Days Spent on a Doges Farm. By Margaret Symonds (Mrs.
W. W. Vaughan). (T. Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d. net.)—The first edition of this book appeared fifteen years ago, and received a very warm welcome from the Spectator. It has now been republished with a new preface which supplements its story in a valuable way, for it is an appreciation and description of the remark- able woman who ruled the " Doge's Farm." This was Evelina, Countess Pisani. Hers was not an easy life. The practical Teutonic element in her personality—her father was German and her grandfather English—was impatient with the shiftless ways of the peasantry among whom she dwelt, not a favourable sample, it would seem, of the North Italian race. She even went for a time in danger of her life, and always had arms at hand. ,And the place was lonely in the extreme. But she never wearied of the work, and she carried it at last to a successful issue. The " Dag•e's Farm," before her death, became , famous as all that a farm should be. And she had always in herself great resources of friendship and intellectual interests. The book itself may be read again with a new and greatly enlarged interest with the knowledge of the ruling spirit behind it.
Previous page
