Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1937
Letter ID: 1941
Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar
May 16, 1937
Please give a few examples of conceit in English poetry. Not very clear about it....
Conceit means a too obviously ingenious or far-fetched or extravagant idea or image which is evidently an invention of a clever brain, not a true and convincing flight of the imagination. E.g. Donne’s (?) comparison of a child’s small-pox eruptions to the stars of the milky way or something similar. I have forgotten the exact thing, but that will serve.
This hill turns up its nose at heaven’s height,
Heaven looks back with a blue contemptuous eye
– that’s a conceit.
O cloud, thou wild black wig on heaven’s bald head,
would be another. These are extravagant specimens. I haven’t time to think out any ingenious ones, nor to discuss trochees adequately – have given one or two hints in the margin.
Some more conceits, ingenious all of them:
Am I his tail and is he then my head?
But head by tail, I think, is often led.
Also
Like a long snake came wriggling out his laugh.
Also
How the big Gunner of the upper sphere
Is letting off his cannon in the sky!
Flash, bang bang bang! he has some gunpowder
With him, I think. Again! Whose big bow-wow
Goes barking through the hunting fields of Heaven?
What a magnificent row the gods can make!
And don’t forget
The long slow scolopendra of the train.
Or if you think these are not dainty or poetic enough, here’s another:
God made thy eyes sweet cups to hold blue wine;
By sipping at them rapture-drunk are mine.
Enough? Amen!
... About Rajani’s blood report, urine and blood are 
connected as রজনী [rajanī] to দিবস1, or blood circulating through the kidney contributes to the formation or excretion of urine. When blood sugar rises beyond the normal it is excreted in the urine. But since his sugar is high with a consequent high sugar percentage in the urine, it has been marked + + in the report.
Well, you haven’t told me if there is any meaning in the + + 2.5 except that it corresponds to the blood urine like রজনী to Diwakar2. Does it matter if it is 2.5 or 250 so long as it is + +? When is it considered a high amount and when is it considered very serious? You have said nothing about stool. Nothing abnormal? R is supposed to be suffering from dysentery.
1 divas, Night to day.
2 rajani pālit: moon (fostered by the night); diwākar: sun.