CHAPTER II

ROME

1852-1855

The first group of letters from Leighton to his family from Rome tells

of his instalment, his projects, his disappointments, his indifferent

health, and his eye-troubles. But more important are the views he

expresses on his "_artistic_ impressions," and the ideas which force

themselves on his mind, resulting from these impressions; the

increased anxiety with which he regards the task he has set before

him; the "paralysing diffidence" which he feels with regard to

"composing." In the letter he wrote on January 5, 1853, he enters more

intimately into his own feelings in addressing his father than in any

previous letter I have seen. This letter is in answer to one from his

father, which Leighton describes in writing to his mother[20] as "the

longest I ever got from him, at all events it was the first in which

he said anything beyond what was necessary to business; it gave me

sincere pleasure. I was touched; it seemed to me that distance had

brought me nearer to him." Leighton was evidently eager to respond to

any advance from his father towards possible intimacy on the ground of

his art-interests. In "Pebbles" he writes that he opens the

"introductory chapter of the second volume" of his life, "a volume on

the title-page of which is written 'artist'"; in these first letters

from Rome he begins the second volume itself. The letter to his

younger sister, on her "coming out," contains at its close memorable

advice on the subject of the development of her musical taste.[21]

"You must descend into yourself, and draw at the fountain of your own

natural taste, but mind you go very deep, that you may really get at

your _genuine, natural_ taste, and I think you won't go far wrong. He

who knows how to hear the voice of nature has found the safest guide,

and he only is a good master who opens the mind of his pupil to that

voice." At the age of twenty-one, Leighton had realised, and was

himself pursuing, the only right course in studying any art. By

invariably drawing deeply from the fountain in his own nature, he ever

remained true and sincere as an artist. It is evident that, if there

is no fountain to draw from in a nature, any study of art becomes

useless, and Leighton, when consulted in later years, never encouraged

false hopes in those who possessed no natural endowments. When he

wrote,[22] "being very receptive and prone to admire, I have learnt,

and still do, from innumerable artists, big and small; Steinle's is,

however, the indelible seal," he referred to the fact that in Steinle

he had fortunately found the master who opened his mind to the voice

of his own nature. Leighton felt a great necessity to sift the various

influences which played upon his receptive nature, on account of his

ready sympathy with all that was admirable. He had constantly to seek

for that inner light, that "genuine, natural taste," which his revered

master had led him to search for and find, and to act from the

dictates of that light, and from no other.

The commencement of the first letter from Rome to his mother is

missing; the date of the post-mark is November 25, 1852, Rome.

"...unnoticed, and which now requires to be woven in with the

rest. I mean, of course, my more directly and practically

_artistic_ impressions, and their results. I take them up 'ab

ovo.' To an artist an occasional change of scene is of the

greatest advantage, if not importance; for, generally

speaking, when he has stayed long in one place, surrounded day

after day by the same objects, his eye becomes, by the

deadening effect of constant habit, indifferent to what he

sees around him, and often even inaccessible to the

impressions which a newcomer might receive from the same

natural beauties; most things that please the eye or the

imagination, do so (in my case, at least) by some peculiar

association; indeed I should imagine it must be so with all

things, for even when one cannot (as one often can) define

precisely the association which creates the echo within of the

impressions received, it seems to me that one is instinctively

aware of a kind of indefinable _innate relationship_ to the

beauties manifested in nature, to which, by-the-bye, I think,

all other associations might ultimately be traced through

different degrees of consanguinity. It is in being

unexpectedly reminded (however indirectly or unwittingly) of

this affinity, that lies all the pleasure that we experience

by the means of sight; indeed, it strikes me, although I am

too ignorant to explain why, that the 'feu sacre' of the

artist is a kind of inward, spontaneous, ever active,

instinctive _impulse_, blind and involuntary, to manifest and

put forth this his pedigree--as it were a yearning of son to

father, an attraction of a part to the whole, which is, as it

were, the living _motive_ and condition of his existence, and

which sometimes infuses in his works 'un non so che' that is

felt by others, but for which he would be at a loss to

account, and of which he is perhaps barely aware; it is a

manifestation of a _truth_ which is felt to be _fit_, and

called _beautiful_. These reflections, which have often

involuntarily forced themselves on me, suddenly remind me of

an expression I once heard Papa quote from some German

philosopher, I think Hegel: 'Der Mensch ist das Werkzeug der

Natur.' Good gracious, where am I running to? and how far out

of my depth! and yet one feels the want to empty one's head a

little now and then; latterly, especially, these ideas have

been stirred up in me by the perusal of fragments on the

theory, philosophy, of Art, &c., by Eastlake, which gave rise

in me to some painful feelings. At the first onset I was

amazed and bewildered at the quantity and great versatility of

Eastlake's acquirements, a man who has yet found time to

cultivate his art with success. I was filled with regret and

mortification when I looked at myself and considered how

little I know, and how little, comparatively, my health and

eyes will allow me to add to my meagre store. As I got further

into the subject, my feelings altered; it seemed to me to grow

more and more vast and comprehensive, but not more

_intricate_, for it appeared by degrees to embrace and involve

in itself (and be involved in) all human knowledge, so that I

felt that there must be only one key to all mystery, the

_non_-possession of which key is the characteristic, the

condition _des Menschseins_. Then it struck me as utterly

absurd for anybody to pretend to know anything about anything;

but it also struck me that it is not given to man to be a

neutral spectator, that he must advance or recede; and that

beautiful saying of Lessing's, which Papa read to us, occurred

to my mind: 'Wenn der Allmaechtige' (I quote from memory, and

therefore probably not quite correctly) 'vor mich hin traete in

der Rechten die vollkommene Erkenntnis, in der Linken ein

ewiges Streben nach Wahrheit, ich wuerfe mich flehend in seine

Linke und sagte: Vater, gieb! die reine Wahrheit ist doch nur

Dir allein!'[23] I hardly meant to say all this, especially as

it must seem horridly weak to a philosopher of Papa's calibre,

but I really could not help it; I wish such thoughts would

never come into my head, for I am painfully aware that I have

not the grasp of mind to investigate any abstract subject

deeply, and I wish that I had a mind, simple and unconscious,

even as a child. I hurry back to the point with my tail

between my legs; I was saying, was not I? that habit deadens

us (read _me_) to the _suggestive_ qualities of nature, and

that change of scene is sometimes required to make us again

_aware_ of nature; after such change she speaks a more

eloquent language than ever; I have heard her voice, ever

since I left Frankfurt, ring more powerfully than ever before,

and it has been the key to all that I have done, and to all

that I have omitted. But there are some cases in which this

numbing effect of habit has more lasting, almost irrevocable

consequences; when one has been for a long space of time

_utterly_ familiarised with an object (a work of art in

particular) of which one did not, when the acquaintance or

_liaison_ was contracted, appreciate all the beauties, though

in process of time the _understanding_ may become fully aware

of these qualities, the _heart of the mind_--if I may use such

an expression--can never feel that ingenuous fulness of

admiration which would penetrate a sensitive and cultivated

spectator on seeing it _for the first time_. This I have felt

more particularly in the case of the 'Transfiguration' here in

the Vatican; I am so utterly familiar with it from a child,

when I could in no way understand it, that I find it

impossible to judge of it _objectively_; I see colossal merit

in it, and yet, when I have looked at it for a few minutes, I

turn away and walk on; I am deadened to it. Thank God, it is

not so with his (Raphael's) divine frescoes, which are so

maimed and profaned in the engravings that the originals were

_new_ to me. But I am at the end of my paper, and as you do

not wish me to cross, I must this time close by just telling

you what my disappointments have been, that you may not form

a false idea of them. First, I expected to find an

_atmosphere_ of high art, and every possible 'guenstige

Anregung' for its cultivation; in this I have been completely

disappointed; of the numberless artists here, scarcely any can

call themselves historical painters, and Gamba and I, who

hoped for emulation, are thrown completely on ourselves;

Overbeck is the only remains of that much to be regretted

period when he and Cornelius and Veit and Steinle and others

were labouring together in friendly strife; he will, however,

never be to us what Steinle was. The next greatest sore point

was the difficulty of getting a studio. When we arrived in

Rome the first thing we heard was that all the _ateliers_ were

taken; and it was only after some days despondent search that

I got a little bit of one most skimpingly furnished, that I

should have sneered at when I first arrived. I have no

_secretaire_; I am obliged to lock up my papers with my

shirts; I have been obliged to buy a lamp, for the one they

gave me tried my eyes; and if I want any article of furniture

I must buy it, because I understand that at the end of the

year hiring costs as much here as buying. My _atelier_ for

next winter I shall take in the spring, as a good many become

vacant at that time. Rome is twice, nearly three times, dearer

than Florence in some respects; I am in despair; Gamba, who

has just half what I have, absolutely starves himself in his

food, and can hardly keep himself cleanly dressed; yet he has

fewer expenses than I, who have calls to make now and then,

and must dress accordingly. Oakes, too, who had sent me a

charming letter to Florence, saying that he delighted in the

idea of coming to spend the winter with me in Rome, was

suddenly prevented; this was a bitter disappointment; I had

expected a great deal of improvement from his conversation. I

am in the bleak position of one who stands in immediate

contact with _no_ cultivated and superior mind. The Laings

have not come yet; I hope to goodness they won't disappoint

me also.--I remain, dearest Mamma, your dutiful and

affectionate son,

"FRED LEIGHTON."

(_La suite a un prochain numero._)

"1852.

"DEAREST GUSSY,--As a gallant brother, I can't well do less

than answer separately your postscript to Mamma's letter. I

shall make a point, if I meet with it, of reading Andersen's

'Dichterleben'; your recommendation is sufficient to

predispose me favourably. I perfectly understand what you say

about St. Paul's, and quite agree with you on that subject.

What suits a salmon-coloured ribbon? By George, that's a

weighty question, and requires mature reflection; it would

look _best_ on a white dress with blue flowers or spots; a

sea-green would not look bad, and on black silk it would be

_distingue_; a bluish violet would not be bad either. I am

sincerely sorry that I am not able to 'assister' at your

triumphal entry into your eighteenth year; I am afraid the

spell is beginning to fall by degrees from the greatest of

days. If my directions have been attended to, I was present by

proxy on the memorable occasion. Do you fully appreciate the

immense importance of the epoch? Do you sufficiently feel that

you are on the brink of being _OUT_? You are very much

mistaken in supposing that I hear much good music here; there

is little or none to hear; the theatres, at least, are all

bad. I sincerely hope that you cultivate assiduously the

talent with which you are blessed; especially the vocal part I

am very anxious about; of course you will take lessons in

Bath. I sympathise very much with you on the want of

Rosenhain's guiding influence; I fully appreciate your

difficulty; you must descend into yourself, and draw at the

fountain of your own natural taste, but mind you go very deep,

that you may really get at your _genuine, natural_ taste, and

I think you won't go far wrong. He who knows how to hear the

voice of nature has found the safest guide, and he only is a

good master who opens the mind of his pupil to that

voice.--Believe me, with many kisses, your very affectionate

brother,

"FRED.

"If Gussy _did_ want to be a charitable Christian, she would

copy in her pretty handwriting five lines a day of my horrid

scrawl, for I am ashamed that my Pebbles should remain in such

a state."

"BATH, _Sunday, November 29, 1852_.

"MY BELOVED CHILD,--I need not tell you how close an account I

keep of the day of the month, nor how my heart beats as the

foreign post hour approaches, because you know how tenderly I

love you, and what it cost me to part from you, and

consequently how anxiously I look for the consolation for your

absence which your letters afford me, and I had hoped you

would supply this balm liberally. Of course while you were

actually travelling I made every allowance for weariness, &c.

