Chapter I: First Studio in London (2)

One of them (the girl by the fountain) gives, as is so often the
case, an entirely false impression of the picture, in that the
drapery of the principal figure should be much darker, and that
of the retreating figure much lighter. I have called this
picture "Lieder ohne Worte." It represents a girl, who is
resting by a fountain, and listening to the ripple of the water
and the song of a bird. This subject is, of course, quite
incomplete without colour, as I have endeavoured, both by colour
and by flowing delicate forms, to translate to the eye of the
spectator something of the pleasure which the child receives
through her ears. This idea lies at the base of the whole thing,
and is conveyed to the best of my ability in every detail, so
that in the dead photograph one loses exactly half, also the
dulling of the eyes, which are dark blue in the picture, gives a
look of weakness in the photograph that is not quite pleasant.

The second subject is, as you will know well, the old, ever-new
motive of Paolo and Francesca. I endeavoured to put in as much
glow and passion as possible without causing the least offence;
this picture also would, perhaps, have pleased you in colour.
How I should like to show it to you, my dear master! However,
you will no doubt send me your candid opinion of the photographs
in a few lines, and not spare criticism.

I am exceedingly curious to know how _your_ work is getting on.
What are you working at just now? When is the fresco to be
begun? What easel pictures have you undertaken? I want to know
all that. I also hope with all my heart, my dear master, that
your health keeps good, that your wife and children are all
well. Please remember me most kindly to your family and all in
Frankfurt who remember me. And yourself, my dear friend, keep in
remembrance.--Your grateful pupil,

FRED LEIGHTON.

_Translation._]
2 ORME SQUARE, BAYSWATER, LONDON,
_June 30, 1861_.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--Forgive my not having thanked you sooner for
your kind note. The same thing has happened to me as to you:
work has left me but little leisure for writing. Now, however,
my hearty thanks for the open sincerity with which you have
spoken of my latest work, I am only sorry that you have not gone
into it even more closely. I shall endeavour in my present works
to diminish the excessive mannerism of the lines, which will be
all the easier for me as I am now painting principally from
nature; in my last picture the subject permitted that but
little. In any case I hope, dear master, that you will always
speak to me with the same candour; it is the best proof to me
that I still possess your friendship.

I am extremely eager to see how far your works have got on.
Amongst them, however, my dear friend, keep in remembrance your
grateful pupil,

FRED LEIGHTON.

_P.S._--I notice with regret that already I do not write a
German letter with my former fluency.

In a letter to his sister, Mrs. Matthews, January 24, 1860, Leighton wrote: "I am horrified to hear the account you give of Mrs. Browning. I knew she was a confirmed invalid, but had no idea that one of her lungs was already gone! What will poor Browning do if she dies? He adores her, you know."

LONDON, _July 1861_.

DEAREST MAMMY,--Thanks for your kind letter, which I have been
unable to answer till now. I had heard of poor Browning's
bereavement; we were all very much shocked at it, knowing, as we
do, how entirely irreparable his loss is. I wrote a few lines to
him that he might know how sincerely I grieved with him; I don't
at all know what were the circumstances of her death, we have no
particulars.

Leighton undertook to design the monument over Mrs. Browning's grave in the English Cemetery at Florence. The work appealed to him in every sense, and remains as a permanent memorial of those friendships which made the years spent in Italy so full, so rich, so entrancing. With reference to the monument Browning writes:--

CHEZ M. LARAISON,
STE. MARIE, PRES PORNIC, LOIRE INFERIEURE,
_August 30, 1863_.

MY DEAR LEIGHTON,--Don't fret; you will do everything like
yourself in the end, I know; wait till the end of October, as
you propose. I cannot return before the beginning of it, though
I would do so were it necessary, but it is not, for I have only
this morning received the notification of which I told you, that
"the marble is in the sculptor's studio." We shall therefore be
in full time.

The portrait you saw was the autotype which I lent to Mr.
Richmond, and concerning which I wrote to him before leaving
London, directing that it should be sent to you. He engaged to
let you have it whenever you desired. I therefore enclose (oh,
fresh attack on your envelopes and postage stamps!) a note which
I presume he will attend to, and which you will of course burn
should he have sent the portraits meanwhile. I have also two
others nearly like that portrait, taken the same day with it,
which I was unable to find, but which shall be found on my
return.

Dear Leighton, I can only repeat, with entire truth, that you
will satisfy me wholly. I don't think, however, you can make me
more than I am now--Yours gratefully and lovingly,

ROBERT BROWNING.

