| Description | Draycott Lodge, Fulham
7 June 1893
Dear Leighton
I felt impelled to bear my spontaneous witness to the remarkable excellence of The Daphnephoria, because I know that I could trust the impression it made on me, and because the parasites of our profession in the present day are more ignorant and prejudiced than they ever were, and the public are more disposed to be like wax in their hands. I had met with an example of this at a dinner the evening before, but he was not unamenable to reason, and I rejoiced to find that in the end he paused in his sheep-following propensity and this caused the ambition to seize me to extend the service of appeal by shewing in public that not only artists working on your lines, but others following quite a distinct course saw the work to be a truly great one.
I can believe that you may light upon some points of the painting that you might like to have different, but the artist himself never examines his own work as he looks upon the old masters as beyond the question of recall. A short while ago in the National Gallery with a friend - an artist having been round admiring many of the glorious works there, we said 'Now let us return on our path critically - regarding as we go the paintings as we should were we visiting on perfectly frank terms the artist of each before they left the easel', and there was some profit in doing so, but after all the common sense of the world refuses to judge work by the number of imaginary oversights it may have, the true seeer [sic] puts aside the carping nature and stands free to see the workman's genius: if it has this we rejoice, and are grateful, and on investigating points critically by way of training ourselves by his experience, we do not enjoy the whole the less.
I have sometimes found myself described as narrow. I should not readily admit this charge in any sense, but certainly it my own courses made me unable to see the merit of such triumphant grappling with huge difficulties such as you faced the The Daphnephoria, and I was blind to the happy and grateful victory achieved. I should deserve the worst that my enemies could say of me on that score.
I was sorry The Times left out the word 'classical' in my first letter, because loose speech looks unconsidered, and loses what power it might otherwise have but today the editor kindly published my correcting letter.
I trust that the dealer bought the picture for some public Institution.
Yours ever truly
W Holman Hunt
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