e himself in
the forests.

The death of Browning's mother immediately after the birth of his son was
a great sadness to the poet, and one fully shared by his wife, who wrote
to Miss Browning: "I grieve with you, as well as for you; for though I
never saw her face, I loved that pure and tender spirit.... Robert and I
dwell on the hope that you and your father will come to us at once.... If
Florence is too far off, is there any other place where we could meet and
arrange for the future?"

The Brownings went for the summer to Bagni di Lucca, after the little
_detour_ on the Mediterranean coast, where they lingered in the white
marble mountains of Carrara. In Lucca they passed long summer hours in the
beautiful Duomo, which had been consecrated by Pope Alexander II in the
eleventh century. The beauty and the solitude charmed the poets; the
little Penini was the "most popular of babies," and when Wilson carried
the child out in the sunshine the Italians would crowd around him and
exclaim, "_Che bel bambino!_" They had given him the pet Italian name
"Penini," which always persisted. The Austrians had then taken possession
of Florence, and Leopoldo, "L'intrepido," as the Italians asserted,
remained quietly in the Palazzo Pitti. Browning, writing to Mrs. Jameson,
says there is little for his wife to tell, "for she is not likely to
encroach upon my story which I could tell of her entirely angel nature, as
divine a heart as God ever made." The poet with his wife and Wilson and
the baby made almost daily excursions into the forests and mountains, up
precipitous fays and over headlong ravines; dining "with the goats," while
the baby "lay on a shawl, rolling and laughing." The contrast of this
mountain-climbing Mrs. Browning, with her husband and child, and the Miss
Barrett of three or four years before, lying on a sofa in a darkened room,
is rather impressive. The picture of one day is suggested by Mrs.
Browning's description in a letter to Miss Mitford, where she writes:

"... I have performed a great exploit, ridden on a donkey five miles
deep into the mountains, to an almost inaccessible volcanic ground not
far from the stars. Robert on horseback, Wilson and the nurse with
baby, on other donkeys; guides, of course. We set off at eight in the
morning and returned at six P. M., after dining on the mountain
pinnacle.... The scenery, sublime and wonderful,... innumerable
mountains bound faintly with the