Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/87

 Rh one the little band were laid to rest in the land of their exile. Mikes outlived the others, and remained a solitary stranger in a strange land. It was on October 2, 1762, that the closing eyes of the last Kurucz watched the sun sink into the sea for the last time.

It cannot be said that as a writer Mikes was a powerful or remarkable personality, but his style is wonderfully attractive. His chief work, the Letters from Turkey, was not published until the end of the eighteenth century.

The letters are mostly dated from Rodosto, and are addressed to a lady cousin living in Constantinople. They were copied into a book, and after the death of Mikes, were found collected in one volume. It is not known whether the letters were ever actually despatched. At first sight we are inclined to believe they must have been. They are all properly dated, their beginning and end are exactly like those of ordinary every-day missives, and their contents are just the news of the day. On the other hand, the fact that they were carefully copied into one volume and that no relative of Mikes has ever been heard of as living in Constantinople is against that supposition. In addition, the letters may be divided into well-defined groups, as if the author had arranged them according to their contents. Accordingly, many scholars feel sure that this collection of letters is really his diary, or autobiography, a work almost unique as to its form.

The letters are full of the most charming humour. They supply us with the merriest accounts of his everyday life, and contain many interesting ethnographical notes, while here and there is a touch of real pathos. There is much real, earnest religious feeling in them too, but—and this is characteristically Hungarian—absolutely no sentimentalism. There is nothing in contemporary