iliar evenings. There were lingering hours in the
gardens of the Villa Medici into whose shades one strolled by that
beguiling path along the parapet on Monte Pincio, through the beautiful
grove with its walks and fountains. The old ilex bosquet, with its
tangled growth and air of complete seclusion, had its spell of
fascination. Then, as now, the elevated temple, at the end of the main
path, seemed the haunt of gods and muses. In all the incidental, as well
as the ceremonial social meeting and mingling, art and religion were the
general themes of discussion. This idyllic life--

"Comprehending, too, the soul's
And all the high necessities of art"--

has left its impress on the air as well as its record on many a page of
the poet and the romancist. The names that made memorable those
wonderful days touch chords of association that still vibrate in the
life of the hour. For the most part the artists and their associates
have gone their way--not into a Silent Land, a land of shadows and
vague, wandering ghosts--but into that realm wherein is the "life more
abundant," of more intense energy and of nobler achievement; the realm
in which every aspiration of earth enlarges its conception and every
inspiration is exalted and endowed with new purpose; the realm where, as
Browning says,--

"Power comes in full play."

The poet's vision recognizes the truth:--

"I know there shall dawn a day,
--Is it here on homely earth?
Is it yonder, worlds away,
Where the strange and new have birth,
That Power comes in full play?"

The names of sculptor, painter, and poet throng back, imaged in that
retrospective mirror which reflects a vista of the past, rich in ideal
creation. Beautiful forms emerge from the marble; pictorial scenes glow
from the canvas; song and story and happy, historic days are in the
very air. To Italy, land of romance and song, all the artists came
trooping, and

"Under many a yellow Star"

they dropped into the Magic Land. If the wraiths of the centuries long
since dead walked the streets, they were quite welcome to revisit the
glimpses of the moon and contribute their mystery to the general
artistic effectiveness of the Seven-hilled City. All this group of
American idealists, from Allston and Page to Crawford, Story, Randolph
Rogers, Vedder, Simmons, and to the latest comer of all, Charles Walter
Stetson, recognized something of the artist's native air in this Mecca