France, Anatole : Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924), French writer, an ironic, sceptical, & urbane critic; he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for literature.
... portals of, 16-18 simplicity of, 25-30 as a state of present-moment awareness, 31 and time, 20, 21 vs liberation, 22-25 existence, principles of, 68 F France, Anatole, 5 freedom, 142 Fudoshi, Zen Master, 117, 118 G Gita conditions for spiritual birth, 138, 139 distinction between suppression and self-mastery, 134 ...
... Diti,46 Durga, 98 EGYPT, 70, 133, 192, 199-200,419 Einstein, 274 England, 198 Esau, 397 Eucharist, 130 Europe, 272, 421 FRANCE, 96, 116, 198-9,323-4,355,418 France, Anatole, 64 Franck, Cesar, 393, 424 GANDHARVA,47 Ganges, 383 Germany, 133, 199 Gita, the, 6n., 9, 21-2, 58, 76-7, 83, 93, 105, 108, 112n., 125n., 143, 157,160-1 Great War, the, 323 ...
... 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, 238 -The Decline ...
... 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), French novelist, received the 1921... 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, but could not, or he could but would not... read Anatole France she was also greatly interested, because she was struck by the similarity between his view and Théon's idea on the Jewish-Christian God. "He was an Asura who wanted to be the 'one and only God,' that's why he became the most Page 180 terrible despot imaginable," Mother said quoting Theon. "That's what Anatole France said too. I now know that Anatole France hadn't ...
... 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 ...
... Others' Poetry On His Own and Others' Poetry On Poets and Poetry Letters on Poetry and Art Comments on Some Passages of Prose Anatole France's Irony I so much enjoyed Anatole France's joke about God in the mouth of the arch-scoffer Brotteaux in his book Les dieux ont soif that I must ask you to read it. Ou Dieu veut empêcher le mal et ne le peut... 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... can't have been in the heaven of Karl Marx, in spite of France's conversion before his death. God is reported to have strolled up to him and said, "I say, Anatole, you know that was a 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 exist? you know you don't exist and never existed or, if you do, you have made ...
... astonishing is Mallarme in the context of the 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... 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... 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 ...
... 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.... in English and I am the one who translated it into French—into horrible French, perfectly ghastly, because I put in all the new words Theon had dreamed up. He had made a detailed description of all the faculties latent in man, and it was remarkable—but with such barbarous words! You can make up new words in English and get away with it, but in French it's utterly ridiculous. And there I was, very co ...
... 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... 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 as regards perfect French prose, though with a different style, was Jules Remain. His multi-volumed novel, Men of Goodwill, in its French original gave her great... the challenge and, after explaining to me some fine points of Page 145 French idiom, 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 ...
... 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 ...
... This is 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 ...
... 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 been in the heaven of Karl Marx, in spite of France's conversion... A: In the age of democracy we can't object to people holding their views particularly because God does not seem to object to their views. Dilip Kumar Roy, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, sent him Anatole France's strictures on God and it evoked a very interesting reply. I reproduce the correspondence in full— (Either God would prevent evil if he could, but would not, or he could but would not, or... 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 ...
... humour. Here is it: 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... 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... wonder. Let us see what the facts reveal. In August 1932 Dilip Kumar, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, wrote in a cleverly worded letter to him: "Brotteaux, one of the unabashed scoffers in Anatole France's Les Dieux ont soif, throws this hearty fling at God in the face of Father Longuemare, the pious priest: 'Either God would prevent evil if he could, but could not, or he could but would ...
... 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? ...
... 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... are not unquestionably valid; they would be so if the English language were a fixed and unprogressive and invariable medium demanding a scrupulous correctness and purity and chaste exactness like the French; but this language is constantly changing and escaping from boundaries and previously fixed rules and its character and style, you might almost say, is whatever the writer likes to make it. Stephen... thinking and I at once caught it up as the right and only word for certain things, for instance, the thinking in masses which is a frequent characteristic of the Overmind. As for the use of current French and Latin phrases, it may be condemned as objectionable on the same ground as the use of clichés and stock phrases in literary style, but they often hit the target more forcibly than any English equivalent ...
... 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 of ...
