192 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



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 custom- 

 ary 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 you to 



