Dearest Mamma,—Let me hasten to reassure my poor dear progenitor on the subject of his anxieties; if I spoke doubtfully and despondently of my performances, it was owing to the lively feeling that every artist, whose ideal is beyond the applause of the many, must entertain of his own shortcomings; once and for all let me beg him never to feel any uneasiness on the score of mechanical processes, as in such cases one always has the resource of cutting the Gordian knot by painting over again the unsuccessful portions, an expedient indeed to which I have many a time been forced to resort; the result of such failures is called experience; through such failures alone one arrives at success. Nor am I wanting in the applause of my friends, who all speak in praise and encouragement of my works, and it is not a little gratifying to me to find that those whose opinions I most value are the first to speak favourably of my endeavours; as agreeable as is to me this testimony on their part, so indifferent am I, and must I beg you to be (for better and for worse) to the scribbling of pamphleteers; the self-complacent oracularity of these pachidermata is rivalled only by their gross ignorance of the subjects they bemaul, and the conventional flatness of all their views; I speak without fear of being considered partial, as the article which you communicate to me contains more of praise than of blame; it is, however, my practice never to accept (inwardly) the praise of those whose blame I don't acknowledge. I happen to have seen other articles from the pen of this same Mister ——, and know à quoi m'en tenir. The notice on myself I had heard of, but not seen. It may amuse you to hear that my draperies have been considered (alas!) the most successful part of my picture, and I am at present labouring hard to bring the heads, &c., up to them! In about a fortnight, the large work ("Cimabue," the "canvas of many feet") will be, D.V., finished, with the exception of the ultimate glazes and retouches; by the end of February, both pictures will start for their respective destinations. One thing has caused me some annoyance and anxiety; I wrote a month ago (or more) to one Mr. Allen, carver and gilder, 31 Ebury Street, Pimlico, sending a design of my frame, and requesting him to let me know at once what would be the cost of such a frame, whether he would undertake it, and asking many questions important to me to know; I have received no answer; I therefore must take for granted that either he has not received my letter, or his answer to me has been lost; now, as there is no longer any time to correspond on the subject, I must, on the supposition that my letter has gone astray, send another design together with an unconditional order to begin at once at whatever cost; now I grudge the time of writing a duplicate of my old letter, and especially that of drawing a new diagram for his guidance. With regard to the price, Fripp, who recommended him to me, says Allen is a very respectable man, and will no way take advantage of my awkward position; I calculate the frame can hardly exceed five and twenty pounds; then there will be the bill for exhibiting the picture of which he will take charge; I expect that the framing, packing, sending, &c., of the two canvases together will cost about fifty pounds "tant pis pour moi!"
(Here the letter breaks off.)
(Cover—Madame Leighton,
9 Circus, Bath, England.)
Rome, Via Felice 123,
March 2, 1855.
(On cover—Recd. April 12.)
Dear Papa,—I received a day or two ago the kind letter in which you inform me of the disposition you have made to enable me to get the money I want, and for which I sincerely thank you; your letter reached me just as I was driving the last nail into the coffin of my large picture; the small had been disposed of in like manner the day before. Delighted as I am to have got them at last off my hands, yet I felt a kind of strange sorrow at seeing them nailed up in their narrow boxes; it was so painfully like shrouding and stowing away a corpse, with the exception, by-the-bye, that my pictures may possibly return to my bosom long before the Last Judgment. With regard to the success of my picture with its little Roman public, nearly all the praise that reached my ears was bestowed behind my back, so that whether intelligent or no, I have good reason to believe it was sincere; indeed, I should not else have said anything about it; Cornelius, I am sincerely sorry to say, did not see my daubs in their finished state; he was prevented by ill-health; however, all the advice he could give me I got out of him in the beginning, and indeed, as you know, altered about a dozen figures at his request; in points of material execution he is utterly incompetent; I am happy to say that he feels very kindly towards me, as indeed he told me in plain words, and added on one occasion, "Sie können für England etwas bedeutendes werden;" I need not tell you that as he is altogether without apprehension of the peculiar and very great merits of some of our artists, he considerably overvalues my (relative) value. You ask for my opinion of my pictures; you couldn't ask a more embarrassing and unsatisfactory question; I think, indeed, that they are very creditable works for my age, but I am anything but satisfied with them, and believe that I could paint both of them better now; I am particularly anxious that persons whom I love or esteem should think neither more nor less of my artistic capacity than I deserve; the plain truth; I am therefore very circumspect in passing a verdict on myself in addressing myself to such persons; I think, however, you may expect me to become eventually the best draughtsman in my country; Gibson and Miss Hosmer are, as you expect, amongst those who praise me, but I warn you that they are both utterly without an opinion in matters pictorial. Who is ——? He is, entre nous, the worst painter I ever saw, but also the greatest toady, in virtue of which quality he makes £5000 a year by portraying the nobility of Great Britain and Ireland; however, towards me he has been very pleasant and nice, and so long as there is no lord in the way he is a sufficiently companionable person. I certainly feel very little desire to have my "Cimabue" hung in the little room you speak of, but I fear that I must take my chance with the rest; the fact is that although I personally have taken no steps in the matter, still "ces messieurs" will not be unprepared for my picture, because I know that old Leitch for one will speak to them about it and will do everything that is friendly; he even offered to varnish it, but that another friend of mine has already undertaken. One thing is certain, they can't hang it out of sight—it's too large for that. I must leave myself room to write afterwards to Mamma....
