68 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



long after, * you will find the want of correspondence 

 no such strange want in men's friendships. There 

 is, believe me, something noble in the metal which 

 does not rust though not burnished by daily use.' 

 It is well said ; but the last letter to Frank Scott 

 is scarcely of a noble metal. It is plain the writer 

 has outgrown his old self, yet not made acquain- 

 tance with the new. This letter from a busy youth 

 of three-and-twenty, breathes of seventeen : the 

 sickening alternations of conceit and shame, the 

 expense of hope in vacuo, the lack of friends, the 

 longing after love ; the whole world of egoism under 

 which youth stands groaning, a voluntary Atlas. 



With Fleeming this disease was never seemingly 

 severe. The very day before this (to me) distaste- 

 ful letter, he had written to Miss Bell of Manchester 

 in a sweeter strain ; I do not quote the one, I quote 

 the other ; fair things are the best. * I keep my 

 own little lodgings,' he writes, * but come up every 

 night to see mamma ' (who was then on a visit to 

 London) * if not kept too late at the works ; and 

 have singing lessons once more, and sing " Donne 

 Vamore e scaltro pargoletto " ; and think and talk 

 about you ; and listen to mamma's projects de 

 Stowting. Everything turns to gold at her touch, 

 she 's a fairy and no mistake. We go on talking till 

 I have a picture in my head, and can hardly believe 

 at the end that the original is Stowting. Even you 

 don't know half how good mamma is ; in other 



