... shook his head. I knew what he was thinking: "Really, something has gone wrong with this poor chap's top floor." I believe he felt what Anatole France had felt when he had met Einstein and the latter had spoken of his theory of relativity. Anatole France afterwards reported: "Dr. Einstein told me many strange things. I listened attentively to him. But when he started to tell me that light is matter... poetry of France. We may even dub him the second French Revolution. The French spirit is the spirit of clarity — the lucid thought and the limpid word. I have mentioned Anatole France. Well, his name is most appropriate. Anatole France is in an important respect France personified. Or, if you like, la belle France turned into a man. This is not a statement that should surprise you in our times. Daily... essential truth and not the accidental vitalism of both the sexes in a more than human consciousness lit up with an indivisible Ananda. Anatole France in his own non-supramental way sums up the soul of la belle France so far as literary expression is concerned. And Anatole France himself can be summed up in his literary quality by the rule he has laid down for writers: "D'abord la clarte, puis encore la clarte ...
... answer to it, supposing he should ever feel inclined to? Anatole France is always amusing whether he is ironising about God and Christianity or about that rational animal, man or Humanity (with a big H), and the follies of his reason and his conduct. But I presume you never heard of God's explanation of his non-interference to Anatole France when they met in some Heaven of Irony, I suppose—it can't... greater mess of it than I could have done myself?" Here the report of the conversation ends; I give it for what it is worth, for I am not acquainted with this God and have to take him on trust from Anatole France. 1 August 1932 Croce's Aesthetics "Knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive knowledge or logical knowledge; knowledge obtained through the imagination or knowledge obtained through... have not waited for a fitful inspiration but tried to regularise it. 13 November 1936 Page 563 × Anatole France , Les dieux ont soif (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1965), p. 146.—Ed. × Bertrand Russell , The Conquest ...
... psychic flame. And to Theon, the God of the Jews and Christians was an Asura. This Asura wanted to be unique; and so he became the most terrible despot imaginable. Anatole France said the same thing (I now know that Anatole France had never read Theon's story, but I can't imagine where he picked this up). It's in The Revolt of the Angels . He says that Satan is the true God and that Jehovah, the... immediately taking on all Jehovah's failings! So he refused: "Oh, no—thank you very much!" It's a wonderful story, and in exactly the same spirit as what Theon used to say. The very first thing I asked Anatole France (I told you I met him once—mutual friends introduced us), the first thing I asked him was, "Have you ever read The Tradition ?" He said no. I explained why I had asked, and he was interested. ...
... "Strangely enough, it's the same phenomenon when they read Anatole France. 1 And Anatole France, read without understanding his irony, is abominably commonplace. "They don't grasp the irony. "Sri Aurobindo had it. He understood the irony of Anatole France so well, he had this same thing —so subtle, so refined." 1. Anatole France (pseudonym of Jacques Anatole Thibault — 1844-1924),... solvent. Man must have the courage to see the Truth as it is without any deception about it. Shaw 1 has got that critical mind to a great extent and we find the same in Anatole France." And here is Sri Aurobindo on Anatole France. Dilip Kumar Roy once sent Sri Aurobindo a quotation from Anatole France's Les Dieux ont soif (The Gods Are Thirsty): "Either God would prevent evil if he could... joke and, what's more, didn't forget to fend it off. "Anatole France is always amusing whether he is ironising about God and Christianity or about the rational animal man or Humanity (with a big H) and the follies of his reason and his conduct. "But I presume you never heard of God's explanation of his non-interference to Anatole France when they met in some Heaven of Irony, I suppose —it can't ...
