understand +and, in their own cases, remember. With the girls, he had +‘constant fierce wrangles,’ forcing them to reason +out their thoughts and to explain their prepossessions; and I +hear from Miss Gaskell that they used to wonder how he could +throw all the ardour of his character into the smallest matters, +and to admire his unselfish devotion to his parents. Of one +of these wrangles, I have found a record most characteristic of +the man. Fleeming had been laying down his doctrine that +the end justifies the means, and that it is quite right ‘to +boast of your six men-servants to a burglar or to steal a knife +to prevent a murder’; and the Miss Gaskells, with girlish +loyalty to what is current, had rejected the heresy with +indignation. From such passages-at-arms, many retire +mortified and ruffled; but Fleeming had no sooner left the house +than he fell into delighted admiration of the spirit of his +adversaries. From that it was but a step to ask himself +‘what truth was sticking in their heads’; for even +the falsest form of words (in Fleeming’s life-long opinion) +reposed upon some truth, just as he could ‘not even allow +that people admire ugly things, they admire what is pretty in the +ugly thing.’ And before he sat down to write his +letter, he thought he had hit upon the explanation. +‘I fancy the true idea,’ he wrote, ‘is that you +must never do yourself or anyone else a moral injury—make +any man a thief or a liar—for any end’; quite a +different thing, as he would have loved to point out, from never +stealing or lying. But this perfervid disputant was not +always out of key with his audience. One whom he met in the +same house announced that she would never again be happy. +‘What does that signify?’ cried Fleeming. +‘We are not here to be happy, but to be good.’ +And the words (as his hearer writes to me) became to her a sort +of motto during life.</p> +<p>From Fairbairn’s and Manchester, Fleeming passed to a +railway survey in Switzerland, and thence again to Mr. +Penn’s at Greenwich, where he was engaged as +draughtsman. There in 1856, we find him in ‘a +terribly busy state, finishing up engines for innumerable +gun-boats and steam frigates for the ensuing +campaign.’ From half-past eight in the morning till +nine or ten at night, he worked in a crowded office among +uncongenial comrades, ‘saluted by chaff, generally low +personal and not witty,’ pelted with oranges and apples, +regaled with dirty stories, and seeking to suit himself with his +surroundings or (as he writes it) trying to be as little like +himself as possible. His lodgings were hard by, +‘across a dirty green and through some half-built streets +of two-storied houses’; he had Carlyle and the poets, +engineering and mathematics, to study by himself in such spare +time as remained to him; and there were several ladies, young and +not so young, with whom he liked to correspond. But not all +of these could compensate for the absence of that mother, who had +made herself so large a figure in his life, for sorry +surroundings, unsuitable society, and work that leaned to the +mechanical. ‘Sunday,’ says he, ‘I +generally visit some friends in town and seem to swim in clearer +water, but the dirty green seems all the dirtier when I get +back. Luckily I am fond of my profession, or I could not +stand this life.’ It is a question in my mind, if he +could have long continued to stand it without loss. +‘We are not here to be happy, but to be good,’ quoth +the young philosopher; but no man had a keener appetite for +happiness than Fleeming Jenkin. There is a time of life +besides when apart from circumstances, few men are agreeable to +their neighbours and still fewer to themselves; and it was at +this stage that Fleeming had arrived, later than common and even +worse provided. The letter from which I have quoted is the +last of his correspondence with Frank Scott, and his last +confidential letter to one of his own sex. ‘If you +consider it rightly,’ he wrote long after, ‘you will +find the want of correspondence no such strange want in +men’s friendships. There is, believe me, something +noble in the metal which does not rust though not burnished by +daily use.’ It is well said; but the last letter to +Frank Scott is scarcely of a noble metal. It is plain the +writer has outgrown his old self, yet not made acquaintance with +the new. This letter from a busy youth of three and twenty, +breathes of seventeen: the sickening alternations of conceit and +shame, the expense of hope <i>in vacuo</i>, the lack of friends, +the longing after love; the whole world of egoism under which +youth stands groaning, a voluntary Atlas.</p> +<p>With Fleeming this disease was never seemingly severe. +The very day before this (to me) distasteful letter, he had +written to Miss Bell of Manchester in a sweeter strain; I do not +quote the one, I quote the other; fair things are the best. +‘I keep my own little lodgings,’ he writes, +‘but come up every night to see mamma’ (who was then +on a visit to London) ‘if not kept too late at the works; +and have singing lessons once more, and sing “<i>Donne +l’amore è scaltro pargoletto</i>”; and think +and talk about you; and listen to mamma’s projects +<i>de</i> Stowting. Everything turns to gold at her touch, +she’s a fairy and no mistake. We go on talking till I +have a picture in my head, and can hardly believe at the end that +the original is Stowting. Even you don’t know half +how good mamma is; in other things too, which I must not +mention. She teaches me how it is not necessary to be very +rich to do much good. I begin to understand that mamma +would find useful occupation and create beauty at the bottom of a +volcano. She has little weaknesses, but is a real +generous-hearted woman, which I suppose is the finest thing in +the world.’ Though neither mother nor son could be +called beautiful, they make a pretty picture; the ugly, generous, +ardent woman weaving rainbow illusions; the ugly, clear-sighted, +loving son sitting at her side in one of his rare hours of +pleasure, half-beguiled, half-amused, wholly admiring, as he +listens. But as he goes home, and the fancy pictures fade, +and Stowting is once more burthened with debt, and the noisy +companions and the long hours of drudgery once more approach, no +wonder if the dirty green seems all the dirtier or if Atlas must +resume his load.</p> +<p>But in healthy natures, this time of moral teething passes +quickly of itself, and is easily alleviated by fresh interests; +and already, in the letter to Frank Scott, there are two words of +hope: his friends in London, his love for his profession. +The last might have saved him; for he was ere long to pass into a +new sphere, where all his faculties were to be tried and +exercised, and his life to be filled with interest and +effort. But it was not left to engineering: another and +more influential aim was to be set before him. He must, in +any case, have fallen in love; in any case, his love would have +ruled his life; and the question of choice was, for the +descendant of two such families, a thing of paramount +importance. Innocent of the world, fiery, generous, devoted +as he was, the son of the wild Jacksons and the facile Jenkins +might have been led far astray. By one of those +partialities that fill men at once with gratitude and wonder, his +choosing was directed well. Or are we to say that by a +man’s choice in marriage, as by a crucial merit, he +deserves his fortune? One thing at least reason may +discern: that a man but partly chooses, he also partly forms, his +help-mate; and he must in part deserve her, or the treasure is +but won for a moment to be lost. Fleeming chanced if you +will (and indeed all these opportunities are as ‘random as +blind man’s buff’) upon a wife who was worthy of him; +but he had the wit to know it, the courage to wait and labour for +his prize, and the tenderness and chivalry that are required to +keep such prizes precious. Upon this point he has himself +written well, as usual with fervent optimism, but as usual (in +his own phrase) with a truth sticking in his head.</p> +<p>‘Love,’ he wrote, ‘is not an intuition of +the person most suitable to us, most required by us; of the +person with whom life flowers and bears fruit. If this were +so, the chances of our meeting that person would be small indeed; +our intuition would often fail; the blindness of love would then +be fatal as it is proverbial. No, love works differently, +and in its blindness lies its strength. Man and woman, each +strongly desires to be loved, each opens to the other that heart +of ideal aspirations which they have often hid till then; each, +thus knowing the ideal of the other, tries to fulfil that ideal, +each partially succeeds. The greater the love, the greater +the success; the nobler the idea of each, the more durable, the +more beautiful the effect. Meanwhile the blindness of each +to the other’s defects enables the transformation to +proceed [unobserved,] so that when the veil is withdrawn (if it +ever is, and this I do not know) neither knows that any change +has occurred in the person whom they loved. Do not fear, +therefore. I do not tell you that your friend will not +change, but as I am sure that her choice cannot be that of a man +with a base ideal, so I am sure the change will be a safe and a +good one. Do not fear that anything you love will vanish, +he must love it too.’</p> +<p>Among other introductions in London, Fleeming had presented a +letter from Mrs. Gaskell to the Alfred Austins. This was a +family certain to interest a thoughtful young man. Alfred, +the youngest and least known of the Austins, had been a beautiful +golden-haired child, petted and kept out of the way of both sport +and study by a partial mother. Bred an attorney, he had +(like both his brothers) changed his way of life, and was called +to the bar when past thirty. A Commission of Enquiry into +the state of the poor in Dorsetshire gave him an opportunity of +proving his true talents; and he was appointed a Poor Law +Inspector, first at Worcester, next at Manchester, where he had +to deal with the potato famine and the Irish immigration of the +‘forties, and finally in London, where he again +distinguished himself during an epidemic of cholera. He was +then advanced to the Permanent Secretaryship of Her +Majesty’s Office of Works and Public Buildings; a position +which he filled with perfect competence, but with an extreme of +modesty; and on his retirement, in 1868, he was made a Companion +of the Bath. While apprentice to a Norwich attorney, Alfred +Austin was a frequent visitor in the house of Mr. Barron, a +rallying place in those days of intellectual society. +Edward Barron, the son of a rich saddler or leather merchant in +the Borough, was a man typical of the time. When he was a +child, he had once been patted on the head in his father’s +shop by no less a man than Samuel Johnson, as the Doctor went +round the Borough canvassing for Mr. Thrale; and the child was +true to this early consecration. ‘A life of lettered +ease spent in provincial retirement,’ it is thus that the +biographer of that remarkable man, William Taylor, announces his +subject; and the phrase is equally descriptive of the life of +Edward Barron. The pair were close friends, ‘W. T. +and a pipe render everything agreeable,’ writes Barron in +his diary in 1828; and in 1833, after Barron had moved to London +and Taylor had tasted the first public failure of his powers, the +latter wrote: ‘To my ever dearest Mr. Barron say, if you +please, that I miss him more than I regret him—that I +acquiesce in his retirement from Norwich, because I could ill +brook his observation of my increasing debility of +mind.’ This chosen companion of William Taylor must +himself have been no ordinary man; and he was the friend besides +of Borrow, whom I find him helping in his Latin. But he had +no desire for popular distinction, lived privately, married a +daughter of Dr. Enfield of Enfield’s <i>Speaker</i>, and +devoted his time to the education of his family, in a deliberate +and scholarly fashion, and with certain traits of stoicism, that +would surprise a modern. From these children we must single +out his youngest daughter, Eliza, who learned under his care to +be a sound Latin, an elegant Grecian, and to suppress emotion +without outward sign after the manner of the Godwin school. +This was the more notable, as the girl really derived from the +Enfields; whose high-flown romantic temper, I wish I could find +space to illustrate. She was but seven years old, when +Alfred Austin remarked and fell in love with her; and the union +thus early prepared was singularly full. Where the husband +and wife differed, and they did so on momentous subjects, they +differed with perfect temper and content; and in the conduct of +life, and in depth and durability of love, they were at +one. Each full of high spirits, each practised something of +the same repression: no sharp word was uttered in their +house. The same point of honour ruled them, a guest was +sacred and stood within the pale from criticism. It was a +house, besides, of unusual intellectual tension. Mrs. +Austin remembered, in the early days of the marriage, the three +brothers, John, Charles, and Alfred, marching to and fro, each +with his hands behind his back, and ‘reasoning high’ +till morning; and how, like Dr. Johnson, they would cheer their +speculations with as many as fifteen cups of tea. And +though, before the date of Fleeming’s visit, the brothers +were separated, Charles long ago retired from the world at +Brandeston, and John already near his end in the ‘rambling +old house’ at Weybridge, Alfred Austin and his wife were +still a centre of much intellectual society, and still, as indeed +they remained until the last, youthfully alert in mind. +There was but one child of the marriage, Anne, and she was +herself something new for the eyes of the young visitor; brought +up, as she had been, like her mother before her, to the standard +of a man’s acquirements. Only one art had she been +denied, she must not learn the violin—the thought was too +monstrous even for the Austins; and indeed it would seem as if +that tide of reform which we may date from the days of Mary +Wollstonecraft had in some degree even receded; for though Miss +Austin was suffered to learn Greek, the accomplishment was kept +secret like a piece of guilt. But whether this stealth was +caused by a backward movement in public thought since the time of +Edward Barron, or by the change from enlightened Norwich to +barbarian London, I have no means of judging.</p> +<p>When Fleeming presented his letter, he fell in love at first +sight with Mrs. Austin and the life, and atmosphere of the +house. There was in the society of the Austins, outward, +stoical conformers to the world, something gravely suggestive of +essential eccentricity, something unpretentiously breathing of +intellectual effort, that could not fail to hit the fancy of this +hot-brained boy. The unbroken enamel of courtesy, the +self-restraint, the dignified kindness of these married folk, had +besides a particular attraction for their visitor. He could +not but compare what he saw, with what he knew of his mother and +himself. Whatever virtues Fleeming possessed, he could +never count on being civil; whatever brave, true-hearted +qualities he was able to admire in Mrs. Jenkin, mildness of +demeanour was not one of them. And here he found per sons +who were the equals of his mother and himself in intellect and +width of interest, and the equals of his father in mild urbanity +of disposition. Show Fleeming an active virtue, and he +always loved it. He went away from that house struck +through with admiration, and vowing to himself that his own +married life should be upon that pattern, his wife (whoever she +might be) like Eliza Barron, himself such another husband as +Alfred Austin. What is more strange, he not only brought +away, but left behind him, golden opinions. He must have +been—he was, I am told—a trying lad; but there shone +out of him such a light of innocent candour, enthusiasm, +intelligence, and appreciation, that to persons already some way +forward in years, and thus able to enjoy indulgently the +perennial comedy of youth, the sight of him was delightful. +By a pleasant coincidence, there was one person in the house whom +he did not appreciate and who did not appreciate him: Anne +Austin, his future wife. His boyish vanity ruffled her; his +appearance, never impressive, was then, by reason of obtrusive +boyishness, still less so; she found occasion to put him in the +wrong by correcting a false quantity; and when Mr. Austin, after +doing his visitor the almost unheard-of honour of accompanying +him to the door, announced ‘That was what young men were +like in my time’—she could only reply, looking on her +handsome father, ‘I thought they had been better +looking.’</p> +<p>This first visit to the Austins took place in 1855; and it +seems it was some time before Fleeming began to know his mind; +and yet longer ere he ventured to show it. The corrected +quantity, to those who knew him well, will seem to have played +its part; he was the man always to reflect over a correction and +to admire the castigator. And fall in love he did; not +hurriedly but step by step, not blindly but with critical +discrimination; not in the fashion of Romeo, but before he was +done, with all Romeo’s ardour and more than Romeo’s +faith. The high favour to which he presently rose in the +esteem of Alfred Austin and his wife, might well give him +ambitious notions; but the poverty of the present and the +obscurity of the future were there to give him pause; and when +his aspirations began to settle round Miss Austin, he tasted, +perhaps for the only time in his life, the pangs of +diffidence. There was indeed opening before him a wide door +of hope. He had changed into the service of Messrs. Liddell +& Gordon; these gentlemen had begun to dabble in the new +field of marine telegraphy; and Fleeming was already face to face +with his life’s work. That impotent sense of his own +value, as of a ship aground, which makes one of the agonies of +youth, began to fall from him. New problems which he was +endowed to solve, vistas of new enquiry which he was fitted to +explore, opened before him continually. His gifts had found +their avenue and goal. And with this pleasure of effective +exercise, there must have sprung up at once the hope of what is +called by the world success. But from these low beginnings, +it was a far look upward to Miss Austin: the favour of the loved +one seems always more than problematical to any lover; the +consent of parents must be always more than doubtful to a young +man with a small salary and no capital except capacity and +hope. But Fleeming was not the lad to lose any good thing +for the lack of trial; and at length, in the autumn of 1857, this +boyish-sized, boyish-mannered, and superlatively ill-dressed +young engineer, entered the house of the Austins, with such +sinkings as we may fancy, and asked leave to pay his addresses to +the daughter. Mrs. Austin already loved him like a son, she +was but too glad to give him her consent; Mr. Austin reserved the +right to inquire into his character; from neither was there a +word about his prospects, by neither was his income +mentioned. ‘Are these people,’ he wrote, struck +with wonder at this dignified disinterestedness, ‘are these +people the same as other people?’ It was not till he +was armed with this permission, that Miss Austin even suspected +the nature of his hopes: so strong, in this unmannerly boy, was +the principle of true courtesy; so powerful, in this impetuous +nature, the springs of self-repression. And yet a boy he +was; a boy in heart and mind; and it was with a boy’s +chivalry and frankness that he won his wife. His conduct +was a model of honour, hardly of tact; to conceal love from the +loved one, to court her parents, to be silent and discreet till +these are won, and then without preparation to approach the +lady—these are not arts that I would recommend for +imitation. They lead to final refusal. Nothing saved +Fleeming from that fate, but one circumstance that cannot be +counted upon—the hearty favour of the mother, and one gift +that is inimitable and that never failed him throughout life, the +gift of a nature essentially noble and outspoken. A happy +and high-minded anger flashed through his despair: it won for him +his wife.</p> +<p>Nearly two years passed before it was possible to marry: two +years of activity, now in London; now at Birkenhead, fitting out +ships, inventing new machinery for new purposes, and dipping into +electrical experiment; now in the <i>Elba</i> on his first +telegraph cruise between Sardinia and Algiers: a busy and +delightful period of bounding ardour, incessant toil, growing +hope and fresh interests, with behind and through all, the image +of his beloved. A few extracts from his correspondence with +his betrothed will give the note of these truly joyous +years. ‘My profession gives me all the excitement and +interest I ever hope for, but the sorry jade is obviously jealous +of you.’—‘“Poor Fleeming,” in spite +of wet, cold and wind, clambering over moist, tarry slips, +wandering among pools of slush in waste places inhabited by +wandering locomotives, grows visibly stronger, has dismissed his +office cough and cured his toothache.’—‘The +whole of the paying out and lifting machinery must be designed +and ordered in two or three days, and I am half crazy with +work. I like it though: it’s like a good ball, the +excitement carries you through.’—‘I was running +to and from the ships and warehouse through fierce gusts of rain +and wind till near eleven, and you cannot think what a pleasure +it was to be blown about and think of you in your pretty +dress.’—‘I am at the works till ten and +sometimes till eleven. But I have a nice office to sit in, +with a fire to myself, and bright brass scientific instruments +all round me, and books to read, and experiments to make, and +enjoy myself amazingly. I find the study of electricity so +entertaining that I am apt to neglect my other work.’ +And for a last taste, ‘Yesterday I had some charming +electrical experiments. What shall I compare them +to—a new song? a Greek play?’</p> +<p>It was at this time besides that he made the acquaintance of +Professor, now Sir William, Thomson. To describe the part +played by these two in each other’s lives would lie out of +my way. They worked together on the Committee on Electrical +Standards; they served together at the laying down or the repair +of many deep-sea cables; and Sir William was regarded by +Fleeming, not only with the ‘worship’ (the word is +his own) due to great scientific gifts, but with an ardour of +personal friendship not frequently excelled. To their +association, Fleeming brought the valuable element of a practical +understanding; but he never thought or spoke of himself where Sir +William was in question; and I recall quite in his last days, a +singular instance of this modest loyalty to one whom he admired +and loved. He drew up a paper, in a quite personal +interest, of his own services; yet even here he must step out of +his way, he must add, where it had no claim to be added, his +opinion that, in their joint work, the contributions of Sir +William had been always greatly the most valuable. Again, I +shall not readily forget with what emotion he once told me an +incident of their associated travels. On one of the +mountain ledges of Madeira, Fleeming’s pony bolted between +Sir William. and the precipice above; by strange good fortune and +thanks to the steadiness of Sir William’s horse, no harm +was done; but for the moment, Fleeming saw his friend hurled into +the sea, and almost by his own act: it was a memory that haunted +him.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV. 1859–1868.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Fleeming’s Marriage—His Married +Life—Professional Difficulties—Life at +Claygate—Illness of Mrs. F. Jenkin; and of +Fleeming—Appointment to the Chair at Edinburgh.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">On</span> Saturday, Feb. 26, 1859, +profiting by a holiday of four days, Fleeming was married to Miss +Austin at Northiam: a place connected not only with his own +family but with that of his bride as well. By Tuesday +morning, he was at work again, fitting out cableships at +Birkenhead. Of the walk from his lodgings to the works, I +find a graphic sketch in one of his letters: ‘Out over the +railway bridge, along a wide road raised to the level of a ground +floor above the land, which, not being built upon, harbours +puddles, ponds, pigs, and Irish hovels;—so to the dock +warehouses, four huge piles of building with no windows, +surrounded by a wall about twelve feet high—in through the +large gates, round which hang twenty or thirty rusty Irish, +playing pitch and toss and waiting for employment;—on along +the railway, which came in at the same gates and which branches +down between each vast block—past a pilot-engine butting +refractory trucks into their places—on to the last block, +[and] down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air and +detecting the old bones. The hartshorn flavour of the guano +becomes very strong, as I near the docks where, across the +<i>Elba’s</i> decks, a huge vessel is discharging her cargo +of the brown dust, and where huge vessels have been discharging +that same cargo for the last five months.’ This was +the walk he took his young wife on the morrow of his +return. She had been used to the society of lawyers and +civil servants, moving in that circle which seems to itself the +pivot of the nation and is in truth only a clique like another; +and Fleeming was to her the nameless assistant of a nameless firm +of engineers, doing his inglorious business, as she now saw for +herself, among unsavoury surroundings. But when their walk +brought them within view of the river, she beheld a sight to her +of the most novel beauty: four great, sea-going ships dressed out +with flags. ‘How lovely!’ she cried. +‘What is it for?’—‘For you,’ said +Fleeming. Her surprise was only equalled by her +pleasure. But perhaps, for what we may call private fame, +there is no life like that of the engineer; who is a great man in +out-of-the-way places, by the dockside or on the desert island or +in populous ships, and remains quite unheard of in the coteries +of London. And Fleeming had already made his mark among the +few who had an opportunity of knowing him.</p> +<p>His marriage was the one decisive incident of his career; from +that moment until the day of his death, he had one thought to +which all the rest were tributary, the thought of his wife. +No one could know him even slightly, and not remark the absorbing +greatness of that sentiment; nor can any picture of the man be +drawn that does not in proportion dwell upon it. This is a +delicate task; but if we are to leave behind us (as we wish) some +presentment of the friend we have lost, it is a task that must be +undertaken.</p> +<p>For all his play of mind and fancy, for all his +indulgence—and, as time went on, he grew +indulgent—Fleeming had views of duty that were even +stern. He was too shrewd a student of his fellow-men to +remain long content with rigid formulæ of conduct. +Iron-bound, impersonal ethics, the procrustean bed of rules, he +soon saw at their true value as the deification of +averages. ‘As to Miss (I declare I forget her name) +being bad,’ I find him writing, ‘people only mean +that she has broken the Decalogue—which is not at all the +same thing. People who have kept in the high-road of Life +really have less opportunity for taking a comprehensive view of +it than those who have leaped over the hedges and strayed up the +hills; not but what the hedges are very necessary, and our stray +travellers often have a weary time of it. So, you may say, +have those in the dusty roads.’ Yet he was himself a +very stern respecter of the hedgerows; sought safety and found +dignity in the obvious path of conduct; and would palter with no +simple and recognised duty of his epoch. Of marriage in +particular, of the bond so formed, of the obligations incurred, +of the debt men owe to their children, he conceived in a truly +antique spirit: not to blame others, but to constrain +himself. It was not to blame, I repeat, that he held these +views; for others, he could make a large allowance; and yet he +tacitly expected of his friends and his wife a high standard of +behaviour. Nor was it always easy to wear the armour of +that ideal.</p> +<p>Acting upon these beliefs; conceiving that he had indeed +‘given himself’ (in the full meaning of these words) +for better, for worse; painfully alive to his defects of temper +and deficiency in charm; resolute to make up for these; thinking +last of himself: Fleeming was in some ways the very man to have +made a noble, uphill fight of an unfortunate marriage. In +other ways, it is true he was one of the most unfit for such a +trial. And it was his beautiful destiny to remain to the +last hour the same absolute and romantic lover, who had shown to +his new bride the flag-draped vessels in the Mersey. No +fate is altogether easy; but trials are our touchstone, trials +overcome our reward; and it was given to Fleeming to +conquer. It was given to him to live for another, not as a +task, but till the end as an enchanting pleasure. +‘People may write novels,’ he wrote in 1869, +‘and other people may write poems, but not a man or woman +among them can write to say how happy a man may be, who is +desperately in love with his wife after ten years of +marriage.’ And again in 1885, after more than +twenty-six years of marriage, and within but five weeks of his +death: ‘Your first letter from Bournemouth,’ he +wrote, ‘gives me heavenly pleasure—for which I thank +Heaven and you too—who are my heaven on earth.’ +The mind hesitates whether to say that such a man has been more +good or more fortunate.</p> +<p>Any woman (it is the defect of her sex) comes sooner to the +stable mind of maturity than any man; and Jenkin was to the end +of a most deliberate growth. In the next chapter, when I +come to deal with his telegraphic voyages and give some taste of +his correspondence, the reader will still find him at twenty-five +an arrant school-boy. His wife besides was more thoroughly +educated than he. In many ways she was able to teach him, +and he proud to be taught; in many ways she outshone him, and he +delighted to be outshone. All these superiorities, and +others that, after the manner of lovers, he no doubt forged for +himself, added as time went on to the humility of his original +love. Only once, in all I know of his career, did he show a +touch of smallness. He could not learn to sing correctly; +his wife told him so and desisted from her lessons; and the +mortification was so sharply felt that for years he could not be +induced to go to a concert, instanced himself as a typical man +without an ear, and never sang again. I tell it; for the +fact that this stood singular in his behaviour, and really amazed +all who knew him, is the happiest way I can imagine to commend +the tenor of his simplicity; and because it illustrates his +feeling for his wife. Others were always welcome to laugh +at him; if it amused them, or if it amused him, he would proceed +undisturbed with his occupation, his vanity invulnerable. +With his wife it was different: his wife had laughed at his +singing; and for twenty years the fibre ached. Nothing, +again, was more notable than the formal chivalry of this +unmannered man to the person on earth with whom he was the most +familiar. He was conscious of his own innate and often +rasping vivacity and roughness and he was never forgetful of his +first visit to the Austins and the vow he had registered on his +return. There was thus an artificial element in his +punctilio that at times might almost raise a smile. But it +stood on noble grounds; for this was how he sought to shelter +from his own petulance the woman who was to him the symbol of the +household and to the end the beloved of his youth.</p> +<p>I wish in this chapter to chronicle small beer; taking a hasty +glance at some ten years of married life and of professional +struggle; and reserving till the next all the more interesting +matter of his cruises. Of his achievements and their worth, +it is not for me to speak: his friend and partner, Sir William +Thomson, has contributed a note on the subject, which will be +found in the Appendix, and to which I must refer the +reader. He is to conceive in the meanwhile for himself +Fleeming’s manifold engagements: his service on the +Committee on Electrical Standards, his lectures on electricity at +Chatham, his chair at the London University, his partnership with +Sir William Thomson and Mr. Varley in many ingenious patents, his +growing credit with engineers and men of science; and he is to +bear in mind that of all this activity and acquist of reputation, +the immediate profit was scanty. Soon after his marriage, +Fleeming had left the service of Messrs. Liddell & Gordon, +and entered into a general engineering partnership with Mr. +Forde, a gentleman in a good way of business. It was a +fortunate partnership in this, that the parties retained their +mutual respect unlessened and separated with regret; but +men’s affairs, like men, have their times of sickness, and +by one of these unaccountable variations, for hard upon ten years +the business was disappointing and the profits meagre. +‘Inditing drafts of German railways which will never get +made’: it is thus I find Fleeming, not without a touch of +bitterness, describe his occupation. Even the patents hung +fire at first. There was no salary to rely on; children +were coming and growing up; the prospect was often anxious. +In the days of his courtship, Fleeming had written to Miss Austin +a dissuasive picture of the trials of poverty, assuring her these +were no figments but truly bitter to support; he told her this, +he wrote, beforehand, so that when the pinch came and she +suffered, she should not be disappointed in herself nor tempted +to doubt her own magnanimity: a letter of admirable wisdom and +solicitude. But now that the trouble came, he bore it very +lightly. It was his principle, as he once prettily +expressed it, ‘to enjoy each day’s happiness, as it +arises, like birds or children.’ His optimism, if +driven out at the door, would come in again by the window; if it +found nothing but blackness in the present, would hit upon some +ground of consolation in the future or the past. And his +courage and energy were indefatigable. In the year 1863, +soon after the birth of their first son, they moved into a +cottage at Claygate near Esher; and about this time, under +manifold troubles both of money and health, I find him writing +from abroad: ‘The country will give us, please God, health +and strength. I will love and cherish you more than ever, +you shall go where you wish, you shall receive whom you +wish—and as for money you shall have that too. I +cannot be mistaken. I have now measured myself with many +men. I do not feel weak, I do not feel that I shall +fail. In many things I have succeeded, and I will in +this. And meanwhile the time of waiting, which, please +Heaven, shall not be long, shall also not be so bitter. +Well, well, I promise much, and do not know at this moment how +you and the dear child are. If he is but better, courage, +my girl, for I see light.’</p> +<p>This cottage at Claygate stood just without the village, well +surrounded with trees and commanding a pleasant view. A +piece of the garden was turfed over to form a croquet green, and +Fleeming became (I need scarce say) a very ardent player. +He grew ardent, too, in gardening. This he took up at first +to please his wife, having no natural inclination; but he had no +sooner set his hand to it, than, like everything else he touched, +it became with him a passion. He budded roses, he potted +cuttings in the coach-house; if there came a change of weather at +night, he would rise out of bed to protect his favourites; when +he was thrown with a dull companion, it was enough for him to +discover in the man a fellow gardener; on his travels, he would +go out of his way to visit nurseries and gather hints; and to the +end of his life, after other occupations prevented him putting +his own hand to the spade, he drew up a yearly programme for his +gardener, in which all details were regulated. He had begun +by this time to write. His paper on Darwin, which had the +merit of convincing on one point the philosopher himself, had +indeed been written before this in London lodgings; but his pen +was not idle at Claygate; and it was here he wrote (among other +things) that review of ‘<i>Fecundity</i>, <i>Fertility</i>, +<i>Sterility</i>, <i>and Allied Topics</i>,’ which Dr. +Matthews Duncan prefixed by way of introduction to the second +edition of the work. The mere act of writing seems to cheer +the vanity of the most incompetent; but a correction accepted by +Darwin, and a whole review borrowed and reprinted by Matthews +Duncan are compliments of a rare strain, and to a man still +unsuccessful must have been precious indeed. There was yet +a third of the same kind in store for him; and when Munro himself +owned that he had found instruction in the paper on Lucretius, we +may say that Fleeming had been crowned in the capitol of +reviewing.</p> +<p>Croquet, charades, Christmas magic lanterns for the village +children, an amateur concert or a review article in the evening; +plenty of hard work by day; regular visits to meetings of the +British Association, from one of which I find him +characteristically writing: ‘I cannot say that I have had +any amusement yet, but I am enjoying the dulness and dry bustle +of the whole thing’; occasional visits abroad on business, +when he would find the time to glean (as I have said) gardening +hints for himself, and old folk-songs or new fashions of dress +for his wife; and the continual study and care of his children: +these were the chief elements of his life. Nor were friends +wanting. Captain and Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. and Mrs. Austin, +Clerk Maxwell, Miss Bell of Manchester, and others came to them +on visits. Mr. Hertslet of the Foreign Office, his wife and +his daughter, were neighbours and proved kind friends; in 1867 +the Howitts came to Claygate and sought the society of ‘the +two bright, clever young people’; <a +name="citation113"></a><a href="#footnote113" +class="citation">[113]</a> and in a house close by, Mr. Frederick +Ricketts came to live with his family. Mr. Ricketts was a +valued friend during his short life; and when he was lost with +every circumstance of heroism in the <i>La Plata</i>, Fleeming +mourned him sincerely.</p> +<p>I think I shall give the best idea of Fleeming in this time of +his early married life, by a few sustained extracts from his +letters to his wife, while she was absent on a visit in 1864.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<i>Nov.</i> 11.—Sunday was too wet to +walk to Isleworth, for which I was sorry, so I staid and went to +Church and thought of you at Ardwick all through the +Commandments, and heard Dr. — expound in a remarkable way a +prophecy of St. Paul’s about Roman Catholics, which +<i>mutatis mutandis</i> would do very well for Protestants in +some parts. Then I made a little nursery of Borecole and +Enfield market cabbage, grubbing in wet earth with leggings and +gray coat on. Then I tidied up the coach-house to my own +and Christine’s admiration. Then encouraged by +<i>bouts-rimés</i> I wrote you a copy of verses; high time +I think; I shall just save my tenth year of knowing my lady-love +without inditing poetry or rhymes to her.</p> +<p>‘Then I rummaged over the box with my father’s +letters and found interesting notes from myself. One I +should say my first letter, which little Austin I should say +would rejoice to see and shall see—with a drawing of a +cottage and a spirited “cob.” What was more to +the purpose, I found with it a paste-cutter which Mary begged +humbly for Christine and I generously gave this morning.</p> +<p>‘Then I read some of Congreve. There are admirable +scenes in the manner of Sheridan; all wit and no character, or +rather one character in a great variety of situations and +scenes. I could show you some scenes, but others are too +coarse even for my stomach hardened by a course of French +novels.</p> +<p>‘All things look so happy for the rain.</p> +<p>‘<i>Nov.</i> 16.—Verbenas looking well. . . . I am +but a poor creature without you; I have naturally no spirit or +fun or enterprise in me. Only a kind of mechanical capacity +for ascertaining whether two really is half four, etc.; but when +you are near me I can fancy that I too shine, and vainly suppose +it to be my proper light; whereas by my extreme darkness when you +are not by, it clearly can only be by a reflected brilliance that +I seem aught but dull. Then for the moral part of me: if it +were not for you and little Odden, I should feel by no means sure +that I had any affection power in me. . . . Even the muscular me +suffers a sad deterioration in your absence. I don’t +get up when I ought to, I have snoozed in my chair after dinner; +I do not go in at the garden with my wonted vigour, and feel ten +times as tired as usual with a walk in your absence; so you see, +when you are not by, I am a person without ability, affections or +vigour, but droop dull, selfish, and spiritless; can you wonder +that I love you?</p> +<p>‘<i>Nov.</i> 17.—. . . I am very glad we married +young. I would not have missed these five years, no, not +for any hopes; they are my own.</p> +<p>‘<i>Nov.</i> 30.—I got through my Chatham lecture +very fairly though almost all my apparatus went astray. I +dined at the mess, and got home to Isleworth the same evening; +your father very kindly sitting up for me.</p> +<p>‘<i>Dec.</i> 1.—Back at dear Claygate. Many +cuttings flourish, especially those which do honour to your +hand. Your Californian annuals are up and about. +Badger is fat, the grass green. . . .</p> +<p>‘<i>Dec.</i> 3.—Odden will not talk of you, while +you are away, having inherited, as I suspect, his father’s +way of declining to consider a subject which is painful, as your +absence is. . . . I certainly should like to learn Greek and I +think it would be a capital pastime for the long winter evenings. +. . . How things are misrated! I declare croquet is a noble +occupation compared to the pursuits of business men. As for +so-called idleness—that is, one form of it—I vow it +is the noblest aim of man. When idle, one can love, one can +be good, feel kindly to all, devote oneself to others, be +thankful for existence, educate one’s mind, one’s +heart, one’s body. When busy, as I am busy now or +have been busy to-day, one feels just as you sometimes felt when +you were too busy, owing to want of servants.</p> +<p>‘<i>Dec.</i> 5.—On Sunday I was at Isleworth, +chiefly engaged in playing with Odden. We had the most +enchanting walk together through the brickfields. It was +very muddy, and, as he remarked, not fit for Nanna, but fit for +us <i>men</i>. The dreary waste of bared earth, thatched +sheds and standing water, was a paradise to him; and when we +walked up planks to deserted mixing and crushing mills, and +actually saw where the clay was stirred with long iron prongs, +and chalk or lime ground with “a tind of a mill,” his +expression of contentment and triumphant heroism knew no limit to +its beauty. Of course on returning I found Mrs. Austin +looking out at the door in an anxious manner, and thinking we had +been out quite long enough. . . . I am reading Don Quixote +chiefly and am his fervent admirer, but I am so sorry he did not +place his affections on a Dulcinea of somewhat worthier +stamp. In fact I think there must be a mistake about +it. Don Quixote might and would serve his lady in most +preposterous fashion, but I am sure he would have chosen a lady +of merit. He imagined her to be such no doubt, and drew a +charming picture of her occupations by the banks of the river; +but in his other imaginations, there was some kind of peg on +which to hang the false costumes he created; windmills are big, +and wave their arms like giants; sheep in the distance are +somewhat like an army; a little boat on the river-side must look +much the same whether enchanted or belonging to millers; but +except that Dulcinea is a woman, she bears no resemblance at all +to the damsel of his imagination.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>At the time of these letters, the oldest son only was born to +them. In September of the next year, with the birth of the +second, Charles Frewen, there befell Fleeming a terrible alarm +and what proved to be a lifelong misfortune. Mrs. Jenkin +was taken suddenly and alarmingly ill; Fleeming ran a matter of +two miles to fetch the doctor, and, drenched with sweat as he +was, returned with him at once in an open gig. On their +arrival at the house, Mrs. Jenkin half unconsciously took and +kept hold of her husband’s hand. By the +doctor’s orders, windows and doors were set open to create +a thorough draught, and the patient was on no account to be +disturbed. Thus, then, did Fleeming pass the whole of that +night, crouching on the floor in the draught, and not daring to +move lest he should wake the sleeper. He had never been +strong; energy had stood him instead of vigour; and the result of +that night’s exposure was flying rheumatism varied by +settled sciatica. Sometimes it quite disabled him, +sometimes it was less acute; but he was rarely free from it until +his death. I knew him for many years; for more than ten we +were closely intimate; I have lived with him for weeks; and +during all this time, he only once referred to his infirmity and +then perforce as an excuse for some trouble he put me to, and so +slightly worded that I paid no heed. This is a good measure +of his courage under sufferings of which none but the untried +will think lightly. And I think it worth noting how this +optimist was acquainted with pain. It will seem strange +only to the superficial. The disease of pessimism springs +never from real troubles, which it braces men to bear, which it +delights men to bear well. Nor does it readily spring at +all, in minds that have conceived of life as a field of ordered +duties, not as a chase in which to hunt for gratifications. +‘We are not here to be happy, but to be good’; I wish +he had mended the phrase: ‘We are not here to be happy, but +to try to be good,’ comes nearer the modesty of +truth. With such old-fashioned morality, it is possible to +get through life, and see the worst of it, and feel some of the +worst of it, and still acquiesce piously and even gladly in +man’s fate. Feel some of the worst of it, I say; for +some of the rest of the worst is, by this simple faith, +excluded.</p> +<p>It was in the year 1868, that the clouds finally rose. +The business in partnership with Mr. Forde began suddenly to pay +well; about the same time the patents showed themselves a +valuable property; and but a little after, Fleeming was appointed +to the new chair of engineering in the University of +Edinburgh. Thus, almost at once, pecuniary embarrassments +passed for ever out of his life. Here is his own epilogue +to the time at Claygate, and his anticipations of the future in +Edinburgh.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘ . . . . The dear old house at Claygate is +not let and the pretty garden a mass of weeds. I feel +rather as if we had behaved unkindly to them. We were very +happy there, but now that it is over I am conscious of the weight +of anxiety as to money which I bore all the time. With you +in the garden, with Austin in the coach-house, with pretty songs +in the little, low white room, with the moonlight in the dear +room up-stairs, ah, it was perfect; but the long walk, wondering, +pondering, fearing, scheming, and the dusty jolting railway, and +the horrid fusty office with its endless disappointments, they +are well gone. It is well enough to fight and scheme and +bustle about in the eager crowd here [in London] for a while now +and then, but not for a lifetime. What I have now is just +perfect. Study for winter, action for summer, lovely +country for recreation, a pleasant town for talk . . .’</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>CHAPTER V.—NOTES OF TELEGRAPH VOYAGES, 1858 TO +1873.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">But</span> it is now time to see Jenkin at +his life’s work. I have before me certain imperfect +series of letters written, as he says, ‘at hazard, for one +does not know at the time what is important and what is +not’: the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the +betrothal; the later to Mrs. Jenkin the young wife. I +should premise that I have allowed myself certain editorial +freedoms, leaving out and splicing together much as he himself +did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for +themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or +activity. Addressed as they were to her whom he called his +‘dear engineering pupil,’ they give a picture of his +work so clear that a child may understand, and so attractive that +I am half afraid their publication may prove harmful, and still +further crowd the ranks of a profession already +overcrowded. But their most engaging quality is the picture +of the writer; with his indomitable self-confidence and courage, +his readiness in every pinch of circumstance or change of plan, +and his ever fresh enjoyment of the whole web of human +experience, nature, adventure, science, toil and rest, society +and solitude. It should be borne in mind that the writer of +these buoyant pages was, even while he wrote, harassed by +responsibility, stinted in sleep and often struggling with the +prostration of sea-sickness. To this last enemy, which he +never overcame, I have omitted, in my search after condensation, +a good many references; if they were all left, such was the +man’s temper, they would not represent one hundredth part +of what he suffered, for he was never given to complaint. +But indeed he had met this ugly trifle, as he met every thwart +circumstance of life, with a certain pleasure of pugnacity; and +suffered it not to check him, whether in the exercise of his +profession or the pursuit of amusement.</p> +<h3>I.</h3> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Birkenhead: April 18, +1858.</p> +<p>‘Well, you should know, Mr. — having a contract to +lay down a submarine telegraph from Sardinia to Africa failed +three times in the attempt. The distance from land to land +is about 140 miles. On the first occasion, after proceeding +some 70 miles, he had to cut the cable—the cause I forget; +he tried again, same result; then picked up about 20 miles of the +lost cable, spliced on a new piece, and very nearly got across +that time, but ran short of cable, and when but a few miles off +Galita in very deep water, had to telegraph to London for more +cable to be manufactured and sent out whilst he tried to stick to +the end: for five days, I think, he lay there sending and +receiving messages, but heavy weather coming on the cable parted +and Mr. — went home in despair—at least I should +think so.</p> +<p>‘He then applied to those eminent engineers, R. S. +Newall & Co., who made and laid down a cable for him last +autumn—Fleeming Jenkin (at the time in considerable mental +agitation) having the honour of fitting out the <i>Elba</i> for +that purpose.’ [On this occasion, the <i>Elba</i> has +no cable to lay; but] ‘is going out in the beginning of May +to endeavour to fish up the cables Mr. — lost. There +are two ends at or near the shore: the third will probably not be +found within 20 miles from land. One of these ends will be +passed over a very big pulley or sheave at the bows, passed six +times round a big barrel or drum; which will be turned round by a +steam engine on deck, and thus wind up the cable, while the +<i>Elba</i> slowly steams ahead. The cable is not wound +round and round the drum as your silk is wound on its reel, but +on the contrary never goes round more than six times, going off +at one side as it comes on at the other, and going down into the +hold of the <i>Elba</i> to be coiled along in a big coil or +skein.</p> +<p>‘I went down to Gateshead to discuss with Mr. Newall the +form which this tolerably simple idea should take, and have been +busy since I came here drawing, ordering, and putting up the +machinery—uninterfered with, thank goodness, by any +one. I own I like responsibility; it flatters one and then, +your father might say, I have more to gain than to lose. +Moreover I do like this bloodless, painless combat with wood and +iron, forcing the stubborn rascals to do my will, licking the +clumsy cubs into an active shape, seeing the child of +to-day’s thought working to-morrow in full vigour at his +appointed task.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 12.</p> +<p>‘By dint of bribing, bullying, cajoling, and going day +by day to see the state of things ordered, all my work is very +nearly ready now; but those who have neglected these precautions +are of course disappointed. Five hundred fathoms of chain +[were] ordered by—some three weeks since, to be ready by +the 10th without fail; he sends for it to-day—150 fathoms +all they can let us have by the 15th—and how the rest is to +be got, who knows? He ordered a boat a month since and +yesterday we could see nothing of her but the keel and about two +planks. I could multiply instances without end. At +first one goes nearly mad with vexation at these things; but one +finds so soon that they are the rule, that then it becomes +necessary to feign a rage one does not feel. I look upon it +as the natural order of things, that if I order a thing, it will +not be done—if by accident it gets done, it will certainly +be done wrong: the only remedy being to watch the performance at +every stage.</p> +<p>‘To-day was a grand field-day. I had steam up and +tried the engine against pressure or resistance. One part +of the machinery is driven by a belt or strap of leather. I +always had my doubts this might slip; and so it did, +wildly. I had made provision for doubling it, putting on +two belts instead of one. No use—off they went, +slipping round and off the pulleys instead of driving the +machinery. Tighten them—no use. More strength +there—down with the lever—smash something, tear the +belts, but get them tight—now then, stand clear, on with +the steam;—and the belts slip away as if nothing held +them. Men begin to look queer; the circle of quidnuncs make +sage remarks. Once more—no use. I begin to know +I ought to feel sheepish and beat, but somehow I feel cocky +instead. I laugh and say, “Well, I am bound to break +something down”—and suddenly see. “Oho, +there’s the place; get weight on there, and the belt +won’t slip.” With much labour, on go the belts +again. “Now then, a spar thro’ there and six +men’s weight on; mind you’re not carried +away.”—“Ay, ay, sir.” But evidently +no one believes in the plan. “Hurrah, round she +goes—stick to your spar. All right, shut off +steam.” And the difficulty is vanquished.</p> +<p>‘This or such as this (not always quite so bad) occurs +hour after hour, while five hundred tons of coal are rattling +down into the holds and bunkers, riveters are making their +infernal row all round, and riggers bend the sails and fit the +rigging:—a sort of Pandemonium, it appeared to young Mrs. +Newall, who was here on Monday and half-choked with guano; but it +suits the likes o’ me.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘S. S. <i>Elba</i>, River +Mersey: May 17.</p> +<p>‘We are delayed in the river by some of the ship’s +papers not being ready. Such a scene at the dock +gates. Not a sailor will join till the last moment; and +then, just as the ship forges ahead through the narrow pass, beds +and baggage fly on board, the men half tipsy clutch at the +rigging, the captain swears, the women scream and sob, the crowd +cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty little girls stand still +and cry outright, regardless of all eyes.</p> +<p>‘These two days of comparative peace have quite set me +on my legs again. I was getting worn and weary with anxiety +and work. As usual I have been delighted with my +shipwrights. I gave them some beer on Saturday, making a +short oration. To-day when they went ashore and I came on +board, they gave three cheers, whether for me or the ship I +hardly know, but I had just bid them good-bye, and the ship was +out of hail; but I was startled and hardly liked to claim the +compliment by acknowledging it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘S. S. <i>Elba</i>: May +25.</p> +<p>‘My first intentions of a long journal have been fairly +frustrated by sea-sickness. On Tuesday last about noon we +started from the Mersey in very dirty weather, and were hardly +out of the river when we met a gale from the south-west and a +heavy sea, both right in our teeth; and the poor <i>Elba</i> had +a sad shaking. Had I not been very sea-sick, the sight +would have been exciting enough, as I sat wrapped in my oilskins +on the bridge; [but] in spite of all my efforts to talk, to eat, +and to grin, I soon collapsed into imbecility; and I was heartily +thankful towards evening to find myself in bed.</p> +<p>‘Next morning, I fancied it grew quieter and, as I +listened, heard, “Let go the anchor,” whereon I +concluded we had run into Holyhead Harbour, as was indeed the +case. All that day we lay in Holyhead, but I could neither +read nor write nor draw. The captain of another steamer +which had put in came on board, and we all went for a walk on the +hill; and in the evening there was an exchange of presents. +We gave some tobacco I think, and received a cat, two pounds of +fresh butter, a Cumberland ham, <i>Westward Ho</i>! and +Thackeray’s <i>English Humourists</i>. I was +astonished at receiving two such fair books from the captain of a +little coasting screw. Our captain said he [the captain of +the screw] had plenty of money, five or six hundred a year at +least.—“What in the world makes him go rolling about +in such a craft, then?”—“Why, I fancy +he’s reckless; he’s desperate in love with that girl +I mentioned, and she won’t look at him.” Our +honest, fat, old captain says this very grimly in his thick, +broad voice.</p> +<p>‘My head won’t stand much writing yet, so I will +run up and take a look at the blue night sky off the coast of +Portugal.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 26.</p> +<p>‘A nice lad of some two and twenty, A— by name, +goes out in a nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph +clerk, part generally useful person. A— was a great +comfort during the miseries [of the gale]; for when with a dead +head wind and a heavy sea, plates, books, papers, stomachs were +being rolled about in sad confusion, we generally managed to lie +on our backs, and grin, and try discordant staves of the +<i>Flowers of the Forest</i> and the <i>Low-backed Car</i>. +We could sing and laugh, when we could do nothing else; though +A— was ready to swear after each fit was past, that that +was the first time he had felt anything, and at this moment would +declare in broad Scotch that he’d never been sick at all, +qualifying the oath with “except for a minute now and +then.” He brought a cornet-à-piston to +practice on, having had three weeks’ instructions on that +melodious instrument; and if you could hear the horrid sounds +that come! especially at heavy rolls. When I hint he is not +improving, there comes a confession: “I don’t feel +quite right yet, you see!” But he blows away +manfully, and in self-defence I try to roar the tune louder.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘11:30 <span +class="smcap">p.m.</span></p> +<p>‘Long past Cape St. Vincent now. We went within +about 400 yards of the cliffs and light-house in a calm +moonlight, with porpoises springing from the sea, the men +crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the forecastle and the +sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we passed, there +came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy scented; and now as +I write its warm rich flavour contrasts strongly with the salt +air we have been breathing.</p> +<p>‘I paced the deck with H—, the second mate, and in +the quiet night drew a confession that he was engaged to be +married, and gave him a world of good advice. He is a very +nice, active, little fellow, with a broad Scotch tongue and +“dirty, little rascal” appearance. He had a sad +disappointment at starting. Having been second mate on the +last voyage, when the first mate was discharged, he took charge +of the <i>Elba</i> all the time she was in port, and of course +looked forward to being chief mate this trip. Liddell +promised him the post. He had not authority to do this; and +when Newall heard of it, he appointed another man. Fancy +poor H— having told all the men and most of all, his +sweetheart. But more remains behind; for when it came to +signing articles, it turned out that O—, the new first +mate, had not a certificate which allowed him to have a second +mate. Then came rather an affecting scene. For +H— proposed to sign as chief (he having the necessary +higher certificate) but to act as second for the lower +wages. At first O— would not give in, but offered to +go as second. But our brave little H— said, no: +“The owners wished Mr. O— to be chief mate, and chief +mate he should be.” So he carried the day, signed as +chief and acts as second. Shakespeare and Byron are his +favourite books. I walked into Byron a little, but can well +understand his stirring up a rough, young sailor’s +romance. I lent him <i>Westward Ho</i> from the cabin; but +to my astonishment he did not care much for it; he said it smelt +of the shilling railway library; perhaps I had praised it too +highly. Scott is his standard for novels. I am very +happy to find good taste by no means confined to gentlemen, +H— having no pretensions to that title. He is a man +after my own heart.</p> +<p>‘Then I came down to the cabin and heard young +A—’s schemes for the future. His highest +picture is a commission in the Prince of Vizianagram’s +irregular horse. His eldest brother is tutor to his +Highness’s children, and grand vizier, and magistrate, and +on his Highness’s household staff, and seems to be one of +those Scotch adventurers one meets with and hears of in queer +berths—raising cavalry, building palaces, and using some +petty Eastern king’s long purse with their long Scotch +heads.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Off Bona; June 4.</p> +<p>‘I read your letter carefully, leaning back in a Maltese +boat to present the smallest surface of my body to a grilling +sun, and sailing from the <i>Elba</i> to Cape Hamrah about three +miles distant. How we fried and sighed! At last, we +reached land under Fort Genova, and I was carried ashore +pick-a-back, and plucked the first flower I saw for Annie. +It was a strange scene, far more novel than I had imagined: the +high, steep banks covered with rich, spicy vegetation of which I +hardly knew one plant. The dwarf palm with fan-like leaves, +growing about two feet high, formed the staple of the +verdure. As we brushed through them, the gummy leaves of a +cistus stuck to the clothes; and with its small white flower and +yellow heart, stood for our English dog-rose. In place of +heather, we had myrtle and lentisque with leaves somewhat +similar. That large bulb with long flat leaves? Do +not touch it if your hands are cut; the Arabs use it as blisters +for their horses. Is that the same sort? No, take +that one up; it is the bulb of a dwarf palm, each layer of the +onion peels off, brown and netted, like the outside of a +cocoa-nut. It is a clever plant that; from the leaves we +get a vegetable horsehair;—and eat the bottom of the centre +spike. All the leaves you pull have the same aromatic +scent. But here a little patch of cleared ground shows old +friends, who seem to cling by abused civilisation:—fine, +hardy thistles, one of them bright yellow, though;—honest, +Scotch-looking, large daisies or gowans;—potatoes here and +there, looking but sickly; and dark sturdy fig-trees looking cool +and at their ease in the burning sun.</p> +<p>‘Here we are at Fort Genova, crowning the little point, +a small old building, due to my old Genoese acquaintance who +fought and traded bravely once upon a time. A broken cannon +of theirs forms the threshold; and through a dark, low arch, we +enter upon broad terraces sloping to the centre, from which rain +water may collect and run into that well. Large-breeched +French troopers lounge about and are most civil; and the whole +party sit down to breakfast in a little white-washed room, from +the door of which the long, mountain coastline and the sparkling +sea show of an impossible blue through the openings of a +white-washed rampart. I try a sea-egg, one of those prickly +fellows—sea-urchins, they are called sometimes; the shell +is of a lovely purple, and when opened, there are rays of yellow +adhering to the inside; these I eat, but they are very fishy.</p> +<p>‘We are silent and shy of one another, and soon go out +to watch while turbaned, blue-breeched, barelegged Arabs dig +holes for the land telegraph posts on the following principle: +one man takes a pick and bangs lazily at the hard earth; when a +little is loosened, his mate with a small spade lifts it on one +side; and <i>da capo</i>. They have regular features and +look quite in place among the palms. Our English workmen +screw the earthenware insulators on the posts, strain the wire, +and order Arabs about by the generic term of Johnny. I find +W— has nothing for me to do; and that in fact no one has +anything to do. Some instruments for testing have stuck at +Lyons, some at Cagliari; and nothing can be done—or at any +rate, is done. I wander about, thinking of you and staring +at big, green grasshoppers—locusts, some people call +them—and smelling the rich brushwood. There was +nothing for a pencil to sketch, and I soon got tired of this +work, though I have paid willingly much money for far less +strange and lovely sights.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Off Cape Spartivento: June +8.</p> +<p>‘At two this morning, we left Cagliari; at five cast +anchor here. I got up and began preparing for the final +trial; and shortly afterwards everyone else of note on board went +ashore to make experiments on the state of the cable, leaving me +with the prospect of beginning to lift at 12 o’clock. +I was not ready by that time; but the experiments were not +concluded and moreover the cable was found to be imbedded some +four or five feet in sand, so that the boat could not bring off +the end. At three, Messrs. Liddell, &c., came on board +in good spirits, having found two wires good or in such a state +as permitted messages to be transmitted freely. The boat +now went to grapple for the cable some way from shore while the +<i>Elba</i> towed a small lateen craft which was to take back the +consul to Cagliari some distance on its way. On our return +we found the boat had been unsuccessful; she was allowed to drop +astern, while we grappled for the cable in the <i>Elba</i> +[without more success]. The coast is a low mountain range +covered with brushwood or heather—pools of water and a +sandy beach at their feet. I have not yet been ashore, my +hands having been very full all day.