TORU DUTT. 535 ful, and idiomatic, seems not the toilfully acquired accomplishment of an educated Hindu, but the natural speech of a Parisian lady. A brief sample, taken almost at random, will prove this. It is a description of the hero in her romance called Le Journal de Mademoiselle d'Arvers. " II est beau en effet. Sa taille est haute, mais quel- quesuns la trouveraient mince ; sa chevelure noire est bouclee et tombe jusqu'a la nuque ; ses yeux noirs sont profonds et bien fendus ; le front est noble ; la levre sup&rieure, couverte par une moustache naissante et noire, est parfaitement modeled ; son menton a quelque chose de severe ; son teint est d'un blanc ^resque fe"minin, ce qui denote sa haute naissance." She always loved France. Her first book, as we see, was a volume of translations from the French ; her one long prose work was composed in French ; the first article she ever published was a critical esssay upon a French author; and two of her most stirring English poems treat of French subjects — one, an ode written in 1870 during the dark days of the Franco-Prussian War, the second, lines inscribed on the fly-leaf of Erckmann- Chatrian's novel Madame Therese. The latter concludes thus : I read the story, and my heart beats fast ! "Well might all Europe quail before thee, France, Battling against oppression ! Years have passed, Yet of that time men speak with moistened glance. Va-nu-pieds ! When rose high your Marseillaise Man knew his rights to earth's remotest bound And tyrants trembled. Yours alone the praise ! Ah, had a Washington but then been found ! On leaving France the sisters went to England, where they attended the lectures for women at Cambridge, and in 1873 they returned to their beloved home in Calcutta,
