United States or Palau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"He seemed possessed," writes Mrs Orr, "by a strange buoyancy, an almost feverish joy in life." The thought that he was in Asolo again, which he had first seen in his twenty-sixth year, and since then had never ceased to remember with affection, was a happy wonder to him.
Browning awaited its decision till the end of October at Asolo, and again throughout November in Venice, without fully understanding the delay. The vote proved favourable; but the night on which it was taken was that of his death. The consent thus given would have been only a first step towards the accomplishment of his wish.
In the prologue to his last volume, written in September before the letter that follows, the poet says: "How many a year, my Asolo, Since one step just from sea to land I found you, loved, yet feared you so For natural objects seemed to stand Palpably fire-clothed!"
Naples always remained a bright spot in the poet's memory; and if it had been, like Asolo, his first experience of Italy, it must have drawn him in later years the more powerfully of the two. At one period, indeed, he dreamed of it as a home for his declining days. Introduction to Miss Barrett Engagement Motives for Secrecy Marriage Journey to Italy Extract of Letter from Mr. Fox Mrs.
A project which came very near his heart was that of purchasing from the municipal authorities a small piece of ground, divided from La Mura by a ravine clothed with olive and other trees, "on which stood an unfinished building" the words are Mrs Bronson's "commanding the finest view in Asolo."
I was writing the Marriage of William Ashe, and, being in want of a Venetian setting for some of the scenes, I asked Mr. Pen Browning, who was, I think, at Asolo, if he would allow me access to the Palazzo Rezzonico, which was then uninhabited. He kindly gave me free leave to wander about it as I liked; and I went most days to sit and write in one of the rooms of the mezzanin.
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 Asolo, beside "the gate," Mrs Bronson had found and partly made what Mr Henry James describes as "one of the quaintest possible little places of villegiatura" La Mura, the house, "resting half upon the dismantled, dissimulated town-wall. No sweeter spot in all the sweetnesses of Italy." Browning's last visit to Asolo was a time of almost unmingled enjoyment.
At Asolo he had parted from his American friend Story with the words, "More than forty years of friendship and never a break." In Venice he met an American friend of more recent years, Professor Corson, who describes him as stepping briskly, with a look that went everywhere, and as cheerfully anticipating many more years of productive work. Yet in truth the end was near.
And when his son visited Asolo and approved of the project of Pippa's Tower, Browning's happiness in his dream was complete. It was on the night of his death that the authorities of Asolo decided that the purchase might be carried into effect. For a time during this last visit to Asolo Browning suffered some inconvenience from shortness of breath in climbing hills, but the discomfort passed away.
Word Of The Day