d air--is,
doubtless, that they there find themselves in force, and are numerous
enough to create a congenial atmosphere. In every other clime they are
isolated strangers; in this land of art, they are free citizens.

Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to be any large
stock of mutual affection among the brethren of the chisel and the
pencil. On the contrary, it will impress the shrewd observer that the
jealousies and petty animosities, which the poets of our day have flung
aside, still irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class of
imaginative men. It is not difficult to suggest reasons why this should
be the fact. The public, in whose good graces lie the sculptor's or the
painter's prospects of success, is infinitely smaller than the public to
which literary men make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited
body of wealthy patrons; and these, as the artist well knows, are but
blind judges in matters that require the utmost delicacy of perception.
Thus, success in art is apt to become partly an affair of intrigue; and
it is almost inevitable that even a gifted artist should look askance at
his gifted brother's fame, and be chary of the good word that might help
him to sell still another statue or picture. You seldom hear a painter
heap generous praise on anything in his special line of art; a sculptor
never has a favorable eye for any marble but his own.

Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges, artists are
conscious of a social warmth from each other's presence and contiguity.
They shiver at the remembrance of their lonely studios in the
unsympathizing cities of their native land. For the sake of such
brotherhood as they can find, more than for any good that they get from
galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, while their originality
dies out of them, or is polished away as a barbarism.

The company this evening included several men and women whom the world
has heard of, and many others, beyond all question, whom it ought to
know. It would be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages,
name by name, and had we confidence enough in our own taste--to crown
each well-deserving brow according to its deserts. The opportunity
is tempting, but not easily manageable, and far too perilous, both in
respect to those individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far
greater number that must needs be left in the shade. Ink, moreover, is
apt to have a corro