Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters (1890–1926)
Family Letters, 1890–1919
Extract from a Letter to His Father1
Last night I was invited to coffee with one of the Dons and in his rooms I met the Great O.B. otherwise Oscar Browning, who is the feature par excellence of King’s. He was extremely flattering; passing from the subject of cotillions to that of scholarships he said to me “I suppose you know you passed an extraordinarily high examination. I have examined papers at thirteen examinations and I have never during that time [seen] such excellent papers as yours (meaning my classical papers at the scholarship examination). As for your essay it was wonderful.” In this essay (a comparison between Shakespeare and Milton) I indulged in my Oriental tastes to the top of their bent; it overflowed with rich and tropical imagery; it abounded in antitheses and epigrams and it expressed my real feelings without restraint or reservation. I thought myself that it was the best thing I had ever done, but at school I would have been condemned as extraordinarily Asiatic and bombastic. The Great O.B. afterwards asked me where my rooms were and when I had answered he said “That wretched hole!” then turning to Mahaffy “How rude we are to our scholars! we get great minds to come down here and then shut them up in that box! I suppose it is to keep their pride down.”
1890
1 1890. This passage is from a letter that Sri Aurobindo wrote to his father Dr. K. D. Ghose (1844–1892) shortly after his arrival in Cambridge in October 1890. His father copied out the passage in a letter written to his brother-in-law Jogindranath Bose in December 1890.