What was it that gave Leighton this position? He himself was the very last to claim it as a right. His creed and his practice were ever to fight against the weaknesses of his nature rather than to rejoice in its strength. For assuredly, however strong the intellect, beautiful the character, brilliant the vitality, and fine the intuitive instincts, a man may yet have within his nature foibles in common with the herd. The difference is, that in the truly great the unworthier side of nature is viewed as unworthy—is fought against and banished like the plague.
"A good man is wise, not because all his desires are wise, but because his reasonable soul masters unwise desires and is itself wise.
"He is courageous, because he knows when to fight, and does so under control of reason.
"He is temperate, because his pluck and his desires unite in giving the first place to the reasonable soul; and finally, he is just, because each principle is in its place and stops there."
In a letter to his mother when he was twenty-three Leighton wrote: "I feel I have of my nature a very fair share of the hateful worldly weakness of my country people;" adding, "Still, I have found no sufficiently great advantage or compensation for the tedium of going out." Again, three years later, after describing to his sister the delight he felt in the beauty he found in Algiers, he wrote: "And yet what I have said of my feelings, though literally true, does not give you an exactly true notion; for, together with, and as it were behind, so much pleasurable emotion, there is always that other strange second man in me, calm, observant, critical, unmoved, blasé—odious!
"He is a shadow that walks with me, a sort of nineteenth-century canker of doubt and discretion; it's very, very seldom that I forget his loathsome presence. What cheering things I find to say!"
Doubtless Leighton had within him the possibilities of becoming a worldling, and also of becoming a cynic. He overrode and banished the first as despicable, the second as hideous.
But it is not in the wisdom that—Socrates-like—steered his life by reason, that we find the adequate answer to the question, "Why was Leighton the prominent entity he was?" Diverse as were his natural gifts and his power of achievement on various lines, he differed radically from that modern development—the all-round man, who has no concentrated fire as a centre to illumine his life, but develops all his capacities so that they shall shine forth equally on certain high levels. From childhood Leighton had one overriding passion, and from this sprang the will-force and vitality which throughout his life succeeded in bringing his intentions to fruition. Whatsoever his hand found worthy to do at all, he did with the whole might of his great nature. Still even that would not adequately answer the question. His greatness truly lay in the fact that the choice he made of what was worth doing was never limited by personal interests. He impelled the force of his powers for the welfare of others, and for the causes beneficial to others, as much or more than to those matters which concerned himself alone. Hence his true greatness and his great fame—for Æschylus is right: "The good will prevail."
A sense of duty—"the keenest possible sense of it," to use Mr. Briton Rivière's words—which was the keynote of all Leighton's actions, was impelled in the first instance by a feeling of gratitude for the joy with which beauty in nature and art had steeped his being from a child; a deep well of happiness, a constant companion, ever springing up in his heart, which he craved that others should share with him. This happiness gave sweetness to his life, lovableness to his character, irresistible power to his control. Leighton's was truly a life of praise and gratitude for the joys nature had bestowed on him. He had a pleasant way of making the truth prevail. The description by Marcus Aurelius of his "third man" applies well to the character of Leighton.
"One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favour conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man, when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season."