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Sri Aurobindo in Baroda, 1906 Part One
The Sole Motive of Man’s Existence
The banquet was half over and the wine in lively progress round the table; yet the ladies did not retire. The presence of women over the wine was one of the cardinal articles of Julian’s social creed. The conversation turned on the Christian religion which finally emerged from the arena stripped of all its plumes and in a condition woefully besmirched and bedraggled. Julian, who had taken the lead in blasphemy, closed the subject by observing "The popular Gods should be denied but respected."" Yet you couple women and wine in your banquet— room" said Erinna. "Ah, my friend, I only observe Nature’s ordinances: in social life sex does not exist. Besides conversation requires speech as well as reason." "You insinuate?" "Nature gave man reason, speech to woman." The men laughed. "I will quote you two sentences from my new catechism, Julian" said Helen Woodward. "To what end has man used reason? To make Truth incredible. To what purpose has woman employed speech? To say nothing." Julian felt that the tone of talk was becoming too serious and he glided away from the subject. During the flow of the wine someone coupled the names of Aphrodite and Bacchus. "Ah yes" said Julian "how is it that we have not honoured the goddess who presides over this feast?" "Let Julian do it in his master’s fashion" suggested Corydon. "I cannot tread beaten ground, Lionel." "Ah but Love is as bottomless as the sea." "Yet Plato was an excellent diver and brought up the richest pearls." Page – 3
"Scarcely in
one dive, Julian" said Powell.
"In
five, if I remember aright.
""Yet
Agathon’s pearl was not flawless."
"Do you
propose to amend it?"
"I
should but spoil it; but I could dive for a pearl of my own finding
perhaps."
"You
shall have a rich meed of praise."
"But, my
dear critic" said Erinna "what ground was untrod by Plato?"
"Agathon
painted the loveliness of Love but not Love himself."
"Describe him then you" said Julian and raised his hand
for silence.
Powell lay back a moment with his dark Welsh eyes
fixed upon the ceiling and then spoke.
"I am
told to describe Love" began Powell "yet in order to
describe I must
first define. And how is that possible with a being intangible as
the air and inconstant as the moon? For Love is as slippery and
mutable as Proteus, chameleon— hued, multiform, amorphous, infinite;
the transmigrations of a Hindu soul are not more various and elastic;
the harmony of his outlines are not blurred by chaos or the weird;
rather like poetry and summer he wraps himself in a cool soft robe of
velvet air and his feet are kissed by the laughing sea. But the
translucent air which promises to reveal is a cloak far thicker than
the gathering dusk. Thus the Eros of Praxiteles is not Love himself
but the soul of the sculptor in one of her phases. Yet though Love
has no one form, the idea, the soul of Love, that strange essence
which walks forever in the peopled Shadow— land, he is shackled in a
single and uniform shape. How then shall I paint the idea of Love?
The Greeks have described a child with a warlike bow of horn and
bitter arrows tipped with steel, and modern poets inspired by this
rude conception have fabled of the smart which is the herald of
Love’s shaft. But these ideas however happy in themselves are by no
means suitable to Love; for they are without two of his most
essential elements, the subtle and the impalpable. The Hindus are
more felicitous when they sing of Kama — for poetry
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alone can express him — the divine and radiant youth mounted on [an]
emerald parrot, and bearing in his right hand a bow of flowers; the
arrows too must be of the same soft and voluptuous material — for a
preference I would name the shefali, the only blossom which has a
soul. For Love’s arrow never pains while in the wound — it is too
subtle and flower— like — if a lover is in pain, it is because he
loves himself more than Love — and that is the fault of Nature, not
of Eros. Again Love has been painted as blind; and in this too the
poets of Europe have conceived a lyrical fiction; for they say that
Love looses his shafts and knows not whom they strike, whereas indeed
he knows too well. It is his delight to unite those who should never
have so much as met and to blind them to their own misery until the
shefali arrow has withered in their hearts; and this he does with
eyes open and of deliberate purpose. So far poets have sinned; but it
is a vulgar error to suppose Love garrulous, a bastard child of
Momus and Aphrodite; whereas in truth he is the lawful son of
Hephaistos; but he has swallowed his father down, and for that
reason those lovely lips, the scarlet portals of Passion’s treasury,
do not yield up their store of pearls and rubies — nay dare not so
much as open lest Hephaistos escape and in his anger blast the world.
"Thus
then I paint Love."
A murmur
of applause flew like a wild spirit from mouth to mouth.
"Record
me a confirmed Pythagorean" said Julian "the soul of Agathon did not
perish in Macedonia."
"Yet I
dare say, Vernon" replied Erinna "you do not believe a word of what
Agathon has been saying."
"Yet
your belief is the bastard of Momus rather than the heir of Peitho"
rejoined Helen Woodward."
"I confess, Powell" replied Julian "that the manner pleased me
better than the matter."
"Your
reason, Julian?"
"Your
picture was too beautiful to be true."
"That is
a recommendation" said Erinna. "To the artist but not to the
critic."
"How
would you define Love, Julian?" asked Corydon.
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"Give me a moment to think."
"You
will be harshly criticised."
"Heine
speed me! How will this do — the smile of a drunken God."
There
was applause.
"Ah but
it is perfect" exclaimed Dufresne between a laugh and a sigh.
"But
Marc might give us a better" suggested Philip.
"In its
own way" assented Marc "Love is spiritual champagne, the best of
wines if the briefest."
The
characteristic answer set the echoes rocking to Homeric mirth.
"A
poisonous purple flower" said Helen "but its chalice collects the
pure wine of heaven."
"It is
the paean of the soul heavenward or its dithyramb hell-ward"
subjoined Corydon.
O’Ruark dissented. "It is a strange mania which everyone is bound to
catch, mostly at a certain age — in short the spiritual measles."
A burst
of laughter greeted this Irish flight.
"Love is
a runner in the race of life with the parsley wreath of joy for his
prize" said Philip, formulating the sensations of the moment in an
aphorism.
"Alas,
to wear it for a day" said Pattison Ely "he is the
bridegroom of Sin
and the father of Satiety."
"Ah no,
but the child of Sin" corrected Julian "beautiful child of a more
beautiful mother."
"Is it
not Sin itself" suggested Erinna "Sin, the true philosopher’s stone
which turns life from dull lead to gold."
"What is
Sin?" asked Julian smiling.
"The
invention of spiritual alchemists; it turns a leaden life to gold."
"A
modern discovery, I think" said Powell.
"A
modern revival" corrected Erinna "they lost the secret in the Dark
Ages; that is why the history of the time is so dull. Sin was
legalised and therefore gave no pleasure.
"Julian
laughed.
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"You have given me what I have long been in search of."
"What is
that, Julian?"
"A good
reason for the existence of Laws."
Erinna
smiled and went on. "They lost the secret of Love too and found in
its place the gorgeous phantasm of chivalry. I maintain that Love is
only a form of Sin."
"Yet
they recognise marriage."
"They
raise a monument over the corpse of Love."
"She who
could best tell us what Love is, sits silent" said Helen Woodward,
looking at Ella.
"It is
the sole motive of man’s existence" replied Ella. It was the first
time she had opened her lips but the thought in her mind leaped out
before she could bring it back.
There was tender laughter as of disillusioned
September lenient to
the emerald hopes of April; yet in the company no one save only
Julian had passed the farther bourne of youth. In these days men live
too fast to reckon their age by years.
But Helen Woodward looked at Ella with a world of compassion in her
beautiful wild eyes.
Night flew on winged feet and the wine was in their speech.
At last the ladies rose and left the room; to the heart of Ella it
seemed as [incomplete]
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