{"id":33,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=33"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:28","slug":"06-beauty-in-the-real-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/06-beauty-in-the-real-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-06_Beauty in the Real.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nBeauty in the Real<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 
\n        I<\/b><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

HAD<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>ridden down by Shelsford thro’ the
\nglittering lustre of an afternoon in March and as I was returning somewhat cold and tired, saw at a distance the pink
\nhat<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> and heavy black curls of Keshav Ganesh and with him
\nBroome Wilson and Prince Paradox. As I trotted up Prince
\nParadox hailed me. "Come round and have tea with me,"
\nhe said, "we are speculating at large on the primitive roots
\nand origins of the universe, and I know your love for light
\nsubjects." "I shall be a delighted listener," I said, and was
\ngenuine in the assurance, for I had many a while listened
\nwith subtle delight to the beautiful and imaginative talk of
\nKeshav Ganesh. I rode to the stables and returned to the College and quickly changing my apparel repaired to Chetwind
\nCourt, but found them already drinking tea with the liberality of
\nartists. "A cup of nectar," I cried, "ere the bowl be empty!" "It
\nseems that Pegasus is blind," said Wilson, "or he would not see
\nthe drink of Gods in the brown tincture of tea-leaves and the
\nchased bowls of Hephaestus in a common set of China." "If
\nnot the drink of Gods," I replied, "it is the nectar of poets
\nand women." "And that is a more splendid title," put in Prince
\nParadox. "You are right," said Keshav, "poets and women are
\nthe efflorescence of being and the crowning rapture of creation,
\nand if poets are roses in their delicate texture and have the crimson luxury and the heavy fragrance and the petalled sublimity of
\na blowing rose, women are moulded as fine material but are
\nflowers perpetually in the bud and are only seen in a glint of
\npeeping splendour and not in the consummated outburst of glory,
\nwhich is only fostered by the living waters of culture and the
\nnurturing warmth of independence." Broome interposed, "No
\nmore of that," he said, "if you escape into a byway, Keshav, you
\nwill never be wooed back into the high road." "But what is the
\nhigh road?" I inquired. Broome Wilson, who was gifted with a<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Tentative reading.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 65<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nretentive memory undertook to inform me. "I understand," I
\nsaid when he had finished, "and am pleased to see my own ideas
\ngarbed in the beautiful dialect of poetical analogy, but have you
\nnot finished or is there more wine to be pressed from the cluster ?"
\n"There is more to be pressed," he answered. Then began an amusing scene, for Broome baited his hook for the argument and kept
\nthrowing the line repeatedly, but Keshav was the wariest fish that
\never cheated an angler and if he ever appeared to bite, was seen,
\nas the line went flying up, to dart away into some fine thought or
\nvoluptuous image. At last when we least expected it, he plunged
\ninto the argument.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd so on the gnarled brow of Pisgah we stand and look
\ndown on a land flowing with milk and honey. Now whether is it
\nwiser to descend and take the kingdom of heaven by violence or
\nto linger here and feel on our temples the breath of the winds
\nwafting us hints of the beauty we relinquish ? Below there are
\ntruculent peoples to conquer and strong cities to storm and
\ngiants, the sons of Anak, to slaughter, but above the stainless
\nheavens and the sweet, fresh morning and one lingering star.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Let us go down," I said, "and enjoy the full meaning of
\nthe beauty below us."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Yes," added Broome eagerly, "leave hints to the spiritually
\nindolent."<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTreneth threw in a paradox.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I love the pleasure of anticipation better than the pain of
\nenjoyment."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"We are very far from the enjoyment," said Keshav, "for
\nwe have yet to make the descent of Pisgah."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"But what is Pisgah?" I asked.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"In thought, the knowledge of virtue, and, in action, the
\npurpose of evolving the inborn qualities and powers native to
\nour personality."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Shall I let you off, Keshav," said Broome, "or are you
\nready to answer my inquiries?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Pray do not," he said, "for like Gorgias I profess to answer
\nany question and not be at a loss however strange the inquiry."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I am glad to hear it, and I hope you will answer and tell me
\nwhy you have ignored the qualities that are native neither to our<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 66<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhuman nature nor to our personality but to a more subtle part
\nof us."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I see," he replied with a smile, "you shy at the spectre of
\nheredity. Well, we will lay the spectre."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"And a spectre it is, or rather a scarecrow," put in Prince
\nParadox, "for it seems to me neither beautiful as an idea nor sound as a
\ntheory but merely the last resource of bad psychologists."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I see the lovers of the past as iconoclastic from regret as
\nthe lovers of the future from aspiration. We are then agreed
\nthat our first step will be to reject or accept heredity ?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe all assented.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"And now, Prince Paradox," he cried, "will you tell me that
\nyou do not believe in race?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"God forbid."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"And you agree with me that an Aryan is various from a
\nnon-Aryan and a Teuton from a Celt and a Celt from a Hindu,
\nand a Rajput from a Mahratta and that this is fine as an idea and
\nsound as a theory and consonant with Nature, which is fond of
\nsphering harmony within harmony."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Yes, I agree with all that."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"And by origin the Saxon varies from the Celt, and is meant
\nfor the drudgery of life and not for its beauty and splendour,
\njust as by origin the thistle varies from the rose and is not glorious nor wonderful but simply decent and useful and good diet
\nfor donkeys."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"That is true."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Then if race divergences result from origin, and origin is
\nheredity, is it not? \u2014 is not heredity real and not a sciolism?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Yes, in broad masses, but not in the individual. What is
