met the distinguished foreigner, the latest successful novelist or young poet, and the wittiest and the most beautiful women. As if in humorous mockery of the difficulties attendant upon literary success and recognition, the dining-room in its size and seating capacity might not inaptly be likened to that Oriental figure of speech by which the rich found heaven so impossible of access. The smallness of the room only served, however, like certain chemical apparatus, to condense and liberate the brilliant conversational gases. If the poet were in his most gracious mood, the more favored guests, after dinner, might be allowed a glimpse of the library. Books were scattered so profusely over the house, that each room might easily have been mistaken for one. But in a large square room at the top of the house is the library proper--workshop and study together. This building his poet’s nest under the eaves of his own cornice is the one evidence of the recluse in Stedman’s character. When he is about to pluck his own plumage that his fledglings may be covered, he turns his back on the world. All the paraphernalia of his toil are about him. The evidences of the range and the extent of his reading and scholarship are to be found in taking down some of the volumes on the shelves. Here are the Greek classics, in the original, with loose sheets among the pages, where are translations of Theocritus or Bion, done into finished English verse. Mr. Stedman’s proficiency in Doric Greek is matched by his familiarity with the modern French classics, whose lightness of touch and airy grace he has caught in “Aucassin and Nicolette,” “Toujours Amour,” and “Jean Prouvaire’s Song.” With a delicate sense of fitness, the dainty verse of Coppée, Béranger, Théodore de Banville, the sonnets of Victor Hugo, and, indeed, his whole collection of the French poets, is bound in exquisite vellum or morocco. Among these volumes the poet’s own works appear in several rare and beautiful editions. There are the “Songs and Ballads,” issued by the Bookfellows Club, the essay on Edgar Allan Poe in vellum (the first so bound in America), and other beautifully illustrated and printed copies of his poems. The shelves and tables are laden with a wealth of literary treasure. But there is one volume one holds with a truly reverent delight. It is Mrs. Browning’s own copy of “Casa Guidi Windows,” with interlineations and corrections. It was the gift of the poetess to Mrs. Kinney, Stedman’s mother, who was among Mrs. Browning’s intimate friends. “How John Brown took Harper’s Ferry,” it is pleasant to learn, was an especial favorite with the great songstress.