Portrait Bust by Carlo Norway. (See page 3). The Kipling Journal. The Organ of the Kipling Society. QUARTERLY No. 5 APRIL, 1928 Contents. News and Notes ...... 1 The Midland Section...... 6 The Favourite Twelve...... 7 " Rudyard Kipling " ...... 11 The Germ of" The Joyous Ven- ture "............ 12 Kipling and the Critics ... 16 Kipling—Some Early Influences 16 An American Sale ...... 18 At Sotheby's ......... 20 Three New Books ...... 21 Mr. Kipling and Col. Lawrence 25 An Open Letter......... 26 The Anchor song ... ... 28 News from Overseas ... ... 29 The Letter Bag......... 29 List of Members .... ... 31 THE Council attention of Great Britain list of names and Colleagues which will It will be seen that hundred and forty wishes to draw the members residing in and Ireland to the addresses of Overseas be found in an inset. these number over one -a remarkable proportion for a roll of 687 at the time when the list was compiled. The Council's object in printing this list at the end of the Society's first year is to suggest that there should be some at home who would be willing to communicate occasionally with members working on the fringes of the Empire, or engaged in duties that detach them from the centre of things that may seem co matter. The Council believes that something of the sort has been, and is being, done quietly and in a small way, and it knows that the letters that have been sent have given much pleasure to the recipients. The idea is that the list will foster the extension of this kindly service. This is not mentioned among the aims and objects of the Society, but the experience of the past year has shown that here is an opportunity to serve which is entirely in keeping with the spirit and policy of the Kipling Society. News and Notes. 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Members will recall that we announced in the last issue the award of the Rector's Prizes at the University of St. Andrews. We regret that our effort to secure a sight of the prize essays with a view to quotation has failed. The Secretary of the University wrote on January 11 : At Dr. Rudyard Kipling's request, the treatment of the subject he had suggested for a composition might be in prose, or in verse, or in drama without limitation of length. The form, therefore, of the compositions would hardly enable them to be suitably quoted from : and, as they have not been published in any way and remain the property of the University, it would probably not be desirable that quotations should appear. Which courteous reply carries with it the suggestion that sooner or later the two essays may be printed. We trust that may be the case and before very long. X X X X X The " doggy " poem, " Supplication of the Black Aberdeen " in the Strand Magazine for January was illustrated by Mr. G. L. Stampa, who caught the dog in sixteen different attitudes and did ample justice to a delightful set of verses. The poem appeared also in Hearst's International combined with Cosmopolitan, where it was illustrated by four photographs of a Black Aberdeen specially posed by R. W. Panskey. One of them was a full-page picture of a dog's head against a solid red background. The Brazilian Articles were continued in Liberty. Like the first they were illustrated in two colours by Mr. J. E. Allen, with map by Mr. Ernest Clegg. Mr. Kipling's detective story in The Strand for February is also a tale of Freemasonry. Mr. C. E. Brock, R.I., had done four drawings to illustrate it, and we understand that the same artist will be responsible for the pictures in the next story to be published in that magazine. X X X X X THERE was a discriminating article on Mr. Kipling's work in The Monthly Criterion for December, 1927, by Mr. Bonamy Dobree, who expresses the opinion that " As far as can be judged, the elements in Mr. Kipling's writings which have won him popularity, are the least important, the most ephemeral. It will only be possible to give him his rightful place when the political THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 heats of his day have become coldly historical. But to us, the successive generations, he has a value that may well be permanent, apart from his language, which in itself deserves to live. ... He deals, after all, with the enduring problems of humanity, the problems out of which all religion, all true poetry, must arise." X X X X X Another magazine article of more than usual merit was printed in the Empire Review for March. Mr. R. Ellis Roberts emphasises Mr. Kipling's beginning as a journalist, and points out that the journalist's "blessing is that he never suffers, as do the rest