Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Letters

Fragment ID: 22142

A&R.–  1985, April, pp. 77-73

[Dilip did write a note on Sri Aurobindo’s education, which he submitted to him. After reading this, Sri Aurobindo commented:]

I would prefer another form more in keeping with the tone of the text,– e.g[.]

“It may be observed that Sri Aurobindo’s education in England gave him a wide introduction to the culture of ancient, of mediaeval and of modern Europe. He was a brilliant scholar in Greek and Latin, | passed the Tripos in Cambridge in the first division, obtained record marks in Greek and Latin in the examination for the Indian Civil Service |. He had learned French from his childhood in Manchester and studied for himself Italian and German sufficiently to read Dante and Goethe in the original tongue.”

I have left the detail about the Tripos and the record marks, though I do not find these trifles in place here; the note would read much better with the omission of the part between the vertical lines.

But what is Beachcroft doing here? He butts in in such a vast and spreading parenthesis that he seems to be one of “these ancient languages” and in him too, perhaps, I got record marks! Besides, any ingenious reader would deduce from his presence in your note that he acquitted me out of fellow-feeling over the two examinations and out of university camaraderie,– which was far from being the case. I met him only in the I.C.S[.] classes and at the I.C.S[.] examinations and we never exchanged two words together. If any extralegal consideration came in subconsciously in the acquittal, it must have been his admiration for my prose style to which he gave fervent expression in his judgment. Don’t drag him in like this – let him rest in peace in his grave.