Item 108 - Letter from Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy to R. C. Trevelyan

Calcutta. - Apologises for typing - it is 'too hot and clammy' to write by hand. Glad to hear that Trevelyan has invited his friends [the Germanova/Kalitinsky household] to visit the Shiffolds; it will be very good for Andriusha to come to England, and perhaps Trevelyan might have time to take him to Cambridge to see the University. He feels very far away, and fears that the reference Trevelyan made to Ulysses and his dog [Argos] in his poetic epistle to him may come true: feels Rex [his dog]'s reproach keenly, but does not see how he could return to Europe with no work. Talk of offering him a University Professorship in Indian Fine Arts; is not particularly keen, but would get a year's study leave at once to spend in Europe. Sure Trevelyan will do all he can to fix him up at the League [of Nations]; it would be useful if [Clifford] Allen could talk to Albert Thomas or other Secretariat official.

Trevelyan must have heard of Andriusha's 'wonderful success'; a shame he cannot go to see Madame Germanova play at the Pitoëff's. Sometimes has news of Julian from his friends in Paris; worries that he might not make as many friends there as in Cambridge, he is 'really much too nice and clever for the ineffectual Monte[p]arnasse set'. Is looking forward to Trevelyan's next book of poems ["Rimeless Numbers"]; has been talking to mutual friends about him, such as his old Oxford friend [Apurba Kumar?] Chanda, Principal of Chittagong College, and Arun Sen, a barrister who knew Lowes Dickinson at Cambridge. There is also Abany Banerjee, also a barrister, who used to be prominent in the 1917 Club. The reading of post-Tennysonian English poetry he had to do for his two lectures at Hyderabad has inspired him to write some poetry again, 'under the influence of such diverging people as Kipling, Housman and Yeats'; will send them later. Encloses two photographs taken at the Singhs' at Bhagalpur.