f great eloquence.
Every morning, after their early coffee, the poet was off for a brisk
walk, and after returning he busied himself with his letters and
newspapers, his mail always containing more or less letters from strangers
and admirers, some of whom solicited autographs, which, so far as
possible, he always granted. Mrs. Bronson has somewhere noted that when
asked, _viva voce_, for an autograph, he would look puzzled, and say "I
don't like to always write the same verse, but I can only remember one,"
and he would then proceed to copy "All that I know of a certain star,"
which, however it "dartles red and blue," he knew nothing of save that it
had "opened its soul" to him. Arthur Rogers, delivering the Bohlen
lectures for 1909, compared Browning with Isaiah, in his lecture on
"Poetry and Prophecy," and he instanced this "star" which "opened its
soul" to the poet, as attesting that Browning, like Isaiah, could do no
more than search depths of life.

The Palazzo Giustiniani-Recanti was a fitting haunt for a poet. Casa
Alvisi, adjoining, in which Mrs. Bronson lived, looked out, as has been
noted, on Santa Maria della Salute, which was on the opposite side of the
Grand Canal; but the Giustiniani palace, dating to the fifteenth century,
had its outlook through Gothic windows to the south, on a court and garden
of romantic loveliness. The perfect tact of their hostess left the poet
and his sister entirely free to come and go as they pleased, and at midday
they took their dejeuner together, ordering by preference Italian dishes,
as rissotto, macaroni, and fruits, especially figs and grapes. They
enjoyed these _tete-a-tete_ repasts, talking and laughing all the while,
and then, about three every afternoon they joined Mrs. Bronson and her
daughter for the gondola trip. The hostess records that the poet's
invariable response to the question as to where they should go would be:
"Anywhere, all is beautiful, only let it be toward the Lido." While both
the poet and his sister were scrupulously prompt in returning all calls of
ceremony, they were glad to evade formal visits so far as possible; and
the absolute freedom with which their hostess surrounded them was grateful
beyond words. "The thought deeply impressed me," said Mrs. Bronson, "that
one who had lifted so many souls above the mere necessity for living in a
troublesome world deserved from those permitted to approach him their best
efforts to brighten his personal life....