London. And Fleeming had already made his mark among the few who
had an opportunity of knowing him.

His marriage was the one decisive incident of his career; from that
moment until the day of his death, he had one thought to which all
the rest were tributary, the thought of his wife. No one could
know him even slightly, and not remark the absorbing greatness of
that sentiment; nor can any picture of the man be drawn that does
not in proportion dwell upon it. This is a delicate task; but if
we are to leave behind us (as we wish) some presentment of the
friend we have lost, it is a task that must be undertaken.

For all his play of mind and fancy, for all his indulgence - and,
as time went on, he grew indulgent - Fleeming had views of duty
that were even stern. He was too shrewd a student of his fellow-
men to remain long content with rigid formulae of conduct. Iron-
bound, impersonal ethics, the procrustean bed of rules, he soon saw
at their true value as the deification of averages. 'As to Miss (I
declare I forget her name) being bad,' I find him writing, 'people
only mean that she has broken the Decalogue - which is not at all
the same thing. People who have kept in the high-road of Life
really have less opportunity for taking a comprehensive view of it
than those who have leaped over the hedges and strayed up the
hills; not but what the hedges are very necessary, and our stray
travellers often have a weary time of it. So, you may say, have
those in the dusty roads.' Yet he was himself a very stern
respecter of the hedgerows; sought safety and found dignity in the
obvious path of conduct; and would palter with no simple and
recognised duty of his epoch. Of marriage in particular, of the
bond so formed, of the obligations incurred, of the debt men owe to