CHAPTER I

ANTECEDENTS AND SCHOOL DAYS

1830-1852

Some light is thrown on Leighton's ancestry by the following letter, written by Sir Baldwyn Leighton to Sir Albert Woods, Garter, at the time when a peerage was bestowed on Frederic Leighton. It deals with the question of associating the name of Stretton with the Barony.

"TABLEY HOUSE, KNUTSFORD, _January 10, 1896._

"DEAR SIR,--In answer to yours of January 9, I beg to say that there are two places called Stretton in the County of Salop; one, now known as Church Stretton, having become a small town, was formerly in the possession of my family through the marriage of John de Leighton, my lineal ancestor, with the daughter and heiress of William Cambray of Stretton in the fourteenth century, whose arms we still quarter (see Herald's Visitation for Shropshire). This no longer belongs to me, having been mortgaged and sold by Sir Thomas Leighton, Kt. Banneret, temp. Hen. VIII. But there is another Stretton in the parish of Alderbury with Cardeston which does still belong to me, and has always belonged to the family from time immemorial. I have been in communication with Sir Frederic Leighton on the subject, and it _is_ my wish that he should adopt the supplemental title of Stretton. According to a pedigree made out by a Shropshire antiquarian some thirty years ago, Sir Frederic's branch descends from the younger son of the John de Leighton who married the Cambray heiress, and who was admitted burgess of Shrewsbury in 1465. Therefore I am of opinion that it _is_ a very proper supplemental title for Sir Frederic to assume.--I remain, yours, &c.,

"BALDWYN LEIGHTON.

"To Sir ALBERT WOODS, Garter."

In 1862, Leighton writes to his mother:--

"You must know that I received some time back a letter from the _Rev. Wm. Leighton_ (address, _Luciefelde, Shrewsbury_) asking me very politely to give him whatever information I could about our family, as he was making a pedigree of the Leighton family, and was anxious to find out something about a branch that had settled and been lost sight of in London. I answered that I regretted I could give him no definite information on the subject, beyond our belief that we were of a younger branch of the Shropshire Leightons, whose arms and crest we bore, that I knew personally nothing of my family further back than my grandfather, telling him who and what he was. I ended by referring him _to Papa_, to whom I immediately wrote, telling him the nature of Mr. Leighton's request, and begging him to write to him at once in case he could give him any clue that might facilitate his researches. I then received a second, and very interesting, letter from Mr. L. telling me that he had found in Yorkshire some Leightons (I forget the Christian names, but not Robert) who claimed to descend from the Shropshire stock, and whose crest differed from the Leighton crest exactly as ours does, _i.e._ in the _forward_ expansion of the right wing of the Wyvern; a peculiarity, by the by, which did not appear to be of weight with him. There was more in this letter which I don't clearly remember, but nothing establishing our claim; this letter I immediately forwarded to you, and since then both myself and Mr. Leighton have been waiting to hear from Papa."

The conclusion arrived at from these inquiries was--that, three or four hundred years ago, the descendants of John de Leighton and the Cambray heiress migrated from Shropshire to Yorkshire, and that Leighton's grandfather, Sir James Leighton, court physician to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, was a descendant of this branch. Dr. Leighton, the artist's father, married the daughter of George Augustus Nash of Edmonton. He and his wife, early in their married life, went to St. Petersburg, and it was supposed that he would probably succeed his father as court physician to the Czar, who favoured Sir James Leighton with his intimacy; but the climate of St. Petersburg not suiting Mrs. Leighton's health, they remained there but a few years. It was at St. Petersburg that the two eldest children were born, Fanny, who died young, and Alexandra, the god-child of the Empress Alexandra, who became Mrs. Sutherland Orr. From St. Petersburg, the family moved to Scarborough, and it was at Scarborough, on December 3, 1830, that the most famous member of the Leighton family was born. The question as to which was the actual house in which the event took place was satisfactorily settled at the time when Leighton was raised to the peerage, in letters which appeared in the press,--one containing the testimony of Mrs. Anne Thorley, who was in Dr. Leighton's service for three years with the family at Scarborough, and for two years after they moved to London. She affirms that Leighton was born in the house in Brunswick Terrace, now numbered 13, but which at that time consisted only of three houses. Mrs. Thorley adds, "Fred's mother was a splendid lady--such a good one with her children, and most affectionate."

A second son named James, who died in his infancy, was also born at Scarborough, and five years after the birth of Leighton his younger sister Augusta, now Mrs. Matthews, was born in London.

Dr. Leighton had every prospect of excelling among those most distinguished in his profession. Deafness, however, by which he was unfortunately attacked about that time, made it impossible for him to practise any longer as a physician. Deprived of his active work, he turned his attention to more abstract lines of study, and to philosophy.

In 1840, Mrs. Leighton, after a severe illness, required a drier climate than that of England, and the family travelled on the Continent, visiting Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.

Family annals record the delight with which Leighton, the boy of ten, enjoyed the beauty of nature in Switzerland, the flowers and everything he saw in the land of mountains. When he reached Rome, the buildings, the fountains, the ruins, the models awaiting hire on the Piazza di Spagna, fascinated him, and he filled many sketch-books with records of all the picturesque scenes that struck him as so new and wonderful. From earliest days, drawing was Leighton's greatest amusement, and he had it always in his own mind that he would be an artist and nothing else. When in Rome, he was allowed to study drawing under Signor Meli, but his father insisted on other lessons being carried on with regularity and industry. We hear of his elder sister and Leighton learning Latin together from a young priest. Dr. Leighton had a commanding intelligence, and made his will felt. As with many fond fathers who centre their chief interest on an only son, and foster thoughts of a notable future for him, Dr. Leighton seems to have felt that the greater his interest and affection, the greater must be the exercise of strict discipline over his boy. Leighton received, to say the least, a stern upbringing from his father, mitigated, however, by the greatest tenderness from his mother. The boy's will respecting his future career proved sufficient for the occasion, and he had reason to be thankful that the general knowledge, which Dr. Leighton insisted on his acquiring, was instilled at so early an age. From the time he was ten years old he was made to study the classics, and at twelve he spoke French and Italian as fluently as English. Dr. Leighton had himself taught the boy anatomy, ever cherishing the hope that he would, when he came to years of discretion, renounce the idea of being an artist, and follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by becoming a doctor. In either case a knowledge of anatomy was thought necessary, and, in after years, Leighton declared he knew much more anatomy when he was fourteen than he did when he was President of the Royal Academy. "I owe," he said, "my knowledge to my father. He would teach me the names of the bones and the muscles. He would show them to me in action and in repose; then I would have to draw them from memory; until my memory drawing was perfect, he would not let it pass."

The family returned to England for the summer of 1841, spending it at the paternal grandfather's country house at Greenford; and during the following winter Leighton studied at the University College School in London. Mrs. Leighton's health again declined in England, and the family migrated to Germany, the country chosen by Dr. Leighton as that in which the education of the children could be best carried forward. Leighton studied under tutors at Berlin, it being only in his spare moments that he found time to sketch, or to visit the galleries. Then followed a move to Frankfort, and thence to Florence. There he was allowed to enter the studio of Bezzuoli and Servolini, celebrated artists in Florence, but of whose real greatness Leighton, even at that early age, entertained his doubts. It was in Florence that the father's will had finally to submit to the son's passion for his vocation. Dr. Leighton was too wise to allow prejudice to affect his serious actions. He could no longer blind himself to the fact, that this desire to be an artist was a vital matter with his son. He felt it would be wrong to try and override the boy's desires without seeking the opinion of an expert on art matters as to whether there was any probability of Leighton excelling. He therefore took him and his drawings to Hiram Powers, the sculptor, for the verdict to be given. The well-known conversation took place after Powers had examined the work.

"Shall I make him a painter?" asked Dr. Leighton.

"Sir, you cannot help yourself; nature has made him one already," answered the sculptor.

"What can he hope for, if I let him prepare for this career?"

"Let him aim at the highest," answered Powers; "he will be certain to get there."

Leighton had won: he had now to prove good his cause. Even though theoretically his father had given in, he yet hoped that, as years went on, a change in his boy's views might come about; but he was allowed to work at the Accademia delle belle Arti, under Bezzuoli and Servolini, and besides continuing his study of anatomy with his father, Leighton attended classes in the hospital under Zanetti. Of this time in Florence, one of his life-long friends, Professor Costa, writes: "I knew, both from himself and from his fellow-students, that at the age of fourteen Leighton studied at the Academy of Florence under Bezzuoli and Servolini, who at this time (1842) had a great reputation. They were celebrated Florentines, excellent good men, but they could give but little light to this star, which was to become one of the first magnitude. Leighton, from his innate kindness, loved and esteemed his old masters much, though not agreeing in the judgment of his fellow-students that they should be considered on the same level as the ancient Florentines. 'And who have you,' said Leighton one day to a certain Bettino (who is still living), 'who resembles your ancient masters?' And Bettino answered, 'We have still to-day our great Michael Angelos, and Raffaels, in Bezzuoli, in Servolini, in Ciseri.' But this boy of twelve years old could not believe this, and one fine day got into the diligence, and left the Academy of Florence to return to England. Although the diligence went at a great pace, his fellow-students followed it on foot, running behind it, crying, 'Come back, Inglesino! come back, Inglesino! come back,' so much was he loved and respected. He did come back, in fact, many times to Italy, which he considered as his second fatherland."

It was, however, at Frankfort, where the family settled in 1843, that Leighton fell under the real, living art influence of his life, in the person of Steinle. Leighton described this artist later as "an intensely fervent Catholic, a man of most striking personality, and of most courtly manners." In the temperament of this religious Catholic was united a fervour of feeling with a pure severity in the style of his art which belonged to the school of the Nazarenes, of which Steinle was a follower, Overbeck and Pfuehler having led the way. A spiritual ardour and spontaneity placed Steinle on a higher level as an artist than that on which the rest of the brotherhood stood. Leighton, boy as he was, at once realised in his master the existence of that "sincerity of emotion,"--to use his own words when preaching, nearly forty years later, to the Royal Academy students; a quality ever considered by him as an essential attribute of the true artist-nature--of that inner vision of the religious poet, of that finer fibre of temperament which endowed art in Leighton's eyes with higher qualities than science or philosophy alone could ever include. Steinle viewed art with the reverence and nobility of feeling which accorded with those aspirations that had been hinted to the boy's nature in his best moments, but which had had no sufficiently clear, decisive outline to inspire hitherto his actual performances. In Steinle's work he found the positive expression of those aspirations; there, in such art, was an absolute confutation of the creed that art was but a pleasant recreation, having no backbone in it to influence the serious work of the world; the creed which meant that, if taken up as a profession, it led but to the making of money by amusing the aesthetic sense of the public in a superficial manner. The view taken by the magnates--the "Barbarians" of the time--was, that unless a painter were a Raphael, a Titian, or a Reynolds, his position was little removed from that of the second-rate actor or the dancer. It was not the profession, but the individual prominence in it which alone saved the situation. In Steinle, Leighton found an exponent of art, who reverenced the vocation of art itself as one which should be sanctified by the purest aims and the highest aspirations.

