Till the other day I did not know how great men rise, flourish and then fall. So I tried to study H and R. But even in these cases I had to despair, for I failed to trace any greatness in them except perhaps in their ego!Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1. 1933-34
Fragment ID: 16710
1933-34
Till the other day I did not know how great men rise, flourish and then fall. So I tried to study H and R. But even in these cases I had to despair, for I failed to trace any greatness in them except perhaps in their ego!
I do not know to whom you refer as great men here; but H is certainly a great poet. So what is the difficulty in recognising his greatness?
Men with great capacities or a powerful mind or a powerful vital have very often more glaring defects of character than ordinary men – or at least the defects of the latter do not show so much, being like themselves, smaller in scale.