AT MANCHESTER \\ 



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 plea- 

 sant 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 anta- 

 gonistic 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. 



In another Manchester familv, whose name will be familiar The , 



Gaskells. 

 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 un- 

 selfish 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- 



