toru dutt. 537 we have stated, in 1876. This wonderful book of trans- lations, made by a young girl in India, from one foreign language into another, found but two reviewers in all Europe. One of these was the French poet and novelist, Andre" Theuriet, who was himself represented in its pages by one of her most successful translations, and who gave it just and discriminating praise in the Revue de Deux Mondes. The other was the gentleman who had so unwillingly received it in the office of the London Examiner. Mr. Gosse, in the memoir with which he afterwards prefaced one of Toru's works, claims with sympathetic pride that he was " a little earlier still in sounding the only note of welcome which reached the dying poetess from England." The dying poetess ! Toru, never strong, and exhausted by the continuous strain of her literary labors, was soon to follow the sister whom she so deeply mourned. Her letters to her friend, Mile. Clarisse Bader, show us very clearly the beginning of the end. Mile. Bader was the author of a French work entitled, " Woman in Ancient India," which Toru desired to translate into English. Before doing so, however, she wrote to ask permission of the author. She received a most kind and gracious reply. " Dear Mademoiselle," wrote Mile. Bader, " What ! It is a descendant of my dear Indian heroines who desires to translate the work I have devoted to the ancient Aryan women of the Peninsula of the Ganges ! Such a wish, emanating from such a source, touches me too deeply for me not to listen to it. Translate, then, Woman in Ancient India, Mademoiselle ; I authorize you with all my heart to do so ; and with all my most sympathetic desires I invoke the success of your enterprise. . . . When you have published in India your translation of Woman in Ancient India, I should be very grateful if you would kindly send two copies of your version. I should also be
