Marginalia   ON MADHUSUDAN DUTT'S VIRANGANA KAVYA   A Virgilian elegance and sweetness and a Virgilian majesty of diction ennoble the finer epistles of these Heroides; there is too a Virgilian pathos sad & noble breaking out in detached lines and passages, as in Shacountala's sorrowful address to the leaf and the single melancholy line ,  এই কি রে ফেল ফল প্রেম তরু শাখে  but the more essential poetical gifts, creative force, depth or firmness of meditation, passionate feeling, a grasp of the object, consistency & purity of characterisation are still absent. They were not in the poet's nature and such gifts if denied by Nature, are denied for ever. What

Sketch of the Progress of Poetry from Thomson to Wordsworth   The Age of transition from the poetry of Pope to that of Wordsworth begins strictly speaking with Thomson. This transition was not an orderly and consistent development, but consisted of different groups of poets or sometimes even single poets each of whom made a departure in some particular direction which was not followed up by his or their successors. The poetry of the time has the appearance of a number of loose and disconnected threads abruptly broken off in the middle. It was only in the period from 1798 to 1830 that these threads were gathered together and a definite, co

Part Two   On Literature   Sri Aurobindo wrote all the pieces in this part in Baroda between 1893 and 1906. He published the essays making up Bankim Chandra Chatterji in a newspaper in 1893 ­ 94. He published two of the essays on Kalidasa, "The Age of Kalidasa" and "The Seasons", in 1902 and 1909 respectively. He did not publish any of the pieces in the sections headed "On Poetry and Literature" and "On the Mahabharata".   Bankim Chandra Chatterji     I   His Youth and College Life   BANKIM Chandra Chattopadhyaya, the creator and king of Bengali prose, was a high-caste Brahman and the son of a distingu

Part Three   On Education   Sri Aurobindo wrote the pieces in this part at different times between 1899 and 1920. All of them except "Education" and "National Education" were published in periodicals shortly after they were written. Address at the Baroda College Social Gathering   IN ADDRESSING you on an occasion like the present, it is inevitable that the mind should dwell on one feature of this gathering above all others. Held as it is tow

At the Society's Chambers   Professor —Gentlemen, I believe we are here in full strength. It is gratifying to find so much enthusiasm still abroad for the dispassionate acquisition of knowledge. I trust it is not a short-lived fervour; I trust we shall not soon have to declare our society extinct from constitutional inability to form a quorum. Jurist —I believe this is a society for the discussion of all things discussable and the discovery of all things discoverable. Am I right in my supposition? Professor —Your definition is rather wide, but it may pass. What then? Jur

Dayananda The Man and His Work   AMONG the great company of remarkable figures that will appear to the eye of posterity at the head of the Indian Renascence, one stands out by himself with peculiar and solitary distinctness, one unique in his type as he is unique in his work. It is as if one were to walk for a long time amid a range of hills rising to a greater or lesser altitude, but all with sweeping contours, green-clad, flattering the eye even in their most bold and striking elevation. But amidst them all, one hill stands apart, piled up in sheer strength, a mass of bare and puissant granite, with verdure on its summit, a solitary p

Part Seven   Epistles / Letters From Abroad   Sri Aurobindo wrote the first three of these fictional letters in Bengal in 1910. They were published in 1920 ­ 22 without his editorial supervision; they are reproduced here from his manuscripts. He wrote the last three letters in Pondicherry in 1910 or 1911 but never published them; they are reproduced here from his manuscripts.     Epistles from Abroad   I   Dearly beloved, You, my alter ego, my second existence, now sitting comfortably at home and, doubtless, reading the romantic fiction

List of Illustrations   Following page 458 1. Nadir Shah Ordering a General Massacre, by Hakim Muhammad Khan 2. Engraving of The Vision of the Knight, by Raphael (original painting, generally known as Allegory, in The National Gallery, London)   Following page 584 3. Kalasamhara Shiva, Chola dynasty, c. 10th century (The Art Gallery, Thanjavur) 4. Sundaramurti, the Shaivite Saint, Chola dynasty, c. 11th century (Colombo Museum)   Following page 590 5. Princely Doorkeeper, Pallava dynasty, 7th ­ 8th centur

Things Seen in Symbols [1]   There are Four who are Beyond and they rule the mighty game of evolution. It is they who build the universe with their thoughts and imaginations. Vishnu or Virat put them in front each in turn, and they govern each a cycle. All the sons of immortality come forth from them and return to them, all the children of earth are their portions. One stands in front, the others incarnate to help him. They are God Himself in His fourfold manifestation. Once in each they come down together, -the chaturvyuha, Srikrishna, Balarama, Pradyumna, Aniruddha. __________   Sri

Message for National Education Week (1918)   NATIONAL Education is, next to Self-Government and along with it, the deepest and most immediate need of the country, and it is a matter of rejoicing for one to whom an earlier effort in that direction gave the first opportunity for identifying himself with the larger life and hope of the Nation, to see the idea, for a time submerged, moving so soon towards self-fulfilment. Home Rule and National Education are two inseparable ideals, and none who follows the one, can fail the other, unless he is entirely wanting either in sincerity or in vision