View of Inner Hall and Staircase of Leighton House, with reproduction of Mr. Thomas Brock's R.A. Diploma
work, Bust of Lord Leighton, presented by Mr. Brock to the Leighton House Collection in 1898.
By permission of Mr. J. Harris Stone.[ToList]
FOOTNOTES:
[83] "Life and Letters of Robert Browning."
[84] Professor Giovanni Costa.
[85] It was during this last visit to Malinmore Leighton made those sketches of the sea thistle (see [chapter iii. vol. i.]), and also some last sketches in oil.
[86] Leighton had visited Mr. Pepys Cockerell and his family at Lindisfarne (Holy Island) more than once when going or returning from Scotland.
[87] Mr. Percy Fitzgerald wrote the following:—
"Being in the same club with Lord Leighton, I could note many instances of his good humour and sweetness of temper. I am happy to think, for it was a high compliment from him, that he made my acquaintance, not I his. He had always a pleasant word; as when, entering the writing-room with his hasty tramp, he looked over at me, seated at the window pencil in hand, and rushed over in his impetuous way: "Ah, one of our trade, I see!" He was particularly interested in a museum or institute at Camberwell, and one day thanked me most warmly for having gone down to lecture there, and that it was appreciated by the people, &c. This was good-natured.
"The day he received his title, an old gentleman of the club, who did not know him, congratulated him as he passed by in high-sounding Italian. He was delighted, and poured out a reply in the same tongue, adding some pleasant remark. This little incident quite illustrates his bonhomie. It is just what Dickens would do. I gave him a copy of Sir Joshua's Discourses, a presentation one to Burke. It was fitting that the modern President should have it.