\nsauce for the goose abstract is not sauce for the positive gander."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"It would take a positive goose to deny that. But synthesis
\nis the secret of Philosophy and not analysis, and we err widely
\nwhen we work from without rather than from within. Let us
\nrectify our methods or we shall arrive at incomplete results. I
\ntrust some of you are proficient in text-book Psychology?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe all disclaimed the text-book.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"That is fortunate, for I can now make ridiculous mistakes<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 67<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwithout fear of ridicule. This is the theory of race as I conceive
\nit. Temperament is the basis or substratum of character and the
\ncharacter built on anything other than temperament is an edifice
\nrooted in the sea-waves which in a moment will foam away into
\nnothing or tumble grovelling under the feet of fresh conquerors. Indeed it will
\nbe more apt to call temperament the root of character, and the character itself the growing or perfect tree with
\nits hundred branches and myriads of leaves. And temperament is
\nlargely due to race, or, in another phrasing, varies with the blood,
\nand if the blood is quick and fiery the temperament is subtle and sensitive and
\nresponds as promptly to social influences and personal culture as a flower to sunlight and rain, and shoots up into
\nmultitudinous leaves and branches, but if the blood is slow and
\nlukewarm, the temperament is dull and phlegmatic and will not
\nanswer to the most earnest wooing, but grows up stunted and
\nwithered in aspect and bald of foliage and miserly of branches
\nand altogether unbeautiful. On the blood depends the sensitiveness of the nerves to impressions and the quick action of the
\nbrains and the heat of the passions, and all that goes to the
\ncomposition of a character, which if they are absent, leave only
\nthe heavy sediment and dregs of human individuality. Hence
\nthe wide gulf between the Celt and the Saxon."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"You are the dupe of your own metaphors, Keshav," said
\nBroome, "the quick nature is the mushroom, but the slow is the
\ngradual and majestic oak."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"If the Athenians were mushrooms and the lowland Scotch
\nare oaks, the mushroom is preferable. To be slow and solid is the
\npride of the Saxon and the ox, but to be quick and songful and
\ngracile is the pride of the Celt and the bird. There is no virtue in
\ninertia, but only absence of virtue, for without growth there is no
\ndevelopment and the essence of growth and the imperative need
\nof the spirit is movement, which, if you lose, you lose all that
\nseparates the human from the brute."<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBroome avowed that in our theory of virtue the remark was
\nconvincing. "And do we all recognize," said he, "blood as the
\nseed of temperament and temperament as the root of character ?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe all signified assent.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Then, Prince Paradox, does it not follow that if our ances- <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 68<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntors had quick blood, we shall have quick blood and a quick
\ntemperament, and if they had slow blood, we shall have slow
\nblood and a slow temperament, and if they had some of both
\ncharacters, we shall have the elements of either temperament,
\nand either they will amalgamate, one predominant and the other
\nsubordinate or driven under, or they will pervert our souls into a
\nperpetual field of battle ?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Obviously," he assented.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Then here we have heredity in the individual as in the
\nbroad masses."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"But only a racial heredity and to that I do not object, but
\nwhat I loath is to be told that my virtues are mere bequests and
\nthat I am not an original work but a kind of anthology of ancestral qualities."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"But if I called you a poem, in which peculiar words and
\ncadences have been introduced and assimilated and blended in a
\nnew and beautiful manner, would you loath to be told that?"<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Dear me, no: it quite reconciles me to the idea."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"And it is the more accurate comparison. Nature does not
\ngo to work like a mere imitator of herself, as modern poets do,
\nbut transplants the secrets of her old poems and blends them with
\nnew secrets, so as to enrich the beauty of her new poem, and
\nhowever she may seem to grow grapes from thistles, is really too
\nwise and good to do anything so discordant, and only by her
\ninvolved and serpentine manner gives an air of caprice and
\nanarchy to what is really apt and harmonious. She often leaves
\nthe ground fallow for a generation and the world is surprised
\nwhen it sees spring from Sir Timothy Shelley, Baronet and orthodox, Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet and pioneer of free-thought, but
\nlearns in a little while that Percy Shelley had a grandfather and
\nmarvels no longer. Could we trace the descent of Goethe and
\nShakespeare we should find the root of the Italian in the one and
\nthe Celt in the other, but the world did not then and does not
\nnow appreciate the value of genealogies to philosophy. We are
\nvexed and are sceptical of harmony in nature, when we find Endymion a Londoner, but look back a step and learn that his parents
\nwere Devonshire Celts and recover our faith in the Cosmos. And
\nwhy should we exclaim at the Julian emperors as strange pro-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 69<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nducts for stoical virtue-ridden Rome, when we know that Tiberius was a Claudius, one of the great Italian houses renowned for
\nits licence, cruelty, pride and genius, and Calligula the son and
\nNero the grandson of Germanicus, who drew his blood from
\nMark Antony. Science is right in its materialist data, though
\nnot always in the inferences it draws from them and when she tells
\nus that nothing proceeds from nothingness and that for every
\neffect there is a cause and for every growth a seed, we must remember that her truths apply as much to the spiritual as to the
\nmaterial world. Mommsen has said rightly that without passion
\nthere is no genius. We shall not gather beauty from ugliness,
\nnor intellect from a slow temperament, nor fiery passion from
\ndisciplined apathy, but in all things shall reap as we sow, and
\nmust sow the wind before we can reap the whirlwind."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n(Incomplete<\/i>)<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 70<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beauty in the Real             I HAD ridden down by Shelsford thro’ the glittering lustre of an afternoon in March and as I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","wpcat-4-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}