LITERATURE ^03 



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.' 



He spoke four languages with freedom, not even His Talk. 

 EngUsh with any marked propriety. What he 

 uttered was not so much well said, as excellently 



^ The reference is to the two volumes of ^ Papers ^ Literary ^ 

 Scientific, etc., by the late Fleeming Jenkin, F.R.S.,' to which 

 this Memoir was originally prefixed. 



