OPINIONS b” እSS may be that after such an unceasing strain of nervous depression. Even before I coul working in a constant strain of imagination and passion which overtaxes your bodily strength. I know that no sacrifice is of account to you for the love of your country. But India has not such a plenty of worthy worshippers that the loss of one of them may be indifferent. The work that you can do no one else can do or will do. Think of it and keep yourself ready for more work. This is a friend’s wish and prayer. abour you had to suffer from a d meet you, I could guess that you are But do not miss to send me a word that you are feeling better, and stronger, that you are recovering after this tremendous shock. Believc me, my dear friend, Ever yours, SYLVAIN ILEVI. REAR SIR, Thank you very much for your kindness in sending me the first volume of your Mymensingh Ballads. My sister and myself (she is my interpreter in English) have read it with great interest. The subject it deals with touches all aikind; the differences with European stories are due to reasons which are nuth more social than racial. The good aesthetic taste that is felt in most of theseballads is also one of the characteristics of popular imagination in many of our Western countries: “Womeder Wehmuth” as a beautiful song of Goethe's, put into music by Beethoven, expresses it “The Pleasure of Tears.' It is true that with us French people, the people of Gaul, it reacts against this with our bold and boisterous joyful legends. Is there none of this kind of thing in Indian literature? I was specially delighted with the touching story of Madina which although only two centuries old, is an antique beauty and a purity of sentiment which art has rendered faithfully without changing it. Chandravati is a very noble story and Mahua, Kanka and Lila are charming (to mention only these ones). The patient researches of Mr. Chandra Kumar IDe and your precious Collaboration with him have brought to the historical Science a valuable contribution to its efforts to solve the problems of popular literary creations. From where have these great primitive epics and ballads come ? It seems Very likely that they have always come from some poetic genius whose invention
