The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton Volume II Part 34

But one word of parting advice I crave to offer, which my admiration of your rule and guidance in your high office constrains me to make.

Many of us have remarked that you draw upon your strength too severely; my parting words then are, and please accept, follow, and forgive them:--

Spare yourself when you can, that you may long be spared to give yourself, when you ought.

And now farewell, from your loyal and affectionate old friend,

GEO. RICHMOND.

From San Martino, 20th September 1889, Leighton wrote to his father:--

SAN MARTINO, _September 20 (1889)_.

DEAR DAD,--I received your letter two or three days ago, but have deferred answering till I could say something one way or another about my health, for of course I have nothing else to tell of in these high lat.i.tudes. Well, I am in fairly good trim, and as well as I am likely to be till I leave, for San Martino will be shorn of my presence on Friday next as ever is (my address for the first fortnight in October will be Hotel Brufani, _Perugia_). On the other hand, if you were to ask me whether I am "as fit as a fiddle" or a "flea," or "as a strong man requiring to run a race," or "a giant refreshed," or "a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber," or whatever simile you like, I am obliged to own that I am not. I am aware that the air is superb, and when I get on to an exposed slope and open my mouth like a carp I am further aware at (and for) the time--so to speak, "for this once only"--of very gratifying symptoms; then they are fugitive, and my _average_ condition is perhaps a little less satisfactory than on Hampstead Heath. On the other hand, of course, such air _must_ in some occult way be benefiting my tissues, and I shall no doubt, as the stock phrase is, "feel _so_ much better _afterwards_." Meanwhile, I undergo much humiliation; whilst _ladies_ make with comfort and ease delightful ascents to neighbouring peaks, I humbly pant up an anthill or two, resting at every third yard--puffy, helpless, effete. And lest I should console myself with inexpensive commonplace about my years, &c. &c., I have before me two acquaintances, _not_ climbers by trade, one 65 and the other (most charming of men, Sir James Paget) 73, who put in their twelve, sixteen, or even at a pinch eighteen or twenty miles to my one, and back again without turning a hair or having a vestige of fatigue! Ugh!!

I am most truly sorry that your strength did not enable you to see Manchester; but it is _wonderful_ that you do what you do on the doorstep of 89!--Your affectionate son,

FRED.

From Tours, October 30, he wrote to Mrs. Matthews:--

TOURS, _October 30, 1890_.

I hope, when I get back next week, that I shall find the old dad fairly well. More can't be expected; and especially I hope to find Lina drawing within sight of the end of her anxious toil.[83] I am delighted to hear that she means to leave town again for a bit--a _good_ bit, I hope. Tell her with my love that she is to make herself _very_ comfortable, and _not to look at the money_, but _send for a cheque whenever convenient_. She _must_, in justice to herself, do her work under the most favourable circ.u.mstances she can command.

I have, of course, no particular news; I have been visiting _till now_. (I am going to-morrow to Blois and Chambord.) Nothing but old familiar scenes with the old familiar enjoyment, in the more serious sense of the word, but not of course with the old buoyancy of spirit--_that_ must necessarily fade with every year now, and I must be content with an occasional little flicker of the waning candle. I have, however, been better in health during the second than during the first half of my holiday. In Rome I was the whole time with old Nino,[84] whom I further took on a _Giro_ to Siena and Florence. I also gave him a commission: very few things could give him so much pleasure (_inside_--he is not demonstrative!), and _nothing_ is now so needful to him. His lameness is not as bad as I had feared; but he had a bad attack of his enemy, rheumatism, at Florence, and had to bolt back to his people. Of course, too, his anxiety about Georgina, my G.o.d-daughter, who has only just pulled through a terrible illness, has put a heavy strain on him in every way.

Weather has broken up; of late _bitter_ cold, to-day cold _plus_ rain, worthy of London.

On January 24, 1892, Doctor Leighton died at the age of ninety-two, at 11 Kensington Park Gardens, where for many years, every Sunday when in London, Leighton invariably went to see his father and his two sisters at five o'clock, remaining to the last minute before dinner. This regular habit he continued after Doctor Leighton's death; Mrs.

