Dear Mr. Leighton,—Unmitigated delight! Nello is better than my Nello. I see the love and care with which the drawings are done.
After I had sent away my yesterday's note, written in such haste that I was afterwards uncomfortable lest I had misrepresented my feelings, the very considerations you suggest had occurred to me and I had talked them over with Mr. Lewes—namely, that the exigencies of your art must forbid perfect correspondence between the text and the illustration; and I came to the conclusion that it was these exigencies which had determined you as to the position of Bardo's head and the fall of Romola's hair. You have given her attitude transcendently well, and the attitude is more important than the mere head-dress. I am glad you chose Nello's shop; it makes so good a variety with Bardo and Romola. In a day or two you will have the second part, and I think you will find there a scene for Tessa "under the Plane Tree." But perhaps we shall see each other before you begin the next drawings.—Ever yours truly,
M.E. Lewes.
16 Blandford Square, N.W.,
Monday.
Dear Mr. Leighton,—Your letter comforts me particularly. I am so glad to think you find subjects to your mind. I have no especial desire for the view from S. Miniato, and indeed a plan we started in conversation with Mr. Smith this morning, namely, to have moderately sized initial letters—the opening one being an old Florentine in his Lucco and generally the subjects being bits of landscape or Florentine building—seems to do away with any reason for having the landscape to begin with. The idea of having Tessa and the mules, or Nello's sanctum, smiles upon me, so pray feel free to choose the impression that urges itself most strongly. Your observation about the "che, che" is just the aid I besought from you. With that exception, I have confined myself, I believe, to such interjections as I find in the writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and in them, curiously enough, this exclamation now said to be so constant and "to mean everything" (according to our authority) does not seem to occur.
Thank you. Pray let me have as many criticisms of that kind as you can. I am more gratified, I think, by your liking these opening chapters than I have yet been by anything in these nervous anxious weeks of decision about publication.—Very truly yours,
M.E. Lewes.
F. Leighton, Esq.
16 Blandford Square, N.W.,
Tuesday Evening.
Dear Mr. Leighton,—I am enchanted! purely delighted! which shall I begin with, to tell you that I delight in Baby's toes or that exquisite poetry in the scene where Romola is standing? Is it not a pleasant change to have that opening made through the walls of the city, so as to see the sky and the mountains? In the scene with Baldassarre and Tessa, also, the distant view is charming. Tessa and her Babkin are perfect—Baldassarre's is, as you say, an impossible face to draw, but you have seized the framework of the face well, both in this illustration and the previous one.