&c., but if you have carried out your intentions, you must

have been in Rome quite ten days, and though I said in my last

I hoped for the future you would leave only three weeks

between each of your letters home, it is now more than a

calendar month since I had last the great happiness of seeing

your handwriting. I would not, my love, be unreasonable, but

you must remember that, in addition to the natural desire to

hear how you manage for yourself, my maternal anxieties have

been awakened by the indisposition you spoke of as not

serious, it is true, but which has started up before me,

explaining your delay in writing, and which, in spite of

reason's suggestion that a slight illness would not hinder

your work, whilst Gamba would prevent the addition of suspense

to the trouble a serious attack would cause us, has brought

the evil of separation very bitterly before me. The goodness

of your heart, my child, will teach you how you can soften

this to me; it is one of the few occasions remaining to you to

exercise self-denial, as you live alone and have no one to

please but yourself. I now and then wonder a little anxiously

whether you ever think of my exhortations, so much have I

wished that you should be in the retirement of your house as

gentlemanly as you are in company. But then I recollect

sentences in your letter, proving such right views in

important matters, such a clear understanding of your

responsibilities, that I resolve to believe that you will

strive to do right in small matters as well as in great ones;

indeed, my child, I have remarked with deep satisfaction your

appreciation of the blessings that are allotted to you, and

indeed you do right to enjoy them with all humility, for I

cannot flatter you in opposition to the dictates of my

conscience that you are _so_ well deserving of happiness as

your poor sister. She is deserving of the highest respect of

all, bearing all her trials with admirable patience. The

persevering rain, which has caused a great deal of illness in

Bath, has had a very bad effect on her, throwing her back just

as she was beginning to mend, so that she has a great deal of

rough ground to go over again. We revel in literary abundance,

even German and French books are in the circulating libraries,

and _I_ often wish the days longer to read and to work. Gussy

says she hopes you will not think her ill-natured if she

declines copying your letters, for, indeed, were she willing

to undertake this difficult task, I should forbid it, as her

eyes, always delicate, are unusually weak; whether this comes

from too long confinement to the house, or from crying, I

cannot say; the latter is produced by _Heimweh_! what do you

think of this for an English girl? Thank God, she employs the

best remedy against regretful feelings, as she is occupied

from morning till night. Are you equally industrious? I read

the other day the following assertion by Southey, which I copy

for you, in case you should _still_ have the habit, so common

amongst young people, of wasting during the day occasional

quarter-hours or ten minutes, because, they ask, only such a

few minutes, how often have I heard that excuse. This is the

portion: 'Ten minutes' daily study, for seven years, will give

the student sufficient knowledge of seven languages to read

them with ease, and even to travel without an interpreter in

the respective countries.' Is not this an encouragement to

industry? We imagine you by this time settled in your lodging

and beginning to feel at home. God grant that you may have

your health there and meet with kind friends; we are curious

to know what your letters will do for you. In the meantime you

will, I doubt not, have met some old acquaintances--the Henry

Walpoles, the Laings, Mr. Petre, the Isembourgs, and Princess

Hohenlohe; to what amount the latter will condescend, I know

not, but remember, I entreat you, my advice. The two former

families you will most likely have first met at church; let me

hope at least that you will not abandon the habit; it may at

last bring a blessing upon you. The intentions of your

Frankfurt acquaintances we learnt in a letter from Mme.

Beving; she had heard from M. Fenzi that he had given you a

general invitation to his villa, and that you had dined with

him, or been asked to do so; I do not know whether he made any

comment on you. Did your organ of _veneration_ do its duty?

Forgive my hints, dear son; all your good qualities are

pictured in lively colours before my eye, but I do not even

try to forget your faults, lest I should neglect my duty to

you; with the best resolutions we all occasionally require a

fillip to our conscience. Next Friday is your birthday. It

will be the first on which you have not received your parents'

blessing in person. We shall not forget you, my darling. God

bless you, my own dear Freddy; in this prayer your father

joins most fervently; think often of the advice and love of

your devoted mother,

"A. LEIGHTON."

[Illustration: COSTUMI DI PROCIDA. Rome, 1853]

1 BROCK STREET, BATH,

_December 13, 1852_.

DEAR FREDERIC,--I need not say that we had all of us great

pleasure in receiving your letter from Rome, though not before

your dear mother had suffered great anxiety from the

delay--the greater, because your former letter did not give a

very encouraging account of your health. It gave us also great

pain to hear of the vexatious disappointments which have

attended your first entrance into the Eternal City, but this

was, perhaps, to be expected, as the sanguine expectations of

youth are seldom realised, and we may hope that by this time

you will have found in other advantages and opportunities for

improvement a sufficient compensation for the loss of those

you had expected. What you say about the weakness of your

eyesight is far more serious, and, indeed, would have

occasioned us alarm if we did not hope and believe that you

meant no more than we already knew at Frankfort, that your

eyes were weak, and not that they had continued to grow

weaker. But when I consider that your only means of acquiring

an honourable independence and gratifying your laudable

ambition depends upon your eyesight, I surely need no

arguments to urge you in the strongest manner to use all those

precautions for its preservation which your own good sense

must suggest--to throw aside your brush or pencil the first

moment that your eyes begin to smart or water, not to draw on

white paper or by candlelight (or lamp or any artificial

light), nor read except large print, nor small print even by

daylight, except for a few minutes occasionally in a book of

reference, and to acquire as much knowledge as you can,

independently of books, by conversation with well-informed

men, if you are so fortunate as to meet with them; when you

cannot paint, talk, or observe, exercise your memory, it will

store and cultivate your mind more and try your eyes less than

reading, which in your case cannot be systematically pursued.

You may perhaps meet some well-informed young men amongst the

German artists. Above all, draw your compositions as large as

possible (or rather as necessary for your eyes) and not such

as your architectural drawings, "Four Seasons," &c., which

contain so many objects minutely drawn. I suppose, likewise,

that chalk and charcoal must be better than pencil, and the

paint-brush better than either. You have no reason to complain

either of want of ideas or of power of expressing them (at all

events with your pen), however deficient you may think

yourself in a command of language for conversation; but the

fact is that, considering the distance that separates us, it

is of much more importance to us to know _how_ you are, what

you do, and what you observe, than what you think. Your

letters remind me of my friend, Dr. Simpson of York, who, when

we sat down for dinner, would enter into some abstract

discussion, say, of the nature and varieties of fish, or, _a

propos_ of the aitch-bone, on the homologies of the skeleton,

while in the meantime fish and beef were growing cold and my

appetite impatiently vivacious; so in your letters, while we

are burning with impatience to know how you are, what progress

you are making, or at all events what are your opportunities

of progress in the art, you indulge us with abstract

reflections on the theory of art in general. Your last letter,

it is true, begins and ends with interesting matter, but with

an interpolation of some three pages of disquisition on the

nature of genius in art, &c., &c., which, however well thought

or expressed, would be more in place in an essay than in your

letter to us who are so much more interested in what

immediately concerns yourself. The consequence is that,

although with a praiseworthy wish to please us you have tried

your eyes with a long letter, you have omitted much we were

anxious to know--whether, for instance, you were conscious of

having made any progress, or derived any advantage from the

many pictures both in art and nature you have had so many

opportunities of seeing; whether you had been making many, and

what sketches or copies, for we are quite convinced that you

have not been losing your time; whether you have been

comparing what you can do with what other artists of about

your age and standing in Italy can do, and whether the result

is satisfactory; whether there are any among them from whom

you can take any useful hints; whether Overbeck or any other

competent artist is willing to assist you; whether, above

all, you saw Power at Florence, and what he thought of your

compositions; whether you find in Rome the material advantages

you expected in the way of models, &c., and whether you will

think it advisable to draw from the antique--the Apollo,

Torso, &c.; in short, I cannot too strongly impress upon you

that one fact is of more value to us than a volume of

reflections. Of course, I would not have you infer that the

progress of your mind, your thoughts and feelings, are by any

means a matter of indifference to us, but after all they can

be only imperfectly shown in occasional letters, and must

necessarily exclude information of a more positive and, for

the present, of a more important nature. Let me caution you,

too, against reading any of the modern German works on

aesthetics; they can be only imperfectly understood without a

knowledge of the philosophies, of which they form a part, and

any advantage you may derive from them will not be at all

commensurate to the time and trouble, especially for you who

have so much positive knowledge to acquire. If, however, any

of your German friends can convey to you in conversation any

clear ideas on the subject (and if they have them themselves

there is no reason why they should not), well and good, but do

not let them impose upon you, as they so often do upon

themselves, with words either without any well-defined

meaning, or one different from, or even the direct contrary,

of the usual one. According to Hegel, for instance, 'das

Schoene, ist das _scheinen_' (Schoene from scheinen) 'der _Idee_

durch ein sinnliches Medium.' Now every artist knows without

Hegel that his idea, or, if he prefers to think so, nature's

idea within and through him, appears or manifests itself in

the sensuous material, in colours if he be a painter, or stone

if he be a sculptor, but this would be worse than trite, it

would be intelligible to a plain understanding. _Idee_ has a

far deeper meaning. If you hear a German flourishing away with

the magic word, ask him what he means. He will tell you,

perhaps, that it is das Absolute or der objective Geist as

distinguished from the Begriff or subjectiver Geist, or rather

the indifference of both, and that is neither one nor t'other,

but potentially either, or the _an sich_, or _an und fuer

sich_, or rather the _an, fuer, ueber sich_; at last after much

_hin und herreiten_ you get some faint glimmering of what is

meant; perhaps what some people call the soul in nature, or in

still plainer English, nature, or the unknown cause of all we

see, not an abstraction but a real entity, impersonal,

however, and therefore not a god, acting according to certain

laws, unconsciously in external nature (in ihrem Anders'sein)

coming to itself--acting consciously in man, but more

reflectively in science, more instructively in art. Well, you

have caught the _Idee_ at last (perhaps!) through its many

Proteus-like changes and recognise an old friend after

all--scratch your head, and ask whether you are any wiser than

before. 'Das scheinen der Idee durch ein sinnliches

Material'--in the Madonna of Raphael, for instance--'ist das

Schoene.' Why then, says Punch, not equally so in the pork-pie

and the mustard-pot, since the _Idee_ manifests itself equally

in both. The German solves the difficulty by "Sie sind ein

practischer Englaender, und haben keinen speculativen Geist."

In the meantime, let us hope that nature will use you as her

tool to carry out in colours and canvas some of her beautiful

ideas, and leave it to the German to find out how the

practical Englishman who has not read Hegel's "AEsthetics" has

set about it. That you may accomplish this to the utmost

extent of your wishes is the sincere wish of, dear Fred, your

affectionate father,

FREDC. LEIGHTON.

_P.S._--"Werkzeug der Natur" is an idea by no means peculiar

to Hegel.

"_Your_ birthday--

"Dearest Mamma, may it be a right happy one--one that may

serve, and be used, as a pattern to cut out others on. Judging

by your accounts, there is one among you who will contribute

mirth to your enjoyment--one who takes as many shapes as

Proteus, and is always the most welcome of guests; his name is

_Bettering_. In this world confident expectation is a greater

blessing, almost, than fruition. I too, if my directions have

been followed (as I confidingly hope), shall have appeared to

you on the great day _as good as gold_.

"How grieved I was, dearest Mother, to hear that I had given

so much pain to the kindest of hearts! My excuse, such as it

was, you got in my last letter, which reached probably the day

after you posted your epistle to me; I was sincerely sorry; I

had not, I must confess, any idea of anxious suspense on your

part, as you were not in expectation of any _particular_ news;

I shall in future try to be more deserving of your solicitude;

this time, you see, I am punctual.

"Health Report. Taking all in all, tol. sat., owing, no doubt,

to the unusually magnificent weather which we have had since I

arrived here; rheumatism, average; colds, not more than usual;

eyes?... hum ... might be better; I suppose macaroni 'al

burro' are not unwholesome--I and Gamba and several others eat

it nearly every day.

