Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-01-24
@ LITERATURE
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RabIndranath Tagore.


Among the books published just be-
fore the end of the last year by the
Messrs. Macmillan. of London, New
York, etc. was "Sadhanna, the Cres-
cent Moon" by Rabindranath Tagore,
poet philosopher, a Nobel prize
winner and man who has mace SO
much stir in England and on the con-
tinent that it will be perhaps of in
terest to the readers of this page OF
the Evening Star If I give notice OF
his life and his work.
The poets fame. of course. grew
apace when it was announced that to
him had been awarded the Nobel
prize for literature. This honor is the
greatest that can be given to liv-
ing author and when the world is bet
ter acquainted with his remarkable
books it will be seen that the prize
was not unworthily bestowed on Ra-
bindranath Tagore.
The poet is the descendant of a dis
tinguished high caste Hindu family.
He was born in 1860. When seventeen
years of age he was taken to Europe
to complete his edcuation. His mystic
character Is best described in his own
d
II but family remember the days
of my early childhood. But / do re.
member that in the mornings, every
now and then, a kind of unspeakable
joy, without any cause, used to over
flow my heart. The whole world
seemed to me full of mysteries. Every
day | used to dig the earth with lit
tie bamboo stick thinking that l
might discover one of them. All the
beauty, sweetness. and scent of this
world, all the movements of the peo-
pie, the noises in the streets, the cry
of the kites. the .cocoanut trees in the
family garden, the banyan tree by
the pond, the shadow on the water,
the morning perfume of the bios
soms-all these used to make me feel
the presence of q dimly recognized
being assuming so many forms just
to keep me company.
In Europe the poet formed a differ
ent conception of God, man and ma
ture from that gained by other East
ern mystics and his poems are now
chanted in chapels and sung at spir-
itual gatherings. In his early youth,
however, what he wrote was colored
with the sensual tone so natural to
a Hindu. His success in an alien land
and among a cold, alien people is thus
explained in a British review:
"Mr. Tagore's winning of the Nobel
prize astonishes no one who realizes
how quickly reputation is made by
a philosopher who is in tune
with his generation. Mr. Tagore's
success is due to his catching the
mind of Europe on it's recoil from ma
terialism.
Perhaps the most popular philo-
sophie idea in Europe today Is a
vague restoration of God and the soul
in terms of biology or of mysticism.
Mr.. Tagore is the most successful me-
dunn of our time between East and
West"
Those who still cling TO the ideas
of their fathers in respect to religion
and have not lost their faith
by the teaching OF good
and simple people in their childhood
look upon all mysticism with suspi-
oion and upon all forms of transcen-
dental philosophy with scorn and con-
tempt. Such persons regard the mys-
teal poet-philosopher as merely q
player, the idle fruit of an idle day.
The nearest approach to the type
represented by Mr.. Tagore is M.
Maeterlinck, who vaguely and in a
shallow mood plays at philosophy and
lhouSbt-d man WHO AefHapS mas not
done days hard thinking in his
life"
The English critic whom have
quoted thus stamps Mr.. Tagore's po-
etry.
open one of these small volumes
and read that "a young, pale beam of
a crescent moon touched the edge of
vanishing autumn cloud. and there
the smile was first born in the dream
of a dew-washed morning-the smile
that f1ickers on baby's lips when he
sleeps We feel as though, mentally.
we were sinking into pile of cush-
ions. Read a hundred of such sem
fences and the world where
creatures work and suffer, and are
taken by the throat with wonder or
pain or delight, recedes indefinitely"
Mr.. Tagore's poetry is mild and
beautiful SO long as one does not
trouble to perceive that no stretch of
imagination, no wrestle with God. has
stirred its contented flow or sounded
a challenge to the brain and soul of
the reader.