Canal, opposite Santa Maria della
Salute, came to be such a delightful center of social life for the choice
circle that Mrs. Bronson gathered around her, that its records fairly
enter into the modern history of Venice. Adjoining Casa Alvisi was the old
Giustiniani Palace, in which Mrs. Bronson had taken a suite of rooms that
she might use them in dispensing her hospitalities. No one who has been
the privileged guest of Mrs. Bronson can ever lose the grateful
appreciation of her genius as a hostess. Her lovely hospitality was
dispensed with the quality that entitled it to be considered as absolutely
a special gift of the gods, and when she invited Browning and his sister
to occupy these rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanti, it was with a
grace that forestalled any refusal. At first Miss Browning did a little
housekeeping on their own account, except that they dined and passed
the evening with Mrs. Bronson; later on, for several seasons, they were
her house-guests in Casa Alvisi,--that unique and dream-enchanted interior
crowded with lovely Venetian things, and bibelots and bric-a-brac picked
up the world over. But the brother and sister always occupied the rooms in
the palace. It was after the first one of this series of annual visits
that Browning wrote to Mrs. Bronson the following letter after his return
to London:

19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W.

Nov. 18, '81.

I would not write at first arriving, Dear Friend, because I fancied
that I might say too much all at once, and afterward be afraid of
beginning again till some interval; this fortnight since I saw you,
however, must pass for a very long interval indeed, I will try to tell
you as quietly as possible that I never shall feel your
kindness,--such kindness!--one whit less than I do now; perhaps I feel
it "now" even more deeply than I could, at all events, realize that I
was feeling.

You have given Venice an appreciation that will live in my mind with
every delight of that dearest place in the world. But all the same you
remain for me a dearest of friends, whether I see you framed by your
Venice, or brightening up our bleak London, should you come there. In
Venice, however, should I live and you be there next autumn, it will
go hard with me if I do not meet you again.

What a book of memories, and instigations to get still more memories,
does your most beautiful and precious book prove to m