"I now turn to your letter. Little Gussy an authoress! dear

child, it gives one unfeigned pleasure to hear of her

successful _debut_. I have myself had no opportunity of

judging of her talent for writing, but feel convinced that

with her warm heart, impressionable soul, sterling

understanding, and quick powers of observation, whatever she

writes will please a healthy taste. She has my very best

wishes. And yet, what slight cloud was that, I felt pass over

my pleasure, casting (I could not help it) an undefined shadow

on my heart? Did not I feel startled at being so palpably

reminded that the _child_ Gussy no longer exists? Did I not

seem to feel, disagreeably, that the bridge was cut down

behind us, that the last tie was broken that, in Gussy's

person, still linked us to childhood, the buoyantly confiding

age, the irresponsible age? Did not I become, through her,

painfully aware that when I took leave of you, you all sealed

with your kiss the first volume of my life, that I am indeed

launched into the second, that the rehearsal is indeed over

and the curtain drawn up?

"And do I not feel, even now, a _hypocrite_, _to know_ my

path, and yet so often to deviate from it? Write often, dear

Mother!

"The hint you gave me about husbanding my time, I shall take

to heart; it is a thing of which I myself full well feel the

necessity and know the unfailing benefit; but I confess that

when I read your quotation from 'Bob,' I felt irresistibly

reminded of the question once put to sage and wise courtiers

by the facetious monarch 'who never said a foolish thing, and

never did a wise one,' viz. Why is a tub of water with a goose

in it lighter than one without?

"'God help thee, Southey, and thy readers too!' (Byron).

"Your next question is: Am I comfortably _settled_ in Rome?

Well, I am happy to say that since the first week or fortnight

my prospects have been slowly but steadily brightening, one

cloud after another has passed away, and though I do not

expect to see the bright sky of fulfilled expectations quite

unveiled, yet I look forward to the enjoyment sooner or later

of contentment. I wrote my last letter in a tone of

considerable disheartenment, which I was indeed labouring

under; perhaps it was the triumph of a selfish feeling that

made me communicate my woes to you when it was not in your

power to mend them; but yet it is such a relief to feel that

there are those who are not indifferent to our grievances, who

rejoice when _we_ rejoice, and weep when _we_ weep; and then,

too, it seemed to me that perhaps a word from you might throw

a new light on my position and give me new reason to be

comforted. Meanwhile, altered circumstances have reassured me

on some points, and my own reason has pacified me on others

which I saw to be irremediable; the prospect of emulation of a

peculiar kind, such as I found in Steinle, and generally

speaking in the German school (I do not mean the emulation of

industry which I find amply in Gamba, or in the science of the

art which I have lately discovered amongst certain young

Frenchmen, but that which affects the animating _spirit_ of

the art, the _spiritual_ taste, the tendency of one's

thoughts), I have entirely renounced; the visions that I had

(God knows why, for I don't think I ever expected to grasp

them) of a time like that of Steinle's sojourn in Rome, when

so many master-minds were united together in friendly strife,

all inspired by the same spirit, all going hand in hand--have

all faded away, and only linger in my mind as a sweet

regretted image, like the gentle glow of twilight in the

western sky when the cold moon is already in the heavens. But

I have, on the other hand, seen reason to believe that this

will turn out for my good; that it is proper that I should,

once for all, and in all things, accustom myself to the idea

that I am, or should be, a _self-dependent_ and

_self-actuated_ being, accountable to myself for good and for

evil; that I must therefore learn to build and rely on my own

resources, and remember the most important of truths, that if

the growth of my art is to be healthy, lasting, fruit-bearing,

it must, though fostered from without, be rooted deeply in,

and receive its vital sap from the soil of my own mind. Still,

I have thought it good to hang up in my studio a work of

Cornelius and one or two of Steinle, to animate myself by

dwelling constantly on _an idea of excellence_ (not _ideal_, I

hate such stuff) irrespective of the _specific mode_ in which

it is manifested; and in this I think I have chosen the _juste

milieu_--so far my reason. Yet I do not deny that I every now

and then feel longings and regrets that make me feel the truth

of those lovely words--

"'We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With _some_ pain is fraught.'

"Among the irremediable disappointments on which I have to

put the best face, is that of not seeing Oakes here this

winter. From a man of warm feelings, of tastes congenial to my

own, of a cultivated and liberal mind, I had hoped to derive

much pleasure and especially advantage, and thus to have

supplied in some measure the void which must arise (and, alas!

remain) in my brain from want of time, want of robuster

health, want of eyes. A friendship, too, of mutual seeking is

so agreeable a thing. Matters stand so: when I was in Florence

I received from him a letter full of a kind and friendly

spirit, in which he seized with eagerness at the idea of

spending a winter with me in Rome; he was already in Paris,

where he was in treaty with a travelling servant in order to

continue his journey; he had written to you (did you get the

letter?) to know where he was most likely to catch me up; he

was anticipating the enjoyment we should find together in

Venice, or in Florence, or wherever we should meet; this

letter has been waiting for me a month at the post. I arrive

in Rome, and look anxiously about for Oakes, who, I suppose,

must already have arrived; no Oakes--no

news--suspense--despair; at last a letter: he has been

recalled from Paris; he is obliged, willy nilly, to stand for

his borough (Conservative, Ministerial); he is an M.P.

"Another disappointment, hitherto, is the non-arrival of the

Laings; I had promised myself great enjoyment in Isabel's

society; the footing on which we stand is such an agreeable

one: enough familiarity (for old friendship's sake) to make

our intercourse easy--a relaxation; enough restraint to refine

it and make it improving; she plays, too. Music! How I yearn

for music, which I never hear in the land best adapted to

foster it; music, that humanises the soul, that calls forth

all that is refined and elevated and glowing and impassioned

in one's breast, and without which the very lake of one's

heart ('il lago del cuore,' Dante) stagnates and is

congealed. I express myself extravagantly, but my words flow

from my heart.

"Again, the studio, which I at last found, though snug and

cheerful, very (let's give the devil his due), is, in its

professional capacity, bad beyond description; the light is

execrable; I could not dream of painting a picture in it

(thank God, I have only taken it till spring), scarcely even a

portrait, 'which is absurd,' Euclid, hem. What a list of

lucubrations! for goodness' sake, let me look at the gay side

of the picture. It has been a great comfort to me all through

that all the artists resident here, whom I have spoken to on

the subject, felt on first arriving the same kind of

disappointment that I did, and that all by degrees have

acquired the conviction that, after all, it's the best place

in the world for study. I have myself begun to feel what an

incalculable advantage it is always to have models at your

disposition whenever, and _however_, you want them; I look

forward, too, with the greatest delight to the studies that I

shall make this summer in the exquisitely beautiful spots to

which the artists always take refuge from the heat and malaria

of Rome. I long to find myself again face to face with Nature,

to follow it, to watch it, and to copy it, closely,

faithfully, ingenuously--as Ruskin suggests, 'choosing

nothing, and rejecting nothing.' I have come to the conviction

that the best way for an historical painter to bring himself

home to Nature, in his own branch of the art, is strenuously

to study _landscape_, in which he has not had the opportunity,

as in his own walk, of being crammed with prejudices,

conventional, flat--academical. But I am getting to the end of

my paper, and I have as yet said but little to the point; I

have not yet answered Papa's question about my sketching, and

therefore that I may not seem to be shirking the point, I

shall just tell you that amongst the sketches that I have made

(mostly architectural) are some by _far the best I ever

did_.[24] I have also to justify Marryat about not writing; I

got his letters the other day with a kind note to say that he

had been ill; that to the Princess Doria has availed me

nothing, as she is in mourning for her father, Lord

Shrewsbury; that to the Prince Massimo has opened to me at

once two of the first and most exclusive houses in Rome, those

of his two sisters, the Princess Lancelotti and the Duchess

del Drago. Enough for to-day. Good-bye, dearest Mother. Very

best love to all. Think often of your dutiful and affectionate

son,

"FRED LEIGHTON.

"I am ashamed to think of the time I have taken writing this

letter; not from want of ideas, not from any great difficulty

in expressing them, but from the great difficulty I have in

getting at them, controlling them, holding them fast.

"'A saucepan without a handle.

Soup without a spoon.'

"VIA DI PORTA PINCIANA, N. 8."

"ROMA, VIA DI PORTA PINCIANA, N.V.

(_Postmark, Jan. 5, 1853._)

"DEAR PAPA,--When I received, the other day, your kind and

most interesting letter, and felt the appropriateness of your

admonitions--felt, too, how foolish it is for me, who am

ignorance personified (in certain matters, at least) to waste

_my_ time in speculations on subjects beyond my grasp, and to

exhaust _your_ patience by twaddling them out to you, whilst

your own penetrating and comprehensive mind takes, in

preference, a practical view of the subject--a question

suddenly presented itself to me: Bless my soul! what will he

say to the epistle I have just sent off? For, as you, by this

time, know yourself, it is, though perhaps less groggy than

the last, still insufficient in point of practical purport; a

_messed-up_ dish, not a joint. I hasten, if possible, to make

'amende honorable' by communicating to you in language as

concise as possible whatever information you either express or

hint a desire to have.

"One word only, a farewell one, on the subject of my

_ci-devant_ digressions; no, _three_ words; I must say in my

own justification. 1st. That when I sat down to write, it was

always with an idea of telling all (or nearly), and all in

detail, too, from which I was prevented by invariably getting

to the end of my paper, my time, and my eyes (as it would try

them to cross) before I had accomplished my object; 2nd. That

I have been discursive with an idea of entertaining for a time

the suffering members of the family; 3rd. That all my abstract

drawl, though it in some cases abutted in tenets that I had at

different times heard you let fall, was _altogether_ my own;

indeed it was, perhaps, the consciousness of the instinctive

_self-suggestedness_ of such thoughts that made me turn round

on myself and take an objective view of ditto. A philosopher

is very like a dog trying to catch his own tail.

"Now to business. You speak of my eyes; I cannot conceal from

you that they are worse than they were at Frankfurt, but I do

not know whether I can say that they are _getting gradually_

worse; everybody takes some time in getting _acclimatise_ to

Rome; my sufferings may perhaps be ascribed to that. I intend

for some months to give up the nude in the evening. Your

advice about gathering information from the conversation of

men of cultivated mind I would most gladly follow, but, alas,

I only know _two_ really well-informed people here, and one is

an old man I hardly ever see. There is no fear of my drawing

my compositions too small, for (I shall tell you why

presently) I am drawing _none at all_, and probably shall draw

none for a considerable time; but close and minute study of

Nature in its details is, as I now see more plainly than ever,

of paramount importance. I come to another point which it is

difficult to touch with conciseness: have I made any progress?

Perhaps I am not entitled to answer positively in the

affirmative till I shall have painted some portrait or picture

better than anything I have yet produced; this I have not yet

had an opportunity of doing; but if, from superlative

confidence, having fallen to a more beseeming diffidence, if

having improved and chastened my taste, if having become more

anxiously aware of the extent of my task and more deeply

humbled by those who have fulfilled it, may be called

progress, then I can answer: Yes, I have made a step.

