prepared; but the discovery was never given to the world, perhaps
because of the dissensions that arose between the authors. For Dr.
Bell believed that 'these intersections were in some way connected
with, or symbolical of, the antagonistic forces at work'; but his
pupil and helper, with characteristic trenchancy, brushed aside
this mysticism, and interpreted the discovery as 'a geometrical
method of dividing the spaces or (as might be said) of setting out
the work, purely empirical and in no way connected with any laws of
either force or beauty.' 'Many a hard and pleasant fight we had
over it,' wrote Jenkin, in later years; 'and impertinent as it may
seem, the pupil is still unconvinced by the arguments of the
master.' I do not know about the antagonistic forces in the Doric
order; in Fleeming they were plain enough; and the Bobadil of these
affairs with Dr. Bell was still, like the corrector of Italian
consuls, 'a great child in everything but information.' At the
house of Colonel Cleather, he might be seen with a family of
children; and with these, there was no word of the Greek orders;
with these Fleeming was only an uproarious boy and an entertaining
draughtsman; so that his coming was the signal for the young people
to troop into the playroom, where sometimes the roof rang with
romping, and sometimes they gathered quietly about him as he amused
them with his pencil.

In another Manchester family, whose name will be familiar to my
readers - that of the Gaskells, Fleeming was a frequent visitor.
To Mrs. Gaskell, he would often bring his new ideas, a process that
many of his later friends will understand and, in their own cases,
remember. With the girls, he had 'constant fierce wrangles,'
forcing them to reason out their thoughts and to explain their
prepossessions; and I hear from Miss Gaskell that they used to