"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.