Note 27 — Chapter II · ToC (continued 2)

This modest attitude Leighton took as listener reminds me of the last time he saw Browning. One afternoon in the autumn of 1888, we were sitting with Leighton and Browning in the Kensington studio. Browning showed us photographs of the Palazzo Rezzonico which he had lately given to his son. The subject turned to a discussion on Byron and Shelley. Often as I had heard Browning talk well, I never heard him converse so well as he did on that afternoon. It was no monologue. It was real conversation, and of the kind that inspires others to do also their best; but Leighton never uttered, till—when, after an hour or so, we rose to leave—he exclaimed, "Oh, don't! do go on," and we had to sit down again. When at last the good thing came to an end, Leighton conducted us downstairs to his door, where we parted. Browning waved a farewell from across the road, where he stood for a moment in front of the little cottages, while Leighton stood in the porch-way of his house. The next day Browning started on his last journey to Italy—to die in the Palazzo Rezzonico.