"I feel, almost, a kind of shame that so much should have been poured down on me, who have deserved it less. To become deserving of it, must be my great, never-wavering endeavour; I will put my talent to usury, and be no slothful steward of what has been entrusted to me. Every man who has received a gift, ought to feel and act as if he was a field in which a seed was planted that others might gather the harvest.

"I am delighted to hear that Lady Leighton is getting on well, and as much gratified at having made on her a favourable impression; pray tell her that her presence and conversation inspired me with a desire to please her, and that her affectionate reception has still a lively hold on my memory.

"You tell me that you were touched at Steinle's kindness to me, and indeed it was such as might well touch any one; this time you will be touched at his affliction, poor man, he has just had a heavy misfortune—the most affectionate of fathers has lost another child, the second, in a year and a half; I heard this from André, who has just arrived from Frankfurt, and who called on the unfortunate man before he started and found him much dejected. He said in his melancholy but calm tone of voice: 'Ich habe eine Tochter begraben.' You think it improbable that I shall find a second Steinle; I delight in the belief that there is none.

"I am not surprised at your finding it impossible to imagine an artist without a genuine love for nature. In any but an age of perverted taste such a thing could not exist; but it is only too true that that most essential of qualities has become obsolete, and is hardly to be found at all. Artists now are full of breadth and depth; and, between us and the doorpost, flatness. On this subject I mean to tell you more in my next letter, when I speak more particularly of my artistic impressions and opinions, which I have not yet done.

"I am glad to hear what you tell me about the comfort you enjoy in Bath, from the superior cleanliness and decency of behaviour of English servants over foreign ones; it is a thing to which I am particularly alive, and which struck me very much last time I was in England; Gussy too, I am sure, appreciated it very much. I am sorry that I cannot participate in your enthusiasm about the beauties of Bath (barring, of course, the situation, which is charming), but I will say nothing against it, as I am only too glad that you should be pleased with it. I quite follow you in your admiration of the edifices in Westminster; I think that, taking them altogether, they form one of the finest groups of architecture that I ever saw; but what particularly pleases me in the Houses of Parliament is the example they set of building in that style of architecture which is our own, the growth, as it were, of our soil, and which therefore best befits our country. Such feelings, I have reason to believe, are becoming prevalent in England, and they may have great results; but I reserve all this for another letter. I am glad to hear of the institution you tell me of for the cultivation of good principles; I believe that the greatness of England will not be as ephemeral as that of the other nations that have had the lead in succession, because so much is done to consolidate and increase in strength the basis on which it stands, and which is the best prop to the enduring prosperity of a nation, uprightness and morality.

"I have now followed and answered your letter, from beginning to end, from point to point, it is time I should close; next time I write, I shall be in Rome, settled for the winter.—Believe me, dear Mamma, with very best love to all, your most affectionate and dutiful son,

"Fred Leighton."

Translation.]

Venice, 31st August.

"Honoured and very dear Herr Steinle,—If I did not, according to our agreement, write to you directly Rico[19] arrived, it was because I could not make up my mind to put you off with two words, whereas I had neither time nor leisure to write you anything detailed. Now, however, arrived and established in Venice, I take up my pen to repair the neglect. It is a lovely, cool, clear summer morning; I sit at my window on the Grand Canal, and before my eyes rises in glorious beauty the incomparable outline of Sta. Maria della Salute with the adjoining Dogano. The newly risen sun (it is five o'clock in the morning) throws a golden, enchanted light along one side of the Canal; the gondolas and barges, which nestle in a numerous array at the steps of the Salute, glitter in the dusky distance like gleaming jewels on the borders of the silver mirror of the water, whose clear bosom is gently ruffled by the soft breath of dawn. All is still, except the distant church bells. What words can give an idea of such a sight? I gaze about me in a day-dream and think of you, the dear friend, the honoured master; all that I owe you for heartfelt sympathy and wise guidance, and cannot pay, rises before my grateful soul, and reminds me that I have lost one whom I shall miss many a time. I hope with all my heart that your stay in the mountains of Appenzell will have given you fresh strength, and that in all respects you are re-established and invigorated according to your expectations.

