THE SPIRIT OF ROME.
The Spirit of Rome: Leaves from a Diary. By Vernon Lee. (John Lane. 3s. 6d. net.)—This is a striking little book. It does not appeal to everybody, and by no means everybody will appreciate or understand it. But there are those to whom the work of a poet and artist, both whioh names "Vernon Lee" may claim, is always welcome, even if presented in an unaccustomed way. And this cannot strictly be called a book at all, just as the • hints set down by a painter to guide himself cannot be called a picture. Yet to his admirers they are sometimes even more precious than his finished work. And though we are set thinking of what a beautiful book " Vernon Lee," if she chose, could write on Rome, we are also aware that such a book might not breathe at first hand the very air of Rome, as these scattered notes, these impressions of the moment, do. " How I seem to feel what Rome is made of," the writer says, and she helps us to feel it too. Some of us, perhaps, have felt it already, without the genius to make our vague consciousness speak in words that live. Besides the all-pervading atmosphere of the immortal " dust- heap," there are exquisite vignettes to be found in these pages, notably one of the beach at Palo, one of San Teodoro on a May morning, one of a drive round the Walls, one of Tusculum in a high wind ; but as we go on turning the leaves choice becomes impossible, and there is only one thing to do,—to find a place for The Spirit of Rome on our shelf of treasures.
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