"I was deeply impressed with the glorious works of art I saw

in Venice and Florence, and was particularly struck with the

exquisitely _elaborate_ finish of most of the leading works by

_whatever_ master; the highest possible finish combined with

the greatest possible breadth and grandeur of disposition in

the principal masses; art with the old masters was full of

love, refined, utterly sterling. I had got during my journey

through the Tyrol into a frame of mind that rendered me

particularly accessible to such impressions; I had been

dwelling with unwearied admiration on the exquisite grace and

beauty of the details, as it were, of Nature; every little

flower of the field had become to me a new source of delight;

the very blades of grass appeared to me in a new light. You

will easily understand that, under the influence of such

feelings, I felt the greatest possible reluctance to _sketch_

in the hasty manner in which one does when travelling; I

shunned the idea of approaching Nature in a manner which

seemed to me disrespectful, and the consequence was that until

I got to Verona I did not touch a pencil. In Venice and

Florence, however, I made several drawings, some of which are

most highly finished, and afforded me, whilst I was occupied

on them, that most desirable kind of contentment, the

consciousness of endeavour. Of course I was obliged to conquer

to a certain extent my aversion to anything but finished

works, and accordingly I made a considerable number of

_sketches_ 'proprement dits.' With regard to composing,

however, I still feel the same paralysing diffidence, I cannot

make up my mind to draw compositions like those I have

hitherto produced, but, at the same time, I feel that I am as

yet incapable of drawing any in the manner I should wish, and

as I see no prospect of such a desirable state of things till

I have spent a summer in the mountains and drawn landscape,

men and animals for several months, it is very unlikely that I

shall put my hand to anything original till next winter; then

I shall pour myself out with a vengeance. When I left

Frankfurt I asked Steinle whether I should compose the first

winter; he answered: '_Oh, wenn Sie moegen._' He foresaw how it

would be. It gives me great comfort to feel that I am quietly

settled to study for some years in one place, and that I am

able to make plans for the future without having to reckon on

removals and changes. Meanwhile, this winter I take models, I

have been studying the anatomy of the horse, I shall draw at

the Vatican from Raphael and Michael Angelo (_perhaps_, too,

from the antique), &c. &c. A digression, whilst I think of it:

I think that the pains in my eyes are in some measure nervous,

for mentioning them invariably brings them on, in broad

daylight. About the little emulation I find here I have spoken

in my last letter. The general tone here (of course with some

exceptions) is one of public toadying mediocrity. There is

here one young Frenchman, remarkable for correctness but

coldly scientific (only in his art), without that warmth and

spontaneity which give such a peculiar charm to works of

genius. Overbeck was endlessly courteous and praised me very

highly, talked of the artists in Rome acquiring in us 'einen

aechten Zuwachs' ('a real addition'), but the half century

between our respective ages and his pietistical manner make me

sure that we shall derive but little advantage from him; I

neither expected nor wished to find a second Steinle.

"As for Powers, though he was very polite to me in his own

sort of way, I am pretty certain that he had entirely

forgotten, nor did he ask me to show him anything. You may

console yourself on that score--a sculptor, especially one who

can do little but busts (however pre-eminently good they may

be, and _his_ are), can very seldom judge well of pictures.

Gibson, the great sculptor, whom I know very well, and who

shows me great kindness by-the-bye, has about as little

judgment in painting as a man well can. That I _do_ find

models here, and many other material advantages, I told you in

the letter that you lately received.

"I have now, dear Papa, answered all your questions; it only

remains for me to thank you for your poignant and admirably

practical remarks on the German philosophers--remarks, I

assure you, which have quite answered their purpose; both they

and the kind wishes you have expressed concerning my future

advancement shall not have been thrown away on your grateful

and affectionate son,

"FRED LEIGHTON."

[Illustration: STUDY OF HEAD FOR "CIMABUE'S MADONNA." 1853

Erroneously supposed to be the Portrait of Lord Leighton

Leighton House Collection]

(_Postmark, Jan. 5, '53._)

"DEAREST MAMMA,--To your appendix an appendix. Paper and time

force me to laconism.

"My personal discomforts, for which you show such kind

sympathy, are, I am happy to say, now only very slight; the

only thing I suffer annoyance from is my stove, which makes my

head ache; with regard, however, to beating a retreat, I must

candidly tell you that I see my only chance of coming to

anything is studying here steadily for _some three_ years;

the more so that it is by all accounts only at the end of the

first year that one feels all the advantages which Rome

affords. My plans seem to be these: this winter, studies; next

summer, ditto, in the mountains, or wherever it is coolest;

next winter, pictures, portraits, compositions; summer after,

Paris, see the large Veronese (which was invisible the last

time I was there); from Paris to Bath to see all you darlings

again, spend two or three weeks in England studying its

character under the ciceroneship of Oakes, that thorough

Briton, and collecting materials for some large (in meaning if

not in size) picture to be painted in Rome during the third

winter, and to be my firstling in an English exhibition; I

feel that one day my painting will have a strongly national

bias. That autumn I should probably return to Rome _via_ Spain

to see the Murillos, &c.

"When you next write to Lady Pollington, pray remember me very

kindly to her; her merry face and facetious ways are still

before me. Lord Walpole, whom you mention as coming to Rome,

and whom I shall know if he does, is indeed, I believe, a very

agreeable and clever man. The Henry Walpoles have been very

civil to me; Mrs. Walpole told me that if I wrote to you I was

to give her best--I think she said, _love_--for that you were

a great favourite of hers.

"Here I must absolutely close, though I have plenty more to

say. My very best thanks to Papa and you all for the kind

presents, but I don't see why you won't allow me the pleasure

of giving you anything. As I have written this letter

immediately after the other, I cannot promise to write again

soon. To yourselves, very best love from your dutiful and

affect.

"FRED LEIGHTON."

The following letters from Steinle are evidently the first Leighton

received in Rome from his master. No comment on them is necessary.

Every line is evidence of the affectionate quality and beauty of the

nature that so permanently influenced Leighton's for good.

_Translation._] "FRANKFURT AM MAIN,

_January 6, 1853_.

"MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--Although I do not know your address,

and am uncertain whether this will reach you, yet I can no

longer withstand the urging of my heart; I only know that you

and Gamba are in Rome, that you have visited Overbeck, as he

himself has written me; assuming, however, that you also visit

the Cafe Greco, I will risk that address. Your spirited lines

from Venice reached me safely, and I can truly say that since

then my thoughts and my good wishes for you and for Gamba have

daily accompanied you. A report which has been circulated

here, that you, Gamba, and Andre had been attacked by robbers,

made me anxious for a time, and I expected from day to day

that you would yourself write me something about this

adventure--in vain. Overbeck writes me now that it would give

him particular satisfaction to be able to help or serve you in

any way during your stay in Rome, and cordially wishes that

you and Gamba would give him the opportunity to do so, but

unfortunately he knew nothing else about you to tell me. What

Schaeffer writes me is also so extremely scanty, that for all

that concerns you and Rico I am thrown back on my own thoughts

and suppositions. That you are both absent from me is

unfortunately a painful truth; as to whether the ideal life

which from old and dear habit I still live with you, be also

true, the future, I hope, may show. I have an idea that you,

dear friend, and perhaps also your faithful comrade, already

suffer from the artistic fever of Rome, which every one feels

in the first year. It is that glorious old Rome, with her

wealth, and the multitude of her impressions, which works so

powerfully upon the receptive mind, that it can retain nothing

in contradiction, and cannot escape her influence; this period

is one of discomfort, because we feel ourselves oppressed; but

though it is of the greatest value, and no doubt bears rich

fruit, the work of artists of to-day is neither in a position

to offer you anything important, nor to deceive you in sight

of the old masters; if the multitude of impressions is first

gradually assimilated, if everything is assigned its place, if

we take a wide survey, and can stride forward freely in

pursuit of the goal set before us, then only does that

wonderful spirit which hovers over Rome rise up in us strong

and inspiring, and then we are able to recognise what we have

actually won in the fight with discomfort. Thus, and in

similar circumstances, I fancy that my dear friends are in the

same case as the bees, which swarm, and toil with all the load

they collect, but cannot make honey by perpetual sucking. That

is inconvenient and oppressive, but ah! when this time is

past, what wealth will they unfold, with what comfort will

they look upon the well-filled satchel, how quickly they will

recognise that such wealth pays interest for the whole life!

But if it is otherwise, dear friend, then laugh at the

all-wise Steinle, and resolve finally to free him from such

delusions, and to set the matter before his eyes as it really

is, and be you assured of one thing, that he always wishes

that everything may be good and prosperous for you, that all

that you are longing to attain you may attain, and that

Almighty God may guard you and Rico from all ill! You can have

had no idea with what feelings your friend would read your

vigorous, spirited lines from Venice. I received them, on my

return, from Gamba, a very dear lad, and could not help being

sorry that you, who have become so dear to me, should know

absolutely nothing of what distressed your friend. We are men;

hear, then, the news. Returning from Switzerland, I heard of

the illness of my daughter Anna, in Metz, and I and my wife

hurried to her, and spent six sorrowful days by the death-bed

of my little sixteen-year-old daughter. After the funeral, I

came back here, and finished 'The Raising of Jairus'

Daughter.' The real pleasure of my art I felt shrink from me

day by day in Metz; and now all my pleasure depends upon the

beloved art, for happiness is more and more confined within

the four walls of my _atelier_. Do not read any complaint in

this; I have learnt much sadness, but have also found rich

cause to thank God from my heart. What manner of children

should we be, if we would not kiss the rod when we are

chastised? And now, dear friend, with all my heart a greeting

to Rome, and to all who remember me kindly. All friends here

send greetings to you and Gamba, including Casella il

Professore; Senator Nay is in Rome. I hope with all my heart

that you have good news of your dear ones, and remain, always

and altogether yours,

"STEINLE."

[Illustration: VIEW OF SUBIACO, NEAR ROME. 1853

Leighton House Collection]

_Translation._]

"MOST ESTEEMED HERR STEINLE,--When you receive these lines I

shall have already been long in the lovely land wherein I lack

nothing but your presence; I beg you to accept from me the

accompanying translation of the first volume of the works of

the Father of English Poetry as a little remembrance; whether

it is a good rendering of the great master I cannot judge, as

at the moment of writing it has not arrived; but one thing I

can answer for: it is the only volume of the only translation

of Chaucer into the German language in existence; I only

regret that there is also no Italian version; may it serve you

as a souvenir of your devoted and grateful pupil,

"FRED LEIGHTON."

"FRANKFURT A/M."

_Translation._]

"ROME, VIA DELLA PURIFICAZIONE No. 11,

_January 11_.

"MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--At last I am able to write you a few

words, and (although very late) to send you my very best good

wishes and congratulations for the New Year. I am sure that

you will be kind enough to forgive my long silence, and will

believe me when I tell you that I absolutely could not help

it. I hope with all my heart that in the meantime you have

been well and strong, and that your beautiful works have

progressed in accordance with your wishes. How has the

experiment with the new ground turned out? Have you already

started on the other cartoon? I, for my part, have experienced

the fact that to make plans and to carry them out are two

different things; for nothing has come of the pictures which I

set myself to paint. I have already told you in Frankfurt,

dear Master, how painfully my deficiency pressed upon me, and

how clearly I felt that my works lacked a highly genuine

finish in the form, an intimate knowledge of nature; this

consciousness had so increased when I arrived in Rome that

without more ado I determined to employ myself during the

whole winter exclusively upon school tasks, and by all means

to endeavour to rid my artistic capacity a little of this

defect; so now I continually paint study heads, which I try to

finish as much as possible, and in which I especially have

good modelling in view; that I have achieved this,

unfortunately I cannot yet assert, but I derive great

enjoyment from the attempt, and hope that my efforts will not

remain unrewarded; I shall then next year, if I come to the

painting of pictures again, go to work with greater knowledge

and clearness, and shall be able, I hope, to clothe my ideas

more suitably.

"I have nothing further to report of myself. I hope, my dear

Friend, to receive a few lines from you, telling me what you

are doing, for you know well how deeply interested I am.

"Will you be so kind as to tell Mr. Welsch that my trouble to

find the Palazzo Scheiderff was in vain, and I have also

unluckily not seen his brother? If I pass through Florence

again in spring, I will try my luck once more. And now, adieu,

dear Master. Kindest remembrances to your wife and children,

and to you the warmest greeting, from your grateful pupil,

"LEIGHTON."

_Translation._]

"FRANKFURT AM MAIN,

_March 24, 1853_.

"MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--My desire for news of you and Gamba was

certainly great, but I possessed my soul in patience, for I

was convinced that it would come at last; you and Rico have

given me so many proofs of your love and friendship, that I

was able to face with perfect calm and confidence all the

numerous and impatient questions for news of you which came to

me. Now, however, I see by your welcome lines, to my inward

regret, that some restrained anxiety about you is justified,

and while on one hand I greatly regret the weakness of your

eyes and in a manner suffer with you, yet I have also my

consoling argument that the Roman climate, at a better time of

year, will certainly be good for your ailment, and that my

Leighton can rise up again, that he will not lose courage. But

whatever joy I had when you and your noble friends bore such

splendid witness of one another, I cannot express myself as

very easily satisfied; that you, in your efforts, would stand

alone in Rome, I knew well, I am sure you are cut out for it,

and it appears to me, even, as if every good heart that rises

to a happy independence nowadays, must feel his loneliness, I

might even say, that it must in order to give skill and power

of conviction. The better you get to know Rome, the more you

will learn to love her, and much will be freely given, when

once the year of struggle is past, that could never be seized

by force. How much I have rejoiced over all that you write of

your and Rico's studies, how I should like to see them! Cling

now to nature, you are quite right, you will not lose the art

of composition, for it is not a thing that can be acquired: it

is a gift, and one that you and Rico possess. Now, indeed, it

always seems to me, when I consider the highest aims of art,

and indeed the greatest capacities of man, that there should

be a certain equalisation of the various powers, and it

strikes me as indispensable, if we are not to become

one-sided, that we should by such equalisation balance these

various powers so as to achieve a _complete harmony_. Thus,

however great a delicacy goose-liver may be, it always

indicates a diseased goose, the monstrous enlargement of an

organ, &c.; I do not say this by way of blame, and am thinking

perhaps too much only of my own feeble powers, but merely as a

little warning that it may be well to keep in view. Do not

think that it is the Professor asserting himself, I say this

only as a matter of experience and because you and Rico lie

very close to my heart, and are associated with my own feeling

of the sacredness of art. I have, however, no anxiety; you

have good and noble natures, and will not lose the tracks of

truth. Spare and save your eyes, I hope that you will soon be

quite free from this ill, and then--forward! What you write me

of the friends is certainly quite correct, and I myself

thought no otherwise; Overbeck is the purest and noblest man

that I have ever met; moreover a genius--therefore I rejoice

that you and Rico know him; he speaks with feeling and

judgment of his art. Excuse, dear Leighton, my forgetfulness;

I have not thought of the dear and lovely present which with

your note surprised me so pleasantly on my return--I mean the

powerful and rich Chaucer; I find the prologue splendid,

rather knotty, but the Germans of that time are still

knottier. I thank you heartily. Of myself, I can inform you,

that I daily rejoice more over the grey canvas; I have worked

two months on my picture of the 'Whitsun-sermon,' and now in

three weeks have painted half the picture, and am, even though

somewhat exhausted, not altogether discontented with the

result. This picture, which grows daily more like a fresco, is

getting on fast, but much still remains to be done, and I have

the progress of the whole picture in hand. Of the friends

here, I can tell you that all speak of you and Gamba with love

and sympathy, and that you are kindly remembered by all. Thank

Rico cordially for his welcome note; if you and Rico always

call me 'master,' a title which abashes me, we shall be

friends, and I hope that as I grow old in years, at least I

shall remain young in art. Tell Rico that I had a visit from

his grandmother, who loves him dearly; with a few lines he

would give her extreme pleasure. Now, adio, dear friend; equip

yourself with patience and courage, and keep sad thoughts far

from you. Greet all friends from me most heartily, also I have

to send to you and Gamba warmest greetings from all here,

including my wife, Frau Ruth Schlosser, and Casella. Let me

hear sometimes how you get on. Always and altogether yours,

"EDW. STEINLE."

(_Postmark, March 28, 1853.

Received April 6._) (_On cover_--Mrs. Leighton,

1 Brock Street, Bath, England.)

"ROME, VIA DE PORTA PINCIANA 8.

"DEAREST MAMMA,--If I did not, as was naturally my first

impulse, answer your letter directly I received it, it was

because Isabel's[25] portrait has of late taken up all the

time, or rather eyes, that I can dispose of; this being,

however, a _drying_ day, I seize the opportunity of making up

for lost time. As I have mentioned the portrait, I may as well

say _en passant_ that I expect it to be a very successful

likeness, and as decent a painting as a thing done in so

desultory a manner can be expected to be; Gamba admires it

very much, and intends to copy some parts. I was much touched

at the affectionate sympathy you show for me in my visitation,

and am as glad for you as for myself to say that there is a

decided improvement in the state of my eyes, so that, although

they are by no means _well_, it would hardly be worth while to

go to a doctor for a written account of my symptoms; the more

so as Dr. Small, who is a man very well thought of, thinks it

all depends on the weather, and will go away when fine weather

sets in, which God give! Add to this that several people of my

acquaintance, _i.e._ Mrs. Sartoris and Mrs. Walpole, who never

had anything the matter with their eyes, find them affected

now. About two months ago I went to consult Dr. Small, or

rather, on calling on him one day he _had me up_

professionally, for I felt a delicacy about going myself, as

he had told me that he would be very happy to be of service to

me _without_ any remuneration. Finding that Dr. Small's

prescription had done me no perceptible good, I determined at

last to go to a homoeopathic physician, of whom I heard great

things. He was originally the apothecary of Hahneman (do I

spell the name rightly?) the father of Homoeopathy. Under his

hands I certainly improved rapidly; but it so happened that,

just as I went to him, the rains, which had lasted without

interruption for six weeks, ceased, and we had some days of

glorious weather--now, who cured me, Jove or the apothecary?

The weather is now as bad again as ever; but though less well,

I have not _relapsed_ with it. Most days I can paint three or

four hours (I don't think I could draw), and the other

evening I even read half an hour with a lamp without feeling

pain; what a pass things have come to that that should be a

boast! I confess that the little I do, I do without energy or

great enjoyment. I have not yet given my eyes the fair trial

of complete rest which, when the Laings go, I shall be able,

through your kind promise of a piano and singing lessons, to

do for a fortnight or three weeks. My sincere thanks to Papa

for his kindness and liberality. I shall begin immediately

after the holy week, for until the _forestieri_, of which

there are a fabulous number, have gone to their respective

summer quarters, neither piano nor masters are in any way

come-at-able.

"Having now spoken of my health, I return to your letter, for

I find that the only way of writing at all to the point, is to

answer sentence for sentence the questions and remarks you ask

and make, and in the same order.

"I indeed count myself fortunate in having the acquaintance of

Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris; it is a source of the greatest

enjoyment to me; they show me the most marked kindness, which

I value all the more because it is for my own sake, and not

for that of a dinners-demanding letter of introduction. I am

never there less than three times a week, and often more; I

have dined with them _en famille_ four times, and it is only

seven weeks since I made their acquaintance. Although I have a

good many friends here, it is the only house which it is

improving to me to frequent; her conversation is most

agreeable to me, not from any knowledge she displays, but from

her great refinement of feeling and taste; her husband is an

enthusiastic amateur painter. I also meet there a young man of

the name of Cartwright, a very old friend of theirs, who seems

to me to possess an extraordinary amount of information, a

mine which I have already begun to 'exploiter' to my own

profit.

"I have made a considerable number of acquaintances, and have

had more than enough parties, for people have a habit here of

receiving once a week, so that, especially towards the end of

the season, there never was an evening when I could not have

gone somewhere, and often I had two or three places for one

night; I used often to stay away from them, till I was afraid

of offending people, which one does not wish to do when one

experiences kindness from them. Then came a long series of

arrears, which I found most monotonously tiring, for I am more

lazy about dressing for a party than ever; more than once,

when I have gone to my room to go through that hateful

operation, I have slipped into bed instead of into my glazed

boots; and yet, if I had taken the steps a great many young

men do take, I should have gone to twice the number of places.

Now all this was very well for this winter, as I could do

nothing else on account of my eyes, but next year I shall turn

over quite a new leaf; in the first place, give up dancing

altogether--it is too fatiguing; and in the next, go nowhere

but to my old acquaintances (of this winter, I mean).

"I have lionised Isabel all over Rome, and devoted to her

nearly all my afternoons since she came; it is the luckiest

thing in the world, her coming here at a time when I am not

able to paint; she is going in a few days; you may easily

imagine that I have not slept in the afternoons since she has

been here.

"Gamba is, as you rightly suggested, far too straitened to go

into society; however, he no way requires it, he has good

health and untiring industry, and requires no such relaxation.

As my paper is coming to an end, I must pass over the rest of

your letter more rapidly. I fully feel with you that it is

better in many respects that I should not go to Frankfurt, but

I confess that when I saw it was out of the question, I felt

painfully having to wait another year before seeing you;

however, it is for the best. I am interested in hearing that

you have bought a house in Bath; it looks as if you had at

last found an anchor in your own country; is the society of

Bath really agreeable? I always hear it spoken of in a jocular

tone. What becomes of the Frankfurt house? You won't sell it,

will you? Pray remember me most kindly to Kate Chamberlayne,

and thank her for giving such an unworthy a corner in her

memory.

"And now, dear Mamma, I must close. Pray write very soon, and

give me a quantity of news about all your doings; tell me how

dear Lina gets on and Gussy's Pegasus."

The preceding letter contains the first mention that I have seen of

Leighton's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris, who were to be so much to

him during twenty-five years of his life. He had known them seven

weeks when he wrote it, and already Rome had become a happier place.

All that most interested him in social intercourse was satisfied in

their companionship, and in that of the intimate circle of friends who

frequented their house. It soon became a second home, a home doubly

welcome, as Leighton felt keenly being separated from his family. Mr.

Sartoris was a fairly good amateur artist, and was considered by his

friends to be a first-rate critic of painting. To Leighton's reasoning

mind, ever prone to analyse and to give expression to the results of

his analysis, it must have been inspiringly interesting to discuss art

in general and his own in particular with one who had a natural gift

for criticism.

Again, music was ever a joy to Leighton, a joy only equalled by that

inspired by his own art. Mrs. Sartoris (Adelaide Kemble), imbued with

the noble dramatic instincts and traditions of the Kembles, was not

only a great singer, but a great musician, and had in all matters a

fine taste, bred of true and deep feeling united with keen natural

perceptions. In Miss Thackeray's "Preface to a Preface" to Mrs.

Sartoris' delightful story, "A Week in a French Country House," she

quotes the description of one who had known the two sisters, Fanny and

Adelaide Kemble, from their youth: "Mrs. Kemble is essentially poetic

and dramatic in her nature; Mrs. Sartoris, so much of an artist,

musical, with a love for exquisite things and all that belongs to form

and colour." (Some of us remember hearing Lord Leighton say that,

though Mrs. Sartoris did not paint, she was a true painter in her

sense of beauty of composition, in her great feeling for art.) Another

old friend, referring to Mrs. Sartoris, with some show of reason

deprecated any attempt to record at all that which was unrecordable:

"Would you give a dried rose-leaf as a sample of a garden of roses to

one who had never seen a rose?" she exclaims, recalling, not without

emotion, the golden hours she had spent, the talks she had once

enjoyed in the Warsash Pergola. "You have only to speak of things as

they are," said a great critic who had known Mrs. Sartoris in her

later years. "Use no conventional epithets: those sisters are beyond

any banalities of praise." Again, take another verdict: "That fine and

original being, so independent and full of tolerance for the young;

sympathising even with _misplaced_ enthusiasm, entering so vividly

into a girl's unformed longings. When I first knew her, she seemed to

me to be a sort of revelation; it was some one taking life from an

altogether new and different point of view from anything I had ever

known before." Such are the descriptions given by those who knew her

intimately of the lady who held out so kind a welcoming hand to

Leighton when, as a youth of twenty-two, he started for the first time

alone on the journey of life. I saw Mrs. Sartoris only two or three

times at the house of our mutual friends, Mrs. Nassau Senior and Mrs.