Sutherland Orr living on in the same house and Mrs. Matthews in the close vicinity. In the autumn of 1893 Leighton was advised to go to the Hotel Riffel Alp, Zermatt. "What a stupendous view this is from my window," he wrote. "Weather in the main superb; it is finest for this scenery when it is not fine. Knee still rather troublesome--nuisance!

Am seeing a doctor." In the October of the same year he wrote to Mrs.

Matthews:--

VERONA (Italy again!), _October 2, 1893_.

DEAR GUSSY,--I hope you are not very savage with me for not writing sooner. I've had a tremendous "Hetztour" through Germany--_thirty_ towns in thirty days; a Yankee might be proud of it; and over an area contained between _Lubeck_ (N.), if you please, and Berne (S.), Vienna (E.), and Colmar (W.), and I have made notes everywhere, _and_ I have a game knee, with the result (not so much of the game knee as of the hurried travelling) that I have had little time for writing anything beyond notes of immediate necessity. But you _will_ be savage at hearing that I never received your Munich letter (alluded to in Lina's last), either at the hotel or "Postlagernd"--can you remember at what _date_ you wrote it? I would _try_ to recover it--I hate losing letters, don't you? Thank Lina for her letter, and say that I am concerned at the very poor and shabby account given of her. She was going to send for the doctor; I hope he was able to help her (though I don't know on what plea one expects that of a doctor).

By this time you may have recovered from your cure. What a rickety lot we are! At Perugia, where I shall be on Wednesday, I am going under physic for my knee, which, though hardly more than an inconvenience, is a very depressing prospect. I have written to Roberts, who has sent me prescriptions which I shall have made up (to-morrow) by his namesake in Florence. My journey has been, I am bound to say, in a high degree interesting and sometimes delightful. (I wonder whether you were ever at Hildesheim--its amazing picturesqueness, Renaissance houses, carved and painted, are enough to make your hair curl for the rest of your natural life.) But I have not bought a single German novel, after all the trouble you took twice over, except _Soll und Haben_, which I have just begun; how amazingly _altmodisch_ and stodgy it is, but evidently very clever. I have grown very indolent about reading in trains. Wednesday I reach Perugia--Thursday I shall take a holiday--Friday I shall--but enough! In Berlin I saw dear old Joe (Dr. Joachim)--(the only person I did see, except Malet, the Amba.s.sador, a very old friend of mine--very snug and _good_ little bachelor dinner there--"just as you are"). He (Joe) seemed very fit after "les eaux" somewhere, and sent you kind messages. He was pleased at my calling, and came next day to see me off at the station.

In August 1894 he took his sister, Mrs. Matthews, to Bayreuth. On his rapidly returning to London he completed the panel he presented to the Royal Exchange. He worked hard at this for three weeks. He then went to Scotland, and finished his holiday, as usual, in Italy. On his return, after attending the first Monday Popular concert at St. James'

Hall, when walking to the Athenaeum he was seized by his first attack of angina pectoris. Dr. Roberts, to whom Leighton was attached, and in whose judgment and skill he had had great confidence for years, writes, "I attended Lord Leighton for over twenty years. I was constantly seeing and watching him. He never was a robust man; but all his organs kept in health till two years before his death, when I discovered the commencement of the trouble that ultimately proved fatal. I never told him of this condition, as I felt its progress would be slow.... He once told me he considered my fees to him were too small, and asked me to increase them." Some years previous to this first attack Leighton would say, "I always see Dr. Roberts every Sunday for him to tell me I am not ill." In November 1894 Sir Lauder Brunton was called in for consultation, and he and Dr. Roberts prescribed a course of Swedish ma.s.sage; and to this Leighton devoted the later hours of his afternoons for several months that winter. Work continued as vigorously as ever. The pictures--"Lachrymae," "'Twixt Hope and Fear," "Flaming June," "Listener," "Clytie," "Candida," "The Vestal," "A Bacchante," "The Fair Persian," were the fruit of the last year's labours, besides the sketches which he painted on his last journeys to Algiers, Ireland, and Italy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SUMMER SLUMBER." 1894 By permission of Mr. Phillipson]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH FOR "SUMMER SLUMBER." 1894 Presented by H.M. the King to the Leighton House Collection]

