Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2127

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 14, 1938

[Sri Aurobindo and the Mother]

You flatter me by comparing me with Virgil, Sir. But you forget that my 16, 20 lines are nowhere beside his 9 lines and that he didn’t require Sri Aurobindo’s corrections!

That is why he spent the greater part of the time, trying to correct them himself.

Today’s poem has turned into “prosaic” philosophy. All philosophies are, I fear, prosaic. But in poetry it is inadmissible. What’s to be done?

The only remedy is to extend the philosophy through the whole poem so as to cure the disparateness. Also it must be a figured philosophy. Philosophy can become poetry, if it ceases to be intellectual and abstract in statement and becomes figured and carries a stamp of poetic emotion and vision.

R.B. is much better today, but is taking very little food. Shall we give her an extra cup of milk?

[Mother:] In that case you will have to stop the oranges because much milk with oranges can give pains again.

She wants to join work. We advised her to take rest a few days more.

[Mother:] Yes, it is better.