On The Mother

CHAPTER 28

Asuric Upsurge

I

As we have seen in the preceding chapters, during the seven-year period between 1931 and 1938 there were broad indications that the Yoga at the individual and even collective levels was making steady progress. The Mother's sudden and serious illness in October 1931 had been a set-back of course, a temporary triumph for the hostile forces, but presently the divine dispensation visibly reasserted itself. The whinings, grumblings and philosophic doubts punctuating several of the letters written by some of the intellectuals among the disciples at this time should be viewed only in the wider perspective of this general progress, outer and inner, of the Ashram community. These had their part to play no doubt in the collective sadhana of the Ashram community, for many of their letters acted as catalytic agents and engineered the emanation from the Source of the much needed general and particular illumination with regard to the theory and the practice of the Yoga.

On a synoptic view, then, the Ashram was growing in its total strength and the intensity of its evolving consciousness. There was a burst of literary and artistic activity, and the three Darshans were like minor landmarks indicating the steady, if not spectacular, progress of the sadhana from the bases of inconscience and ignorance and flawed half-lights up the winding zigzagging slopes of Ascent towards the summits of the supramental Truth­Consciousness and supreme Ananda.

While in appearance the Ashram was a world apart and sheltered from the wider world, and although in the Ashram itself Sri Aurobindo was in self-forged double isolation, it was still no escapist retreat, for the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's consciousness knew no limitations of space and time. He read the papers, he discussed local and world happenings with the Mother, and their brooding identity of consciousness comprehended all the sinuous movements of Becoming. On 25 September 1938, Sri Aurobindo could write in his poem "The Cosmic Man":

I look across the world and no horizon walls my gaze;

I see Paris and Tokyo and New York,

I see the bombs bursting on Barcelona and on Canton streets.

Man's numberless misdeeds and rare good deeds take place within my single self.

I am the beast he slays, the bird he feeds and saves.

The thoughts of unknown minds exalt me with their thrill,

I carry the sorrow of millions in my lonely breast.¹

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This is not to be read as mere rhetoric, this was vivid personal involvement and experience. The thirties were the poisoned time when there was aggression and war on many fronts: Japan's in Manchuria, Italy's in Abyssinia, the Sino-J Japanese war, the Spanish civil war, and the ominous rise of Hitler. There were the pathetic but abortive attempts to contain the developing world crisis through the Geneva Disarmament Conference. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo could, beyond any Tiresias, see everything and see through everything. And such a gift of vision may have been a terrible burden, for that involved also a proportionate responsibility.

II

1938: it was a year of continuing crisis. On 12 March 1938, Austria was annexed by Hitler. Then day after day, week after week, Hitler mounted pressure on Czechoslovakia:

A bull-throat bellowed with its brazen tongue;

Its hard and shameless clamour filling space

And threatening all who dared to listen to truth

Claimed the monopoly of the battered ear;

A deafened acquiescence gave its vote,

And braggart dogmas shouted in the night ... ²

Mussolini's Italy was behind Hitler, and so was Japan. The Western powers - Britain, France - were tense with anxiety and apprehension. President Roosevelt of U.S.A. felt deeply concerned, but could do little. Stalin's Russia was enigmatic, impassive, apparently neutral. Was it going to be war or peace? Neville Chamberlain was only too agonisingly aware of Britain's inadequate war-preparedness, and Daladier of France too was looking for an escape route from immediate entanglement in a full-fledged conflagration. In India, very few could have guessed the deeper issues at stake, and none had Sri Aurobindo's comprehensive grasp of the developments in their historical setting. In his lone room Sri Aurobindo sat and brooded out the issue of peace or war, and the Mother brought all her immense proliferation of occult knowledge into the assessment of the European and world situation. On 14 December, while discussing another subject, Sri Aurobindo was to remark:

I am not occupied with details of occult working. I have left them to the Mother. She often hears what is said at a distance, meets sadhaks on the subtle planes, talks to them. She saw exactly what was going to happen in the recent European trouble. We know whatever we have to know for our work. ³

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother must have been deeply concerned during

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those weeks of gathering storm and mounting tensions. On 29 September 1938, the humiliating (but perhaps at the time very necessary) Munich Agreement was signed by Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier and Chamberlain, giving the frightened world a little breathing-space - but no more than that! Sri Aurobindo had no doubt whatsoever regarding the powers that were behind Hitler, for on 14 November 1938 he wrote in "The Iron Dictators":

I looked for Thee alone, but met my glance

The iron dreadful Four who rule our breath,

Masters of falsehood, Kings of ignorance,

High sovereign Lords of suffering and death.