In the nature of one who exercises a strong influence over another is often found the real clue to the nature influenced. Circumstances had led Leighton to be reserved with regard to his deepest feelings respecting art, but with Steinle that reserve vanished. Under the influence of this master he realised an adequate cause for this deep-rooted, peremptory passion. Steinle's nature explains that of his pupil; for Leighton was, in an intimate sense, introduced to a full knowledge of his own self by Steinle. This influence, to use his own words, written more than thirty years later, was the "indelible seal," because it made Leighton one with himself. The impress was given which steadied the whole nature. There was no vagueness of aim, no swaying to and fro, after he had once made Steinle his master. The religious nature also of the German artist had thrown a certain spell over him. Leighton possessed ever the most beautiful of all qualities--the power of feeling enthusiasm, of loving unselfishly, and generously _adoring_ what he admired most. Fortunate, it may possibly have been, that his father's strict training developed his splendid intellectual powers at an early age; fortunate it certainly was, that, when emancipated from other trammels, he entered the service of art under an influence so pure, so vital in spiritual passion as was that of Steinle.

However, it was not till Leighton reached the age of seventeen that he was allowed to give his time uninterruptedly to the study of art. At that age he had acquired sufficient knowledge of the classics and of the general lines of knowledge even to satisfy his father. He had also completely mastered the German, French, and Italian languages. The vitality of his brain was almost abnormal, otherwise his constitution was not strong. Constantly such phrases as "I am not ill, but I am never well" occur in his letters, and he suffered from weakness and heat, also from "blots" in his eyes, perhaps the result of scarlet fever, which he had as a child. His school days seem to have had their _mauvais moments_. When he was fifteen, his parents and elder sister went to England, leaving him and his little sister at school during their holidays. The love for his mother, and his longing to be with her, is told in the following pathetic appeal:--

"FRANKFORT A/M., _Friday, June 26, 1845._

"[DEAR MAMMA],--Your letter, which I have just received, caused me the greatest pleasure, for I have been anxiously expecting it for three long days. I am very pleased to hear that Lina is getting stronger, though slowly, and hope that Hampstead will agree with her and you better than London. I am very sorry to hear that you are not very well. I hope that the country will refresh Papa after all his fatigues. I need not tell you that I was very unhappy when I heard what you said about my going to England; ever since I have been here, from the time I wake to the time I go to bed, I think of London; the other night, indeed, I went in my dream to see the new British Museum. However, if there is nothing to be done.... From Hampstead you can see London, and there is the dear old common where I and the Coodes used to play, and the pretty little lake where I went to slide, and it's such a pleasant walk to London and the galleries, and ... is there _no_ little hole left for poor Punch?[13] On the 16th July all the schoolboys go on a three weeks' journey, whose wing but yours can take care of me for so long a time? I will ask for money to buy a clothes-brush, I have none; 2 fl. I spent on water-colours for the painting lesson, 5 fl. a splendid book, 'Percy's Relics of Old English Poetry,' 1 fl. sundries, my last florin I lent to Bob, but he was fetched away in a hurry before his money was given to him, however he said he would send it me from Mayence, but I have not seen it since. It is a great bore to have no money; that 1 fl. would have lasted the second month very well as I only want it for sundries. I have dismissed Mottes, my _new_ boots have already been _re_soled, and he made me wait three weeks for a pair of boots, which of course I did not take. I wish I had had turning clothes, my jacket is very shabby, and I cannot afford to put on my best whilst it goes to the tailor; my black trowsers are ruined, but I must wear them whilst my blue ones go to be lengthened. Little Gussy looks very well, she is very well, and has sundry 'zufrieden's' and 'tres content's.' On the advice of _Pappe_, the master of mathematics and nat. phil., I have got a 'Meierhirsch's Algebraische Aufgaben.' I want a Euclid, mine is in England, how shall I get at it? I am quite well, but _long_ to see you all, and to have some _wing_; pray write very soon. Give my best love to Papa and Lina, and believe me, dear Mamma, your affectionate and _speckfle_ son,

F. LEIGHTON."

History does not record whether the "little hole for poor Punch" had been found or not. Together with other studies, Leighton was allowed to attend the model class at the famous Staedelsches Institut, and, in 1848, when the family went to Brussels, he painted his first picture, Othello and Desdemona, his elder sister sitting as model for the Desdemona, and also a portrait of himself. From Brussels he went to Paris, studying in an _atelier_ in the Rue Richer, among a set of Bohemian students, and then to Frankfort, to work seriously under his beloved master Steinle. The following letter to his father shows how unsatisfactory he considers his studies had been in both Brussels and Paris, and that now, as he expressed it, he is girding his "loins for a new race."

"CRONBERG, _Friday evening_.

"[DEAR PAPA],--As I have reason to believe that you are not indifferent to the fate of the studies which met with Dielmann's censure, and at the same time opened my eyes to the fact that I have not yet (to use a German phrase) 'die Natur mit dem Loeffel gefressen,'[14] I now write to tell you that I have retouched better parts of them, and _that_ to Burger's satisfaction as well as to mine. Of course some are better than others. Independently of the intense irritation which bad sitting (as well you know) occasions to my nerves, they give me great trouble, and I take it; but this can hardly astonish me, when I consider that, in point of fact, during the whole time that has elapsed between my leaving the model class in the Staedelsches Institut up to my return to Frankfurt, I have _never_ studied from nature; that I did not in Brussels, I need not remind you, and you must also remember that everything I painted in Paris, in the way of portraits, was done _before_ nature, I grant, but with a certain _ideal_ colour or tone, the consistency of which might be illustrated by putting Rubens, Reynolds, Titian, Tom Lawrence, Vandyke, Velasquez, Correggio, Carracci, Rembrandt, and Rafael into a kaleidoscope, and setting them in a rotatory motion, in a word--

When taken Well shaken. (What's his name--Hem!)

I am therefore girding my loins for a new race, far from discouraged, but rather with the persuasion that one with my innate love for colouring, and, I think I may add, sharp perception of the merits and demerits of the colouring of others, has a fair chance of success; nor am I dissatisfied with my beginning."

In the year 1849, he went to London to paint the portrait of his great-uncle, Mr. I'Anson, Lady Leighton's brother, and wrote to his father and mother the following:--

"Fleeced at Malines--very fine passage--slept well, why the deuce had not I a carpet bag? horrid inconvenience! my chest of drawers twenty feet below the surface of the deck, obliged to get on friendly terms with a sailor to borrow a comb (which had got blue with usage)--lovely brown tints about my shirt, cuffs more picturesque than tidy; two hours stifling in that confounded hole of a waiting-room in the custom house; arrive at last at Mr. I'Anson's at about three o'clock; as he was not at home I dressed and ran half round London before dinner; crossed Kensington Gardens, saw the outside of the Exhibition, went down Hyde Park, along Green Park, stared at Buckingham Palace, rushed down St. James' Park, flew up Waterloo Place, made a dive at Trafalgar Square, and a lunge at Pall Mall, gasped all along Regent Street, turned up Oxford Street, bent round to the Edgware Road, and from there the whole length of Oxford Terrace, I brought home a very fine appetite!"

"[MY DEAREST MOTHER],--I have resumed my Uncle's likeness, and as far as it goes (the head is done) very successfully. Will you tell Papa from me that it is more 'aufgefasst' (as I expected) than 'durchgefuehrt,' but that I have seized the _twinkle_ of his mouth to a T.

"Mr. I'Anson treats me with the utmost kindness, it is of course superfluous to tell you that I enjoy myself beyond measure.

"I am a very slow writer--I am without readiness either of thought or speech owing to the picturesque confusion which possesses my brain, and not, God knows, from a phlegmatic habit of mind."

Letter to his mother from Norfolk Terrace, Hyde Park:--

"[DEAREST MOTHER],--I have received your kind letter, and conclude from your silence on that point that Lina is now getting on well. In order to avoid losing time on fluency of style, I shall follow, strictly as I find them, the heads of your epistle, and answer them in the same succession. First, I hasten to thank you and Papa for your kind permission to prolong my stay, a permission which I value the more that I know that Papa was desirous I should return as soon as possible. You tell me, dear Mamma, that I am not to lose time in seeing the _lions_ of London, and Papa, in his displeasure at my having done so little as yet towards the real object of my visit, seems to imply an idea that I _have_ been so doing; I regret very much that you should entertain that notion, and assure you that I have neither hitherto dreamt, nor have ultimate intention, of seeing that long list of wonders, the Colosseum, the polytechnic, the cosmorama, the diorama, the panorama, the polyorama, the overland mail, Catlin's exhibition, the Chinese exhibition, nor even Wild's great globe, for that, I am told, costs five shillings; this is a decided case of 'Frappe, mais ecoute.' And if Papa did not think that I had so wasted my time, is it not very certain that, if I had not thought it a matter of duty, I would not have tired myself making what I most hate, calls, instead of seeing works of art?

"Lady Leighton looked in some respects worse, and in some much better, than I expected; I was surprised to see her walk with her back bent, and leaning on a stick; but I was more surprised still to see a face so free, comparatively, from wrinkles, and bearing such evident traces of former beauty. Her reception was of the warmest; in her anxiety lest I should be lonely and uncomfortable in an inn, she insisted on my sleeping in her house. She talked much, long, and _well_, though slowly and in a suppressed tone; she dwelt tenderly on Papa's name, and advocated warmly our return to England. I saw two letters which she wrote to her brother, my uncle, and which were both most elegantly written; both contained a paragraph in allusion to me; in the first, written before my visit (in answer to one in which my uncle had prepared her for seeing me), she expresses herself most _eager to receive and to love the grandson, of whom all speak so highly_; in the second, written after my return to London, she says that her _dear and fascinating grandson amply realises all her expectations_, and that seeing him has increased that pain which she feels at being separated from us all.

"Now, I will give you a _catalogue raisonne_ of whom I have seen: Cowpers, this you know; Smyths, ditto; Laings, very kind, though Mr. Laing, like the Cowpers, did not know me till I mentioned my name; Wests, exceedingly kind, invitation to dinner; Richardsons, motherly reception, party, given for me; Moffatt, very _prevenant_, asked me twice to dinner, both of which invitations I was unfortunately obliged to refuse, but wrote a very civil note, and went next morning in person to apologise; Hall, dreadfully busy, but gave me cards to Maclise, Goodall, Frith, Ward, Frost; Maclise was not at home, but I found Goodall, Ward, and Frith, and was pleased with my visits. There is a new school in England, and a very promising one; correctly drawn historical _genre_ seems to me the best definition of it. They tell me there is a fine opening for an historical painter of merit, and that talent never fails to succeed in London. Goodall, a young man about thirty, who painted 'The Village Festival,' in the Vernon Gallery, and of which you have an engraving in one of your Art Journal numbers, sells his pictures direct from the easel; and he does not stand alone. Sir Ch. Eastlake received me very politely, but looks a great invalid; Lance, very jolly, and Fripp, ditto. Bovills and E. I'Ansons, very kind, invitations, of course; Mackens, you know; I have found no time to call on Dr. Holland, Mr. Shedden, or Tusons.

"Having told you _whom_, I will now tell you rapidly _what_, I have seen: Vernon Gallery, very much gratified; Dulwich Gallery, very much disappointed; British Institution, ditto; National Gallery, pictures magnificent, locality disgraceful, I must make another visit there; Royal Academy, on the whole, satisfactory; British Museum, very fine; Mogford's Collection, very indifferent; Marquis of Westminster (Mr. Laing), very fine indeed; private collection (through interest of Mr. Moffatt), delightful; Windsor, _Vandyke_, superb; _Lawrence_, a wretched quack. Time presses--_la suite au prochain numero_."

