FLEE MING AND HIS SONS cxvii 



And the care of his sons, as it was always a grave subject of 

 study with him, and an affair never neglected, so it brought 

 him a thousand satisfactions. ' Hard work they are,' as he 

 once wrote, ' but what fit work ! ' And again : ' 0, it's a cold 

 house where a dog is the only representative of a child ! ' Not 

 that dogs were despised ; we shall drop across the name of Jack, 

 the harum-scarum Irish terrier, ere we have done ; his own 

 dog Plato went up with him daily to his lectures, and still (like 

 other friends) feels the loss and looks visibly for the reappear- 

 ance of his master ; and Martin the cat Fleeming has himself 

 immortalised, to the delight of Mr. Swinburne, in the columns 

 of the Spectator. Indeed there was nothing in which men take 

 interest, in which he took not some ; and yet always most in the 

 strong human bonds, ancient as the race and woven of delights 

 and duties. 



He was even an anxious father ; perhaps that is the part Fleeming 

 where optimism is hardest tested. He was eager for his sons ; and his 

 eager for their health, whether of mind or body ; eager for their 

 education ; in that, I should have thought, too eager. But he 

 kept a pleasant face upon all things, believed in play, loved it 

 himself, shared boyishly in theirs, and knew how to put a face 

 of entertainment upon business and a spirit of education into 

 entertainment. If he was to test the progress of the three boys, 

 this advertisement would appear in their little manuscript 

 paper : ' Notice : The Professor of Engineering in the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic year to 

 hold examinations in the following subjects : (1) For boys in 

 the fourth class of the Academy Geometry and Algebra ; (2) 

 For boys at Mr. Henderson's school Dictation and Recitation ; 

 (3) For boys taught exclusively by their mothers Arithmetic 

 and Reading.' Prizes were given ; but what prize would be 

 so conciliatory as this boyish little joke ? It may read thin 

 here ; it would smack racily in the playroom. Whenever his 

 sons ' started a new fad ' (as one of them writes to me) they 

 4 had only to tell him about it, and he was at once interested 

 and keen to help.' He would discourage them in nothing 

 unless it was hopelessly too hard for them ; only, if there was 



