something noble in the metal which does not rust, though not
burnished by daily use." It is well said; but the last letter to Frank
Scott is scarcely of a noble metal. It is plain the writer has outgrown
his old self, yet not made acquaintance with the new. This letter from a
busy youth of three-and-twenty, breathes of seventeen: the sickening
alternations of conceit and shame, the expense of hope _in vacuo_, the
lack of friends, the longing after love; the whole world of egoism under
which youth stands groaning, a voluntary Atlas.

With Fleeming this disease was never seemingly severe. The very day
before this (to me) distasteful letter, he had written to Miss Bell of
Manchester in a sweeter strain; I do not quote the one, I quote the
other; fair things are the best. "I keep my own little lodgings," he
writes, "but come up every night to see mamma" (who was then on a visit
to London) "if not kept too late at the works; and have singing-lessons
once more, and sing 'Donne l'amore e scaltro pargoletto'; and think and
talk about you; and listen to mamma's projects _de_ Stowting. Everything
turns to gold at her touch--she's a fairy, and no mistake. We go on
talking till I have a picture in my head, and can hardly believe at the
end the original is Stowting. Even you don't know half how good mamma
is; in other things too, which I must not mention. She teaches me how it
is not necessary to be very rich to do much good. I begin to understand
that mamma would find useful occupation and create beauty at the bottom
of a volcano. She has little weaknesses, but is a real, generous-hearted
woman, which I suppose is the finest thing in the world." Though neither
mother nor son could be called beautiful, they make a pretty picture;
the ugly, generous, ardent woman weaving rainbow illusions; the ugly,
clear-sighted, loving son sitting at her side in one of his rare hours
of pleasure, half-beguiled, half-amused, wholly admiring, as he listens.
But as he goes home, and the fancy pictures fade, and Stowting is once
more burthened with debt, and the noisy companions and the long hours of
drudgery once more approach, no wonder if the dirty green seems all the
dirtier, or if Atlas must resume his load.

But in healthy natures this time of moral teething passes quickly of
itself, and is easily alleviated by fresh interests; and already, in the
letter to Frank Scott, there are two words of hope: his friends in
London, his love for his professi