"LIFE AND LETTERS OF TORII DUTT." (To TEE EDITOR Or
THE " SPECTATOR.") Sza,—Your review of Life and Letters of Toru Dutt is of great interest, but perhaps I c-an clear what you say "is a dis- appointing book" as it does not explain how Toru Putt got her literary style and she did what no other Eastern has ever done. My sister Miss Barclay, of Bay Hill, knew the family well at Cambridge in 1871. She writes to me:— " I saw a good deal of the Dutts during two months I was at Cambridge. Aru was the sweetest girl; she stook a very devoted fancy to me, and I saw Toru was jealous. Aru went off her head and was taken to India. When she died Peru, I remember, was heartbroken and used to wail, 'Half of my heart is broken.' She was only sixteen years old then. Mr. Putt was a fine man. I fear he over-educated his children, being proud of his talents."
I have a book written by their father in 1878 in which he says:— " Toru Dull was the youngest of my three children. All the three were of great promise and all three were taken away early in the bloom of youth. All my children accompanied me in one of the Peninsular steamers to Bombay in 1863, and after one year's stay there returned with me to Calcutta. Two only accompanied me to Europe in November, 1869. Excepting for a few months in France Aru and Toru were never put to school, but they sedulously attended the lectures for women at Cambridge. Both sisters kept diaries. No work was too mean for them. ... Not the least remarkable trait of Toru's mind was her wonderful memory; she could repeat almost every piece she had ever translated by heart. She read much; she read rapidly. Dictionaries, lexicons, and encyclopaedias were con- sulted if there were any difficulty. Whenever we had a dispute about the signification of any expression in Sanscrit, or French or German, in seven of eight cases she would prove to be right. The great ambition of the sisters was to publish a novel. Aru did not live to complete her part of one which Toru should write and Aru illustrate. . . . Why should these three young lives, so full of life and work, be cut short, while I, old and infirm, linger on? I think I can see that there is a fitness, a preparation required for the life beyond which they had and I have not. One day I shall see it all clearly. Blessed be the Lord, His will be done. GOVIN CHUNDER PUTT. Baugmaree Garda House, October 19th, 1377."
ironing that these quotations may be of interest,—I am, Sir, he.,
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