Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1936

Letter ID: 1785

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

November 27, 1936

[The following report was written by Dr. Becharlal:]

S said last evening that she was much better. But today she has not come for the medicines.

She has written that she got worse with the medicine, so she stopped it. I have told her that she ought to report to you instead of doing that.

A perfect sonnet! (1) What do you think of the first line, Sir: “My clouded soul, do you know where you are?” Flat? and the clouded soul?

(1) Flat? by God, sir, abysmal! The soul can get as clouded as it likes but do you know where you are? In Pondicherry, sir, in Pondicherry – the most clouded soul can know that. You might just as well write “My friend, do you know that you are an ass?” and call it metre and poetry.

What about the thought, sequence, etc.? Please show the defects with your opinion and criticism. Is it a metaphysical or philosophic poem?

God knows! But the matter is that the metre of some of your lines is enough to make the hair of a prosodist stand on end in horror! I have marked all the quadrupeds you have created in situ – also put in the margin my five-footed emendations of them...