She translated a number of the curiously characteristic _stornelli_ of
Tuscany, and especially of the Pistoja mountains. And here again it
is impossible to make any one, who has never been familiar with these
_stornelli_ understand the especial difficulty of translating them. Of
course the task was a slighter and less significant one than that of
translating Giusti, nor was the same degree of critical accuracy and
nicety in rendering shades of meaning called for. But there were
not--are not--many persons who could cope with the especial
difficulties of the attempt as successfully as she did. She produced
also a number of pen-and-ink drawings illustrating these _stornelli_,
which I still possess, and in which the spirited, graphic, and
accurately truthful characterisation of the figures could only have
been achieved by an artist very intimately acquainted _intus et in
cute_ with the subjects of her pencil.
She published a volume on the Tuscan revolution, which was very
favourably received. The _Examiner_, among other critics--all of them,
to the best of my remembrance, more or less favourable--said of these
_Letters_ (for that was the form in which the work was published, all
of them, I think, having been previously printed in the _Athenaeum_),
"Better political information than this book gives may be had in
plenty; but it has a special value which we might almost represent by
comparing it to the report of a very watchful nurse, who, without the
physician's scientific knowledge, uses her own womanly instinct in
observing every change of countenance and every movement indicating
the return of health and strength to the patient .
Pages:
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355