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.
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