Continuation of letter to his mother:--

I am glad to hear Papa reported favourably of my work, and that
you like the photographs of my pictures now in the Exhibition. I
am very glad also that Gussy liked the _receding figure_ in the
"Lieder ohne Worte," as it was a favourite also with me, the
_tallness_ of said figure was inseparable from the sentiment of
it in my mind. I have a photograph of that picture still
remaining; I will give it to Gus when she comes through, I can
get myself another some future day. I am getting on tol-lol with
my pictures, but am rather anxious just now about the extreme
difficulty of getting a peacock. I want to _buy_ one to have the
skin prepared, and if I don't get one soon they will all lose
their tails; and there I shall be--in a fix! A friend of mine
has written to Norfolk, and hopes to get me one. The season,
even in the extremely moderate form in which I take it, is a
fatiguing affair. I get up late and never feel fresh and
vigorous. I have serious thoughts of entirely giving it up next
year. I will go now and then to stay at people's houses, but not
to their parties--_le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_. _A propos_
of country houses, I am going to spend a few days with Lady
Cowper at Wrest Park towards the end of this month; there are to
be theatricals and great hilarity. And now about Bath, I hope,
dearest Mammy, you won't be hurt if I propose to come at the end
of the _first_ week in September instead of the _last_ week in
August. The fact is I have a great "giro" I want to make, and if
I could take Bath in the regular progress it would be both a
great convenience and a saving of expense. I mean to stay three
weeks in Bath and have thoughts of painting a _pot-boiler_ of
little Walker if he is still handsome. I wish Papa would look
after him, and let me know what he is doing and how he is
looking. These are my plans: I want, whilst the summer is still
hot and green, to visit South Hampshire, New Forest, Isle of
Wight, South Devon, North Devon, and so work my way round to
Bath, whence to Stourhead for a few days; then to Mason in
Staffordshire, and then back to London. My pictures will be done
long before the Exhibition next opening, so I can manage all
this. I shall visit the following people: Sartoris, Aides,
perhaps Morants, I hope _Tennyson_, Lady E. Bulteel, and look in
at Mount Edgcombe--the rest of the journey will be purely
artistic.

CLOVELLY, _Sunday_.

DEAREST MAMMY,--I could not find time to answer your note (for
which best thanks) before I left Ventnor. I am now in one of the
most picturesque spots on the north coast of Devon--the
_rendezvous_ of painters and tourists, the _pays de cocagne_ of
Hook and one of the chief lions of my trip.

The places I have visited so far are Salisbury, Exeter, and
Bideford; with the latter I was much disappointed, and think it
far below its reputation; not so Salisbury, which is a most
interesting town, full of quaintness and character beyond my
expectations; it has, however, a look of decay and depopulation
about it which makes me feel awfully low-spirited. The
Cathedral, perhaps, _altogether_ rather disappointed me--though
of course much about it is very beautiful; then, too, its
general (internal) aspect is entirely marred by a brutal coat of
whitewash laid on in the last century, covering up the marble
columns and killing out all life and colour. Unfortunately, it
would cost very many thousands to restore the church and its
ancient glories.

To-morrow I start for Ilfracombe--the next day for Lynton.

Again, later:--

Many thanks for your letter just received and for all the kind
wishes therein contained, which I most warmly return for you
all--a double portion to dear Taily in honour of her birthday.

I will come on the 8th if I possibly can, and bring some little
sketches to show you.

I shall exhibit this year IF I get done in time, but I can't
hurry--it is entirely immaterial whether I exhibit or not--I
would rather, of course.

We have begun drilling, but it will be many weeks before we get
to rifle-shooting--this is the sort of thing we are doing now.
Our uniform is plainness itself, all grey, and the cheapest in
London.

I weather the cold so-so--I have a gas-stove beside my
fireplace, but am still tolerably cold when it comes very sharp.

My dinner with Millais was put off till Monday next--I think
Millais _charming_ and _so_ handsome.

I am exceedingly sorry, dear Mamma, you have reckoned on me for
cotillon figures--with the exception of the one I led at Bath
once, _I have not seen one for years_, and have not the faintest
notion what is done--I will, however, _back_ anybody else with
great zeal.

I was indeed truly sorry to hear of Lord Holland's death--I had
expected it for some time; nothing could exceed their kindness
to me, and the House is an irreparable loss to me.

I hope to have a very merry Christmas Day. I am running down to
Westbury (the Sartoris); there is to be a tree; I come up again
of course Monday morning.

I am never _ill_. I take my human frailty out in never being
very well--never equal to much fatigue.

LONDON, 1861.

My dinner at Millais' yesterday was very pleasant. I like him
extremely, and his wife appears an agreeable person. I met there
John Leech, the man who does all those admirable caricatures in
_Punch_--he is a very pleasant and gentleman-like person.

I don't feel sure whether I told you that I am about shortly to
send my "Paris and Juliet" with the "Samson" to America on spec.
Mrs. Kemble will do all she can to godmother them; I got a very
kind letter from her from Boston the other day--she has asked me
to send her a little sketch of Westbury with the pictures--of
course I shall.

The following letters from Mrs. Fanny Kemble reveal the interest which this friend took in Leighton and his pictures, also the genius of the writer in penning delightful epistles:--

REVERE HOUSE, BOSTON,
_Friday, December 9, 1861_.

