WCP3175

[1]¹

33, WARRINGTON CRESCENT,

MAIDA HILL, W.

March 10. 1899

Dear Sir

I have received your letter² of the 8^th. with enclosures. The attention and interest & pleasure with which you have read my translation3 fill me with encouragement & hope. I have laboured hard to make the Indian Epic popular [2] with the average readers in England, — and not merely with oriental scholars, — and sometimes I despaired of ever being able to interest them in an old-world Eastern story. Your cordial appreciation of my work fills me with the hope that [3] though I may never reach the mass of English readers, I shall succeed in interesting a fairly large class of thoughtful and intelligent readers, — and that my version of the Indian Epic will live among translations of foreign classics, until it is replaced by a better one.

[4] For your kindness in pointing out my slips I cannot sufficiently thank you. Your corrections indicate both the attention with which you have read the translation, and the excellent task with which you discovered defects which escaped me.

I have noted them [5] all with a view to revision when a second edition is demanded. I am also making slight verbal alterations in other places where are weak, or not harmonious enough. The alterations which you suggest in the wording are most valuable, and will be [6] most useful to me.

I am going to Oxford tomorrow for a few days, — and hope to have the pleasure of coming your way perhaps in the Summer. Are you very far from Bournemouth?

[7] Thanking you again, and very sincerely for your kind encouragement & valuable help[.]

I am | Yours very faithfully | Romesh Dutt³ [signature]