Mr. Cardozo splashes on colour with a reckless hand. The Spain-at-war he paints is as glamorous as a Hollywood director's idea of sin, A writer of chamber of commerce blurbs could have done no better. He describes an evening ride through the Franco countryside It was a picturesque anag night... There were, outside the villages, girls dancing by the roadside, They danced alcine, tall and graceful in theirs long clinging frocks and their gay-coloured head scarves. Straight-backed and lissom, carrying their heads like princesses, it was a fairy scene, All we could guess of their swains was a low crooning accompanied by a rhythmic beating of the hands which showed that the young men had to be content with the role of a very subdued orchestra.
Finally "the towers and spires of Seville rose rose-coloured in the Iwpray Putosoruy anp Mopexn CULTURE RA Paul Brunton. Rider, London This little book, a "short thesis," of 92 pages is in large measure a compilation of excerpts from the Vedas and from Western writers who have voiced ideas similar to those of the ancient Hindus. The author cites the appointment of Sir S. Radhakrishnan to the Spalding Chair of Eastern Philosophies and Religions at Oxford University as symbolic of the attention that the Western world is beginning to pay to the hitherto neglected thought of the East. He points out that Macaulay a hundred years ago gave to Indian education its emphasis upon science and English which took India's young men out of their traditions. The result, he says, has been a hybrid generation, On the other hand Sir William Jones, first to translate Sakuntala, Charles Wilkins, first to translate the Bhagavad-Gita, Anquetil clu Perron, first to translate some of the Upanishads into Latin the translation which influenced Schopenhauer and others who have followed them—have made the West more familiar with the fruitfulness of Indian thought in psychology, and religion.
"A Finite Dream"
The monism of Indian thought, keystone of the arch of Indian philosophy, is illustrated by a variety of quotations and these in turn are matched with quotations from Western writers, such as Carlyle's: "What is Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee God?" Spinoza, Hegel. Emerson are cited as imbued with Indian thought; even Spenser when he postulated: an Actuality lying behind Appearance, beyond matter end force. In Part LI, for the essay is in two parts, the emphasis is upon Indian Idealist Metaphysics, according to which man is "a finite dream" of evening sky" and the reader had the "the Infinite Dreamer." Knowledge "The March of a Nation"
On the Madrid Front, November 13, 1936: The author, with Colonel Tella (left) who had been wounded that morning. opportunity.to meet General Queipo de Llano. It is pleasant—in a world of terrified children and dying civilians—to find that the horrors of war in no way hampered the General's sartorial splendour, for he "was wearing a restful mufti suit of white tussore—the usual wear of a Spanish gentleman of the South."
"Unpardonable Frivolity"
Throughout the book the author has fictionized death and horror, treating the tragedy of a nation's losing fight for liberty with unpardonable frivolity. Even when he faces the ghosts of the Alcazar gar-risen he is unable to resist lightness. He writes of Carmen, daughter of the Intendant of the Alcazar—of her golden hair, her blue eyes and her lissom figure in its stained silk dress. Great tragedy, to this writer, is the sight of a pretty girl in a dirty frock.
And face to face with Franco, at a time when the streets of Madrid were. a' shambles, it is consoling to hear that the Dictator's eyes are therefore is ideas held in conscious ness, and Mind is the final reality; all existence is of the nature of thought, in the words of Ashvagosa, founder of the Mahayana Buddhism, "Independent of that which perceives there is no surrounding world." Shakespeare's famous lines ending with "We are such stuff as dreams are made of," Emerson's transcendentalism, Bishop Berkeley's "to be is to be perceived," esse est percipi; and other ideas are cited as having been long anticipated by the Hindu thinkers. Thus we have Bertrand Russell saying that it modern physics is to be Believed the dreams we call waking perceptions have only a very little more resemblance to objective reality than the fantastic dreams of sleep. and Sir James Jeans writes, "The universe can best be pictured as consisting of pure thought." The author's presentation justifies hit main point—that the human mind has explored the same paths in both Orient and ileus. with long lashes, The typically Spanish, large and impression is that of a man of peace, or" contemplation, perhaps" slightly romantic, certain highly chivalrous.
At 44, Francisco Franco is the youngest of the European "iron men." He is married and has a twelve-yearcld daughter, Carmencita, who "is simply adored by all of General Franco's Moorish soldiers."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.