DEAR MR. LEIGHTON,--It was very kind and amiable of you to write
to me of Westbury and my sister; you cannot imagine the
forlornness one feels when, to the loss of the sight of those
one loves, is added that bitter silence which leaves one almost
ignorant, as death does, of all the conditions in which our
friends remain. God knows, written words are a poor substitute
for the sound of a voice and the look of living eyes; still,
when they are all that can reach us of those towards whom our
hearts yearn, it is miserable not to be able to obtain them. The
friends with whom I constantly correspond see and know little or
nothing of her, and so no one of them can in any degree supply
me with the news that I most desire from across the sea--how it
is faring with my sister; so I am very grateful to you for your
intelligence, which was just what I would give anything for
(though not in itself, perhaps, very satisfactory) out here,
where I think you have none of you an idea how _banished_ I
feel. Now, my dear Mr. Leighton, to your business, about which
I began my inquiries almost immediately after my return to this
country, but only received the last of these communications last
night, and you perceive the other was incomplete without it. You
must command me entirely in any and every thing that I can do to
forward your aims, and I will promise to be _severe_ in my
obedience to any instructions you may like to give me. New York
is undoubtedly a better market for pictures, and therefore a
better place to exhibit them than this, but I do not know
anybody whom I trust there. Mr. Ordway, however, seems inclined
to take charge of your pictures if they are exhibited there.

Good-bye. Do not fail to employ me in this matter to the fullest
extent that I can be of the least use to you; it will be a great
pleasure to me to help you in any way that I possibly
can.--Yours very truly,

FANNY KEMBLE.

I wish you would send me out some sketch of Westbury with your
pictures, if they come. I wish for one very much. I wish you
could see the world here just now--a sky as pure and brilliant
as it is possible to conceive, and every bough, branch, blade of
grass and withered leaf coated with clear crystal and _blazing_
with prismatic colours. There are, every now and then,
_sentiments_ in this sky that I have seen in none other. There
are certain points of view in which Boston, rising beyond broad
sheets of water that repeat them still more tenderly, seems to
me worthy of a great painter. But do not come out and try unless
you are quite sure of going back, or you will break your heart.

REVERE HOUSE, BOSTON,
_Friday, February 7_.

I feel terrified, when you speak of my determining what is to be
done with your pictures when they arrive in Boston, for
assuredly I am utterly incompetent to any such decision, and can
only refer myself to the judgment of my friend Mr. Cabot, who
will certainly advise for the best in the matter, but who,
nevertheless, is not infallible. I should think it rather late
in the season for exhibiting them here, but again would not take
upon myself to say. I do not know what the percentage on sale
here is, but presume it is not higher than in London. But here
people exhibit their pictures at a shilling a head, _i.e._ put
them in a room hung round with black calico, light up a flare of
gas above them, and take a quarter of a dollar from every sinner
who sees them. Two of Churche's pictures (he is a great American
artist, though you may never have heard of him) have been, or
rather are, at this moment so exhibiting--his "Falls of
Niagara," and a very beautiful landscape called the "Heart of
the Andes." Both these pictures were exhibited in London, I know
not with what success; they have both considerable merit, but
the latter I admire extremely. Page had a "Venus" here the other
day, exhibited by gas-light in a black room; but indeed, dear
Mr. Leighton, it sometimes seems to me as if you never could
imagine or would consent to the gross charlatanry which is
practised--how necessarily I do not know--here about all such
matters. Certainly your gold medal should be trumpeted--and your
profession of art and your confession of faith, and anything
most private and particular that you would not wish known, had
better be published in several versions in all the newspapers of
the United States. Your pictures must be placarded over all the
walls in all the sizes of type conceivable, and all the colours
of the rainbow. If you will write me your personal history, and
rampant puffs of your own performances, I will copy them and
send them to those sources of public instruction, the
enlightened public press. Moreover, I will go and sit before
them daily and utter exclamations of admiration on every note in
my voice, and if anything else remains to be done I will do it;
but you must not make me in any way responsible for the result,
because it is not in the least likely that you will write
yourself up to the mark of puffing as practised here. Basta--I
will take the very best advice and do the very best I can about
the pictures, and rejoice in my heart to see them myself, that I
can assuredly promise you. By-the-bye, I gave your address only
a few days ago, to be sent to a person now in Europe negotiating
with French and English artists for pictures to exhibit. I
wonder if he will find you and enlighten your mind about art in
America. Thank you for the account of Westbury and its Christmas
festivities, and thank you, thank you for the sketch of the home
you are so very kind as to promise me; it will be a blessed
treasure to see, for you cannot conceive the dreary
heart-sickness that utterly overcomes me here sometimes. To-day
I was singing the quartette in "Faust" that we used to sing, and
was obliged to stop for crying. I wished extremely to have a
photograph of the house, and, if I could only have afforded it,
should have asked you to sell me every sketch you took about the
place. The skies here are beautiful, wonderful in their
transparent purity. They seem to me of a different _texture_
from any other I ever saw, more diaphanous, and there is a
colour in them when they are quite free from clouds that
surpasses in delicacy all other skies I have seen. It is like
the complexion of the young girls here, a miracle of evanescent
brilliant softness. My winter is wearing along pretty tolerably.
My Christmas was passed entirely alone, but I am quite used to
that. I am beginning to be much occupied about the plans and
drawings for a house, which I am thinking of building on some
land I own in Massachusetts. It is a great undertaking, and
really at fifty years old seems hardly worth while, and yet,
till I am ready for my coffin, I must have some place in which
to rest my head. Perhaps some fine day--who knows?--you will
come to see me there. That would be a very pretty plot, and I
think I need not say how welcome you would be, dear Mr.
Leighton, to yours very truly,

FANNY KEMBLE.

