no less than the lack of knowledge, forbade in him any forecast
of the possibilities of the life to come. He believed that if granted,

it would be an advance on the present -- an accession of knowledge
if not an increase of happiness. He was satisfied that whatever it gave,

and whatever it withheld, it would be good. In his normal condition
this sufficed to him.

`La Saisiaz' appeared in the early summer of 1878, and with it
`The Two Poets of Croisic', which had been written immediately after it.

The various incidents of this poem are strictlyhistorical; they lead the way
to a characteristicutterance of Mr. Browning's philosophy of life

to which I shall recur later.
In 1872 Mr. Browning had published a first series of selections

from his works; it was to be followed by a second in 1880.
In a preface to the earlier volume, he indicates the plan

which he has followed in the choice and arrangement of poems;
and some such intention runs also through the second; since he declined

a suggestion made to him for the introduction or placing of a special poem,
on the ground of its not conforming to the end he had in view.

It is difficult, in the one case as in the other, to reconstruct
the imagined personality to which his preface refers; and his words

on the later occasion pointed rather to that idea of a chord of feeling
which is raised by the correspondence of the first and last poems

of the respective groups. But either clue may be followed with interest.
Chapter 18

1878-1884
He revisits Italy; Asolo; Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald -- Venice --

Favourite Alpine Retreats -- Mrs. Arthur Bronson -- Life in Venice --
A Tragedy at Saint-Pierre -- Mr. Cholmondeley -- Mr. Browning's

Patriotic Feeling; Extract from Letter to Mrs. Charles Skirrow --
`Dramatic Idyls' -- `Jocoseria' -- `Ferishtah's Fancies'.

The catastrophe of La Saisiaz closed a comprehensive chapter
in Mr. Browning's habits and experience. It impelled him finally

to break with the associations of the last seventeen autumns,
which he remembered more in their tedious or painful circumstances

than in the unexciting pleasure and renewed physical health
which he had derived from them. He was weary of the ever-recurring effort

to uproot himself from his home life, only to become stationary
in some more or less uninteresting northern spot. The always latent

desire for Italy sprang up in him, and with it the often present
thought and wish to give his sister the opportunity of seeing it.

Florence and Rome were not included in his scheme; he knew them both too well;
but he hankered for Asolo and Venice. He determined,

though as usual reluctantly, and not till the last moment,
that they should move southwards in the August of 1878.

Their route lay over the Spluegen; and having heard of a comfortable hotel
near the summit of the Pass, they agreed to remain there

till the heat had sufficiently abated to allow of the descent into Lombardy.
The advantages of this first arrangement exceeded their expectations.

It gave them solitude without the sense of loneliness.
A little stream of travellers passed constantly over the mountain,

and they could shake hands with acquaintances at night,
and know them gone in the morning. They dined at the table d'hote,

but took all other meals alone, and slept in a detached wing or `dependance'
of the hotel. Their daily walks sometimes carried them down to the Via Mala;

often to the top of the ascent, where they could rest,
looking down into Italy; and would even be prolonged

over a period of five hours and an extent of seventeen miles.
Now, as always, the mountain air stimulated Mr. Browning's physical energy;

and on this occasion it also especially quickened his imaginative powers.
He was preparing the first series of `Dramatic Idylls'; and several of these,

including `Ivan Ivanovitch', were produced with such rapidity
that Miss Browning refused to countenance a prolonged stay on the mountain,

unless he worked at a more reasonable rate.
They did not linger on their way to Asolo and Venice,

except for a night's rest on the Lake of Como and two days at Verona.
In their successive journeys through Northern Italy they visited by degrees

all its notable cities, and it would be easy to recall, in order and detail,
most of these yearly expeditions. But the account of them

would chieflyresolve itself into a list of names and dates;
for Mr. Browning had seldom a new impression to receive, even from localities

which he had not seen before. I know that he and his sister
were deeply struck by the deserted grandeurs of Ravenna;

and that it stirred in both of them a memorablesensation to wander
as they did for a whole day through the pinewoods consecrated by Dante.

I am nevertheless not sure that when they performed the repeated round
of picture-galleries and palaces, they were not sometimes

simply paying their debt to opportunity, and as much for each other's sake
as for their own. Where all was Italy, there was little to gain or lose

in one memorial of greatness, one object of beauty, visited or left unseen.
But in Asolo, even in Venice, Mr. Browning was seeking something more:

the remembrance of his own actual and poetic youth. How far he found it
in the former place we may infer from a letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald.

==
Sept. 28, 1878.

And from `Asolo', at last, dear friend! So can dreams come FALSE.
-- S., who has been writing at the opposite side of the table,

has told you about our journey and adventures, such as they were:
but she cannot tell you the feelings with which I revisit this

-- to me -- memorable place after above forty years' absence, --
such things have begun and ended with me in the interval!

It was TOO strange when we reached the ruined tower
on the hill-top yesterday, and I said `Let me try if the echo still exists

which I discovered here,' (you can produce it from only ONE particular spot
on a remainder of brickwork --) and thereupon it answered me plainly as ever,

after all the silence: for some children from the adjoining `podere',
happening to be outside, heard my voice and its result --

and began trying to perform the feat -- calling `Yes, yes' -- all in vain:
so, perhaps, the mighty secret will die with me! We shall probably stay here

a day or two longer, -- the air is so pure, the country so attractive:
but we must go soon to Venice, stay our allotted time there,

and then go homeward: you will of course address letters to Venice,
not this place: it is a pleasure I promise myself that, on arriving

I shall certainly hear you speak in a letter which I count upon finding.
The old inn here, to which I would fain have betaken myself,

is gone -- levelled to the ground: I remember it was much damaged by
a recent earthquake, and the cracks and chasms may have threatened a downfall.

This Stella d'Oro is, however, much such an unperverted `locanda'
as its predecessor -- primitive indeed are the arrangements

and unsophisticate the ways: but there is cleanliness, abundance of goodwill,
and the sweet Italian smile at every mistake: we get on excellently.

To be sure never was such a perfect fellow-traveller, for my purposes, as S.,
so that I have no subject of concern -- if things suit me they suit her --

and vice-versa. I daresay she will have told you how we trudged together,
this morning to Possagno -- through a lovely country:

how we saw all the wonders -- and a wonder of detestability
is the paint-performance of the great man! -- and how, on our return,

we found the little town enjoying high market day, and its privilege
of roaring and screaming over a bargain. It confuses me altogether, --

but at Venice I may write more comfortably. You will till then, Dear Friend,
remember me ever as yours affectionately,

Robert Browning.
==

If the tone of this does not express disappointment,
it has none of the rapture which his last visit was to inspire.

The charm which forty years of remembrance had cast around
the little city on the hill was dispelled for, at all events, the time being.

The hot weather and dust-covered landscape, with the more than primitive
accommodation of which he spoke in a letter to another friend,

may have contributed something to this result.
At Venice the travellers fared better in some essential respects.

A London acquaintance, who passed them on their way to Italy,
had recommended a cool and quiet hotel there, the Albergo dell' Universo.

The house, Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, was situated on the shady side
of the Grand Canal, just below the Accademia and the Suspension Bridge.

The open stretches of the Giudecca lay not far behind; and a scrap of garden
and a clean and open little street made pleasant the approach

from back and side. It accommodated few persons in proportion to its size,
and fewer still took up their abode there; for it was managed by a lady

of good birth and fallen fortunes whose home and patrimony it had been;
and her husband, a retired Austrian officer, and two grown-up daughters

did not lighten her task. Every year the fortunes sank lower;