BROWNING'S ASOLO. 365 are the man I take you to be, you can dently truthful, that I listened to them worthily hand down to posterity. This with interest. It was the signor who, is the threshold the great poet crossed, eleven years ago, had shown him the way and over that counter he handed me up to the Belvedere. This was the place the manuscript of his last work, the im- the poet had come to see, the spot he mortal 'Asolando.' To me he confided had borne in mind for some forty years, it, and on me he relied to transmit it since, as a young man, he had reached it with the greatest care, for he assured me on foot, when on a walking tour through he had kept no copy of it. Yes, it went the Venetian province. Little can have per book-post, registered, addressed, changed since then; the stones roll I well recollect, to the publisher, Mr. down the narrow path from under your Smith, of London, and he was sur- feet as you ascend through vineyards prised it should only cost so little. I and orchards, past stray poultry and will look it all up and tell you the ex- groups of sleeping ducks. In a few act date, weight, and cost; you must minutes you reach the crest of the hill. give it to the world, and further, you The old house, turret-flanked and loopholed, must for many a year have frowned upon the valley below, as citadels are supposed to frown; an erroneous supposition in this case, for the little turret on the hill is all smiles, garland-wreathed, happy, and contemplative in its green old age. must وو But here I once more ventured to interrupt with an "Undoubtedly, only I fear I may not be able to do full justice to the incident; you know the Mr. Smiths of London do not take all you send them." But my protest was of little avail, and at my own risk I will give the information since received. The manuscript was posted on October 15, 1889, the day on which the dedication to Mrs. Bronson is dated. It weighed four hundred and fifty grammes, and the postage amounted to seventy centimes. To this I may add that the manuscript thus sent, and since returned to the poet's son, is written in Browning's neatest and distinctest hand. There are but few corrections or erasures. Of these, one has perhaps a special interest, as applying to the last line he ever published. The "Epilogue" he first ended thus: "Strive and thrive "cry "God to speed, Fight ever there as here." This he changed to: "Strive and thrive" cry "Speed-fight on, Fare ever there as here." On hearing that the MS. had safely reached its destination, Browning's kind thoughts at once reverted to the postmaster, good and true, and he went to thank him for his part in the transaction. I owe it to that warm-hearted official to say that if his communications about Browning were not of a very sensational character, they were so graphic, so evi VOL. X.-39 During his stay at Asolo Browning commonly breakfasted and lunched in his own rooms, and dined with Mrs. Bronson-that Mrs. Arthur Bronson to whom he dedicates his last book of verses, and whom he thanks in his preface for "yet another experience of the gracious hospitality now bestowed on me for so many a year.' "It will be for abler pens to trace the portrait of the friend he loved and honored. Suffice it to say here that to her he owed those days of peaceful rest and happiness that marked the last chapter of his life. She it was who had selected the simple rooms, which she knew were so well suited to his taste. Where it could be avoided, he should in no way feel indebted to her or her kind forethought. He should follow his own devices and live just as he liked. And so it was. He would take a long walk with his sister in the morning, and on his return would work for a couple of hours. Then, after having done full justice to Signora Tabacchi's maccaroni or risotto, he and Miss Browning went to spend the rest of the day with their friend. After a three o'clock tea they usually drove out, mostly to some distant place, far away across country. It was on one of these occasions, on the road to Bassano, that Browning hit upon the title he would give his volume 366 . BROWNING'S ASOLO. of poems. His son suggesting that it should in some way be connected with the name of Asolo, he bethought himself of the verb asolare. "Have you a good dictionary?" he asked his hostess; I feel sure it was Cardinal Bembo who used the word, but I must look it up." He did, the well-known result being the adoption of the title, and the explanation given in the introductory lines. At Mrs. Bronson's it had become quite self-understood that he should come and go as he liked, and that he should consider "La Mura" as much his home as he would his own house. A spacious loggia had recently been added to the old building, virtually forming a new room, roofed in, but open to the air on three sides. Here Browning spent many an hour, walking up and down, or reading in the armchair that his obliging friend, the barber, had insisted on sending him. Here he would sit and "drink in the air," as he used to say, never tiring of the lovely view before him. He would hurry home lest he should miss the sunset as seen