Leighton did not marry. With his good looks, which had something that belonged to an archaic type, his varied talents and the success which always appeals to women, he might have been irresistible, yet no one ever saw him pay more attention to any woman, however beautiful, than was justified by the most chivalrous courtesy. He was in love, but it was with his Art—she was his mistress and to her he was faithful to the end. In these days when rough sketches and mere hints are extolled as works of genius it is the fashion to decry Leighton’s work. The new men shirk all that makes the painting of a picture difficult. Leighton boldly faced all the great obstacles that stand in the way of the man who would fain be the exponent of the highest art. Sometimes—indeed, often—he failed. His flesh tints were apt to be waxy and his drawing in parts weak, though no man ever painted flowing drapery more beautifully. Still, there are paintings of his which will live. To name only two, the Daphnephoria seems to me to be a most nobly imagined picture, full of dignity, movement and life, and the portrait of Richard Burton in the National Portrait Gallery is not only a speaking likeness but a masculine and vigorous work. Those are not the only ones. But whatever he did showed distinction and grace and a loftiness of aim of which he never lost sight. When Leighton was elected to the Dilettante Club, of which I was then a member, he whimsically enrolled himself as their sculptor, “with permission occasionally to relapse into painting.” This was a playful allusion to the fine piece of classical sculpture which he had produced in 1877—the “Athlete wrestling with a Python” in the Tate Gallery—of the first sketch of which he gave me a replica. A constant guest at Leighton’s parties was Robert Browning who, unlike not a few poets—Swinburne and Tennyson to wit, who had not the gift of tune—was a fanatic lover of music and never failed to seek it where it was at its best. So it happened that we often met him, and once he honoured us by dining with us. He was very pleasant and agreeable, handsome in a rather leonine way, but his conversation lost some of its charm owing to his rasping, grating voice. I once heard him read one of his poems, “The Ride to Ghent,” at the house of Lady Stanley of Alderley. There were only about a dozen people present; it was not a pleasing performance; the effect of the poetry was marred by that hoarse croak, like that of Edgar Allan Poe’s raven, and though he read with intense emotion he failed to touch. Had he possessed the attraction of a musical speaking voice he would have been irresistible.