whose wall decorations consist in panels painted for the artist by his friends, to the low-lying dining-room, looking upon the garden and shaded by the great tree which it is Tadema's delight to watch in its leaf unfolding, its full summer verdure and its winter gauntness, all is beautiful, all is sympathetic, and all is the result of an ardent appreciation of the artistic possibilities of the most humble objects of domestic life. Through all the rooms are scattered portraits of its beautiful women inmates, here a statue of Lady Alma Tadema, there a window into whose delicately coloured panes are fashioned the likenesses of the quaint little girls who have now grown to women, outside under the window of these same daughters' room is a beautiful bit of sculptured frieze bearing the interwoven tulips of Holland, lilies of France, and English roses. The most frequent guest finds continual surprises in this house whose every accessory is as carefully conceived as one of the details of its master's pictures. Holland, Greece, London and Rome have all contributed their quota to render this house _sui generis_, and once we have passed the postern gate that leads from Grove End Road into the garden we instinctively feel ourselves incorporated into another world, another clime, and London and its squalor, its fogs and cold, are forgotten for a time. It is in this congenial _milieu_ that the artist works, a _milieu_ helpful and suggestive to the special character of his art. His life since his removal to England has been uneventful. The saying, "Happy those who have no history" might be applied to Tadema. Hard work, persistent study, unremitting efforts after ever greater perfection of style and treatment, sum up Alma Tadema's artistic existence. [Illustration: A READING FROM HOMER.] He is essentially a sociable man, a lover of his kind. His work is only interrupted by visits from friends, by weekly afternoon and evening receptions, so charming that the entrée is greatly coveted, by the claims upon his time as Professor at the Royal Academy and member of the Council; demands all of which he fulfils with his characteristic strenuousness and high sense of duty. In 1876 he became an Associate Member of the Royal Academy, and in 1879 a Royal Academician. In 1899 he received the well-merited honour of knighthood at the hands of Queen Victoria.