"I am bound to tell you that I saw a different Browning from the hero of all the handbooks and 'gospels' which are now in vogue. People are beginning to treat this vehement and honest poet as if he were a sort of Marcus Aurelius and John the Baptist rolled into one. I have just seen a book in which it is proposed that Browning should supersede the Bible, in which it is asserted that a set of his volumes will teach religion better than all the theologies in the world. Well, I did not know that holy monster.... What I saw was an unostentatious, keen, active man of the world, one who never failed to give good practical advice in matters of business and conduct, one who loved his friends and certainly hated his enemies; a man alive in every eager passionate nerve of him; a man who loved to discuss people and affairs, and a bit of a gossip; a bit of a partisan, too, and not without his humorous prejudices. He was simple to a high degree, simple in his scrupulous dress, his loud, happy voice, his insatiable curiosity." Browning's London life was varied by many summer journeyings to French sea-coast towns, to Wales, and to Scotland. But it was seventeen years after the death of his wife before he could bring himself to revisit Italy. Even then he avoided Florence. He took his sister to Northern Italy; and Asolo and Venice became the towns around which their affections centered. Two American friends, Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, and Mrs. Arthur Bronson,[6] contributed to the happiness of these Italian sojourns. In 1888 Browning's son, who had married an American girl, bought the Palazzo Rezzonico in Venice, so that Browning had an additional personal reason for his trip to Venice in 1889. He was well, and he took great pleasure in his son's admirably planned restoration of the old Venetian palace. He worked, walked, talked with nearly normal vigor. But a bronchial attack proved more than his weakened heart could withstand, and he died peacefully, almost painlessly, in his son's home on December 12, 1889. On the day of his death his last book, _Asolando_, was published, so that his brave-hearted "Epilogue" was really his valediction to this and his heroic greeting to another world. He could "greet the unseen with a cheer," because in thought and act he was One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. Browning was buried in Westminster Abbey on the last day of the year. The most pathetic element of the imposing ceremonies was the singing of Mrs. Browning's poem, "He Giveth His Beloved Sleep." THE POETRY OF BROWNING