LENOX, _Tuesday_.

A thousand thanks, my dear Mr. Leighton, for the minute account
of Westbury--as I cannot know anything about my sister, it is
something to know how her house is settled and decorated, and
how the place where she lives looks. The red velvet drawing-room
sounds gorgeous, and it must be very becoming to the pictures.
Of your pictures that have "wandered west" you may be sure I
should have written you, if I had had the good news to give you
that either of them was sold, but I am sorry to say this is not
the case. The New York Exhibition is now closed, and the
pictures have been sent back to Boston, where they are at
present hanging in the Athenaeum under the care of Mr. Ordway,
who wishes, but does not much hope, to be able to sell them. It
seems that one or two people asked the price of the pictures in
New York, but considered it, when they received the
information, "rather a tall price." I am a little consoled at
the ill success of this venture of yours, by Henry Greville's
writing me that your hands are full of orders, for which you are
to be well paid. Your small acquaintance, Fanny, who left me
this morning after a visit of a month, propounded to me the
expediency of desiring the purchaser of the reconciliation of
old Capulet and Montague to buy as its pendant the "Paris and
Juliet"; and though she has no personal acquaintance with the
lover of art in question, she said, when she got to Philadelphia
she should set about intriguing to that effect; and she had my
full permission to try and to succeed. I wish I could tell you
anything pleasant in return for your description of the rooms at
Westbury, but I have nothing very cheerful to impart. I have
been quite unwell, and am still very far from flourishing; my
spirits are much depressed, and the life I lead, of incessant
worry and discomfort with servants and all one's domestic
arrangements, is something quite too tedious to relate--and that
indeed it would be impossible to _realise_, as the Yankees say,
unless you witnessed it. I saw Hetty Hosmer three days after her
arrival in Boston. Her father is a hopeless invalid, and she
will certainly not leave him while he lives; but I suspect that
he is likely to die before this year ends, and then she will
return to live in Italy. The State of Missouri has voted two
thousand pounds for a statue of Colonel Benton, one of its
"great men," to be erected by her, which, of course, is a whole
plume of feathers in her cap.

Good-bye, dear Mr. Leighton; believe me always yours most truly,

FANNY KEMBLE.

You must not fail to write to me any directions that you wish
observed about your pictures, while they remain here. I am only
too glad to try to serve you.

LENOX, BERKSHIRE, MASSACHUSETTS,
_Monday, March 12_.

Pictures of very high pretensions are exhibited, like the scenes
in a theatre, by gas-light, and advertised in coloured _posters_
all over the streets like theatrical exhibitions. However, it is
no use vexing your soul with what neither of us can help. I
cannot and will not accept the responsibility of disposing of
your pictures; but I will get the best advice I can about them
and follow it, and spare no personal pains to have them
advantageously dealt with; only, I hope it will not be very long
before they arrive, because my own stay in Boston is now drawing
to a close, and after the end of the present month I shall be at
Lenox, a remote village in a lonely hill district one hundred
miles from Boston, or rather I should say seven hours distant
from the nearest railroad station, which is six miles away again
from Lenox. When once I come here--for I write at this moment
from this snowy wilderness--it will be to remain for the next
nine or ten months, so you see I must make all arrangements
about your pictures before taking my leave of civilised
communities. I came up to this place from Boston yesterday to
look at a house that I think of hiring for a year, and shall
return to the city next week. I have left your pictures (should
they arrive during my absence) to the charge of a friend of mine
who is one of the directors of the Athenaeum, and will see that
they are properly received. Thank you a thousand times for the
promised likeness of Westbury, which will be a treasure to me.
What a contrast is my recollection of that charming place, to
the abomination of desolation of the dreary savage winter
landscape of low black hills, bristling with wintry woods and
wide, bare, snow-covered valleys, that stretch before me here at
this moment. I am well, but much worn out with my last course of
public readings, which I had just ended in Boston. My daughters
are well, and write to me tolerably frequently; the eldest seems
happy and contented in her marriage; your small acquaintance,
Fanny, writes to me from Savannah of sitting with the doors and
windows wide open, and wiping the perspiration from her face in
the meantime; and here everything is buried in snow. I shall
wait till I return to Boston to finish this, as I shall hope to
send you then news of the arrival of your pictures.

_Wednesday, March 14._

Your pictures are arrived, my dear Mr. Leighton; they reached
Boston last week while I was absent at Lenox. I only returned
yesterday evening, and found a letter from Mr. Cabot announcing
that they were at the Athenaeum; thither I went this morning, and
spent a most delightful half-hour in looking at them. I like
the "Samson" very much indeed; I think it is beautiful, and am
charmed with the treatment of the subject, though you have
chosen a different moment for illustration from the one I had
imagined. This evening I have been having a long conversation
with Mr. Ordway about the future destinations of the pictures. I
am little sanguine, I regret to say, about their being bought
here, for the only rich picture purchaser that I know here has a
predilection for French works of art, small _tableaux de genre_,
and Troyon's landscapes. However, it must be tried. Mr. Ordway
says he will exhibit your pictures in the Athenaeum, which
(should they be sold while there) will save you your commission,
because, being an artist himself, he will not charge you any. If
after due experiment they do not seem likely to sell here, we
will send them to New York, and then to Philadelphia; in short,
the best that can be done for them shall, as far as my agency is
concerned, you may be sure.

