GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
and girls alike—literally worshipped him, and he deserved our 
appreciation, for nobody ever made greater efforts to inspire and 
stimulate. It is certain that he contrived to infuse into those 
with whom he came in contact, his own enthusiasm for work. 
Himself an early riser—in his studio I have understood before 
eight o’clock—when Visitor at the Schools he had insisted that 
the Painting-school should be opened, and the models posed, at 
nine, the usual hour being ten o’clock. And he would often come 
down, booted and spurred, to go round the classes, when on his 
way to the headquarters of the Artists’ corps, of which he was 
colonel. How little did its first commander guess that the now 
famous “‘ Artists” would one day share with the “ Inns of Court ”’ 
—‘ The Devil’s Own ”—the distinction of training most of the 
young officers in our new armies who, in the greatest war in history, 
have so valiantly fought and bled on the Continent, in the cause 
of their country, and the world’s freedom. But Leighton’s interests 
in the students did not cease when he passed out of the schools. 
In order to encourage the study of composition he set subjects 
—invariably classical or historical—and invited, from the Upper 
schools, all who would take the trouble to work them out to 
bring their designs on a certain day, to his own beautiful studio 
in Kensington. So far as I remember, though many went on the 
first occasion, the students dropped off by degrees—his proviso 
that he would not waste time. in criticizing rough sketches 
possibly not pleasing them—but I think it was in this way that 
I acquired the habit of seeking his advice in the designs for my 
early pictures—and of taking to him, for criticism, the scheme 
of the work I proposed to do. Composition, of course, cannot 
really be taught ; the sense of arrangement, relative value of parts, 
line, balance, and so forth, must be more or less intuitive; and no 
one who is entirely devoid of the instinct will ever be an artist ; 
but the natural sense being there, even in a small degree, it can be 
cultivated. That the great President was a past-master in the 
difficult art of grouping many figures, of arranging them naturally 
into a homogeneous whole—his noble decorative lunettes at 
South Kensington—“‘ The Arts of Peace” and ‘‘ The Arts of War,”’ 
far more than large ambitious canvases such as ‘‘ Daphnephoria ” 
—suffice to show. In these, every part is busy—not restless, not 
obtrusive—but if the application of a popular phrase much used 
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