distributress

[Greek: aidoiê tamiê] -- the revered distributress -- of it to all nations; she had made the short story her own to such an extent that, in almost all its forms, she had reached and kept mastery of it; and in various isolated instances she had done very important, if not now universally acceptable, work in the practice of the "Heroic."

A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century George Saintsbury 1889