My dear Sir Frederic,—I have just received your most kind and generous note, and thank you and the Council for so promptly complying with my request to retire from the R. Academy as an active member.
To do it was much worse than making a will; but, having done it, I am greatly relieved.
Had it been earlier it would have been wiser; but as delay has not forfeited the esteem of my dear President and others, I am thankful and content.
But one word of parting advice I crave to offer, which my admiration of your rule and guidance in your high office constrains me to make.
Many of us have remarked that you draw upon your strength too severely; my parting words then are, and please accept, follow, and forgive them:—
Spare yourself when you can, that you may long be spared to give yourself, when you ought.
And now farewell, from your loyal and affectionate old friend,
Geo. Richmond.
From San Martino, 20th September 1889, Leighton wrote to his father:—