POPULARITY cxli 



being known simply as ' the man who dines here and goes up to 

 Scotland'; but he grew at last, I think, the most generally 

 liked of all the members. To those who truly knew and loved 

 him, who had tasted the real sweetness of his nature, Fleeming's 

 porcupine ways had always been a matter of keen regret. They 

 introduced him to their own friends with fear ; sometimes 

 recalled the step with mortification. It was not possible to look 

 on with patience while a man so loveable thwarted love at every 

 step. But the course of time and the ripening of his nature 

 brought a cure. It was at the Savile that he first remarked a 

 change ; it soon spread beyond the walls of the club. Presently 

 I find him writing : ' Will you kindly explain what has happened 

 to me ? All my life I have talked a good deal, with the almost 

 unfailing result of making people sick of the sound of my tongue. 

 It appeared to me that I had various things to say, and I had 

 no malevolent feelings, but nevertheless the result was that ex- 

 pressed above. Well, lately some change has happened. If I 

 talk to a person one day, they must have me the next. Faces 

 light up when they see me. " Ah, I say come here " " come 

 and dine with me." It's the most preposterous thing I ever 

 experienced. It is curiously pleasant. You have enjoyed it 

 all your life, and therefore cannot conceive how bewildering a 

 burst of it is for the first time at forty-nine.' And this late 

 sunshine of popularity still further softened him. He was a bit 

 of a porcupine to the last, still shedding darts ; or rather he 

 was to the end a bit of a schoolboy, and must still throw stones ; 

 but the essential toleration that underlay his disputatiousness, 

 and the kindness that made of him a tender sicknurse and a 

 generous helper, shone more conspicuously through. A new 

 pleasure had come to him ; and as with all sound natures, he 

 was bettered by the pleasure. 



I can best show Fleeming in this later stage by quoting Letter 

 from a vivid and interesting letter of M. Emile Trelat's. 

 Here, admirably expressed, is how he appeared to a friend of 

 another nation, whom he encountered only late in life. M. 

 Trelat will pardon me if I correct, even before I quote him ; but 

 what the Frenchman supposed to flow from some particular 



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