... I remember having read in a class, before our present class started—a class which also used to be held on Wednesdays, perhaps, I don't quite know, in which I used to read books—I read a book by Anatole France, who had a very subtle wit—I think it was Le Livre de Jerome Coignard but I am not absolutely sure—where he says that men would be perfectly happy if they were not so anxious to improve life... the mahout told him, "Go away", he replied, "No, God Page 69 in me wants to stay here", and the mahout answered, "Pardon me, but God in me tells you to go away!" So the reply to Anatole France is perhaps just this that there is a will higher than that of man which wants things to change. And so there is nothing to do but obey and make them change. There we are. Is that all? ...
... it supposing he should have ever felt inclined to ? Anatole France is always amusing whether he is ironising about God and Christianity or about that rational animal Humanity (with a big H) and the follies of his reason and his conduct. But I presume you never heard of God's explanation of his non-interference to Anatole France when they met in some Heaven of Irony, I suppose,—it can't have... Wilde. His prefaces may be saved by their style and force, but it is not sure. At any rate, as a personality he is not likely to be forgotten, even if his writings fade. To compare him with Anatole France is futile—they were minds too different and moving in too different domains for comparison to be possible. February, 1932 I have been unable to progress with the Lawrence books for... good joke of yours; but there was a good cause too for my non-interference. Reason came along and told me: Look here, why do you pretend to ____________________ 1. This translation of Anatole France is Sri Aurobindo's, made a few days later on Dilip's request. Page 228 exist? You know you don't exist and never existed or, if you do, you have made such a mess of your creation ...
... of her own day she admired Anatole France the most. His style struck her as the very quintessence of literary prose. Sri Aurobindo also has ranked him among the great prose-stylists. The Mother had all his works in her private collection. At the beginning of April 1955, when I composed a long essay on French Culture and India and quoted a sentence from Anatole France and underlined an English... wrote: "To translate France the most simple and short sentence is always the best." Her rendering appears at the end of the passage which runs in my essay: "...Has not the agnostic Anatole France, ironical about the aspirations of the all-too-human, pitiful of blind pieties, shown also the irony of the negative attitude, the piercing pitiableness of the denying posture, when he penned... its pellucid poignancy would be a little missing even in the finest English rendering: "The best in life is the idea it gives us of a something that is not in it."¹ The Mother had met Anatole France. She gave us her impression: "He presents his works as someone detached and cool, but in life he was a very emotional person. I could clearly perceive this," Almost a rival in her eyes to France ...
... 1951-1960 Undated 1959 ( On Anatole France and La Révolte des Anges) ...These children don't understand [Sri Aurobindo's irony]. They read it prosaically ( gesture indicating the surface ). Strangely enough, it's the same phenomenon when they read Anatole France. And Anatole France, read without understanding his irony, is abominably commonplace. They... They don't grasp the irony. Sri Aurobindo had it. He understood the irony of Anatole France so well, he had this same thing—so subtle, so refined ... 'Very good,' he would say while reading La Révolte des Anges 'Yes, it is true, which of the two should we believe? 1 ( Mother laughs ). Page 293 × Jehovah ...
... Anatole's boutade and God's rejoinder! "Dilip, "Anatole France is always amusing whether he is ironising about God and Christianity or about that rational animal man or Humanity (with a big H) and the follies of his reason and his conduct. "But I presume you never heard of God's explanation of his non-interference to Anatole France when they met in some Heaven of Irony, I suppose, — it... could have done myself?' "Here the report of the conversation ends; I give it for what it is worth, for I am not acquainted with this God and have to take him on trust from Anatole France." 15 Let Anatole France ruminate in his discomfiture over the clever echo-like reply of "God" to his own wily boutade. For our part let us move on for two more years and come to the year 1934 and close ...
... would have something to say to it. Dilip Dilip, Anatole France is always amusing whether he is ironising about God and Christianity or about the rational animal humanity (with a big H) and the follies of his reason and his conduct. But I presume you never heard of God's explanation of his non-interference to Anatole France when they met in some Heaven of Irony, I suppose it can't have... mess of it than I could have done myself ! ! ! Here the report of the conversation ends; I give it for what it is worth, for I am not acquainted with this God and have to take him on trust from Anatole France. Sri Aurobindo Page 157 ...
