The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning

The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition - Robert  Browning


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full by the historians of the Middle Ages.

      We have a valued friend here, Mrs. Bronson, who for years has been our hostess at Venice, and now is in possession of a house here (built into the old city wall) — she was induced to choose it through what I have said about the beauties of the place: and through her care and kindness we are comfortably lodged close by. We think of leaving in a week or so for Venice — guests of Pen and his wife; and after a short stay with them we shall return to London. Pen came to see us for a couple of days: I was hardly prepared for his surprise and admiration which quite equalled my own and that of my sister. All is happily well with them — their palazzo excites the wonder of everybody, so great is Pen’s cleverness, and extemporised architectural knowledge, as apparent in all he has done there; why, why will you not go and see him there? He and his wife are very hospitable and receive many visitors. Have I told you that there was a desecrated chapel which he has restored in honour of his mother — putting up there the inscription by Tommaseo now above Casa Guidi?

      Fannie is all you say, — and most dear and precious to us all… . Pen’s medal to which you refer, is awarded to him in spite of his written renunciation of any sort of wish to contend for a prize. He will now resume painting and sculpture — having been necessarily occupied with the superintendence of his workmen — a matter capitally managed, I am told. For the rest, both Sarianna and myself are very well; I have just sent off my new volume of verses for publication. The complete edition of the works of E. B. B. begins in a few days.

      By the first of November he was in Venice with his son and daughter; and during the three following weeks was apparently well, though a physician whom he met at a dinner party, and to whom he had half jokingly given his pulse to feel, had learned from it that his days were numbered. He wrote to Miss Keep on the 9th of the month:

      ‘… Mrs. Bronson has bought a house at Asolo, and beautified it indeed, — niched as it is in an old tower of the fortifications still partly surrounding the city (for a city it is), and eighteen towers, more or less ruinous, are still discoverable there: it is indeed a delightful place. Meantime, to go on, — we came here, and had a pleasant welcome from our hosts — who are truly magnificently lodged in this vast palazzo which my son has really shown himself fit to possess, so surprising are his restorations and improvements: the whole is all but complete, decorated, — that is, renewed admirably in all respects.

      ‘What strikes me as most noteworthy is the cheerfulness and comfort of the huge rooms.

      ‘The building is warmed throughout by a furnace and pipes.

      ‘Yesterday, on the Lido, the heat was hardly endurable: bright sunshine, blue sky, — snow-tipped Alps in the distance. No place, I think, ever suited my needs, bodily and intellectual, so well.

      ‘The first are satisfied — I am quite well, every breathing inconvenience gone: and as for the latter, I got through whatever had given me trouble in London… .’

      He did not yield to the sense of illness; he did not keep his bed. Some feverish energy must have supported him through this avoidance of every measure which might have afforded even temporary strength or relief. On Friday, the 29th, he wrote to a friend in London that he had waited thus long for the final answer from Asolo, but would wait no longer. He would start for England, if possible, on the Wednesday or Thursday of the following week. It was true ‘he had caught a cold; he felt sadly asthmatic, scarcely fit to travel; but he hoped for the best, and would write again soon.’ He wrote again the following day, declaring himself better. He had been punished, he said, for long-standing neglect of his ‘provoking liver’; but a simple medicine, which he had often taken before, had this time also relieved the oppression of his chest; his friend was not to be uneasy about him; ‘it was in his nature to get into scrapes of this kind, but he always managed, somehow or other, to extricate himself from them.’ He concluded with fresh details of his hopes and plans.


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