footsteps of the sheep, and eating strawberries and milk by basinsful.
The strawberries succeed one another throughout the summer, through
growing on different aspects of the hills. If a tree is felled in
the forests, strawberries spring up, just as mushrooms might, and the
peasants sell them for just nothing. . . . Then our friends Mr. and
Mrs. Story help the mountains to please us a good deal. He is the son of
Judge Story, the biographer of his father, and for himself, sculptor and
poet--and she a sympathetic graceful woman, fresh and innocent in
face and thought. We go backwards and forwards to tea and talk at one
another's houses.

'. . . Since I began this letter we have had a grand donkey excursion to
a village called Benabbia, and the cross above it on the mountain-peak.
We returned in the dark, and were in some danger of tumbling down
various precipices--but the scenery was exquisite--past speaking of for
beauty. Oh, those jagged mountains, rolled together like pre-Adamite
beasts and setting their teeth against the sky--it was wonderful. . . .'


Mr. Browning's share of the work referred to was 'In a Balcony'; also,
probably, some of the 'Men and Women'; the scene of the declaration in
'By the Fireside' was laid in a little adjacent mountain-gorge to which
he walked or rode. A fortnight's visit from Mr., now Lord, Lytton, was
also an incident of this summer.

The next three letters from which I am able to quote, describe the
impressions of Mrs. Browning's first winter in Rome.


Rome: 43 Via Bocca di Leone, 30 piano. Jan. 18, 54.