of the world, from that dreadful boredom which is the beginning of spiritual death." Mr. Roberts traces this early influence through Mr. Kipling's stories from the Indian days, to find in the later years that his " supremacy of the story of intentions is the outcome of cool, unhurried, fool-proof ease and skill . . . they could not be altered without damage." And again, writing of "The Eye of Allah":— He is a supreme interviewer, for he asks his questions with that degree of sympathetic imagination which makes an answer inevitably right. And this gift, which in his youth he applied chiefly to the men and women of to-day, he has in later days exercised on the men and women of the past. The article concludes with a discriminating analysis and critical estimate of that wonderful story in Debits and Credits, entitled " On the Gate," which in the years to come may be one of the greatest influences towards popularising the modern idea of eternity. X X X X X The new Kipling book, " A Book of Words," containing selections from speeches and addresses is out. The addresses are arranged in chronological order, beginning with Mr. Kipling's speech on " Literature " at the Royal Academy dinner in 1906, and ending with his tribute to " Our Indian Troops in France," delivered at La Basseé in 1927. Thirty-one speeches have been included. The book is reviewed on page 21. We hear that the same publishers have in preparation a new and illustrated edition of some of the Puck stories. The President, Major-General L. C. Dunsterville, C.B., C.S.I. has written his memoirs, and they were published last month by Jonathan Cape, under the title " Stalky's Reminiscences." Some notes on the book will be found elsewhere in this issue. 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Mr. Edward Kay Robinson, well-known as a writer on natural history, died on January 20, at Hampton Wick, at the age of 72. He was Anglo-Indian by birth, born on December 12, 1855, at Naini Tal, the second of the three sons of the Rev. Julian Robinson, of the Honourable East India Company's Service, who for some time edited the Allahabad Pioneer. Mr. Kay Robinson, after leaving Cheltenham, joined the staff of the Globe and, in 1884, returned to India as assistant editor of the Pioneer. Later he became editor of the Civil and Military Gazette at Lahore, with Mr. Kipling as his assistant. X X X X X When the ashes of Thomas Hardy were laid to rest in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, on January 16, the pall-bearers were : The Prime Minister, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Sir Edmund Gosse, The Pro-Provost of Queen's College, Oxford (Dr. E. M. Walker), Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Sir James Barrie, Mr. J. Galsworthy, Professor A. E. Housman, The Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (Professor A. B. Ramsay). X X X X X Mr. Kipling's articles in the Morning Post brought out an indignant letter from a coffee planter, who protested: " Mr. Kipling had lived for some years in India, and yet he dared to assert that he had to go to Brazil ' to taste coffee for the first time'." The writer went on : " Did not he or any friend ever walk the hills of Mysore, in South India, where in forest solitudes British planters cultivate pedigree coffees of the true Arabian stock ? I am inclined to believe that the 'magic stuff in big cups,' about which Mr. Kipling raves, was a concoction of the poppy. He says he ' slept blessedly afterwards.' The primal virtue of coffee is to disperse sleep, not to bestow it." X X X X X During the past quarter we have had an opportunity of hearing Miss Ellen Bowick's lecture on " Kipling—The Man and His Work." Miss Bowick has been lecturing on our author since the years of the war. She is a finished elocutionist and her selections from the author's works are sound, the familiar and the less well known being carefully mixed and alike rendered in an wholly admirable way. Her introductory lecturette, mainly biographical, affords the necessary information properly to appreciate Kipling's genius. Even better are the interludes and comments by means of which Miss Bowick brings out Kipling's spiritual insight into things that THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 matter. She does not scorn the personal touch and introduces the spice of a delicate irony, yet withal a high sense of Kipling's seriousness of purpose. The lecture recalls the inimitable preface to the " Outward Bound " edition of the works. Miss Bowick has been into " the lower hold " and she knows that Kipling does not " altogether sell toys and looking