... 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. I remember an incident now. The Mother asked me to go to the board to write something. I started writing. When... to speak French was a little like Amrita-da’s speaking English. I don’t know whether Sri Aurobindo laughed on hearing Amrita-da’s English but the Mother would often tease me while listening to me speak French. I would sometimes get almost angry with irritation. Two incidents come to mind. One day I had very high fever and so I went to inform the Mother. I blurted out in my wrong French: “ Mère... in the Mother’s room. We prepared our questions before going to the class. We had just begun learning French then. And so naturally the questions were properly committed to memory again and again. Even then we got terribly nervous talking in French. One of us while trying to ask a question in French got so nervous that instead of saying ‘ N’est-ce pas cela? ’ blurted out: ‘ N’est ta pas ta la? ’ ...
... 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 conquerors but also one of the greatest administrators and organisers the world has seen. If it had not been for him, the whole idea of French Revolution would have been... mosques with shoes on and the Muezzin has been abolished. PURANI: Coming to Europe, I want to ask you if it can be said that there was an inrush of forces from the subtle worlds at the time of the French Revolution and in Napoleon's time, changing the course of History. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, There was. It changed the course of European history and gave the world new political and social ideas. ...
... 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 ...
... 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... Tower was built) and 1900 took place. Paris set the tone in manners and fashion, and the French language was still the lingua franca in Europe, spoken by the educated people and the diplomats of all countries. Mirra was born in a rather rich bourgeois family. Her brother would become Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa. She herself showed a great independence of mind already at a young age... his God A Lady from Paris Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris on 21 February 1878. Her father was Turkish and her mother Egyptian; they had settled in the French capital a few months before her birth. At that time Paris, refashioned by Baron Haussmann, was the cultural capital of the world. It was where the haute couture was created, the greatest concentration ...
... 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 ...
... 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... inexplicable something—and man has always felt dominated by that something. It is beyond all possible understanding and dominates him. And then, religions have given it a name; man has called it "God"; the French call it Dieu , the English, God , in another language it's called differently, but anyway it's the same. I am intentionally not giving any definition. Because my lifelong feeling has been that ...
... [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: ...
... 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 ...
... 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 ...
... 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 ...
... 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... India Government which had already accepted the continuance of French Colleges, France founded, with Dr. Filliozat, an eminent orientalist, as Director, a French Institute in the same town. These have been hopeful signs. But surely the most effective means of capturing for our country the essence of French Culture is to give full support to the idea mooted some years ago that Pondicherry should... Teilhard the Roman Catholic scientist has glimpsed with the French esprit in him at its most brilliantly penetrating.¹ Yes, France can answer India's call. However, there must be the proper conditions. If the erstwhile French India becomes a cultural meeting-place and if India takes as much as possible into herself the best that France can show, the answer will be all the . more intimate ...
... . 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... River cruise. “He offered me a diadem of great value and a little basket of strawberries,” she recounts in her Memoirs. For she left an autobiography—as charming and funny as it is brief— dictated in French to her grandson, Governor Alfassa, when she was seventy-six. At the age of twenty, she embarked for Italy—quite a daring act if we recall the abject condition of women in the Middle East more than... with gold and natural pearls." She also sported a "small tarbush worn very low, with a large gold tassel ... but I did not know the language, so I vowed to learn it quickly"—which she did, as well as French, for Mira Ismalun was decidedly an uncommon character. Then she met the Grand Duke, "who sent me flowers every day, as did Rossini, the composer." And, with a blend of coquetry and wit, she adds candidly ...
... 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 ...
... 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 end." The English genius differs here from the French, perhaps because England has more mist and fog than the other side... side of the Channel. The English poet William Watson has said: "They see not the clearliest,/Who see all things clear." And Havelock Ellis, looking at Anatole France's advice, has added his own comment of both agreement and disagreement: "Be clear. Be Page 75 clear. Be not too clear." 2 '' 9. During my school days I wrote an essay in verse on a Library and wanted to speak of the heaps... free. As for chivalry, however, it is more than a century ago that Burke lamented: 'The days of chivalry are gone'! And in the year of grace, 1932, with feminism triumphant everywhere - except in France and Bokhara - how do you propose to keep the cult going any longer?" 30 3."O Guru", Dilip Kumar communicated, "Mr. Effusive, who is an admirer of yours has just sent me a Bengali poem which he ...
