The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1899-07-29
lTALY's PEASANT GIRL POET.
Her Poems Called Forth Prais
From Europe's Critics.

Her Poems Called Forth Praise
From Enrope's Critics.
The Culver: This girl, hardly out
of her teens, unknown, humble. yir-
tuoup, the mistress of a school in n
of the far northsra Italian villages
which even the wheels Of a tram had
not ,rnclfsd. without any editorial
flourish Of trumpets, without owe
full patronage, without benevolent and
interested friends. With only a bundle
of leaves sewn together in a white vol
umc, has succeeded in gaining a liter
airy triumph, not in her own country
alone, but throughout the greatest
part of Europe. In every corner of
Italy, indeed, voices are raised in
wonder and praise at the supreme
power ofathe poems-their strength
and beauty--that have had their birth
in the heart and brain of the school
mistress of Motta-Visconti. Here in
this small market town, on the edge
OF the Ticino, are extensive woods,
known to the hunters from Milan, to
which Ada Negri resorted to hear the
message of the wind as it sighed and
sang through the branches of the
trees. The poems in which she has
interpreted nature in its ever chang
ing aspects of glory and gloom; in
which she has given a tongue to the
wees ard sorrows which are the por-
ton of man, to the oppression of the
rich, 10 the hard lot of the poor, and
those i'll which she has spoken OF the
beauty and tenderness of true love.
have called for the most enthusiastic
praises from the most distinguished
critics. In England her work may not
be widely known except among liter
airy men, and l am not aware that her
poems have ever been translated
either her first volume, "Fatalita," or
her more recent, called "Tempeste,'
1000 copies of which were called for
before the twelvemonth had expired.
Ada Negri is the daughter of a poor
laborer, one who worked in the mines,
and her mother was n weaver OF wool,
who, though often weary and always
feeble, worked necessarily in a manu-
factory, bearing up bravely against
circumstances because she was work
ing for her daughter, who wished to
study. The poor toiler in the wool
factory. guided simply by maternal in
stinct and by the judgment of the mis-
tress of the asylum where her little
daughter was sent for two years, saw
in her child a genius and a courage far
above the She gave her the
opportunity of studying in the normal
school Of Lodi, while she wore out her
W existence in the wool factory to
secure for Ada a happy future. The
loving mother remained at her daily
toll with this object, alternating her
arduons work with enforced rest in
the wards of the hospital, where she
was at one time laid up for twelve
months among those who were re-
ceived within its walls because threat
ened with consumption. In a few
lines i'll her poem, 'Madre Operaia,"
Ada Negri sings of the sublime sacri-
flee OF her unhappy mother, who pur-
chased with hunger, with cold, with
life itself a noble destiny for her child.
Her daughter had the means of study
ing, and the poor wool weaver took
heart, though her limbs were weary
and she was suffering from i%ll-health,
Her daughter studied, ana the moth
er, worn out and exhausted, put into
hec work, III the immensely of her aft
fiction. some drops of blood2 and
sweat that nourished her dreams of
fortune and glory for her child, care
less of everything, content with any
thing, if anly there should be in the
future n luminous destiny for Ada and
her brown head yet be crowned with
gold and laurel.