Whence came these formidable autarchies,

From what inconscient blind Infinity, -

Cold propagandists of a million lies,

Dictators of a world of agony? ...

Thou, only Thou, canst raise the invincible siege,

O Light, O deathless Joy, O rapturous Peace! ⁴

Falsehood, Ignorance, Suffering, Death: these are the Iron Dictators who run half the world through infernal agents such as Hitler. How easily the eyes were dazzled by the fires of Hell, how fatally half-headed people were inhaling the fumes from the Pit? Half the world had already been bewitched into acquiescence, and the other half held its breath in be­numbing fear. But Sri Aurobindo and the Mother saw clearly and straight through the intervening mist and māyā of the propagandist falsehood. They could see right from the beginning the kind of threat Hitler and his "Children of Wotan" posed to man's future on the earth. The following passage in Savitri was quite obviously inspired by the Hitlerian horror that spread and established its hegemony over Germany:

A mighty energy, a monster god,

Hard to the strong, implacable to the weak,

It stared at the harsh unpitying world it made

With the stony eyelids of its fixed idea ....

To have power, to be master, was sole virtue and good:

It claimed the whole world for Evil's living room,

Its party's grim totalitarian reign

The cruel destiny of breathing things.

All on one plan was shaped and standardised

Under a dark dictatorship's breathless weight. ⁵

With her uncanny occult powers, the Mother could see - as she was to explain many years later - how Hitler was indeed under the domination of an evil Force or nefarious being that dazzled and led him on and on,

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seemingly from one sensational victory to another and still another:

Hitler used to retire into solitude and remain there as long as it was necessary to come into contact with his "guide" and receive from him :inspirations which he carried out later very faithfully. This being which Hitler took for the Supreme was quite plainly an Asura, one who is called the "Lord of Falsehood" in occultism, but who proclaimed himself the "Lord of the Nations" .... Generally he used to appear to Hitler wearing a silver cuirass and helmet; a kind of flame came out of his head and there was an atmosphere of dazzling light around him .... He used to tell Hitler everything that had to be done - he played with him as with a monkey or a mouse. He had decided clearly to make Hitler commit all possible extravagances till the day he would break his neck, which did happen. ⁶

In almost identical terms, Sri Aurobindo wrote on 16 October 1939 in his poem on Hitler:

In his high villa on the fatal hill

Alone he listens to that sovereign Voice,

Dictator of his action's sudden choice,

The tiger leap of a demoniac skill ....

Thus driven he must stride on conquering all,

Threatening and clamouring, brutal, invincible,

Perhaps to meet upon his storm-swept road

A greater devil - or thunderstroke of God. ⁷

Indeed, under the Hitlerian dispensation, the Nazi millions became "a race possessed". The 'foul fiend' is normally held in severe check by "the heart's human law" and "the calm and sovereign eyes of Thought". But in "a fire and earthquake of the soul", the devil is let loose, and he invokes the Night and imposes his treacherous reign. A whole people can be bewitched into accepting a philosophy of perversion and the religion of ignorance and hatred.

III

November was the month of the Siddhi Day, and as usual the sadhaks were looking forward to the Darshan on the 24th to receive Sri Aurobindo's blessings. And the visitors were coming, more and more day after day; and by the 23rd there were about one thousand sadhaks and others, awaiting the "divine Event" of the next day. The atmosphere of the Ashram was filled with a suppressed excitement. Friends and strangers came together, and the accents of many languages were heard. Those who had come to the Ashram for the first time felt a responsive calm to receive the benevolent impact of the Invisible. They were on the threshold of a unique experience,

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- exactly what, they didn't as yet know. And they just wondered, in their humility and awe.