BOSTON, _Thursday, March 15_.

I have this moment received your letter of the 25th February,
for which I thank you very much. It does not require any further
answer with regard to your pictures, of the safe arrival of
which I wrote you word last night. I did not tell you,
by-the-bye, that they are both slightly _streaked_ across from
side to side with what Mr. Ordway thinks must have been small
infiltrations of sea-water; he says the pictures are not injured
by them, nor do they indeed appear to be so in the least, and
that he can wipe off the stains with no damage whatever to them.
Thank you for all you tell me of my sister; it is not much,
indeed, nor very cheerful, but it is more than reaches me
through any other channel, and far better than the miserable
conjectures of absolute ignorance. Dear Mr. Leighton, thank you
a thousand times for the _portrait_ of Westbury--it is exactly
what I wished for--but, oh, why could there not be the lovely
upland beyond, and the sheep slowly rolling up and down the
slopes, and the tinkle of the bell, and you and she and they and
all of us. Oh dear, if you could conceive what it is to me to be
_here_, you would know a thousand times better than I can tell
you how precious such a memento of _there_ is to me. Thank you,
too, for the good inspiration of telling me about the change of
place of the pictures at Westbury; it is wonderful how much one
small particular has power to bring the whole of what surrounds
it, back to the mind, and what vividness it gives to the picture
that, in spite of the distinctness with which it was stamped
upon the memory, becomes so soon, and yet so unconsciously,
obliterated in the minor parts that give it charm and vitality.
I spent a long hour to-day again looking at your pictures and
wishing most heartily that I could afford to buy them both.
Good-bye, dear Mr. Leighton; I shall leave this open till
to-morrow, in case I should hear anything more about them before
I go. I enclose the receipts for what I have paid. I suppose it
is all right, but it seems a most monstrous price for mere
conveyance, and indeed reminds us that our humorous forefathers
called _stealing_ _conveying_.

LENOX, BERKSHIRE, MASSACHUSETTS,
_Friday, April 27_.

Your pictures are at present in the New York Exhibition. Mr.
Ordway tells me that it is extremely rare for pictures to sell
without the intervention of dealers. In this country they cry
down and undervalue all pictures that are not expressly
committed to them, and the ignorance of the rich shopkeepers who
purchase works of Art, is so excessive that they do not feel
safe in making any acquisition without the advice and permission
of some charlatan of a dealer, to whom these wiseacres come
saying (verbatim, so Mr. Ordway informed me), "I want some
pictures; can't you recommend any to me?" and then, of course,
the picture-dealer recommends what brings him the highest
percentage; and the man who buys pictures exactly like
looking-glasses, window-curtains, or any other _furniture_ for a
new house, departs satisfied that he possesses a work of Art.
The things that are bought and sold here in the shape of
pictures, and the things that are said about them, _vous
feraient pouffer de rire_, if you did not live in this country.
If you did, they would be like many other proofs of the
semi-civilisation of the people, that would be rather doleful
than otherwise to you. Thank you for all you tell about my
sister and her children. I feel very much both for my sister and
Anne in their separation. I have just parted with my maid Marie,
who has lived with me fifteen years, and who leaves me now
because her health is so much broken down that her physician
tells her, she must go to some other climate or she will die.
So she is gone, and here I remain absolutely alone, looking, not
for the "wrath to come," but what may be supposed no bad
instalment of it--the advent of four new servants with whom I am
to begin housekeeping in my small cottage next week. Just before
leaving Boston I saw Hetty Hosmer. She has come home to her poor
old paralytic father, who, I suppose, is not likely to live very
long. Whenever the event of his death happens, Hetty will gather
up her substance, and depart hence for the rest of her natural
or artistic life. She is very little changed in appearance, and
only a little in manner. She seemed very glad to see me, and so
was I to see her, for she represented to my memory a whole world
of things and places and people that I am fond of. I have not
seen Lord Lyon, and do not expect to do so, as I understand he
does not mean to stir from Washington all the summer, and
thither I shall assuredly not go, though I would go a good way
to see him. I'm told he lives in dread of being married by some
fair American, and it is not always a thing that a man can
escape; but he is too good for that, and I trust will not
succumb to these intrepid little flirts. Good-bye, dear Mr.
Leighton; I have a settled nostalgia, which is the saddest thing
in the world. Your sketch of Westbury is always before me, and
your letters are the most kindly return you could possibly make,
for any service that you could require of me. I wish with all my
heart I might have the great pleasure of writing you, now that
one of your pictures was sold.

Addio.

LENOX, _Friday, June 7_.