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 9.</p> +<p>‘Grappling for the cable outside the bank had been voted +too uncertain; [and the day was spent in] efforts to pull the +cable off through the sand which has accumulated over it. +By getting the cable tight on to the boat, and letting the swell +pitch her about till it got slack, and then tightening again with +blocks and pulleys, we managed to get out from the beach towards +the ship at the rate of about twenty yards an hour. When +they had got about 100 yards from shore, we ran round in the +<i>Elba</i> to try and help them, letting go the anchor in the +shallowest possible water, this was about sunset. Suddenly +someone calls out he sees the cable at the bottom: there it was +sure enough, apparently wriggling about as the waves +rippled. Great excitement; still greater when we find our +own anchor is foul of it and has been the means of bringing it to +light. We let go a grapnel, get the cable clear of the +anchor on to the grapnel—the captain in an agony lest we +should drift ashore meanwhile—hand the grappling line into +the big boat, steam out far enough, and anchor again. A +little more work and one end of the cable is up over the bows +round my drum. I go to my engine and we start hauling +in. All goes pretty well, but it is quite dark. Lamps +are got at last, and men arranged. We go on for a quarter +of a mile or so from shore and then stop at about half-past nine +with orders to be up at three. Grand work at last! A +number of the <i>Saturday Review</i> here; it reads so hot and +feverish, so tomblike and unhealthy, in the midst of dear +Nature’s hills and sea, with good wholesome work to +do. Pray that all go well to-morrow.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 10.</p> +<p>‘Thank heaven for a most fortunate day. At three +o’clock this morning in a damp, chill mist all hands were +roused to work. With a small delay, for one or two +improvements I had seen to be necessary last night, the engine +started and since that time I do not think there has been half an +hour’s stoppage. A rope to splice, a block to change, +a wheel to oil, an old rusted anchor to disengage from the cable +which brought it up, these have been our only obstructions. +Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty +revolutions at last, my little engine tears away. The even +black rope comes straight out of the blue heaving water: passes +slowly round an open-hearted, good-tempered looking pulley, five +feet diameter; aft past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should +anything go wrong; through a gentle guide; on to a huge bluff +drum, who wraps him round his body and says “Come you +must,” as plain as drum can speak: the chattering pauls say +“I’ve got him, I’ve got him, he can’t get +back:” whilst black cable, much slacker and easier in mind +and body, is taken by a slim V-pulley and passed down into the +huge hold, where half a dozen men put him comfortably to bed +after his exertion in rising from his long bath. In good +sooth, it is one of the strangest sights I know to see that black +fellow rising up so steadily in the midst of the blue sea. +We are more than half way to the place where we expect the fault; +and already the one wire, supposed previously to be quite bad +near the African coast, can be spoken through. I am very +glad I am here, for my machines are my own children and I look on +their little failings with a parent’s eye and lead them +into the path of duty with gentleness and firmness. I am +naturally in good spirits, but keep very quiet, for misfortunes +may arise at any instant; moreover to-morrow my paying-out +apparatus will be wanted should all go well, and that will be +another nervous operation. Fifteen miles are safely in; but +no one knows better than I do that nothing is done till all is +done.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 11.</p> +<p>‘9 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>—We have reached +the splice supposed to be faulty, and no fault has been +found. The two men learned in electricity, L— and +W—, squabble where the fault is.</p> +<p>‘<i>Evening</i>.—A weary day in a hot broiling +sun; no air. After the experiments, L— said the fault +might be ten miles ahead: by that time, we should be according to +a chart in about a thousand fathoms of water—rather more +than a mile. It was most difficult to decide whether to go +on or not. I made preparations for a heavy pull, set small +things to rights and went to sleep. About four in the +afternoon, Mr. Liddell decided to proceed, and we are now (at +seven) grinding it in at the rate of a mile and three-quarters +per hour, which appears a grand speed to us. If the +paying-out only works well! I have just thought of a great +improvement in it; I can’t apply it this time, +however.—The sea is of an oily calm, and a perfect fleet of +brigs and ships surrounds us, their sails hardly filling in the +lazy breeze. The sun sets behind the dim coast of the Isola +San Pietro, the coast of Sardinia high and rugged becomes softer +and softer in the distance, while to the westward still the +isolated rock of Toro springs from the horizon.—It would +amuse you to see how cool (in head) and jolly everybody is. +A testy word now and then shows the wires are strained a little, +but everyone laughs and makes his little jokes as if it were all +in fun: yet we are all as much in earnest as the most earnest of +the earnest bastard German school or demonstrative of +Frenchmen. I enjoy it very much.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 12.</p> +<p>‘5.30 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>—Out of sight +of land: about thirty nautical miles in the hold; the wind rising +a little; experiments being made for a fault, while the engine +slowly revolves to keep us hanging at the same spot: depth +supposed about a mile. The machinery has behaved +admirably. Oh! that the paying-out were over! The new +machinery there is but rough, meant for an experiment in shallow +water, and here we are in a mile of water.</p> +<p>‘6.30.—I have made my calculations and find the +new paying-out gear cannot possibly answer at this depth, some +portion would give way. Luckily, I have brought the old +things with me and am getting them rigged up as fast as may +be. Bad news from the cable. Number four has given in +some portion of the last ten miles: the fault in number three is +still at the bottom of the sea: number two is now the only good +wire and the hold is getting in such a mess, through keeping bad +bits out and cutting for splicing and testing, that there will be +great risk in paying out. The cable is somewhat strained in +its ascent from one mile below us; what it will be when we get to +two miles is a problem we may have to determine.</p> +<p>‘9 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>—A most +provoking unsatisfactory day. We have done nothing. +The wind and sea have both risen. Too little notice has +been given to the telegraphists who accompany this expedition; +they had to leave all their instruments at Lyons in order to +arrive at Bona in time; our tests are therefore of the roughest, +and no one really knows where the faults are. Mr. L— +in the morning lost much time; then he told us, after we had been +inactive for about eight hours, that the fault in number three +was within six miles; and at six o’clock in the evening, +when all was ready for a start to pick up these six miles, he +comes and says there must be a fault about thirty miles from +Bona! By this time it was too late to begin paying out +to-day, and we must lie here moored in a thousand fathoms till +light to-morrow morning. The ship pitches a good deal, but +the wind is going down.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 13, Sunday.</p> +<p>‘The wind has not gone down, however. It now (at +10.30) blows a pretty stiff gale, the sea has also risen; and the +<i>Elba’s</i> bows rise and fall about 9 feet. We +make twelve pitches to the minute, and the poor cable must feel +very sea-sick by this time. We are quite unable to do +anything, and continue riding at anchor in one thousand fathoms, +the engines going constantly so as to keep the ship’s bows +up to the cable, which by this means hangs nearly vertical and +sustains no strain but that caused by its own weight and the +pitching of the vessel. We were all up at four, but the +weather entirely forbade work for to-day, so some went to bed and +most lay down, making up our leeway as we nautically term our +loss of sleep. I must say Liddell is a fine fellow and +keeps his patience and temper wonderfully; and yet how he does +fret and fume about trifles at home! This wind has blown +now for 36 hours, and yet we have telegrams from Bona to say the +sea there is as calm as a mirror. It makes one laugh to +remember one is still tied to the shore. Click, click, +click, the pecker is at work: I wonder what Herr P— says to +Herr L—,—tests, tests, tests, nothing more. +This will be a very anxious day.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 14.</p> +<p>‘Another day of fatal inaction.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 15.</p> +<p>‘9.30.—The wind has gone down a deal; but even now +there are doubts whether we shall start to-day. When shall +I get back to you?</p> +<p>‘9 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>—Four miles from +land. Our run has been successful and eventless. Now +the work is nearly over I feel a little out of spirits—why, +I should be puzzled to say—mere wantonness, or reaction +perhaps after suspense.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 16.</p> +<p>‘Up this morning at three, coupled my self-acting gear +to the brake and had the satisfaction of seeing it pay out the +last four miles in very good style. With one or two little +improvements, I hope to make it a capital thing. The end +has just gone ashore in two boats, three out of four wires +good. Thus ends our first expedition. By some odd +chance a <i>Times</i> of June the 7th has found its way on board +through the agency of a wretched old peasant who watches the end +of the line here. A long account of breakages in the +Atlantic trial trip. To-night we grapple for the heavy +cable, eight tons to the mile. I long to have a tug at him; +he may puzzle me, and though misfortunes or rather difficulties +are a bore at the time, life when working with cables is tame +without them.</p> +<p>‘2 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>—Hurrah, he is +hooked, the big fellow, almost at the first cast. He hangs +under our bows looking so huge and imposing that I could find it +in my heart to be afraid of him.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 17.</p> +<p>‘We went to a little bay called Chia, where a +fresh-water stream falls into the sea, and took in water. +This is rather a long operation, so I went a walk up the valley +with Mr. Liddell. The coast here consists of rocky +mountains 800 to 1,000 feet high covered with shrubs of a +brilliant green. On landing our first amusement was +watching the hundreds of large fish who lazily swam in shoals +about the river; the big canes on the further side hold +numberless tortoises, we are told, but see none, for just now +they prefer taking a siesta. A little further on, and what +is this with large pink flowers in such abundance?—the +oleander in full flower. At first I fear to pluck them, +thinking they must be cultivated and valuable; but soon the banks +show a long line of thick tall shrubs, one mass of glorious pink +and green. Set these in a little valley, framed by +mountains whose rocks gleam out blue and purple colours such as +pre-Raphaelites only dare attempt, shining out hard and +weird-like amongst the clumps of castor-oil plants, cistus, arbor +vitæ and many other evergreens, whose names, alas! I know +not; the cistus is brown now, the rest all deep or brilliant +green. Large herds of cattle browse on the baked deposit at +the foot of these large crags. One or two half-savage +herdsmen in sheepskin kilts, &c., ask for cigars; partridges +whirr up on either side of us; pigeons coo and nightingales sing +amongst the blooming oleander. We get six sheep and many +fowls, too, from the priest of the small village; and then run +back to Spartivento and make preparations for the morning.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 18.</p> +<p>‘The big cable is stubborn and will not behave like his +smaller brother. The gear employed to take him off the drum +is not strong enough; he gets slack on the drum and plays the +mischief. Luckily for my own conscience, the gear I had +wanted was negatived by Mr. Newall. Mr. Liddell does not +exactly blame me, but he says we might have had a silver pulley +cheaper than the cost of this delay. He has telegraphed for +more men to Cagliari, to try to pull the cable off the drum into +the hold, by hand. I look as comfortable as I can, but feel +as if people were blaming me. I am trying my best to get +something rigged which may help us; I wanted a little difficulty, +and feel much better.—The short length we have picked up +was covered at places with beautiful sprays of coral, twisted and +twined with shells of those small, fairy animals we saw in the +aquarium at home; poor little things, they died at once, with +their little bells and delicate bright tints.</p> +<p>‘12 <i>o’clock</i>.—Hurrah, victory! for the +present anyhow. Whilst in our first dejection, I thought I +saw a place where a flat roller would remedy the whole +misfortune; but a flat roller at Cape Spartivento, hard, easily +unshipped, running freely! There was a grooved pulley used +for the paying-out machinery with a spindle wheel, which might +suit me. I filled him up with tarry spunyarn, nailed sheet +copper round him, bent some parts in the fire; and we are +paying-in without more trouble now. You would think some +one would praise me; no, no more praise than blame before; +perhaps now they think better of me, though.</p> +<p>‘10 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>—We have gone +on very comfortably for nearly six miles. An hour and a +half was spent washing down; for along with many coloured polypi, +from corals, shells and insects, the big cable brings up much mud +and rust, and makes a fishy smell by no means pleasant: the +bottom seems to teem with life.—But now we are startled by +a most unpleasant, grinding noise; which appeared at first to +come from the large low pulley, but when the engines stopped, the +noise continued; and we now imagine it is something slipping down +the cable, and the pulley but acts as sounding-board to the big +fiddle. Whether it is only an anchor or one of the two +other cables, we know not. We hope it is not the cable just +laid down.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 19.</p> +<p>‘10 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>—All our alarm +groundless, it would appear: the odd noise ceased after a time, +and there was no mark sufficiently strong on the large cable to +warrant the suspicion that we had cut another line through. +I stopped up on the look-out till three in the morning, which +made 23 hours between sleep and sleep. One goes dozing +about, though, most of the day, for it is only when something +goes wrong that one has to look alive. Hour after hour, I +stand on the forecastle-head, picking off little specimens of +polypi and coral, or lie on the saloon deck reading back numbers +of the <i>Times</i>—till something hitches, and then all is +hurly-burly once more. There are awnings all along the +ship, and a most ancient, fish-like smell beneath.</p> +<p>‘1 <i>o’clock</i>.—Suddenly a great strain +in only 95 fathoms of water—belts surging and general +dismay; grapnels being thrown out in the hope of finding what +holds the cable.—Should it prove the young cable! We +are apparently crossing its path—not the working one, but +the lost child; Mr. Liddell <i>would</i> start the big one first +though it was laid first: he wanted to see the job done, and +meant to leave us to the small one unaided by his presence.</p> +<p>‘3.30.—Grapnel caught something, lost it again; it +left its marks on the prongs. Started lifting gear again; +and after hauling in some 50 fathoms—grunt, grunt, +grunt—we hear the other cable slipping down our big one, +playing the selfsame tune we heard last night—louder, +however.</p> +<p>‘10 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>—The pull on +the deck engines became harder and harder. I got steam up +in a boiler on deck, and another little engine starts hauling at +the grapnel. I wonder if there ever was such a scene of +confusion: Mr. Liddell and W— and the captain all giving +orders contradictory, &c., on the forecastle; D—, the +foreman of our men, the mates, &c., following the example of +our superiors; the ship’s engine and boilers below, a +50-horse engine on deck, a boiler 14 feet long on deck beside it, +a little steam winch tearing round; a dozen Italians (20 have +come to relieve our hands, the men we telegraphed for to +Cagliari) hauling at the rope; wiremen, sailors, in the crevices +left by ropes and machinery; everything that could swear +swearing—I found myself swearing like a trooper at +last. We got the unknown difficulty within ten fathoms of +the surface; but then the forecastle got frightened that, if it +was the small cable which we had got hold of, we should certainly +break it by continuing the tremendous and increasing +strain. So at last Mr. Liddell decided to stop; cut the big +cable, buoying its end; go back to our pleasant watering-place at +Chia, take more water and start lifting the small cable. +The end of the large one has even now regained its sandy bed; and +three buoys—one to grapnel foul of the supposed small +cable, two to the big cable—are dipping about on the +surface. One more—a flag-buoy—will soon follow, +and then straight for shore.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 20.</p> +<p>‘It is an ill-wind, &c. I have an unexpected +opportunity of forwarding this engineering letter; for the craft +which brought out our Italian sailors must return to Cagliari +to-night, as the little cable will take us nearly to Galita, and +the Italian skipper could hardly find his way from thence. +To-day—Sunday—not much rest. Mr. Liddell is at +Spartivento telegraphing. We are at Chia, and shall shortly +go to help our boat’s crew in getting the small cable on +board. We dropped them some time since in order that they +might dig it out of the sand as far as possible.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 21.</p> +<p>‘Yesterday—Sunday as it was—all hands were +kept at work all day, coaling, watering, and making a futile +attempt to pull the cable from the shore on board through the +sand. This attempt was rather silly after the experience we +had gained at Cape Spartivento. This morning we grappled, +hooked the cable at once, and have made an excellent start. +Though I have called this the small cable, it is much larger than +the Bona one.—Here comes a break down and a bad one.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 22.</p> +<p>‘We got over it, however; but it is a warning to me that +my future difficulties will arise from parts wearing out. +Yesterday the cable was often a lovely sight, coming out of the +water one large incrustation of delicate, net-like corals and +long, white curling shells. No portion of the dirty black +wires was visible; instead we had a garland of soft pink with +little scarlet sprays and white enamel intermixed. All was +fragile, however, and could hardly be secured in safety; and +inexorable iron crushed the tender leaves to atoms.—This +morning at the end of my watch, about 4 o’clock, we came to +the buoys, proving our anticipations right concerning the +crossing of the cables. I went to bed for four hours, and +on getting up, found a sad mess. A tangle of the six-wire +cable hung to the grapnel which had been left buoyed, and the +small cable had parted and is lost for the present. Our +hauling of the other day must have done the mischief.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 23.</p> +<p>‘We contrived to get the two ends of the large cable and +to pick the short end up. The long end, leading us seaward, +was next put round the drum and a mile of it picked up; but then, +fearing another tangle, the end was cut and buoyed, and we +returned to grapple for the three-wire cable. All this is +very tiresome for me. The buoying and dredging are managed +entirely by W—, who has had much experience in this sort of +thing; so I have not enough to do and get very homesick. At +noon the wind freshened and the sea rose so high that we had to +run for land and are once more this evening anchored at Chia.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 24.</p> +<p>‘The whole day spent in dredging without success. +This operation consists in allowing the ship to drift slowly +across the line where you expect the cable to be, while at the +end of a long rope, fast either to the bow or stern, a grapnel +drags along the ground. This grapnel is a small anchor, +made like four pot-hooks tied back to back. When the rope +gets taut, the ship is stopped and the grapnel hauled up to the +surface in the hopes of finding the cable on its prongs.—I +am much discontented with myself for idly lounging about and +reading <i>Westward Ho</i>! for the second time, instead of +taking to electricity or picking up nautical information. I +am uncommonly idle. The sea is not quite so rough, but the +weather is squally and the rain comes in frequent gusts.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 25.</p> +<p>‘To-day about 1 o’clock we hooked the three-wire +cable, buoyed the long sea end, and picked up the short [or +shore] end. Now it is dark and we must wait for morning +before lifting the buoy we lowered to-day and proceeding +seawards.—The depth of water here is about 600 feet, the +height of a respectable English hill; our fishing line was about +a quarter of a mile long. It blows pretty fresh, and there +is a great deal of sea.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘26th.</p> +<p>‘This morning it came on to blow so heavily that it was +impossible to take up our buoy. The <i>Elba</i> recommenced +rolling in true Baltic style and towards noon we ran for +land.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘27th, Sunday.</p> +<p>‘This morning was a beautiful calm. We reached the +buoys at about 4.30 and commenced picking up at 6.30. +Shortly a new cause of anxiety arose. Kinks came up in +great quantities, about thirty in the hour. To have a true +conception of a kink, you must see one: it is a loop drawn tight, +all the wires get twisted and the gutta-percha inside pushed +out. These much diminish the value of the cable, as they +must all be cut out, the gutta-percha made good, and the cable +spliced. They arise from the cable having been badly laid +down so that it forms folds and tails at the bottom of the +sea. These kinks have another disadvantage: they weaken the +cable very much.—At about six o’clock [<span +class="smcap">p.m.</span>] we had some twelve miles lifted, when +I went to the bows; the kinks were exceedingly tight and were +giving way in a most alarming manner. I got a cage rigged +up to prevent the end (if it broke) from hurting anyone, and sat +down on the bowsprit, thinking I should describe kinks to +Annie:—suddenly I saw a great many coils and kinks +altogether at the surface. I jumped to the gutta-percha +pipe, by blowing through which the signal is given to stop the +engine. I blow, but the engine does not stop; +again—no answer: the coils and kinks jam in the bows and I +rush aft shouting stop. Too late: the cable had parted and +must lie in peace at the bottom. Someone had pulled the +gutta-percha tube across a bare part of the steam pipe and melted +it. It had been used hundreds of times in the last few days +and gave no symptoms of failing. I believe the cable must +have gone at any rate; however, since it went in my watch and +since I might have secured the tubing more strongly, I feel +rather sad. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June 28.</p> +<p>‘Since I could not go to Annie I took down Shakespeare, +and by the time I had finished <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, read +the second half of <i>Troilus</i> and got some way in +<i>Coriolanus</i>, I felt it was childish to regret the accident +had happened in my watch, and moreover I felt myself not much to +blame in the tubing matter—it had been torn down, it had +not fallen down; so I went to bed, and slept without fretting, +and woke this morning in the same good mood—for which thank +you and our friend Shakespeare. I am happy to say Mr. +Liddell said the loss of the cable did not much matter; though +this would have been no consolation had I felt myself to +blame.—This morning we have grappled for and found another +length of small cable which Mr. — dropped in 100 fathoms of +water. If this also gets full of kinks, we shall probably +have to cut it after 10 miles or so, or more probably still it +will part of its own free will or weight.</p> +<p>‘10 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>—This second +length of three-wire cable soon got into the same condition as +its fellow—i.e. came up twenty kinks an hour—and +after seven miles were in, parted on the pulley over the bows at +one of the said kinks; during my watch again, but this time no +earthly power could have saved it. I had taken all manner +of precautions to prevent the end doing any damage when the smash +came, for come I knew it must. We now return to the +six-wire cable. As I sat watching the cable to-night, large +phosphorescent globes kept rolling from it and fading in the +black water.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘29th.</p> +<p>‘To-day we returned to the buoy we had left at the end +of the six-wire cable, and after much trouble from a series of +tangles, got a fair start at noon. You will easily believe +a tangle of iron rope inch and a half diameter is not easy to +unravel, especially with a ton or so hanging to the ends. +It is now eight o’clock and we have about six and a half +miles safe: it becomes very exciting, however, for the kinks are +coming fast and furious.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘July 2.</p> +<p>‘Twenty-eight miles safe in the hold. The ship is +now so deep, that the men are to be turned out of their aft hold, +and the remainder coiled there; so the good <i>Elba’s</i> +nose need not burrow too far into the waves. There can only +be about 10 or 12 miles more, but these weigh 80 or 100 tons.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘July 5.</p> +<p>‘Our first mate was much hurt in securing a buoy on the +evening of the 2nd. As interpreter [with the Italians] I am +useful in all these cases; but for no fortune would I be a doctor +to witness these scenes continually. Pain is a terrible +thing.—Our work is done: the whole of the six-wire cable +has been recovered; only a small part of the three-wire, but that +wire was bad and, owing to its twisted state, the value +small. We may therefore be said to have been very +successful.’</p> +<h3>II.</h3> +<p>I have given this cruise nearly in full. From the notes, +unhappily imperfect, of two others, I will take only specimens; +for in all there are features of similarity and it is possible to +have too much even of submarine telegraphy and the romance of +engineering. And first from the cruise of 1859 in the Greek +Islands and to Alexandria, take a few traits, incidents and +pictures.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 10, 1859.</p> +<p>‘We had a fair wind and we did very well, seeing a +little bit of Cerig or Cythera, and lots of turtle-doves +wandering about over the sea and perching, tired and timid, in +the rigging of our little craft. Then Falconera, Antimilo, +and Milo, topped with huge white clouds, barren, deserted, rising +bold and mysterious from the blue, chafing sea;—Argentiera, +Siphano, Scapho, Paros, Antiparos, and late at night Syra +itself. <i>Adam Bede</i> in one hand, a sketch-book in the +other, lying on rugs under an awning, I enjoyed a very pleasant +day.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 14.</p> +<p>‘Syra is semi-eastern. The pavement, huge +shapeless blocks sloping to a central gutter; from this bare +two-storied houses, sometimes plaster many coloured, sometimes +rough-hewn marble, rise, dirty and ill-finished to straight, +plain, flat roofs; shops guiltless of windows, with signs in +Greek letters; dogs, Greeks in blue, baggy, Zouave breeches and a +fez, a few narghilehs and a sprinkling of the ordinary +continental shopboys.—In the evening I tried one more walk +in Syra with A—, but in vain endeavoured to amuse myself or +to spend money; the first effort resulting in singing +<i>Doodah</i> to a passing Greek or two, the second in spending, +no, in making A— spend, threepence on coffee for three.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 16.</p> +<p>‘On coming on deck, I found we were at anchor in Canea +bay, and saw one of the most lovely sights man could +witness. Far on either hand stretch bold mountain capes, +Spada and Maleka, tender in colour, bold in outline; rich sunny +levels lie beneath them, framed by the azure sea. Right in +front, a dark brown fortress girdles white mosques and +minarets. Rich and green, our mountain capes here join to +form a setting for the town, in whose dark walls—still +darker—open a dozen high-arched caves in which the huge +Venetian galleys used to lie in wait. High above all, +higher and higher yet, up into the firmament, range after range +of blue and snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered and +amazed, having heard nothing of this great beauty. The town +when entered is quite eastern. The streets are formed of +open stalls under the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, +sherbet vendors and the like, busy at their work or smoking +narghilehs. Cloths stretched from house to house keep out +the sun. Mules rattle through the crowd; curs yelp between +your legs; negroes are as hideous and bright clothed as usual; +grave Turks with long chibouques continue to march solemnly +without breaking them; a little Arab in one dirty rag pokes fun +at two splendid little Turks with brilliant fezzes; wiry +mountaineers in dirty, full, white kilts, shouldering long guns +and one hand on their pistols, stalk untamed past a dozen Turkish +soldiers, who look sheepish and brutal in worn cloth jacket and +cotton trousers. A headless, wingless lion of St. Mark +still stands upon a gate, and has left the mark of his strong +clutch. Of ancient times when Crete was Crete, not a trace +remains; save perhaps in the full, well-cut nostril and firm +tread of that mountaineer, and I suspect that even his sires were +Albanians, mere outer barbarians.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 17.</p> +<p>I spent the day at the little station where the cable was +landed, which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and +then a Turkish mosque. At any rate the big dome is very +cool, and the little ones hold [our electric] batteries +capitally. A handsome young Bashibazouk guards it, and a +still handsomer mountaineer is the servant; so I draw them and +the monastery and the hill, till I’m black in the face with +heat and come on board to hear the Canea cable is still bad.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 23.</p> +<p>‘We arrived in the morning at the east end of Candia, +and had a glorious scramble over the mountains which seem built +of adamant. Time has worn away the softer portions of the +rock, only leaving sharp jagged edges of steel. Sea eagles +soaring above our heads; old tanks, ruins, and desolation at our +feet. The ancient Arsinoe stood here; a few blocks of +marble with the cross attest the presence of Venetian Christians; +but now—the desolation of desolations. Mr. Liddell +and I separated from the rest, and when we had found a sure bay +for the cable, had a tremendous lively scramble back to the +boat. These are the bits of our life which I enjoy, which +have some poetry, some grandeur in them.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘May 29 (?).