Very characteristic was the manner in which Leighton faced his condition. Absolutely natural as he invariably was, without nervousness, and considerate to the last degree in not making his state a burden on others, he never, even at this juncture, concentrated his thoughts on himself. Once when a friend implored him to draw in and not expend his strength unnecessarily, he answered, with almost impatience, "But that would not be life to me! I must go on, thinking about it as little as possible." There was something of the boy about Leighton up to the very end, and in those last months much of the pathos of the boy who is known to be doomed, but who plays his game with just as much eager verve up to the end.

Mr. Briton Riviere, the comrade whose nature was so worthily tuned to Leighton, writes:--

One of the last times that I met him actively employed was at a committee meeting of the Athenaeum. He had some pain and difficulty in climbing the stairs to the committee-room, and evident pain in speaking; but because he felt that the candidate he proposed ought to be elected, and that no one else would propose him with more earnest conviction than he could (and he was the best proposer of a candidate I have ever heard), he came there at all risks to himself and _would_ have done so against all opposition and all disadvantages, simply because he thought it his particular duty to do so. This is only a type of the manner in which he treated all his official work during those last years of physical suffering which he fought so bravely.

Watching him, it was then I recognised that he was on the same plane as the seaman who never strikes his flag, and at the last goes down practically unvanquished.

Every day that grey pallor increased, and that sunken, indescribable look of waning life in the face. Nevertheless Leighton lived much as before, never making illness an excuse for avoiding any duty. As matters grew more serious his doctors enforced a rest--a voyage--an absence from the May Academy Banquet. At this juncture Leighton tendered his resignation as President of the Academy. It was not accepted.

To Mr. Briton Riviere he wrote:--

DEAR RIVIeRE,--Many thanks for your most kind words. I have been deeply touched by the generous, and, I must almost say, affectionate att.i.tude of my brother members in this painful conjuncture. How much I value _your_ friendship, you, I am sure, know.--Sincerely yours always,

FRED LEIGHTON.

He decided on leaving England for two months, and fixed on Algiers as a dry climate likely to suit his health. It had lived in his memory also ever since the first visit in 1857, as a country singularly fascinating to him. Before leaving he fulfilled his duties as President in choosing the pictures for that year's Exhibition. These duties he had often described as the most wearing of the whole year.

His intense sense of duty, and desire to judge in every case the interests of the individual artist together with those of art, fairly and adequately, inflicted a strain and entailed an indescribable fatigue, he said, even when he was well. During those days in 1895 he suffered acutely.

From Hotel Continental, Tangiers, 18th April 1895, Leighton wrote:--

DEAR WELLS,--Although letters do not leave these wilds daily and take an unconscionable time, as I now find, on the way, I trust this will reach you in time for the first varnishing day, on which I believe you hold the general meeting; it carries with it warm and grateful--and _envious_ greetings to you all. These you will, I know, deliver to my brother members at lunch, for then only is the _whole_ body gathered together. They, knowing me, will understand my humiliation at not being under arms and at my post at this season. I wish I could ask you to tell them that I see much sign of betterment in my condition: the slowness of my cure--if cure it be--is, of course, depressing; but I shall comfort myself on Thursday with the thought that perhaps, at some time between one and two, you are wishing well to one who claims to be a faithful friend to you all. I look forward keenly to what will, I feel sure, be the admirable performance of our dear old Millais. Unfortunately, I have not the remotest notion of where I shall be when the news might reach me--in Africa or in Europe--but reach me it will in time. You perhaps think of me as basking in the sun between blue skies and blue seas. How different are the facts! Bl.u.s.tering winds, occasionally rain, chilly atmosphere, everything murky and without colour! A change _should_ not be far off, for this sort of thing has prevailed for a month and more. I did not bargain for it.

