Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
Letter ID: 298
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
November 24, 1932
The Mother has given “Bindu” his permission. For the moment I say nothing about him, for although one may form a fundamental impression for oneself in a moment’s contact amid a rush or stream of two hundred people, a deliberate judgment to be put on paper is quite another matter.
Of course Tagore’s worshippers will go for Prabodh Sen, what did you expect? Literary nature (artistic generally, or at least very often) is human nature at its most susceptible – genus irritabile vatum1. And besides where is the joy of literature if you cannot use your skill of words in pummelling some opposite faction’s nose? Man is a reasoning animal (perhaps?), but a belligerent reasoning animal and must fight with words if he cannot do it with fists, swords, guns or poison gas. All the more, I applaud your decision not to pursue farther the trairath [triple chariot].
I quite agree about the metre and its success. In this form the poem is still better than it was before.
1 Words from Horace, meaning “the irritable race of poets.”