The portrait of his great-uncle, Mr. I'Anson, here reproduced, proves that the visit to London effected the desired result. On his return to Frankfort he painted the portraits of Lady Cowley and her three children. Lady Cowley writes: "I am delighted with the pictures of my dear little girls, and again return you my most sincere thanks for having painted them." And in another letter: "I should have called on Mrs. Leighton all these days, had I not been very unwell with the grippe, as I wished to express to her, as well as to yourself, how very grateful I am for the beautiful portrait you have made of my little Frederick. I am quite delighted with it, as well as every one else who has seen it. Besides being extremely like, it is such a good painting that it must always be appreciated. Ever yours sincerely, Olive Cecilia Cowley." In the spring of 1852, Leighton, being then twenty-one, went to Bergheim, to paint the portraits of Count Bentinck's family. He writes from there:--

"[DEAREST MAMMA],--Having naturally a reflecting turn of mind, I am struck with the truth of the following aphorism: 'It's all very well to say I'll be blowed, but where's the wind?' Circumstances induce me to deliver a sentiment of a parallel tendency; it's all very well to say 'mind you write'; but where's the post? A deficiency in that latter commodity is a leading feature in the economy of the principality of Waldeck; so much so, that any individual residing in Bergheim, and desiring to carry on a correspondence 'ins Ausland,' is obliged to take advantage of the privilege freely granted him by the liberal constitution of the country of carrying his own letters to the first frontier town of the next state, and having posted them, waiting for an answer. I, however, _knowing my privileges_, and not being desirous of availing myself of them in _that line_, humbly and modestly send these lines by my hostess's flunkey, who is going to Fritzlar to-morrow on an errand of a similar description. _N.B._--If you want a person to receive an epistle within a fortnight (that is allowing you to be a neighbour), you must chalk up _per express_ on the back of it, in consideration of which he or she will receive it through the medium of a hot messenger, much, and naturally, fatigued and excited by a journey performed at the rate of half a mile an hour, not including the pauses in which the _inner man_ is refreshed and invigorated by a cordial gulp of 'branny un worrer.'

"Fancy a man getting to a place, by appointment, expecting a carriage and trimmings to take him to a lovely retirement in the country, and finding--devil a bit of it! Well that's precisely what did not happen to me when I got to Waldeck, because although the carriage was not there, there was a letter to say it could not come. The road to Bergheim, which crosses a river of no mean pretensions without the assistance of a bridge (other advantageous peculiarity of the state of Waldeck), was, it appeared, rendered impracticable by an inundation of the torrent alluded to; it was therefore proposed to me (without an option) to perform the journey on the top of an _oss_ provided for the purpose and accompanied by a groom mounted on another; I willingly accept an offer so much to my taste, and for the first time after a lapse of nearly three years put a leg on each side of a steed. The first part of the road was executed at a round trot on a very nice level _chaussee_, but I cannot say that I felt altogether at home on my saddle. An eye to effect is nevertheless kept open, which is manifested by my catching up two drowsy, drawling, jingling 'po shays' and sweeping past them with supreme contempt, but at a great expense of my lumbar muscles. Presently, however, my continuation-clad members began to thaw a little, and to adapt themselves to the saddle, which also lost some of its rigid severity; I began to feel very comfortable, and, by Jove! it was a good job I did, for on getting out of Fritzlar, we left the high road (for reasons above given) and plunged into a rugged, donkey-shay sort of by-path in which the ruts were without exaggeration a foot deep. Nothing daunted, however, I make light of this 'terrain legerement accidente,' cross stream and ride along tattered banks with the nonchalance of the Chinese Mandarin in the Exhibition of '51; in fact, such is my confidence in myself, that I at last begin to feel above my stirrups, I scorn them, fling them over my saddle, and perform without their assistance the rest of the journey to within half a mile of Bergheim, and that on a road the profile of which was about this:

(Here was drawn a line representing a hill-side almost perpendicular.)

"On my arrival I am of course kindly received by the Countess (her husband is still at Oldenburg), got my tea, and go to bed rather stiff after an equestrian performance of about two hours and a half. The house is large and rambling, fifteen windows in a row, and yet I cannot get a satisfactory light, the only available north room looking on a lane, the white-washed houses of which reflect disagreeably on the picture, whenever the sun shines. However I must make up my mind to it and do my best; I am at present painting the Countess."

"BERGHEIM, _Sunday_.

"[DEAR MAMMA],--In the midst of my anxious expectations of a letter from you, it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgotten to give you my direction; in the full confidence that _late is far preferable to never_, I now hasten to make up for my omission--

Mons. F. Leighton bei Ihrer Erlauchten der Graefin von Waldeck und Pyrmont zu Bergheim bei Fritzlar Fuerstenthum Waldeck.

"_N.B._--You will not forget to write _per express_ on the top of the envelope; for reasons, see my letter of last Sunday.

"Being sorely pressed for time, I now huddle on to the rest of the paper a few loose remarks, for the incoherency of which I crave your indulgence.

"The aspect of affairs is much changed since my last epistle; then, I was looking forward with anxious though sanguine expectation to the labour before me; now, I look back on one portrait (that of the Countess), achieved to the great satisfaction of those for whom it is intended, and contemplate with satisfaction the progress which the other is making in the same direction. I must, however, add that, owing to the necessary absence of the Countess for two days next week, my return home will be delayed in proportion, as I have a few more touches to give to the portrait of my eldest patient, whose husband is desirous of taking it over to England with him. (I shall probably be with you Saturday afternoon--at all events I shall let you know beforehand.)

"What I said a few lines back will have suggested to you what I am now going to add; Colonel B. is now returned from Oldenburg, and will probably be in London in the early part or middle of June; he is _much_ pleased with the pictures, and in his kindness has promised me an introduction to his brother in town, and also to another relation, whose name I have forgotten; the result of which is to be: access to the collections of Lord Ellesmere, Duke of Sutherland, and Sir Robert Peel. I told Colonel B. that if on his road to or from Toeplitz in the autumn he should pass through Frankfurt, I should be very glad if he could bring the pictures with him, as they would both want a varnish, and the children probably a few glazes and touches; he said that he would make a point of so doing, that indeed after all the trouble and pains I had taken for him, it was the least he _could_ do; for these and other reasons (not unimportant) which I shall communicate when I see you, you need not regret my having made two journeys to paint his wife and children.

"That I spend one of the days of the Countess' absence in seeing _Wilhelmshoehe_, a sight reputed unique of its kind, will, I hope, not seem unreasonable.

"I have noted down, as they occurred to me, during the last few days one or two little arrangements, relative to my approaching journey, which I would ask you to make during my absence, trusting at the same time that if in the meanwhile anything else should occur to your provident mind, and be transmitted to your _many-knotted_ pocket-handkerchief, you will kindly carry it into execution, in order to avoid delay when I return from the country, as _my_ time will be almost entirely taken up by Lady P.'s [Pollington's] sitting and the _business calls_ I have to make.

"Will Papa kindly order a tin case for my compositions; it should be a plain cylinder, about an inch and a half in diameter, with a lid at one end; let its length be that of my 'Four Seasons.'

"To my amazement I have just received a letter from you, dear Mamma--_did_ I give you my direction? You forgot the _per express_ on the back of the letter. Pray write soon. Much love and many kisses to all.--Your dutiful and affectionate son,

F. LEIGHTON."

Soon after Leighton's return to Frankfort Lord Cowley was appointed British Ambassador in Paris, and writes the following letters. The invitation he gives to Leighton to make his home at the Embassy while pursuing his studies was not accepted, Steinle's teaching being only given up later for the charms of Italy.

"MY DEAR MR. LEIGHTON,--I am more obliged than I can say by the kindness you have shown in painting portraits of my children. I never saw anything so like, or in general so pleasing, as the portrait of Frederic, and I only regret that it is not in England to be seen and appreciated. Once more accept my thanks, and believe me to be very truly yours,

COWLEY."

"_Sunday Afternoon._

"MY DEAR MR. LEIGHTON,--It has been quite out of my power to get to your house, as I had intended, to take leave of you, and to thank you again for the valuable reminiscence which through your talent and kindness I carry away with me. It will give Lady Cowley and myself great pleasure if you will visit us at Paris. You cannot find a better school of study than the Louvre, and we shall be most happy to lodge and take care of you.

"Pray present my best compliments to the members of your family.

"I regret very much not being able to do it in person.--Very faithfully,

COWLEY."

On his return from Waldeck, Leighton painted the portrait of Lady Pollington, one of his Frankfort acquaintances.

During these years, when Leighton studied under Steinle, his family lived also at Frankfort, and therefore few other letters written at that time exist. There was a journey to Holland, made during the early summer of 1852, from England, where he and his family had returned for a visit. The journey back to Frankfort, _via_ Holland, is the subject of a long letter to his mother.

"There I am at the Hague. Pretty place, the Hague, clean, quaint, cheerful, _and_ ain't the Dutch just fond of smoking out of long clay pipes! _And_ the pictures, _Oh_ the pictures, _Ah_ the pictures! That magnificent Rembrandt! glowing, flooded with light, clear as amber, and do you twig the _grey_ canvas? _What_ Vandykes! what dignity, calm, gently breathing, and a searching thoughtfulness in the gaze, amounting almost to fascination; and only look at that Velasquez, sparkling, clear, dashing; Paul Potter, too, only twenty-two years old when he painted that bull, and just look at it; Jan Steen, Terburg, Teniers, _Giov. Bellini_ (splendid), &c. &c. There I catch myself bearing something in mind: 'And yet, after all' (with an argumentative hitch of the cravat), 'all that those fellows had in advance of us was a palette and brushes, and _that_ we've got too!' I walk down to Scheveningen, and sentimentalise on the seashore; I find the briny deep in a very good humour, and offer _you_ mental congratulations.

"About the Rembrandt at Amsterdam, I say nothing, for it is a picture not to be described. I can only say that, in it, the great master surpasses himself; with the exception, however, of this and the Vanderhelst opposite to it, which is full of spirit and individuality, the _Ryko Museum_ is tolerably flat. After a dull afternoon, I hurry off to Arnheim, and to Mayence, and to Frankfurt, where I arrive on Wednesday evening. From Cologne to Frankfurt, Janauschek[15] was on the same conveyance as myself; I made her acquaintance, which was a great blessing to me on that tedious, cockney-hackneyed journey. She is lady-like, interesting, amiable, and _severely_ proper, almost cold; she observed the strictest incognito. Towards evening, however, when she had ascertained that I was a resident at Frankfurt, and therefore probably knew her perfectly well, and that I was an artist, which excited her sympathy, and that my name was Leighton, a name with which she was acquainted (through Schroedter and others) as that of one of the most talented young artists of Frankfurt (hem!), she relaxed considerably. She has a melancholy and most interesting look, and talks very despondently of the state of dramatic art nowadays. I made myself useful to her at the station, and she was warmly grateful. About my picture[16] (which I have entrusted to Steinle's care) I have nothing to communicate, except that I am confirmed in thinking that it has been universally well received; even Becker seems to like it in many respects--of course you know that the leading fault is that it was painted under his rival; Oppenheim said (when I talked of it as a daub) that he wished he could daub so, and that he promised me a great future; Prince Gortschakoff (who, by the by, preferred the portraits, and judges with all the _aplomb_ of a Count Briez) introduced himself to me in the gallery, and told me in the course of conversation that he regretted very much having no work of mine, adding that he only bought masters of the first order; _that_ was a compliment, at all events; Dr. Schlemmer has been very kind to me, and has given me a letter for Venice; I dined with him on Sunday, and made the acquaintance of Felix Mendelssohn's widow, a charming woman."