Among those who had come for the first time was Miss Margaret Wilson, the eldest daughter of President Woodrow Wilson. Having learnt about Sri Aurobindo in the late twenties, she started corresponding with him, read some of his seminal writings, and began doing his Yoga. But it was only in late 1938 that she was permitted to come and settle in the Ashram. On 5 November she was given the name "Nishtha". Sri Aurobindo, while thus naming her, wrote: "The word means one-pointed, fixed and steady concentration, devotion and faith in the single aim - the Divine and the Divine Realisation." ⁸ Nishtha was now all eagerness to have her first darshan of the author of Essays on the Gita (which she considered her Bible). And so were the others - sadhaks, disciples, admirers, visitors - feeding on expectancy, sitting in the Ashram courtyard, or whispering to one another. The whole day passed in subdued animation, beginning with the morning when the Mother gave balcony darshan. "Embodiment of the Mahalakshmi Grace and Beauty," says Nirodbaran, "she poured her smile and filled our hearts with love and adoration. ⁹ During the remaining hours of the day, the sadhaks walked as on air, and fed on 'honeydew and the milk of Paradise'.

When night came, most retired early, and stillness reigned in the Ashram. There was a solitary light burning in Sri Aurobindo's room. By 2 a.m. Ambalal Purani was up too, for he had to prepare hot water for Sri Aurobindo's bath. And then, sharply the emergency bell rang from the Mother's room. When Purani rushed up the stairs, the Mother who was standing at the top told him: "Sri Aurobindo has fallen down. Go and fetch Dr. Manilal'' From faraway Gujarat, Or. Manilal had come for the Darshan, and he was now awakened, and he hurried to Sri Aurobindo's room. Nirod and the other Ashram doctors too were called. This was what had happened: as he was walking from his sitting-room to the bathroom, Sri Aurobindo had stumbled over a tiger-skin on the floor and fallen, his right knee striking against the tiger-head. He could not get up, and lay quietly. But reacting to the strong vibration in her sleep, the Mother awoke and rushed to the place, took in at a glance what had happened, and rang the emergency bell. As Nirod recapitulates the scene:

The Mother was sitting by Sri Aurobindo's side, fanning him gently. I could not believe what I saw: on the one hand Sri Aurobindo lying helplessly, on the other, a deep divine sorrow on the Mother's face .... His right knee was flexed, his face bore a perplexed smile as if he did not know what was the matter with him; the chest was bare, well-developed, and the snow-white dhoti now drawn up contrasted with the shining golden thighs. A sudden fugitive vision of the Golden Purusha of the Vedas! ¹⁰

The doctors diagnosed it as a case of fracture. Within two to three hours,

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the right leg was put in plaster, and Sri Aurobindo was conveyed to his bed. To the great disappointment of the assembled sadhaks and visitors who were looking forward to the Darshan scheduled to commence at 7.30 in the morning, there was an announcement of cancellation of the programme. The Mother, however, gave Darshan to all in the evening, thereby wiping away "their gloom with the sunshine of her smile and the power of her touch". ¹¹

When later, after the X-ray photographs had been taken and examined, a clear diagnosis emerged, it was "like a stunning blow". What they revealed was an "impacted fracture of the right femur above the knee, two fragments firmly locked together". ¹² The specialist advised that Sri Aurobindo should stay in bed for a number of weeks. The next day when Dr. Manilal tried to make light of it to the Mother, she almost flew into a rage. "It was Mahakali's wrath." The Mother knew that not the doctors, but Sri Aurobindo alone could initiate the process of cure. And so she "prostrated herself on the floor before Sri Aurobindo," writes Nirod, "and, I believe, began to pray to him. From this supplication I could realise the gravity of the situation .... Calm and solemn, Sri Aurobindo heard the silent prayer.^"13 The pulse of recovery began to beat again.

IV

While the strict outer explanation of the accident was that Sri Aurobindo stumbled while walking, the timing of the fall and the seriousness of the fracture hinted at some occult intervention. ¹⁴ The Hitler-peril, although halted for the nonce by the Munich Agreement, was far from being exorcised away and the real trial of strength between the forces of Light and Darkness was still to come. The world was very near the brink, it was almost touch and go. But in their anxiety for the world's welfare, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were perhaps a little careless of themselves and the hostile forces suddenly struck.¹⁵ Sri Aurobindo himself explained thus the cause of his accident: "The hostile forces had tried many times to prevent things like the darshan but I had succeeded in warding off all their attacks. At the time the accident to my leg occurred, I was more occupied with guarding the Mother and I forgot about myself. I didn't think the hostiles would attack me. That was my mistake." ¹⁶ The Mother was asleep - and all was quiet, the hostile forces were able to slip through and cause his fall. In Nirodbaran's words:

The forces must have been very sly - clever indeed to have chosen the time when the Mother had retired, the Gods were asleep. But the Powers of the Inconscience were awake to strike their infernal blow. It was really the hour of the unexpected! ¹⁷

