My dear Leighton,—If you did not paint better than I write you would not be the man of abounding promise that you are.
What I meant to say was that Law and Restraint are healthy life and the infraction of them ghostly death and dissolution, and that meaning is in your picture, whether you know it or not. Your "dæmon" may have put it there, but then you can trust your dæmon.
Still, best love to the little girl at the fountain, who knows that though Speech may be silver, Silence is Golden.—Ever yours, with many thanks,
Robin Allen.
Fred. Leighton, Esq.
Leighton's "Francesca di Rimini."
"That day they read no more." Virtue grows faint,
One hand lies powerless, the wife's sweet face
Is half-convulsed by loss of self-restraint.
Outstretched to resist, remaining to embrace,
The extended arm will clasp her guilty lover,
And all the bright, pure world beyond for her be over.
Their very forms grow blurred and change their colour
Into dim snaky wreaths of purple pallor,
Fading away with Honour's fading Law
Into the pale sad ghosts that Dante saw;
Which we too see, crowned with departing glory,
When Leighton's genius deepens Dante's Story.
R.A.
6th April 1861.