登陆注册
20029700000018

第18章 CHAPTER III (2)

A notion was current at the time that, in such a shop as Fairbairn's, a pupil would never be popular unless he drank with the workmen and imitated them in speech and manner. Fleeming, who would do none of these things, they accepted as a friend and companion; and this was the subject of remark in Manchester, where some memory of it lingers till to-day. He thought it one of the advantages of his profession to be brought into a close relation with the working classes; and for the skilled artisan he had a great esteem, liking his company, his virtues, and his taste in some of the arts. But he knew the classes too well to regard them, like a platform speaker, in a lump. He drew, on the other hand, broad distinctions; and it was his profound sense of the difference between one working man and another that led him to devote so much time, in later days, to the furtherance of technical education. In 1852 he had occasion to see both men and masters at their worst, in the excitement of a strike; and very foolishly (after their custom) both would seem to have behaved. Beginning with a fair show of justice on either side, the masters stultified their cause by obstinate impolicy, and the men disgraced their order by acts of outrage. 'On Wednesday last,' writes Fleeming, 'about three thousand banded round Fairbairn's door at 6 o'clock: men, women, and children, factory boys and girls, the lowest of the low in a very low place. Orders came that no one was to leave the works; but the men inside (Knobsticks, as they are called) were precious hungry and thought they would venture. Two of my companions and myself went out with the very first, and had the full benefit of every possible groan and bad language.' But the police cleared a lane through the crowd, the pupils were suffered to escape unhurt, and only the Knobsticks followed home and kicked with clogs; so that Fleeming enjoyed, as we may say, for nothing, that fine thrill of expectant valour with which he had sallied forth into the mob.

'I never before felt myself so decidedly somebody, instead of nobody,' he wrote.

Outside as inside the works, he was 'pretty merry and well to do,' zealous in study, welcome to many friends, unwearied in loving- kindness to his mother. For some time he spent three nights a week with Dr. Bell, 'working away at certain geometrical methods of getting the Greek architectural proportions': a business after Fleeming's heart, for he was never so pleased as when he could marry his two devotions, art and science. This was besides, in all likelihood, the beginning of that love and intimate appreciation of things Greek, from the least to the greatest, from the AGAMEMMON (perhaps his favourite tragedy) down to the details of Grecian tailoring, which he used to express in his familiar phrase: 'The Greeks were the boys.' Dr. Bell - the son of George Joseph, the nephew of Sir Charles, and though he made less use of it than some, a sharer in the distinguished talents of his race - had hit upon the singular fact that certain geometrical intersections gave the proportions of the Doric order. Fleeming, under Dr. Bell's direction, applied the same method to the other orders, and again found the proportions accurately given. Numbers of diagrams were prepared; but the discovery was never given to the world, perhaps because of the dissensions that arose between the authors. For Dr.

Bell believed that 'these intersections were in some way connected with, or symbolical of, the antagonistic forces at work'; but his pupil and helper, with characteristic trenchancy, brushed aside this mysticism, and interpreted the discovery as 'a geometrical method of dividing the spaces or (as might be said) of setting out the work, purely empirical and in no way connected with any laws of either force or beauty.' 'Many a hard and pleasant fight we had over it,' wrote Jenkin, in later years; 'and impertinent as it may seem, the pupil is still unconvinced by the arguments of the master.' I do not know about the antagonistic forces in the Doric order; in Fleeming they were plain enough; and the Bobadil of these affairs with Dr. Bell was still, like the corrector of Italian consuls, 'a great child in everything but information.' At the house of Colonel Cleather, he might be seen with a family of children; and with these, there was no word of the Greek orders; with these Fleeming was only an uproarious boy and an entertaining draughtsman; so that his coming was the signal for the young people to troop into the playroom, where sometimes the roof rang with romping, and sometimes they gathered quietly about him as he amused them with his pencil.

In another Manchester family, whose name will be familiar to my readers - that of the Gaskells, Fleeming was a frequent visitor.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 刀锋斩虚

    刀锋斩虚

    刀尖虽折,刀锋犹在!刀出,斩虚!山村小子许风在机缘七巧合之下,进入武者宗派,以其过人的坚韧,一步步走向巅峰的成长历程。
  • 小时光

    小时光

    十六岁的默云外生长在一个古老而淳朴的龙兴镇,奶奶是老红军,父母是烈士。所以,她的梦想就是要做一名当之无愧的英雄豪杰。她的身边有很多同她一样单纯善良的好朋友。可是,奶奶的意外去世,让他们不得不面对分离。
  • 龙回都市

    龙回都市

    特种兵萧战龙在一夜之间失去了所有。为了复仇,萧战龙创建仅有三十一人的龙枭雇佣军。龙枭成员全部出身于世界顶级特种部队、西伯利亚职业杀手训练营,皆是以一当百的绝顶尖兵!龙枭的崛起,注定让黑魆帮永无宁日!注定让胆敢拦截龙枭的人死无全尸!
  • 乐剑天涯

    乐剑天涯

    想当初,煮酒英雄,却已时过千年。有道是,黄河十曲,毕竟东流去。六百年血雨腥风,只一夜枯荣,问苍天,此生何必?昨夜风吹处,落叶飘飘谁细数。九万里天下苍穹,御风弄影,谁会和我与共?千秋北斗,瑶宫寒苦,若不为神仙眷侣,不如一统那百年江湖。
  • 闻香识女人:女人全书

    闻香识女人:女人全书

    魏凤莲、沈建菲编著的这本《闻香识女人(女人全书超值金版)》共分十一章,第一章讲述透过女人的眼神、微笑、外形、装扮、语言、举止等细节,能够看穿女人的心理。当您捧起这本《闻香识女人(女人全书超值金版)》,读罢书中不同女人的故事,您会发现:原来每一种途径都能获得幸福。
  • 爱情保卫战

    爱情保卫战

    讲述了三个年轻女人面对小三的不同态度,从欲望、人性、婚姻、道德等诸多视角展开对小三情感问题的探讨。面对小三,是以怨报怨,最后落得两败俱伤,还是对其不屑,以示优雅高贵?三个女人分别采取不同的态度,结果也不尽相同。酸甜苦辣,只能自己品尝。
  • 我怕孤独你怕辜负

    我怕孤独你怕辜负

    爱情终究逃不过世俗,就像我们的青春终究逃不过事情,再见时你是你,我是我,留下的也就只有是我了
  • 清月盈舞:人约黄昏后

    清月盈舞:人约黄昏后

    一个生活在21世纪的上班族女孩子,因旅游故宫引发一次意外的穿越,她用真情去换取姐姐的感动,用爱与计谋为姐姐重新赢得宠欢,面对众阿哥频频献殷勤,她笑着敷衍,最后在哪遗落了自己的真心……【情节虚构,请勿模仿】
  • 通天荒塔

    通天荒塔

    玄历十二年,妖魔乱舞,人族天赋低下,惨遭奴役,有少年天赋异禀,本领高强,带人族揭竿而起,隳名城,斩妖魔。收天下之兵,借天之势,化毕身修为,作通天之塔八座,以镇妖魔。后人成为通天——荒塔
  • 君帝传

    君帝传

    千年伊始,天道十二宫一夜间轰然崩塌,十二位圣君尽数陨落,随后进入混乱之治时代。千年之后,五强割据,隐藏天道十二宫秘密的圣物腾空出世,偶然落入秣陵城一小小书生手中。挟一份承诺与灭门之仇少年书生远赴京都,继圣物绝学,秉上善之心,一步一步解开千年前天道十二宫毁灭之迷,终成一代帝尊后,却发现天外有天,域外有域,一场天地浩劫即将来临…………