Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2183

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

September 7, 1938

That was precisely what I had thought of writing to Govinda Das. Now I can quote you, toning it down, of course.

No, sir, you mustn’t make it a quotation from me, but you can unload it as your own original merchandise on your unwary customer.-

Dilipda has presented me with a fine pen as you can judge from my writing!

Congrats.

I fear what was being more and more “seen” in recent poems, is now getting more and more “unseen”, but, at the same time, giving the same amount of trouble. I can’t, for the life of me, get new expressions or thoughts. What can be done? I break my head over them but they remain as damned hard and unprofitable as the Divine! I am paying the penalty of trying to become an English poet and of facing a hard task-master!

What the deuce are you complaining about? You are writing very beautiful poetry with apparent ease and one a day of this kind is a feat. If the apparent ease covers a lot of labour, that is the lot of the poet and artist except when he is a damned phenomenon of fluency. “It is the highest art to conceal art.” “The long and conscientious labour of the artist giving in the result an appearance of divine and perfect ease” – console yourself with these titbits. As for repetitions, they are almost inevitable when you are writing a poem a day. You are gaining command of your medium and that is the main thing. An inexhaustible original fecundity is a thing you have to wait for – when you are more spiritually experienced and mature.