The name Ananda Coomeraswamy conjures for me folk-weave ties, strange theories of social credit, and Ruskin-Morris sympathies. Before now he has been labelled a crank—and I think that there is some truth in the charge. By the same coin, Eric Gill has also been called a crank. Yet, now that their work can be seen in retrospect, a fair degree of modification is necessary.

There is a type of Englishman or American, as there is a type of Indian, who while remaining loyal patriots find that both patriotism is not enough and that their countries can only be best served (or saved) by the most vigilant eye of criticism. Both Gill and Coomeraswamy, who equally admired each other, were opposed to many of the trends which they saw in England America and India. They disapproved of the growing power of technology and yet it was largely because of technology (as it had come to affect printing) that their opposition to it could be disseminated and published so widely. That is the paradox.

Coomeraswamy’s father was the first Hindu to be called to the bar in London; his wife was an Englishwoman. When her husband died she left Colombo in 1879, taking with her a young boy of two. It was not until twenty-five years later that her son returned to his native land.

Mr George Scott’s Time and Place is a semi-autobiographical analysis of the influences which he believes have contributed towards the formation of a new kind of hero in everyday life—echoes of whom are to be found in fiction—and also of the state of contemporary society in Britain. He posits an imaginary, composite hero—alluding to Mr Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim as an indicator—whose passions are ended before he starts on his journey; who distrusts his own intellectual pretensions and emotions even more than those of others; one who is ‘fearful above all of not being “wide” enough to forestall delusion’ and who ‘is forced back into the defence of laughter, at himself and at the world’. And if he finds within himself ‘any weakling inclination towards constructive ideas for the world, for “crusades” or any phoney nonsense of that kind, then he must secrete them in some dark cellar lest the neighbours discover them and subject him to ridicule.... He brings with him the supposed coarseness of the hobnailed navvy and the Teddy Boy’s fear of being thought soft.’

This is a convenient and, probably, to some extent, true analysis of certain kinds of people with whom most of us are familiar. Whether or not they are to be regarded as heroes in reality the next fifty or hundred years may demonstrate; and whether or not they are likely to be interesting as fictional heroes it is also a little early to forecast. So far it would seem otherwise.

The celebration of Mozart’s bicentenary has brought out one of the chief traits by which his worship differs from other cults for writers and artists of the past, namely, the degree of personal love and devotion which attend it. The centenary celebrations of Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Brahms, Chopin, Bach, have fallen within the memory of most of us; great as was the burden of praise cast upon these distinguished figures, none called up such a tribute of affection. Twenty years ago, Eric Blom concluded his excellent work upon the composer with a declaration of love. It is this intimate relation between the man himself and his listener that makes our apprehension of his art so peculiar. This would be all the more astonishing if it were true, as Hyatt King as written in a recent volume of essays and as indeed many others said before him, that Mozart’s music is profoundly impersonal. It would be astonishing even if one modified this by substituting ‘impenetrable’ for ‘impersonal’. The ‘Mozart friend of long standing’, to whom Paul Hamburger refers in The Mozart Companion and for whom in fact this book has been written, feels that when W.A.M.’s music fills the room it is not only the art but the very presence of the Geliebte that he enjoys. Except for Chopin, I doubt whether this can be experienced so keenly with any other composer.