The contrast between Millais and Leighton, both as regards individual character and the character of their art, was as striking as could be presented by two men of the same generation.
Millais’s manner was spontaneous, careless, and buoyant; Leighton was ever graceful and courteous, but never quite without the sense of conscious and deliberate effort. I remember an Italian painter who had been his friend for many years saying to me one day, “Leighton wills to be a good fellow,” and I think the criticism that is here conveyed very aptly describes, or suggests, a certain feeling of constraint that was always to be felt in Leighton’s companionship.
Despite all his accomplishments and grace he left the impression that he was never quite at ease, and as though he felt that that must be the plight of others as well as himself he seemed to be constantly striving to rid his companion of an embarrassment which was often only his own.
The essential difference between the two men was made very manifest by an incident that occurred at a dinner given by the Arts Club to celebrate Leighton’s election as President of the Royal Academy.
Leighton’s speech, of course, was expected to be the speech of the evening, and so in a sense it was. But Leighton never spoke without the polished preparation of every word, and though his gifts as an orator were conspicuous, there was always, even upon the happiest occasion, a sense of something artificial in his aptly chosen phrases; and on the evening of which I am thinking, the fact of his being fast bound and fettered by a string of carefully forged and graceful sentences proved disastrous to the speaker.
Before Leighton rose to make his acknowledgment of the compliment that had been paid to him, Millais had his part in the programme to discharge, and although he could never boast any considerable gifts as a speaker, there was a directness and simplicity in his utterances that placed his audience in quick sympathy with the man.
When I complimented him afterwards he replied, “Yes, my boy, but you see I had a story to tell.”
And so he had; but that was not the whole secret of the great impression he made upon his hearers that evening, for though the story was simple enough in itself, it was told with such genuine feeling and with such frank revelation of his own character that it moved his audience not a little.
He recalled a day of his youth when he had been summoned by Mr. Thackeray, who lay ill in bed, to receive some instructions for designs that Millais was making for the Cornhill Magazine. The business ended, Mr. Thackeray turned to him and said:
“Millais, my boy, you must look to your laurels. There’s a young fellow in Rome called Leighton who is making prodigious strides in his art. He speaks every European language, and is an accomplished musician as well. If I’m not mistaken that young man will one day be President of the Royal Academy.”