Thank you, dear Frederic Leighton, for your letter and the
photographs, by means of which, and your description, I have a
sort of vision (not quite what the Yankees call a "realising
sense") of your pictures. The girl at the fountain is
charming,[20] the other beautiful and terrible, as it should
be.[21] I can well imagine the beautiful effect the sentiment of
the picture must receive from that regretful return, as it were,
of the daylight that has set upon the poor people for ever. In
the English newspapers that are sent to me I looked eagerly
among the notices of the Exhibition for your name, and read the
meagre little bit allotted to each picture. I was especially
delighted with the critic who thinks your "Paolo and Francesca"
too _earthly_ in the intensity of their passions. The gentleman
apparently forgets that it was not in Heaven that Dante met
these poor things. With regard to your other pictures, dear Mr.
Leighton, I think you are right to withdraw them from America. I
wish with all my heart that I could have presented myself with
one of those pictures; however, that is one of the vainest of
all human desires. My income is already docked of two hundred
pounds this year by the disastrous state of public affairs; but,
of course, if one is in the midst of a falling house, one can
hardly hope to avoid bruises and broken bones. The attitude of
England is highly unsatisfactory to the North, who now choose to
consider the whole action of the Government a crusade against
slavery--which it is not, and was not, and will not be except in
the New England state where the Abolitionist party has always
been strongest, and where the character of the people is more of
the nature to make fighters for abstract principles. The
Southerners hate the Yankees, and _vice versa_, for this very
reason; and if the crisis comes really to anything like
fighting, the New England, especially the Massachusetts men,
will probably fight very maliciously as against slaveholders,
and the slaveholders against them as Abolitionists, which _they_
now are, pretty much to a man. A huge volunteer force is levying
and being prepared for action; but in spite of the very
unanimous feeling of the North and North-West, and the warlike
attitude of the South, I shall not believe in anything deserving
the name of war till I see it. The South is without resources
that can avail for a six months' struggle. The North has a huge,
unarmed, undisciplined force of men at its command; but the
Southerners do not want to fight, and neither do the
Northerners; _but_ if any combination of circumstances (and of
course matters cannot stand still, especially with the border
states all _au pied en l'air_) should occasion any collision
accompanied with considerable effusions of blood, I believe the
North would pour itself upon the Southern States and annihilate
the secessionist party. It is extremely difficult to foresee the
probable course of events, but I believe eventually the Southern
States will be obliged to return to their allegiance, and
_then_ I believe the North will, once for all, legislate for the
future limiting of the curse of slavery to those states where it
_now_ exists, and where, of course, under such circumstances, it
would very soon cease to exist, as if it cannot extend itself it
must die. In one sense slavery is undoubtedly the cause of the
present disastrous crisis--and in the profoundest sense, for the
character of the Southerners is the immediate result of these
infernal "institutions"; and but for Southern slavery Southern
"Chivalry," that arrogant, insolent, ignorant, ferocious and
lawless race of men, would never have existed.

Oh, how thankful I shall be to be at home once more! Farewell,
dear Mr. Leighton; pray, if there is anything special to be done
about your pictures, write to me and let me have the pleasure of
doing something for you. Oh, I am so enraged that I could not
get them sold; and yet though you may not think it, I should
have thought it a pity for them to have to live the rest of
their lives here. Thank you again for the photographs; I look at
them constantly. All _such things_ are like being lifted into
another atmosphere from that which surrounds and stifles one
here. Believe me always your obliged and sincere friend,

FANNY KEMBLE.

Emil Devrient's was the best Hamlet I ever saw. It would not
have been if my father's had not been too smooth and harmonious.
I hope I shall see Fechter's.

LENOX, _Thursday, October 11_.

