short lives, but so it was. A story is told of an English gentleman having paid them a visit in Calcutta, and asking them what were their favourite books.
"Oh! novels, of course," replied the younger sister, who was almost always the spokeswoman.
"Novels!" exclaimed their visitor; "I am sorry to hear that. You should read history."
"Oh, no!" was the answer; "for history is false, but novels are true."
It was truth of thought, of life and character, which these Bengali girls sought after; not the bare dry facts of history. What fairy tales are to children, novels were to these young women; and, as we have already said, the dream of their joint lives was to produce a novel themselves.
Whether the Journal de Mdlle. D'Arvers had taken shape in Toru's mind before her sister's death is uncertain, but it seems more probable that it was of later date.
The choice of the subject was certainly a singular one. The life, the thoughts, and love experiences of a young French girl of good family, could only have been known to Toru Dutt by the mysterious intuition of imagination and sympathy, and though no one would pretend that the attempt to portray them has entirely succeeded, yet it is a proof of the real genius of the authoress that it should not have signally failed.
