F course it was Browning's Asolo that we really had come to discover. Worshipful pilgrims, lovers of little Pippa, we hadn't been in the friendly inn ten minutes before we had said "Browning" to the padrona's pretty daughter and tried by signs and wonders to find out where was Asolo's chief literary shrine, the house where he had written "Asolando." Luisa smiled understandingly, and pointed to the window. "Ecco, signora!" We looked eagerly, only to draw back disappointed. The decorative stucco façade of the dignified villa backed by the densely wooded hill was charming, but . .

"That can't be it-it was just a simple VOL. LXXVII.-21

house in a street," I said to F. T. (short for Fellow Tourist). "She didn't understand me-I'll try again." Then to Luisa, in my inadequate Italian: "Browning, Roberto Browning, an English poet. The house is in a street and has a tablet. Where is it?" Luisa's smile was the soothing kind calculated to propitiate the eccentric ladies.

"Si, signora. An English gentleman, but not a poet, a painter. He is deadhow long since, Ida?" This in a rapid aside to the little sister who had just come in with hot water in a huge brass bucket. "Ten years, twelve? Eleven years, perhaps, signora. He died in the villa that you see there."

To this generation of Asolans, "il Signor Browning" is the amiable sporting Englishman who is buried in the beautiful

281

little cemetery on the heights above the town, Barrett Browning, the "Pennini" of his mother's letters, the "Pen" so beloved by his father-their wonder-child grown to be a man. He had loved Asolo, had owned more than one villa in or near the beautiful little town. He had died in the handsome palazzo that our inn windows overlooked. He had built "Pippa's Tower"; he had tried to restore the silk industry because of the little maid that had passed through the town singing. Altogether a good citizen, and we felt that it was only right and proper that the Asolans should keep his memory green, but it was Robert Browning whom we had expected to find a byword in Pippa's town! We had thought he would belong to it as Saint Francis belongs to Assisi, or Saint Catherine to Siena. But he didn't.

Let me qualify this statement by saying that he has been officially recognized. All honor was done to his memory on the centenary of his birth, May 7, 1912, when a street was re-named for him, and a tablet placed on the house where he wrote "Asolando." There is the statement plain for all folk to see:

IN QUESTA CASA DIMORO ROBERTO BROWNING SOMMO POETA INGLESE VI COMPOSE ASOLANDO

Truly a literary shrine. But the man. on the street, the woman drawing water at the fountain, the child at play under the plane-trees of the Piazza-what do they know of Browning's house? They give you a surprised stare or smiling misinformation if you question them. I admit that this argues an unexploited and unspoiled Asolo, as reposeful as Siena is strenuous, but it also argues that Pippa's town knows very little about Pippa's brain-father.

"Do you realize," I asked F. T., late in the afternoon of our first day in Asolo, "do you realize that it's going to be uphill work finding the Browning landmarks here? We haven't made any real progress yet."

F. T. smiled. "You and I have got to accept this town as Pen Browning's Asolo, not Robert's," she answered. "It's the line of least resistance."

"I refuse!" I said stoutly. "I won't get thrilled about Pen-he doesn't interest me. If I can't find the real landmarks, I won't put myself out about second-rate stuff." And then a brilliant idea came to me. I stopped short and waved my arm comprehensively at the superb view outside the old gate we were approaching. "Look!" I said eagerly. "If there never had been a Robert Browning, if we'd never heard of Pippa, if we'd just stumbled on this hill town by accident, wouldn't we be crazy about it? Don't you think it one of the loveliest places in Italy?"

"I certainly do," F. T. answered. "I'd like to stay on forever-especially since I've eaten the signora's pasta. Do you realize that we are going to be extraordinarily comfortable at that inn?" I looked at her approvingly. She had the right idea.

"From now on, this

"Listen," I said. place is our Asolo! We'll do our best to discover the Browning landmarks-I do hope we'll find La Mura-but we won't sulk because the Asolans don't dog our footsteps to tell us all about R. B. Let's enjoy this place as if it were a town in the Dolomites where there never were any literary lions. I shall take long walks every morning

"I shall explore the town, and read and write on the hotel terrace," F. T. put in. "And we'll annex a simpatico driver with a strong, willing horse and take excursions every afternoon. I want to see the Villa Maser"

"And we'll hunt up a good place for tea-though I suppose it will have to be caffè látte"

"And we'll send post-cards from Asolo to all the Browningites

And much more to the same effect. From that moment the little city became Our Asolo. How livable we found itand how lovable! Of all the Italian hill towns it is our best-beloved.

I carried out my plan of seeing the countryside on foot, and wore out shoeleather in daily hikes. Never was there a more alluring valley; nowhere else in Italy have hills beckoned to me so enticingly. After my first excursion, I came back to the inn to announce: "Pippa showed good sense when she spent her

Pippa awakened to duty by her song of the "king who judged sitting in the sun" -he is still there for the tourist who can remember the words with which he tried out the mysterious call: "Lucius Junius!" -"All of you!"-"Meet your fate!"

"Pippa Passes" appeared in 1841. Thirty-seven years later Browning revisited Asolo, and wrote to his friend Mrs. Fitzgerald that he had climbed up to the Rocca with his sister and found the echo once more, although (this pleased him mightily, dear man!) village children who had followed at his heels had shouted themselves hoarse with no response. But alas! on his last visit to Asolo the echo was coy or sulky, and could not be persuaded to answer him. This was a keen disappointment. Was he perhaps thinking of his failure when he wrote, in the prologue to "Asolando":

"And now? The lambent flame is-where?"

And the rest of the bitter-sweet lines, lines that puzzle the reader who remembers Mrs. Bronson's interesting account of the poet's keen enjoyment of his visit

to her Asolo villa in 1889, shortly before his death. Oh, yes, we all know what the poem means, we recognize the genuine optimism in it, but it does imply vanished illusions, and Browning, on that last Asolo visit, if we may believe his hostess, was as enthusiastic about everything in his old age as he was when he first discovered the little hill town in his buoyant youth. What a delightful, responsive guest he must have been! One loves to remember the story of how he used to pace up and down the loggia of "La Mura" in wet weather when drives were out of the question, walking for hours with his eyes on the panorama of valley and hills, and coming into the house at last to announce jubilantly: "Well, I have walked so many miles and seen such a beautiful country!"

La Mura, this villa of Mrs. Bronson's that she named so appropriately-it is built right into part of the beautiful old city wall-was for us one of the elusive sights of Asolo until we had been at least a week in the town. We had asked an English acquaintance innumerable ques

tions, but on taking stock of the acquired information we realized that she hadn't placed La Mura for us, and when we talked about it to obliging natives they looked blank. Apparently "la mura" suggested nothing to them but the actual wall, and whenever we said "Bronson," they politely corrected it to "Browning," and then treated us to anecdotes about the late "Pen." (Shall I ever forget our driver explaining in pantomime that il Signor Browning was a great horseman and loved to drive tandem? The way he showed us those two horses trotting through the narrow roads below the town!) "We shall just have to stumble

upon it for ourselves," I decreed, and the next day came home from my walk to announce that La Mura was found. "It's built on the wall at the end of our street," I explained. "I'm quite sure I'm right, but we'll ask the vetturino when we go out for our drive this afternoon." So we asked Gino, and he said "Si, si, signora," and we were quite happy. For a time, at least. But it wasn't long before we were reminding each other that an Italian always agrees with you, whether you are right or wrong-it is his kindly way of making the forestieri feel happy. "I asked him if that villa was called La Mura, and he agreed-but he would, of