of the
Atlantic. When I was with Vedder, Broadway always seemed nearer than the
_Corso_.

He had recently finished the illustrations for the _Rubaiyat_ and the
book was published while we were in Rome. It was never long out of his
talk. He would tell us the history of every design and of every model or
pot in it. He exulted in the stroke of genius by which he had invented a
composition or a pose. I have heard him describe again and again how he
drew the flight of a spirit from a model, outstretched and flopping up
and down on a feather bed laid upon the studio floor, until she almost
fainted from fatigue, while he worked from a hammock slung just above. I
recall his delight when a friend of Fitzgerald's sent him Fitzgerald's
photograph with many compliments, asking for his in return. And he
rejoiced in the story of Dr. Chamberlain filling a difficult tooth for
the Queen and all the while singing the praises of the _Rubaiyat_ until
she ordered a copy of the _edition de luxe_. In looking back, I always
seem to see Mrs. Vedder pasting notices into a scrap book, and to hear
Vedder declaiming Omar's quatrains and describing his own drawings.
There was one evening when he came to a dead stop in his walk and his
talk, and shaking a dramatic finger at us all, said:

"I tell you what it is. I am not Vedder. I am Omar Khayyam!"

"No," drawled the voice of a disgusted artist who had not got a word in
for more than an hour, "No, you're not. You're the Great I Am!"

Vedder laughed with the rest of us, but I am not sure he liked it. He
could and did enjoy a joke, even if at his expense. I remember his
delight one night in telling the story of an old lady who had visited
his studio during the day and who sat so long in front of one of his
pictures he thought it was having its effect, but whose only comment at
the end of several minutes was: "That's a pretty frame you have there!"
He was sensitive to criticism, however, though he carried it off with a
laugh. Clarence Cook was one of the critics of his Omar who offended
him.

"It's funny," Vedder said, "all my life I've hurt Clarence's feelings.
He always has been sure I have done my work for no other reason than to
irritate him, and now that's the way he feels about the Omar."

The laugh was not so ready when Andrew Lang--I think it was Lang--wrote
that Vedder's Omar Khayyam was not of Persia, but of Skaneateles. And
after I suggested that it was really of Rome, and some mistaken