... Wilde. His prefaces may be saved by their style and force, but it is not sure. At any rate, as a personality he is not likely to be forgotten, even if his writings fade. To compare him with [Anatole] France is futile—they were minds too different and moving in too different domains for comparison to be possible. 3 February 1932 Page 537 I would be obliged if you would tell me your... substance—or a perfect form and memorable. Bankim seemed to me to have achieved that in his own way as Plato in his or Cicero or Tacitus in theirs or in French literature, Voltaire, Flaubert or Anatole France. I could name others, especially in French which is the greatest store-house of fine prose among the world's languages—there is no other to match it. Matthew Arnold once wrote a line something ...
... with music and rhythm in order to bring out the actual meaning of the poem. In this French class, the Mother read out from works of Molière, Racine, Corneille, Anatole France. She enjoyed reading Révolte des Anges by Anatole France and Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. She also read Andromaque , Le Cid , Les Femmes Savantes and other such works. We would just sit and listen entranced ...
... But his experiment failed in the presence of scientists. And Dr. Romain explained it by saying that the atmosphere there was hostile to his work. He succeeded when he tried again at the house of Anatole France. Sri Aurobindo : That evidently shows that the power working is either psychic or psycho-physical. This phenomenon is quite possible. In her childhood the Mother was able to see even... Truth gets mixed with their falsehood – so much so that it no longer remains what it was. Buddha came and tried and did not succeed, and I think any effort would not succeed. Disciple : Anatole France seems to hold that humanity is what it is and is going to be what it is. Perfection may come to man but humanity will remain what it is. True perfection is possible but it would be in something ...
... after having made the world such as it is, the seventh day he looked at it and was extremely satisfied with his work and he rested.... Well, that never! I do not call that God. Or otherwise, follow Anatole France and say that God is a demiurge and the most frightful of all beings. But there is a way out of the difficulty. ( To a child ) Do you know it, you? Yes, yes, you know it! You will see all these ...
... God taught by the Chaldean religions, and especially by the Christian religion—a single God, jealous, severe, despotic and so much in the image of man that one wonders if it is not a demiurge as Anatole France said—these people when they want to lead a spiritual life no longer want the personal God, because they are too frightened lest the personal God resemble the one they have been taught about; they ...
... usually given by the Mother, as essential to their sadhana. To miss it even a single day was tantamount to a retrogradation. I suspect attitudes have changed now. Time marches on or is it like Anatole France commented about the march of civilization, where he says: “On avance à reculons, avec nos regards fixés vers le passé (we advance back-walking with our sight fixed on the past). (3) R = Vandi-da ...
... can talk to Z about it; he will explain it to you. There is a good writer in Gujarati—I could study his books. X told me that his style is like Anatole France's. Really! If he writes like Anatole France he must truly be a marvellous writer! 26 October 1934 Since my illness was imaginary, it is beyond my mental capacities to understand why You gave me permission to take Sudarshan. 6 ...
... which people put a lot of very undesirable things.... It's that idea of a god who claims to be "the one and only," as they say: "God is the one and only." But they feel it and say it in the way Anatole France put it (I think it was in The Revolt of Angels ): this God who wants to be the one and only and ALL ALONE. That was what had made me a complete atheist, if I may say so, in my childhood; I refused ...
... substance—or a perfect form and memorable. Bankim seemed to me to have achieved that in his own way as Plato in his or Cicero or Tacitus in theirs or in French literature, Voltaire, Flaubert or Anatole France. I could name others, but especially in French which is the greatest store-house of fine prose among the world's languages—there is no other to match it. Matthew Arnold once wrote a line that runs ...
