At no moment from first to last of my acquaintance with your works,
or friendship with yourself, have I had any other feeling,
expressed or kept silent, than this which an opportunity
allows me to utter -- that I am and ever shall be, my dear Tennyson,
admiringly and affectionately yours,
Robert Browning.
==

Shortly after this he was at Asolo once more, the little hill-town
in the Veneto, which he had visited in his youth, and where he heard again
the echo of Pippa's song --

"God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world!"

Mr. W. W. Story writes to me that he spent three days with the poet
at this time, and that the latter seemed, except for a slight asthma,
to be as vigorous in mind and body as ever. Thence, later in the autumn,
he went to Venice, to join his son and daughter-in-law
at the home where he was "to have a corner for his old age,"
the beautiful Palazzo Rezzonico, on the Grand Canal. He was never happier,
more sanguine, more joyous, than here. He worked for three or four hours
each morning, walked daily for about two hours, crossed occasionally
to the Lido with his sister, and in the evenings visited friends
or went to the opera. But for some time past, his heart --
always phenomenally slow in its action, and of late ominously intermittent --
had been noticeably weaker. As he suffered no pain and little inconvenience,
he paid no particular attention to the matter. Browning had
as little fear of death as doubt in God. In a controlling Providence