I put together here a few brief extracts from Fleeming’s letters, none very important in itself, but all together building up a pleasant picture of the father with his sons.
‘_Jan._ 15_th_, 1875.—Frewen contemplates suspending soap bubbles by silk threads for experimental purposes. I don’t think he will manage that. Bernard’ [the youngest] ‘volunteered to blow the bubbles with enthusiasm.’
‘_Jan._ 17_th_.—I am learning a great deal of electrostatics in consequence of the perpetual cross-examination to which I am subjected. I long for you on many grounds, but one is that I may not be obliged to deliver a running lecture on abstract points of science, subject to cross-examination by two acute students. Bernie does not cross-examine much; but if anyone gets discomfited, he laughs a sort of little silver-whistle giggle, which is trying to the unhappy blunderer.’
‘_May_ 9_th_.—Frewen is deep in parachutes. I beg him not to drop from the top landing in one of his own making.’
‘_June_ 6_th_, 1876.—Frewen’s crank axle is a failure just at present—but he bears up.’
‘_June_ 14_th_.—The boys enjoy their riding. It gets them whole funds of adventures. One of their caps falling off is matter for delightful reminiscences; and when a horse breaks his step, the occurrence becomes a rear, a shy, or a plunge as they talk it over. Austin, with quiet confidence, speaks of the greater pleasure in riding a spirited horse, even if he does give a little trouble. It is the stolid brute that he dislikes. (N.B. You can still see six inches between him and the saddle when his pony trots.) I listen and sympathise and throw out no hint that their achievements are not really great.’
‘_June_ 18_th_.—Bernard is much impressed by the fact that I can be useful to Frewen about the steamboat’ [which the latter irrepressible inventor was making]. ‘He says quite with awe, “He would not have got on nearly so well if you had not helped him.”’
‘_June_ 27_th_.—I do not see what I could do without Austin. He talks so pleasantly and is so truly good all through.’
‘_June_ 27_th_.—My chief difficulty with Austin is to get him measured for a pair of trousers. Hitherto I have failed, but I keep a stout heart and mean to succeed. Frewen the observer, in describing the paces of two horses, says, “Polly takes twenty-seven steps to get round the school. I couldn’t count Sophy, but she takes more than a hundred.”’