Among the legends of what was once a very pleasant spot, the old Savile Club, not then divorced from Savile Row, there are many memories of Fleeming. He was not popular at first, 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 lovable 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 ****** 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 expressed 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 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 bitterness against France, was only Fleeming's usual address. Had M. Trelat been Italian, Italy would have fared as ill; and yet Italy was Fleeming's favourite country.
Vous savez comment j'ai connu Fleeming Jenkin! C'etait en Mai 1878. Nous etions tous deux membres du jury de l'Exposition Universelle. On n'avait rien fait qui vaille a la premiere seance de notre classe, qui avait eu lieu le matin. Tout le monde avait parle et reparle pour ne rien dire. Cela durait depuis huit heures; il etait midi. Je demandai la parole pour une motion d'ordre, et je proposai que la seance fut levee a la condition que chaque membre francais, EMPORTAT a dejeuner un jure etranger.
Jenkin applaudit. 'Je vous emimene dejeuner,' lui criai-je. 'Je veux bien.' . . . Nous partimes; en chemin nous vous rencontrions; il vous presente et nous allons dejeuner tous trois aupres du Trocadero.
Et, depuis ce temps, nous avons ete de vieux amis. Non seulement nous passions nos journees au jury, ou nous etions toujours ensemble, cote-a-cote. Mais nos habitudes s'etaient faites telles que, non contents de dejeuner en face l'un de l'autre, je le ramenais diner presque tous les jours chez moi. Cela dura une quinzaine: puis il fut rappele en Angleterre. Mais il revint, et nous fimes encore une bonne etape de vie intellectuelle, morale et philosophique. Je crois qu'il me rendait deja tout ce que j'eprouvais de sympathie et d'estime, et que je ne fus pas pour rien dans son retour a Paris.