And the blow, savage as it was, was dealt for that great central sanctity--the story of a man's youth.

All that the old man would say in reply to every view of the question was, "I felt as if she had died yesterday." Towards December of 1889 he moved to Venice, where he fell ill.

He took very little food; it was indeed one of his peculiar small fads that men should not take food when they are ill, a matter in which he maintained that the animals were more sagacious.

He asserted vigorously that this somewhat singular regimen would pull him through, talked about his plans, and appeared cheerful.

Gradually, however, the talking became more infrequent, the cheerfulness passed into a kind of placidity; and without any particular crisis or sign of the end, Robert Browning died on December 12, 1889.