| Description | Dear Signor
It is a shamefully long time since I received your very kind letter from Luxor - but I knew you won't be angry with me for you know what my life is & what a frightful amount of correspondence I have to deal with - singlehanded - which requires more or less immediate attention and will understand that a letter which one wishes to respond to more leisurely & less briefly finds itself passed by day after day in a very hopeless fashion. I have been obedient to your wish that I should not allude to your disappointment in the matter of bodily health & bettering but I read with grave concern what you say on that score & earnestly hope that your further stay, in the of course increasingly warm & soothing air, will have done for you what the first few winter months failed to achieve. On the other hand I rejoice sincerely at what you tell me of the great gain & delight which your inner life has found in the companionship of your wife; that you have indeed added greatly to the possibilities of your life as well as to its happiness - of which a great share will consist in ensuring that of another - I am glowingly confident & I need not say that this constitutes a great claim on my affectionate regard vis à vis of the Signora (who won't send me any greeting!).
Yes! Egypt is a marvellous country - not least marvellous in its absolute dissimilarity to the effigies of it generally put before us by our brethren of the craft - notably in the matter of colour - and of the crystal keenness of the lights and the reflected lights - which throw such a gloss over everything Egyptian. It is somewhere about a score of years since I went up the Nile but it is all very vividly before me. I don't know by what chance I have said little, as you tell me I have, about the Sphynx, for it certainly produced the deepest effect upon me & one which I shall never forget. I wrote about it in a scrappy diary I kept and I may add that the desire to paint or model - (or both) a Sphynx is one of the besetting inward intentions of my life. I have never yet felt quite equal to the task but I shall certainly attempt it someday. Of Val the best news is that he is more & more caught up in wife & child. As a father he has disarmed even Mrs Barrington. His devotion to the little fellow, my godson, is quite delightful to me. His work for the R.A. is what you know: the 'Echo' and the Abdullah girl with a copper pot (an excellent bit of tone) being his chief contribution. I think he has also a head of Miss Norman tho' I have not seen it yet at B[urlington] House. As regards the hanging all is yet in confusion & therefore of course confidential. There are great gaps. No Watts - no Ned Jones (he was not able to finish a picture he had begun for us). Poynter has nothing, Stone little or nothing Calderon nil Gilbert not much. Millais (in strictest confidence) a dreadfully theatrical & tasteless Huguenot subject. Nevertheless the Exhibition will be distinctly a good one. Hook is splendid. Holl very fine, Herkomer good. Orchardson admirable. Gregory capital. Henry Moore very fine. Tadema at his best. Then there are a good many capital works by young outsiders, amongst others a startling but in my opinion brilliantly talented picture by Sargent. Of course the Exhibition is in the main one of portraits & landscapes - that we shall have to accept for the immediate future I fear. I had a terrible scramble to get thro' my own work - the 'Hero & Leander' & the 'Simoetta', having taken an unconscionable time over my 'Jubilee' Medallion - of which I am exhibiting the design. It was a very interesting task, if arduous, & an important one. It is (the reverse of ) the Imperial Jubilee Medallion - not a local one for Adelaide. It will be seen & sold over the Empire. I have taken great pains & tho' there are certain blemishes which time would have allowed me to remedy - I was absolutely bound down in this respect - I think the result is fairly good. Boehm at least speaks of it in the highest terms.
Agnew has been taking huge pains about the Manchester Exhibition which will I fancy be very really interesting and an important display of 50 years of English Art. I was requested by him to select 3 or 4 of your works from S[outh] K[ensington] & took 'Love and Life', 'Love and Death', the large Christ and 'Hope'. These are in addition to others from Northampton.
And now my dear Signor you must be growing more than tired of my handwriting. I release you! Say all that is pretty from me to the Signora & believe me always
Yours affec'ly
Fred Leighton |