... 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... Mother’s permission. The story will be told in its proper place. I had also written a long article in French on Sri Page 49 Aurobindo as Guru, at the request of some French savants in Paris who were admirers of Sri Aurobindo. Naturally the article needed much pruning and a French friend helped me in this respect. It was read out to the Mother and she wrote on a small piece of paper,... decades. In the year 1952 or 1953 we saw a few films on French writers and musicians like Balzac, Zola, and Chopin (originally a Polish Jew). I had some interesting talks with the Mother on them. I do not know how it happened. Probably because I had at that time become a teacher of French in the School and was therefore studying French literature, she wanted to help me in this respect. We saw two ...
... 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... that intense gaze. She also continued taking care of Theon’s “Revue Cosmique”: I found the printer, corrected the proofs—all the work for a long time. Five years, in fact. She even translated into French the experiences that Madame Theon, while she was in trance, dictated to her English secretary: an entire initiation in the form of stories. 1 But it was the Story that interested her, and e... China, also at the turn of the century, Chinese insurgents laid siege to the European legations in Peking—the famous "Boxer Rebellion” and the proliferation of "secret societies” (whose leaders came to France for inspiration) resulting in the formation of the Kuomintang and the uprisings in the valley of the Yangtze River in 1911, followed by the collapse of the Manchurian Dynasty in 1912. Mirra would meet ...
... brought about the Third Partition in 1795 by Austria, Prussia and Russia. With that, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe until 1919. 1 1 Extract From 'World History' People and Nations by Anatole G. Mazour, John M. Peoples, HBJ Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch Publishers, Orlando, Florida 1990, page 387. Page 78 2) Science laboratory "If the conquests useful for humanity touch... in its creation and in the construction of the first French atomic pile (1948). She was involved in the building of the large centre for nuclear physics at Orsay for which she worked out the plans. She took a keen interest in the social and intellectual advancement of women; she was a member of the National Committee of the Union of French Women and of the World Peace Council. She was a Frederic... nucleus of protons and neutrons with electrons circling this nucleus. Claude Bernard (1813-1878) : French physiologist who defined the fundamental principles of scientific research in his treatise: An introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) : French philosopher, who was considered as one of the founders of sociology (the study of human social behavior) ...
... 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 like this: France great in all great arts, in none supreme, to which someone... 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... "And what then of the art of prose-writing? Is it not a great art and who can approach France there? All prose of other languages seems beside its perfection, lucidity, measure almost clumsy." There are many remarkable prose-writers in English, but that perfection which is almost like a second nature to the French writers is not so common. The great prose-writers in English seem to seize by the personality ...
... 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 ...
... 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 ...
... 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 again, clarity at the end.’ “The English genius differs here from the French, perhaps because England has more mist and fog than other... other side of the Channel. The English poet William Watson has said: ‘They see not the cleariest,/Who see all things clear.’ And Havelock Ellis, looking at Anatole France’s advice, has added his own comment of both agreement and disagreement: ‘Be clear. Be not too clear.’ “. Example 4 : “[My book Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare ] has been rather popular. I remember that on a visit to Bombay many... the Mother in connection with him. And he came back to the readers for the second time with “new discoveries.” This is how he wrote: “As regards the French ‘imbecile’ and the English ‘moron’… I am making unexpected discoveries. I suppose the French locution could have been directly translated by the English one with the same sound and spelling, but, apart from the colloquial meaning, English word ...
... 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... Government in India could never accept that Sri Aurobindo had come away to French territory to carry on his yoga. Religion and spirituality, these to them were a mere subterfuge … Here was the brain-centre of the Indian independence movement.’ 17 Still Aurobindo Ghose agreed to see the French visitor. Although Ghose knew French perfectly well, he was not in the habit of speaking it, and a Pondicherrian... strong Masonic influence).’ 14 It was supposedly this party that sent Paul Richard to Pondicherry, a French comptoir in the deep south of the Indian subcontinent, a little more than 150 kilometres south of Madras, on the Coromandel Coast. A comptoir was an anchoring place where the French did colonial business and provided for their ships for the voyage ahead to East Asia or back towards the ...