Between the years 1849 and 1852 Leighton painted, besides the portraits mentioned, three finished pictures, "Cimabue finding Giotto in the Fields of Florence," "The Duel between Romeo and Tybalt," and "The Death of Brunelleschi"; and also made the notable drawing, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, of a scene during the plague in Florence. His master, Steinle, easily discerned that Leighton was truly enamoured of Italy; the subjects he chose were Italian, and his memory was full of the charm and fascination of the country which he ever referred to, to the end of his life, as his second home. It was decided that he should go to Rome, his father having determined to leave Frankfort and to reside at Bath, where his mother, Lady Leighton, was then living. Steinle gave Leighton an introduction to his friend and fellow "Nazarene," Cornelius, and on the eve of his departure his mother wrote a farewell letter of "injunctions," flavoured happily by hints of humour. There is something very quaint to those who knew Leighton after he was thirty in the admonitions with regard to manners and politeness, which occur in several of his mother's letters.

"MY DEAREST CHILD,--As we are about to part, you may perhaps think you will be rid of my lectures, but no, I leave you some injunctions in writing, so that you will not be able to urge the plea of forgetfulness if you continue your negligent habits, though you certainly may _forget_ to read what I write--but I trust to your love and respect for me, though the latter needs cultivation nearly as much as habits of refinement in you. I have no new advice to give you, I can but repeat what I have urged on you many times from your childhood upwards; I do implore you, let your conscience be your guide amidst all temptations, they will be such as they have never yet been to you, as you will henceforward have no other restraint on your actions than what is self-imposed. I beseech you, do not suffer your disbelief in the dogmas of the Protestant Church to weaken the belief I hope you entertain of the existence of a Supreme Being. Strive to obey the law He has implanted in us, which approves good and condemns evil, though the struggle for the mastery between these principles is sometimes fearful, as every one knows, especially in youth. My precious child, if one sinful mortal's prayer for another could avail, how carefully would you be preserved from moral evil (the greatest of all evil); but I need not tell you there is no royal road to Heaven any more than to excellence in inferior objects, every advantage must be obtained by energy and perseverance. May God help you to keep free of the greatest of all miseries, an upbraiding conscience; for though this can be deadened for a time in the hurry of life while youth lasts, there comes an hour when life loses its attractions, and _then_ issues the troubled consequence of merry deeds. I am aware you have heard all this a hundred times, and better expressed, but it will bear repetition; and now that it is your mother who is counselling you, you will not, I trust, turn a deaf ear.

"I can but repeat what I have continually told you--to refine your feelings you must neither utter nor encourage a coarse thought. It would be an inexpressible pleasure to me to leave you confirmed in good habits; but wishes are idle. I trust to your desire to improve in all ways and to please me. The next sheet I wrote some time ago, intending to rewrite it, but the trouble is too great for my shaking hands, and I add what I have written to-day on separate pieces of paper. I have written enough; I have only now to add an entreaty that you will not throw these admonitions away, but sometimes read them, remembering they come warm from your mother's heart.

"My child, your manners are very faulty, and I am consequently much disappointed. You take so much after me, and my nearest relations had such refined manners, that I made sure you must resemble my father and brothers. There is, however, nothing on earth to prevent your becoming the gentleman I wish to see you, and remember to write ineffaceably on the tablets of your memory, 'Too much familiarity breeds contempt.' You remember how seriously young ----'s forwardness has been commented on. Well, it is true, you have never, as far as I know, spoken as he has done; but as I have seldom seen you in company, nor your father either, without observing some want of politeness, is it not probable that other people have their eyes open also?"

These admonitions received, Leighton started on his journey to Rome. At Innsbruck, on August 18, 1852, he began to write a Diary, in order that his mother should hear the details of his travels, and to serve "as a clue" by which he might one day recall the "impressions and emotions of the years of his artistic noviciate."

Leighton's utterances on paper in these early days display the same intense exuberance of vitality which, during the whole of his notable career, served to spur on his mental and emotional powers to perform with great completeness all the various kinds of work which he undertook; a vitality which conquered triumphantly the effects of indifferent health and troubled eyesight. In the diaries and letters is also to be traced the existence of that Greek-like combination of qualities so characteristic of Leighton--namely, explicit precision in his thought and expression, and a subtle power of analysis, united with great emotional sensitiveness and enthusiastic warmth of temperament. His feeling for beauty was an intoxicating joy to him. Heartfelt and genuine joy engendered by beauty in nature and art is not a very common feeling among the moderns, though so much fuss is made by many in our day in their endeavours to become "_artistic_"; but, as a ruling guide, beauty has gone out of fashion. The accounts that Leighton gives of his ecstasies in the presence of beautiful scenes, enforce the belief entertained by those who knew him best, that it was the power which beauty exercised over him that developed his exceptional strength in all artistic directions. What force in the over-riding of difficulties does not passion give to the lover! No less a force was engendered in Leighton by the inspiration of the beauty of nature.

In the letter to his mother, which accompanies the Diary, referring to the joy he has been experiencing, Leighton adds: "I feel almost a kind of shame that so much should have been poured down on me. I will put my talent to usury, and be no slothful steward of what has been entrusted to me. Every man who has received a gift ought to feel and act as if he was a field in which a seed was planted, that others might gather the harvest." The purity of purpose which guided Leighton's life to the end, generated first by the precepts of his mother in the fertile soil of his own beautiful nature, subsequently developed by the teaching of the high-minded Steinle, and finally established later by other elevating influences, chastened the emotional side of Leighton's passion for beauty, and disentangled it even in the earliest days from lower and purely sensuous contamination. The puritanical attitude of mind towards beauty appeared to Leighton absolutely impure and desecrating, in that it associated influences and feelings which are of the lowest with the appreciation of God's most beautiful creations, and some of man's highest aspirations with sensations entirely degraded and unworthy.

Fun and humour abound in the family letters, and in the Diary. Leighton was never guilty of being sentimental, and when referring to the word _ideal_ in one of his letters, he writes he "hates such stuff." After he died, it was written of him: "He was no idealist; needless to say, he was no materialist, no one less so; nor does the term realist seem to recall his nature. He was--if such a word can be used--an actualist, the actual was to him of primary importance. But the actual meant a great deal more to Leighton than it does to most of us. Life and its vivid interests was spread over a much wider area; so many more of its various ingredients were such very actual entities to him."[17]

And when Leighton started, at the age of twenty-one, to begin his independent life, we feel that it is with the _actual_ that he grappled--the actual in his sensations, his feelings, his impressions, his conditions. An unmistakable note of reality rings through his description of all these. He has no tendency, even unconsciously, when under the glamour of the most entrancing impressions, to colour the picture other than he _actually_ saw it. In the strength of his own real nature he goes forth on the journey of life.

DIARY

INNSBRUCK, _August 18, 1852_.

[Sidenote: I contemplate the life and adventures of Mr. Thumb.]

"When Hop o' my Thumb, a nursery hero of European note, first sallied out into the world with an eye to making a fortune, his first step was (justly foreseeing what the world would expect of the hero of a future romance) to lose himself in a large and horrid forest, in which it was pitch dark all day long, and nothing was heard but ... &c. &c. (Here see biog. of H.O'M. Thumb, Esq., vol. i.)

"Now, in those days mile-posts were not yet come in, and maps were excessively expensive; how, then, was H.O'M.T., after he should have realised a large independence, to find his way back through this intricate waste? Here admire the man of parts and sagacity! '_He determined_,' says the historian, '_to drop pebbles in a row all along the path_'!

[Sidenote: and adopt one of his measures,]

"Admirable Thumb! I, too, purpose, as I stroll along, to drop every now and then mental pebbles, which shall serve as a connecting link between the past and the future, and as a clue by which I may one day recall the emotions and impressions of the years of my artistic noviciate.

"Be with me, oh Thumb!

[Sidenote: but make a reservation.]

"_N.B._--Quality of pebbles not warranted.

PEBBLES

[Sidenote: Pebble I.]

"Kind, affectionate, earnest Steinle!

[Sidenote: A tribute of affection and respect for my dear Steinle.]

"In a record of whatever concerns me as an artist, _his_ name should be at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. _Now_, at the beginning, for our parting is still painfully present to my mind; our parting, and the last few days we spent together: the sad face and moistened eye with which he watched the diligence in which I rolled off from Bregenz; his fitful way, when we travelled together--one moment jovial and facetious, another laying his hand affectionately on my shoulder and remaining silent; his saying to me before I started, 'I shall be all alone to-morrow, here, and yet I shall be with you all the day.'...

"_In the middle_, all through, and to the end--because if ever, hereafter, my works wear the mark of a pure taste, if ever I succeed in raising some portion of the public to the level of high art, rather than obsequiously acquiesce in the judgments of the tasteless and the ignorant, and if I keep alive, to the end, the active conviction that an artist, who deserves the name, never ceases to learn, the key of such success will be in one name: Steinle; in having constantly borne in mind his precept, and his example.

[Sidenote: I find on reflection that though I started a week ago, I am only just gone!]

[Sidenote: I look forward,]

"Although a week has already elapsed since I left Frankfurt, so long my home, it is only now that I have parted from Steinle that I really feel that I have taken the great step, that I have opened the introductory chapter of the second volume of my life, a volume on the title-page of which is written "Artist." It seems to me that my wanderings began at _Bregenz_, and that in retracing, as I presently shall, my route until I got there, I am tearing open again leaves that were closed--to remain so. I seize the opportunity offered by this first day of repose to take breath, and, as I stand within the threshold, to look before me and reconnoitre. Italy rises before my mind. Sunny Italy! the land that I have so long yearned after with ardent longing, and that has dwelt in my memory since last I saw it as a never-fading, gentle-beckoning image of loveliness; I am about again to tread the soil of that beloved country, the day-dream of long years is to become a reality. I am enraptured!

[Sidenote: but don't feel quite _it_.]

"And yet--how is it that my pleasure is not unalloyed? that I involuntarily shrink from grasping the height of my wishes? It is because I feel a kind of sacred awe at breaking through the charm that has been so long gathering around the image that I have carried in my inward heart, as one who loves, at touching with cold _reality_ that which has so long been the far removed object of dreamy, sweetly melancholy longings!

"I cannot help thinking that an imaginative man must feel something similar when on the point of changing courtship for marriage.

[Sidenote: Get better.]

"Other thoughts, too, assail me, and sometimes make me uneasy. 'Do I fully feel....' No, 'Shall I _continue_ fully to feel the immense importance to me of the three or four years now before me? feel that they will be the corner-stone of my career, for good or for evil? Shall I have the energy to carry out all my resolutions? Shall I fulfil what I have promised?'... Then I think of Steinle, and I feel reassured.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble II.]

"Let me come to the point, to the description of my journey; but before I begin, let me remember that, whilst of all my friends and companions only _three_ were present at my departure,--one of them was there in order to give me a commission, and another to acknowledge a service,--old General Bentinck did not think it too great an exertion to see off, at eight in the morning, one, three times younger than himself.