... My questioner looked serious - very knowingly serious — and slightly shook his head. I knew what he was thinking: "Really, something has gone wrong with this poor chap's top floor." 23 8.Anatole France can be summed up in his literary quality by the rule he has laid down for writers: "D'abord la clarte, puis encore la clarte, enfin la clarte" - "Clarity first, clarity again, clarity at the ...
... opinions. It is a kind of solvent. Man must have the courage to see the Truth as it is without any deception about it. Shaw has got that critical mind to a great extent and we find the same in Anatole France. The second thing that a man must have in order to reach the Truth is the aspiration for a Truth higher than what has been attained. He must watch all ideals, principles and truths and see which ...
... substance —or a perfect form and memorable. Bankim seemed to me to have achieved that in his own way as Plato in his or Cicero or Tacitus in theirs or in French Literature Voltaire, Flaubert or Anatole France. I could name many more, especially in French which is the greatest store-house of fine prose among the world's languages—there is no other to match it.... All prose of other languages seems beside ...
... person dissolved or the transparency grew, the more the consciousness widened and the forces got through. However, She kept on living as usual and led as worldly a life as anyone else; She even met Anatole France, whose gentle irony She shared (always the refusal to take herself seriously; oh, how well She would understand Sri Aurobindo's humor!), and even asked him if his Revolte des Anges, which She ...
... part of Mother's conversation with Nirodbaran; they had just returned from the Playground after seeing J'accuse , a French film on Emile Zola. The man Mother referred to in the sentence above was Anatole France. The next day, the 13th, two films were shown: Paris plein ciel and Life of Emile Zola .—Nirodbaran, Memorable Contacts with the Mother , 1991, pp. 50-51. ...
... those days; the boulevard theatre with the comedies of Georges Feydeau, and the classical performances at the Comédie française. There were her meetings with famous people like the novelists Anatole France and Henryk Sienkiewicz, the author of Quo Vadis. There was the music of Richard Wagner, Camille Saint-Saëns, César Franck and Ambroise Thomas, the composer of Mignon and twenty-one other operas ...
... exception being the One. It might be less easy to lead the spiritual life in the midst of the ordinary, but the result would prove to be much richer and more complete, more integral. She met Anatole France and asked him if he knew of the Cosmic Tradition, as he had in his novel La révolte des anges written pages that closely agreed with its teachings. But the famous author had never heard of the ...
... not at all depressed or anything. The poem, I hope, doesn't suggest that? I am in a delightful mood as Mother will have told you ? It is a very beautiful poem and the poeticisation of Anatole France is very well done. What do they mean by "philosophy" in a poem? Of course if one sets out to write a metaphysical argument or treatise Page 125 in verse like the Greek Empedocles ...
... absolutely fascinated by a man who is so much at home in a hundred matters — bringing to each a penetrating word. Among the letters, those treating of poetic values, Frank Harris and Shaw, Anatole France, European philosophy, art and spirituality, the inner meaning of the war with Hitler are perhaps the finest. If not anything else, Among the Great is worth buying for these discourses. ...
... anything at all about anything whatsoever. There is a state of consciousness... Oh, I was going to tell you things you cannot yet understand. I shall give you a simpler example. Page 157 Anatole France said in one of his books: "So long as men did not try to make the world progress, all went well and everybody was satisfied—no worry about perfecting oneself or perfecting the world, consequently ...
... which Page 67 people have put many very undesirable things... this idea of God, for example, who wants to be unique, as they say: "God is unique." But they feel it and they say it as Anatole France said it, I believe it is in the Révolte des Anges : "This God who wants to be the only one and all alone ." That is the thing which had made me completely atheist, if one might say so, in my ...
... refuse to admit any religious tinge in the strange sense of loss that is often felt in the midst of the most tangible fullness of physical preoccupation or achievement. Has not the agnostic Anatole France, ironical about the aspirations of the all-too-human, pitiful of blind pieties, shown also the ¹. This is an Aurobindonian term but obviously it does not bear the same meaning, just ...
