During the
last few days he told many good stories and talked with his
accustomed eagerness. He died at ten o'clock in the evening of the
twelfth of December, 1889, A few moments before his death came a
cablegram from London announcing that his last volume of poems had
been published that day, and that the evening papers were speaking
in high terms of its contents. "That is very gratifying," said he.
Browning's life was healthy, comfortable, and happy. With the
exception of frequent headaches in his earlier years, he never knew
sickness or physical distress. His son said that he had never seen
him in bed in the daytime until the last illness. He had a truly
wonderful digestion; it was his firm belief that one should eat only
what one really enjoyed, desire being the infallible sign that the
food was healthful. "My father was a man of _bonne fourchette_" said
Barrett Browning to me; "he was not very fond of meat, but liked all
kinds of Italian dishes, especially with rich sauces.
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