Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, Vol. 2 of 2
How many out of the multitude really, if we could test them, care one jot for the Elgin Marbles, for the Demeter of Knidos, for the vault of the Sistine Chapel -very few. Really great things never can be accepted by the commonplace. How Should they be? For to understand the highest in music, in architecture, sculpture, or painting, the Observer or listener must have a spark in his con stitution which is a portion of the ?ame that burned white heat in the soul of the conceiver. How can such an attitude Of Intimate sym pathy belong to the many? It never has, and probably never w111. Great men are rare, and those who are mentally or organically made to comprehend them are rare also. The great can afford to wait because they are immortal. In all one's dealings with Leighton what did one find a noble nature, restrained, Charitable, in earnest and if in many discussions as to the desirability of certain events, certain compromises, certain acts of conformity, one did not agree with Leighton, one knew au fond that the attitude was quite logical, not hastily arrived at, and the position taken up was to be strenuously held: and it was that power of consistency which made Leighton so trustworthy. He was fearless when his principles were touched, he was loyal to his associates in the Academy even if he did not see eye to eye with them, and he was loyal to his art and to his friends. If Leighton had chosen politics for his career he would probably have been Prime Minister, just as burne-jones might have been Archbishop of Canterbury had he continued his early and very remarkable theological studies. All really great men have endless possibilities. It is more or less chance which decides the direction of ability, which, once discovered, forcibly, dominantly present.
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