... gets absolutely fascinated by a man who is so much at home in a hundred matters - bringing to each a penetrating word. Among the letters, those treating of poetic values, Frank Harris and Shaw, Anatole France, European philosophy, art and spirituality, the inner meaning of the war with Hitler are perhaps the finest. If not anything else, "Among the Great" is worth buying for these discourses. ...
... and otherwise, of the modern age are due to Napoleon.. PURANI: That is going too far. SRI AUROBINDO: If he does say so, it shows a mind that is pedantic and without plasticity. PURANI: Anatole France, though not an imperialist, says Napoleon gave glory to France. SRI AUROBINDO: Not only glory. He gave peace and order, stable government and security to France. He was not only one of the ...
... latter its darker phase, its decline, the manifestation of its weakness. Its death-knell was first sounded by Voltaire who symbolised the mind's destructive criticism of itself, the same which Anatole France in France and Shaw in England have continued in our days almost to a successful issue. Rousseau brought in the positive element that determined the new poise of humanity. It was the advent ...
... found the knowledge of a system that could explain her inner experiences and learnt a great deal of occultism. She came into contact with great artists and thinkers like Rouault, Rodin, Matisse, Anatole France. She had read a number of books,—in fact, libraries. But she had not yet done the 'mental' gymnastics of metaphysical philosophy, comparative studies, and systems of law and sociology. And if with ...
... The last stage will find me relieved, a conqueror wearing a reminiscent smile and whispering with a sense of far-away unhappiness the almost fairy-tale expression: ‘Lumb, ago!” Example 3: “Anatole France can be summed up in his literary quality by the rule he has laid down for writers: ‘D’nabord la claret, Page 19 puis encore la clarté, enfin la clarté’ - ‘Clarity first, clarity ...
... returned to the main Ashram Building, she said to me, "It is very interesting. You will see some people tomorrow whom I knew at that time. I was twenty then, i.e. in 1898." (She meant particularly Anatole France. She was very fond of him as a writer). Next day the second film was to be shown on Zola’s life. I asked her in the morning, "Mother, have you read Zola?" "Not much," she replied, "he is too p ...
... original. That is why the: Christian seeker has accepted sorrow and suffering, abasement and mortification as the indispensable conditions of his sadhana This calls to our mind a witty remark of Anatole France,. that prince of humorists, that one could not be a lover of Christ unless one sinned – the more one sinned, the more: could one grow in righteousness; the more the repentance, in other words, ...
... original. That is why the Christian seeker has accepted sorrow and suffering, abasement and mortification as the indispensable conditions of his sadhana. This calls to our mind a witty remark of Anatole France, that prince of humorists, that one could not be a lover of Christ unless one sinned—the more one sinned, the more could one grow in righteousness; the more the repentance, in other words, the ...
... counting the stars and his sorrows. M other was born Mirra Alfassa in Paris in 1878, of an Egyptian mother and a Turkish father. She was a year older than Einstein, and a contemporary of Anatole France, with whom she shared a sense of gentle irony. It was the century of “positivism”; her father and mother were “all-out materialists,” he a banker and a first-rate mathematician, she a disciple ...
... . Monet, Degas, Renoir—She would come to know them all: I was the youngest. Cesar Franck was composing The Beatitudes; Rodin had just finished The Bronze Age. She would also come to know Anatole France—he of gentle irony. Jules Verne had already completed his Around the World in Eighty Days. Over there, six thousand miles away, Sri Aurobindo was six. A year later, in 1879, He would disembark ...
... masterful in a perverse way and ultimately leads to a cramming of the subconscious with suppression to such a point that there is an explosive upsurge whose end is either the fate of Paphnutius in Anatole France's Thais or else the sanctimonious hypocrisy which marred the annals of medieval monkhood. What the Browningesque inspiration is trying to do is to build a bridge between the low and the high ...