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For a whole year almost after the accident, the Mother's central preoccupation was Sri Aurobindo's health. She suspended pranams and personal interviews, and attended to the all-absorbing question of hastening Sri Aurobindo's recovery, and there were also the details of the working of the Ashram. To the amazement of the attending doctors, the Mother showed a surprisingly close - if intuitive - knowledge of medical science. When the orthopaedic surgeon came from Madras to examine Sri Aurobindo, the Mother "put many intricate questions to him on various possibilities, the prognosis, lines of treatment, etc., etc., and the specialist wondered with admiration at her possession of so much technical knowledge." ¹⁸ When in late February 1939 the splints were removed and Sri Aurobindo's thigh looked swollen, the specialist tried to give some reassuring explanation:

The Mother was not however so easily satisfied. She questioned him very closely on the cause of the oedema, its pathology, complications and danger, or other possible sequels. When the specialist stated that sometimes movements might dislodge a venous clot and bring about serious complications, the Mother caught him at once and asked how then could he recommend massage and passive movements. The doctor was not prepared for such an astute question ... and said that the Mother was a very intelligent person! ¹⁹

Again, when massage was to be given, the Mother watched the application, putting forth her force to speed up the recovery. Also, she made careful and comprehensive arrangements with regard to every aspect of Sri Aurobindo's life and satisfied herself frequently in the course of the day that all was indeed well.

By April 1939 there was substantial improvement, and Sri Aurobindo was able to walk, though for a time only with the support of Purani and Champaklal. The sadhaks and disciples who had already missed two Darshans in succession (24 November and 21 February) were unwilling to wait till 15 August, and so 24 April - the date of the Mother's second coming to Pondicherry in 1920 - was chosen as a Darshan day. But it was no prolonged affair as of old, extending from 7.30 to well past noon, but a. brief benediction, "over within an hour" ²⁰ in the afternoon, a quick processionary communion.

V

In the days following the accident, Sri Aurobindo's right leg was in plaster and he was confined to bed. He spoke little in the beginning, but as the days passed, he became more communicative. Besides Purani and Champaklal the doctors - Manilal, Nirod, Becharlal, Satyendra - were in attendance and at times there were two or three others besides. When questions were put to him, he was not unwilling to answer.

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As the days passed he was rather free and relaxed in his comments. Occasionally the Mother also joined the group. Thus the 'talks' started, which were to assume considerable importance during the months and years following, becoming an institution almost. It was as though the Evening Talks of the pre-Siddhi. days were now resumed, though under altered conditions. Whatever the issue, Sri Aurobindo spoke gently, intimately, and in a "finely cadenced voice" , talking as if to himself and not looking at anybody in particular.

The Mother used to drop in every evening on her way to give a meditation to the sadhaks, and she too occasionally joined the conversation. Thus, on 11 December 1938, she said on entering Sri Aurobindo's room, "Are they again making you talk?" Sri Aurobindo answered that there was some discussion about justice. The Mother, intervening, remarked:

Of course, there is justice. Do you think these people [evil-doers] can have an easy and comfortable life? They can't; they suffer, they are tormented, they are not happy within ....

... in some cases as the Divine pressure goes on acting on them, at one time or another, especially during some impending catastrophe, a sudden change takes place in them. ²¹

The discussion then turned on Grace, which could supersede even the Law of Karma, but one had to have total faith in the Grace. Certainly, Grace was unconditional, but suppose one resisted it - denied it - threw it back? "It would be like constantly spilling from a cup in which something is poured," she said, and added:

If one recognises the Grace and expresses gratitude, it acts more quickly and more powerfully ....

But the Grace does not work according to human standards or demands. It has its own law and its own way. How can it act otherwise? Very often what seems to be a great blow or calamity at the present moment may turn out to be a great blessing after ten years or so, and people say that their real life began only after that mishap. ²²

Another evening Dr. Manilal asked the Mother whether it was a sin to kill bugs, mosquitoes, scorpions and the like. She answered that in her early Pondicherry days, she used to drive mosquitoes away by her yogic force, but Sri Aurobindo didn't approve of it. On this Sri Aurobindo commented jokingly, "Because you were making friendship with them." ²³ While Dr. Manilal presented the extreme Jain viewpoint on Ahimsa, the Mother said: "In order to be a true non-killing Jain, one must be a Yogi. Then one can deal rightly with these animals and insects." ²⁴

