Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/126



OT a sound reaches me here, save the singing of the birds," said Sir Frederick Leighton, as we stood for a moment in the garden of his beautiful house in the Holland Parkroad, Kensington. It seemed to be a little world of its own. There was nothing whatever to disturb one's thoughts on this day of sunshine, when the flowers about the lawn were looking their brightest and best, the great trees and tiny trailing ivy greener to-day than ever before. We knew the children were playing in the street, a few yards away, but their merry shouts and happy laughter could not be heard. The surroundings of the home of the President of the Royal Academy almost suggested the secret of the peaceful effect which seems to come over one when looking at many of his pictures.