od fight, and have vanquished the
demon that tempts us within;
Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the
world holds on high;
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight,--if
need be, to die.'"

Such a poem must have its own immortality in lyric literature.

For a period of forty years the home of the Storys in Palazzo Barberini
was a noted centre of the most charming social life. Mr. Story's
literary work--in his contributions of essays and poems to the _Atlantic
Monthly_; in his published works, the "Roba di Roma," "Conversations in
a Studio," his collected "Poems," and others--gave him a not transitory
rank in literature which rivals, if it does not exceed, his rank in
art.

Meantime other artists were to take up their permanent abode in the
Seven-hilled City,--Elihu Vedder in 1866; Franklin Simmons two years
later; Waldo and Julian Story, the two sons of William Wetmore Story,
though claiming Rome as their home, are American by parentage and
ancestry; and Mr. Waldo Story succeeds his father in pursuing the art of
sculpture in the beautiful studios in the Via San Martino built by the
elder Story. In 1902 Charles Walter Stetson, with his gifted wife, known
to the contemporary literary world by her maiden name, Grace Ellery
Channing, set up their household gods and lighted their altar fires in
the city by the Tiber, ready, it may be, to exclaim with Ovid:--

"Four times happy is he, and times without number is happy,
Who the city of Rome uninterdicted enjoys."

[Illustration: "THE DANCE OF THE PLEIADES"
Elihu Vedder
_Page 92_]

If art is a corner of the universe seen through a temperament, the
temperament of Mr. Vedder must offer an enthralling study, for it seems
to be a lens whose power of refraction defies prophecy because it deals
with the incalculable forces. His art concerns itself little with the
aesthetic, but is chiefly the art of the intellect and the imagination.
All manner of symbols and analogies; the laws of the universe that
prevail beyond the stars; the celestial figures; the undreamed
significance in prophecy or in destiny; omens, signs, and wonders; the
world forces, advancing stealthily in the shadows of a dusky twilight;
the Fates, under brilliant skies, gathering in the stars; oracles and
supernatural coincidences that lurk in undreamed-of days; the Pleiades
dancing in a light tha