with olive and other trees, "on which stood an unfinished
building"--the words are Mrs Bronson's--"commanding the finest view in
Asolo." He desired much to have a summer or autumn abode to which he
might turn with the assurance of rest in what most pleased and suited
him. In imagination, with his characteristic eagerness, he had already
altered and added to the existing structure, and decided on the size and
aspect of the loggia which was to out-rival that of La Mura. "'It shall
have a tower,' he said, 'whence I can see Venice at every hour of the
day, and I shall call it "Pippa's Tower".... We will throw a rustic
bridge across the streamlet in the ravine.'" And then, in a graver mood:
"It may not be for me to enjoy it long--who can say? But it will be
useful for Pen and his family.... But I am good for ten years yet." And
when his son visited Asolo and approved of the project of Pippa's Tower,
Browning's happiness in his dream was complete. It was on the night of
his death that the authorities of Asolo decided that the purchase might
be carried into effect.

[Illustration: THE PALAZZO REZZONICO, VENICE.

_From a drawing by_ Miss KATHERINE KIMBALL.]

For a time during this last visit to Asolo Browning suffered some
inconvenience from shortness of breath in climbing hills, but the
discomfort passed away. He looked forward to an early return to England,
spoke with pleasant anticipation of the soft-pedal piano which his kind
friend Mrs Bronson desired to procure at Boston and place in his study
in De Vere Gardens, and he dreamed of future poetical achievements.
"Shall I whisper to you my ambition and my hope?" he asked his hostess.
"It is to write a tragedy better than anything I have done yet. I think
of it constantly." With the end of October the happy days at Asolo were
at an end. On the first of November he was in Venice, "magnificently
lodged," he says, "in this vast palazzo, which my son has really shown
himself fit to possess, so surprising are his restorations and
improvements." At Asolo he had parted from his American friend Story
with the words, "More than forty years of friendship and never a break."
In Venice he met an American friend of more recent years, Professor
Corson, who describes him as stepping briskly, with a look that went
everywhere, and as cheerfully anticipating many more years of productive
work.[147] Yet in truth the end was near. Dining with Mr and Mrs Curtis,
where he read aloud some poems