"Now, however, as I am to speak of myself, and to give some account of my impressions on my journey, I note that for me the potent picture of Italy, of Venice, has pushed all that went before into the background, almost blotted it out, so that now it floats before me like a dim remembrance; but with two exceptions: two pictures have impressed themselves deeply on my memory, and will certainly not be easily erased—I mean the Franciscan church at Innsbruck and lovely Meran. You were indeed right when you said that the cast giants in that church are the grandest achievement of German sculpture; they are colossal, a truly imposing spectacle, brilliant monuments of an age of noble taste. What eternal truth! What an amazing impress of individuality! Of marvellous execution that never borders on the little, full of breadth and strength, and yet nobly slender, they are the most perfect example of economy of detail; what a sharp contrast to the superficial stone-hammering (I might say) of to-day; what an everlasting shaming to the nineteenth century! I could name many sculptors who could not look at these things without profit.

"Meran! What an indelible, fascinating picture floats before one's eyes at the name; this Alpha and Omega of all that is lovely in Tyrol; this lovely amphitheatre of mountains, rugged on one side, and steep and covered with snow on the other, glowing in the purple gleam of the south—widely extended, melting away, alluring; this fertile plain; this gold-green flood of climbing vines, hanging down like waterfalls from the espaliers on the mountain slopes, with the purple foam of the vines; these thousand pleasure-houses and castles; the picturesque costume!

"But why so many words? You have seen this beauty yourself, and have no doubt a clearer picture of it than I can paint for you.

"In Botzen, to my very great regret, I was unable to see Herr von Hempel, since he was staying, not in his town house, but in a castle at a distance of two hours; but I visited Becker's brother. He received me in a most friendly manner, asked much after his brother, of whom he had heard nothing for more than a year, and told me that his mother, who had recently visited him in Feldkirch, had wept bitterly about it. I must also inform you that he has recently taken unto himself a wife—a fact of which our good Jacob (that is his name, is it not?) also knew nothing.

"I could still, dear Herr Steinle, write much to you about Tyrol and Italy (especially about Verona), for I know no one with whom I so gladly share my artistic sensations as with you, but lack of time obliges me to close quickly for the present; I will only add that after I had been two days in Verona the worthy Rico arrived, and we are now having a feast of art in Venice together.

"Should you be still at the Stift when you receive these lines, I beg you to kiss the Frau Rath's hand for me, and to tell her that I remember vividly the day I spent in her house. Remember me most kindly to your wife—I congratulate her upon her deliverance from the Cronberg martyrdom; kiss the little children for me, and remember me to the elder ones; remember me also to Frau Schöff & Co. and to all my other good friends; this is perhaps rather a large request, but whom could I omit? I rely upon your kindness. I close with a plea for forbearance towards my incorrigible writing and my lame, headlong style.—Heartfelt greetings from your devoted and grateful pupil,

"Fred Leighton.

"P.S.—Should you have anything to say to me, or any commission to give me, the address, Poste Restante, Florence, will find me till the end of September.

"Gamba wishes to be cordially remembered to you, and promises himself to be under your wing again in eighteen months.

"In my next letter I will tell you about Italy."

"...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 sacré' 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 chè' 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 Allmächtige' (I quote from memory, and therefore probably not quite correctly) 'vor mich hin träte in der Rechten die vollkommene Erkenntnis, in der Linken ein ewiges Streben nach Wahrheit, ich würfe 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 'günstige 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 sécrétaire; 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 à un prochain numéro.)

"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 distingué; 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."

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, à 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 æsthetics; 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 Schöne, ist das scheinen' (Schöne 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 für sich, or rather the an, für, über 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 Schöne.' 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 Engländer, 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 "Æsthetics" 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 début. 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?

"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—

"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.