describes as "one of the quaintest possible little
places of _villegiatura_"--La Mura, the house, "resting half upon the
dismantled, dissimulated town-wall. No sweeter spot in all the
sweetnesses of Italy." Browning's last visit to Asolo was a time of
almost unmingled enjoyment. "He seemed possessed," writes Mrs Orr, "by a
strange buoyancy, an almost feverish joy in life." The thought that he
was in Asolo again, which he had first seen in his twenty-sixth year,
and since then had never ceased to remember with affection, was a happy
wonder to him. He would stand delighted on the loggia of La Mura,
looking out over the plain and identifying the places of historical
interest, some of which were connected with his own "Sordello." Nor was
the later story forgotten of Queen Caterina Cornaro, whose palace-tower
overlooks Asolo, and whose secretary, Cardinal Bembo, wrote _gli
Asolani_, from which came the suggestion for the title of Browning's
forthcoming volume. At times, as Mrs Bronson relates, the beauty of the
prospect was enough, with no historical reminiscences, the plain with
its moving shadows, the mountain-ranges to the west, and southwards the
delicate outline of the Euganean Hills. "I was right," said he, "to fall
in love with this place fifty years ago, was I not?"

The procedure of the day at Asolo was almost as regular as that of a
London day. The morning walk with his sister, when everything that was
notable was noted by his keen eyes, the return, English newspapers,
proof-sheets, correspondence, the light mid-day meal, the afternoon
drive in Mrs Branson's carriage, tea upon the loggia, the evening with
music or reading, or visits to the little theatre--these constituted an
almost unvarying and happy routine. On his walks he delighted to
recognise little details of architecture which he had observed in former
years; or he would peer into the hedgerows and watch the living
creatures that lurked there, or would "whistle softly to the lizards
basking on the low walls which border the roads, to try his old power of
attracting them."[145] Sometimes a longer drive (and that to Bassano was
his favourite) required an earlier start in the carriage with luncheon
at some little inn. "If we were ever late in returning to Asolo," Mrs
Bronson writes, "he would say 'Tell Vittorio to drive quickly; we must
not lose the sunset from the loggia.' ... Often after a storm, the
effects of sun breaking through clouds before its setting