Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 3
Letter ID: 712
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
February 1936 (?)
(Duhamel1 wrote in an article that he was deeply impressed by the music of Doctor Dilip Kumar Roy, which was the best of all Eastern music he had heard. Overjoyed by such a tribute from one of the greatest living writers of the west Dilipda sent the article to Sri Aurobindo.)
Duhamel is interesting and he has written very nicely about you – but he seems to have given you an official title!
Nishikanta has indeed bloomed out, but with his great facility of diction and rhythm he must be careful to keep his substance up to the mark as he did in the sonnets. Facility was the [rule] of Swinburne and did much to diminish the possibility of sustained perfection in Shelley.
I am glad to hear and see that you are maintaining the quiet of the mind and walking steadily and smoothly and finely... [Incomplete]
1 George Duhamel (1844-1966), the eminent French author and critic, told Dilipda that Indian music was “indeed a novel but delightful experience with me. The music of India is without doubt one of the greatest proofs of the superiority of her civilization.” Dilipda first met him in Lugana in the early twenties and again in Paris in 1927.