CHAPTER XIV 
LEIGHTON HOUSE 
HIS book professes to tell all about gardens, gardens either 
famous for their beauty, or for their associations with the 
celebrated men and women who have walked in them. 
Let me here say at once that in this concluding chapter, I am 
not going to talk very much about the garden of Leighton House, 
but a great deal concerning him who directed its laying out, and 
owned it. 
And in giving my personal experience of one phase of Lord 
Leighton’s character, and in bearing testimony to his kindliness, 
his helpfulness, his interest in the rising generation of artists, and 
his self-sacrificing devotion to his high duties and to Art—TI shall 
be shedding some light on the secret of his vast influence in his 
lifetime. 
The ideal president of any society of eminent scientists, scholars, 
literary men, or artists, must be a many-sided man; in his own 
profession sufficiently distinguished to command the respect and 
confidence of his fellows, though not of necessity—as was the case 
with the august first President of the Royal Academy—incontest- 
ably the greatest among them. The ideal president must combine 
in his own person many and various qualities that meet but rarely 
in one individual. Were it not so, now that the glamour of Lord 
Leighton’s presence has been removed, and the singular charm of 
his winning personality is no more than a memory, there are 
many among the younger generation of artists and critics of to-day, 
who might wonder how it came about that, for the greater part 
of a quarter of a century, he influenced the destinies of art in this 
country, and was for seventeen years its official representative. 
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