C.P.Snow, in his foreword to G.H.Hardy's "A Mathematicians Apology" (Cambridge University Press, 1967, 1992 edition) has recorded vividly Hardy's reaction to, besides the letter, nine well-written pages with formulas and perhaps a copy of Ramanujan's first few papers in the journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. Mail arrives in the morning at Breakfast time in England. Accustomed to receiving occasionally bizarre letters from strangers, Hardy's first reaction was "not only bored, but irritated" by the large number of mathematical theorems stated without proof. So, he went through the activities of the day till lunch time, played his game of tennis, but at the back of his mind he was wondering about the intriguing results he saw in Ramanujan's letter. He sent word by a messenger to John Edonsor Littlewood, eight years younger than Hardy, but Hardy considered Littlewood a better mathematician than himself. They met after Dinner, at about 9 pm, perhaps in Littlewood's rooms and scrutinized the mathematical formulas of Ramanujan. Before midnight, Hardy and Littlewood concluded that the writer of the letter was not a fraud but a genius. Hardy later wrote: "A single look at them is enough to show that they could only be written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them. Finally (you must remember that I knew nothing whatever about Ramanujan, and had to think of every possibility), the writer must be completely honest, because great mathematicians are commoner than thieves or humbugs of such incredible skill" (from "Ramanujan: twelve lectures on subjects suggested by his life and work", G.H.Hardy, Chelsea Pub. Co., N.Y. - Originally published by Cambridge University Press - 1940, p.9)