Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Fragment ID: 20335

All evil starts from that ambiguous face.

Here again the same word “face” occurs a second time at the end of a line¹ but it belongs to a new section and a new turn of ideas. I am not attracted by your suggestion; the word “mien” here is an obvious literary substitution and not part of a straight and positive seeing: as such it sounds deplorably weak. The only thing would be to change the image, as for instance,

All evil creeps from that ambiguous source.

But this is comparatively weak. I prefer to keep the “face” and insert a line before it so as to increase a little the distance between the two faces:

Its breath is a subtle poison in men’s hearts.

1948

¹ P. 205. line 21 The first occurrence is ten lines earlier

All beauty ended in an aging face.

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