Dear Sir,--I was absent from London when your kind letter reached this house, to which I removed some time ago--hence the delay in acknowledging your kindness and replying, in some degree, to your request. All I can say, however, is this much--and very little--that, by the indulgence of my father and mother, I was allowed to live my own life and choose my own course in it; which, having been the same from the beginning to the end, necessitated a permission to read nearly all sorts of books, in a well-stocked and very miscellaneous library. I had no other direction than my parents' taste for whatever was highest and best in literature; but I found out for myself many forgotten fields which proved the richest of pastures: and, so far as a preference of a particular 'style' is concerned, I believe mine was just the same at first as at last. I cannot name any one author who exclusively influenced me in that respect,--as to the fittest expression of thought--but thought itself had many impulsions from very various sources, a matter not to your present purpose. I repeat, this is very little to say, but all in my power--and it is heartily at your service--if not as of any value, at least as a proof that I gratefully feel your kindness, and am, dear Sir Yours very truly, Robert Browning. In December 1887 he wrote 'Rosny', the first poem in 'Asolando', and that which perhaps most displays his old subtle dramatic power; it was followed by 'Beatrice Signorini' and 'Flute-Music'. Of the 'Bad Dreams' two or three were also written in London, I think, during that winter. The 'Ponte dell' Angelo' was imagined during the next autumn in Venice. 'White Witchcraft' had been suggested in the same summer by a letter from a friend in the Channel Islands which spoke of the number of toads to be seen there. In the spring of 1888 he began revising his works for the last, and now entirely uniform edition, which was issued in monthly volumes, and completed by the July of 1889. Important verbal corrections were made in 'The Inn Album', though not, I think, in many of the later poems; but that in which he found most room for improvement was, very naturally, 'Pauline'; and he wrote concerning it to Mr. Smith the following interesting letter. 29, De Vere Gardens, W.: Feb. 27, '88.