Things to Think About

In Rome, on his 88th birthday, Philosopher George Santayana granted one of his rare interviews to a thoughtful reporter: "I haven't changed my mind basically about my philosophy, but I don't have the sense of simplicity that I used to have . . . Once upon a time I was not reconciled to the world because there were many things about it I did not like. Today, I am still not reconciled to it but for another reason--that I find things are not so simple to explain as I once imagined."

The Tidings, weekly Catholic newspaper of the Los Angeles archdiocese, charged Eleanor Roosevelt with being an agnostic who "apparently does not acknowledge God" and is therefore unfit to have headed the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The argument started on the CBS program This I Believe, when Mrs. Roosevelt said: "I don't know whether I believe in a future life ... I came to feel that it didn't really matter very much, because whatever the future held you'd have to face it when you came to it, just as whatever life holds, you have to face it the same way ... I think I am pretty much a fatalist." However, a fatalist is not necessarily an agnostic, said Mrs. Roosevelt, in answering The Tidings: "I do believe in immortality, but I haven't been able to decide exactly what form it might take. There are so many possibilities. For example, there is a question in my mind whether we will appear physically as we appear now. It seems unnecessary to try to decide the exact form that immortality will take. We won't be able to change it and we must accept it. And we must meet it with courage and do our best."

On the Christmas list of recent religious books: The Kingdom of God Is Within You, by Leo Tolstoy (Page; $3) with a foreword of appreciation by Actress Mary Martin. It all went back to her meeting with India's Prime Minister Nehru, who asked her how she managed to keep so fresh during the long run of South Pacific. By reading something different, she answered. Whereupon he recommended the autobiography of Gandhi, in which Gandhi discussed Tolstoy's book.

In San Francisco, after winning a twelve-round decision in a nontitle bout with Light-Heavyweight Champion Joey Maxim, ex-Heavyweight Champion Ezzard Charles gave a dressing-room interview. Said the ranking contender for another crack at the title Joe Walcott took away from him last July: "I think I can whip anyone in the world until they beat me."

Roses All the Way

As Chancellor of Bristol University, Winston Churchill awarded honorary doctorates to nine "Men of Ability," including former Socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps. Still not up to traveling the 30 miles of winter roads, Cripps received his degree in absentia. Following the Bristol tradition of lightsome eulogies, a university Latin professor said of Sir Stafford: "His favorite drink is water; his favorite food, a scraped carrot. While in politics he is left of the left, in matters of right and wrong he is inclined to be right . . . He is gifted with a winning voice which can make the warnings of Cassandra sound like the love note of Apollo."

The Earl of Athlone, Chancellor of the University of London, awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to the youngest person ever so honored in the university's history: his grandniece, 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth.

In Paris, Sir Charles Mendl received an 80th birthday present from his connoisseur friend Ludwig Bemelmans: 80 Belon oysters frozen in a block around a magnum of champagne.

All preened, pearled, jeweled and plumed, Canada's former Olympic Skating Champion Barbara Ann Scott paused in her rink maneuvers long enough to give photographers a look at one of the new costumes she wears in her biggest professional job to date: star spot in the Hollywood Ice Review, formerly held by Sonja Henie, who bowed out after 15 years. Now on tour, the show will open in Madison Square Garden next month.

Virtuosos

Photographers at New York's Idlewild Airport spotted fair game stepping off an incoming plane: the reluctant Greta Garbo, who hid behind dark glasses, tossed her shaggy mane and vainly pleaded, "Please leave me alone. I'm not in pictures any more."

To Major James Jabara, first jet ace of the Air Force, came another honor of sorts. He was named Cigar Smoker of the Year by the Cigar Institute of America and given five hundred 15-c- stogies.

Aboard the S.S. Independence, after a weary month of playing political chess in the U.N. General Assembly meeting in Paris and the NATO meeting in Rome, Secretary of State Dean Acheson was caught in a moment of fearful concentration as he relaxed with the old deck game of shuffleboard.

In Washington, the Supreme Court admitted two more lawyers to practice before its bar: Price Boss Mike Di Salle and Cleveland District Attorney Don C. Miller, only one of the famed Four Horsemen (1924) to forsake football after graduation from Notre Dame.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.