Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

His Life and Attempts to Write about It
Life in England, 1879 – 1893

The European Temperament

How is it that most Europeans manage to remain cheerful, while in India there is so much gloom and moroseness in family life, and cunning, strategy and selfishness in social life? Half of the cheerfulness in Europeans, I suspect, comes not so much from intrinsic joy or humour as from the discipline of having good manners.

It is largely the latter — to show one’s bad moods in society is considered bad form and indicating want of self-control; so people in Europe usually keep their worse side for their own house and family and don’t show it outside. Some do but are considered as either neurasthenic or as having a “sale caractère”. But apart from that Europeans have, I think, more vitality than Indians and are more elastic and resilient and less nervously sensitive. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but generally, I think, that is true. In family life it is more of the rajasic ego than gloom and moroseness that creates trouble. Gloom and moroseness generally meet with ridicule as a “Byronic” or tragic affectation, so it is very soon discouraged. Cunning, strategy and selfishness in social life is considered in France at least to be more a characteristic of peasant life — in the middle class it is supposed to be the sign of the “arriviste”.

6 January 1937