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Browning did not fail to improve the occasion, and of the next fifteen years few passed without a volume, while some saw two, from his pen. These volumes occasionally contained a few, and Asolando contained several, of the lovely lyrics above referred to.
It is happy when praise in departing is justified, and this was the case with a collection of poems which to some readers seemed like a revival of the poetry of its author's best years of early and mid manhood. Asolando is, however, in the main distinctly an autumn gathering, a handful of flowers and fruit belonging to the Indian summer of his genius.
This act of hospitality involved a special kindness on her part, of which Mr. Browning only became aware at the close of a prolonged stay; and a sense of increased gratitude added itself to the affectionate regard with which his hostess had already inspired both his sister and him. So far as he is concerned, the fact need only be indicated. It is fully expressed in the preface to 'Asolando'.
By and by his illusions will disappear while their gains will remain. The general impression left by Asolando is that of intellectual and imaginative vigour. The series of Bad Dreams is very striking and original in both pictorial and passionate power. Dubiety is a poem of the Indian Summer, but it has the beauty, with a touch of the pathos, proper to the time.
Only the other day he wrote "Asolando," and half a century ago we find him writing: "Lo, on a healthy, brown, and nameless hill By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill, Morning just up, higher and higher runs A child, bare-foot and rosy." Asolo appears again very soon afterward in the lovely opening of the play "Pippa Passes."
From the publication of Pauline in 1833 to Asolando in 1889, there were only short pauses between the appearances of his works. Unlike Tennyson, Browning could not stop to revise and recast; but he constantly sought expression, in narratives, dramas, lyrics, and monologues, for new thoughts and feelings. The study of the human soul held an unfailing charm for Browning.
He visited it daily, where it burrowed under a white rose tree, announcing himself by a pinch of gravel dropped into its hole; and the creature would crawl forth, allow its head to be gently tickled, and reward the act with that loving glance of the soft full eyes which Mr. Browning has recalled in one of the poems of 'Asolando'.
The house in De Vere Gardens received its master once more. 'Asolando' was published on the day of Mr. Browning's death. The report of his illness had quickened public interest in the forthcoming work, and his son had the satisfaction of telling him of its already realized success, while he could still receive a warm, if momentary, pleasure from the intelligence.
But that he died an old man at thirty-six is as indisputable as that Browning died a young man at seventy-seven, with that triumphant envoi of Asolando as his last expression of the eternal youth of the soul. In thinking of old age, the mistake is to assume that the spirit must decay with the body. Of course, if the body is maltreated it will react on the spirit.
"Ferishtah's Fancies and Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day" was the rather cumbrous title of a still later volume; and last of all appeared "Asolando," a work which displays all the old qualities, the old fire, and the old audacity, apparently untouched by advancing years, or even by imminent death. He died the same month that it appeared, December, 1889. It has been Mr.
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