... 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... heaven of Karl Marx, in spite of France's conversion before his death. God is reported to have strolled up to him and said: "I say, Anatole, you know that was a 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... 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 ...
... 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... him—the whole story revolves around that. As a matter of fact, the books he wrote (especially the first one, The Living Ether) were based on my knowledge; he put my knowledge into French—and beautiful French, I must say! I would tell him my experiences and he would write them down. Later he wrote The Gods (it was incomplete, one-sided). Then he became a lawyer and entered politics (he was a... very consciously put everything back into the drawer, lock everything up again very carefully and go back to bed. One night, for some reason or other, I forgot and left it open. My mother came in (in France the windows are covered with heavy curtains and in the morning my mother would come in and violently throw open the curtains, waking me up, brrm!, without any warning; but I was used to it and would ...
... 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. ...
... 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. ...
... understand better? The discipline of intellectual study as it is practised in colleges in France. You 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... the history of literature. I have found that I can't understand Corneille at all—I mean that I don't understand old French. Corneille is not old French, Corneille is classical French. It is absolutely necessary to study classical French if one wants to stand a chance of speaking French correctly. You definitely should read the principal 17th century authors. This is essential in order to enter into... philosophy methodically: the various schools, their theories, etc., etc. 22 September 1936 Mother, will You tell me the names of some good French writers I could read? If it is to learn French, you should take a textbook of French literature to study and then read one or two books by each author mentioned in the textbook, beginning at the beginning, that is, with the earliest authors ...
... 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... founded the greatness of imperial Rome which is one of the greatest periods of human civilization; and Napoleon because he was a great organiser who stabilised the Revolution. He organised France and through France Europe. Are not his immense powers and abilities great? Disciple : I suppose men admire them because they find in them the realisation of their own potential greatness. Sri ...
... 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 something like this: "France great in all great arts, in none supreme," to which someone... difficult, to permit is difficult. It is the position of the cleft stick—and there we are! 1933 I suppose the English and French 1 can go side by side—but the French should be revised by someone who knows ____________________ 1. The French original and English translation of Mother's Prayers and Meditations , some of which Dilip translated into Bengali and published in his... prose-writing? Is it not a great art and what other country can approach France there? All prose of other languages seems beside its perfection, lucidity, measure, almost clumsy." There are many remarkable prose-writers in English, but that essential or fundamental perfection which is almost like a second nature to the French writers is not so common. The great prose-writers in English seem to seize ...
... 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 ...
... 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... and Karmayogin. Six months after Sri Aurobindo's arrival at Pondicherry, Nolini joined him. From Sri Aurobindo he learned Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, French, etc. Apart from articles in magazines, he published books in Bengali (52), English (38) and French (5). He was Sri Aurobindo's "postman." Page 66 Your poem 1 is a very moving one,—delicate, true and beautiful in every line. ... __ 1. Pramatha Chowdhuri (7 August 1868 - 2 September 1946). In 1899, he married Indira Devi, daughter of Satyendranath Tagore, an elder brother of Rabindranath. He knew thoroughly English and French literatures. He founded the magazine Sabuj Patra and wrote under the Pseudonym Birbal. A powerful group of new writers gathered around Sabuj Patra and gave a new direction to the Bengali language ...
... 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... by the "Prana" and immediately they sink into the subconscious, or the subliminal consciousness, or whatever you like to call it. There is the recorded instance of the servant girl of a famous French scholar of Hebrew. She used to hear, while at work, her master repeating the Bible in Hebrew. To her it was meaningless gibberish. Then Page 235 when she was in an abnormal ...
... 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... The Mind Of The Cells This book was originally published in French under the title Le mental des cellules © Editions Robert Laffont, Paris, 1981. The Mind Of The Cells is the English translation © Institut de Recherches ÉVOLUTIVES, Paris, 1999, 2002. Beyond the tombs, forward! Goethe A Passport to Where? On precisely... precisely the fifteenth day after my twentieth birthday, at the comer of an avenue in a French city, my life changed abruptly. To the sound of screeching tires and slamming doors, two men, armed with revolvers, sprang out of a Kriminal Polizei Citroen, seized me and took me away. It was all over in thirty seconds. I would never again be one of the ordinary human species. The Gestapo, the interrogations ...
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