of 1878. Their route lay over the Spluegen; and
having heard of a comfortable hotel near the summit of the Pass, they
agreed to remain there till the heat had sufficiently abated to allow
of the descent into Lombardy. The advantages of this first arrangement
exceeded their expectations. It gave them solitude without the sense
of loneliness. A little stream of travellers passed constantly over the
mountain, and they could shake hands with acquaintances at night, and
know them gone in the morning. They dined at the table d'hote, but took
all other meals alone, and slept in a detached wing or 'dependance'
of the hotel. Their daily walks sometimes carried them down to the Via
Mala; often to the top of the ascent, where they could rest, looking
down into Italy; and would even be prolonged over a period of five
hours and an extent of seventeen miles. Now, as always, the mountain air
stimulated Mr. Browning's physical energy; and on this occasion it also
especially quickened his imaginative powers. 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 their
successive journeys through Northern Italy they visited by degrees all
its notable cities, and it would be easy to recall, in order and detail,
most of these yearly expeditions. But the account of them would chiefly
resolve itself into a list of names and dates; for Mr. Browning had
seldom a new impression to receive, even from localities which he had
not seen before. I know that he and his sister were deeply struck by
the deserted grandeurs of Ravenna; and that it stirred in both of them
a memorable sensation to wander as they did for a whole day through the
pinewoods consecrated by Dante. I am nevertheless not sure that when
they performed the repeated round of picture-galleries and palaces, they
were not sometimes simply paying their debt to opportunity, and as much
for each other's sake as for their own. Where all was Italy, there
was little to gain or lose in one memorial of greatness, one object
of beauty, visited or left unseen. But in Asolo, even in Venice, Mr.
Browning was seeking something more: the remembrance of his own actual
and poe