Such an article as you suggest would either fit in admirably with the design of the review or else, if treated in another way, would absolutely contradict it; and it is therefore only fair that I should explain to you the position of the paper. I am myself, having dabbled in Oriental philosophy, very keen on the scholarly presentation of the Eastern world to occidental Europe which knows so little about it. But I am very much opposed to certain forms of Oriental influence which seem to me conducive of hysteria and barbarism. You will have noticed [that] Eastern ideas or rather paraphrases and corroborations of Eastern ideas, have been creeping into Western Europe through the gate of Germany. As the Germans are a very hysterical race they always select the most hysterical and unwholesome aspects of Oriental art and thought and within the last few years they have turned more toward the East […] The effect of this, if the influence permeates Western Europe, will be to relax our hold on those European traditions without which I believe we would relapse into a state of barbarism […] My friend Herman Hesse […] is an example of the sort of orientalisation which I fear […] Now the standpoint of the Criterion is distinctly Aristotelian and in a sense Orthodox. As for Tagore, I cannot read at all but his work in translation seems to me a miserable attenuation of the robust philosophy of early India.