... above which can incarnate in it. So this being from above which descends into a psychic being is an involutionary being—a being of the Overmind plane or from elsewhere. That is all? Was Anatole France's "jongleur" an artist? I don't know. That depends (that's just what I was asking Parul), it depends on the definition you give to the word "artist". If you ask me, I believe that all those... (I could make you laugh with a story), I knew in Paris the son of the king of Dahomey (he was a negro—the king of Dahomey was a negro) and this boy had come to Paris to study Law. He used to speak French like a Frenchman. But he had remained a negro, you understand. And he was asked (he used to tell us all kinds of stories about his life as a student), someone asked him in front of me: "Well, when ...
... [1976] cheered up both the 27-year old Mother India and its 72-year young editor "Amal Kiran" (according to Sri Aurobindo's renaming of K.D. Sethna), "the Clear Ray", who, while appreciating Anatole France's advice to writers, "Clarity first, clarity again and clarity always", has in his role as poet preferred in consonance with Sri Aurobindo's own insight the injunction of Havelock Ellis: "Be clear... have 23 unpublished books on subjects fairly wide apart: poetry, literary criticism, philosophical thought, scientific perspectives, history, archaeology, scriptural exegesis, translation from the French. On top of all the author-characters jostling one another, there is the sheer human diversity such as you speak of, a collection of contradictory pieces: "some say yes - some say no - do this or do... that he was, declares as also most people are aware: Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until death tramples it to fragments.... A French poet, with a resigned attitude of humble yet happy faith sings: La vie est telle- Quelle Dieu la fit, Et, telle-quelle, E lle suffit. The lines may be freely rendered in English: ...
... scullions have genius. To my mind his masterpiece is not the popular Old Goriot or Eugenie Grandet but Cousin Betty, an extremely subtle study in jealousy. Here, in passing, I must not forget Anatole France's The Gods are Athirst. Among recent English fiction on a grand scale I am enthusiastic about Anthony Adverse. I forget the author's name. It is a work of prodigious talent verging on... four or five which are perfect. Conan Doyle's short tales in The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard are extremely enjoyable and the Gallic touch in them adds to the relish. Turning directly to France I I must speak up for one of the mightiest no less than finest creations in world literature, Les Miserables of Victor Hugo. A contemporary of Hugo's, equally famous as he, was Balzac who is the ...
... 180, 211-12, 216-17, 225, 239, 243-6, 261, 326, 346 Existentialists, the, 348-50, 359, 362 FIRDAUSI, 197 Flanders, 74 France, 16, 69, 89-90, 101, 128, 145, 159, 197, 241, 244-6 France, Anatole, 145 French Revolution, 32, 52, 59, 101, 105,. 126, 149, 155, 207-8 Francis I, 90, 120 GALILEO, 308, 322 Germany, 32, 70, 72, 87-9 Gibbon ...
... The twelve great masters of style: Aeschylus and Dante: Dante and Shakespeare: Shakespeare and Blake: the poetry of the school of Dryden and Pope: Shelley's Skylark: Baudelaire's "vulgarity": Anatole France's "ironising": Walter de la Mare's Listeners: five kinds of poetic style: austerity in poetry: architectonics in poetic composition: "great" poetry and merely beautiful poetry: limits of personal... launched, for by now he had the clue to the entire Truth which he could now set forth in The Life Divine and other major treatises. When after the outbreak of the first world war Mirra returned to France, Sri Aurobindo wrote on 20 May 1915 Page 573 that the aim of their Yoga should be to make "Heaven and Earth equal and one". In September 1916, Saurin opened the 'Aryan Stores'... see it going in the wrong direction? 4 Even before Dilip came in 1928, Datta (Miss Hodgson) was there and so was Pavitra, formerly P.B. St.-Hilaire, who had seen service as a Captain of the French Army during the world war. Another arrival was the young Englishman J. A. Chadwick, a brilliant Cambridge mathematical philosopher who had come to India, ostensibly to take up a professorship in ...
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