540 TORU DUTT. burning climate. Friendly hearts await you with joyous hope. My parents and myself love you much — without having ever seen you, but your letters and your works have revealed to us the goodness of your heart, the candor of your soul. Come, then, my amiable friend, to seal with your presence an affection which is already yours." The two friends never met; the letter was never answered, never received. It was dated September 11, 1877. Toru Dutt died August 30th of the same year, aged twenty-one years, six months, and twenty-six days. She had breathed her last before the letter was even written. Her last words were, " It is only the physical pain that makes me cry." She died almost unknown to fame. A few men in France and England who had made the Orient a special study, had noted her works and praised them as the achievement of a Hindu genius ; a still smaller number had read them and loved them for their poetry alone. But, from the day of her death her reputation grew, and a second edition of the " Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields" was soon prepared, with a brief preface by her father. This book was, it must be remembered, the only one of hers published in her lifetime ; upon this alone it was at first thought that her fame must rest. Even had this been the case, her place in literature should have been secure. The trans- lations vary; some are almost flawless gems of English, such as the " Serenade " already given, or this version of a poem by Evariste de Parny, on the " Death of a Young Girl": " Though childhood's days were past and gone More innocent no child could be ; Though grace in every feature shone, Her maiden heart was fancy free. "A few more months, or haply days And Love would blossom — so we thought As lifts in April's genial rays The rose its clusters richly wrought.
