"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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sertion 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. G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 h.o.m.ologies of the skeleton, while in the meantime fish and beef were growing cold and my appet.i.te 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 a.s.sist 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 Schone, ist das _scheinen_" (Schone 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 fur sich_, or rather the _an, fur, uber 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 ent.i.ty, impersonal, however, and therefore not a G.o.d, 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 Schone." 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 Englander, 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 auth.o.r.ess! 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 pa.s.s 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?
""G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances have rea.s.sured 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 (G.o.d 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 antic.i.p.ating 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, w.i.l.l.y 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 impa.s.sioned 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 G.o.d, 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 Ma.s.simo 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 ab.u.t.ted 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 ent.i.tled 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 princ.i.p.al ma.s.ses; 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 gra.s.s 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 mogen._" 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 achten 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 a.s.sure 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."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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; a.s.suming, 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 Schaffer 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 mult.i.tude 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 mult.i.tude of impressions is first gradually a.s.similated, if everything is a.s.signed 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.sured 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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."