</p> +<p>‘Yesterday we ran round to the new harbour [of +Alexandria], landed the shore end of the cable close to +Cleopatra’s bath, and made a very satisfactory start about +one in the afternoon. We had scarcely gone 200 yards when I +noticed that the cable ceased to run out, and I wondered why the +ship had stopped. People ran aft to tell me not to put such +a strain on the cable; I answered indignantly that there was no +strain; and suddenly it broke on every one in the ship at once +that we were aground. Here was a nice mess. A violent +scirocco blew from the land; making one’s skin feel as if +it belonged to some one else and didn’t fit, making the +horizon dim and yellow with fine sand, oppressing every sense and +raising the thermometer 20 degrees in an hour, but making calm +water round us which enabled the ship to lie for the time in +safety. The wind might change at any moment, since the +scirocco was only accidental; and at the first wave from seaward +bump would go the poor ship, and there would [might] be an end of +our voyage. The captain, without waiting to sound, began to +make an effort to put the ship over what was supposed to be a +sandbank; but by the time soundings were made, this was found to +be impossible, and he had only been jamming the poor <i>Elba</i> +faster on a rock. Now every effort was made to get her +astern, an anchor taken out, a rope brought to a winch I had for +the cable, and the engines backed; but all in vain. A small +Turkish Government steamer, which is to be our consort, came to +our assistance, but of course very slowly, and much time was +occupied before we could get a hawser to her. I could do no +good after having made a chart of the soundings round the ship, +and went at last on to the bridge to sketch the scene. But +at that moment the strain from the winch and a jerk from the +Turkish steamer got off the boat, after we had been some hours +aground. The carpenter reported that she had made only two +inches of water in one compartment; the cable was still uninjured +astern, and our spirits rose; when, will you believe it? after +going a short distance astern, the pilot ran us once more fast +aground on what seemed to me nearly the same spot. The very +same scene was gone through as on the first occasion, and dark +came on whilst the wind shifted, and we were still aground. +Dinner was served up, but poor Mr. Liddell could eat very little; +and bump, bump, grind, grind, went the ship fifteen or sixteen +times as we sat at dinner. The slight sea, however, did +enable us to bump off. This morning we appear not to have +suffered in any way; but a sea is rolling in, which a few hours +ago would have settled the poor old <i>Elba</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June —.</p> +<p>‘The Alexandria cable has again failed; after paying out +two-thirds of the distance successfully, an unlucky touch in deep +water snapped the line. Luckily the accident occurred in +Mr. Liddell’s watch. Though personally it may not +really concern me, the accident weighs like a personal +misfortune. Still I am glad I was present: a failure is +probably more instructive than a success; and this experience may +enable us to avoid misfortune in still greater undertakings.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘June —.</p> +<p>‘We left Syra the morning after our arrival on Saturday +the 4th. This we did (first) because we were in a hurry to +do something and (second) because, coming from Alexandria, we had +four days’ quarantine to perform. We were all +mustered along the side while the doctor counted us; the letters +were popped into a little tin box and taken away to be smoked; +the guardians put on board to see that we held no communication +with the shore—without them we should still have had four +more days’ quarantine; and with twelve Greek sailors +besides, we started merrily enough picking up the Canea cable. . +. . To our utter dismay, the yarn covering began to come up quite +decayed, and the cable, which when laid should have borne half a +ton, was now in danger of snapping with a tenth part of that +strain. We went as slow as possible in fear of a break at +every instant. My watch was from eight to twelve in the +morning, and during that time we had barely secured three miles +of cable. Once it broke inside the ship, but I seized hold +of it in time—the weight being hardly anything—and +the line for the nonce was saved. Regular nooses were then +planted inboard with men to draw them taut, should the cable +break inboard. A—, who should have relieved me, was +unwell, so I had to continue my look-out; and about one +o’clock the line again parted, but was again caught in the +last noose, with about four inches to spare. Five minutes +afterwards it again parted and was yet once more caught. +Mr. Liddell (whom I had called) could stand this no longer; so we +buoyed the line and ran into a bay in Siphano, waiting for calm +weather, though I was by no means of opinion that the slight sea +and wind had been the cause of our failures.—All next day +(Monday) we lay off Siphano, amusing ourselves on shore with +fowling pieces and navy revolvers. I need not say we killed +nothing; and luckily we did not wound any of ourselves. A +guardiano accompanied us, his functions being limited to +preventing actual contact with the natives, for they might come +as near and talk as much as they pleased. These isles of +Greece are sad, interesting places. They are not really +barren all over, but they are quite destitute of verdure; and +tufts of thyme, wild mastic or mint, though they sound well, are +not nearly so pretty as grass. Many little churches, +glittering white, dot the islands; most of them, I believe, +abandoned during the whole year with the exception of one day +sacred to their patron saint. The villages are mean, but +the inhabitants do not look wretched and the men are good +sailors. There is something in this Greek race yet; they +will become a powerful Levantine nation in the course of +time.—What a lovely moonlight evening that was! the barren +island cutting the clear sky with fantastic outline, marble +cliffs on either hand fairly gleaming over the calm sea. +Next day, the wind still continuing, I proposed a boating +excursion and decoyed A—, L—, and S— into +accompanying me. We took the little gig, and sailed away +merrily enough round a point to a beautiful white bay, flanked +with two glistening little churches, fronted by beautiful distant +islands; when suddenly, to my horror, I discovered the +<i>Elba</i> steaming full speed out from the island. Of +course we steered after her; but the wind that instant ceased, +and we were left in a dead calm. There was nothing for it +but to unship the mast, get out the oars and pull. The ship +was nearly certain to stop at the buoy; and I wanted to learn how +to take an oar, so here was a chance with a vengeance! +L— steered, and we three pulled—a broiling pull it +was about half way across to Palikandro—still we did come +in, pulling an uncommon good stroke, and I had learned to hang on +my oar. L— had pressed me to let him take my place; +but though I was very tired at the end of the first quarter of an +hour, and then every successive half hour, I would not give +in. I nearly paid dear for my obstinacy, however; for in +the evening I had alternate fits of shivering and +burning.’</p> +<h3>III.</h3> +<p>The next extracts, and I am sorry to say the last, are from +Fleeming’s letters of 1860, when he was back at Bona and +Spartivento and for the first time at the head of an +expedition. Unhappily these letters are not only the last, +but the series is quite imperfect; and this is the more to be +lamented as he had now begun to use a pen more skilfully, and in +the following notes there is at times a touch of real distinction +in the manner.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Cagliari: October 5, +1860.</p> +<p>‘All Tuesday I spent examining what was on board the +<i>Elba</i>, and trying to start the repairs of the Spartivento +land line, which has been entirely neglected, and no wonder, for +no one has been paid for three months, no, not even the poor +guards who have to keep themselves, their horses and their +families, on their pay. Wednesday morning, I started for +Spartivento and got there in time to try a good many +experiments. Spartivento looks more wild and savage than +ever, but is not without a strange deadly beauty: the hills +covered with bushes of a metallic green with coppery patches of +soil in between; the valleys filled with dry salt mud and a +little stagnant water; where that very morning the deer had +drunk, where herons, curlews, and other fowl abound, and where, +alas! malaria is breeding with this rain. (No fear for those who +do not sleep on shore.) A little iron hut had been placed +there since 1858; but the windows had been carried off, the door +broken down, the roof pierced all over. In it, we sat to +make experiments; and how it recalled Birkenhead! There was +Thomson, there was my testing board, the strings of gutta-percha; +Harry P— even, battering with the batteries; but where was +my darling Annie? Whilst I sat feet in sand, with Harry +alone inside the hut—mats, coats, and wood to darken the +window—the others visited the murderous old friar, who is +of the order of Scaloppi, and for whom I brought a letter from +his superior, ordering him to pay us attention; but he was away +from home, gone to Cagliari in a boat with the produce of the +farm belonging to his convent. Then they visited the tower +of Chia, but could not get in because the door is thirty feet off +the ground; so they came back and pitched a magnificent tent +which I brought from the <i>Bahiana</i> a long time ago—and +where they will live (if I mistake not) in preference to the +friar’s, or the owl- and bat-haunted tower. MM. +T— and S— will be left there: T—, an +intelligent, hard-working Frenchman, with whom I am well pleased; +he can speak English and Italian well, and has been two years at +Genoa. S— is a French German with a face like an +ancient Gaul, who has been sergeant-major in the French line and +who is, I see, a great, big, muscular +<i>fainéant</i>. We left the tent pitched and some +stores in charge of a guide, and ran back to Cagliari.</p> +<p>‘Certainly, being at the head of things is pleasanter +than being subordinate. We all agree very well; and I have +made the testing office into a kind of private room where I can +come and write to you undisturbed, surrounded by my dear, bright +brass things which all of them remind me of our nights at +Birkenhead. Then I can work here, too, and try lots of +experiments; you know how I like that! and now and then I +read—Shakespeare principally. Thank you so much for +making me bring him: I think I must get a pocket edition of +Hamlet and Henry the Fifth, so as never to be without them.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Cagliari: October 7.</p> +<p>‘[The town was full?] . . . of red-shirted English +Garibaldini. A very fine looking set of fellows they are, +too: the officers rather raffish, but with medals Crimean and +Indian; the men a very sturdy set, with many lads of good birth I +should say. They still wait their consort the Emperor and +will, I fear, be too late to do anything. I meant to have +called on them, but they are all gone into barracks some way from +the town, and I have been much too busy to go far.</p> +<p>‘The view from the ramparts was very strange and +beautiful. Cagliari rises on a very steep rock, at the +mouth of a wide plain circled by large hills and three-quarters +filled with lagoons; it looks, therefore, like an old island +citadel. Large heaps of salt mark the border between the +sea and the lagoons; thousands of flamingoes whiten the centre of +the huge shallow marsh; hawks hover and scream among the trees +under the high mouldering battlements.—A little lower down, +the band played. Men and ladies bowed and pranced, the +costumes posed, church bells tinkled, processions processed, the +sun set behind thick clouds capping the hills; I pondered on you +and enjoyed it all.</p> +<p>‘Decidedly I prefer being master to being man: boats at +all hours, stewards flying for marmalade, captain enquiring when +ship is to sail, clerks to copy my writing, the boat to steer +when we go out—I have run her nose on several times; +decidedly, I begin to feel quite a little king. Confound +the cable, though! I shall never be able to repair it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘Bona: October 14.</p> +<p>‘We left Cagliari at 4.30 on the 9th and soon got to +Spartivento. I repeated some of my experiments, but found +Thomson, who was to have been my grand stand-by, would not work +on that day in the wretched little hut. Even if the windows +and door had been put in, the wind which was very high made the +lamp flicker about and blew it out; so I sent on board and got +old sails, and fairly wrapped the hut up in them; and then we +were as snug as could be, and I left the hut in glorious +condition with a nice little stove in it. The tent which +should have been forthcoming from the curé’s for the +guards, had gone to Cagliari; but I found another, [a] green, +Turkish tent, in the <i>Elba</i> and soon had him up. The +square tent left on the last occasion was standing all right and +tight in spite of wind and rain. We landed provisions, two +beds, plates, knives, forks, candles, cooking utensils, and were +ready for a start at 6 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>; but the +wind meanwhile had come on to blow at such a rate that I thought +better of it, and we stopped. T— and S— slept +ashore, however, to see how they liked it, at least they tried to +sleep, for S— the ancient sergeant-major had a toothache, +and T— thought the tent was coming down every minute. +Next morning they could only complain of sand and a leaky +coffee-pot, so I leave them with a good conscience. The +little encampment looked quite picturesque: the green round tent, +the square white tent and the hut all wrapped up in sails, on a +sand hill, looking on the sea and masking those confounded +marshes at the back. One would have thought the +Cagliaritans were in a conspiracy to frighten the two poor +fellows, who (I believe) will be safe enough if they do not go +into the marshes after nightfall. S— brought a little +dog to amuse them, such a jolly, ugly little cur without a tail, +but full of fun; he will be better than quinine.</p> +<p>‘The wind drove a barque, which had anchored near us for +shelter, out to sea. We started, however, at 2 <span +class="smcap">p.m.</span>, and had a quick passage but a very +rough one, getting to Bona by daylight [on the 11th]. Such +a place as this is for getting anything done! The health +boat went away from us at 7.30 with W— on board; and we +heard nothing of them till 9.30, when W— came back with two +fat Frenchmen who are to look on on the part of the +Government. They are exactly alike: only one has four bands +and the other three round his cap, and so I know them. Then +I sent a boat round to Fort Gênois [Fort Genova of 1858], +where the cable is landed, with all sorts of things and +directions, whilst I went ashore to see about coals and a room at +the fort. We hunted people in the little square in their +shops and offices, but only found them in cafés. One +amiable gentleman wasn’t up at 9.30, was out at 10, and as +soon as he came back the servant said he would go to bed and not +get up till 3: he came, however, to find us at a café, and +said that, on the contrary, two days in the week he did not do +so! Then my two fat friends must have their breakfast after +their “something” at a café; and all the shops +shut from 10 to 2; and the post does not open till 12; and there +was a road to Fort Gênois, only a bridge had been carried +away, &c. At last I got off, and we rowed round to Fort +Gênois, where my men had put up a capital gipsy tent with +sails, and there was my big board and Thomson’s number 5 in +great glory. I soon came to the conclusion there was a +break. Two of my faithful Cagliaritans slept all night in +the little tent, to guard it and my precious instruments; and the +sea, which was rather rough, silenced my Frenchmen.</p> +<p>‘Next day I went on with my experiments, whilst a boat +grappled for the cable a little way from shore and buoyed it +where the <i>Elba</i> could get hold. I brought all back to +the <i>Elba</i>, tried my machinery and was all ready for a start +next morning. But the wretched coal had not come yet; +Government permission from Algiers to be got; lighters, men, +baskets, and I know not what forms to be got or got +through—and everybody asleep! Coals or no coals, I +was determined to start next morning; and start we did at four in +the morning, picked up the buoy with our deck engine, popped the +cable across a boat, tested the wires to make sure the fault was +not behind us, and started picking up at 11. Everything worked +admirably, and about 2 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, in came +the fault. There is no doubt the cable was broken by coral +fishers; twice they have had it up to their own knowledge.</p> +<p>‘Many men have been ashore to-day and have come back +tipsy, and the whole ship is in a state of quarrel from top to +bottom, and they will gossip just within my hearing. And we +have had, moreover, three French gentlemen and a French lady to +dinner, and I had to act host and try to manage the mixtures to +their taste. The good-natured little Frenchwoman was most +amusing; when I asked her if she would have some apple +tart—“<i>Mon Dieu</i>,” with heroic +resignation, “<i>je veux bien</i>”; or a little +<i>plombodding</i>—“<i>Mais ce que vous voudrez</i>, +<i>Monsieur</i>!”</p> +<p>‘S. S. <i>Elba</i>, somewhere not far from Bona: Oct. +19.</p> +<p>‘Yesterday [after three previous days of useless +grappling] was destined to be very eventful. We began +dredging at daybreak and hooked at once every time in rocks; but +by capital luck, just as we were deciding it was no use to +continue in that place, we hooked the cable: up it came, was +tested, and lo! another complete break, a quarter of a mile +off. I was amazed at my own tranquillity under these +disappointments, but I was not really half so fussy as about +getting a cab. Well, there was nothing for it but grappling +again, and, as you may imagine, we were getting about six miles +from shore. But the water did not deepen rapidly; we seemed +to be on the crest of a kind of submarine mountain in +prolongation of Cape de Gonde, and pretty havoc we must have made +with the crags. What rocks we did hook! No sooner was +the grapnel down than the ship was anchored; and then came such a +business: ship’s engines going, deck engine thundering, +belt slipping, fear of breaking ropes: actually breaking +grapnels. It was always an hour or more before we could get +the grapnel down again. At last we had to give up the +place, though we knew we were close to the cable, and go further +to sea in much deeper water; to my great fear, as I knew the +cable was much eaten away and would stand but little +strain. Well, we hooked the cable first dredge this time, +and pulled it slowly and gently to the top, with much +trepidation. Was it the cable? was there any weight on? it +was evidently too small. Imagine my dismay when the cable +did come up, but hanging loosely, thus</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p184ab.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of cable coming up hanging loosely" +title= +"Sketch of cable coming up hanging loosely" +src="images/p184as.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>instead of taut, thus</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p184bb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Sketch of cable coming up hanging taut" +title= +"Sketch of cable coming up hanging taut" +src="images/p184bs.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>showing certain signs of a break close by. For a moment +I felt provoked, as I thought, “Here we are in deep water, +and the cable will not stand lifting!” I tested at +once, and by the very first wire found it had broken towards +shore and was good towards sea. This was of course very +pleasant; but from that time to this, though the wires test very +well, not a signal has come from Spartivento. I got the +cable into a boat, and a gutta-percha line from the ship to the +boat, and we signalled away at a great rate—but no signs of +life. The tests, however, make me pretty sure one wire at +least is good; so I determined to lay down cable from where we +were to the shore, and go to Spartivento to see what had happened +there. I fear my men are ill. The night was lovely, +perfectly calm; so we lay close to the boat and signals were +continually sent, but with no result. This morning I laid +the cable down to Fort Gênois in style; and now we are +picking up odds and ends of cable between the different breaks, +and getting our buoys on board, &c. To-morrow I expect +to leave for Spartivento.’</p> +<h3>IV.</h3> +<p>And now I am quite at an end of journal keeping; diaries and +diary letters being things of youth which Fleeming had at length +outgrown. But one or two more fragments from his +correspondence may be taken, and first this brief sketch of the +laying of the Norderney cable; mainly interesting as showing +under what defects of strength and in what extremities of pain, +this cheerful man must at times continue to go about his +work.</p> +<p>‘I slept on board 29th September having arranged +everything to start by daybreak from where we lay in the roads: +but at daybreak a heavy mist hung over us so that nothing of land +or water could be seen. At midday it lifted suddenly and +away we went with perfect weather, but could not find the buoys +Forde left, that evening. I saw the captain was not strong +in navigation, and took matters next day much more into my own +hands and before nine o’clock found the buoys; (the weather +had been so fine we had anchored in the open sea near +Texel). It took us till the evening to reach the buoys, get +the cable on board, test the first half, speak to Lowestoft, make +the splice, and start. H— had not finished his work +at Norderney, so I was alone on board for Reuter. Moreover +the buoys to guide us in our course were not placed, and the +captain had very vague ideas about keeping his course; so I had +to do a good deal, and only lay down as I was for two hours in +the night. I managed to run the course perfectly. +Everything went well, and we found Norderney just where we wanted +it next afternoon, and if the shore end had been laid, could have +finished there and then, October 1st. But when we got to +Norderney, we found the <i>Caroline</i> with shore end lying +apparently aground, and could not understand her signals; so we +had to anchor suddenly and I went off in a small boat with the +captain to the <i>Caroline</i>. It was cold by this time, +and my arm was rather stiff and I was tired; I hauled myself up +on board the <i>Caroline</i> by a rope and found H— and two +men on board. All the rest were trying to get the shore end +on shore, but had failed and apparently had stuck on shore, and +the waves were getting up. We had anchored in the right +place and next morning we hoped the shore end would be laid, so +we had only to go back. It was of course still colder and +quite night. I went to bed and hoped to sleep, but, alas, +the rheumatism got into the joints and caused me terrible pain so +that I could not sleep. I bore it as long as I could in +order to disturb no one, for all were tired; but at last I could +bear it no longer and managed to wake the steward and got a +mustard poultice which took the pain from the shoulder; but then +the elbow got very bad, and I had to call the second steward and +get a second poultice, and then it was daylight, and I felt very +ill and feverish. The sea was now rather rough—too +rough rather for small boats, but luckily a sort of thing called +a scoot came out, and we got on board her with some trouble, and +got on shore after a good tossing about which made us all +sea-sick. The cable sent from the <i>Caroline</i> was just +60 yards too short and did not reach the shore, so although the +<i>Caroline</i> did make the splice late that night, we could +neither test nor speak. Reuter was at Norderney, and I had +to do the best I could, which was not much, and went to bed +early; I thought I should never sleep again, but in sheer +desperation got up in the middle of the night and gulped a lot of +raw whiskey and slept at last. But not long. A Mr. +F— washed my face and hands and dressed me: and we hauled +the cable out of the sea, and got it joined to the telegraph +station, and on October 3rd telegraphed to Lowestoft first and +then to London. Miss Clara Volkman, a niece of Mr. +Reuter’s, sent the first message to Mrs. Reuter, who was +waiting (Varley used Miss Clara’s hand as a kind of key), +and I sent one of the first messages to Odden. I thought a +message addressed to him would not frighten you, and that he +would enjoy a message through Papa’s cable. I hope he +did. They were all very merry, but I had been so lowered by +pain that I could not enjoy myself in spite of the +success.’</p> +<h3>V.</h3> +<p>Of the 1869 cruise in the <i>Great Eastern</i>, I give what I +am able; only sorry it is no more, for the sake of the ship +itself, already almost a legend even to the generation that saw +it launched.</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 17, 1869.—Here are the names of our +staff in whom I expect you to be interested, as future <i>Great +Eastern</i> stories may be full of them: Theophilus Smith, a man +of Latimer Clark’s; Leslie C. Hill, my prizeman at +University College; Lord Sackville Cecil; King, one of the +Thomsonian Kings; Laws, goes for Willoughby Smith, who will also +be on board; Varley, Clark, and Sir James Anderson make up the +sum of all you know anything of. A Captain Halpin commands +the big ship. There are four smaller vessels. The +<i>Wm. Cory</i>, which laid the Norderney cable, has already gone +to St. Pierre to lay the shore ends. The <i>Hawk</i> and +<i>Chiltern</i> have gone to Brest to lay shore ends. The +<i>Hawk</i> and <i>Scanderia</i> go with us across the Atlantic +and we shall at St. Pierre be transhipped into one or the +other.</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 18. <i>Somewhere in +London</i>.—The shore end is laid, as you may have seen, +and we are all under pressing orders to march, so we start from +London to-night at 5.10.</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 20. <i>Off Ushant</i>.—I am +getting quite fond of the big ship. Yesterday morning in +the quiet sunlight, she turned so slowly and lazily in the great +harbour at Portland, and bye and bye slipped out past the long +pier with so little stir, that I could hardly believe we were +really off. No men drunk, no women crying, no singing or +swearing, no confusion or bustle on deck—nobody apparently +aware that they had anything to do. The look of the thing +was that the ship had been spoken to civilly and had kindly +undertaken to do everything that was necessary without any +further interference. I have a nice cabin with plenty of +room for my legs in my berth and have slept two nights like a +top. Then we have the ladies’ cabin set apart as an +engineer’s office, and I think this decidedly the nicest +place in the ship: 35 ft. × 20 ft. broad—four tables, +three great mirrors, plenty of air and no heat from the funnels +which spoil the great dining-room. I saw a whole library of +books on the walls when here last, and this made me less anxious +to provide light literature; but alas, to-day I find that they +are every one bibles or prayer-books. Now one cannot read +many hundred bibles. . . . As for the motion of the ship it is +not very much, but ‘twill suffice. Thomson shook +hands and wished me well. I <i>do</i> like Thomson. . . . +Tell Austin that the <i>Great Eastern</i> has six masts and four +funnels. When I get back I will make a little model of her +for all the chicks and pay out cotton reels. . . . Here we are at +4.20 at Brest. We leave probably to-morrow morning.</p> +<p>‘<i>July</i> 12. <i>Great Eastern</i>.—Here +as I write we run our last course for the buoy at the St. Pierre +shore end. It blows and lightens, and our good ship rolls, +and buoys are hard to find; but we must soon now finish our work, +and then this letter will start for home. . . . Yesterday we were +mournfully groping our way through the wet grey fog, not at all +sure where we were, with one consort lost and the other faintly +answering the roar of our great whistle through the mist. +As to the ship which was to meet us, and pioneer us up the deep +channel, we did not know if we should come within twenty miles of +her; when suddenly up went the fog, out came the sun, and there, +straight ahead, was the <i>Wm. Cory</i>, our pioneer, and a +little dancing boat, the <i>Gulnare</i>, sending signals of +welcome with many-coloured flags. Since then we have been +steaming in a grand procession; but now at 2 <span +class="smcap">a.m.</span> the fog has fallen, and the great +roaring whistle calls up the distant answering notes all around +us. Shall we, or shall we not find the buoy?</p> +<p>‘<i>July</i> 13.—All yesterday we lay in the damp +dripping fog, with whistles all round and guns firing so that we +might not bump up against one another. This little delay +has let us get our reports into tolerable order. We are now +at 7 o’clock getting the cable end again, with the main +cable buoy close to us.’</p> +<p><i>A telegram of July</i> 20: ‘I have received your four +welcome letters. The Americans are charming +people.’</p> +<h3>VI.</h3> +<p>And here to make an end are a few random bits about the cruise +to Pernambuco:—</p> +<p>‘<i>Plymouth</i>, <i>June</i> 21, 1873.—I have +been down to the sea-shore and smelt the salt sea and like it; +and I have seen the <i>Hooper</i> pointing her great bow +sea-ward, while light smoke rises from her funnels telling that +the fires are being lighted; and sorry as I am to be without you, +something inside me answers to the call to be off and doing.</p> +<p>‘<i>Lalla Rookh</i>. <i>Plymouth</i>, <i>June</i> +22.—We have been a little cruise in the yacht over to the +Eddystone lighthouse, and my sea-legs seem very well on. +Strange how alike all these starts are—first on shore, +steaming hot days with a smell of bone-dust and tar and salt +water; then the little puffing, panting steam-launch that bustles +out across a port with green woody sides, little yachts sliding +about, men-of-war training-ships, and then a great big black hulk +of a thing with a mass of smaller vessels sticking to it like +parasites; and that is one’s home being coaled. Then +comes the Champagne lunch where everyone says all that is polite +to everyone else, and then the uncertainty when to start. +So far as we know <i>now</i>, we are to start to-morrow morning +at daybreak; letters that come later are to be sent to Pernambuco +by first mail. . . . My father has sent me the heartiest sort of +Jack Tar’s cheer.</p> +<p>‘<i>S. S. Hooper</i>. <i>Off Funchal</i>, +<i>June</i> 29.—Here we are off Madeira at seven +o’clock in the morning. Thomson has been sounding +with his special toy ever since half-past three (1087 fathoms of +water). I have been watching the day break, and long jagged +islands start into being out of the dull night. We are +still some miles from land; but the sea is calmer than Loch Eil +often was, and the big <i>Hooper</i> rests very contentedly after +a pleasant voyage and favourable breezes. I have not been +able to do any real work except the testing [of the cable], for +though not sea-sick, I get a little giddy when I try to think on +board. . . . The ducks have just had their daily souse and are +quacking and gabbling in a mighty way outside the door of the +captain’s deck cabin where I write. The cocks are +crowing, and new-laid eggs are said to be found in the +coops. Four mild oxen have been untethered and allowed to +walk along the broad iron decks—a whole drove of sheep seem +quite content while licking big lumps of bay salt. Two +exceedingly impertinent goats lead the cook a perfect life of +misery. They steal round the galley and <i>will</i> nibble +the carrots or turnips if his back is turned for one minute; and +then he throws something at them and misses them; and they +scuttle off laughing impudently, and flick one ear at him from a +safe distance. This is the most impudent gesture I ever +saw. Winking is nothing to it. The ear normally hangs +down behind; the goat turns sideways to her enemy—by a +little knowing cock of the head flicks one ear over one eye, and +squints from behind it for half a minute—tosses her head +back, skips a pace or two further off, and repeats the +manœuvre. The cook is very fat and cannot run after +that goat much.</p> +<p>‘<i>Pernambuco</i>, <i>Aug.</i> 1.—We landed here +yesterday, all well and cable sound, after a good passage. . . . +I am on familiar terms with cocoa-nuts, mangoes, and bread-fruit +trees, but I think I like the negresses best of anything I have +seen. In turbans and loose sea-green robes, with beautiful +black-brown complexions and a stately carriage, they really are a +satisfaction to my eye. The weather has been windy and +rainy; the <i>Hooper</i> has to lie about a mile from the town, +in an open roadstead, with the whole swell of the Atlantic +driving straight on shore. The little steam launch gives +all who go in her a good ducking, as she bobs about on the big +rollers; and my old gymnastic practice stands me in good stead on +boarding and leaving her. We clamber down a rope ladder +hanging from the high stern, and then taking a rope in one hand, +swing into the launch at the moment when she can contrive to +steam up under us—bobbing about like an apple thrown into a +tub all the while. The President of the province and his +suite tried to come off to a State luncheon on board on Sunday; +but the launch being rather heavily laden, behaved worse than +usual, and some green seas stove in the President’s hat and +made him wetter than he had probably ever been in his life; so +after one or two rollers, he turned back; and indeed he was wise +to do so, for I don’t see how he could have got on board. . +. . Being fully convinced that the world will not continue to go +round unless I pay it personal attention, I must run away to my +work.’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.—1869–1885.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Edinburgh—Colleagues—<i>Farrago +Vitæ</i>—I. The Family Circle—Fleeming and his +Sons—Highland Life—The Cruise of the Steam +Launch—Summer in Styria—Rustic Manners—II. The +Drama—Private Theatricals—III. Sanitary +Associations—The Phonograph—IV. Fleeming’s +Acquaintance with a Student—His late Maturity of +Mind—Religion and Morality—His Love of +Heroism—Taste in Literature—V. His Talk—His +late Popularity—Letter from M. Trélat.