soon warmly
welcomed by Signora Nina Tabacchi, as, passing through the kitchen, I
was ushered into the sitting-room. "Scrupulously clean and neat," was my
next impression, but how plain! The room was only a piece of the kitchen
partitioned off, a glass door and window separating the two. The thin
cotton curtain might possibly screen the mysteries of the culinary
process from the poet's eye, but his ear must have been caught by
occasional sounds of hacking and chopping, and certainly no kettle could
have boiled, no wood could crackle, or incense arise from that adjacent
hearth without making itself distinctly noticeable. Such was his study
and his drawing-room, a _multum in parvo_ about twelve feet square.

I had ample time to study my surroundings, for I spent some weeks in the
rooms vacated by the poet. The furniture was of the good old
lodging-house type. In the centre of the little sitting-room was a
round pedestal table, half of which was devoted to Browning's papers; on
the other half, luncheon was served for himself and his sister. A
full-length sofa, uncompromisingly hard, took up the greater part of one
wall, and a kind of sideboard stood opposite. On the chiffonnier,
between the two windows, rested the looking-glass, and half-a-dozen
mahogany chairs, cane-bottomed and severe backed, completed the
arrangements. On the flesh-coloured walls hung a series of prints,
illustrating the history of Venice. Doges disporting themselves in most
conventional attitudes, the vanquished kneeling before the victors, gave
one the impression that history involves a great amount of bowing and
scraping. In pleasant contrast with such triumphs were the domestic joys
as depicted by the photographer. Looking up from his papers, Browning's
eye must have rested on that shell-adorned frame which encircled the
usual specimens of family portraits. There were the inevitable aunts and
uncles, the young man pressing into the focus, to meet the clever dog
seated on the table by his side, and a typical presentment of the mother
and child as conceived by the lens.

To Luigi, the landlady's son, Browning was from the first very friendly;
but how this lad, ever on the alert to make himself useful, could have
kept any length of time in his good graces, is a mystery to me. He owns
that on one or two occasions the sturdy master sent him flying, when he
would imprudently insist on opening the door for him, or on lighting him
down the dark staircase.