earer the modesty of truth. With such old-fashioned
morality it is possible to get through life, and see the worst of it,
and feel some of the worst of it, and still acquiesce piously and even
gladly in man's fate. Feel some of the worst of it, I say; for some of
the rest of the worst is, by this simple faith, excluded.

It was in the year 1868 that the clouds finally rose. The business in
partnership with Mr. Forde began suddenly to pay well; about the same
time the patents showed themselves a valuable property; and but a little
after, Fleeming was appointed to the new Chair of Engineering in the
University of Edinburgh. Thus, almost at once, pecuniary embarrassments
passed for ever out of his life. Here is his own epilogue to the time at
Claygate, and his anticipations of the future in Edinburgh:--

"... The dear old house at Claygate is not let, and the pretty garden
a mass of weeds. I feel rather as if we had behaved unkindly to them.
We were very happy there, but now that it is over I am conscious of
the weight of anxiety as to money which I bore all the time. With you
in the garden, with Austin in the coach-house, with pretty songs in
the little low white room, with the moonlight in the dear room
upstairs,--ah, it was perfect; but the long walk, wondering,
pondering, fearing, scheming, and the dusty jolting railway, and the
horrid fusty office with its endless disappointments, they are well
gone. It is well enough to fight and scheme, and bustle about in the
eager crowd here [in London] for a while now and then, but not for a
lifetime. What I have now is just perfect. Study for winter, action
for summer, lovely country for recreation, a pleasant town for
talk...."

FOOTNOTES:

[24] The note by Lord Kelvin, appended in 1887 to the original edition
of this Memoir, is not included in the present edition.--ED.

[25] "Reminiscences of My Later Life," by Mary Howitt, _Good Words_,
May 1886.

CHAPTER V

NOTES OF TELEGRAPH VOYAGES, 1858-1873

But it is now time to see Jenkin at his life's work. I have before me
certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, "at hazard, for
one does not know at the time what is important and what is not": the
earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs.
Jenkin, the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself
certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together, much as