from that loggia. He loved to watch the deepening and growing shadows rising beneath his feet; and the clouds, too, as they gathered, dark and aggressive, or brighter and promising peace for the morrow. A constant source of enjoyment to him was an old spinet, marked and dated: Ferdinando Ferrari, Ravenna, 1522. Knowing how much this little instrument had given him pleasure during former stays at her house in Venice, his hostess had had it brought to Asolo, and, here as there, he delighted in playing upon it of an evening; simple, restful melodies that had been familiar to him for years, or quaint scraps of early German or Italian music. From the spinet he would go to the books. "What have you got?" he asked the first evening of his stay. “What shall I read to you? Shakespeare? What! you don't mean to say you haven't brought your Shakespeare! I am shocked.” On this, as on other occasions, he was always most deprecatory when, as naturally happened, he was asked to read something of his own. But the new edi tion of his works which he had presented to his friend, being at hand, he would take down a volume and relate, in his own words, and with his unaffected intonation, the story of a Paracelsus or a Strafford. And that would afterward lead him to speak with ever fresh enthusiasm of the historical associations connected with such names. In the course of the exhaustive studies that always preceded the composition of any work of his, he had made himself intimately acquainted with every fact concerning the lives of those whom he intended to depict. Whatever detail history has preserved, be it ever so distantly connected with his subject, he made his own; and what his mind had once assimilated, his memory ever retained. As he visited the places associated with his heroes, he would pick up a thread here, give a novel interpretation there, till you would be carried away by the matter as well as by the simple forms in which he cast his knowledge. The pilgrim to Asolo would naturally look about for some clew to the poems written there. He would hope to meet with some of the models, animate or inanimate, that might have suggested one or the other of the " Facts and Fancies." But, reticent as Browning always was concerning his work, even with those nearest to him, he has left no trace to guide us. It was quite exceptional, when one day, returning from a drive, he said: "I've composed a poem since we've been out; it is all in my head, and when I get home I will write it down." "What is it about?" very naturally asked his companions. No, no, no, that I won't say; you know I never can speak of what I am writing." "RUN TO SEED." "Did you understand them all?" he asked. "Did you understand the Flute Music? Ah, not quite; well, some day I'll tell you all about it." But the day never came! He little knew that he was postponing it forever, happily ignorant as he was of his gradually approaching end. On one occasion, when speaking of the Asilo Infantile, which he hoped to transform into a summer dwelling, he said: "It is more for Pen; I may not enjoy it long, but I do think I am good for another ten years." The Asilo Infantile stands opposite the loggia, on the ridge of the hills that push forward into the valley; it is a large, unfinished building, originally intended to do service as a school-house. This from the first attracted Browning's notice, and the desire soon arose to become the owner of it, and to convert it into a residence. "If it were mine I would call it Pippa's Tower," he said. Pippa and her sister weavers were often uppermost in his mind, and he would tell how formerly the girls used to sit 367 at their work in the doorways all along the sotto - portici and weave cheerful songs into their web. Now the trade has gone to Cornuda and elsewhere, and tall brick chimneys are the rallyingpoints of the workers. Browning had visions of what he would like to do for the poor girls thus dispossessed, should he come to live among them, visions that may yet be realized by those who bear his name, and inherit his world-wide sympathies. Negotiations were opened with the Town Council with the view of acquiring the building and grounds to be dedicated to Pippa. It was the first time that municipal property was to be sold, so the matter had carefully to be considered by those in authority. The negotiations took their due course, but alas! they came to a close too late; the intending tenant was never to obtain possession; the day and hour that a favorable decision was arrived at, was also the day and hour of the poet's death. By Thomas Nelson Page. IM'S father died at They were the poorest people in the against the Stone for the county war had swept the country as clean as a floor. But the Up iot of fire on that tons were poorest even in that comfateful day when munity. Others recuperated, pulled the issue between "and they in the track of the federate side was such that after the elves together, and began after a the two parts of the country was de- time to get up. The Uptons got flatter cided when the slaughter on the Con battle a lieutenant was in charge regiment, and a