had arrived in Venice just before
the poet came down from Asolo. "I called on him the next day," Dr. Corson
said of this meeting. "He seemed in his usual vigor, and expressed great
pleasure in the restorations his son was making in the palace. 'It's a
grand edifice,' he said, 'but too vast.'"

Dr. Corson continued:

"He was then engaged in reading the proofs of his 'Asolando.' He
usually walked two hours every day; went frequently in his gondola
with his sister to his beloved Lido, and one day when I walked with
him

'Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with
rings,'

I had to quicken my steps to keep pace with him. He called my
attention to an interesting feature of this world-renowned place, and
told me much of their strange history. He knew the city literally _par
coeur_."

[Illustration: PROFESSOR HIRAM CORSON

From a painting by J. Colin Forbes, R.A., in the possession of Eugene
Rollin Corson.]

Mr. Browning passed with Dr. and Mrs. Corson the last morning they were in
Venice. Of the parting Dr. Corson has since written in a personal letter
to a friend:

"He told us much about himself; about Asolo, which he had first
visited more than fifty years before, during his visit to Italy in
1838, when, as he says in the Prologue to 'Asolando,' alluding to 'the
burning bush,'

'Natural objects seemed to stand
Palpably fire-clothed.'

"A servant announcing that the gondola had come to take us to the
railway station, he rose from his chair, and said, 'Now be sure to
visit me next May, in London. You'll remember where my little house is
in De Vere Gardens'; and bidding us a cordial good-bye, with a 'God
bless you both,' he hastened away. We little thought, full of life as
he then was, that we should see him no more in this world."

To a letter from Miss Browning to their hostess, Browning added:

DEAREST MRS. BRONSON,--I am away from you in one sense, never to be
away from the thought of you, and your inexpressible kindness. I trust
you will see your way to returning soon. Venice is not herself without
you, in my eyes--I dare say this is a customary phrase, but you well
know what reason I have to use it, with a freshness as if it were
inspired for the first time. Come, bringing news of Edith, and the
doings in the house, and above all of your own h