Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2202

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

October 3, 1938

Guru, so after so much trouble and pain, yesterday’s poem was maimed! What a capricious Goddess is the Muse! But how partial to you!

Not at all. I have to labour much more than you, except for sonnets which come easily and short lyrics which need only a single revision. But for the rest I have to rewrite 20 or 30 times. Moreover I write only at long intervals.

The glacier image is a theft from Mallarmé, and not a clever one, perhaps?

It is quite effective here. Thefts from other languages are habitual in poetry.