according to his own design,
chalked out on the carpet, and ever after he took great pride in the
result. The bookcase held to the end of his days the many rare and
beautiful volumes he prized so highly.

Another bookcase he wanted to accommodate piles of books he had brought
from Warwick Crescent when he moved to De Vere Gardens. I suggested a
certain one that had belonged to Sheridan and was now for sale at Joshua
Binns's, then the king of dilapidators. But he preferred a severely
useful piece of furniture in mahogany which we found close to my studio
at Taylor's Depository. Books he would always handle very carefully. He
would never leave a book open or place it face downwards--or, worst of
all in his eyes, deface it by turning the corner of a page. His strong
dislike of the imperfect was characteristic. Anything mended he objected
to, and he would rather a thing he valued were broken outright than
chipped or cracked.

The manuscript of "Aurora Leigh" was a treasure he guarded lovingly. It
had been lost with other things in a trunk forwarded from Italy to
England, but, when search already seemed hopeless, it was found in
Marseilles. I have heard him say, referring to the incident: "She
thought more of Pen's laces and collars than of that book." He wanted to
have the manuscript bound, but could not make up his mind to part with
it even for that purpose. Three times he replaced it on the shelf
before he let it go. It is now in Pen's possession, as is the MS. of
"Asolando," both eventually to be left to Balliol College, Oxford, as
others already bequeathed to that institution.

After his wife's death, Browning took the house in Warwick Crescent,
originally to find a place for the furniture which he had had forwarded
from Florence; the neighbourhood was selected because a sister of Mrs.
Browning's, Arabella Moulton Barrett, lived in Delamere Terrace, but he
strongly disliked the house, and always had a wish finally to settle in
the Kensington district. It was, however, only towards the close of his
life that he left Warwick Crescent and made his home in De Vere Gardens.

Stiff staircases such as he found there he never objected to; in fact,
whether at home or when travelling, he had a marked preference for being
located in one of the upper storeys. So it was on the second floor he
had established his library and study.

His sister, Miss Browning, to whom so frequent reference is made in his
letters as Sarianna, live