atter seemed, except for a slight asthma, to be
as vigorous in mind and body as ever. Thence, later in the autumn, he
went to Venice, to join his son and daughter-in-law at the home where he
was "to have a corner for his old age," the beautiful Palazzo Rezzonico,
on the Grand Canal. He was never happier, more sanguine, more joyous,
than here. He worked for three or four hours each morning, walked daily
for about two hours, crossed occasionally to the Lido with his sister,
and in the evenings visited friends or went to the opera. But for some
time past, his heart--always phenomenally slow in its action, and of
late ominously intermittent--had been noticeably weaker. As he suffered
no pain and little inconvenience, he paid no particular attention to the
matter. Browning had as little fear of death as doubt in God. In a
controlling Providence he did indeed profoundly believe. He felt, with
Joubert, that "it is not difficult to believe in God, if one does not
worry oneself to define Him."[26]

[Footnote 26: "Browning's 'orthodoxy' brought him into many a combat
with his rationalistic friends, some of whom could hardly believe that
he took his doctrine seriously. Such was the fact, however; indeed, I
have heard that he once stopped near an open-air assembly which an
atheist was haranguing, and, in the freedom of his _incognito_, gave
strenuous battle to the opinions uttered. To one who had spoken of an
expected 'Judgment Day' as a superstition, I heard him say: 'I don't see
that. Why should there not be a settling day in the universe, as when a
master settles with his workmen at the end of the week?' There was
something in his tone and manner which suggested his dramatic conception
of religious ideas and ideals."--MONCURE D. CONWAY.]

"How should externals satisfy my soul?" was his cry in "Sordello," and
it was the fundamental strain of all his poetry, as the fundamental
motive is expressible in

"--a loving worm within its sod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds"--

love being with him the golden key wherewith to unlock the world of the
universe, of the soul, of all nature. He is as convinced of the two
absolute facts of God and Soul as Cardinal Newman in writing of "Two and
two only, supreme and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my
Creator." Most fervently he believes that

"Haply for us the ideal dawn shall break ...
And set our pulse in tune with moods divine"--