[Sidenote: Middelburgh, August 11.]

"My first day's journey took me to Middelburgh, along the Bergstrasse, which we all know, and of which I therefore say nothing, and yet I enjoyed it more than I ever had done before; it was one of those cool, clear, _opalescent_ mornings, in which all nature looks as if it was teeming with health and freshness; there was something exhilarating, too, in the atmosphere, which very much increased my enjoyment; I looked upon familiar scenes, but I saw them in a new light; it seemed to me as if I was reading nature in a new book.

[Sidenote: Stift Neuburg.]

"On arriving at Heidelberg, I hurried at once, by appointment with Steinle, to a place in the neighbourhood called 'Stift Neuburg,' the property and residence of Frau Rath Schlosser, the widow of his old and intimate friend, Rath Schlosser.

[Sidenote: I enjoy myself.]

[Sidenote: Heilbronn, August 12.]

"Picture to yourself, just where the Neckar makes a graceful curve, about a mile above Heidelberg, half-way up a rich and sunny slope, chequered with clustering vineyards and luxuriant meadows, an old, picturesque convent, with its adjoining chapel and appurtenant dairies and farmhouses, the whole group raised up on a lofty, timeworn, weather-beaten terrace--and you will form some idea of _the Stift_. There I spent the afternoon in the most charming possible manner, whether in wandering with Steinle along the solitary, shady walks of the convent garden, or in snuffing about in the vaulted, mildew old library (which, by the by, contains six or seven thousand valuable and curious books), or the silent chapel, with its stained-glass windows, or in looking through Frau Rath's magnificent collection of drawings by German artists, or, finally, in enjoying the conversation of the Frau Rath herself, who is a most clever and amiable old lady. The next morning (for I spent the night there) after all breakfasting together, we went down by a postern gate to the river-side, and awaited the arrival of the Heilbronn steamer; general leave-taking, shaking of hands, gratitude and thanks on the one side, on the other reiterated invitations for the future, which I sincerely hope I may one day be able to meet. The valley of the Neckar as far as Heilbronn, where we arrived on the evening of the same day, is dull enough in all conscience; indeed, had it not been for the company and always interesting conversation of Steinle, I really do not know what I should have done with myself; such a contrast with the preceding day!

"Between Heilbronn and the Lake of Constance, however, a new scene opens out; I see Germany under a totally new aspect, I understand at last what German poets mean when they rave about the lovely 'Schwabenland' and call it the 'Perle deutscher Gauen'; I can now imagine the existence of _landed patriotism_ (if I may be allowed the expression) among the Germans coming from that part of the country. It is, indeed, an enchanting panorama; a never-ceasing variety of rich, profusely fertile valleys, studded with cheerful, bright-looking, home-inviting villages, and enclosed by chains of gently undulating hills. The corn was ripe, and waved in golden stripes across the variegated plains; the peasants, a picturesque, good-humoured set, were scattered over the fields, some mowing down the heavy laden wheat, others binding it into graceful sheaves; in one respect the scene reminded me of my own dear country: it looked as if a blessing were on it.

[Sidenote: Ulm: its cathedral]

"On our road we passed through Ulm,[18] and visited the cathedral, some parts of which (especially the portico) are very beautiful and elegant; the interior contains a magnificent and highly elaborate tabernacle, and some wood-carving by Syrlin of exquisite workmanship; the whole, however, left a melancholy impression on both of us, especially on Steinle, who is an ardent Catholic. It stands neglected and half-finished, in the midst of a miserable, rambling town-village, a thing of olden times, for whose presence one can hardly account. It was built, or rather, begun, as a monument of Catholicism; the country round it has become Protestant; itself has been protestantized; it has been disfigured by an incongruous heap of business-like pews; it is no longer accessible at every hour of the day, from Sunday to Sunday its walls re-echo no sound but the occasional tread of the pew-opener, as he dusts the seats of those who pay him for it; the soul has left the grey old pile; it is a stately corpse. What artist, however uncatholic in his belief, can contemplate those old Gothic churches, with their glorious tabernacles and other ornaments equally beautiful and equally disused, without painfully feeling what an almost deadly blow the Reformation was to High Art, what a powerful incentive it removed, irrecoverably? Who, in his heart of hearts, can but dwell with melancholy regret on the times when art was coupled with belief, and so many divine works were virtually expressions of faith? What a purifying and ennobling influence was thus exercised over the taste of the artist! an influence which nothing can replace. This influence was incalculably great; no dwelling was so humble but it owned a crucifix; no artist so poor in capacity but endeavoured to produce something not unworthy of his subject; the general _tone_ of taste thus produced reacted on everything; witness the most insignificant doorlatch or ornament that remains to us from the Middle Ages. Is it not remarkable that the first artists of the modern day, in the higher walk of art, I mean, are _Catholics_? Cornelius and Steinle were born in the Church of Rome; Veit and Overbeck went over to it; Pugin, too, our great architect, was converted by his art to the Catholic faith.

[Sidenote: August 15, Sunday.]

"From Friedrichshafen a delightful sail took us across the emerald coloured Lake of Constance to Bregenz, where I parted from Steinle.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble III.]

[Sidenote: August 21, Saturday.]

[Sidenote: I make a reflection,]

[Sidenote: and feel grateful.]

"I am sitting at my window in the inn (hotel, I'll trouble you!) at Meran. For the first time since I left Innsbruck I have leisure again to take up my pen. As I look back on my journey through the Tyrol, so far as it goes, I am forcibly struck with the reflection that my enjoyment of it has been much keener this time than ever it was before; this increased enjoyment has not, I feel, arisen from any external or adventitious circumstances; last time that I was in this lovely country, I contemplated it with ease and comfort from the rumble of our own carriage; this time I have jolted through it under all the disadvantages attendant on an _Eilwagen_ and indifferent weather; it has arisen in the greater development of my artistic sensibilities, in my sharpened perception of the charms of nature, which discloses to me now a thousand beauties that found no echo in me when I saw them last. I congratulate myself on this reflection. If any man should be constantly penetrated with gratitude for a gift bestowed on him, it is the artist who has realised as his share a genuine love for nature; for his enjoyment, if he puts his gift to usury, increases with the days of his life.

[Sidenote: I get drunk with the anticipation of Italy,]

[Sidenote: and spout a parable.]

"Another circumstance, which has greatly augmented my relish of the Tyrol, is that, at every step, it assumes more and more the character of my darling Italy; I have watched with fond anxiety every little token that whispered of the south; the gently purpling tints that steal gradually over the distant hills, as one advances towards the land of the amaranthine Apennines, the slow but steadily progressive change of vegetation, the gaunt and ragged fir giving way by degrees to the encroachment of a richer and more gently rustling shade, the anxiously watched gradations, the climax at last; the walnut, first, 'few and far between,' but warmly welcome, with its clustering leaves of juicy green; the chestnut, with its long, graceful, dark-hued foliage; the vine, again, no longer, as in the north, tied stiffly to a row of sticks (like a regiment of gooseberry bushes), but luxurious, wildly spreading, gracefully trained along rows of outward-slanting, basket-like trellis-work, and wreathed here and there by a pious hand up a roadside image of the Crucifixion in illustration of the words of Christ: '_I_ am the true vine.' Now, too, the dark striped, portly pumpkins, with their gorgeous flame-like flowers, begin to appear, sometimes drowsily lolling under the tremulous shade of the mantling vines, sometimes basking with half-closed eyes down the sunscorched lizard-haunted walls, sometimes trained across from house to house, hanging like Chinese lamps over the heads of the passers by. Presently, a _fig-tree_--two--three--more--plenty! A cypress--and, by Jove! look at that terrace of stately, heavy-laden citron and orange trees! Nothing is wanting now but the olive. How could I pass by such dear old friends without loitering a little among them? A faithful lover, I return, after six years of longing absence, to the home of her of my inward heart; I hurry along, I have already crossed the garden gate. I breathe the air she breathes, I see from afar the bower where she dwells; but as I hasten along the well-known path, a thousand reminiscences of her arise from every object around me, and cling to me, and throw a gentle net across my faltering step, and whisper softly to my dream-wrapt brain--I am spellbound--I linger, even in my impatience.

"I must not forget the excessively picturesque appearance of all the towns and villages south of Innsbruck; long, narrow, tortuous streets, lined on each side with never-ceasing vistas of arcades, and enclosed by houses of most fancifully artistic irregularity; as one passes along the vaulted galleries the eye is constantly caught by some picturesque object; either the peasants, as they stroll along in their divers costumes, or the many-coloured, richly piled fruit stalls that every now and then fill the arches, or, through an open door, the endless depth of vaulted passages and fantastic staircases and irregular inward courts and yards, offering to the artist's eye a play of lights and shades and mysterious, dreamy half-tints that might shame even a Rembrandt or an Ostade. As the exterior of all the houses is (with the exception, of course, of the ornaments) scrupulously white, the streets, narrow as they are, reflecting, by the luminous nature of their local tint, the light of day into the remotest corner, have a most cheerful aspect.

"Of the Tyrolese themselves, three qualities seem to me to characterise them, qualities which go well hand in hand with, and, I think it is not fanciful to say, are in great measure a key to, their well-known frankness and open-hearted honesty. I mean Piety, which shines out amongst them in many little things, a love for the art, which with them is, in fact, an outward manifestation of piety, and which is sufficiently displayed by the numberless scriptural subjects, painted or in relief, which adorn the cottages of the poorest peasants, and, last not least, a love for flowers (in other words, for nature), which is written in the lovely clusters of flowers which stand in many-hued array on the window-sills of every dwelling. The works of all the really great artists display that love for flowers. Raphael did not consider it 'niggling,' as some of our broad-handling moderns would call it, to group humble daisies round the feet of his divine representation of the Mother of Christ. I notice that _two plants_, especially, produce a beautiful effect, both of form and colour, against the cool grey walls: the spreading, dropping, graceful _carnation_, with its bluish leaves and crimson flowers, and the slender, anthered, thousand-blossomed _oleander_.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble IV.]

[Sidenote: Statues in Innsbruck.]

[Sidenote: I take on,]

[Sidenote: and lay on,]

[Sidenote: but bottle it up again.]