Brookfield. It was during the last years of Mrs. Sartoris' life, when

illness and sorrow had marked her noble countenance with suffering. A

friend of mine, however, who was greatly attached to Mrs. Sartoris,

would often talk to me of her. My friend had had exceptional

opportunities of coming in contact with the most distinguished minds

in Europe. She told me she had never met with any personality who

naturally, and apparently without effort, so completely dominated all

others who were present. However distinguished the guests might be at

a dinner, Mrs. Sartoris, she said, was invariably the centre of

interest to all present.

The Sartoris children were another source of delight to Leighton in

this home. No greater child-lover ever existed. He writes, moreover,

that all social pleasures which he enjoyed during the three years he

lived in Rome he owed to these friends.

With life brightened and inspired by their sympathy, and by all the

sources of interest and culture which their society included, Leighton

began brooding over the work which he meant should embody the best of

his attainments so far as they were then developed. Florence and her

art had cast a spell on his spirit very early in his existence. He had

become especially enamoured of Giotto, the half-Catholic, the

half-Greek Giotto. Pheidias had not yet touched him intimately; but

his loving, spontaneous appreciation of this Florentine master, whose

work in one sense echoes the secret of the noble, serene sense of

beauty to be found in that of the Greeks, proves that in very early

days Leighton's receptive powers were alive to it. The subject which

inspired his first great effort appealed especially to Leighton from

more than one point of view. In the historical incident which he chose

was evinced the great reverence and appreciation with which the early

Florentines regarded art, even when expressed in the archaic form of

Cimabue's painting. The fact of his picture of the Madonna causing so

much public enthusiasm was in itself a glorification of art; a witness

that in the integral feelings of these Italians such enthusiasm for

art could be excited in all classes of the people. One of the

doctrines Leighton most firmly believed, and most often expressed, was

that of the necessity of a desire for beauty among the various classes

of a nation, poor and rich alike, before art of the best could become

current coin.[26] In painting the scene of Cimabue's Madonna being

carried in triumph through the streets to the Church of Sta. Maria

Novella, Leighton felt he could record not only his own reverence for

his vocation, but the fact that all who follow art with love and

sincerity find a common ground, whatever the class may be to which

they belong. To Steinle, religion and art were as one, and his pupil

had so far been inoculated with his master's feeling that, as his

friend and brother artist, Mr. Briton Riviere, writes: "Art was to

Leighton almost a religion, and his own particular belief almost a

creed." As no difference of class should be recognised in church, so

neither should any be accentuated between artists, when such are

worthy of their calling, a belief which Leighton carried into practice

all his life in his relations with his brother artists. He makes

Cimabue, the noble, lead by the hand the shepherd boy Giotto, who was

destined to outstrip his patron in the race for fame, and to become so

great an influence in the history of his country's art. The magnates

of the city are represented in Leighton's procession as forming part

of it, while Dante, standing in a shadowed corner, is watching it

pass.

Again, Leighton was afforded an opportunity, in the accessories of the

design, of painting the things which had entranced him in those days

when he first fell in love with Italy; the mediaeval costumes in the

old pictures, the background to the _Citta dei Fiori_ of hills, spiked

with cypresses pointing dark, black-green fingers upwards to the sky,

and the beautiful San Miniato crowning one of their summits, the stone

pines, the carnations, the _agaves_--all these things that had

appealed to his native sense of beauty as such wonderful revelations,

when, at the age of ten, he was transported to the sunlit land of art

and beauty, after being accustomed to the sights and surroundings of a

dingy region in fog-begrimed London.

The subject of Leighton's early _opus magnum_ was indeed no bare

historical fact to his mind; it was a symbol of everything to which,

in his enthusiasm for his calling, he attached the most earnest

meaning, and which was also steeped in the radiant glamour cast over

his spirit from childhood by the land that inspires all that is most

ardent in the aesthetic emotions of an artist.

The subject decided on, in the spring-time of 1853 he began working,

as hard as the trouble in his eyes would permit, at the cartoons for

the design. His intention of remaining in Italy during the summer was

frustrated, partly by the unsatisfactory state of his eyes and health

generally, partly by the decision of his family to return to their

home in Frankfort for the summer, before finally settling in Bath.

This change of plans is first mentioned in a letter to Steinle

received February 23, 1853:--

_Translation._]

ROME, VIA DI PORTA PINCIANO 8.

DEAR MASTER AND FRIEND,--How gladly I seize the opportunity to

answer your delightful letter, and to connect myself again

through the post with a man and a time round whom and which so

many dear remembrances cling; that I did not do this

immediately on receipt of your lines, I hope you have not set

down to a possible negligence or to any sort of cooling of my

grateful attachment to you, but that you have

thought,--something has happened, Leighton has not forgotten

me; and so it is; I suffer with my eyes. How sorry I am to

begin a letter by giving you such news, for you expected only

to hear from me of industrious making of progress; therefore

exculpation of my silence is my first duty. The disorder of my

eyes is not painful; I do not suffer with it; I am only

incapacitated. Oh, that I were again in Frankfurt, then I

should be well! Otherwise I am fairly well, and am intensely

eager to do a great deal--and dare not; I am not altogether

incapacitated, only my wings are clipped; I work for two or

three hours every day, but as I cannot accomplish all that I

desire, the little I can affords me the less pleasure; what,

however, particularly damps my ardour is the lack of

intellectual stimulus, because for _nearly six weeks_ I have

not _looked at a book_, for in the evening I simply dare not

do _anything_. I have driven myself out into society, till I

absolutely prefer going to bed. If I could only compose in my

head! but first this was always difficult for my unquiet head,

and secondly I have, in consequence of this moral _Sirocco_,

been blown upon by such a _svoglia-tezza_ that it is quite

impossible; it only remains for me to think sadly of my, and I

may say to you, most sympathetic friend, of our hopeful

expectation, and to vex myself with the recollection of the

zeal and joy with which I had commenced to put my plans into

execution in Venice and Florence. My optic ailment is partly

of the nerves, but principally rheumatic. You can imagine

whether it has been improved by four weeks of unbroken wet

weather! But enough of these complaints. I will now turn to

your letter and answer the points on which you touch. What a

refreshment your lines were to me! They are a mirror of your

warm, rich soul; I read with unfeigned emotion how

sympathetically you still think of your two pupils; you have

not been out of our minds for a moment; see how it is in my

atelier here: in your portrait you are bodily, in your

writings you are spiritually, present with me daily. That I

did not write to you immediately on my arrival was certainly

wrong of me, for then I had not begun to suffer with my eyes;

but my head was in such a maze that I always put off and

thought, I will wait till I hear if he has received my first

lines, quite forgetting that you did not know my address in

Rome. I am sure you will forgive me. What you imagined about

my impressions, agrees at the first blush with the facts, but

as regards the "gathered honey" it has unfortunately turned

out quite differently. I feel as if blighted, and until I have

the full use of my eyes it will not be otherwise. Of Rico I

will say nothing, for he will write himself either to-day or

to-morrow; I can only tell you that so far we have travelled

through Italy in perfect concord and friendship; but there is

one thing that he will not tell you himself, he is

indefatigably industrious, and has made marked progress in

both drawing and painting. One word about my own development.

Since I left Frankfurt, my observations on nature and art, in

all beyond what is technical, have produced in me a curious

shyness, a peculiar and uncomfortable distrust of myself. When

on my journey I saw Nature unfold before my eyes in her

teeming summer glory, and saw how each flower is like a

miracle on her richly worked garment, when I saw how golden

threads wound everywhere through the whole fabric of beauty,

then it seemed to me that the artist could not without

sacrilege pass over the least thing that is sealed with the

love of the Creator; when, later on, I noticed in Venice and

Florence with what love and truth the great Masters had

rendered the smallest, then my feelings arose; I knew only too

well that I, until I should have drawn a multitude of studies,

could not possibly complete a composition in the sense that I

should wish, and otherwise I would not; and the consequence of

this knowledge is that I have not attempted a stroke of

composition, and I often anxiously ask myself whether I could;

thus far it has worked to paralyse me, but on the other hand

it has led me to draw some very complete studies which would

certainly not displease you, dear Master. Finally, I touch

upon a point which, on account of its painfulness, I would

gladly pass over. I heard in Florence from Andre of your

severe loss, and my first impulse was to write to you to

express my sympathy; but when I set about it, I found it so

infinitely difficult to say anything suitable without

irritating your wound, that in the end I forbore. Your

consolation you draw from a higher source than human

friendship.

We have visited Overbeck several times, and have found him a

dear and estimable old man, but naturally the difference of

age and of aims is too great between us for him to supply

your place with us; besides, I do not wish that he should in

any way supplant Steinle in my memory or affection.

Flatz and Rhoden have welcomed us both most cordially; your

name is a charm with them; as regards their art, both are

_thoroughly able_, but unfortunately such _literal copyists_

of Overbeck's style that absolutely no difference is

perceptible; consequently they are quite insipid to me, for I

consider a real independence indispensably necessary in an

artist. From all three I send you most cordial greetings.

Much as I could still tell you, my dear friend, I must hasten

to a close on account of my eyes. I beg you not to repay my

silence in kind, but when you have a moment, put a few lines

on paper for the encouragement of your distant pupil. I long

also to know how your works prosper, particularly the large

one on the grey canvas with the light from above.

Accept the assurance of the unalterable, devoted attachment of

your grateful pupil,

FRED LEIGHTON.

It is not impossible that I might come to Frankfurt for a

short time this summer.

A Monsieur Frederic Leighton,

Frankfort a/M. Poste Restante. BATH, _May 15, 1853_.

MY BELOVED SON,--I have hardly the courage to tell you how

intense is our joy at the prospect of meeting you, so much

sooner than we had hoped, knowing that our pleasure is

obtained, or will be, at the expense of a grievous

disappointment to your long cherished and quite reasonable

hopes. Your father was quite depressed the whole evening after

the receipt of your last letter. I am sure I need not tell you

how willingly I would relinquish my expected happiness to

promote yours. I shall write but a short letter, as we hope to

be in Frankfort soon after this reaches its destination.

Surely I told you in my last epistle we mean to spend the

summer at home, for the last time to bear that name, alas! I

fear I shall never, in England, feel as I do in Germany when

tolerably well. The climate makes it impossible for me to feel

that springiness of spirit so nearly allied to youthful

feelings which I have often enjoyed at Frankfort and for no

particular reason. It was in the air, but never notice these

observations in your father's presence. He is sufficiently

troubled at the thoughts of depriving me of my beloved house

and garden, which, after all, is done by my own desire. I have

just been reading an extract from a letter to Miss Pakenham

from Mrs. Maquay, partly at that lady's request, that we might

know the agreeable impression you made on her and your

acquaintances at Rome. I will not gratify your vanity by

repeating words of praise that have sunk deep into my mother's

heart; "for the matter of that," I think your father and

sisters are equally pleased at the tribute to your attractive

qualities.

I will no farther fatigue your eyes as we hope so soon to

embrace you. We fervently hope your eyes will be obedient to

the treatment, which shall enable you to return to Rome for

the winter. You cannot doubt that your father desires as much

as you that you may be in a fit state to return.

God bless you, my dearest, all unite in this wish, if

possible, more than the others.--Your tenderly attached

Mother,

A. LEIGHTON.

Leighton went for medical treatment to Bad Gleisweiler, bei Landau,

and writes to Steinle from there on July 25, 1853:--

_Translation._]

HONOURED AND DEAR FRIEND,--What can you think of me for

leaving you so long without news of me! It certainly did not

occur through forgetfulness, but because I always deferred in

the hope of being able to announce some marked improvement in

my condition, but that is still impossible, although my

general health (particularly in respect of the hardening

against cold-catching) is much stronger, though unfortunately

the improvement in my eyes is not great; this, however,

requires time, and especially patience. I shall be here

another fortnight, then my medical treatment will proceed in a

so-called after-cure (Nachkur); I shall be dieted, take many

baths, work in moderation--ouf! But I will conform to it all

willingly, if only I may very soon return to my adored Italy.

