538 TORY DUTT. very happy to receive your photograph, if you still possess one." Toru's reply, dated Calcutta, March 18, 1877, is as follows : "Dear Mademoiselle, I thank you very sincerely for your kind authorization to translate ' Woman in Ancient India' and also for your kind and sympathetic letter, which has given me the keenest pleasure. " I deeply lament not to have been able to begin the translation yet, but my constitution is not very strong ; more than two years ago I contracted an obstinate cough which never leaves me. Nevertheless, I hope soon to set to work. " I cannot express, Mademoiselle, how much your affection for my country and my countrywomen touches me, for both your letter and your book sufficiently testify that you do love them ; and I am proud to be able to say that the heroines of our great epics are worthy of all honor and all love. Is there any heroine more touching, more loveable, than Sita ? I do not believe there is. When, in the evening, I hear my mother sing the old songs of our country I almost always shed tears. Sita's lament when, banished for the second time, she wanders alone in the vast forest with terror and despair in her soul, is so pathetic that I think there is no one who could hear it without crying. I enclose for you two little trans- lations from that beautiful old language, the Sanskrit. Unfortunately, I was obliged to cease my translations from the Sanskrit six months ago. My health does not permit me to continue them. I send you also my portrait and that of my sister. In the photograph she is repre- sented as seated. She was so sweet and so good ! The photograph dates from four years ago, when I was seventeen and she scarcely nineteen. I too, Mademoiselle, shall be grateful, if you will kindly send me your photo- graph. I will keep it as one of my greatest treasures.