"One of the sights in Innsbruck has left on me a deep and, I hope, a lasting impression: the bronze statues in the Franciscan church; they are the finest specimens of German mediaeval sculpture that I ever saw, and grew on me as I gazed at them in a manner which I hardly ever felt before; their great merit consists in combining in the most astounding manner the most consummate knowledge of the art with all the simplicity of nature and the most striking individuality (that first of artistic qualities), and exhibiting at the same time the most elaborate finish in the details, with greatest possible breadth and grandeur of general masses; this quality is particularly conspicuous amongst the women, three, especially, standing side by side, show, by three perfect examples, the whole secret of ornamental economy; the one, whose dress is ornamented with all the richness of which a luxurious imagination and an unparalleled power of execution were capable, recovers its simplicity of outline and mass by having a tightly fitting body and sleeve and a skirt of moderate amplitude; the second, whose ornaments, though richly, are more broadly disposed, retains its balance by a slightly increased amplitude of drapery; while the third, whose dress is altogether without embroidery, acquires a corresponding effect by large, loose sleeves and richly folded skirt, and two large plaits hanging down her back. What an opportunity this would be, backed by these giants of breathing bronze, to make an indignant descent on some paltry and muddle-headed moderns, who don't know how to discriminate between that kind of finish which proceeds from the love of a smooth surface, and makes the artist equally careful of his pumps and of his pictures, and that other kind of minuteness which is the beautiful fruit of a refined love for nature, and proceeds from a feeling of piety towards the mother of art, and who complacently call 'niggling,' a quality above the appreciation of their _breadth-mad_ brains; who, in their art-made-easy system of 'idealising' (forsooth), look for artistic 'beauty' in a facial angle of so and so much. What with the _Greeks_ was an _abstract of_ MAN, and very appropriately applicable in the cases of demi-gods (that the ancients _could_, and _did_, 'en tems et lieu,' individualise, may be sufficiently seen in their admirable portraits), becomes with _them_ an absurdly misapplied _average of mankind_, not _a_ man, or _men_. _The leading feature in Nature is a_ MANIFOLD INDIVIDUALITY, AN ENDLESS VARIETY; _she is like a diamond, that glances with a thousand hues_. 'Indeed!' I hear them contemptuously sneering, 'you don't seem to be aware, sir, that ideal beauty is the great _centre_ of all these _extreme_ varieties, and the only thing worthy of a great artist's attention.' 'Well, gentlemen,' say _I_, 'without inconsistency, you can't get out of the way of the following mouthful: there are (perhaps you will allow) three elementary colours, which in different combinations produce every variety of hue; _but_, the great _centre_ of these three _extremely_ various colours is _grey, non-colour ... the ideal of a bit of colouring, "the only thing worthy of the attention of a great colourist" is a picture with no colour in it at all_.' However, Messrs. the Generalisists and _Apollinisists_ 'have every reason to congratulate themselves on the extensive circulation of their views, for their _ideal_' is visible in every haircutter's window. Never mind, I must contain myself--but the rod is in pickle!

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble V.]

[Sidenote: Meran.]

"A glorious amphitheatre of lofty mountains! On one side rugged, sternly rising, crenelated, grey, snow-strewn; on the other, dreamy, far outspreading, gently vanishing, southward luring, softly glowing, wrapt in tints of loveliest azure, gradually blending with the silver-fretted sky. A spreading, fertile gushing valley. Down the sunny, swelling slopes, across the embosomed plain, an endless, curling, wreathing flood of gold-green vines, foaming and eddying with purple grapes. Through the verdant waves, like rushes in a stream, the Indian corn raises its slender form and feathered head in long array. Beneath, outstretched at ease, the pumpkin winks and yawns. At the foot of a steep-fronted, purpling rock, skirting the glowing vineyards, a foaming mountain stream, emerald and silver. Along the heights, nestling in verdure, rise thickly scattered, castellated villas, looking, with their bright, white walls, like smiles on the face of the earth. An epitome of what is rich and joyous and unfettered in landscape. The Alpha and Omega of all that is charming in the Tyrol. MERAN!

"I can say no more for it.

"To my mind, it is inferior to Italy only in one respect: it is wanting in that glowing, strongly marked individuality, that earnest beauty, that 'charm that is in melancholy,' which fascinates so powerfully in the land of wine and oil.

[Sidenote: Pebble VI.]

[Sidenote: Italy!]

[Sidenote: I "realise," as the Americans say,]

[Sidenote: and find reason to think that I am a queer party.]

"To be able to say that, on returning after long years to a country whose image memory has, during the whole of that time, fondled with all the partiality of ardent attachment, one has found one's best expectations realised, is, in this world of disappointments and frustrated expectations, indeed a rare thing; but to find imagination _surpassed_ by reality is rarer still; yet it is my case now that I once more breathe the air and tread the soil of Italy. For this, I feel more grateful than I can say; for to have been disappointed in _these_ hopes would have been to me the greatest of miseries; as it is, my enjoyment is a double one: that which is occasioned by the positive, intrinsic beauty of what I see, and that, not less great, of recalling at the same time a happy, long-dwelt-on past. This I have more particularly experienced since my arrival in Verona; and here a queer feature in my queer idiosyncrasy obtrudes itself to notice, _i.e._ the extraordinary dominion exercised over me by the senses of smell and hearing! That I do labour under these peculiarities I always knew, but to what a ludicrous extent, I did not find out till, on arriving here (Verona), I was suddenly seized by a gust of a thousand smells and a din of a thousand sounds, some always remembered, others long-forgotten, suddenly rising up again to my memory. I was spellbound, the veil of the past was torn up, I was fairly carried back against the stream of time. Ridiculous as it may sound, my enjoyment of Italy, independently, of course, of the art (which is an extraordinary tissue of reality and illusion), would be very imperfect without this combination of trifles. One thing, I think, must affect every one agreeably; I mean the exquisitely humorous cries of the vendors in the thoroughfares and market-places; who could hear and not remember the loud, expostulatory shriek with which the one dwells on the excellencies of his handkerchiefs, the argumentative and facetious tone in which another infers that comfort is not possible without a supply of his matches, that urgent wail with which a third deplores that man should have so little appreciation of his baked apples, the muddy, half-suffocated tenor with which a fourth proclaims his water-melons, or the rabid, piercing soprano which seems to warn the public that 'if those violets are not bought pretty quick, there will soon be none to buy'?"

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble VII.]

[Sidenote: Verona.]

"I do not think there exists anywhere a more powerfully and fantastically individual town than Verona; it is to Italy what Nuremburg is to Germany; but it is a transfiguration of Nuremburg; in point of wildly picturesque variety it defies description and surpasses expectation; it is saturated with art; wherever one turns, the eye is struck by some beautiful remnant of the taste--that was; of that glowing, sterling feeling for art, which spread itself over everything, and ennobled whatever it touched. Hardly a house that cannot boast of a sculptured archway, or some such token of ancient splendour; not a church, even the most insignificant, but is crowded with old paintings in oil and fresco, few of which are bad, some very good, a few excellent, but _all_ in a far higher _tone of feeling_ than nine-tenths of the shallow, papery daubs with which the nineteenth century covers its carcase of steam engines. No wonder--they are all scriptural or apocryphal subjects, and were all painted with an ardent belief in the faith to which they all owe their existence; from thence arose, amongst other excellencies, a certain naif, ingenuously childlike treatment of the miraculous, which, combined with the manly dignity of consummate art, gives them an indescribable charm, which nothing can replace. Now--with us, at least, of the cold belief--men throw really eminent talents--_to the dogs_. But, for us Protestant artists, things are made much worse than they in any way need be, by the total rejection of pictures and statuary in our churches. Now, three centuries back, in the first ebullition of reformatory fanaticism, such a practice was not only comprehensible, but even a natural and necessary consequence and token of their total disavowal of everything approaching to the Romish form of worship; but its continuance at present amongst us is, not only contrary to the spirit of the Anglican Church, which after all, when compared to Lutheranism and Calvinism, is a _conservative_ one, but is founded on arguments altogether untenable with any degree of consistency; for if, as we are told, pictures and statues distract the attention and produce a worldly frame of mind, if it be true indeed that works of _high art_ (for, of course, no others are here taken into consideration), than which surely nothing is more calculated to raise the tone of the mind and prepare it for the reception of elevated impressions, have indeed so pernicious an effect, then, it is evident, by the same argument, the beauties of architecture, the eldest of the sister arts, must be equally rejected; at the sight of a Gothic church, that offspring of Christianity, we must shrug our shoulders and say with pious aversion: 'Vanitas vanitatum!' But the Church of England has not gone as far as that; indeed, great attention is paid to our Church's architecture; is there no inconsistency here? Or does the Church, terrified by the example of Romish image-worship, fear a similar evil amongst us, whose belief is so infinitely more circumscribed than that of Rome? Or is she so tender of admitting symbols into her bosom, she, whose corner-stone is a symbol: the Last Supper?

"To return to Verona.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble VIII.]

[Sidenote: The Veronese love flowers,]

[Sidenote: and have good legs.]

"As Gamba, owing to the time which my letter took in reaching him, was not able to meet me at the time appointed, I remained two days at Verona, days to which I shall always look back with unmixed pleasure. I indulged, this time (the more that I knew the town already), in the luxury of _not_ 'sight-seeing,' but strolled about the whole town in every direction, dropping into churches, staring at tombs and palaces and piazzas and pictures, just as if rolled past me in the ever-varying panorama. I was struck, in the Tyrol, with the profusion of flowers everywhere displayed; but here I see far more, and those, too, more artistically distributed; they rise in double and treble tiers on, in, and about the gracefully curved balconies, and assert their sway wherever human ingenuity makes it possible to place a flower-pot, and in a great many other places besides; creepers wreathe from window to window, and vines actually springing from holes in the walls, with no visible root or origin at all, spread their graceful mantle over the walls of crumbling palaces. Of the Veronese themselves, I cannot say that they are a handsome race; the women especially, though they have a great deal of character in their features, are generally far from good-looking. Amongst the peasants I saw some very fine men; they have, some of them, very good legs, slender and well shaped as a Donatello or a Ghiberti.

[Sidenote: Thursday, August 26.]

[Sidenote: Gamba.]

"On Thursday Gamba came, just as I was giving him up in a high state of despair and mystification. We hurried at once by Padua to Venice, where I found your letter.

[Sidenote: I look back and feel ashamed,]

[Sidenote: and make a clumsy excuse.]

"As I look through what I have written, before sending it off to you, I feel, painfully, that my style is clumsy, stuttering, incoherent; that I am wordy, without saying enough; that I am overfree in my use of fanciful epithets, without giving an adequate idea of the suggestive beauty of what I see; that I am sometimes almost mawkish, without saying half I feel; that I am incorrigibly slovenly and forgetful; that I can't write, that I can't spell. In answer to all this, I can only answer by referring to a little premonitory observation at the foot of my first page, _i.e. Quality of Pebbles not warranted_.

* * * * *

BATCH No. 2.

(This blank represents three weeks.)

[Sidenote: Sept. 16.]

"_September 16._--Many happy returns of the day, dear Gussy! The other day I took a pair of scales, and put into the one vessel the price you would have to pay for the postage of a congratulatory letter to be received by you on your birthday, and into the other a pleasure which a surprise might afford you; the postage outweighed its rival; so I wrote no letter. If my directions have been attended to, you will, no doubt, have received a far more satisfactory outward and visible sign of my good wishes.

[Sidenote: Sept. 18.]

"_September 18._--The same to you, Papa!... _Can the river offer its fountain a drink?_

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble I.]

[Sidenote: Sept. 19.]

[Sidenote: I lucubrate,]

[Sidenote: when I consider, &c. &c.,]

[Sidenote: whereas, &c. &c.,]

[Sidenote: and even then, &c. &c.,]

"Three weeks (apparently months) have elapsed since I last soared on the descriptive pinion; now, and only now, on the eve of my departure from Venice, I find time and leisure again to pour on the past a libation of pen and ink. I resume the quill with a feeling of disheartenment. With what intentions did I begin to write this (journal)? Had I not hoped to note down, at once and in all their freshness, my emotions and impressions just as I should receive them? and to speak also sometimes of the thousand little incidents that fall in one's path, and which form the arabesque round the chapter of life? And how are my hopes fulfilled? Behold me, on the morning of the last day, the day of parting, packing, paying, and passports, forced to throw in a hurried and disconnected heap a few general remarks concerning what I have seen and heard and felt and found, and not found, during my stay in the home of Titian. And even that, how difficult! For in this short stay, sight has succeeded sight, emotion has followed emotion, in one continued merry-go-round; I have been alternately grave and gay, melancholy and jocose, dejected and enraptured; add to this that in my mind, as in the dissolving views, one picture always effaces its predecessor, and you will at once perceive that I am in the position of a man trying to see the pebbles at the bottom of a muddy brook, or his natural face in a basin of gruel.

