Welsh Journals

do we get our breakfasts ? His colleagues would object, and the question would not be attempted by a single candidate so long as any choice remained. But if such a question were asked, we can almost imagine that one examinee would say that the milk- man brought the milk because it had been from time immemorial the custom for milkmen to take round milk, while another would attribute it to the benefi- cent establishment by a Conservative Government of the Board of Agriculture. Another would roundly deny that he got any breakfast at all the so-called milk was all water, and bread sawdust and alum, the tea coloured laurel leaves and so on." It is now Dr. Cannan's turn to be criticised. It may be said at once that he has been loyal to his own ideal, and that Wealth will prove an admirable introductory book in classes where students are expected to do some thinking. Compared with the writings of Marshall and his more mathematical Sadhana. The realisation of Life." by Rabindranath Tagore. Macmillan & Co. 5/- net. The Crescent Moon." by Rabindranath Tagore. Macmillan & Co. 4/6 net. As a rule, to review a collection of lectures delivered at different times and at different places, is an unsatisfactory task. Space does not permit of each receiving adequate treatment, and the result is either a far too brief, uninteresting account of all the lectures, or a full analysis of a chosen few. But these lectures of Mr. Rabindranath Tagore, can be reviewed as if they were but one. The Individual and the Universe," Soul consciousness," the Problem of Evil, and of Self," Realisation in Action." Realisation of Beauty "-they all lead to, amplify and prepare for the first and last message of all mystics, the Reatisation in Love." As he preaches the free, joyful union with Brahma, and returns again and again to the metaphor of the Bride going forth to the Bridegroom, other voices, we of the West know better, ring through his song — that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. I am my Beloved's, and he is mine." Through all the lectures runs the joyful assurance that the Union of God and Man is the great aim of creation, a joy so assured and an assurance so joyful that its cumulative effect is overwhelming. Moreover Mr. Tagore maintains that the negation of self preached by Buddha, is no more than the Christian Cruci- fixion of the Flesh. The untrue transient self of Buddhism, is the Old Adam of Christianity for both the true, abiding ego can only be realised by Union with God. And as every lover knows, never is he so much himself as when he is truly one with the beloved. The fact of unity emphasises rather than annihilates the fact of duality. But while Mr. Tagore's work is an interpretation of the best Eastern thought, it is also, perhaps only half-consciously, a commentary on the life of the West. And to him, as to many Orientals, the Western World stands, not. as perhaps he once thought, for Christianity, but for the University and the Stock disciples, whose prose is a species of literary algebra, Dr. Cannan's treatment is valuable, first, because he relegates the theory of value to its proper place secondly, because he shows that the making and sharing of wealth are conditioned by social institutions like the Family, Property and State thirdly, because he throws over the old fourfold classification of incomes (rent, wages, interest, profits,) for a new twofold division into income derived from property and income derived from labour; and lastly because he remembers what the economists have been prone to forget that more than half the population is made up of women. Heredity and sex are the two greatest causes of inequality of income." Dr. Cannan's explanation of industrial society must not rashly be read as a justification. As his old students well know he can not only analyse acutely but he can wither acidly and blaze indignantly. Perhaps he will now give us Poverty I Exchange. So we find him quoting and interpreting Christ's sayings along with those of the Upanishads — Eastern thought to the Western World. It is not that there is no Christianity alive in our midst it is not that the East is not appreciative of our attainments. Our search for knowledge, our education, our material progress, these receive the homage due to them. But while these things strike on the notice of the Oriental visitor at every turn, for our religion he must search and search diligently. Through the uproar of our modern street, it is sometimes a little difficult to hear the Angelus bell. The love of children is one of the safest tests of greatness, and Mr. Tagore passes it with Honours. The Crescent Moon is a collection of short prose-poems of childhood, one or two of which have already appeared in Gitanjali. Despite the many bangles of the Mother there is no foreign atmosphere about these poems. Baby, Mother and the little boy are just as much at home in our nursery, with the curtains drawn, and the firelight playing on the coloured pictures, as they are under the banyan tree. The little boy has played with Stevenson's little boy, in a Child's Garden of Verses, and they have gone to their separate homes to sit at the feet of the grown-ups, sailing again in magic ships to fairy land. You cannot analyse these poems, any more than you can analyse live children, to put them into priggish little pidgeon holes. While you read them, the smile never quite dies away the lump in your throat never quite disappears therefore we know that Mr. Tagore is indeed touching childhood. Onr Irish Theatre, by Lady Gregory. G. P. Putman's Sons. Pp. 319. 5/- net. By now the facts of the Irish Theatre are so well-known that they leave little for the late comer to tell us, even when the late comer is someone so much at the centre of things as Lady Gregory. And it seems in a way hard that at this time of day she shoukJjb! a late comer. No artistic movement has made and become history in so short a time, never before has a movement that after