major comand they were before. The fences (the few that were left) rotted; the fields a grew up in sassafras and pines; the a a barns blew down; the houses decayed; the ditches filled; the chills came. This fact was much to Jim, though no one knew it it tempered his mind: ruled his life. He "They're the shiftlesses' people in the worl," said Mrs. Wagoner with a shade the time when ever remembered of asperity in her voice (or was it satis the time when he did not know the story his mother, in her worn black dress and with her pale face, used to tell him of the bullet-dented sword and faded red sash which hung on the chamber wall. faction?). Mrs. Wagoner's husband had been in a bomb-proof during the war, when Jim Upton, Jim's father, was with his company. He had managed to keep his teams from the quartermasters, and had turned up after the war the richest 368 'RUN TO SEED." man in the neighborhood. He lived on old Colonel Duval's place, which he bought for Confederate money. 66 'They're the shiftlesses' people in the worl," said Mrs. Wagoner. "Mrs. Upton ain't got any spirit: she jus' sets still and cries her eyes out." This was true, every word of it. And so was something else that Mrs. Wagoner said in a tone of reprobation, about "people who made their beds having to lay on them;" this process of incubation being too well known to require further discussion. But what could Mrs. Upton do? She could not change the course of Destiny. One-especially if she is a widow with bad eyes, and in poor health, living on the poorest place in the State —cannot stop the stars in their courses. She could not blot out the past, nor undo what she had done. She would not if she could. She could not undo what she had done when she ran away with Jim and married him. She would not if she could. At least the memory of those three years was her's, and nothing could take it from her-not debts, nor courts, nor anything. She knew he was wild when she married him. Certainly Mrs. Wagoner had been careful enough to tell her so, and to tell every one else so too. She would never forget the things she had said. Mrs. Wagoner never forgot the things the young girl said either-though it was more the way she had looked than what she had said. And when Mrs. Wagoner descanted on the poverty of the Uptons she used to end with the declaration: "Well, it ain't any fault of mine: she can't blame me: for Heaven knows I warned her: I did my duty!" Which was true. This was a duty Mrs. Wagoner seldom omitted. Mrs. Upton never thought of blaming her, or anyone else. Not all her poverty ever drew one complaint from her lips. She simply sat down under it, that was all. She did not expect anything else. She had given Jim to the South as gladly as any woman ever gave her heart to her love. She would not undo it if she could-not even to have him back, and God knew how much she wanted him. Was not his death glorious-his name a heritage for his son? She could not undo the debts which encumbered the land; nor the interest which swallowed it up; nor the suit which took it from her—that is, all but the old house and the two poor worn old fields which were her dower. She would have given up those too if it had not been for her children, Jim and Kitty, and for the little old enclosure on the hill under the big thorn-trees where they had laid him when they brought him back. No, she could not undo the past, nor alter the present, nor change the future. So what could she do? دو One In her heart Mrs. Wagoner was glad of the poverty of the Uptons; not merely glad in the general negative way which warms the bosoms of most of us as we consider how much better off we are than our neighbors-the "Lord-I-thankthee-that-I-am-not-as- other-men- are way—but Mrs. Wagoner was glad positively. She was glad that any of the Uptons and the Duvals were poor. of her grandfathers had been what Mrs. Wagoner (when she mentioned the matter at all) called "Manager" for one of the Duvals. She was aware that most people did not accept that term. She remembered old Colonel Duval-the old Colonel-tall, thin, white, grave, aquiline. She had been dreadfully afraid of him. She had had a feeling of satisfaction at his funeral. It was like the feeling she had when she learned that Colonel Duval had not forgiven Betty nor left her a cent. Mrs. Wagoner used to go to see Mrs. Upton-she went frequently. She carried her things—especially advice. There are people whose visits are like spells of illness. It took Mrs. Upton a fortnight to get over one of her visits -to convalesce. Mrs. Wagoner was a mother to her: at least she herself said so. In some respects it was rather akin to the substance of that name which forms in vinegar. It was hard to swallow it galled. Even Mrs. Upton's gentleness was overtaxed-and rebelled. She had stood all the homilies-all the advice. But when Mrs. Wagoner, with her lips drawn in, after wringing her heart, recalled to her the warning she had given her before she married, she stopped standing it. much; but it was enough to make Mrs. Wagoner's stiff bonnet-bows tremble. Mrs. Wagoner walked out feeling chills She did not say |