I think I shall give the best idea of Fleeming in this time of his early married life, by a few sustained extracts from his letters to his wife, while she was absent on a visit in 1864.
“Nov. 11.—Sunday was too wet to walk to Isleworth, for which I was sorry, so I stayed and went to church and thought of you at Ardwick all through the Commandments, and heard Dr. —— expound in a remarkable way a prophecy of St. Paul about Roman Catholics, which, mutatis mutandis, would do very well for Protestants in some parts. Then I made a little nursery of borecole and Enfield market cabbage, grubbing in wet earth with leggings and grey coat on. Then I tidied up the coach-house to my own and Christine’s admiration. Then encouraged by bouts-rimés I wrote you a copy of verses; high time, I think; I shall just save my tenth year of knowing my lady love without inditing poetry or rhymes to her.
“Then I rummaged over the box with my father’s letters, and found interesting notes from myself. One I should say my first letter, which little Austin I should say would rejoice to see, and shall see—with a drawing of a cottage and a spirited ‘cob.’ What was more to the purpose, I found with it a paste-cutter which Mary begged humbly for Christine, and I generously gave this morning.
“Then I read some of Congreve. There are admirable scenes in the manner of Sheridan; all wit and no character, or rather one character in a great variety of situations and scenes. I could show you some scenes, but others are too coarse even for my stomach, hardened by a course of French novels.
“All things look so happy for the rain.
“Nov. 16.—Verbenas looking well.... I am but a poor creature without you; I have naturally no spirit or fun or enterprise in me. Only a kind of mechanical capacity for ascertaining whether two really is half four, etc.; but when you are near me I can fancy that I too shine, and vainly suppose it to be my proper light; whereas by my extreme darkness when you are not by, it clearly can only be by a reflected brilliance that I seem aught but dull. Then for the moral part of me: if it were not for you and little Odden, I should feel by no means sure that I had any affection power in me.... Even the muscular me suffers a sad deterioration in your absence. I don’t get up when I ought to, I have snoozed in my chair after dinner; I do not go in at the garden with my wonted vigour, and feel ten times as tired as usual with a walk in your absence; so you see, when you are not by, I am a person without ability, affections, or vigour, but droop, dull, selfish, and spiritless; can you wonder that I love you?
“Nov. 17.—... I am very glad we married young. I would not have missed these five years—no, not for any hopes; they are my own.
“Nov. 30.—I got through my Chatham lecture very fairly, though almost all my apparatus went astray. I dined at the mess, and got home to Isleworth the same evening; your father very kindly sitting up for me.
“Dec. 1.—Back at dear Claygate. Many cuttings flourish, especially those which do honour to your hand. Your Californian annuals are up and about. Badger is fat, the grass green....
“Dec. 3.—Odden will not talk of you, while you are away, having inherited, as I suspect, his father’s way of declining to consider a subject which is painful, as your absence is.... I certainly should like to learn Greek, and I think it would be a capital pastime for the long winter evenings.... How things are misrated! I declare croquet is a noble occupation compared to the pursuits of business men. As for so-called idleness—that is, one form of it—I vow it is the noblest aim of man. When idle, one can love, one can be good, feel kindly to all, devote oneself to others, be thankful for existence, educate one’s mind, one’s heart, one’s body. When busy, as I am busy now or have been busy to-day, one feels just as you sometimes felt when you were too busy, owing to want of servants.