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A few days later, on 4 January 1939, the Mother entered a caveat against hypnotism:

What is hypnotism? Doesn't it mean that the subject's will-power is replaced by somebody else's? I know a case of exteriorisation where the operator was able to exteriorise the vital being of the subject in an almost material form and replace it by another's and not by the operator's own. If one replaced it by one's own, there would be no operation. But these operations are extremely dangerous, for there are so many forces round about that may easily take possession of the body, or else death may follow. One shouldn't do these things except under guidance or in the presence of a Master. ²⁵

Some years later, when Sethna wrote about his experiences on leaving his physical body and making explorations in his subtle body, the Mother wrote firmly:

It is much better to stop the experiences altogether. They seem to take you into levels which are undesirable and most unsafe; they are not at all necessary for any opening in the Yoga. ²⁶

The Mother's own trances and travels in the occult regions were of a different kind, being those of an adept; even so, the times the Mother was in trance - sometimes for hours together - were "a very trying phase". Not only while giving a meditation, receiving pranams, offering a flower, but also when walking into Sri Aurobindo's room or out of it, discussing the Ashram letters, reports or account-books with Sri Aurobindo, or doing a flower-arrangement in her own room, she was apt suddenly to go into a trance and remain in that state for quite some time. In Nirod's words:

Such trance moods were more particularly manifest at night during the collective meditation below, and in that condition she would come to Sri Aurobindo's room .... He would watch her with an indulgent smile and try all devices to bring her down to earth .... Then going back to her room, she would start the 'flower-work' in this state of trance .... Hundreds of roses daily came to her as an offering from our gardens. She would spread all of them on trays, pick and choose them according to size, colour, etc., trim and arrange them in different vases, aided by a sadhika. This would continue till the early hours of morning....²⁷

It was extraordinary that her hands could work with such mechanical precision, although she was all along in a condition of trance; "the eyes were half-closed, the body swayed, but the hands were doing their work . Once she told Nirod: "I can see everything. I have eyes at the back of my head." At a time when her consciousness was far away, perhaps somewhere in the occult regions of the world-stair, her limbs and senses still seemed to function properly. Her feeling for atmosphere was uncanny, and

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she could look into the uttermost truth of things and persons, and gauge the measures of the infinite and the infinitesimal alike.

VI

At Munich on 29 September 1938, Britain and France had purchased an uneasy and what many considered a humiliating peace. Looking at a photograph of Neville Chamberlain and Hitler taken at Munich, Sri Aurobindo had said that the British Prime Minister "looked like a fly before a spider, on the point of being caught". ²⁸ It was but the simulacrum of peace that Munich won for Europe and the world, for the Axis Powers ­ Hitler and Mussolini - were on the rampage still. Their open help to General Franco in the Spanish Civil War had sustained him for long; they recognised his regime on 27 February 1939, and the civil war itself ended in his favour on 1 April. In the meantime, Hitler's and Mussolini's actions left no doubt regarding their nakedly aggressive intentions. The sabre-rattling went on without a break, and there was much secret activity undermining the titular governments in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Albania and Lithuania. On the one hand, by their acquiescence at Munich, Daladier and Chamberlain had not only let down Czechoslovakia, but also initiated a process of demoralisation in their own countries. On the other hand, they had made Hitler and Mussolini feel that they could get all they wanted through the mere brandishing of the big stick. During a conversation on 2 February 1939, Sri Aurobindo summed up the situation in these terms:

Even the two [France and Britain] are no match for the dictators. And, besides, one doesn't know what England will do .... Blum and Daladier made the worst possible blunder: one by his non-intervention policy in Spain, the other by betraying the Czechs. Franco's victory is most dangerous for France .... The dictators know their own interests ... and they can't be separated. England and France tried the game of separating them ... but both failed. It is not that Germany and Italy like each other. The Germans despise the Italians and the Italians hate the Germans. But they know on which side their bread is buttered. ²⁹

At the same time, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo also realised that what was happening in Europe had global implications. Unknown forces were locked in struggle, and the future of humanity itself was being determined by the developing clash between the Western and the Axis Powers. In the course of the same conversation, Sri Aurobindo said:

The problem is to save the world from domination by Asuric (Demonic) Forces. It would be awful to be ruled by the Nazis and Fascists.

