“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 health and spirits and so rejoice
Ever your affectionate
Robert Browning.
With another letter of his sister’s to their beloved friend and hostess, Mr. Browning sent the following note,—perhaps the last lines that he ever wrote to Mrs. Bronson, as she returned almost immediately to Casa Alvisi, and the daily personal intercourse renewed itself to be broken only by his illness and death. The poet wrote:
Palazzo Rezzonico, Nov. 5th, 1889.
Dearest Friend,—A word to slip into the letter of Sarianna, which I cannot see go without a scrap of mine. (Come and see Pen and you will easily concert things with him.) I have all confidence in his knowledge and power.
I delight in hearing how comfortably all is proceeding with you at La Mura. I want to say that having finished the first two volumes of Gozzi, I brought the third with me to finish at my leisure and return to you; and particularly I may mention that the edition is very rare and valuable. It appears that Symmonds has just thought it worth while to translate the work, and he was six months finding a copy to translate from!
... I have got—since three or four days—the whole of my new volume in type, and expect to send it back, corrected, by to-morrow at latest. But I must continue at my work lest interruptions occur, so, bless you and good-bye in the truest sense, dear one!
Ever Your Affectionately
Robert Browning.