214 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



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 per- 

 haps 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. 

 Mrs. In the autumn of that same year 1875, Fleem- 



iiiness. ing'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, 



