Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part One. Autobiographical Notes
1. Life Sketches and Other Autobiographical Notes
Appendix. Letters on “Sri Aurobindo: A Life Sketch” [5]1
I would prefer another form more in keeping with the tone of the text,– eg
“It may be observed that Sri Aurobindo’s education in
England gave him a wide introduction to the culture of ancient, of mediaeval and
of modern Europe. He was a brilliant scholar 
in
Greek and Latin, | passed the Tripos in Cambridge in the first division,
obtained record marks in Greek and Latin in the examination for the Indian Civil
Service |. He had learned French from his childhood in Manchester and studied
for himself Italian and German sufficiently to read Dante and Goethe in the
original tongue.”2
I have left the detail about the Tripos and the record marks, though I do not find these trifles in place here; the note would read much better with the omission of the part between the vertical lines.
(But what is Beachcroft doing here? He butts in in such a vast and spreading parenthesis that he seems to be one of “these ancient languages” and in him too, perhaps, I got record marks! Besides, any ingenious reader would deduce from his presence in your note that he acquitted me out of fellow-feeling over the two “examinations” and out of university camaraderie,– which was far from being the case. I met him only in the I.C.S classes and at the I.C.S examinations and we never exchanged two words together. If any extralegal consideration came in subconsciously in the acquittal, it must have been his admiration for my prose style to which he gave fervent expression in his judgment. Don’t drag him in like this – let him rest in peace in his grave.)
27 June 1930
1 27 June 1930. This letter deals with the draft of a proposed note on Sri Aurobindo’s “occidental education” (see the last sentence of letter [4]), which Dilip intended to add to Sri Aurobindo’s “Life Sketch”. In the printed text of the “Life Sketch” the paragraph that Sri Aurobindo placed here between inverted commas was printed as a footnote. The sentence about Sri Aurobindo’s prizes and examinations, which he wanted to have omitted, was tacked on rather awkwardly as a closing parenthesis. In a typescript of the text that was submitted to him, Sri Aurobindo emended “to study Goethe and Dante” to “to read Goethe and Dante”
2 The passage within inverted commas is Sri Aurobindo’s correction of a note that had been submitted to him by the correspondent. The final version of the note appears as footnote 3 on pages 5–6. – Ed.