70 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



set before him. He must, in any case, have fallen 

 in love ; in any case, his love would have ruled 

 his life ; and the question of choice was, for the 

 descendant of two such families, a thing of para- 

 mount importance. Innocent of the world, fiery, 

 generous, devoted as he was, the son of the wild 

 Jacksons and the facile Jenkins might have been 

 led far astray. By one of those partialities that fill 

 men at once with gratitude and wonder, his choosing 

 was directed well. Or are we to say that by a 

 man's choice in marriage, as by a crucial merit, he 

 deserves his fortune ? One thing at least reason 

 may discern : that a man but partly chooses, he 

 also partly forms, his helpmate ; and he must in 

 part deserve her, or the treasure is but won for a 

 moment to be lost. Fleeming chanced if you will 

 (and indeed all these opportunities are as ' random 

 as blind man's buff ') upon a wife who was worthy 

 of him ; but he had the wit to know it, the courage 

 to wait and labour for his prize, and the tenderness 

 and chivalry that are required to keep such prizes 

 precious. Upon this point he has himself written 

 well, as usual with fervent optimism, but as usual 

 (in his own phrase) with a truth sticking in his head. 

 ' Love,' he wrote, ' is not an intuition of the person 

 most suitable to us, most required by us ; of the 

 person with whom life flowers and bears fruit. If 

 this were so, the chances of our meeting that person 

 would be small indeed ; our intuition would often 



