The following letter to a friend of his sister's contains a criticism of Leighton's on Goethe's Sprüche under the head of "Kunst":—
Private.]
2 Holland Park Road, Kensington, W.,
17/8/91.
Dear Mr. Bailey Saunders,—Complying with your wish, expressed through my sister, Mrs. Orr, I have gone carefully through the Sprüche under the head "Kunst," and have marked certain passages. I have, however, deferred writing till the last moment (I am starting presently for the Continent), partly because I have been overwhelmingly busy, and partly because I am a good deal "exercised" on the whole matter. To speak with entire frankness, I cannot feel sympathy with the idea of the publication, and feel that the connection of my name with it would imply an adhesion which does not exist. On re-reading more than once the maxims and sayings in question, which I had not seen for many years, I find myself confirmed in my earlier impression of them, that their value is in no way commensurate to the authority of Goethe's great name. Some of them are, in my opinion, wholly misleading and some obscure; some commonplace, some irrelevant to the subject. Again, my markings do not by any means always mean assent; and, on the other hand, the discrimination between the value of a marked paragraph is often a nice one, and is not represented by the difference between selection and omission, which, on the face of it, seems assent and dissent. In sum, I ask myself what the outcome is—what is the selection? it does not give to the world an important or instructive intellectual possession; it seems to express the selection of the best by a particular individual (who does not spontaneously desire to make such selections), and in reality does not represent anything that he assents to throughout.
But why a selection at all? I cannot refrain from asking myself. The interest of these particular Sprüche lies in the fact that they are utterances of Goethe's (and he gave them with a context)—but then what is the meaning of a selection?
You see I speak very bluntly in the matter, but also sincerely; and I have at all events shown my good will.—In much haste, yours faithfully,
Fred Leighton.
I am, as I said, just off, but if you wished especially to communicate with me, a line sent here would reach me after some delay.
Though Leighton persisted in affirming that he hardly ever read, the number of letters, and answers to letters from scholars, referring to poems and general literature, which exist in the correspondence he preserved, prove that if he did not read he nevertheless somehow got a knowledge of the inside of books. To a question having reference to the Nine Muses (he was then painting his frieze "Music") which he asked Swinburne, he received the answer:—
The Pines, Putney Hill, S.W.,
August 21, 1885.