that a Bengali lady should achieve literary distinction, that when Toru's first writings appeared it was supposed that they were the work of some English writer, and that Toru Dutt was simply a nom de plume assumed for the occasion.
Her first appearance in print was in the Bengal Magazine, to which she contributed an essay on the poetry of Le Conte de Lisle, a writer with whom she was much in sympathy. He was a Creole, born in the Mauritius, and, as we may judge from the following extract from her article, she felt that in some respects his case resembled her own.
"The faults generally attributed to all Asiatic or half-caste poets, writing in the languages of Europe, are weakness, languor, conventionalism, and imitation. From most of these defects Le Conte de Lisle was singularly free. He is wonderfully vigorous and very often thoroughly original. Not only is he very well read, not only has he meditated much, but he has that gifted, poetic eye, which can seize at once, and extract poetry from the meanest object."
This paper was followed before long by some translations of French verse into English, and by various other essays in literary criticism, of which both the style and the matter aroused the curiosity and interest of the readers of the magazine.
It was about this time, in the year 1874, that Aru Dutt, the elder of the two sisters, died of consump-
