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qn . Ba Tg Be | + ns” ’ ' dee page of it an act of fiith in mankind, a lesson of integrity, an appeal to freedom and brotherhood, A Book, A Man cone - This book - his autobiography | - explains ROBES OF conpletely, whether he writes about his art or his researches or his convictions, As a musician he reveals an unbounded curiosity and pays particular attention to showing the value of his dis- coveries by constant parallels, If he studies the work of Bartok and Hungarian folklore, he knows how to compare them with African foikiore, he can point to echoes and analogies ~ more than resenblances. And everything, in his view, goes to show the universality of music, On this subject he is inexhaustible and ardent. I remember a long talk with him, in ‘London, two. years agoi Holding the scores, he was talking to me of DEBUSSY; he quoted “Pelieas and Nelisande", stopped -@while and fo confirm what he had just said, he sang in an undertone & melody from MUSORGSKL's "Boris and Godunov? Then he took up a ilebrew melody, a prayer and added immediately without any comment, an African incantation, This anxiety to convince, PAUL ROBESON has it also, when he is pleading for justice or protesting against cruelty. in everything he ia just and generous, — In this same book, when he addresse¢ the colored | children of Little Rock, he wants his racial brethren to feel — the anxiety and the action of men of all lands. *You gare our children, he says to them, but the peoples of the whole world claim you also, They have seen your faces and the faces of ali those whe hate you, They are on your side. They see in you the qualities which parents everywhere wish to see in their children. Their best wishes - the love of all good people for children e they give to you.® This is only one detail among many others which | reveal equally his kindness. Would not one think after these . lines that PAUL ROBESON is going to sing? And indeed he almost does so in this piace when he quotes a poem of PABLO NERUDA, yi?