How I cherish the beloved image in my heart! how it comforts

me! how many idle hours it beautifies for me! how mightily it

draws me! The remembrance of the beautiful time spent there

will be riches to me throughout all my life; whatever may

later befall me, however darkly the sky may cloud above me,

there will remain on the horizon of the past the beautiful

golden stripe, glowing, indelible, it will smile on me like

the soft blush of even. In the meantime, I impatiently await

the moment when I shall see you again, my dear friend, and

when I shall be permitted to set before your eyes the work

which we have already discussed together; I shall seek so to

deal with my affairs that you shall not be ashamed of your

grateful and devoted pupil,

FRED LEIGHTON.

_P.S._--I beg to be remembered most kindly to your wife, and

to all my friends.

(_On envelope_--A. Madame Leighton,

50 Frankfurt a/M.)

BAD GLEISWEILER, BEI LANDAU.

(_Postmark, July 30, 1853._)

I had the first quarter last year; so that I shall still be

where I started; however, I can say nothing more myself to

Papa, since he has given me to understand that his reason is

want of confidence in me, for, having rejected the obstacle

which I myself suggested--that he could not afford it--he

leaves no other reason possible. I confess I do not feel much

flattered that this feeling should have so penetrated him as

to make him fall back from me on an occasion so momentous as

the painting of my first exhibiting picture, a moment critical

in my career, and on the immense importance of which nobody

can, at other times, dwell with more disheartening eloquence

than himself; how, he says, do I know that your picture will

succeed? Is it this doubt that makes him throw obstacles in my

way? Nobody is better persuaded than myself of the kindness of

Papa's heart, and of the sincerity of his desire for my

welfare, but he does not seem in any way to realise the

importance of the occasion. Now, if I, like so many other

young men, had gone into the army, he would not--for what

father does?--have hesitated for a moment to provide me with

my complete outfit as required by the rules of the regiment,

for he would have felt that I could not canter about on parade

without a coat; but now that I am girding myself for a far

greater struggle, now that I am about, single-handed, to face

the bitter weapons of public criticism, does he withhold the

sword with which he might arm me, for fear I should waste my

blows on the butterflies that pass me as I march into the

field? At two and twenty I am still in his eyes a schoolboy

whose great aim is to squeeze as much "tin out of the

governor" as he can by any ingenuity contrive.

Will you remember me most kindly to my uncle, aunt, and

cousins, and take for all yourselves the best love of your

dutiful and affectionate son,

FRED LEIGHTON.

Leighton took the cartoons for his picture of Cimabue's Madonna to

Frankfort to discuss the designs with Steinle and obtain from him his

criticism and advice. In the autumn of 1853, the home in Frankfort was

finally given up, and the family returned to Bath. Leighton, on his

journey back to Rome, stopped some weeks at Florence, to steep himself

afresh in her mediaeval art, and to gather fresh material for the

details of his picture. During this visit, he drew the group of

figures painted _al fresco_ by Taddeo Gaddi on the walls of the

Capella Spagnola of Sta. Maria Novella, which included the portraits

painted from life of Cimabue and Giotto. In this portrait Leighton

found the costume for the hero of his picture. He also repeated the

dress in painting the cartoon for Cimabue's portrait executed in

mosaic in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The pencil sketch (see List

of Illustrations) is wonderful as a drawing, considering the

conditions under which it was made. It was secured for the Leighton

House Collection, and in the preface for the catalogue it is

described (see Appendix). While at Florence he wrote the following

letter:--

FLORENCE, 386 VIA DEL FASSO,

_November 13, 1853_.

[MY VERY DEAR MAMMA],--How could you for one instant suppose

that I could suspect you of coldness towards me? I was quite

distressed that you should have entertained such an idea, and

had I followed my first impulse should have written at once to

tell you so; but, as it so easily happens when one is newly

arrived in a strange place, first one thing and then another

made me defer writing, till at last I made up my mind to stay

at home all this morning, and not to get up till the letter

should be finished; I am, however, still several days within

my month. With regard to my health, I made no especial mention

of it, probably because, as I have a treatment before me when

I get to Rome, I attached little importance to my feelings in

this state of interim; however, as you mention it, I am happy

to say that my faceache makes its appearance decidedly less

often than it did in Frankfurt, and that my eyes seem to me,

if anything, better since I have got to Italy. One thing is

certain, and that is that my spirits are very much improved

since I have got back to the dear land of my predilection; I

felt it as soon as ever I arrived in Venice; I felt a heavy

cloud roll away from over me, the sun burst forth and shone on

my path, and a thousand little springs, stifled and

half-forgotten fountains of youth and joyousness, gurgled up

in my bosom and buoyed up my heart, and my heart bathed in

them and was glad--happy Fred! that he has such sources of joy

and happiness! Unlucky Fred! for he will never be able to live

but where the heavens always smile--and where he can economise

on umbrellas!

I have had many happy hours within the last three weeks, but I

think that the happiest time of all was the afternoon of our

descent on to Florence from the mountains of the Romagna; even

the morning of that day was very enjoyable, for although the

sky was murky and cross, and it rained as far as you could

see, yet I knew that that very evening, in that very coach, I

should be rattling along the streets of dear, dear Florence,

and that bore me up, and I made light of the rain, and

whistled out of tune in order to take off the wind, who, in

spite of his fine voice, has certainly no ear for music. Then,

too, we had a most amusing coachman, who did nothing but tell

stories and crack jokes the whole time. One episode is worth

transcribing: "Seen to-day's paper, sir?" (turning sharply

round). "Well, no" (says I); "anything in it?" "Ah!" (says

he), "very interesting correspondence from the moon." The

article seems to have been as follows: "Our correspondent in

the moon tells us of rather a discreditable affair which has

just taken place in a high quarter. It seems that the other

night St. Peter, having spent the evening with a few friends,

by whom he was entertained with the distinguished hospitality

which his high position entitled him to expect, left them in

such a state of excitement and, in short, intoxication, that

he lost his way, and was missing at his post till ten o'clock

the next morning. Unfortunately, too, he had taken the keys

with him. About two o'clock in the morning a batch of souls,

with passports for heaven, came up to the gates and requested

admittance, but finding all knocking in vain, they were

obliged to spend the night behind a cloud in a very exposed

situation, which was made doubly disagreeable by their having

put on in anticipation the very slight costume habitually worn

in the abode of eternal happiness; several severe colds were

caught." "But all this," he added (mysteriously producing a

key from his waistcoat pocket), "does not affect me--letters,

you know, despatches." I have myself subsequently consulted

the papers in question, and find that St. Peter, in the

confusion of his ideas, had taken up his seat at the other

Sublime Porte, and had inadvertently let a lot more Russians

into the Danubian Principalities. So the papers say. However,

I confess that I rather question the whole affair.

I close with the old, yet ever new refrain. Pray, write very

soon! if at once, to Florence, Poste Restante; if not, to

Rome, Poste Restante.--With very best love to all, I remain,

dearest Mamma, your dutiful and affectionate son,

FRED LEIGHTON.

[Illustration: Portraits of Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Memmi, and

Taddeo Gaddi, from Fresco in Capella Spagnola, by Taddeo Gaddi.

Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 1853.]

BATH, _August 13, 1854_.

MY DEAREST FREDDY,--We are delighted to know you are out of

Rome, for it is possible to have too much of a good thing; and

much as you delight in "seeing the streets flooded with light

and glittering under a metallic sky" (how beautiful it must

be!), the pure air of the country, a less fierce heat, and a

total change of scene, will, I trust, make a new man of you.

How long a holiday shall you take, and did you mean that you

are staying with the Sartoris family as a visitor? under all

circumstances you will be a great deal with them, and as for

the happiness you would so affectionately share with me, I

would not, if I could, deprive you of a morsel of it; you are

enjoying such unusual social advantages that it is a solace to

me to know that you are capable of appreciating them. Thank

God, you have no taste for what so many men of your age call

pleasure, and that in spite of your sociable disposition, you

always show good taste in the choice of your companions. I

wish we could have a little of your society. The ---- are

still familiar and dear friends, but their minds are so

different, so conventional, that many sides of your sisters'

minds are closed, even to them.

The next letter from Leighton to his mother was written after he

returned to Rome:--

(_On cover_--Mrs. Leighton, ROME, VIA FELICE 123,

No. 9 Circus, Bath, England.) _January 19, 1854_.

(_On cover--Arrived Jan. 6, '54._)

DEAREST MAMMA,--When I received your long expected letter,

which, by-the-bye, took sixteen days reaching me, I was just

winding myself up to write and tell you that I was sorely

afraid some letter of yours must have been lost; I need hardly

tell you that I was relieved of a considerable anxiety when I

found that all was right, and that your letter, not mine, had

been detained in that most slovenly of all institutions, the

Roman post.

And now that I have taken up my pen, what a quantity I have to

make up for in the way of congratulations, and greetings, and

good wishes relative to days often and felicitously to recur!

what jolly birthdays loom in the imagination, what Christmas

Eves and Christmas Days, and old years going out and new ones

coming, with a punctuality never known to fail! Alas! that I

cannot send you some outward and visible sign of my inward

sympathies and hearty yearnings; here would be a fine

opportunity of enumerating an extensive catalogue of blessings

which I sincerely wish to see showered down upon you, but that

they can all be returned in one compendious, all-embracing

word--Health! I therefore laconically but heartily wish you

all _that_, positive or relative; and this leads me to _mine_.

Well, let me confess it (unromantic as it undoubtedly is); I

feel there is no shirking the avowal that, stamping all things

down into an average, and squinting at little annoyances,

I--must I say it?--_am about as happy as the day is long_: may

my happiness reflect a little of its light on your days,

dearest and best of mothers! I have begun my report of health

by an average of my spirits; I think there is more _a propos_

in this than one might at first sight imagine. I proceed to

the other details which differ widely from your probable

expectations; you ask me whether I leech myself with

conscientious regularity. Now I don't leech myself at all! My

reason for abstaining when I first came was that I feared so

strong a measure till my spectacles should arrive that I might

therewithal screen and protect my exhausted blinkers. It is

only the other day that the said barnacles arrived, and as I

have meanwhile gone on working day after day without great

inconvenience to my eyes, I really think I might do myself

more harm than good by drawing blood, the more so that I am by

no means a person of full habit that I could spare much of

that article.

On turning to your letter, I find the next point you touch is

my music. I did indeed try my voice at the Hodnett's as you

anticipated, but unfortunately I never by any chance had

anything like a decent note in my voice during the whole time

that I was in Florence; indeed at the very best of times it is

the merest "fil de voix" that I have, which, however, would

not prevent my cultivating it for my own private enjoyment,

but for a circumstance which will astound you perhaps, but is

nevertheless a great fact--to wit, that I can't afford it! The

expenses of my pictures are far too considerable to allow of

it this winter; next winter I hope to make up for lost time

and still to be able to chirp some little ditty when I once

more skim by the paternal nest. A piano I have, such a

hurdy-gurdy! I fear, alas! I am an inveterate blockhead; I

daily lament that you did not _drub_ music into me when I was

a child; I should then have broken my fingers in time; my

youngsters shall most assuredly learn it with a stick in their

minds' eye. As we were just talking of the ----s, I must

mention that I founded my opinion less on what they say than

on what _I_ think and see; they could not either of them be

happy if they could not have their bonnets and dresses from

the most fashionable _modiste_, turn out drag of their own,

and in every way be "the thing"; that they like me, I know,

but I believe they would not have me if they liked me twice as

much; I am not exactly poor, I admit, but I seem something

like it in Florence, where it is the custom for young men to

drive to the Cascine in elegant broughams or phaetons, to find

their riding-horses at the round piazza, to prance and amble

round the ladies, and then to drive home again in the style

they went. But let me speak of more important things; you will

be pleased to hear that my compositions have been highly

approved of by all those whose opinion has weight with me.

Cornelius said, the first time he saw them, "Ich sehe Sie sind

weiter als alle Englaender ausgenommen _Dyce_;" that is a great

compliment from such a man. I have made one alteration in my

plans, of which Papa, I think, will not disapprove; I found,

on more accurate calculation, that, in order to paint my

Cimabue of such a size as to be admissible to the London

Exhibition, the figures would be far smaller than my eyes

would tolerate; I have therefore reversed the order of things,

and am painting it on a large scale for the great Exhibition

in Paris (spring, '55), in which all nations are to be

represented, and where size is rather a recommendation than an

obstacle. My "Romeo" I shall send to London in the same year;

it will be a foot each way smaller than Lady Cowley's

portrait; thus I also have the advantage of giving the

Florentine picture a size more commensurate to the

art-historical importance of the event it represents. With

regard to the sale of it, I hug myself with no vain delusions.

I paint it for a name; I could not have a finer field than is

offered by the great International Exhibition in question. I

must come to a close, for I expect a model immediately, and do

not wish to miss to-morrow morning's post. _La suite au

prochain numero._

Pray write soon, dearest mother, and tell me all I long to

know about yourselves, the house, the furniture, your friends,

and your dinner-party; meanwhile, having first largely helped

yourself, pass up to all the dear ones very best love and

kisses from your dutiful and affectionate boy,

FRED LEIGHTON.

(_On cover_--Mrs. Leighton, ROME, VIA FELICE 123,

9 Circus, Bath, England.) _March 22, 1854_.

(_Received March 31._)

DEAREST MAMMA,--As I see no chance of finding time to write to

you in the ordinary course of things by merely waiting for it,

I lay down my brush for this afternoon, and "set to" regularly

pen in hand to answer your last, dated the fifth (let us be

business-like), but which did not reach me till a few days

ago. According to the egotistical practice which you have

wished me to adopt, I begin with an account of myself: I am

very much at a loss to tell you anything of my eyes that shall

convey to you a correct idea of their state; one thing is

certain, which is that their weakness bears no regular

proportion to the work done; sometimes when I do little or

nothing my eyes feel uncomfortable, and at others, when I do a

great deal, I suffer nothing. For instance, yesterday, having

a great deal of work cut out for the day, I worked eleven

hours, with barely half an hour's respite at twelve, and,

_pour comble de mefaits_, I did what I rarely venture on--I

read at night; and yet I feel little or no inconvenience. The

fact is, my eyes are the humble servants of my head, which is

particularly sensitive; at the same time I hesitate to adopt

leeches (unless, of course, Papa adheres to his opinion),

because I don't feel as if I were over-troubled with blood;

what do you think? My _otherwise_ health is, thank God, very

decent. I am not a robust man, but I jog on very comfortably,

and feel very jolly, and I am sure I have a good many reasons

to be so. About the hours I spend inactive, I don't feel that

so severely as I did last winter, by any means; in the first

place, I work till five or so (from seven or eight in the

morning), then, you know, I dine at six, which I make rather a

long job; then, in the evening, instead of tiring my eyes as I

did last winter with dancing, _which_ I have totally forsworn

(there are more "whiches" in my letter than in the whole

tea-party on the Blocksberg in "Faust"), I spend nearly all my

time at the house of my dear friends, the Sartoris, where, I

assure you, to pass to another point in your letter, I neglect

no opportunity to cultivate my poor unlettered mind. It is

indeed my _only_ opportunity, for to study, alas, I have

neither time, health, nor eyes, and the hopes to which you

allude, and which I myself once entertained, must, I fear, be

given up. The worst feature in my mental organisation is my

utter want of memory for certain things, a deficiency of which

I am daily and painfully reminded by the mention in my

presence of books which I have read and enjoyed, and which I

have _utterly_ forgotten. My only consolation I find in the

hope that I shall be able to devote myself with double energy

to the art "proprement dit," and in the reflection that hardly

any of the modern artists (alas, what a standard!), that have

possessed extensive knowledge and varied accomplishments, have

had them as a super-addition to the gift of art, but _at the

expense_ of their properly pictorial faculties; to every man

is dealt a certain amount of _calibre_--in one man's brain it

breaks out in a cauliflower of variegated bumps, in another's

it flows into one channel and irrigates one mental tree, and

"sends forth fruit in due season"--hem! Thus, whilst _I_

paint, _others_ shall know all about it; _I_ shall be an

artist, let _them_ be connoisseurs. What did poor Haydon (for

I _have_ read the book) get by his mordant gift of satire and

his devouring thirst for ink? He embittered old enemies, made

new ones, estranged his friends, encouraged the fierce

irascibility of his own temperament, allowed himself to cuddle

the phantoms of undeserved neglect which always haunted him,

distorted his own perceptions, and cut his throat! Without

that pernicious gift, Haydon would not have written, the

Academy would have hung his pictures as they deserved, for his

early works were full of promise, they would have stood by him

in the hour of need; had everything that he saw and heard not

fallen in distorted images on the troubled mirror of his mind,

he would, no doubt, have produced better works. Haydon might

have been a happy man! With regard to the practical lesson to

be drawn by myself, this painful book undoubtedly shows in a

strong light the absurdity of _always_ painting large

pictures--a practice in which, I assure you, I have not the

remotest idea of indulging. To one thing, however, which you

observe, dear Mamma, I must beg to take exception, as

involving a very important question: you say Haydon persisted

in following the historic style, to the exclusion of pictures

of a saleable size; now this would only avail as precedent

against historical art on the supposition that that walk

necessarily implies colossal proportions, than which idea

(though Haydon seems to have entertained it) nothing can be

more false. Is it necessary to mention Raphael's "Vision of

Ezekiel," "Madonna della Seggiola," or a thousand other

pictures, by him and others, which utterly confute any such

notion? But even were it so, we must also not overlook the

fact that the unsaleability of Haydon's pictures had its cause

as much in their quality as in their quantity, and I will hold

up to you, in contrast to his sad story, the case of Mr.

Watts, who gives a sketch of the artistical character at the

end of the autobiography, and who has as many orders for

_fresco_ as he can execute for a considerable number of years.

[Illustration: STUDY OF HEAD OF WOMAN AT WINDOW IN "CIMABUE'S

MADONNA"

Leighton House Collection]

BATH, _April 17th_.

MY VERY DEAR FRED,--I have left a longer interval than usual

between this letter and my last, for your convenience and my

advantage; that is to say, that by arriving close on the time

for your writing to me, the contents of this sheet, or

anything in it needing comment, may not have escaped your

memory till no longer wanted, for, with the best possible wish

to be contented with the epistles for which I look forward so

anxiously, I cannot help feeling a little disappointed when

you do not answer inquiries. I do not wish to be unreasonable,

my darling, in my demands on your time, but I cannot bear that

your letters should be mere unavoidable monthly reports, and

not what mine are to you, that is, in intention; though I make

every allowance for natural infirmity. Could we but have

foreseen your weakness of sight, I should have felt a great

inclination to thrash you into exercising your memory more

than you did, though I am not at all sure that the result

would have been satisfactory; and with respect to music, I am

convinced you would not have made a satisfactory return for

any knowledge acquired by dint of birch, but--if it were not

useless--I would enlarge upon the imprudence of having

neglected your father's admonitions at a more recent period to

store your memory; remember it for the sake of your own young

people when you are the venerable papa of an obstreperous

youth like yourself. I think upon the whole it is satisfactory

that the uneasiness in your eyes depends on your general

health. Papa thinks the sensation you describe when drinking

must be nervous, and connected with the narrow swallow you

inherit from me, a peculiarity which has shown itself in four

generations. We do not feel so certain as it would be

comfortable to do that the climate of Rome is the one best

suited to a nervous person; but of course you will seek a

healthy change of place as soon as the heat makes it

desirable. I must remind you of the unpleasant fact that your

constitution very much resembles mine; remember what I have

come to, and do not trifle with yourself; do not say to

yourself: What a bore Mamma is! I am constantly thinking of my

precious absent son, and long, as only a mother can, to see

you; when I look at your picture, I feel quite wretched

sometimes that I cannot, though you seem alive before me,

stroke your cheek and lean my head on your chest. The other

day we were startled by the appearance in the drawing-room of

Andrew, Lizzy, and the girls; and the first greeting over,

"That's my saucy Fred," burst out of your aunt's mouth; "dear

fellow, what a likeness;" and Lina was equally admired, and we

all agreed in deploring Gussy's absence from the wall. I wish

I could see your studies, for I suppose you have a great many

for your great undertaking. Models are probably cheaper than

in Germany--are you conscious of improvement? This seems an

odd question, but it is suggested by the fact that while Gussy

practises most diligently, she seldom seems conscious of the

improvement I perceive distinctly. Do you see Cornelius from

time to time, and gain anything from him? You never mention if

you have any friends amongst the artists distinguished in any

way.

ROME, _April 29, 1854_.

I have of late, since the underpainting of my large picture

(at which I worked like a horse) given myself rest and

recreation in the way of several picnics in the _Campagna_

under the auspices of Mesdames Sartoris and Kemble. We are a

most jovial crew; the following are the _dramatis personae_:

first, the two above-mentioned ladies; then Mr. Lyons, the

English diplomatist here (whom your friend probably meant); he

is not ambassador, nor is he in any way supposed to represent

the English people here, he is only a sort of negotiator;

however, a most charming man he assuredly is, funny, dry,

jolly, imperturbably good-tempered; then Mr. Ampere, a French

savant, a genial, witty, amusing old gentleman as ever was;

then Browning, the poet, a never-failing fountain of quaint

stories and funny sayings; next Harriet Hosmer, a little

American sculptress of great talent, the queerest,

best-natured little chap possible; another girl, nothing

particular, and your humble servant who, except when art is

touched, plays the part of humble listener, in which capacity

he makes amends for the vehemence with which he starts up when

certain subjects are touched which relate to his own trade; in

other things, silence, alas! becomes him, ignorant as he is,

and having clean forgotten all he ever knew![27] I shall not

be able to leave Rome more than a month in the summer, as the

work which I have carved out for myself makes it utterly

impossible. You must know, however, that the hot months (July

and August) are not the dangerous ones, but September, when

the rains set in. During that month I shall give myself a

complete rest from work, and shall go to the baths of Lucca,

the healthiest spot in Italy, where I shall enjoy cool air,

country scenery, and, better than all, the society of the

Sartoris, who are going to spend the summer there; meanwhile,

I shall take what precautions I can; I shall live as the

Italians do, getting up early, and sleeping in the middle of

the day, and shall resume flannel, if you do not advise the

contrary, as I see reason to believe that it is a great

preservative against fever. As for the general climate of

Rome, I don't give it much consideration, as there is not the

least probability of my ever _residing_ here; I think there is

not a worse place for a rising artist to set up his abode in

than Rome, on account of the want of emulation as compared,

for instance, to a place like Paris, where there are hundreds

of clever men, all hard at work, and where an artist is always

exposed to comparisons. It is impossible for me to give you

any decisive answer about my progress, for you know I have

been busy all the winter drawing studies; I shall see when I

come to the picture itself what steps I have made forwards; I

reckon on its being the best thing I shall have done, I can

say no more. I believe Sartoris, whose judgment in all the

arts is excellent, considers me the most promising young man

in Rome; but that does not mean much--we shall see!

Of my daily life and occupations, I have little or nothing to

say, as they are monotonous to a degree; parties, of course,

have ceased, and I am just about to leave p.p.c.'s everywhere,

as I don't mean to go into the world at all next year. I don't

remember whether I told you that some little time back Mrs.

Sartoris gave some tableaux and charades in which your humble

servant co-operated; the whole thing was, I believe, very

successful. The greatest treat I have had lately has been

hearing Mrs. Kemble read on different occasions Julius Caesar,

Hamlet, and part of Midsummer Night's Dream; I need not tell

you how delighted I was.