The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-03-12
M EN, W OMEN
 A N ID T HIN G s

despaired of the meeting of the East and the West, there is small use Tor anyone who has never lived in both the orient and the occident to hope for a junction.
 l got just far enough into the east to know that so far as 1 was concerned it was mo mans land" and full of shadowy figures which would never be understood by me, for there is a subtle some thing in the very atmosphere which makes a westerner feel un- cannyt
 With this in mind the other after noon when l was billed to hear the dis tirguished lecturer from India, Dhan Gepal Mukerji, to fortify myself and keep from being seduced by the Ian guor of the east, l first went to Mack Sennett comedy at the Alcazar, which was ali-Amercan save in the name of the theatre in which it was run.
 I'll admit it was some jump from the incarnation of a typical side-splitting comedy as can be built around Mack Sennett Ben Turpin and the rest of the aughter-provoking bunch to find ones self seated in the quiet of a room with the only piece of scenery car pet drapcd from a balcony and the only actor slim young man garbed as an Oriental whose message was to | !. iro1 of Tagore.
 1 Mack Sennett and Tagore in the space of a couple of hours is contrast enough for any individual, and I must be wonderfully and fearfully made" for I enjoyed them both immensely. laughed until l cried at the antics of "Ben." and I frequently felt myself close to tears at the mysticism and sheer beauty of thought of some of the verses of Tajore as they fell from the sympathetic lips of one of his best l interpreters.
 | I contend that it makes no differ ence how matter of fact a man may be on the surface that hidden some where below the depths one will finu the roots of idealism. A man may be ratonalistic in mind and yet have. his soul strangely stirred by the spiritual; just as a man may be cold in manner and yet have a warm heart. Dig deep erough into any westerner and you will be sure enough to find traces of mysticism.
 I had the pleasure of hearing MT Mukerji when he lectured here last year under the wings of the Drama League, and it was an intensely inter- esting study both in nationality aud racial psychology as affected by a change of environment The soul of Dian Gopal Mukerji, far as I am able to diagnose the case, is irrevoca- bly that of one born and suckled in the cradle of India at the breast of Q mother steeped in the dreams of the east.
 I was not surprised that in his rapt moments when he forgot himself in trying to make us yisvaIiae lie mystery and the charm of his native land that he spoke as a mystic and with all the poetry and glamour of the east. as he brought before our gaze enchantine pictures of city. jungle, desert and sea until he made many of us almost actu- ally see and feel them stripped of western ideas and free from our con- ventional scenery.
 
 To agree with him or not in his phi losophy of life call in question the in- | A.. the gods and the God who control it and us; yet no one can for moment doubt that in spite of his bath in American customs of thought and acts, he has the power to conjure up images of a vast old world which to many cam. as veritable revelation, pro vcking us with it's dreamy languor, frigh tening with it's sensuousness, but comforting with its unbroken silence. I'll say it takes some artist to lift ono out of the clap-trap of a riot of farce and fun with ''Ben'' Turpin doing a thousand foolish things a minute ana in short while have his mind in tune with the soul of a dreamer ana poet like Tagore and yet this is just what Mukerji did for me, and am more than willing to acknowledge that in so doing he proved himself to
 
 thoughts from gay to grave. I am not going to attempt to try and put on paper the nuances of his idealistic imagery. or make myself foolish in att tempting to translate into my own words the delicate shadings of his speech. for it's beyond the ability or any Occidental to catch the gossamer like distinction and tNe luminous lan- guage of an Oriental, and the one who dsres is sure to fail and knowing this I give 1t up. The thing which was a constant pug gle as we'll as irritation was Dhan Co., pal Mukerji's canny ability at the most unexpected times to give such rapier like blows to some of our most cher ished western ideals by the use of phrase which showed that somehow he had seen beneath the hypocrisy of much of our boasted civilization, and was quietly laughing at our weakness as being childlike as the ostrich hiding it's head in the sand with its body in full view.
 His handling of Rudyard Kipling was both sympathetic and opened my eyes to his great ability in having at least lifted the veil of India sufficient " to write about what he saw in a tive. Hereafter. in reading my favor te modern author, I will take pleasure in the tribute which the lecturer from the other side of the world paid to his insight into the mind. heart ane