XLII. TOKU DUTT. ONE day in August, 1876, the English poet and critic, Mr. Edmund W. Gosse, was lingering in the office of the London " Examiner " mourning over the dullness of the book-trade at that season, and complaining that the publishers sent him no books worth reviewing. While he was still talking upon this subject to his friend, Mr. Minto, the editor of the paper, the postman arrived, bringing a meager little packet, marked with an unfamiliar Indian postmark. Upon being opened it proved to con- tain a small pamphlet, entitled, " A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields, by Toru Dutt," which Mr. Minto thrust hastily into the reluctant hands of Mr. Gosse, exclaiming as he did so : " There, see whether you can't make some- thing out of that." The critic did not expect to make anything of it. It was a thin, shabby, ugly little book, of about two hundred pages, bound in orange color, unattractive in type, and without preface or introduction, its oddly printed title- page merely conveying the information that it was pub- lished at Bhowanipore, at the Saptahiksambad Press. He took it, however, and the first thing he found in it was a translation of A Morning Serenade, by Victor Hugo. " What was my surprise and almost rapture," he says in relating the incident, " to open at such verse as this : " Still barred thy doors ! The far east glows, The morning wind blows' fresh and free. Should not the hour that wakes the rose Awaken also thee ? (530)