...I am glad that you have made up your mind to not seeing me as soon as you expected; indeed I felt sure that when I told you all the reasons which concurred to make me prolong my stay, you would feel the force of them; I willingly confess, too, that I was most strongly biassed on the matter by my reluctance to part from my friends, but particularly her. I am horrified at the use you make of the words "indefinite time"; I shall certainly never live long anywhere without going to see them, and I trust that our "intimes relations" will not cease as long as I live. How sorry I am that I should not have known in time that Mrs. Kemble was to read in Bath; I should have liked so to introduce you to her; you no doubt found her reading a rare treat. How beautiful is the "Midsummer Night's Dream" with Mendelssohn's music! This reminds me of dear Gussy and her music; I suppose her new master is a good one, or she would not have taken him; generally speaking I have a sovereign dislike for the engeance of pianistes with their eternal jingle-tingles at the top of the piano, their drops of dew, their sources, their fairies, their bells, and the vapid runs and futile conceits with which they sentimentalise and torture the motive of other men; we have a specimen here in the shape of the all-fashionable ——....
Referring to a lady of his acquaintance, he continues:—
She has acquired by her melancholy and sometimes haughty moods a character for misanthropy which she has not cared to refute; but, my good sir, she is DIVORCED! Poor cowards! should they not rather gather her to them, and "weep with her that weeps," Bible-wise Pharisees! Your letter is full of thrilling events: children born among the Australian flocks of Mr. Donaldson; little ——, too, taking to herself a husband—alas for the Laird of (probably) Ballyshallynachurighawalymoroo! I must think of answering dear Gussy's note, and close with a hearty kiss, from your dutiful and affectionate son,
Fred Leighton.
Dearest Gussy,—Many thanks to you for your kind note and for the sympathy and interest which you both offer and ask. How heartily sorry I am that you should still be persecuted by the soreness in your throat, and should be prevented, poor dear, from singing; you who have the rare gift of that which is unteachable and without which the most brilliant execution is dumb to the heart; I mean musical accent. I had hoped that we should sing together, but I fear that if the air of Bath has such a bad effect on the throat, I shall be invalided as well as yourself. What is about the compass of your voice? or (which is more important) in what tessitura do you sing with least discomfort? that I may see whether anything I sing will suit us; unfortunately most part of my limited répertoire consists of the first tenor part in quintettes and quartettes, which are not available for us two. I don't know whether I told you that I take a part in Mrs. Sartoris' musical evenings, in which I officiate as primo tenore; you may imagine how great an enjoyment this is to me. Dear Gussy, how I wish you could hear her sing! it would enlarge your ideas and open out your heart; I am sadly afraid however, that she won't winter in Paris, so that if you go there you must make up your mind to not meeting her; but if you are in England in October she may possibly be there by that time, and you might make her acquaintance; if I sell either of my pictures, and am "sur les lieux" at the time, I will take you and Lina to town at my own expense and introduce you to the dearest friend I have in the world; I long for you to know and love one another. You ask me whether she is like her sister; in expression, sometimes, strikingly like; in feature, not in the least. She is the image of John Kemble, with large aquiline nose and the most beautiful mouth in the world, a most harmonious head, and, like Fanny, the hair low down on her forehead; artistically speaking, her head and shoulders are the finest I ever saw with the exception only of Dante's; in spite of all this, many people think her barely good-looking, because she has no complexion, very little hair, and is excessively stout; you will be more discriminating. I am amused at Mamma's asking me in her letter whether I know why —— did not know the Sartoris! Pardi! I did not introduce them,—in the first place I have been obliged to make a rule to introduce nobody to that house, as I should otherwise become a nuisance; people have constantly fished for introductions knowing my intimacy; but the chief reason is that Mrs. Sartoris has the judgment and courage to ask to her house nobody but those she likes for some reason or other, for which reason her house is the most sociable in the world; her "intimes" are a complete medley, from the Duke of Wellington down to a poor artist with one change of boots, but all agreeable for some reason; I know that she would be kind to any one I brought to her, but I also know that the ——s would have been in the way and a corvée to her, which fully accounts, &c. &c.