TH E AGE OF DECADENCE 73 one the littie han d were laid to re!>t in the land of their exile. Mikes outl ived the others, and remained a solitary &tranger in a strange lan d. It was on October 2, 1762, that the elosing eyes of the ]ast Kurucz watched the sun sink into the sea for th e last time. It cannot be said that as a writer Mikes was a powerful or remarkable personality, but his style is wonderfully attractive. His chief work, the. Letters fr om Turkey, was not published until the end of the eighteenth century. The letters are mostly dated from Rodosto, and are addressed to a lady cousin living in Constantinople. They were copied into a book, and after the death of Mikes, were found colleeted in one volume. It is not known wh ether the letters were ever actually despatched. At first sight we are indined to believe they must have been. They are ali properly dated, their heginning and end are ex actly like those of ordinary every-day missives, and their contents are just the news of the day. On the other hand, the fact that they were ca refully copied into one vol ume and that no relative of Mikes has ever been h eard of as living in Constantinople is against that sup position. In addition, the letters may be divided into well-defined groups, as if the author had arranged them aceording to their contents. Accordi ngly, many seh olars feel sure that this collection of letters is really his diary, or autobiography, a work almost unique as to its form . Th e letters are full of the most charming humour. They supply us with the merriest accounts of his every day life, and contain many interesting eth nographical notes, while here and there is a touch of real pathos. There is much real, earnest rel igiaus feel ing in them too, but-and this is characteristically Hungarian-absolutely no sentime ntalism. There is nothing in contemporary