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> remaining external incidents of +Fleeming’s life, pleasures, honours, fresh interests, new +friends, are not such as will bear to be told at any length or in +the temporal order. And it is now time to lay narration by, +and to look at the man he was and the life he lived, more +largely.</p> +<p>Edinburgh, which was thenceforth to be his home, is a +metropolitan small town; where college professors and the lawyers +of the Parliament House give the tone, and persons of leisure, +attracted by educational advantages, make up much of the bulk of +society. Not, therefore, an unlettered place, yet not +pedantic, Edinburgh will compare favourably with much larger +cities. A hard and disputatious element has been commented +on by strangers: it would not touch Fleeming, who was himself +regarded, even in this metropolis of disputation, as a thorny +table-mate. To golf unhappily he did not take, and golf is +a cardinal virtue in the city of the winds. Nor did he +become an archer of the Queen’s Body-Guard, which is the +Chiltern Hundreds of the distasted golfer. He did not even +frequent the Evening Club, where his colleague Tait (in my day) +was so punctual and so genial. So that in some ways he +stood outside of the lighter and kindlier life of his new +home. I should not like to say that he was generally +popular; but there as elsewhere, those who knew him well enough +to love him, loved him well. And he, upon his side, liked a +place where a dinner party was not of necessity unintellectual, +and where men stood up to him in argument.</p> +<p>The presence of his old classmate, Tait, was one of his early +attractions to the chair; and now that Fleeming is gone again, +Tait still remains, ruling and really teaching his great +classes. Sir Robert Christison was an old friend of his +mother’s; Sir Alexander Grant, Kelland, and Sellar, were +new acquaintances and highly valued; and these too, all but the +last, have been taken from their friends and labours. Death +has been busy in the Senatus. I will speak elsewhere of +Fleeming’s demeanour to his students; and it will be enough +to add here that his relations with his colleagues in general +were pleasant to himself.</p> +<p>Edinburgh, then, with its society, its university work, its +delightful scenery, and its skating in the winter, was +thenceforth his base of operations. But he shot meanwhile +erratic in many directions: twice to America, as we have seen, on +telegraph voyages; continually to London on business; often to +Paris; year after year to the Highlands to shoot, to fish, to +learn reels and Gaelic, to make the acquaintance and fall in love +with the character of Highlanders; and once to Styria, to hunt +chamois and dance with peasant maidens. All the while, he +was pursuing the course of his electrical studies, making fresh +inventions, taking up the phonograph, filled with theories of +graphic representation; reading, writing, publishing, founding +sanitary associations, interested in technical education, +investigating the laws of metre, drawing, acting, directing +private theatricals, going a long way to see an actor—a +long way to see a picture; in the very bubble of the tideway of +contemporary interests. And all the while he was busied +about his father and mother, his wife, and in particular his +sons; anxiously watching, anxiously guiding these, and plunging +with his whole fund of youthfulness into their sports and +interests. And all the while he was himself +maturing—not in character or body, for these remained +young—but in the stocked mind, in the tolerant knowledge of +life and man, in pious acceptance of the universe. Here is +a farrago for a chapter: here is a world of interests and +activities, human, artistic, social, scientific, at each of which +he sprang with impetuous pleasure, on each of which he squandered +energy, the arrow drawn to the head, the whole intensity of his +spirit bent, for the moment, on the momentary purpose. It +was this that lent such unusual interest to his society, so that +no friend of his can forget that figure of Fleeming coming +charged with some new discovery: it is this that makes his +character so difficult to represent. Our fathers, upon some +difficult theme, would invoke the Muse; I can but appeal to the +imagination of the reader. When I dwell upon some one +thing, he must bear in mind it was only one of a score; that the +unweariable brain was teeming at the very time with other +thoughts; that the good heart had left no kind duty +forgotten.</p> +<h3>I.</h3> +<p>In Edinburgh, for a considerable time, Fleeming’s +family, to three generations, was united: Mr. and Mrs. Austin at +Hailes, Captain and Mrs. Jenkin in the suburb of Merchiston, +Fleeming himself in the city. It is not every family that +could risk with safety such close interdomestic dealings; but in +this also Fleeming was particularly favoured. Even the two +extremes, Mr. Austin and the Captain, drew together. It is +pleasant to find that each of the old gentlemen set a high value +on the good looks of the other, doubtless also on his own; and a +fine picture they made as they walked the green terrace at +Hailes, conversing by the hour. What they talked of is +still a mystery to those who knew them; but Mr. Austin always +declared that on these occasions he learned much. To both +of these families of elders, due service was paid of attention; +to both, Fleeming’s easy circumstances had brought joy; and +the eyes of all were on the grandchildren. In +Fleeming’s scheme of duties, those of the family stood +first; a man was first of all a child, nor did he cease to be so, +but only took on added obligations, when he became in turn a +father. The care of his parents was always a first thought +with him, and their gratification his delight. And the care +of his sons, as it was always a grave subject of study with him, +and an affair never neglected, so it brought him a thousand +satisfactions. ‘Hard work they are,’ as he once +wrote, ‘but what fit work!’ And again: +‘O, it’s a cold house where a dog is the only +representative of a child!’ Not that dogs were +despised; we shall drop across the name of Jack, the harum-scarum +Irish terrier ere we have done; his own dog Plato went up with +him daily to his lectures, and still (like other friends) feels +the loss and looks visibly for the reappearance of his master; +and Martin, the cat, Fleeming has himself immortalised, to the +delight of Mr. Swinburne, in the columns of the +<i>Spectator</i>. Indeed there was nothing in which men +take interest, in which he took not some; and yet always most in +the strong human bonds, ancient as the race and woven of delights +and duties.</p> +<p>He was even an anxious father; perhaps that is the part where +optimism is hardest tested. He was eager for his sons; +eager for their health, whether of mind or body; eager for their +education; in that, I should have thought, too eager. But +he kept a pleasant face upon all things, believed in play, loved +it himself, shared boyishly in theirs, and knew how to put a face +of entertainment upon business and a spirit of education into +entertainment. If he was to test the progress of the three +boys, this advertisement would appear in their little manuscript +paper:—‘Notice: The Professor of Engineering in the +University of Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic +year to hold examinations in the following subjects: (1) +For boys in the fourth class of the Academy—Geometry and +Algebra; (2) For boys at Mr. Henderson’s +school—Dictation and Recitation; (3) For boys taught +exclusively by their mothers—Arithmetic and +Reading.’ Prizes were given; but what prize would be +so conciliatory as this boyish little joke? It may read +thin here; it would smack racily in the playroom. Whenever +his sons ‘started a new fad’ (as one of them writes +to me) they ‘had only to tell him about it, and he was at +once interested and keen to help.’ He would +discourage them in nothing unless it was hopelessly too hard for +them; only, if there was any principle of science involved, they +must understand the principle; and whatever was attempted, that +was to be done thoroughly. If it was but play, if it was +but a puppetshow they were to build, he set them the example of +being no sluggard in play. When Frewen, the second son, +embarked on the ambitious design to make an engine for a toy +steamboat, Fleeming made him begin with a proper +drawing—doubtless to the disgust of the young engineer; but +once that foundation laid, helped in the work with unflagging +gusto, ‘tinkering away,’ for hours, and assisted at +the final trial ‘in the big bath’ with no less +excitement than the boy. ‘He would take any amount of +trouble to help us,’ writes my correspondent. +‘We never felt an affair was complete till we had called +him to see, and he would come at any time, in the middle of any +work.’ There was indeed one recognised playhour, +immediately after the despatch of the day’s letters; and +the boys were to be seen waiting on the stairs until the mail +should be ready and the fun could begin. But at no other +time did this busy man suffer his work to interfere with that +first duty to his children; and there is a pleasant tale of the +inventive Master Frewen, engaged at the time upon a toy crane, +bringing to the study where his father sat at work a half-wound +reel that formed some part of his design, and observing, +‘Papa, you might finiss windin’ this for me; I am so +very busy to-day.’</p> +<p>I put together here a few brief extracts from Fleeming’s +letters, none very important in itself, but all together building +up a pleasant picture of the father with his sons.</p> +<p>‘<i>Jan.</i> 15<i>th</i>, 1875.—Frewen +contemplates suspending soap bubbles by silk threads for +experimental purposes. I don’t think he will manage +that. Bernard’ [the youngest] ‘volunteered to +blow the bubbles with enthusiasm.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Jan.</i> 17<i>th</i>.—I am learning a great +deal of electrostatics in consequence of the perpetual +cross-examination to which I am subjected. I long for you +on many grounds, but one is that I may not be obliged to deliver +a running lecture on abstract points of science, subject to +cross-examination by two acute students. Bernie does not +cross-examine much; but if anyone gets discomfited, he laughs a +sort of little silver-whistle giggle, which is trying to the +unhappy blunderer.’</p> +<p>‘<i>May</i> 9<i>th</i>.—Frewen is deep in +parachutes. I beg him not to drop from the top landing in +one of his own making.’</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 6<i>th</i>, 1876.—Frewen’s +crank axle is a failure just at present—but he bears +up.’</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 14<i>th</i>.—The boys enjoy their +riding. It gets them whole funds of adventures. One +of their caps falling off is matter for delightful reminiscences; +and when a horse breaks his step, the occurrence becomes a rear, +a shy, or a plunge as they talk it over. Austin, with quiet +confidence, speaks of the greater pleasure in riding a spirited +horse, even if he does give a little trouble. It is the +stolid brute that he dislikes. (N.B. You can still see six +inches between him and the saddle when his pony trots.) I +listen and sympathise and throw out no hint that their +achievements are not really great.’</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 18<i>th</i>.—Bernard is much +impressed by the fact that I can be useful to Frewen about the +steamboat’ [which the latter irrepressible inventor was +making]. ‘He says quite with awe, “He would not +have got on nearly so well if you had not helped +him.”’</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 27<i>th</i>.—I do not see what I +could do without Austin. He talks so pleasantly and is so +truly good all through.’</p> +<p>‘<i>June</i> 27<i>th</i>.—My chief difficulty with +Austin is to get him measured for a pair of trousers. +Hitherto I have failed, but I keep a stout heart and mean to +succeed. Frewen the observer, in describing the paces of +two horses, says, “Polly takes twenty-seven steps to get +round the school. I couldn’t count Sophy, but she +takes more than a hundred.”’</p> +<p>‘<i>Feb.</i> 18<i>th</i>, 1877.—We all feel very +lonely without you. Frewen had to come up and sit in my +room for company last night and I actually kissed him, a thing +that has not occurred for years. Jack, poor fellow, bears +it as well as he can, and has taken the opportunity of having a +fester on his foot, so he is lame and has it bathed, and this +occupies his thoughts a good deal.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Feb.</i> 19<i>th</i>.—As to Mill, Austin has +not got the list yet. I think it will prejudice him very +much against Mill—but that is not my affair. +Education of that kind! . . . I would as soon cram my boys with +food and boast of the pounds they had eaten, as cram them with +literature.’</p> +<p>But if Fleeming was an anxious father, he did not suffer his +anxiety to prevent the boys from any manly or even dangerous +pursuit. Whatever it might occur to them to try, he would +carefully show them how to do it, explain the risks, and then +either share the danger himself or, if that were not possible, +stand aside and wait the event with that unhappy courage of the +looker-on. He was a good swimmer, and taught them to +swim. He thoroughly loved all manly exercises; and during +their holidays, and principally in the Highlands, helped and +encouraged them to excel in as many as possible: to shoot, to +fish, to walk, to pull an oar, to hand, reef and steer, and to +run a steam launch. In all of these, and in all parts of +Highland life, he shared delightedly. He was well on to +forty when he took once more to shooting, he was forty-three when +he killed his first salmon, but no boy could have more +single-mindedly rejoiced in these pursuits. His growing +love for the Highland character, perhaps also a sense of the +difficulty of the task, led him to take up at forty-one the study +of Gaelic; in which he made some shadow of progress, but not +much: the fastnesses of that elusive speech retaining to the last +their independence. At the house of his friend Mrs. +Blackburn, who plays the part of a Highland lady as to the manner +born, he learned the delightful custom of kitchen dances, which +became the rule at his own house and brought him into yet nearer +contact with his neighbours. And thus at forty-two, he +began to learn the reel; a study, to which he brought his usual +smiling earnestness; and the steps, diagrammatically represented +by his own hand, are before me as I write.</p> +<p>It was in 1879 that a new feature was added to the Highland +life: a steam launch, called the <i>Purgle</i>, the Styrian +corruption of Walpurga, after a friend to be hereafter +mentioned. ‘The steam launch goes,’ Fleeming +wrote. ‘I wish you had been present to describe two +scenes of which she has been the occasion already: one during +which the population of Ullapool, to a baby, was harnessed to her +hurrahing—and the other in which the same population sat +with its legs over a little pier, watching Frewen and Bernie +getting up steam for the first time.’ The +<i>Purgle</i> was got with educational intent; and it served its +purpose so well, and the boys knew their business so practically, +that when the summer was at an end, Fleeming, Mrs. Jenkin, Frewen +the engineer, Bernard the stoker, and Kenneth Robertson a +Highland seaman, set forth in her to make the passage +south. The first morning they got from Loch Broom into +Gruinard bay, where they lunched upon an island; but the wind +blowing up in the afternoon, with sheets of rain, it was found +impossible to beat to sea; and very much in the situation of +castaways upon an unknown coast, the party landed at the mouth of +Gruinard river. A shooting lodge was spied among the trees; +there Fleeming went; and though the master, Mr. Murray, was from +home, though the two Jenkin boys were of course as black as +colliers, and all the castaways so wetted through that, as they +stood in the passage, pools formed about their feet and ran +before them into the house, yet Mrs. Murray kindly entertained +them for the night. On the morrow, however, visitors were +to arrive; there would be no room and, in so out-of-the-way a +spot, most probably no food for the crew of the <i>Purgle</i>; +and on the morrow about noon, with the bay white with spindrift +and the wind so strong that one could scarcely stand against it, +they got up steam and skulked under the land as far as Sanda +Bay. Here they crept into a seaside cave, and cooked some +food; but the weather now freshening to a gale, it was plain they +must moor the launch where she was, and find their way overland +to some place of shelter. Even to get their baggage from on +board was no light business; for the dingy was blown so far to +leeward every trip, that they must carry her back by hand along +the beach. But this once managed, and a cart procured in +the neighbourhood, they were able to spend the night in a +pot-house on Ault Bea. Next day, the sea was +unapproachable; but the next they had a pleasant passage to +Poolewe, hugging the cliffs, the falling swell bursting close by +them in the gullies, and the black scarts that sat like ornaments +on the top of every stack and pinnacle, looking down into the +<i>Purgle</i> as she passed. The climate of Scotland had +not done with them yet: for three days they lay storm-stayed in +Poolewe, and when they put to sea on the morning of the fourth, +the sailors prayed them for God’s sake not to attempt the +passage. Their setting out was indeed merely tentative; but +presently they had gone too far to return, and found themselves +committed to double Rhu Reay with a foul wind and a cross +sea. From half-past eleven in the morning until half-past +five at night, they were in immediate and unceasing danger. +Upon the least mishap, the <i>Purgle</i> must either have been +swamped by the seas or bulged upon the cliffs of that rude +headland. Fleeming and Robertson took turns baling and +steering; Mrs. Jenkin, so violent was the commotion of the boat, +held on with both hands; Frewen, by Robertson’s direction, +ran the engine, slacking and pressing her to meet the seas; and +Bernard, only twelve years old, deadly sea-sick, and continually +thrown against the boiler, so that he was found next day to be +covered with burns, yet kept an even fire. It was a very +thankful party that sat down that evening to meat in the Hotel at +Gairloch. And perhaps, although the thing was new in the +family, no one was much surprised when Fleeming said grace over +that meal. Thenceforward he continued to observe the form, +so that there was kept alive in his house a grateful memory of +peril and deliverance. But there was nothing of the muff in +Fleeming; he thought it a good thing to escape death, but a +becoming and a healthful thing to run the risk of it; and what is +rarer, that which he thought for himself, he thought for his +family also. In spite of the terrors of Rhu Reay, the +cruise was persevered in and brought to an end under happier +conditions.</p> +<p>One year, instead of the Highlands, Alt Aussee, in the +Steiermark, was chosen for the holidays; and the place, the +people, and the life delighted Fleeming. He worked hard at +German, which he had much forgotten since he was a boy; and what +is highly characteristic, equally hard at the patois, in which he +learned to excel. He won a prize at a Schützen-fest; +and though he hunted chamois without much success, brought down +more interesting game in the shape of the Styrian peasants, and +in particular of his gillie, Joseph. This Joseph was much +of a character; and his appreciations of Fleeming have a fine +note of their own. The bringing up of the boys he deigned +to approve of: ‘<i>fast so gut wie ein bauer</i>,’ +was his trenchant criticism. The attention and courtly +respect with which Fleeming surrounded his wife, was something of +a puzzle to the philosophic gillie; he announced in the village +that Mrs. Jenkin—<i>die silberne Frau</i>, as the folk had +prettily named her from some silver ornaments—was a +‘<i>geborene Gräfin</i>’ who had married beneath +her; and when Fleeming explained what he called the English +theory (though indeed it was quite his own) of married relations, +Joseph, admiring but unconvinced, avowed it was ‘<i>gar +schön</i>.’ Joseph’s cousin, Walpurga +Moser, to an orchestra of clarionet and zither, taught the family +the country dances, the Steierisch and the Ländler, and +gained their hearts during the lessons. Her sister Loys, +too, who was up at the Alp with the cattle, came down to church +on Sundays, made acquaintance with the Jenkins, and must have +them up to see the sunrise from her house upon the Loser, where +they had supper and all slept in the loft among the hay. +The Mosers were not lost sight of; Walpurga still corresponds +with Mrs. Jenkin, and it was a late pleasure of Fleeming’s +to choose and despatch a wedding present for his little mountain +friend. This visit was brought to an end by a ball in the +big inn parlour; the refreshments chosen, the list of guests +drawn up, by Joseph; the best music of the place in attendance; +and hosts and guests in their best clothes. The ball was +opened by Mrs. Jenkin dancing Steierisch with a lordly Bauer, in +gray and silver and with a plumed hat; and Fleeming followed with +Walpurga Moser.</p> +<p>There ran a principle through all these holiday +pleasures. In Styria as in the Highlands, the same course +was followed: Fleeming threw himself as fully as he could into +the life and occupations of the native people, studying +everywhere their dances and their language, and conforming, +always with pleasure, to their rustic etiquette. Just as +the ball at Alt Aussee was designed for the taste of Joseph, the +parting feast at Attadale was ordered in every particular to the +taste of Murdoch the Keeper. Fleeming was not one of the +common, so-called gentlemen, who take the tricks of their own +coterie to be eternal principles of taste. He was aware, on +the other hand, that rustic people dwelling in their own places, +follow ancient rules with fastidious precision, and are easily +shocked and embarrassed by what (if they used the word) they +would have to call the vulgarity of visitors from town. And +he, who was so cavalier with men of his own class, was sedulous +to shield the more tender feelings of the peasant; he, who could +be so trying in a drawing-room, was even punctilious in the +cottage. It was in all respects a happy virtue. It +renewed his life, during these holidays, in all +particulars. It often entertained him with the discovery of +strange survivals; as when, by the orders of Murdoch, Mrs. Jenkin +must publicly taste of every dish before it was set before her +guests. And thus to throw himself into a fresh life and a +new school of manners was a grateful exercise of Fleeming’s +mimetic instinct; and to the pleasures of the open air, of +hardships supported, of dexterities improved and displayed, and +of plain and elegant society, added a spice of drama.</p> +<h3>II.</h3> +<p>Fleeming was all his life a lover of the play and all that +belonged to it. Dramatic literature he knew fully. He +was one of the not very numerous people who can read a play: a +knack, the fruit of much knowledge and some imagination, +comparable to that of reading score. Few men better +understood the artificial principles on which a play is good or +bad; few more unaffectedly enjoyed a piece of any merit of +construction. His own play was conceived with a double +design; for he had long been filled with his theory of the true +story of Griselda; used to gird at Father Chaucer for his +misconception; and was, perhaps first of all, moved by the desire +to do justice to the Marquis of Saluces, and perhaps only in the +second place, by the wish to treat a story (as he phrased it) +like a sum in arithmetic. I do not think he quite +succeeded; but I must own myself no fit judge. Fleeming and +I were teacher and taught as to the principles, disputatious +rivals in the practice, of dramatic writing.</p> +<p>Acting had always, ever since Rachel and the Marseillaise, a +particular power on him. ‘If I do not cry at the +play,’ he used to say, ‘I want to have my money +back.’ Even from a poor play with poor actors, he +could draw pleasure. ‘Giacometti’s +<i>Elisabetta</i>,’ I find him writing, ‘fetched the +house vastly. Poor Queen Elizabeth! And yet it was a +little good.’ And again, after a night of Salvini: +‘I do not suppose any one with feelings could sit out +<i>Othello</i>, if Iago and Desdemona were acted.’ +Salvini was, in his view, the greatest actor he had seen. +We were all indeed moved and bettered by the visit of that +wonderful man.—‘I declare I feel as if I could +pray!’ cried one of us, on the return from +<i>Hamlet</i>.—‘That is prayer,’ said +Fleeming. W. B. Hole and I, in a fine enthusiasm of +gratitude, determined to draw up an address to Salvini, did so, +and carried it to Fleeming; and I shall never forget with what +coldness he heard and deleted the eloquence of our draft, nor +with what spirit (our vanities once properly mortified) he threw +himself into the business of collecting signatures. It was +his part, on the ground of his Italian, to see and arrange with +the actor; it was mine to write in the <i>Academy</i> a notice of +the first performance of <i>Macbeth</i>. Fleeming opened +the paper, read so far, and flung it on the floor. +‘No,’ he cried, ‘that won’t do. You +were thinking of yourself, not of Salvini!’ The +criticism was shrewd as usual, but it was unfair through +ignorance; it was not of myself that I was thinking, but of the +difficulties of my trade which I had not well mastered. +Another unalloyed dramatic pleasure which Fleeming and I shared +the year of the Paris Exposition, was the <i>Marquis de +Villemer</i>, that blameless play, performed by Madeleine Brohan, +Delaunay, Worms, and Broisat—an actress, in such parts at +least, to whom I have never seen full justice rendered. He +had his fill of weeping on that occasion; and when the piece was +at an end, in front of a café, in the mild, midnight air, +we had our fill of talk about the art of acting.</p> +<p>But what gave the stage so strong a hold on Fleeming was an +inheritance from Norwich, from Edward Barron, and from Enfield of +the <i>Speaker</i>. The theatre was one of Edward +Barron’s elegant hobbies; he read plays, as became +Enfield’s son-in-law, with a good discretion; he wrote +plays for his family, in which Eliza Barron used to shine in the +chief parts; and later in life, after the Norwich home was broken +up, his little granddaughter would sit behind him in a great +armchair, and be introduced, with his stately elocution, to the +world of dramatic literature. From this, in a direct line, +we can deduce the charades at Claygate; and after money came, in +the Edinburgh days, that private theatre which took up so much of +Fleeming’s energy and thought. The company—Mr. +and Mrs. R. O. Carter of Colwall, W. B. Hole, Captain Charles +Douglas, Mr. Kunz, Mr. Burnett, Professor Lewis Campbell, Mr. +Charles Baxter, and many more—made a charming society for +themselves and gave pleasure to their audience. Mr. Carter +in Sir Toby Belch it would be hard to beat. Mr. Hole in +broad farce, or as the herald in the <i>Trachiniæ</i>, +showed true stage talent. As for Mrs. Jenkin, it was for +her the rest of us existed and were forgiven; her powers were an +endless spring of pride and pleasure to her husband; he spent +hours hearing and schooling her in private; and when it came to +the performance, though there was perhaps no one in the audience +more critical, none was more moved than Fleeming. The rest +of us did not aspire so high. There were always five +performances and weeks of busy rehearsal; and whether we came to +sit and stifle as the prompter, to be the dumb (or rather the +inarticulate) recipients of Carter’s dog whip in the +<i>Taming of the Shrew</i>, or having earned our spurs, to lose +one more illusion in a leading part, we were always sure at least +of a long and an exciting holiday in mirthful company.</p> +<p>In this laborious annual diversion, Fleeming’s part was +large. I never thought him an actor, but he was something +of a mimic, which stood him in stead. Thus he had seen Got +in Poirier; and his own Poirier, when he came to play it, +breathed meritoriously of the model. The last part I saw +him play was Triplet, and at first I thought it promised +well. But alas! the boys went for a holiday, missed a +train, and were not heard of at home till late at night. +Poor Fleeming, the man who never hesitated to give his sons a +chisel or a gun, or to send them abroad in a canoe or on a horse, +toiled all day at his rehearsal, growing hourly paler, Triplet +growing hourly less meritorious. And though the return of +the children, none the worse for their little adventure, brought +the colour back into his face, it could not restore him to his +part. I remember finding him seated on the stairs in some +rare moment of quiet during the subsequent performances. +‘Hullo, Jenkin,’ said I, ‘you look down in the +mouth.’—‘My dear boy,’ said he, +‘haven’t you heard me? I have not one decent +intonation from beginning to end.’</p> +<p>But indeed he never supposed himself an actor; took a part, +when he took any, merely for convenience, as one takes a hand at +whist; and found his true service and pleasure in the more +congenial business of the manager. Augier, Racine, +Shakespeare, Aristophanes in Hookham Frere’s translation, +Sophocles and Æschylus in Lewis Campbell’s, such were +some of the authors whom he introduced to his public. In +putting these upon the stage, he found a thousand exercises for +his ingenuity and taste, a thousand problems arising which he +delighted to study, a thousand opportunities to make these +infinitesimal improvements which are so much in art and for the +artist. Our first Greek play had been costumed by the +professional costumer, with unforgetable results of comicality +and indecorum: the second, the <i>Trachiniæ</i>, of +Sophocles, he took in hand himself, and a delightful task he made +of it. His study was then in antiquarian books, where he +found confusion, and on statues and bas-reliefs, where he at last +found clearness; after an hour or so at the British Museum, he +was able to master ‘the chitôn, sleeves and +all’; and before the time was ripe, he had a theory of +Greek tailoring at his fingers’ ends, and had all the +costumes made under his eye as a Greek tailor would have made +them. ‘The Greeks made the best plays and the best +statues, and were the best architects: of course, they were the +best tailors, too,’ said he; and was never weary, when he +could find a tolerant listener, of dwelling on the simplicity, +the economy, the elegance both of means and effect, which made +their system so delightful.</p> +<p>But there is another side to the stage-manager’s +employment. The discipline of acting is detestable; the +failures and triumphs of that business appeal too directly to the +vanity; and even in the course of a careful amateur performance +such as ours, much of the smaller side of man will be +displayed. Fleeming, among conflicting vanities and +levities, played his part to my admiration. He had his own +view; he might be wrong; but the performances (he would remind +us) were after all his, and he must decide. He was, in this +as in all other things, an iron taskmaster, sparing not himself +nor others. If you were going to do it at all, he would see +that it was done as well as you were able. I have known him +to keep two culprits (and one of these his wife) repeating the +same action and the same two or three words for a whole weary +afternoon. And yet he gained and retained warm feelings +from far the most of those who fell under his domination, and +particularly (it is pleasant to remember) from the girls. +After the slipshod training and the incomplete accomplishments of +a girls’ school, there was something at first annoying, at +last exciting and bracing, in this high standard of +accomplishment and perseverance.</p> +<h3>III.</h3> +<p>It did not matter why he entered upon any study or employment, +whether for amusement like the Greek tailoring or the Highland +reels, whether from a desire to serve the public as with his +sanitary work, or in the view of benefiting poorer men as with +his labours for technical education, he ‘pitched into +it’ (as he would have said himself) with the same headlong +zest. I give in the Appendix a letter from Colonel +Fergusson, which tells fully the nature of the sanitary work and +of Fleeming’s part and success in it. It will be +enough to say here that it was a scheme of protection against the +blundering of builders and the dishonesty of plumbers. +Started with an eye rather to the houses of the rich, Fleeming +hoped his Sanitary Associations would soon extend their sphere of +usefulness and improve the dwellings of the poor. In this +hope he was disappointed; but in all other ways the scheme +exceedingly prospered, associations sprang up and continue to +spring up in many quarters, and wherever tried they have been +found of use.</p> +<p>Here, then, was a serious employment; it has proved highly +useful to mankind; and it was begun besides, in a mood of +bitterness, under the shock of what Fleeming would so sensitively +feel—the death of a whole family of children. Yet it +was gone upon like a holiday jaunt. I read in Colonel +Fergusson’s letter that his schoolmates bantered him when +he began to broach his scheme; so did I at first, and he took the +banter as he always did with enjoyment, until he suddenly posed +me with the question: ‘And now do you see any other jokes +to make? Well, then,’ said he, ‘that’s +all right. I wanted you to have your fun out first; now we +can be serious.’ And then with a glowing heat of +pleasure, he laid his plans before me, revelling in the details, +revelling in hope. It was as he wrote about the joy of +electrical experiment. ‘What shall I compare them +to? A new song?—a Greek play?’ Delight +attended the exercise of all his powers; delight painted the +future. Of these ideal visions, some (as I have said) +failed of their fruition. And the illusion was +characteristic. Fleeming believed we had only to make a +virtue cheap and easy, and then all would practise it; that for +an end unquestionably good, men would not grudge a little trouble +and a little money, though they might stumble at laborious pains +and generous sacrifices. He could not believe in any +resolute badness. ‘I cannot quite say,’ he +wrote in his young manhood, ‘that I think there is no sin +or misery. This I can say: I do not remember one single +malicious act done to myself. In fact it is rather awkward +when I have to say the Lord’s Prayer. I have +nobody’s trespasses to forgive.’ And to the +point, I remember one of our discussions. I said it was a +dangerous error not to admit there were bad people; he, that it +was only a confession of blindness on our part, and that we +probably called others bad only so far as we were wrapped in +ourselves and lacking in the transmigratory forces of +imagination. I undertook to describe to him three persons +irredeemably bad and whom he should admit to be so. In the +first case, he denied my evidence: ‘You cannot judge a man +upon such testimony,’ said he. For the second, he +owned it made him sick to hear the tale; but then there was no +spark of malice, it was mere weakness I had described, and he had +never denied nor thought to set a limit to man’s +weakness. At my third gentleman, he struck his +colours. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I’m +afraid that is a bad man.’ And then looking at me +shrewdly: ‘I wonder if it isn’t a very unfortunate +thing for you to have met him.’ I showed him +radiantly how it was the world we must know, the world as it was, +not a world expurgated and prettified with optimistic +rainbows. ‘Yes, yes,’ said he; ‘but this +badness is such an easy, lazy explanation. Won’t you +be tempted to use it, instead of trying to understand +people?’</p> +<p>In the year 1878, he took a passionate fancy for the +phonograph: it was a toy after his heart, a toy that touched the +skirts of life, art, and science, a toy prolific of problems and +theories. Something fell to be done for a University +Cricket Ground Bazaar. ‘And the thought struck +him,’ Mr. Ewing writes to me, ‘to exhibit +Edison’s phonograph, then the very newest scientific +marvel. The instrument itself was not to be +purchased—I think no specimen had then crossed the +Atlantic—but a copy of the <i>Times</i> with an account of +it was at hand, and by the help of this we made a phonograph +which to our great joy talked, and talked, too, with the purest +American accent. It was so good that a second instrument +was got ready forthwith. Both were shown at the Bazaar: one +by Mrs. Jenkin to people willing to pay half a crown for a +private view and the privilege of hearing their own voices, while +Jenkin, perfervid as usual, gave half-hourly lectures on the +other in an adjoining room—I, as his lieutenant, taking +turns. The thing was in its way a little triumph. A +few of the visitors were deaf, and hugged the belief that they +were the victims of a new kind of fancy-fair swindle. Of +the others, many who came to scoff remained to take raffle +tickets; and one of the phonographs was finally disposed of in +this way, falling, by a happy freak of the ballot-box, into the +hands of Sir William Thomson.’ The other remained in +Fleeming’s hands, and was a source of infinite +occupation. Once it was sent to London, ‘to bring +back on the tinfoil the tones of a lady distinguished for clear +vocalisations; at another time Sir Robert Christison was brought +in to contribute his powerful bass’; and there scarcely +came a visitor about the house, but he was made the subject of +experiment. The visitors, I am afraid, took their parts +lightly: Mr. Hole and I, with unscientific laughter, +commemorating various shades of Scotch accent, or proposing to +‘teach the poor dumb animal to swear.’ But +Fleeming and Mr. Ewing, when we butterflies were gone, were +laboriously ardent. Many thoughts that occupied the later +years of my friend were caught from the small utterance of that +toy. Thence came his inquiries into the roots of articulate +language and the foundations of literary art; his papers on vowel +sounds, his papers in the <i>Saturday Review</i> upon the laws of +verse, and many a strange approximation, many a just note, thrown +out in talk and now forgotten. I pass over dozens of his +interests, and dwell on this trifling matter of the phonograph, +because it seems to me that it depicts the man. So, for +Fleeming, one thing joined into another, the greater with the +less. He cared not where it was he scratched the surface of +the ultimate mystery—in the child’s toy, in the great +tragedy, in the laws of the tempest, or in the properties of +energy or mass—certain that whatever he touched, it was a +part of life—and however he touched it, there would flow +for his happy constitution interest and delight. ‘All +fables have their morals,’ says Thoreau, ‘but the +innocent enjoy the story.’ There is a truth +represented for the imagination in these lines of a noble poem, +where we are told, that in our highest hours of visionary +clearness, we can but</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘see the +children sport upon the shore<br /> +And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To this clearness Fleeming had attained; and although he heard +the voice of the eternal seas and weighed its message, he was yet +able, until the end of his life, to sport upon these shores of +death and mystery with the gaiety and innocence of children.</p> +<h3>IV.</h3> +<p>It was as a student that I first knew Fleeming, as one of that +modest number of young men who sat under his ministrations in a +soul-chilling class-room at the top of the University +buildings. His presence was against him as a professor: no +one, least of all students, would have been moved to respect him +at first sight: rather short in stature, markedly plain, boyishly +young in manner, cocking his head like a terrier with every mark +of the most engaging vivacity and readiness to be pleased, full +of words, full of paradox, a stranger could scarcely fail to look +at him twice, a man thrown with him in a train could scarcely +fail to be engaged by him in talk, but a student would never +regard him as academical. Yet he had that fibre in him that +order always existed in his class-room. I do not remember +that he ever addressed me in language; at the least sign of +unrest, his eye would fall on me and I was quelled. Such a +feat is comparatively easy in a small class; but I have +misbehaved in smaller classes and under eyes more Olympian than +Fleeming Jenkin’s. He was simply a man from whose +reproof one shrank; in manner the least buckrammed of mankind, he +had, in serious moments, an extreme dignity of goodness. So +it was that he obtained a power over the most insubordinate of +students, but a power of which I was myself unconscious. I +was inclined to regard any professor as a joke, and Fleeming as a +particularly good joke, perhaps the broadest in the vast +pleasantry of my curriculum. I was not able to follow his +lectures; I somehow dared not misconduct myself, as was my +customary solace; and I refrained from attending. This +brought me at the end of the session into a relation with my +contemned professor that completely opened my eyes. During +the year, bad student as I was, he had shown a certain leaning to +my society; I had been to his house, he had asked me to take a +humble part in his theatricals; I was a master in the art of +extracting a certificate even at the cannon’s mouth; and I +was under no apprehension. But when I approached Fleeming, +I found myself in another world; he would have naught of +me. ‘It is quite useless for <i>you</i> to come to +me, Mr. Stevenson. There may be doubtful cases, there is no +doubt about yours. You have simply <i>not</i> attended my +class.’ The document was necessary to me for family +considerations; and presently I stooped to such pleadings and +rose to such adjurations, as made my ears burn to remember. +He was quite unmoved; he had no pity for me.—‘You are +no fool,’ said he, ‘and you chose your +course.’ I showed him that he had misconceived his +duty, that certificates were things of form, attendance a matter +of taste. Two things, he replied, had been required for +graduation, a certain competency proved in the final trials and a +certain period of genuine training proved by certificate; if he +did as I desired, not less than if he gave me hints for an +examination, he was aiding me to steal a degree. ‘You +see, Mr. Stevenson, these are the laws and I am here to apply +them,’ said he. I could not say but that this view +was tenable, though it was new to me; I changed my attack: it was +only for my father’s eye that I required his signature, it +need never go to the Senatus, I had already certificates enough +to justify my year’s attendance. ‘Bring them to +me; I cannot take your word for that,’ said he. +‘Then I will consider.’ The next day I came +charged with my certificates, a humble assortment. And when +he had satisfied himself, ‘Remember,’ said he, +‘that I can promise nothing, but I will try to find a form +of words.’ He did find one, and I am still ashamed +when I think of his shame in giving me that paper. He made +no reproach in speech, but his manner was the more eloquent; it +told me plainly what a dirty business we were on; and I went from +his presence, with my certificate indeed in my possession, but +with no answerable sense of triumph. That was the bitter +beginning of my love for Fleeming; I never thought lightly of him +afterwards.</p> +<p>Once, and once only, after our friendship was truly founded, +did we come to a considerable difference. It was, by the +rules of poor humanity, my fault and his. I had been led to +dabble in society journalism; and this coming to his ears, he +felt it like a disgrace upon himself. So far he was exactly +in the right; but he was scarce happily inspired when he broached +the subject at his own table and before guests who were strangers +to me. It was the sort of error he was always ready to +repent, but always certain to repeat; and on this occasion he +spoke so freely that I soon made an excuse and left the house +with the firm purpose of returning no more. About a month +later, I met him at dinner at a common friend’s. +‘Now,’ said he, on the stairs, ‘I engage +you—like a lady to dance—for the end of the +evening. You have no right to quarrel with me and not give +me a chance.’ I have often said and thought that +Fleeming had no tact; he belied the opinion then. I +remember perfectly how, so soon as we could get together, he +began his attack: ‘You may have grounds of quarrel with me; +you have none against Mrs. Jenkin; and before I say another word, +I want you to promise you will come to <i>her</i> house as +usual.’ An interview thus begun could have but one +ending: if the quarrel were the fault of both, the merit of the +reconciliation was entirely Fleeming’s.</p> +<p>When our intimacy first began, coldly enough, accidentally +enough on his part, he had still something of the Puritan, +something of the inhuman narrowness of the good youth. It +fell from him slowly, year by year, as he continued to ripen, and +grow milder, and understand more generously the mingled +characters of men. In the early days he once read me a +bitter lecture; and I remember leaving his house in a fine spring +afternoon, with the physical darkness of despair upon my +eyesight. Long after he made me a formal retractation of +the sermon and a formal apology for the pain he had inflicted; +adding drolly, but truly, ‘You see, at that time I was so +much younger than you!’ And yet even in those days +there was much to learn from him; and above all his fine spirit +of piety, bravely and trustfully accepting life, and his singular +delight in the heroic.</p> +<p>His piety was, indeed, a thing of chief importance. His +views (as they are called) upon religious matters varied much; +and he could never be induced to think them more or less than +views. ‘All dogma is to me mere form,’ he +wrote; ‘dogmas are mere blind struggles to express the +inexpressible. I cannot conceive that any single +proposition whatever in religion is true in the scientific sense; +and yet all the while I think the religious view of the world is +the most true view. Try to separate from the mass of their +statements that which is common to Socrates, Isaiah, David, St. +Bernard, the Jansenists, Luther, Mahomet, Bunyan—yes, and +George Eliot: of course you do not believe that this something +could be written down in a set of propositions like Euclid, +neither will you deny that there is something common and this +something very valuable. . . . I shall be sorry if the boys ever +give a moment’s thought to the question of what community +they belong to—I hope they will belong to the great +community.’ I should observe that as time went on his +conformity to the church in which he was born grew more complete, +and his views drew nearer the conventional. ‘The +longer I live, my dear Louis,’ he wrote but a few months +before his death, ‘the more convinced I become of a direct +care by God—which is reasonably impossible—but there +it is.’ And in his last year he took the +communion.</p> +<p>But at the time when I fell under his influence, he stood more +aloof; and this made him the more impressive to a youthful +atheist. He had a keen sense of language and its imperial +influence on men; language contained all the great and sound +metaphysics, he was wont to say; and a word once made and +generally understood, he thought a real victory of man and +reason. But he never dreamed it could be accurate, knowing +that words stand symbol for the indefinable. I came to him +once with a problem which had puzzled me out of measure: what is +a cause? why out of so many innumerable millions of conditions, +all necessary, should one be singled out and ticketed ‘the +cause’? ‘You do not understand,’ said +he. ‘A cause is the answer to a question: it +designates that condition which I happen to know and you happen +not to know.’ It was thus, with partial exception of +the mathematical, that he thought of all means of reasoning: they +were in his eyes but means of communication, so to be understood, +so to be judged, and only so far to be credited. The +mathematical he made, I say, exception of: number and measure he +believed in to the extent of their significance, but that +significance, he was never weary of reminding you, was slender to +the verge of nonentity. Science was true, because it told +us almost nothing. With a few abstractions it could deal, +and deal correctly; conveying honestly faint truths. Apply +its means to any concrete fact of life, and this high dialect of +the wise became a childish jargon.</p> +<p>Thus the atheistic youth was met at every turn by a scepticism +more complete than his own, so that the very weapons of the fight +were changed in his grasp to swords of paper. Certainly the +church is not right, he would argue, but certainly not the +anti-church either. Men are not such fools as to be wholly +in the wrong, nor yet are they so placed as to be ever wholly in +the right. Somewhere, in mid air between the disputants, +like hovering Victory in some design of a Greek battle, the truth +hangs undiscerned. And in the meanwhile what matter these +uncertainties? Right is very obvious; a great consent of +the best of mankind, a loud voice within us (whether of God, or +whether by inheritance, and in that case still from God), guide +and command us in the path of duty. He saw life very +simple; he did not love refinements; he was a friend to much +conformity in unessentials. For (he would argue) it is in +this life as it stands about us, that we are given our problem; +the manners of the day are the colours of our palette; they +condition, they constrain us; and a man must be very sure he is +in the right, must (in a favourite phrase of his) be +‘either very wise or very vain,’ to break with any +general consent in ethics. I remember taking his advice +upon some point of conduct. ‘Now,’ he said, +‘how do you suppose Christ would have advised you?’ +and when I had answered that he would not have counselled me +anything unkind or cowardly, ‘No,’ he said, with one +of his shrewd strokes at the weakness of his hearer, ‘nor +anything amusing.’ Later in life, he made less +certain in the field of ethics. ‘The old story of the +knowledge of good and evil is a very true one,’ I find him +writing; only (he goes on) ‘the effect of the original dose +is much worn out, leaving Adam’s descendants with the +knowledge that there is such a thing—but uncertain +where.’ His growing sense of this ambiguity made him +less swift to condemn, but no less stimulating in counsel. +‘You grant yourself certain freedoms. Very +well,’ he would say, ‘I want to see you pay for them +some other way. You positively cannot do this: then there +positively must be something else that you can do, and I want to +see you find that out and do it.’ Fleeming would +never suffer you to think that you were living, if there were +not, somewhere in your life, some touch of heroism, to do or to +endure.</p> +<p>This was his rarest quality. Far on in middle age, when +men begin to lie down with the bestial goddesses, Comfort and +Respectability, the strings of his nature still sounded as high a +note as a young man’s. He loved the harsh voice of +duty like a call to battle. He loved courage, enterprise, +brave natures, a brave word, an ugly virtue; everything that +lifts us above the table where we eat or the bed we sleep +upon. This with no touch of the motive-monger or the +ascetic. He loved his virtues to be practical, his heroes +to be great eaters of beef; he loved the jovial Heracles, loved +the astute Odysseus; not the Robespierres and Wesleys. A +fine buoyant sense of life and of man’s unequal character +ran through all his thoughts. He could not tolerate the +spirit of the pick-thank; being what we are, he wished us to see +others with a generous eye of admiration, not with the smallness +of the seeker after faults. If there shone anywhere a +virtue, no matter how incongruously set, it was upon the virtue +we must fix our eyes. I remember having found much +entertainment in Voltaire’s <i>Saül</i>, and telling +him what seemed to me the drollest touches. He heard me +out, as usual when displeased, and then opened fire on me with +red-hot shot. To belittle a noble story was easy; it was +not literature, it was not art, it was not morality; there was no +sustenance in such a form of jesting, there was (in his favourite +phrase) ‘no nitrogenous food’ in such +literature. And then he proceeded to show what a fine +fellow David was; and what a hard knot he was in about Bathsheba, +so that (the initial wrong committed) honour might well hesitate +in the choice of conduct; and what owls those people were who +marvelled because an Eastern tyrant had killed Uriah, instead of +marvelling that he had not killed the prophet also. +‘Now if Voltaire had helped me to feel that,’ said +he, ‘I could have seen some fun in it.’ He +loved the comedy which shows a hero human, and yet leaves him a +hero, and the laughter which does not lessen love.</p> +<p>It was this taste for what is fine in human-kind, that ruled +his choice in books. These should all strike a high note, +whether brave or tender, and smack of the open air. The +noble and simple presentation of things noble and simple, that +was the ‘nitrogenous food’ of which he spoke so much, +which he sought so eagerly, enjoyed so royally. He wrote to +an author, the first part of whose story he had seen with +sympathy, hoping that it might continue in the same vein. +‘That this may be so,’ he wrote, ‘I long with +the longing of David for the water of Bethlehem. But no man +need die for the water a poet can give, and all can drink it to +the end of time, and their thirst be quenched and the pool never +dry—and the thirst and the water are both +blessed.’ It was in the Greeks particularly that he +found this blessed water; he loved ‘a fresh air’ +which he found ‘about the Greek things even in +translations’; he loved their freedom from the mawkish and +the rancid. The tale of David in the Bible, the +<i>Odyssey</i>, Sophocles, Æschylus, Shakespeare, Scott; +old Dumas in his chivalrous note; Dickens rather than Thackeray, +and the <i>Tale of Two Cities</i> out of Dickens: such were some +of his preferences. To Ariosto and Boccaccio he was always +faithful; <i>Burnt Njal</i> was a late favourite; and he found at +least a passing entertainment in the <i>Arcadia</i> and the +<i>Grand Cyrus</i>. George Eliot he outgrew, finding her +latterly only sawdust in the mouth; but her influence, while it +lasted, was great, and must have gone some way to form his +mind. He was easily set on edge, however, by didactic +writing; and held that books should teach no other lesson but +what ‘real life would teach, were it as vividly +presented.’ Again, it was the thing made that took +him, the drama in the book; to the book itself, to any merit of +the making, he was long strangely blind. He would prefer +the <i>Agamemnon</i> in the prose of Mr. Buckley, ay, to +Keats. But he was his mother’s son, learning to the +last. He told me one day that literature was not a trade; +that it was no craft; that the professed author was merely an +amateur with a door-plate. ‘Very well,’ said I, +‘the first time you get a proof, I will demonstrate that it +is as much a trade as bricklaying, and that you do not know +it.’ By the very next post, a proof came. I +opened it with fear; for he was indeed, as the reader will see by +these volumes, a formidable amateur; always wrote brightly, +because he always thought trenchantly; and sometimes wrote +brilliantly, as the worst of whistlers may sometimes stumble on a +perfect intonation. But it was all for the best in the +interests of his education; and I was able, over that proof, to +give him a quarter of an hour such as Fleeming loved both to give +and to receive. His subsequent training passed out of my +hands into those of our common friend, W. E. Henley. +‘Henley and I,’ he wrote, ‘have fairly good +times wigging one another for not doing better. I wig him +because he won’t try to write a real play, and he wigs me +because I can’t try to write English.’ When I +next saw him, he was full of his new acquisitions. +‘And yet I have lost something too,’ he said +regretfully. ‘Up to now Scott seemed to me quite +perfect, he was all I wanted. Since I have been learning +this confounded thing, I took up one of the novels, and a great +deal of it is both careless and clumsy.’</p> +<h3>V.</h3> +<p>He spoke four languages with freedom, not even English with +any marked propriety. What he uttered was not so much well +said, as excellently acted: so we may hear every day the +inexpressive language of a poorly-written drama assume character +and colour in the hands of a good player. No man had more +of the <i>vis comica</i> in private life; he played no character +on the stage, as he could play himself among his friends. +It was one of his special charms; now when the voice is silent +and the face still, it makes it impossible to do justice to his +power in conversation. He was a delightful companion to +such as can bear bracing weather; not to the very vain; not to +the owlishly wise, who cannot have their dogmas canvassed; not to +the painfully refined, whose sentiments become articles of +faith. The spirit in which he could write that he was +‘much revived by having an opportunity of abusing Whistler +to a knot of his special admirers,’ is a spirit apt to be +misconstrued. He was not a dogmatist, even about +Whistler. ‘The house is full of pretty things,’ +he wrote, when on a visit; ‘but Mrs. —’s taste +in pretty things has one very bad fault: it is not my +taste.’ And that was the true attitude of his mind; +but these eternal differences it was his joy to thresh out and +wrangle over by the hour. It was no wonder if he loved the +Greeks; he was in many ways a Greek himself; he should have been +a sophist and met Socrates; he would have loved Socrates, and +done battle with him staunchly and manfully owned his defeat; and +the dialogue, arranged by Plato, would have shown even in +Plato’s gallery. He seemed in talk aggressive, +petulant, full of a singular energy; as vain you would have said +as a peacock, until you trod on his toes, and then you saw that +he was at least clear of all the sicklier elements of +vanity. Soundly rang his laugh at any jest against +himself. He wished to be taken, as he took others, for what +was good in him without dissimulation of the evil, for what was +wise in him without concealment of the childish. He hated a +draped virtue, and despised a wit on its own defence. And +he drew (if I may so express myself) a human and humorous +portrait of himself with all his defects and qualities, as he +thus enjoyed in talk the robust sports of the intelligence; +giving and taking manfully, always without pretence, always with +paradox, always with exuberant pleasure; speaking wisely of what +he knew, foolishly of what he knew not; a teacher, a learner, but +still combative; picking holes in what was said even to the +length of captiousness, yet aware of all that was said rightly; +jubilant in victory, delighted by defeat: a Greek sophist, a +British schoolboy.</p> +<p>Among the legends of what was once a very pleasant spot, the +old Savile Club, not then divorced from Savile Row, there are +many memories of Fleeming. He was not popular at first, +being known simply as ‘the man who dines here and goes up +to Scotland’; but he grew at last, I think, the most +generally liked of all the members. To those who truly knew +and loved him, who had tasted the real sweetness of his nature, +Fleeming’s porcupine ways had always been a matter of keen +regret. They introduced him to their own friends with fear; +sometimes recalled the step with mortification. It was not +possible to look on with patience while a man so lovable thwarted +love at every step. But the course of time and the ripening +of his nature brought a cure. It was at the Savile that he +first remarked a change; it soon spread beyond the walls of the +club. Presently I find him writing: ‘Will you kindly +explain what has happened to me? All my life I have talked +a good deal, with the almost unfailing result of making people +sick of the sound of my tongue. It appeared to me that I +had various things to say, and I had no malevolent feelings, but +nevertheless the result was that expressed above. Well, +lately some change has happened. If I talk to a person one +day, they must have me the next. Faces light up when they +see me.—“Ah, I say, come +here,”—“come and dine with me.” +It’s the most preposterous thing I ever experienced. +It is curiously pleasant. You have enjoyed it all your +life, and therefore cannot conceive how bewildering a burst of it +is for the first time at forty-nine.’ And this late +sunshine of popularity still further softened him. He was a +bit of a porcupine to the last, still shedding darts; or rather +he was to the end a bit of a schoolboy, and must still throw +stones, but the essential toleration that underlay his +disputatiousness, and the kindness that made of him a tender +sicknurse and a generous helper, shone more conspicuously +through. A new pleasure had come to him; and as with all +sound natures, he was bettered by the pleasure.</p> +<p>I can best show Fleeming in this later stage by quoting from a +vivid and interesting letter of M. Emile +Trélat’s. Here, admirably expressed, is how he +appeared to a friend of another nation, whom he encountered only +late in life. M. Trélat will pardon me if I correct, +even before I quote him; but what the Frenchman supposed to flow +from some particular bitterness against France, was only +Fleeming’s usual address. Had M. Trélat been +Italian, Italy would have fared as ill; and yet Italy was +Fleeming’s favourite country.</p> +<blockquote><p>Vous savez comment j’ai connu Fleeming +Jenkin! C’était en Mai 1878. Nous +étions tous deux membres du jury de l’Exposition +Universelle. On n’avait rien fait qui vaille à +la première séance de notre classe, qui avait eu +lieu le matin. Tout le monde avait parlé et +reparlé pour ne rien dire. Cela durait depuis huit +heures; il était midi. Je demandai la parole pour +une motion d’ordre, et je proposai que la séance fut +levée à la condition que chaque membre +français, <i>emportât</i> à déjeuner +un juré étranger. Jenkin applaudit. +‘Je vous emmène déjeuner,’ lui +criai-je. ‘Je veux bien.’ . . . Nous +partîmes; en chemin nous vous rencontrions; il vous +présente et nous allons déjeuner tous trois +auprès du Trocadéro.</p> +<p>Et, depuis ce temps, nous avons été de vieux +amis. Non seulement nous passions nos journées au +jury, où nous étions toujours ensemble, +côte-à-côte. Mais nos habitudes +s’étaient faites telles que, non contents de +déjeuner en face l’un de l’autre, je le +ramenais dîner presque tous les jours chez moi. Cela +dura une quinzaine: puis il fut rappelé en +Angleterre. Mais il revint, et nous fîmes encore une +bonne étape de vie intellectuelle, morale et +philosophique. Je crois qu’il me rendait +déjà tout ce que j’éprouvais de +sympathie et d’estime, et que je ne fus pas pour rien dans +son retour à Paris.</p> +<p>Chose singulière! nous nous étions +attachés l’un à l’autre par les +sous-entendus bien plus que par la matière de nos +conversations. À vrai dire, nous étions +presque toujours en discussion; et il nous arrivait de nous rire +au nez l’un et l’autre pendant des heures, tant nous +nous étonnions réciproquement de la +diversité de nos points de vue. Je le trouvais si +Anglais, et il me trouvais si Français! Il +était si franchement révolté de certaines +choses qu’il voyait chez nous, et je comprenais si mal +certaines choses qui se passaient chez vous! Rien de plus +intéressant que ces contacts qui étaient des +contrastes, et que ces rencontres d’idées qui +étaient des choses; rien de si attachant que les +échappées de cœur ou d’esprit +auxquelles ces petits conflits donnaient à tout moment +cours. C’est dans ces conditions que, pendant son +séjour à Paris en 1878, je conduisis un peu partout +mon nouvel ami. Nous allâmes chez Madame Edmond Adam, +où il vit passer beaucoup d’hommes politiques avec +lesquels il causa. Mais c’est chez les ministres +qu’il fut intéressé. Le moment +était, d’ailleurs, curieux en France. Je me +rappelle que, lorsque je le présentai au Ministre du +Commerce, il fit cette spirituelle repartie: ‘C’est +la seconde fois que je viens en France sous la +République. La première fois, +c’était en 1848, elle s’était +coiffée de travers: je suis bien heureux de saluer +aujourd’hui votre excellence, quand elle a mis son chapeau +droit.’ Une fois je le menai voir couronner la +Rosière de Nanterre. Il y suivit les +cérémonies civiles et religieuses; il y assista au +banquet donné par le Maire; il y vit notre de Lesseps, +auquel il porta un toast. Le soir, nous revînmes tard +à Paris; il faisait chaud; nous étions un peu +fatigués; nous entrâmes dans un des rares +cafés encore ouverts. Il devint +silencieux.—‘N’êtes-vous pas content de +votre journée?’ lui dis-je.—‘O, si! mais +je réfléchis, et je me dis que vous êtes un +peuple gai—tous ces braves gens étaient gais +aujourd’hui. C’est une vertu, la gaieté, +et vous l’avez en France, cette vertu!’ Il me +disait cela mélancoliquement; et c’était la +première fois que je lui entendais faire une louange +adressée à la France. . . . Mais il ne faut pas que +vous voyiez là une plainte de ma part. Je serais un +ingrat si je me plaignais; car il me disait souvent: ‘Quel +bon Français vous faites!’ Et il +m’aimait à cause de cela, quoiqu’il +semblât n’aimer pas la France. +C’était là un trait de son +originalité. Il est vrai qu’il s’en +tirait en disant que je ne ressemblai pas à mes +compatriotes, ce à quoi il ne connaissait rien!—Tout +cela était fort curieux; car, moi-même, je +l’aimais quoiqu’il en eût à mon +pays!</p> +<p>En 1879 il amena son fils Austin à Paris. +J’attirai celui-ci. Il déjeunait avec moi deux +fois par semaine. Je lui montrai ce qu’était +l’intimité française en le tutoyant +paternellement. Cela reserra beaucoup nos liens +d’intimité avec Jenkin. . . . Je fis inviter mon ami +au congrès de l’<i>Association française pour +l’avancement des sciences</i>, qui se tenait à +Rheims en 1880. Il y vint. J’eus le plaisir de +lui donner la parole dans la section du génie civil et +militaire, que je présidais. Il y fit une +très intéressante communication, qui me montrait +une fois de plus l’originalité de ses vues et la +sûreté de sa science. C’est à +l’issue de ce congrès que je passai lui faire visite +à Rochefort, où je le trouvai installé en +famille et où je présentai pour la première +fois mes hommages à son éminente compagne. Je +le vis là sous un jour nouveau et touchant pour moi. +Madame Jenkin, qu’il entourait si galamment, et ses deux +jeunes fils donnaient encore plus de relief à sa +personne. J’emportai des quelques heures que je +passai à côte de lui dans ce charmant paysage un +souvenir ému.