cxxviii MEMOIR 



said he ; and was never weary, when he could find a tolerant 

 listener, of dwelling on the simplicity, the economy, the elegance 

 both of means and effect, which made their system so delightful. 

 But there is another side to the stage-manager's employ- 

 ment. The discipline of acting is detestable ; the failures and 

 triumphs of that business appeal too directly to the vanity ; and 

 even in the course of a careful amateur performance such as ours, 

 much of the smaller side of man will be displayed. Fleeming, 

 among conflicting vanities and levities, played his part to my 

 admiration. He had his own view ; he might be wrong ; but the 

 performances (he would remind us) were after all his, and he 

 must decide. He was, in this as in all other things, an iron 

 taskmaster, sparing not himself nor others. If you were going 

 to do it at all, he would see that it was done as well as you 

 were able. I have known him to keep two culprits (and one of 

 these his wife) repeating the same action and the same two or 

 three words for a whole weary afternoon. And yet he gained 

 and retained warm feelings from far the most of those who fell 

 under his domination, and particularly (it is pleasant to re- 

 member) from the girls. After the slipshod training and the 

 incomplete accomplishments of a girls' school, there was some- 

 thing at first annoying, at last exciting and bracing, in this 

 high standard of accomplishment and perseverance. 



III. 



Sanitary It did not matter why he entered upon any study or employ- 



fl acr)C1 Q 



tions. ment, whether for amusement like the Greek tailoring or the 

 Highland reels, whether from a desire to serve the public as 

 with his sanitary work, or in the view of benefiting poorer men 

 as with his labours for technical education, he ' pitched into it ' 

 (as he would have said himself) with the same headlong zest. I 

 give in the Appendix a letter from Colonel Fergusson, which 

 tells fully the nature of the sanitary work and of Fleeming's 

 part and success in it. It will be enough to say here that it 

 was a scheme of protection against the blundering of builders 