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Their domination will let loose on mankind what are called the Four Powers of Hell - obscurantism, falsehood, suffering and death. Suffering and death mean the horrors of war. ³⁰

And now, even as Sri Aurobindo had anticipated, things began to happen with diabolical precision and rapidity. On 16 March, Hitler annexed Bohemia and Moravia, and made them a German Protectorate. Now it was to be Poland's turn, and a virulent campaign was unleashed against that country. Presently Hitler wrested Memel from Lithuania on 21 March, and on 7 April, Mussolini seized Albania. It was as clear as daylight that the Munich Agreement was no more than a scrap of paper. However tardily, Britain introduced conscription, started talks with Russia, and signed the Anglo-Polish Treaty. But Russia double-crossed the Western Powers, and on 23 August signed the German-Soviet Pact. And on 1 September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. The Second World War had begun indeed.

From the very beginning, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother felt deeply involved in the course of the War and in its ultimate outcome. Superficially things were blurred, and there were people in India who were ardent admirers of Hitler and Mussolini, and who felt a sense of elation every time the Allies sustained a reverse on the battlefield. But some others felt concerned that the Allies were on the rout, or at best only on the defensive. While the British were intensely disliked as the colonial Power in India, a few felt that its substitution by Nazi Power would be immitigable Hell. Gandhiji, Jawaharlal Nehru and some of the other Congress leaders seem to have held this view, but they certainly lacked the vision and the bold statesmanship to declare unambiguously for the Allies and lend a helping hand to the Allied war effort. There were, then, the pro-British groups that, out of habit or self-interest, but only half-heartedly and half-headedly, gave support to the Allied war effort. Presently, leaders like Rajaji (Rajagopalachari) and M.N. Roy looked favourably at their cause. It was only Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who saw clearly the issues at stake and gave open support to the Allies.

The early days and weeks of the War were a period of moral and military violence and ruthlessness, and when the Nazi forces penetrated deep into Poland, the Russians attacked from the East on 17 September. Ten days later, Warsaw capitulated to the Nazis, and Soviet and Nazi forces met near Brest Litovsk, and on 29 September, the Nazi-Soviet Pact sealed this new partition of Poland. On the Western front, however, the French felt safe behind their Maginot Line, and the Nazis behind their Siegfried Line. Thus the War settled during the 1939-1940 winter months into a 'phoney war', with business going on as usual in Britain and France. On the contrary, the Soviet-Finnish war that erupted in November-December brought at first some humiliating surprises to the Soviet army, but

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ultimately, in March 1940, Finland had to agree to cede some valuable territory to the Russians.

VII

In October 1939, Hitler had reached one of the peaks of his career, not as an agent of the Iron Dictators alone, but even seemed a military genius. Polandd had been overrun as a result of his blitzkrieg (lightning war), and the Western Powers were reduced to a defensive posture behind the Magionot Line. It was at this time that Sri Aurobindo wrote "The Dwarf Napoleon: Hitler, October 1939". Military commentators were at the time given to comparing glibly Hitler with Napoleon, but only Sri Aurobindo with his synoptic view of the past, present and future could know the abysmal difference between the two. Napoleon, after all, had been cast in a heroic mould:

Napoleon's mind was swift and bold and vast,

His heart was calm and stormy like the sea,

His will dynamic in its grip and clasp.

His eye could hold a world within its grasp

And see the great and small things sovereignly.

But who was this cruel Hitler, this "Dwarf Napoleon", that would bestride the agitated earth like the Colossus of old? There was all the difference between the sun-god and a satyr:

Far other this creature of a nether clay,

Void of all grandeur, like a gnome at play,

Iron and mud his nature's mingled stuff,

A little limited visionary brain

Cunning and skilful in its narrow vein, ...

Intense neurotic with his shouts and tears,

Violent and cruel, devil, child and brute,

This screaming orator with his strident tongue,

The prophet of a scanty fixed idea,

Plays now the leader of our human march; '"

A Titan Power supports this pigmy man,

The crude dwarf instrument of a mighty Force ....

A Will to trample humanity into clay

And unify earth beneath one iron sway, ...

But if its tenebrous empire were allowed,

Its mastery would prepare the dismal hour

When the Inconscient shall regain its right,

And man who emerged as Nature's conscious power,

Shall sink into the deep original night .... ³¹

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It needed a seer's vision, a scholar's historical sense, and a humanist's