How good an inspiration it was that made you send that beautiful
photograph to me! It came to me really like a special
providence, on the day when I had parted from my children for an
indefinite time, and with more than usual sadness and anxiety;
for my eldest child's health has failed completely since her
confinement, and she came to me for a visit of ten days only,
looking like the doomed, wan image of some woman whose enemies
were wasting her by witchcraft. My small comfortless home was
intolerably lonely to me, and towards sunset I went out to find
some fortitude under the open sky. I wandered into a copse of
beech trees that clothe the steep sides of a miniature ravine
with a brook at the bottom, and here gathered a handful of the
beautiful blue fringed gentian (do you know that exquisite
flower that grows wild in the woods here?). The little glen with
its clusters of mysterious blue blossoms was all but dark, but,
emerging from it, I stood where I saw a wide valley flooded with
the evening light, and hills beyond rising in waves of amber and
smoke colour and dark purple; it was so beautiful that it cannot
be imagined. The autumn has turned all the trees into gold and
jewels, like the enchanted growth of fairy-land, and the whole
world, as I saw it from the entrance of that shadowy dell,
looked as if it was made of precious metals and precious stones.
I was very sad, and stood thinking of our Saviour and the widow
of Nain, and how pitiful He was to sorrowful human creatures,
and with some sparks of comfort in my heart I returned home,
where I found your letter waiting for me. I have told you all
this of my previous state of mind and feeling, because--without
knowing that--you could not conceive how like an express message
of consolation your work appeared to me. May it be blessed to
many hearts for admonition and for consolation as it was to
mine, dear Mr. Leighton. It is no wonder that it seemed to me
beautiful, and I do not think I shall ever sufficiently
disconnect it with this first impression, to be able to judge of
its merit as a work of art; it was, as I said before, a special
Providence to me. I long to have it framed and hung where I can
see it constantly. I have within the last few days moved into a
house which I have hired for the next two years. It is all but
in the village of Lenox, and yet so situated that it commands
from the windows of every room a most beautiful prospect. The
whole landscape is a harmonious confusion of small valleys and
hills, rolling and falling within and around and beyond each
other, like folds of rich and majestic drapery. Oh, what lights
and shadows roam and rest over these hill-sides and in the
hollows between them! The country is very thickly wooded, and
the woods are literally of every colour in the rainbow, all
mixed together under a sky, the peculiar characteristic of which
is not so much softness or brightness, as a transparent purity
that seems as if there was _no_ atmosphere betwixt oneself and
the various objects one sees. I expect this would make it
difficult to paint these beautiful aspects of nature here; but,
oh, how I _do_ wish you could see it, for, in the matter of
American autumnal colouring, seeing alone is believing. The
house itself is very tolerably comfortable, but hideous to
behold both within and without; and I have begun my residence in
it under rather depressing circumstances, _i.e._ without _being
able_ to obtain the necessary servants for the decent comfort of
my daily existence. Ever since the beginning of May I have been
endeavouring, in vain, to procure and keep together a decent
household. Not for one _single week_ have I had my proper
complement of people in the house, and I have done every species
of house-work myself, from cleaning the cellar and kitchen to
washing the tea-cups; it is a state of things as incredible as
the colour of the autumn woods, and as peculiar, thank God, to
America. I am now making my last experiment by trying coloured
servants. Their manners and deportment are generally much better
than those of either the Irish or American, and they seem
capable of personal attachment to their employers, which neither
of the other races are. The incessant worry, discomfort, and
positive fatigue that I have undergone during the whole summer
has completely shaken my nerves, so that I have been in a sort
of hysterical condition of constant weeping for some time past.
I trust, however, it will not be so wretched now, for I am at
any rate close to the village inn, and if I am left without
servants, can go there and get some food; it is a state of
existence _qu'on ne s'imagine pas_. You will not wonder, after
all this, to hear that I declined a ticket to the Prince's ball
at New York, to which the whole population of the United States
are struggling to get admittance; but at the best of times "I am
not gamesome," and feel as if I had swept my own rooms quite too
recently to be fit company for my Queen's son. Thank you, dear
Mr. Leighton, for all you tell me about my sister and the
children; she never writes, you know, and so I am thirsty all
the time for some tidings of her. It is very sad to be so far
away and hear so seldom from those one loves. Good-bye, God
bless you; and thank you once more for the "Vision." I am sorry
I cannot tell you of the sale of either of your pictures; they
are in the Boston Athenaeum, very safe, and highly ornamental to
it, but not, I regret to say, sold. If you wish me to do
anything more about them, you must write me your directions,
which I will fulfil with every attention and accuracy of which I
am capable.

LENOX, _Sunday, November 11_.

I trust before long you will receive your children safe and
sound. I wish the two hundred pounds I have lost this year had
been invested in one of those pictures instead of in St. Louis.
Thank you for your account of Adelaide and her children; it is
not much, but it is all that much better than nothing. The state
of the country is very sad, and any probable termination of the
war quite out of calculable distance. England, no doubt, will
maintain her absolute neutrality in spite of secession, cotton,
and anti-slavery sympathies; it is her only part. Good-bye, dear
Mr. Leighton.

I beg you will not scruple to write me now if there is anything
more that I can do, either in the matter of the pictures or any
other by which I can be of use to you here.

NEW YORK,
_Sunday, March 10_.

I am sure you have not forgotten the charming farmhouse at West
Mion, to which you and your sketch-book were the means of
introducing us, ---- farm: well, his brother is one of the
richest shopkeepers in New York--and, upon the strength of my
visit to the paternal acres in Hampshire, his wife, a funny
little specimen of vivacious vulgarity, called upon me, and I,
of course, upon her. I was shown into a drawing-room at least
thirty feet long, with two massive white marble chimney-pieces,
green silk brocade curtains and furniture to match, magnificent
carpets, mirrors, gildings, hideous _works_ in marble on
scagliola pillars--in short, the most marvellous palace of
shopkeepers' _beaux ideaux_ that you can conceive; through this
to a beautifully fitted-up library; through this to a picture
gallery, noble _seigneur_, _pensez y bien_! Oh, my dear Frederic
Leighton, it was enough to make one fall down and foam at the
mouth, to see such a hideous collection of daubs and to think of
the money hanging on those walls; and then I thought of your
pictures, and why the wretched man couldn't have procured them
for some of his foolish money; and then I begged your pardon
internally for the desecration of imagining your pictures in
such company; and then I gazed amusedly about me, and at length
gave tongue: "Mr. ----," said I, "this is a vastly different
residence from the old homestead in Hampshire." The worthy man
could not see in my heart which way the balance of preference
inclined, and answered with benignant self-satisfaction: "Ah,
well, you see, ma'am, they've been going on there for the last I
don't know how many hundred years, just about in the same social
position; they haven't a notion of the rapidity of our progress
here." I hate to advise you to have your pictures back, for
there really does seem to me to be a _greedy desire for
pictures_ (I cannot qualify in any other way the taste which
covets and buys such things) here; but I suppose pictures, at
any rate, must be what these people want, and will not buy dear
and good ones, when cheap and nasty do as well. I think, while I
am here in New York, I shall take the liberty of making some
further inquiry as to whether the great print and picture seller
here does not think they could be seen to selling advantage in
his shop; in short, it throws me into a melancholy rage to think
what pictures are bought while yours are not. The state of this
country is curious--strange and deplorable beyond precedent in
history, it seems to me; and it is absolutely _impossible_ to
foresee to what issue things are tending. The opinions one hears
are all coloured by the particular bias of the speaker, and the
confusion is so great in the general excitement of sectional
partisanship that even one of the members--and a very
influential one--of the peace convention sent to Washington for
the purpose of proposing terms of conciliation--which should
not, however, compromise the Northern principles--said that
nothing had been done, that all was "sound and fury, and
signifying nothing"--or if anything at present, the confirmed
secession of the Southern, the disruption from the North of the
Northern slave States, and, not impossibly, civil war. Of
course, the more time elapses in palavering before the first
fatal blow is struck, the less probability there is of its being
struck at all; but, on the other hand, the longer the present
state of things continues, the more accustomed people become to
the idea of the dismemberment of the Union, and therefore,
though the clangour of an appeal to arms diminishes, so I think
does the prospect of anything like "making up" the family
quarrel--indeed, if it were patched, and soldered to the very
best, I do not believe that it will ever "hold water again"; but
it is impossible to foresee from day to day what may be the turn
of events.

