Ixviii MEMOIR 



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.' 



Life at 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 cut- 

 tings 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 ' Fecundity, Fertility, Ste- 

 rility, and Allied Topics,' 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 