</p> +<p>J’étais allé en Angleterre en 1882 sans +pouvoir gagner Edimbourg. J’y retournai en 1883 avec +la commission d’assainissement de la ville de Paris, dont +je faisais partie. Jenkin me rejoignit. Je le fis +entendre par mes collègues; car il était fondateur +d’une société de salubrité. Il +eut un grand succès parmi nous. Mais ce voyage me +restera toujours en mémoire parce que c’est +là que se fixa défenitivement notre forte +amitié. Il m’invita un jour à +dîner à son club et au moment de me faire asseoir +à côté de lui, il me retint et me dit: +‘Je voudrais vous demander de m’accorder quelque +chose. C’est mon sentiment que nos relations ne +peuvent pas se bien continuer si vous ne me donnez pas la +permission de vous tutoyer. Voulez-vous que nous nous +tutoyions?’ Je lui pris les mains et je lui dis +qu’une pareille proposition venant d’un Anglais, et +d’un Anglais de sa haute distinction, c’était +une victoire, dont je serais fier toute ma vie. Et nous +commencions à user de cette nouvelle forme dans nos +rapports. Vous savez avec quelle finesse il parlait le +français: comme il en connaissait tous les tours, comme il +jouait avec ses difficultés, et même avec ses +petites gamineries. Je crois qu’il a +été heureux de pratiquer avec moi ce tutoiement, +qui ne s’adapte pas à l’anglais, et qui est si +français. Je ne puis vous peindre +l’étendue et la variété de nos +conversations de la soirée. Mais ce que je puis vous +dire, c’est que, sous la caresse du <i>tu</i>, nos +idées se sont élevées. Nous avions +toujours beaucoup ri ensemble; mais nous n’avions jamais +laissé des banalités s’introduire dans nos +échanges de pensées. Ce soir-là, notre +horizon intellectuel s’est élargie, et nous y avons +poussé des reconnaissances profondes et lointaines. +Après avoir vivement causé à table, nous +avons longuement causé au salon; et nous nous +séparions le soir à Trafalgar Square, après +avoir longé les trottoirs, stationné aux coins des +rues et deux fois rebroussé chemin en nous reconduisant +l’un l’autre. Il était près +d’une heure du matin! Mais quelle belle passe +d’argumentation, quels beaux échanges de sentiments, +quelles fortes confidences patriotiques nous avions +fournies! J’ai compris ce soir là que Jenkin +ne détestait pas la France, et je lui serrai fort les +mains en l’embrassant. Nous nous quittions aussi amis +qu’on puisse l’être; et notre affection +s’était par lui étendue et comprise dans un +<i>tu</i> français.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>CHAPTER VII. 1875–1885.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Mrs. Jenkin’s Illness—Captain +Jenkin—The Golden Wedding—Death of Uncle +John—Death of Mr. and Mrs. Austin—Illness and Death +of the Captain—Death of Mrs. Jenkin—Effect on +Fleeming—Telpherage—The End.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">And</span> now I must resume my narrative +for that melancholy business that concludes all human +histories. In January of the year 1875, while +Fleeming’s sky was still unclouded, he was reading +Smiles. ‘I read my engineers’ lives +steadily,’ he writes, ‘but find biographies +depressing. I suspect one reason to be that misfortunes and +trials can be graphically described, but happiness and the causes +of happiness either cannot be or are not. A grand new +branch of literature opens to my view: a drama in which people +begin in a poor way and end, after getting gradually happier, in +an ecstasy of enjoyment. The common novel is not the thing +at all. It gives struggle followed by relief. I want +each act to close on a new and triumphant happiness, which has +been steadily growing all the while. This is the real +antithesis of tragedy, where things get blacker and blacker and +end in hopeless woe. Smiles has not grasped my grand idea, +and only shows a bitter struggle followed by a little respite +before death. Some feeble critic might say my new idea was +not true to nature. I’m sick of this old-fashioned +notion of art. Hold a mirror up, indeed! Let’s +paint a picture of how things ought to be and hold that up to +nature, and perhaps the poor old woman may repent and mend her +ways.’ The ‘grand idea’ might be possible +in art; not even the ingenuity of nature could so round in the +actual life of any man. And yet it might almost seem to +fancy that she had read the letter and taken the hint; for to +Fleeming the cruelties of fate were strangely blended with +tenderness, and when death came, it came harshly to others, to +him not unkindly.</p> +<p>In the autumn of that same year 1875, Fleeming’s father +and mother were walking in the garden of their house at +Merchiston, when the latter fell to the ground. It was +thought at the time to be a stumble; it was in all likelihood a +premonitory stroke of palsy. From that day, there fell upon +her an abiding panic fear; that glib, superficial part of us that +speaks and reasons could allege no cause, science itself could +find no mark of danger, a son’s solicitude was laid at +rest; but the eyes of the body saw the approach of a blow, and +the consciousness of the body trembled at its coming. It +came in a moment; the brilliant, spirited old lady leapt from her +bed, raving. For about six months, this stage of her +disease continued with many painful and many pathetic +circumstances; her husband who tended her, her son who was +unwearied in his visits, looked for no change in her condition +but the change that comes to all. ‘Poor +mother,’ I find Fleeming writing, ‘I cannot get the +tones of her voice out of my head. . . I may have to bear this +pain for a long time; and so I am bearing it and sparing myself +whatever pain seems useless. Mercifully I do sleep, I am so +weary that I must sleep.’ And again later: ‘I +could do very well, if my mind did not revert to my poor +mother’s state whenever I stop attending to matters +immediately before me.’ And the next day: ‘I +can never feel a moment’s pleasure without having my +mother’s suffering recalled by the very feeling of +happiness. A pretty, young face recalls hers by +contrast—a careworn face recalls it by association. I +tell you, for I can speak to no one else; but do not suppose that +I wilfully let my mind dwell on sorrow.’</p> +<p>In the summer of the next year, the frenzy left her; it left +her stone deaf and almost entirely aphasic, but with some remains +of her old sense and courage. Stoutly she set to work with +dictionaries, to recover her lost tongues; and had already made +notable progress, when a third stroke scattered her +acquisitions. Thenceforth, for nearly ten years, stroke +followed upon stroke, each still further jumbling the threads of +her intelligence, but by degrees so gradual and with such +partiality of loss and of survival, that her precise state was +always and to the end a matter of dispute. She still +remembered her friends; she still loved to learn news of them +upon the slate; she still read and marked the list of the +subscription library; she still took an interest in the choice of +a play for the theatricals, and could remember and find parallel +passages; but alongside of these surviving powers, were lapses as +remarkable, she misbehaved like a child, and a servant had to sit +with her at table. To see her so sitting, speaking with the +tones of a deaf mute not always to the purpose, and to remember +what she had been, was a moving appeal to all who knew her. +Such was the pathos of these two old people in their affliction, +that even the reserve of cities was melted and the neighbours +vied in sympathy and kindness. Where so many were more than +usually helpful, it is hard to draw distinctions; but I am +directed and I delight to mention in particular the good Dr. +Joseph Bell, Mr. Thomas, and Mr. Archibald Constable with both +their wives, the Rev. Mr. Belcombe (of whose good heart and taste +I do not hear for the first time—the news had come to me by +way of the Infirmary), and their next-door neighbour, unwearied +in service, Miss Hannah Mayne. Nor should I omit to mention +that John Ruffini continued to write to Mrs. Jenkin till his own +death, and the clever lady known to the world as Vernon Lee until +the end: a touching, a becoming attention to what was only the +wreck and survival of their brilliant friend.</p> +<p>But he to whom this affliction brought the greatest change was +the Captain himself. What was bitter in his lot, he bore +with unshaken courage; only once, in these ten years of trial, +has Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin seen him weep; for the rest of the time +his wife—his commanding officer, now become his trying +child—was served not with patience alone, but with a lovely +happiness of temper. He had belonged all his life to the +ancient, formal, speechmaking, compliment-presenting school of +courtesy; the dictates of this code partook in his eyes of the +nature of a duty; and he must now be courteous for two. +Partly from a happy illusion, partly in a tender fraud, he kept +his wife before the world as a still active partner. When +he paid a call, he would have her write ‘with love’ +upon a card; or if that (at the moment) was too much, he would go +armed with a bouquet and present it in her name. He even +wrote letters for her to copy and sign: an innocent substitution, +which may have caused surprise to Ruffini or to Vernon Lee, if +they ever received, in the hand of Mrs. Jenkin the very obvious +reflections of her husband. He had always adored this wife +whom he now tended and sought to represent in correspondence: it +was now, if not before, her turn to repay the compliment; mind +enough was left her to perceive his unwearied kindness; and as +her moral qualities seemed to survive quite unimpaired, a +childish love and gratitude were his reward. She would +interrupt a conversation to cross the room and kiss him. If +she grew excited (as she did too often) it was his habit to come +behind her chair and pat her shoulder; and then she would turn +round, and clasp his hand in hers, and look from him to her +visitor with a face of pride and love; and it was at such moments +only that the light of humanity revived in her eyes. It was +hard for any stranger, it was impossible for any that loved them, +to behold these mute scenes, to recall the past, and not to +weep. But to the Captain, I think it was all +happiness. After these so long years, he had found his wife +again; perhaps kinder than ever before; perhaps now on a more +equal footing; certainly, to his eyes, still beautiful. And +the call made on his intelligence had not been made in +vain. The merchants of Aux Cayes, who had seen him tried in +some ‘counter-revolution’ in 1845, wrote to the +consul of his ‘able and decided measures,’ ‘his +cool, steady judgment and discernment’ with admiration; and +of himself, as ‘a credit and an ornament to H. M. Naval +Service.’ It is plain he must have sunk in all his +powers, during the years when he was only a figure, and often a +dumb figure, in his wife’s drawing-room; but with this new +term of service, he brightened visibly. He showed tact and +even invention in managing his wife, guiding or restraining her +by the touch, holding family worship so arranged that she could +follow and take part in it. He took (to the world’s +surprise) to reading—voyages, biographies, Blair’s +<i>Sermons</i>, even (for her letter’s sake) a work of +Vernon Lee’s, which proved, however, more than he was quite +prepared for. He shone more, in his remarkable way, in +society; and twice he had a little holiday to Glenmorven, where, +as may be fancied, he was the delight of the Highlanders. +One of his last pleasures was to arrange his dining-room. +Many and many a room (in their wandering and thriftless +existence) had he seen his wife furnish with exquisite taste, and +perhaps with ‘considerable luxury’: now it was his +turn to be the decorator. On the wall he had an engraving +of Lord Rodney’s action, showing the <i>Prothée</i>, +his father’s ship, if the reader recollects; on either side +of this on brackets, his father’s sword, and his +father’s telescope, a gift from Admiral Buckner, who had +used it himself during the engagement; higher yet, the head of +his grandson’s first stag, portraits of his son and his +son’s wife, and a couple of old Windsor jugs from Mrs. +Buckner’s. But his simple trophy was not yet +complete; a device had to be worked and framed and hung below the +engraving; and for this he applied to his daughter-in-law: +‘I want you to work me something, Annie. An anchor at +each side—an anchor—stands for an old sailor, you +know—stands for hope, you know—an anchor at each +side, and in the middle <span +class="smcap">Thankful</span>.’ It is not easy, on +any system of punctuation, to represent the Captain’s +speech. Yet I hope there may shine out of these facts, even +as there shone through his own troubled utterance, some of the +charm of that delightful spirit.</p> +<p>In 1881, the time of the golden wedding came round for that +sad and pretty household. It fell on a Good Friday, and its +celebration can scarcely be recalled without both smiles and +tears. The drawing-room was filled with presents and +beautiful bouquets; these, to Fleeming and his family, the golden +bride and bridegroom displayed with unspeakable pride, she so +painfully excited that the guests feared every moment to see her +stricken afresh, he guiding and moderating her with his customary +tact and understanding, and doing the honours of the day with +more than his usual delight. Thence they were brought to +the dining-room, where the Captain’s idea of a feast +awaited them: tea and champagne, fruit and toast and childish +little luxuries, set forth pell-mell and pressed at random on the +guests. And here he must make a speech for himself and his +wife, praising their destiny, their marriage, their son, their +daughter-in-law, their grandchildren, their manifold causes of +gratitude: surely the most innocent speech, the old, sharp +contemner of his innocence now watching him with eyes of +admiration. Then it was time for the guests to depart; and +they went away, bathed, even to the youngest child, in tears of +inseparable sorrow and gladness, and leaving the golden bride and +bridegroom to their own society and that of the hired nurse.</p> +<p>It was a great thing for Fleeming to make, even thus late, the +acquaintance of his father; but the harrowing pathos of such +scenes consumed him. In a life of tense intellectual +effort, a certain smoothness of emotional tenor were to be +desired; or we burn the candle at both ends. Dr. Bell +perceived the evil that was being done; he pressed Mrs. Jenkin to +restrain her husband from too frequent visits; but here was one +of those clear-cut, indubitable duties for which Fleeming lived, +and he could not pardon even the suggestion of neglect.</p> +<p>And now, after death had so long visibly but still innocuously +hovered above the family, it began at last to strike and its +blows fell thick and heavy. The first to go was uncle John +Jenkin, taken at last from his Mexican dwelling and the lost +tribes of Israel; and nothing in this remarkable old +gentleman’s life, became him like the leaving of it. +His sterling, jovial acquiescence in man’s destiny was a +delight to Fleeming. ‘My visit to Stowting has been a +very strange but not at all a painful one,’ he wrote. +‘In case you ever wish to make a person die as he ought to +die in a novel,’ he said to me, ‘I must tell you all +about my old uncle.’ He was to see a nearer instance +before long; for this family of Jenkin, if they were not very +aptly fitted to live, had the art of manly dying. Uncle +John was but an outsider after all; he had dropped out of hail of +his nephew’s way of life and station in society, and was +more like some shrewd, old, humble friend who should have kept a +lodge; yet he led the procession of becoming deaths, and began in +the mind of Fleeming that train of tender and grateful thought, +which was like a preparation for his own. Already I find +him writing in the plural of ‘these impending +deaths’; already I find him in quest of consolation. +‘There is little pain in store for these wayfarers,’ +he wrote, ‘and we have hope—more than hope, +trust.’</p> +<p>On May 19, 1884, Mr. Austin was taken. He was +seventy-eight years of age, suffered sharply with all his old +firmness, and died happy in the knowledge that he had left his +wife well cared for. This had always been a bosom concern; +for the Barrons were long-lived and he believed that she would +long survive him. But their union had been so full and +quiet that Mrs. Austin languished under the separation. In +their last years, they would sit all evening in their own +drawing-room hand in hand: two old people who, for all their +fundamental differences, had yet grown together and become all +the world in each other’s eyes and hearts; and it was felt +to be a kind release, when eight months after, on January 14, +1885, Eliza Barron followed Alfred Austin. ‘I wish I +could save you from all pain,’ wrote Fleeming six days +later to his sorrowing wife, ‘I would if I could—but +my way is not God’s way; and of this be +assured,—God’s way is best.’</p> +<p>In the end of the same month, Captain Jenkin caught cold and +was confined to bed. He was so unchanged in spirit that at +first there seemed no ground of fear; but his great age began to +tell, and presently it was plain he had a summons. The +charm of his sailor’s cheerfulness and ancient courtesy, as +he lay dying, is not to be described. There he lay, singing +his old sea songs; watching the poultry from the window with a +child’s delight; scribbling on the slate little messages to +his wife, who lay bed-ridden in another room; glad to have Psalms +read aloud to him, if they were of a pious strain—checking, +with an ‘I don’t think we need read that, my +dear,’ any that were gloomy or bloody. +Fleeming’s wife coming to the house and asking one of the +nurses for news of Mrs. Jenkin, ‘Madam, I do not +know,’ said the nurse; ‘for I am really so carried +away by the Captain that I can think of nothing +else.’ One of the last messages scribbled to his wife +and sent her with a glass of the champagne that had been ordered +for himself, ran, in his most finished vein of childish madrigal: +‘The Captain bows to you, my love, across the +table.’ When the end was near and it was thought best +that Fleeming should no longer go home but sleep at Merchiston, +he broke his news to the Captain with some trepidation, knowing +that it carried sentence of death. ‘Charming, +charming—charming arrangement,’ was the +Captain’s only commentary. It was the proper thing +for a dying man, of Captain Jenkin’s school of manners, to +make some expression of his spiritual state; nor did he neglect +the observance. With his usual abruptness, +‘Fleeming,’ said he, ‘I suppose you and I feel +about all this as two Christian gentlemen should.’ A +last pleasure was secured for him. He had been waiting with +painful interest for news of Gordon and Khartoum; and by great +good fortune, a false report reached him that the city was +relieved, and the men of Sussex (his old neighbours) had been the +first to enter. He sat up in bed and gave three cheers for +the Sussex regiment. The subsequent correction, if it came +in time, was prudently withheld from the dying man. An hour +before midnight on the fifth of February, he passed away: aged +eighty-four.</p> +<p>Word of his death was kept from Mrs. Jenkin; and she survived +him no more than nine and forty hours. On the day before +her death, she received a letter from her old friend Miss Bell of +Manchester, knew the hand, kissed the envelope, and laid it on +her heart; so that she too died upon a pleasure. Half an +hour after midnight, on the eighth of February, she fell asleep: +it is supposed in her seventy-eighth year.</p> +<p>Thus, in the space of less than ten months, the four seniors +of this family were taken away; but taken with such features of +opportunity in time or pleasant courage in the sufferer, that +grief was tempered with a kind of admiration. The effect on +Fleeming was profound. His pious optimism increased and +became touched with something mystic and filial. ‘The +grave is not good, the approaches to it are terrible,’ he +had written in the beginning of his mother’s illness: he +thought so no more, when he had laid father and mother side by +side at Stowting. He had always loved life; in the brief +time that now remained to him, he seemed to be half in love with +death. ‘Grief is no duty,’ he wrote to Miss +Bell; ‘it was all too beautiful for grief,’ he said +to me; but the emotion, call it by what name we please, shook him +to his depths; his wife thought he would have broken his heart +when he must demolish the Captain’s trophy in the +dining-room, and he seemed thenceforth scarcely the same man.</p> +<p>These last years were indeed years of an excessive demand upon +his vitality; he was not only worn out with sorrow, he was worn +out by hope. The singular invention to which he gave the +name of telpherage, had of late consumed his time, overtaxed his +strength and overheated his imagination. The words in which +he first mentioned his discovery to me—‘I am simply +Alnaschar’—were not only descriptive of his state of +mind, they were in a sense prophetic; since whatever fortune may +await his idea in the future, it was not his to see it bring +forth fruit. Alnaschar he was indeed; beholding about him a +world all changed, a world filled with telpherage wires; and +seeing not only himself and family but all his friends +enriched. It was his pleasure, when the company was +floated, to endow those whom he liked with stock; one, at least, +never knew that he was a possible rich man until the grave had +closed over his stealthy benefactor. And however Fleeming +chafed among material and business difficulties, this rainbow +vision never faded; and he, like his father and his mother, may +be said to have died upon a pleasure. But the strain told, +and he knew that it was telling. ‘I am becoming a +fossil,’ he had written five years before, as a kind of +plea for a holiday visit to his beloved Italy. ‘Take +care! If I am Mr. Fossil, you will be Mrs. Fossil, and Jack +will be Jack Fossil, and all the boys will be little fossils, and +then we shall be a collection.’ There was no fear +more chimerical for Fleeming; years brought him no repose; he was +as packed with energy, as fiery in hope, as at the first; +weariness, to which he began to be no stranger, distressed, it +did not quiet him. He feared for himself, not without +ground, the fate which had overtaken his mother; others shared +the fear. In the changed life now made for his family, the +elders dead, the sons going from home upon their education, even +their tried domestic (Mrs. Alice Dunns) leaving the house after +twenty-two years of service, it was not unnatural that he should +return to dreams of Italy. He and his wife were to go (as +he told me) on ‘a real honeymoon tour.’ He had +not been alone with his wife ‘to speak of,’ he added, +since the birth of his children. But now he was to enjoy +the society of her to whom he wrote, in these last days, that she +was his ‘Heaven on earth.’ Now he was to +revisit Italy, and see all the pictures and the buildings and the +scenes that he admired so warmly, and lay aside for a time the +irritations of his strenuous activity. Nor was this +all. A trifling operation was to restore his former +lightness of foot; and it was a renovated youth that was to set +forth upon this reënacted honeymoon.</p> +<p>The operation was performed; it was of a trifling character, +it seemed to go well, no fear was entertained; and his wife was +reading aloud to him as he lay in bed, when she perceived him to +wander in his mind. It is doubtful if he ever recovered a +sure grasp upon the things of life; and he was still unconscious +when he passed away, June the twelfth, 1885, in the fifty-third +year of his age. He passed; but something in his gallant +vitality had impressed itself upon his friends, and still +impresses. Not from one or two only, but from many, I hear +the same tale of how the imagination refuses to accept our loss +and instinctively looks for his reappearing, and how memory +retains his voice and image like things of yesterday. +Others, the well-beloved too, die and are progressively +forgotten; two years have passed since Fleeming was laid to rest +beside his father, his mother, and his Uncle John; and the +thought and the look of our friend still haunt us.</p> +<h2><a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +277</span>APPENDIX.</h2> +<h3>I. <span class="smcap">Note on the Contributions of +Fleeming Jenkin to Electrical and Engineering +Science</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir William Thomson, +F.R.S., LL. D., etc., etc.</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the beginning of the year 1859 +my former colleague (the first British University Professor of +Engineering), Lewis Gordon, at that time deeply engaged in the +then new work of cable making and cable laying, came to Glasgow +to see apparatus for testing submarine cables and signalling +through them, which I had been preparing for practical use on the +first Atlantic cable, and which had actually done service upon +it, during the six weeks of its successful working between +Valencia and Newfoundland. As soon as he had seen something +of what I had in hand, he said to me, ‘I would like to show +this to a young man of remarkable ability, at present engaged in +our works at Birkenhead.’ Fleeming Jenkin was +accordingly telegraphed for, and appeared next morning in +Glasgow. He remained for a week, spending the whole day in +my class-room and laboratory, and thus pleasantly began our +lifelong acquaintance. I was much struck, not only with his +brightness <a name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +278</span>and ability, but with his resolution to understand +everything spoken of, to see if possible thoroughly through every +difficult question, and (no if about this!) to slur over +nothing. I soon found that thoroughness of honesty was as +strongly engrained in the scientific as in the moral side of his +character.</p> +<p>In the first week of our acquaintance, the electric telegraph +and, particularly, submarine cables, and the methods, machines, +and instruments for laying, testing, and using them, formed +naturally the chief subject of our conversations and discussions; +as it was in fact the practical object of Jenkin’s visit to +me in Glasgow; but not much of the week had passed before I found +him remarkably interested in science generally, and full of +intelligent eagerness on many particular questions of dynamics +and physics. When he returned from Glasgow to Birkenhead a +correspondence commenced between us, which was continued without +intermission up to the last days of his life. It commenced +with a well-sustained fire of letters on each side about the +physical qualities of submarine cables, and the practical results +attainable in the way of rapid signalling through them. +Jenkin used excellently the valuable opportunities for experiment +allowed him by Newall, and his partner Lewis Gordon, at their +Birkenhead factory. Thus he began definite scientific +investigation of the copper resistance of the conductor, and the +insulating resistance and specific inductive capacity of its +gutta-percha coating, in the factory, in various stages <a +name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 279</span>of +manufacture; and he was the very first to introduce +systematically into practice the grand system of absolute +measurement founded in Germany by Gauss and Weber. The +immense value of this step, if only in respect to the electric +telegraph, is amply appreciated by all who remember or who have +read something of the history of submarine telegraphy; but it can +scarcely be known generally how much it is due to Jenkin.</p> +<p>Looking to the article ‘Telegraph (Electric)’ in +the last volume of the old edition of the +‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ which was published +about the year 1861, we find on record that Jenkin’s +measurements in absolute units of the specific resistance of pure +gutta-percha, and of the gutta-percha with Chatterton’s +compound constituting the insulation of the Red Sea cable of +1859, are given as the only results in the way of absolute +measurements of the electric resistance of an insulating material +which had then been made. These remarks are prefaced in the +‘Encyclopædia’ article by the following +statement: ‘No telegraphic testing ought in future to be +accepted in any department of telegraphic business which has not +this definite character; although it is only within the last year +that convenient instruments for working, in absolute measure, +have been introduced at all, and the whole system of absolute +measure is still almost unknown to practical +electricians.’</p> +<p>A particular result of great importance in respect to testing +is referred to as follows in the ‘Encyclopædia’ +<a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 280</span>article: +‘The importance of having results thus stated in absolute +measure is illustrated by the circumstance, that the writer has +been able at once to compare them, in the manner stated in a +preceding paragraph, with his own previous deductions from the +testings of the Atlantic cable during its manufacture in 1857, +and with Weber’s measurements of the specific resistance of +copper.’ It has now become universally +adapted—first of all in England; twenty-two years later by +Germany, the country of its birth; and by France and Italy, and +all the other countries of Europe and America—practically +the whole scientific world—at the Electrical Congress in +Paris in the years 1882 and 1884.</p> +<p>An important paper of thirty quarto pages published in the +‘Transactions of the Royal Society’ for June 19, +1862, under the title ‘Experimental Researches on the +Transmission of Electric Signals through submarine cables, Part +I. Laws of Transmission through various lengths of one +cable, by Fleeming Jenkin, Esq., communicated by C. Wheatstone, +Esq., F.R.S.,’ contains an account of a large part of +Jenkin’s experimental work in the Birkenhead factory during +the years 1859 and 1860. This paper is called Part I. +Part II. alas never appeared, but something that it would have +included we can see from the following ominous statement which I +find near the end of Part I.: ‘From this value, the +electrostatical capacity per unit of length and the specific +inductive capacity of the dielectric, could be determined. +These points will, however, be more fully <a +name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 281</span>treated of +in the second part of this paper.’ Jenkin had in fact +made a determination at Birkenhead of the specific inductive +capacity of gutta-percha, or of the gutta-percha and +Chatterton’s compound constituting the insulation of the +cable, on which he experimented. This was the very first +true measurement of the specific inductive capacity of a +dielectric which had been made after the discovery by Faraday of +the existence of the property, and his primitive measurement of +it for the three substances, glass, shellac, and sulphur; and at +the time when Jenkin made his measurements the existence of +specific inductive capacity was either unknown, or ignored, or +denied, by almost all the scientific authorities of the day.</p> +<p>The original determination of the microfarad, brought out +under the auspices of the British Association Committee on +Electrical Standards, is due to experimental work by Jenkin, +described in a paper, ‘Experiments on Capacity,’ +constituting No. IV. of the appendix to the Report presented by +the Committee to the Dundee Meeting of 1867. No other +determination, so far as I know, of this important element of +electric measurement has hitherto been made; and it is no small +thing to be proud of in respect to Jenkin’s fame as a +scientific and practical electrician that the microfarad which we +now all use is his.</p> +<p>The British Association unit of electrical resistance, on +which was founded the first practical approximation to absolute +measurement on the system of Gauss and <a +name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 282</span>Weber, was +largely due to Jenkin’s zeal as one of the originators, and +persevering energy as a working member, of the first Electrical +Standards Committee. The experimental work of first making +practical standards, founded on the absolute system, which led to +the unit now known as the British Association ohm, was chiefly +performed by Clerk Maxwell and Jenkin. The realisation of +the great practical benefit which has resulted from the +experimental and scientific work of the Committee is certainly in +a large measure due to Jenkin’s zeal and perseverance as +secretary, and as editor of the volume of Collected Reports of +the work of the Committee, which extended over eight years, from +1861 till 1869. The volume of Reports included +Jenkin’s Cantor Lectures of January, 1866, ‘On +Submarine Telegraphy,’ through which the practical +applications of the scientific principles for which he had worked +so devotedly for eight years became part of general knowledge in +the engineering profession.</p> +<p>Jenkin’s scientific activity continued without abatement +to the end. For the last two years of his life he was much +occupied with a new mode of electric locomotion, a very +remarkable invention of his own, to which he gave the name of +‘Telpherage.’ He persevered with endless +ingenuity in carrying out the numerous and difficult mechanical +arrangements essential to the project, up to the very last days +of his work in life. He had completed almost every detail +of the realisation of the system which was recently opened <a +name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 283</span>for +practical working at Glynde, in Sussex, four months after his +death.</p> +<p>His book on ‘Magnetism and Electricity,’ published +as one of Longman’s elementary series in 1873, marked a new +departure in the exposition of electricity, as the first +text-book containing a systematic application of the quantitative +methods inaugurated by the British Association Committee on +Electrical Standards. In 1883 the seventh edition was +published, after there had already appeared two foreign editions, +one in Italian and the other in German.</p> +<p>His papers on purely engineering subjects, though not +numerous, are interesting and valuable. Amongst these may +be mentioned the article ‘Bridges,’ written by him +for the ninth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia +Britannica,’ and afterwards republished as a separate +treatise in 1876; and a paper ‘On the Practical Application +of Reciprocal Figures to the Calculation of Strains in +Framework,’ read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and +published in the ‘Transactions’ of that Society in +1869. But perhaps the most important of all is his paper +‘On the Application of Graphic Methods to the Determination +of the Efficiency of Machinery,’ read before the Royal +Society of Edinburgh, and published in the +‘Transactions,’ vol. xxviii. (1876–78), for +which he was awarded the Keith Gold Medal. This paper was a +continuation of the subject treated in ‘Reulaux’s +Mechanism,’ and, recognising the value of that work, +supplied the elements required to <a name="page284"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 284</span>constitute from Reulaux’s +kinematic system a full machine receiving energy and doing +work.</p> +<h3>II. <span class="smcap">Note on the work of Fleeming +Jenkin in connection with Sanitary Reform</span>. <span +class="smcap">By Lt. Col. Alexander Fergusson</span>.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was, I believe, during the +autumn of 1877 that there came to Fleeming Jenkin the first +inkling of an idea, not the least in importance of the many that +emanated from that fertile brain, which, with singular rapidity, +took root, and under his careful fostering expanded into a scheme +the fruits of which have been of the utmost value to his +fellow-citizens and others.</p> +<p>The phrase which afterwards suggested itself, and came into +use, ‘Healthy houses,’ expresses very happily the +drift of this scheme, and the ultimate object that Jenkin had in +view.</p> +<p>In the summer of that year there had been much talk, and some +newspaper correspondence, on the subject of the unsatisfactory +condition of many of the best houses in Edinburgh as regards +their sanitary state. One gentleman, for example, drew an +appalling picture of a large and expensive house he had bought in +the West-end of Edinburgh, fresh from the builder’s +hands. To ascertain precisely what was wrong, and the steps +to be taken to remedy the evils, the effects <a +name="page285"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 285</span>of which +were but too apparent, obviously demanded the expenditure of much +time and careful study on the part of the intelligent proprietor +himself and the professional experts he had to call in, and, it +is needless to add, much money. There came also, from the +poorer parts of the town, the cry that in many cases the houses +of our working people were built anyhow that the dictates of a +narrow economy suggested to the speculative and irresponsible +builder. The horrors of what was called the ‘Sandwich +system,’ amongst other evils, were brought to light. +It is sufficient to say, generally, that this particular practice +of the builder consists in placing in a block of workmen’s +houses, to save space and money, the water cisterns of one flat, +directly under the sanitary appliances of the other, and so on to +the top of a house of several storeys. It is easy to +conceive the abominations that must ensue when the leakage of the +upper floors begins to penetrate to the drinking water +below. The picture was a hideous one, apart from the +well-known fact that a whole class of diseases is habitually +spread by contaminated water.</p> +<p>In October, 1876, a brisk and interesting discussion had been +carried on in the columns of the <i>Times</i> at intervals during +the greater part of that month, in which the same subject, that +of the health and sewage of towns, had been dealt with by several +writers well informed in such matters. Amongst others, +Professor Jenkin himself took part, as did Professor G. F. +Armstrong, <a name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +286</span>who now occupies the chair of Civil Engineering in +Edinburgh. Many of the truths then advanced had been +recently discussed at a meeting of the British Association.</p> +<p>It was while such topics were attracting attention that +Fleeming Jenkin’s family were shocked by the sad +intelligence of the loss that friends of theirs had sustained in +the deaths of several of their children from causes that could be +traced up to the unsanitary condition of their house. +Sympathy took the practical form of an intense desire that +something might be done to mitigate the chance of such +calamities; and, I am permitted to say, the result of a home-talk +on this subject was an earnest appeal to the head of the house to +turn his scientific knowledge to account in some way that should +make people’s homes more healthy, and their +children’s lives more safe. In answer to the call +Jenkin turned his thoughts in this direction. And the +scheme which I shall endeavour briefly to sketch out was the +result.</p> +<p>The obvious remedy for a faulty house is to call in a skilful +expert, architect or engineer, who will doubtless point out by +means of reports and plans what is wrong, and suggest a remedy; +but, as remarked by Professor Jenkin, ‘it has not been the +practice for leading engineers to advise individuals about their +house arrangements, except where large outlay is in +contemplation.’ A point of very considerable +importance in such a case as that now supposed.</p> +<p><a name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 287</span>The +problem was to ensure to the great body of the citizens sound +professional advice concerning their houses, such as had hitherto +been only obtainable at great cost—but ‘with due +regard to economical considerations.’</p> +<p>The advantages of co-operation are patent to all. +Everyone can understand how, if a sufficient number of persons +combine, there are few luxuries or advantages that are not within +their reach, for a moderate payment. The advice of a +first-rate engineer regarding a dwelling-house was a palpable +advantage; but within the reach of comparatively few. One +has heard of a winter in Madeira being prescribed as the cure for +a poor Infirmary sufferer.</p> +<p>Like most good plans Jenkin’s scheme was simple in the +extreme, and consisted in <i>combination</i> and a small +subscription.</p> +<p>‘Just,’ he says, ‘as the leading physician +of the day may give his services to great numbers of poor +patients when these are gathered in a hospital, although he could +not practically visit them in their own houses, so the simple +fact of a number of clients gathered into a group will enable the +leading engineer to give them the benefit of his +advice.’</p> +<p>But it was his opinion that only ‘continual supervision +could secure the householder from danger due to defects in +sanitary appliances.’ He had in his eye a case +precisely similar. The following passage in one of his +first lectures, afterwards repeated frequently, conveys <a +name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 288</span>the essence +of Professor Jenkin’s theory, as well as a graceful +acknowledgment of the source from which this happy idea was +derived:—</p> +<p>‘An analogous case occurred to him,’ he said, +‘in the “Steam Users’ Association,” in +Lancashire. So many boilers burst in that district for want +of inspection that an association was formed for having the +boilers under a continual course of inspection. Let a +perfect boiler be bought from a first-rate maker, the owner has +then an apparatus as perfect as it is now sought to make the +sanitary appliances in his house. But in the course of time +the boiler must decay. The prudent proprietor, therefore, +joins the Steam-boiler Association, which, from time to time, +examines his boiler, and by the tests they apply are able to give +an absolute guarantee against accident. This idea of an +inspection by an association was due,’ the lecturer +continued, ‘to Sir William Fairbairn, under whom he had the +honour of serving his apprenticeship.’ <a +name="citation288"></a><a href="#footnote288" +class="citation">[288]</a> The steam users were thus +absolutely protected from danger; and the same idea it was sought +to apply to the sanitary system of a house.</p> +<p>To bring together a sufficient number of persons, to form such +a ‘group’ as had been contemplated, was the first +step to be taken. No time was lost in taking it. The +idea hitherto roughly blocked out was now given a more definite +form. The original sketch, as <a name="page289"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 289</span>dictated by Jenkin himself, is +before me, and I cannot do better than transcribe it, seeing it +is short and simple. Several important alterations were +afterwards made by himself in consultation with one or two of his +Provisional Council; and as experience suggested:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The objects of this Association are +twofold.</p> +<p>‘1. By taking advantage of the principle of +co-operation, to provide its members at moderate cost with such +advice and supervision as shall ensure the proper sanitary +condition of their own dwellings.</p> +<p>‘2. By making use of specially qualified officers +to support the inhabitants and local authorities in enforcing +obedience to the provisions of those laws and by-laws which +affect the sanitary condition of the community.</p> +<p>‘It is proposed that an Association with these objects +be formed; and that all residents within the municipal boundaries +of Edinburgh be eligible as members. That each member of +the Association shall subscribe <i>one guinea</i> annually. +That in return for the annual subscription each member shall be +entitled to the following advantages:—</p> +<p>‘1. A report by the Engineer of the Association on +the sanitary condition of his dwelling, with specific +recommendations as to the improvement of drainage, ventilation, +&c., should this be found necessary.</p> +<p>‘2. The supervision of any alterations in the +sanitary fittings of his dwelling which may be carried out by the +advice, or with the approval, of the officers of the +Association.</p> +<p><a name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +290</span>‘3. An annual inspection of his premises by +the Engineer of the Association, with a report as to their +sanitary condition.</p> +<p>‘4. The right, in consideration of a payment of +five shillings, of calling on the Engineer, and legal adviser <a +name="citation290"></a><a href="#footnote290" +class="citation">[290]</a> of the Association to inspect and +report on the existence of any infraction or supposed infraction +of any law affecting the sanitary condition of the community.</p> +<p>‘It is proposed that the Association should be managed +by an unpaid Council, to be selected by ballot from among its +members.</p> +<p>‘That the following salaried officers be engaged by the +Association:</p> +<p>‘1. One or more acting engineers, who should give +their services exclusively to the Association.</p> +<p>‘2. A consulting engineer, who should exercise a +general supervision, and advise both on the general principles to +be followed, and on difficult cases.</p> +<p>‘3. A legal agent, to be engaged on such terms as +the Council shall hereafter think fit.</p> +<p>‘4. A permanent secretary.</p> +<p>‘It is also proposed that the officers of the +Association should, with the sanction of the Council, have power +to take legal proceedings against persons who shall, in their +opinion, be guilty of any infraction of sanitary regulations in +force throughout the district; and generally it is intended that +the Association shall <a name="page291"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 291</span>further and promote all undertakings +which, in their opinion, are calculated to improve the sanitary +condition of Edinburgh and its immediate neighbourhood.</p> +<p>‘In one aspect this Association will be analogous to the +Steam Boiler Users’ Association, who co-operate in the +employment of skilled inspectors. In a second aspect it +will be analogous to the Association for the Prevention of +Cruelty to Animals, which assists the community in enforcing +obedience to existing laws.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Towards the end of November, 1877, this paper was handed about +among those who were thought most likely, from their position and +public spirit, to forward such a scheme, so clearly for the good +of the community. Nay more, a systematic +‘canvass’ was set on foot; personal application the +most direct was made use of. The thing was new, and its +advantages not perfectly obvious to all at a glance. +Everyone who knows with what enthusiastic earnestness Jenkin +would take hold of, and insist upon, what he felt to be wholesome +and right will understand how he persisted, how he patiently +explained, and swept away objections that were raised. One +could not choose but listen, and understand, and agree.</p> +<p>On the evening of 2nd January, 1878, or, to be more correct, +the morning of the 3rd, two old school-fellows of his at the +Edinburgh Academy walked home with him from an annual dinner of +their ‘Class.’ All the way in glowing language +he expounded his views of house inspection, and the protection of +health, asking <a name="page292"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +292</span>for sympathy. It was most readily given, and they +parted from him with pleasant words of banter regarding this +vision of his of grafting ‘cleanliness’ upon another +quality said to be a growth, in some sort, of this northern land +of ours.</p> +<p>But they reckoned hardly sufficiently on the fact that when +Jenkin took a thing of this kind in hand it must <i>be</i>; if it +lay within the scope of a clear head and boundless energy.</p> +<p>Having secured a nucleus of well-wishers, the next step was to +enlist the sympathies of the general public. It was sought +to effect this by a series of public lectures. The first of +these (one of two) was given on 22nd January under the auspices +of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. It was apparent +to the shrewd lecturer that in bringing before the people a +scheme like this, where there was much that was novel, it was +necessary first of all that his audience should be aware of the +evils to which they were exposed in their own houses, before +unfolding a plan for a remedy. The correspondence already +referred to as having been carried on in the summer of the +previous year had shown how crude were the ideas of many persons +well informed, or considered to be so, on this subject. For +example, there are few now-a-days who are not aware that a drain, +to be safe, must have at intervals along its course openings to +the upper air, or that it must be ‘ventilated,’ as +the phrase goes. But at the time spoken of there were some +who went so far as to <a name="page293"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 293</span>question this principle; even to +argue against it; calling forth this forcible +reply—’Here is a pretty farce. You pour out a +poison and send it off on its way to the sea, and forget that on +its way there its very essence will take wings and fly back into +your house up the very pipes it but recently ran +down.’ A properly ‘trapped’ and +ventilated drain was the cure for this.</p> +<p>And the lecturer proceeded to show that in Edinburgh, where +for the most part house construction is good and solid, but, as +in other towns, the bulk of the houses were built when the +arrangements for internal sewerage and water supply were very +little understood, many serious errors were made. +‘But,’ the lecturer went on to say, ‘Sanitary +Science was now established on a fairly sound basis, and the germ +theory, or theory of septic ferments, had explained much which +used to be obscure. This theory explained how it was that +families might in certain cases live with fair health for many +years in the midst of great filth, while the dwellers in large +and apparently clean mansions were struck down by fever and +diphtheria. The filth which was found compatible with +health was always isolated filth, and until the germs of some +specific disease were introduced, this dirt was merely injurious, +not poisonous. The mansions which were apparently clean and +yet fever-visited were found to be those in which arrangements +had been made for the removal of offensive matter, which +arrangements served also to distribute poison germs from one +house to another, from one <a name="page294"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 294</span>room to another. These +mansions had long suckers extended from one to another through +the common sewer. Through these suckers, commonly called +“house drains,” they imbibed every taint which any +one house in the system could supply. In fact, arrangements +were too often made which simply “laid on” poison to +bed-rooms just as gas or water was laid on. He had known an +intelligent person declare that no harm could come up a certain +pipe which ended in a bed-room, because nothing offensive went +down. That person had never realised the fact that his pipe +joined another pipe, which again joined a sewer, which again +whenever there was an epidemic in the neighbourhood, received +innumerable poison germs; and that, although nothing more serious +than scented soap and water went down, the germs of typhoid fever +might any day come up.’</p> +<p>Professor Jenkin then proceeded to show how a house might be +absolutely cut off from all contamination from these sources of +evil. Then by means of large diagrams he showed the several +systems of pipes within a house. One system coloured +<i>red</i> showed the pipes that received foul matter. A +system marked in <i>blue</i> showed pipes used to ventilate this +red system. The essential conditions of safety in the +internal fittings of a house—it was inculcated—were +that no air to be breathed, no water to be drunk, should ever be +contaminated by connection with <i>red</i> or <i>blue</i> +systems. Then in <i>yellow</i> were shown the pipes which +received <a name="page295"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +295</span>dirty water, which was not necessarily foul. +Lastly a <i>white</i> system, which under no circumstances must +ever touch the ‘red,’ ‘blue,’ or +‘yellow’ systems. Such a diagram recalled the +complicated anatomical drawings which illustrate the system of +arteries and veins in the human frame. Little wonder, then, +that one gentleman remarked, in perplexity, that he had not room +in his house for such a mass of pipes; but they were already +there, with other pipes besides, all carefully hidden away, as in +the human tenement, with the inevitable result—as the +preacher of cleanliness and health declared—‘out of +sight, out of mind.’</p> +<p>In plain and forcible language were demonstrated the ills this +product of modern life is heir to; and the drastic measures that +most of them demand to secure the reputation of a healthy +house. Lastly the formation of an Association to carry out +the idea (already sketched) cheaply, was briefly introduced.</p> +<p>Next morning, January 23rd, was the moment chosen to lay the +scheme formally before the public. In all the Edinburgh +newspapers, along with lengthy reports of the lecture, appeared, +in form of an advertisement, a statement <a +name="citation295"></a><a href="#footnote295" +class="citation">[295]</a> of the scheme and its objects, +supported <a name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +296</span>by an imposing array of ‘Provisional +Council.’ In due course several of the Scots +newspapers and others, such as the <i>Building News</i>, gave +leading articles, all of them directing attention to this new +thing, as ‘an interesting experiment about to be tried in +Edinburgh,’ ‘what promises to be a very useful +sanitary movement, now being organised, and an example set that +may be worthy of imitation elsewhere,’ and so on.</p> +<p>Several of the writers waxed eloquent on the singular +ingenuity of the scheme; the cheap professional advice to its +adherents, &c.; and the rare advantages to be gained by means +of co-operation and the traditional ‘one pound +one.’</p> +<p>The Provisional Council was absolutely representative of the +community, and included names more than sufficient to inspire +confidence. It included the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, +Lord Rosebery; the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Moncrieff; the Lord +Advocate; Sir Robert Christison; several of the Judges of the +Court of Session; the Presidents of the Colleges of Physicians, +and of Surgeons; many of the Professors of the University; the +Bishop of Edinburgh, and the <a name="page297"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 297</span>Dean; several of the best known of +the Clergy of the Church of Scotland, Established, Free, and of +other branches; one or two members of Parliament; more than one +lady (who should have been perhaps mentioned earlier on this +list) well known for large views and public spirit; several +well-known country gentlemen; one or two distinguished civil +engineers and architects; and many gentlemen of repute for +intelligence and business qualities.</p> +<p>Very soon after the second of the promised lectures, the +members of the new Society began to be numbered by +hundreds. By the 28th of February, 500 subscribers having +been enrolled, they were in a position to hold their first +regular meeting under the presidency of Sir Robert Christison, +when a permanent Council composed of many of those who had from +the first shown an interest in the movement—for example, +Professor (now Sir Douglas) Maclagan and Lord Dean of Guild (now +Sir James) Gowans, Professor Jenkin himself undertaking the +duties of Consulting Engineer—were appointed. And +Jenkin was singularly fortunate in securing as Secretary the late +Captain Charles Douglas, a worker as earnest as himself. It +was the theory of the originator that the Council, composed of +leading men not necessarily possessed of engineering knowledge, +should ‘give a guarantee to the members that the officials +employed should have been carefully selected, and themselves work +under supervision. Every householder in this town,’ +he <a name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 298</span>adds, +‘knows the names of the gentlemen composing our +Council.’</p> +<p>The new Association was a success alike in town and +country. Without going far into statistics it will be +evident what scope there was, and is, for such operations when it +is stated that last year (1885) 60 per cent. of the houses +inspected in London and its neighbourhood were found to have foul +air escaping direct into them, and 81 per cent. had their +sanitary appliances in an unsatisfactory state. Here in +Edinburgh things were little, if any, better; as for the country +houses, the descriptions of some were simply appalling. As +the new Association continued its operations it became the +<i>rôle</i> of the Consulting Engineer to note such +objections, hypothetical or real, as were raised against the +working of his scheme. Some of these were ingenious enough: +but all were replied to in order, and satisfactorily +resolved. It was shown, for example, that ‘you might +have a dinner party in your house on the day of your +inspection’; that the Association worked in the utmost +harmony with the city authorities, and with the tradesmen usually +employed in such business; and that the officials were as +‘confidential’ as regards the infirmities of a house +as any physician consulted by a patient. The strength of +the engineering staff has been varied from time to time as +occasion required; at the moment of writing employment is found +in Edinburgh and country districts in various parts of Scotland +for five engineers temporarily or permanently engaged.</p> +<p><a name="page299"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 299</span>The +position Jenkin claimed for the Engineers was a high one, but not +too high: thus he well defined it:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘In respect of Domestic Sanitation the +business of the Engineer and that of the medical man overlap; for +while it is the duty of the engineer to learn from the doctor +what conditions are necessary to secure health, the engineer may, +nevertheless, claim in his turn the privilege of assisting in the +warfare against disease by using his professional skill to +determine what mechanical and constructive arrangements are best +adapted to secure these conditions.’ <a +name="citation299"></a><a href="#footnote299" +class="citation">[299]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Flattery in the form of imitation followed in due +course. A branch was established at St. Andrews, and one of +the earliest of similar institutions was founded at Newport in +the United States. Another sprang up at +Wolverhampton. In 1881 two such societies were announced as +having been set on foot in London. And the <i>Times</i> of +April 14th, in a leading article of some length, drew attention +to the special features of the plan which it was stated had +followed close upon a paper read by Professor Fleeming Jenkin +before the Society of Arts in the preceding month of +January. The adherents included such names as those of Sir +William Gull, Professor Huxley, Professor Burdon Sanderson, and +Sir Joseph Fayrer. The <i>Saturday Review</i>, in January, +had already in a characteristic article enforced the principles +of the scheme, and shown how, for a small annual payment, +‘the helpless and hopeless <a name="page300"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 300</span>condition of the householder at the +mercy of the plumber’ might be for ever changed.</p> +<p>The London Association, established on the lines of the parent +society, has been followed by many others year by year; amongst +these are Bradford, Cheltenham, Glasgow, and Liverpool in 1882; +Bedford, Brighton, and Newcastle in 1883; Bath, Cambridge, +Cardiff, Dublin, and Dundee in 1884; and Swansea in 1885; and +while we write the first steps are being taken, with help from +Edinburgh, to establish an association at Montreal; sixteen +Associations.</p> +<p>Almost, it may be said, a bibliography has been achieved for +Fleeming Jenkin’s movement.</p> +<p>In 1878 was published <i>Healthy Houses</i> (Edin., David +Douglas), being the substance of the two lectures already +mentioned as having been delivered in Edinburgh with the +intention of laying open the idea of the scheme then in +contemplation, with a third addressed to the Medico-Chirurgical +Society. This book has been long out of print, and such has +been the demand for it that the American edition <a +name="citation300"></a><a href="#footnote300" +class="citation">[300]</a> is understood to be also out of print, +and unobtainable.</p> +<p>In 1880 was printed (London, Spottiswoode & Co.) a +pamphlet entitled <i>What is the Best Mode of Amending the +Present Laws with Reference to Existing Buildings</i>, <a +name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 301</span><i>and also +of Improving their Sanitary Condition with due Regard to +Economical Considerations</i>?—the substance of a paper +read by Professor Jenkin at the Congress of the Social Science +Association at Edinburgh in October of that year.</p> +<p>The first item of <i>Health Lectures for the People</i> +(Edin., 1881) consists of a discourse on the ‘Care of the +Body’ delivered by Professor Jenkin in the Watt Institution +at Edinburgh, in which the theories of house sanitation are dwelt +on.</p> +<p><i>House Inspection</i>, reprinted from the <i>Sanitary +Record</i>, was issued in pamphlet form in 1882. And +another small tract, <i>Houses of the Poor</i>; <i>their Sanitary +Arrangement</i>, in 1885.</p> +<p>In this connection it may be said that while the idea +formulated by Jenkin has been carried out with a measure of +success that could hardly have been foreseen, in one point only, +it may be noted, has expectation been somewhat disappointed as +regards the good that these Associations should have +effected—and the fact was constantly deplored by the +founder—namely, the comparative failure as a means of +improving the condition of the dwellings of the poorer +classes. It was ‘hoped that charity and public spirit +would have used the Association to obtain reports on poor +tenements, and to remedy the most glaring evils.’ <a +name="citation301"></a><a href="#footnote301" +class="citation">[301]</a></p> +<p><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 302</span>The +good that these associations have effected is not to be estimated +by the numbers of their membership. They have educated the +public on certain points. The fact that they exist has +become generally known, and, by consequence, persons of all +classes are induced to satisfy themselves of the reasons for the +existence of such institutions, and thus they learn of the evils +that have called them into being.</p> +<p>Builders, burgh engineers, and private individuals in any way +connected with the construction of dwellings in town or country +have been put upon their mettle, and constrained to keep +themselves abreast with the wholesome truths which the +engineering staff of all these Sanitary Associations are the +means of disseminating.</p> +<p>In this way, doubtless, some good may indirectly have been +done to poorer tenements, though not exactly in the manner +contemplated by the founder.</p> +<p>Now, if it be true that Providence helps those who help +themselves, surely a debt of gratitude is due to him who has +placed (as has been attempted to be shown in this brief +narrative) the means of self-help and the attainment of a +palpable benefit within the reach of all through the working of a +simple plan, whose motto well may be, ‘Healthy +Houses’; and device a strangled snake.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">A. F.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote113"></a><a href="#citation113" +class="footnote">[113]</a> <i>Reminiscences of My Later +Life</i>, by Mary Howitt, <i>Good Words</i>, May 1886.</p> +<p><a name="footnote288"></a><a href="#citation288" +class="footnote">[288]</a> See paper read at the Congress +of the Social Science Association, Edinburgh, October 8, +1880.</p> +<p><a name="footnote290"></a><a href="#citation290" +class="footnote">[290]</a> It was ultimately agreed not to +appoint an officer of this kind till occasion should arise for +his services; none has been appointed.</p> +<p><a name="footnote295"></a><a href="#citation295" +class="footnote">[295]</a> Briefly stated, the points +submitted in this prospectus were these:</p> +<p>1. That the proposed Association was a Society for the +benefit of its members and the community that cannot be used for +any purposes of profit.</p> +<p>2. The privileges of members include the annual +inspection of their premises, as well as a preliminary report on +their condition with an estimate of the cost of any alterations +recommended.</p> +<p>3. The skilled inspection from time to time of drains +and all sanitary arrangements.</p> +<p>4. No obligation on the part of members to carry out any +of the suggestions made by the engineers of the Association, who +merely give skilled advice when such is desired.</p> +<p>5. The officers of the Association to have no interest +in any outlay recommended.</p> +<p>6. The Association might be of great service to the +poorer members of the community.</p> +<p><a name="footnote299"></a><a href="#citation299" +class="footnote">[299]</a> <i>Healthy Houses</i>, by +Professor Fleeming Jenkin, p. 54.</p> +<p><a name="footnote300"></a><a href="#citation300" +class="footnote">[300]</a> It is perhaps worth mentioning +as a curiosity of literature that the American publishers who +produced this book in the States, without consulting the author, +afterwards sent him a handsome cheque, of course unsolicited by +him.</p> +<p><a name="footnote301"></a><a href="#citation301" +class="footnote">[301]</a> It is true, handsome tenements +for working people have been built, such as the picturesque group +of houses erected with this object by a member of the Council of +the Edinburgh Sanitary Association, at Bell’s Mills, so +well seen from the Dean Bridge, where every appliance that +science can suggest has been made use of. But for the +ordinary houses of the poor the advice of the Association’s +engineers has been but rarely taken advantage of.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 698-h.htm or 698-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/9/698 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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