e generous courtesies and admirable judgment had
more than once even served him in ways quite outside those of literature.

In the late summer of 1888 Browning and his sister fared forth for
Primiero, to join the Barrett Brownings, with whom the poet concurred in
regarding this little hill-town as one of the most beautiful of places,
his favorite Asolo always excepted. "Primiero is far more beautiful than
Gressoney, far more than Saint-Pierre de Chartreuse," he wrote to a
friend: "with the magnificence of the mountains that, morning and evening,
are literally transmuted to gold." In letters or conversation, as well as
in his verse, Browning's love of color was always in evidence. "He dazzles
us with scarlet, and crimson, and rubies, and the poppy's 'red
effrontery,'" said an English critic; "with topaz, amethyst, and the glory
of gold, and makes the sonnet ache with the luster of blue." When, in the
haunting imagery of memory pictures, after leaving Florence, he reverted
to the gardens of Isa Blagden, on Bellosguardo, the vision before him was
of "the herbs in red flower, and the butterflies on the wall under the
olive trees." For Browning was the poet of every thrill and intensity of
life--the poet and prophet of the dawn, not of the dark; the herald who
announced the force of the positive truth and ultimate greatness; never
the interpreter of the mere negations of life. The splendor of color
particularly appealed to him, thrilling every nerve; and when driving with
Mrs. Bronson in Asolo he would beg that the coachman would hasten, if
there were fear of missing the sunset pageant from the loggia of "La
Mura." In "Pippa Passes," how he painted the splendor of sunrise
pouring into her chamber, and in numberless other of his poems is this
fascination of color for him revealed.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BROWNING IN 1865.

Painted by George Frederick Watts, R.A.

In the possession of the National Portrait Gallery, London.]

Under the date of August, 1888, the poet writes to Mrs. Bronson:

DEAREST,--We have at last, only yesterday, fully determined on joining
the couple at Primiero, and, when the heats abate, going on to Venice
for a short stay. May the stay be with you as heretofore? I don't feel
as if I could go elsewhere, or do otherwise, although in case of any
arrangements having been made that stand in the way, there is the
obvious Hotel Suisse. I suppose at need there could be