I hope, my dear Wells--and indeed I do not doubt--that you are getting on well and comfortably with your vice-regency, and am always yours sincerely,

FRED LEIGHTON.

TANGIERS, _April 25, 1895_.

DEAR LINA,--The day before yesterday I received your nice long letter--you had not yet got mine from Gib.--and yesterday one came from poor Gussy, and I am going, as you will both believe when this reaches you, to kill two birds with one epistolary stone. First, let me say that I am grieved--I dare hardly say, _surprised_, for it is, alas! a wicked way you both have--to hear that neither of you has derived any benefit, to speak of, by your outing, and you indeed, poor dear, appear to be a little worse. The fact is that at our ages, _con rispetto_, when one happens to have pretty homes, one _does_ miss them under the discomforts and shortcomings of lodgings or inns. As for me, though I am fairly comfortable here, I have whiffs of a certain "House Beautiful" in Kensington which are very tantalising. How am I? Well, I think I may at last claim a _little_ improvement, of course I give myself every chance, and am superlatively, disgracefully lazy, _and put myself to no tests_; but I notice this, that though I have my regulation three attacks (when not more) a day, they are milder, I think, and I _know_ that I can get rid of them almost immediately by certain respiratory exercises my Swede taught me. This I a.s.sume is again _no more capsules_, we shall see.

Yes, I do perfectly remember the old home in St. Katherine's at Bath, and should hugely like to see it. I hope when the old inhabitant goes off, it will fall into reverent hands.

No, I have not yet tackled Nordau. I am looking forward to him much, but have so far, except some Pater (Greek studies), mostly fribbled; two or three Spanish novels; a few short tales by Hardy, clever, but his figures are talking dolls, taught out of a book; _L'Innocente_, dull, but not so _coa.r.s.e_ as I had understood. "Tales of Mean Streets"--now there, if you like, is powerful stuff. For pithy terseness and absolute sobriety of means, for subtle and humorous observation and scathing directness, they are unrivalled; but oh! what a picture! what a state of things, and who shall ever let the light into the tenebrous and foul depths? But how funny too, and grim; the old woman who pockets the ten shillings given for port, in order that she may have mutes at the funeral! Have also read "Keynotes." Clever, one or two even powerful, but other than I expected. Who is the woman? half Norse? half Irish? The writing is bad; intentionally, apparently; a cross between an interviewer and Ibsen for sc.r.a.ppy abruptness. _Her_ keynote is belief in the _immeasurable_ (but not explained) superiority of women, whom no man can _understand_; well, certainly, _I_ don't know _wo sie hinaus will_.

I have had more kind notes, this is a kind world _tout de meme_.

When stodgy, elderly Englishmen talk to me of the number of people who _love_ me, I feel quite a lump in my throat. Of another kind, but pretty, is the enclosed from W. Watson, the poet, whom I admire, you know; nice also the telegram. I wrote a _menschlich_ letter when her husband died (_I_ have known them nearly forty years), and again a pretty letter t'other day about the wedding.

But I _must_ finish this scribble. I shall be gone when you get this, write _Algiers_ (poste restante), I shall get it _some_ time or other, but am still vague.

Love to poor Gussy.--Afft. bro.,

FRED.

Leighton enclosed the following from William Watson, and the telegram from the Comtesse de Paris:--

66 CHERITON ROAD, FOLKESTONE, _April 18, 1895_.

DEAR SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON,--May I venture to say, somewhat superfluously, what a delight it was to be made free of your Palace of Art on a recent Sunday, and how highly I valued the privilege. Mr. Wilfrid Meynell had already made me happy by reporting the generous things you had said about my verses. I wish the great pleasure thus given me were not alloyed by the news of your temporarily impaired health. But in common with the rest of the world I hope those sunnier regions to which you perhaps feel more spiritually akin than to our own may quickly renew your full energies.

Pray forgive anything which may be intrusive or otherwise unwarrantable in this letter, and believe me, dear Sir Frederick, with very grateful sense of your kindness, and pride in your good opinion, yours sincerely,