About fiddles, I know that the ancients had none; it is an anachronism which I commit with my eyes open, because I believe that the picture will go home to the spectator much more forcibly in that shape.
To his mother he writes:—
Rue Pigalle.
I have seen Scheffer,[55] who is cordiality itself to me; Robert Fleury, ditto, and I have further made the acquaintance of Ingres, who, though sometimes bearish beyond measure, was by a piece of luck exceedingly courteous the day I was presented to him. He has just finished a beautiful figure of Nymph, which I was able to admire loudly and sincerely. I have also been to Troyon, who was polite.
I am fiddling away at the preliminaries of my pictures, a disjointed and desultory period through which one has to wade to get at one's large canvas.
The Sartoris are of course, as ever, my stronghold and comfort.
Your loving boy,
Fred.
I have sent the sketch of my "Orpheus" to Ruskin, and don't yet know his opinion of that particular thing, but I feel about that, that as a now responsible artist, it is my duty to do things exactly as I feel them and to abide by them, risking criticisms and cavillings of every kind. I must be myself for better and for worse; this truth, which I feel strongly myself, has been corroborated by the opinions of Fanny Kemble, Mr. Sartoris and Mrs. Sartoris, all at different times, and quite spontaneously expressed. In haste.—Your dutiful and affectionate son,
Fred Leighton.