After the cold, gray months of a Paris winter, and the misery and suffering of the war, the glowing warmth and beauty of the Holy City exhilarated and exalted him. “It was as if a door had been thrown wide open to the eternal beauty of the classical.” Here, living almost in poverty, he continued the work so well begun in Paris. Here, also, he began the statue of Hiawatha, “pondering, musing in the forest, on the welfare of his people”—the first of the long list of world-recognized masterpieces which the strenuous labor of his life produced. So poor, indeed, was Saint-Gaudens at this time, that it was only through the kindness of an American, who advanced him the money to cast the figure, that he was able to complete the work. For this same gentleman Saint-Gaudens modeled busts of his two daughters, and through him he also received a commission for copies of the busts of Demosthenes and Cicero. In Rome Saint-Gaudens also first made the acquaintance of Dr. Henry Shiff, a comrade whose friendship lasted throughout his life. Shiff was considerably the senior of Saint-Gaudens, but his deep appreciation of art and literature, and his frank, friendly nature endeared him to the young and struggling sculptor, and gave him the inspiration that is always found in the true appreciation of a loyal friend. In 1872 Saint-Gaudens returned to New York; but his stay was brief, for he was eager to return to Italy for a few years more before definitely establishing himself in the United States. While in New York, much work was accomplished, but little of it should be included in a list of his works, for in the main it consisted of jobs of one sort or another necessary to earn the money which his living required. Here, however, he began his bust of Senator William M. Evarts, one of the foremost orators in the United States, and, during the years 1877 to 1881, Secretary of State in the administration of President Hayes. Then, also, he received a number of other commissions for busts and, of particular importance, a commission for a figure of Silence to be placed in a Masonic building in New York. It was a sudden and bewildering amount of work for the young sculptor, and it brought vividly to him, after his struggling years of poverty in Europe, a realization of the appreciation and reward which the United States so freely offered.