His look was a continual and serene gleam.  Lamartine, who remarks this of Bossuet in his youth, adds a phrase which, as observant acquaintances of the poet will agree, might be written of Browning—­“His lips quivered often without utterance, as if with the wind of an internal speech.”

Except for the touching and beautiful letter which he wrote from Asolo about two months before his death, to Mr. Wilfrid Meynell, about a young writer to whom the latter wished to draw the poet’s kindly attention—­a letter which has a peculiar pathos in the words, “I shall soon depart for Venice, on my way homeward”—­except for this letter there is none so well worth repetition here as his last word to the Poet-Laureate.  The friendship between these two great poets has in itself the fragrance of genius.  The letter was written just before Browning left London.

      29 De Vere Gardens, W.,
      August 5th, 1889.

MY DEAR TENNYSON,—­To-morrow is your birthday—­indeed, a memorable one.  Let me say I associate myself with the universal pride of our country in your glory, and in its hope that for many and many a year we may have your very self among us—­secure that your poetry will be a wonder and delight to all those appointed to come after.  And for my own part, let me further say, I have loved you dearly.  May God bless you and yours.

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 he did indeed profoundly believe.  He felt, with Joubert, that “it is not difficult to believe in God, if one does not worry oneself to define Him."[26]