[Sidenote: but you know, &c.]

"Now, I again repeat what I made a preliminary condition: that I send you the pebbles, loose and disjointed, and that I don't undertake to make a necklace of them.

"'But whose fault is all this?' (I hear you ask).

[Sidenote: besides, it's not my fault]

"During my stay here (I continue, without attending to your question) I have been up nearly every day _before the sun_ (about five o'clock), and after working and tearing about the town all day, towards evening I was not sorry to....

"Do you guess how it was I wrote so little?

[Sidenote: A little digression]

"Here a little observation obtrudes itself to my notice. Man (for there is nothing like throwing your own frailties on mankind in general) is born with an irresistible tendency to talk _at something or somebody_; eighteen pages back I was talking to nobody; or, if I did address anything, it was that very vague personage, the future; now I find myself getting more and more personal; _you's_, I expect, will soon get up to fifty per cent.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pebble II.]

[Sidenote: A picture.]

[Sidenote: (Parenthetic Pebble about Gondolas.)]

"Venice! Mighty word, city of endless associations, image that fills the mind! What impressions has it left on me? I shrink from answering a question so difficult to answer _fairly_, and from dissecting a point of such intricate anatomy. Whilst I think it over, I will give you a picture or two to look at; you shall have a peep out of the window where I sit writing. It is early morning, everything is cool and calm, in silent, almost breathless expectation of the not yet risen sun. Before your eyes rises one of the most splendid views in Europe, that of the Grand Canal from the steps of the Academy; the stately, dark green street of waters reflects on its wide-spreading mirror the grey and crumbling palaces, and the lovely form of Sta. Maria della Salute, with her domes of dazzling white. Not a ripple mars its glossy surface, except where, at rare intervals, some silent gondola glides swiftly along, scattering the sparkling drops from its graceful oar, or where, here and there, the playful 'aura mattutina' has left too rough a kiss upon its slumbering cheek. No sound is heard, but the distant, even, measured chimes, that seem to be rocking on the silence of the morning. Along its marge, singly, or clustering in close array beneath roofs of vine-covered trellis, lie the far-famed, ebon-coloured, swiftly gliding gondolas of Venice. 'Gondolas!' Whilst the sun is rising, let me say a word or two on gondolas. It has always excited my great surprise that these barks, which are graceful almost beyond imagination, are, in point of fact, in their present shape the offspring of a period, next to our own, the most execrable in point of taste which the world has produced. I mean the end of the seventeenth, or rather the beginning of the eighteenth century. Yet, so it is. In the time of Carpaccio and the Bellinis they were queer, tolerably uncouth contrivances, about two-thirds of their present length, pointed and equally curved at both ends, so as to resemble as nearly as possible a slice of melon, dead of the cholera. In Titian's day the shape began to taper out a little, and the iron points or knobs, _at both ends_, rose to a greater height, and were enriched with a serrated ornament; but they did not assume their present slender proportions and graceful ornament, _at the prow only_, till the eighteenth century; as also the mysterious and exquisitely comfortable little cabins or coffins, which now surmount them, and which formerly were open _behind and before_, forcing the passenger to sit upright! They contained then the rudiment of an idea of grace, which took its natural growth and development in spite of man. Meanwhile, for I have been watching him, the sun has appeared above the horizon; not that I see his own, real, glorious face, for he is hidden behind an ancient palace, but I see his reflection glowing in the eye of nature. First a gentle, tremulous, golden light began to steal along the dappled morning sky, warning all the little, distant, fleecy clouds to shake their plumes, for that it was going to begin; then, of course, the water took up the tune; and then (it was fit the biggest building should set the example) the 'Salute' assumed a saffron hue, and gradually one by one all the palaces on one side of the Canal, right up to our windows, and, did not you notice? your own face took quite a shine. For a while you yourself and everything round you seems wrapped in a trance; presently you begin to write. How is this? The whole picture begins to dance and quiver. Our Lady della Salute glows with a deeper blush, and trembles. Then, suddenly, her redness vanishes, her glorious countenance sparkles, and she raises her stately form in a garment of burnished silver; the gondolas that nestle round her feet, and hem in the whole length of the Canal, seem like a fillet of sparkling gems around a web of emerald and gold; the sky is a sea of light; the sun is in the wide heavens--it's time for breakfast. Waiter, coffee and rolls!

[Sidenote: I am reminded,]

"'Do you mean,' I hear you urge, 'to come to the point, and tell us how you like Venice?'

[Sidenote: but take no notice.]

[Sidenote: Pebble IV.]

"Another picture! (pretending not to hear). The same scene, but under a different aspect. How different! Just now it was a scene of dawning life, a burst of gladness--now it is a mild, a gentle dream, an Italian moonlight night, a _Venetian_ moonlight night--calm, clear, soft, fancy stirring. You lean idly out of the window; there are two of you, or ought to be, but you don't say anything to one another; you are rocked in silence; you feel the sweet, warm breath of night pass over your cheek; you think of Shakespeare's exquisite verses on what he never saw but with the eye of his boundless fancy; you are sitting with Jessica and Lorenzo (that is his name, I think) on a bank of violets; you are anxiously waiting for Portia and her company; your ear is attentive to every sound; presently a sweet, half-heard strain, like a distant echo, dawns on your ear; then it is lost again; again it swells, and seems to glide gently along the shadowy waters towards you, nearer, still nearer. You see a track of gleaming light along the water, and at intervals a shower of tiny stars; it's no illusion; they glide along towards you, the voices that rose from the distant waters; they are almost beneath your window. Quick, quick, a gondola; a dozen or more musicians, with every kind of instrument, sit together in a bark, and alternately play and sing lovely melodies by the musicians of Italy. As long as the strain lasts the oar is suspended, and the floating orchestra drifts slowly along with the slowly ebbing tide; round it, a cluster of gondolas, full of breathless listeners whose very soul seems to melt with the delicious sounds, and combine with them--at least, you can answer for yourself, for you are one of them. Those are moments which you, I am sure, will never forget.

[Sidenote: You interrupt me, but I take no notice.]

"'You are beating about the bush, we want an ans....'

[Sidenote: Pebble V.]

"Another picture! (taking no notice of you)--a bit of Giorgione, coloured by Veronese. You are in an _atelier_; pictures and sketches in different stages of advancement lie about the tables and cover the easels; at one end of the room you see a large cupboard; its open doors betray within layers of rich old silks and damasks, some made up, some in pieces, as they were found at the antiquary's; further, an old mandoline, that perhaps could tell of the days of Titian. Through the large, gaping window you look upon a group of the most picturesque Venetian houses, with their fanciful basket-shaped chimneys and irregular windows and thousand-fold tints; the foreground is gracefully supplied by a screen of slender, net-like trees, amongst which heavy-laden vines wreathe in fanciful festoons. But where is Werner? the amiable inmate of this charming snuggery; where his pupils? Ah, I hear them! Hark! in the garden, a merry laugh, a clattering of cups, a sound of several voices, a suggestion of enjoyment; you rush to the scene of action; on your road you nearly break your neck over a table covered with the remains of a hearty dinner. A few yards further, you see half-a-dozen young men (of course artists) stretched, in every variety of ingeniously comfortable attitude, on a temporary floor of Turkey carpets, in a cool, clear, shady spot beneath arches of roof-weaving vines; in the middle, at comfortable arm's length, coffee, and heaps of purple grapes, whilst the intervals of conversation are filled by affectionate and earnest appeals to long Turkish pipes. You approach; you are recognised; seized by the hand, thrown down on the carpet; and presently you perceive that an entire afternoon is gone by! But that afternoon becomes a landmark to you. May not such reminiscences well endear a place to one's memory?

"'Well, then, I suppose....' (say you).

"Never mind, let me continue.

[Sidenote: More where the rest came from.]

"Another impression. You are sitting, early in the morning, in a spacious, picturesque court; you have got your sketch-book, and you are busily poring over a drawing of a beautiful old Saracenic well; you are intent on doing it well, on cutting out that friend you have got with you. Presently you are seized with a peculiar sensation; you have heard, all of a sudden, the voice of an old, old friend, who speaks to you of things you don't see round you; a veil falls from your eyes; you feel that you have missed something for some time past; a vision rises before your eyes--a sweet vision of wooded hills and grassy fields, teeming with a thousand wild flowers and sending forth a sweet smell, and of flowing streams, of _fresh_ waters, of birds singing merrily as they fly from tree to tree, and swing on the slender branches; and then you remember that you dwell in a mysterious city, closed in by the salty sea. Who was the friend that called up these lively images in your mind? It was a poor, solitary, wandering _Bee_. But he suggested something else to you, the roaming honey-gatherer--he reminded you of _freedom_; reminded you that Freedom had no home _there_; and he made you _feel_ how much you had felt it, how much you had been unconsciously haunted by the breath of oppression that hovers over poor, browbeaten Venice, and whose pestilence clings to its rocky shore, as the rankling seaweed to the skirts of its palaces. Poor Venice! once resounding with joyous voices, now its walls seem, as you pass them, to mutter mournfully of arrests, condemnations, executions! Its narrow streets re-echo with the heavy tread of exulting soldiers, with the watchword of a foreign tongue. Palaces and convents are become barracks and infirmaries, and Slavonian troopers loll and spit where the proudest lords and loveliest ladies of Venice used to assemble to the banquet or the ball. But I turn away from such sad reflections, lest they may seem to outweigh all the delight that I have spoken of before.

[Sidenote: Pebble VI.]

[Sidenote: What I think about it.]

"I have rehearsed to you a few of my impressions for good and for evil, and I think that was the only way of answering your (imaginary) questions. I need make no apologies for not _describing_ Venice to you, as you have all seen it, and it is a place the image of which does not easily fade. I might say a word or two about the Venetians. Whatever some people may say (and, if I am not mistaken, Byron amongst them), the female Venetian type, such as it is transmitted to us by Titian, Giorgione, Pordenone, &c. (_i.e._ stout, tall, round-faced, small-mouthed, _Roxolane-nosed_) has either totally disappeared, or only manifests itself to a chosen few; one feature only I recognise, and that is a profusion of fine hair, which they plait in the most elaborate manner. A thing that rather puzzles those who go to Venice with the idea of seeing _Titians_ and _Veroneses_ at the windows and in the streets, is that the women have altogether left off dyeing their hair auburn as they used in former times. To show you that vanity made the fair sex go through the greatest personal discomfort as far back as the sixteenth century, I will tell you what the process of dyeing was. On the top of nearly every house in Venice is a kind of terrace-like scaffold, or scaffold-like terrace ('you pays your money and takes your choice'), which has the noble vocation of drying linen; in former days, however, they were built for a different purpose. In the middle of the day, during the greatest heat of the sun, the party anxious to impart to her hair a tint between sugar-candy and radishes repaired to these _lofty_ spots, and there regularly bleached her hair in the following manner: she put on her head the _brim_ of a large straw hat, so that the top of the head was exposed to all the power of the sun, whilst the face and neck were kept in the shade. Through the hole thus left in the middle of this extraordinary headgear the whole of the hair was drawn, and spread out as much as possible; which done, different kinds of waters, made for the express purpose, were passed over it by means of a little sponge fastened to the top of a reed. History does not give the exact number of _coups-de-soleil_ caught in this manner; a few, I should imagine. However, I can warrant the accuracy of my statement, which is borrowed from a contemporary author of the highest standing. The men of Venice are neither handsome in the face nor well made in the body. The Venetian dialect is amusing; in the mouth of a woman, if well spoken, it is pretty, musical, childlike, lisping; but in the mouth of a man, for the most part, muddy, stammering, unintelligible.