If I live till a year from this summer I will be in England in
July, and if I live till the November after that I will be in
Rome, and you and Edward and Adelaide have my full permission to
come too.

Good-bye, dear Mr. Leighton. Your letters are a great comfort as
well as pleasure to me; I am extremely obliged to you for them.

I showed my daughter the photograph of your "Vision," and she
was enchanted with it. She has not a cultivated or educated
taste in matters of art--this country affords no means for such
a thing--but she is a person of very fine natural perceptions
and great imagination and sensibility, and she was so charmed
with it that I hope you will not think it foolish or impertinent
in me to tell you of it.

The last political news I have is that the border or Northern
slave States will probably not join the cotton states, in which
case the latter will, of hard necessity, very soon be compelled
to abandon their absurd and infinitely perilous position; but
one does not see the end of it all, for if they _do_ come back
into the Union, it will be under a burning sense of humiliation
which will hardly facilitate their future intercourse with the
North, for humiliation and humility are difficult things, and
the cotton Lucifer under coercion will not be a pleasant devil
to deal with.

LENOX, _Saturday, September 7_.

You owe me nothing, and you will owe me nothing, dear Mr.
Leighton, for expediting your pictures to England. When I wrote
to Mr. Ordway about them desiring him to send them back to you,
and to let me know the amount of any expenses he incurred in
doing so, his reply was that the mere cost of packing and
putting them on board ship would not be worth charging you with,
and that the possession of your pictures in his gallery was well
worth the small outlay of merely despatching them to you. I
hope they will reach you safely. I am sorry, _sorry_ they have
not remained here; but latterly, as you will easily believe,
people's minds have been little inclined to the peaceful arts or
any influences of beauty and grace; moreover, the pockets of the
wealthiest amateurs are affected, as those of their poorer
neighbours are, by the public disasters. My own loss this year
is two hundred pounds of my income. What it may be next year, or
how far my capital itself is safe, is more than anybody can
tell. We are to be taxed moreover beyond all precedent in this
country hitherto, and as it is already nearly the dearest place
in the world to live in, what with onerous imports and the
failure of interest from one's investments it will be simply
ruinous. Thank you for all you tell me of my sister and her
children. I am beginning to _see them again_, as the time when I
may really hope to do so draws nearer. I am sorry for what you
and all my friends tell me about Harry's strong dramatic
propensities. Of course, if he is fit for nothing else, or
fitter for that than anything else, he had better become an
actor, and his being so in England need not prevent his being a
worthy fellow and respectable and respected member of society. I
am, however, much reconciled to what at first disappointed me
extremely--my not being able to bring him out to this country;
for if he should eventually take to the stage, here that is
simply in most instances equivalent to taking to the gutter. My
daughters are both with me just now, and Fanny desires me to
remember her very kindly to you. The incidents of the war which
reach the other side of the water no doubt strike you as amazing
enough; but anything more grotesque than the daily details in
the midst of which we live, you cannot conceive. A young
gentleman, a friend of ours who has just returned from his share
in the campaign in a three months' volunteer regiment (he has
entered the regular army, as a very large proportion of the
volunteers did as soon as their three months' amateur service
expired), described to us a volunteer corps which happened to be
encamped in the neighbourhood of his company. He said they were
one of the finest bodies of men he ever saw. Lumberers, that is,
wood-fellers from the forests of Maine and New Hampshire,
perfectly brave and reckless and daring--perfectly undisciplined
too, to the tune of replying to their officers when ordered to
turn out on guard, "No, I'll be damned if I do," with the most
cheerful good humour. Thereupon the discomfited "superior"
simply turns to some one else and says, "Oh, well--you're so and
so--go." Good-bye; I shall rejoice to see you again, and be once
more at home among people who know how to behave
themselves.--Believe me, always yours most sincerely,

FANNY KEMBLE.

After the Prince Consort's death in 1861 Leighton wrote the following letter to his younger sister, who was in Italy: