or, if that should prove unsuitable, perhaps at Trouville.  Mrs Browning, who had formerly enjoyed the stir of life in Paris, now shrank from its noise and bustle.  Her wish would be to creep into a cave for the whole year.  At eight o’clock each evening she left her sitting-room and sofa, and was in bed.  Yet she trusted that when she could venture again into the open air she would be more capable of enduring the friction of the world.  In May she felt stronger, and saw visitors, among whom was Hans Andersen, “very earnest, very simple, very childlike."[82] A little later she was cast down by the death of Cavour—­“that great soul which meditated and made Italy”; she could hardly trust herself to utter his name.  It was evident to Browning that the journey to France could not be undertaken without serious risk.  They had reached Casa Guidi, and there for the present she must take her rest.

The end came swiftly, gently.  A bronchial attack, attended with no more than the usual discomfort, found her with diminished power of resistance.  Browning had forebodings of evil, though there seemed to be no special cause to warrant his apprehension.  On the last evening—­June 28, 1861—­she herself had no anticipation of what was at hand, and talked of their summer plans.  When she slept, her slumber was heavy and disturbed.  At four in the morning her husband was alarmed and sent to summon the doctor; but she assured him that his fears were exaggerated.  Then inestimable words were spoken which lived forever in his heart.  And so “smilingly, happily, with a face like a girl’s,” resting her head upon her husband’s cheek, she passed away.[83]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 70:  Letters of E.B.B. (To Mrs Jameson), ii. 221.]

[Footnote 71:  F.G.  Kenyon. Letters of E.B.B., ii. 263.]

[Footnote 72:  “Browning was intimately acquainted,” writes Miss Anna Swanwick, “with Salvini.”  What especially lived in Browning’s memory as transcending everything else he had witnessed on the stage was Salvini’s impersonation of the blind Oedipus, and in particular one incident:  a hand is laid on the blind man’s shoulder, which he supposes the hand of one of his sons; he discovers it to be the hand of Antigone; the sudden transition from a look of fiery hate to one of ineffable tenderness was unsurpassable in its mastery of dramatic expression. (Condensed from “Anna Swanwick, a Memoir and Recollections,” 1903, pp. 132, 133.)]

[Footnote 73:  Story says that Landor “was turned out of doors by his wife and children.”  He had conveyed the villa to his wife.  It is Story who compares Landor to King Lear.  “Conversations in a Studio,” p. 436.]

[Footnote 74:  Letters of E.B.B., ii. 354.]

[Footnote 75:  When Browning at Rome was invited to dine with the Prince of Wales (March 1859) by the desire of Queen Victoria, Mrs Browning told him to “eschew compliments,” of his infelicity in uttering which she gives amusing examples. Letters of E.B.B., ii. 309, 310.]