* * * * *

"There, much as still remains to say, and willingly as I dwell on its memory, I must discard Venice, and turn to your kind letter, for it is now, I am afraid, more than a month since I last wrote. This delay has, however, been unavoidable, for when one is travelling, or staying a short time in a place, one is always hurried and flurried in the day-time, and in the evening tired or excited--or both. Next time you hear from me (which will be when I reach Rome) my communication will openly take the shape that this has imperceptibly been attaining, that of a letter; when I am once settled for the winter I shall, I hope, be better able to write _au jour le jour_. Before entering into your letter, which will be a longish job, I must acknowledge the receipt of one from Papa, containing part of my remittance; it was written in most kind terms (I tell you this because you can't have seen it, since he wrote in London), and was, I think, the longest I ever got from him, at all events it was the first in which he said anything beyond what was necessary to business. It gave me sincere pleasure. I was touched, it seemed to me that distance had brought me nearer to him; pray thank him both for that and for the consideration with which he has provided for an emergency which will in fact arise--that of my not reaching Rome in October; I do not expect to get there until the first week in November. Of one thing I must remind Papa; he talks of sending to Rome the _remaining eighty_ pounds of my second quarter; he has, I am afraid, forgotten that he gave me sixty for my first; my remittance this time is only _forty_ pounds, he therefore has only twenty to send to Rome.

"I now turn to your letter, dear Mamma; I lay it by my side, and as I read it slowly through, answer it systematically, head for head, for in my present hurry I have indeed no time to pick and choose, or to arrange my topics according to their importance and interest, or even to consult as much as I wish the little amusement that my letters give you. However, I console myself a little with the reflection that it certainly is not the composition of my letters which gratifies you much, for I am painfully aware that my ideas are brought to paper with about as much order as the footprints of a cock-sparrow show on a gravel-walk.

"You say, dear Mamma, that you have a fear of not telling me all that I wish to hear; and there, indeed, you are right, for if you were to tell me _all_ that I wish to know about your doings, you might write for a week; but you are equally right in supposing that _whatever_ you write concerning yourself (and selves) is full of interest to your distant Punch. About my health? Well, I plead guilty, steaks _do_ still continue to be to me _physical consciences_; this admonitory part they took more especially at Venice, where the climate, I must confess, did not agree with me particularly well. This is perhaps attributable to the water, which was particularly bad there, for my diet was of the simplest description. Judge for yourself: in the morning early, coffee and dry bread (I have discarded butter to keep company with Gamba, who is not in the habit of eating any); at eleven or so, fruit and bread; at four or five, a simple dinner; and in the evening, an ice or a cup of coffee. Here I live much in the same way.

"I am truly delighted to hear that you are accommodating yourself a little to an English climate; if you once get over that one great obstacle, nothing else need prevent your establishing yourself in the country which, after all, is still the dearest to you; with the prospect of pleasant and desirable society for yourself and the girls, and of other resources for Papa, there is every reason to hope that you will find in Bath what you have so long wished for, a home in _England_."

Speaking of his elder sister's suffering, he continues:--

"I feel, almost, a kind of shame that so much should have been poured down on me, who have deserved it less. To become deserving of it, must be my great, never-wavering endeavour; I will put my talent to usury, and be no slothful steward of what has been entrusted to me. Every man who has received a gift, ought to feel and act as if he was a field in which a seed was planted that others might gather the harvest.

"I am delighted to hear that Lady Leighton is getting on well, and as much gratified at having made on her a favourable impression; pray tell her that her presence and conversation inspired me with a desire to please her, and that her affectionate reception has still a lively hold on my memory.

"You tell me that you were touched at Steinle's kindness to me, and indeed it was such as might well touch any one; this time you will be touched at his affliction, poor man, he has just had a heavy misfortune--the most affectionate of fathers has lost another child, the second, in a year and a half; I heard this from Andre, who has just arrived from Frankfurt, and who called on the unfortunate man before he started and found him much dejected. He said in his melancholy but calm tone of voice: 'Ich habe eine Tochter begraben.' You think it improbable that I shall find a _second_ Steinle; I delight in the belief that there _is none_.

"I am not surprised at your finding it impossible to imagine an artist without a genuine love for nature. In any but an age of perverted taste such a thing could not exist; but it is only too true that that most essential of qualities has become obsolete, and is hardly to be found at all. Artists now are full of _breadth_ and _depth_; and, between us and the doorpost, _flatness_. On this subject I mean to tell you more in my next letter, when I speak more particularly of my _artistic_ impressions and opinions, which I have not yet done.

"I am glad to hear what you tell me about the comfort you enjoy in Bath, from the superior cleanliness and decency of behaviour of English servants over foreign ones; it is a thing to which I am particularly alive, and which struck me very much last time I was in England; Gussy too, I am sure, appreciated it very much. I am sorry that I cannot participate in your enthusiasm about the beauties of Bath (barring, of course, the situation, which is charming), but I will say nothing against it, as I am only too glad that you should be pleased with it. I quite follow you in your admiration of the edifices in Westminster; I think that, taking them altogether, they form one of the finest groups of architecture that I ever saw; but what particularly pleases me in the Houses of Parliament is the example they set of building in that style of architecture which is our own, the growth, as it were, of our soil, and which therefore best befits our country. Such feelings, I have reason to believe, are becoming prevalent in England, and they may have great results; but I reserve all this for another letter. I am glad to hear of the institution you tell me of for the cultivation of good principles; I believe that the greatness of England will not be as ephemeral as that of the other nations that have had the lead in succession, because so much is done to consolidate and increase in strength the basis on which it stands, and which is the best prop to the enduring prosperity of a nation, uprightness and morality.

"I have now followed and answered your letter, from beginning to end, from point to point, it is time I should close; next time I write, I shall be in Rome, settled for the winter.--Believe me, dear Mamma, with very best love to all, your most affectionate and dutiful son,

"FRED LEIGHTON."

_Translation._] VENICE, _31st August_.

"HONOURED AND VERY DEAR HERR STEINLE,--If I did not, according to our agreement, write to you directly Rico[19] arrived, it was because I could not make up my mind to put you off with two words, whereas I had neither time nor leisure to write you anything detailed. Now, however, arrived and established in Venice, I take up my pen to repair the neglect. It is a lovely, cool, clear summer morning; I sit at my window on the Grand Canal, and before my eyes rises in glorious beauty the incomparable outline of Sta. Maria della Salute with the adjoining Dogano. The newly risen sun (it is five o'clock in the morning) throws a golden, enchanted light along one side of the Canal; the gondolas and barges, which nestle in a numerous array at the steps of the _Salute_, glitter in the dusky distance like gleaming jewels on the borders of the silver mirror of the water, whose clear bosom is gently ruffled by the soft breath of dawn. All is still, except the distant church bells. What words can give an idea of such a sight? I gaze about me in a day-dream and think of you, the dear friend, the honoured master; all that I owe you for heartfelt sympathy and wise guidance, and cannot pay, rises before my grateful soul, and reminds me that I have lost one whom I shall miss many a time. I hope with all my heart that your stay in the mountains of Appenzell will have given you fresh strength, and that in all respects you are re-established and invigorated according to your expectations.

"Now, however, as I am to speak of myself, and to give some account of my impressions on my journey, I note that for me the potent picture of Italy, of Venice, has pushed all that went before into the background, almost blotted it out, so that now it floats before me like a dim remembrance; but with two exceptions: two pictures have impressed themselves deeply on my memory, and will certainly not be easily erased--I mean the _Franciscan church at Innsbruck_ and lovely _Meran_. You were indeed right when you said that the cast giants in that church are the grandest achievement of German sculpture; they are colossal, a truly imposing spectacle, brilliant monuments of an age of noble taste. What eternal truth! What an amazing impress of individuality! Of marvellous execution that never borders on the little, full of breadth and strength, and yet nobly slender, they are the most perfect example of _economy of detail_; what a sharp contrast to the superficial stone-hammering (I might say) of to-day; what an everlasting shaming to the nineteenth century! I could name many sculptors who could not look at these things without profit.

"Meran! What an indelible, fascinating picture floats before one's eyes at the name; this Alpha and Omega of all that is lovely in Tyrol; this lovely amphitheatre of mountains, rugged on one side, and steep and covered with snow on the other, glowing in the purple gleam of the south--widely extended, melting away, alluring; this fertile plain; this gold-green flood of climbing vines, hanging down like waterfalls from the espaliers on the mountain slopes, with the purple foam of the vines; these thousand pleasure-houses and castles; the picturesque costume!

"But why so many words? You have seen this beauty yourself, and have no doubt a clearer picture of it than I can paint for you.

"In Botzen, to my very great regret, I was unable to see Herr von Hempel, since he was staying, not in his town house, but in a castle at a distance of two hours; but I visited Becker's brother. He received me in a most friendly manner, asked much after his brother, of whom he had heard _nothing_ for more than a _year_, and told me that his mother, who had recently visited him in Feldkirch, had wept bitterly about it. I must also inform you that he has recently _taken unto himself a wife_--a fact of which our good Jacob (that is his name, is it not?) also knew nothing.

"I could still, dear Herr Steinle, write much to you about Tyrol and Italy (especially about _Verona_), for I know no one with whom I so gladly share my artistic sensations as with you, but lack of time obliges me to close quickly for the present; I will only add that after I had been two days in Verona the worthy Rico arrived, and we are now having a _feast of art_ in Venice together.

"Should you be still at the Stift when you receive these lines, I beg you to kiss the Frau Rath's hand for me, and to tell her that I remember vividly the day I spent in her house. Remember me most kindly to your wife--I congratulate her upon her deliverance from the Cronberg martyrdom; kiss the little children for me, and remember me to the elder ones; remember me also to Frau Schoeff & Co. and to all my other good friends; this is perhaps rather a large request, but whom could I omit? I rely upon your kindness. I close with a plea for forbearance towards my incorrigible writing and my lame, headlong style.--Heartfelt greetings from your devoted and grateful pupil,

"FRED LEIGHTON.

"_P.S._--Should you have anything to say to me, or any commission to give me, the address, Poste Restante, Florence, will find me till the end of September.

"Gamba wishes to be cordially remembered to you, and promises himself to be under your wing again in eighteen months.

"In my next letter I will tell you about Italy."

FOOTNOTES:

[13] In the winter of 1845 Leighton went to a children's costume ball in Florence as Punch, and for some time after the name clung to him in his family.

[14] Literally, "devoured nature with a spoon."

[15] A distinguished actress.

[16] Probably "The Death of Brunelleschi."

[17] See Appendix, In Memoriam.

[18] See sketch, "A Monk Dividing Enemies," Leighton House Collection, "Ulm, 1852."

[19] Count Gamba.