glasses." She showed a large and enthusiastic audience " that many of the cloths are double-and- treble figured, giving a new pattern in a shift of light." But then, did not Kipling himself add—" The women should know this ?" X X X X X A paragraph appeared in a Sunday paper just before Christmas, in which it was stated that a ceremony in honour of the centenary of the publication of Victor Hugo's work " Cromwell" was held on December 17, at which several distinguished foreign men of letters were present, including Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who read a paper in praise of the great French poet. In the hope of getting further information we got into touch with a correspondent in Paris, only to learn that the paragraph was inaccurate so far as could be learned upon enquiry. Mr. Kipling was not present, nor did he submit a paper. X X X X X Members should not overlook Punch for February 15, when Mr. Kipling was the subject of one of the series of portraits by Mr. Bernard Partridge, entitled " Mr. Punch's Personalities."' The poet-novelist is seated and the stanza declares : — He girdled the earth, this Puck to bind Empire and Home, and, as he sped, The Seven Seas incarnadined Marking the route All Red. X X X X X Mr. Carlo Norway has finished his model bust of Mr. Kipling in biscuit ceramic ware, and it is reproduced practically full size as our frontispiece. The sale of this portrait bust is in the hands of Mrs. Kate Wilcox, B.W.S., of The Chester Gallery, 2, Chester Terrace, Eaton Square, S.W.I. The price is 7s. 6d. or packed and posted 8s. Mrs. Wilcox is arranging to have small wooden plinths made on which to display the bust, the cost of which will be one shilling. Those who were present at the meeting on December 30, 1927, will remember that Mr. Norway exhibited then his rough model in clay. 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL We were pleased to receive the Open Letter from Mr. Gerard E. Fox, which we print on page 26, but we feel that he is just a trifle hard upon the winner of the Peter Bone prize. Mr. H. P. Croom- Johnson has yet some years to go before he reaches manhood's estate, and plenty of time in which to revise his judgments. It is to his credit that he has formulated opinions at all, and had the courage to state them at school, and then allowed them to be printed where he knew they would be subjected to criticism. X X X X X The Hon. Secretary wishes to place on record his appreciation of the splendid help be has had on the clerical side from Miss Joan Catchpole during the past six months. Miss Catchpole has now had to relinquish this work. The Hon. Secretary wishes members to note that photographs of Mr. Kipling are obtainable from Elliott & Fry, Ltd., of 63, Baker Street, W.1. Cabinet portraits cost 7s. 6d. and whole plate 12s. 6d. Another matter for notice is the fact that members wishing to introduce non-members to meetings should apply to the Hon. Secretary for tickets. X X X X X The demand on our space has made impossible to include in this issue the abstract of Mr. Robert Stokes' paper, read at the February meeting, entitled " Kipling's Place in English Poetry." Mr. Basil M. Bazley's talk on " Kipling's Crypticisms " at the March meeting was given without notes and led to an informal and pleasant exchange of views. THE MIDLANDS CIRCLE. The Birmingham Branch held a meeting on January 11, when Mr. and Mrs. Harvey entertained the members of the Circle. Eleven members were present, and apologies for absence were received from twelve others. A report from Mr. J. H. C. Brooking on the work of the Kipling Society during 1927 was read, and was followed by a report on the work of the Birmingham Circle during the same period. A paper was read on " Kipling's Place in English Poetry," and an enjoyable discussion on that and other topics akin to it ensued. It was arranged to hold the next meeting on April 18, when a paper on " Kipling and the Spirit of England " will be read and discussed. Midland members who are not already in touch with the Birmingham Circle will be welcomed. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 The Favourite Twelve. How the Members Voted. MR. H. B. TOVEY'S suggestion that members should send in lists of their favourite stories has been well received. More than a dozen lists have come to hand, and first place goes to Mr. H. P. Hollings, of Hampton Wick, because he has taken the trouble to explain why he likes this and that. Here is his list: — The Bonds of Discipline—for its fun and the cryptic pregnancy of Pyecroft's language. Bread upon the Waters—for the tale itself. The Bridge Builders—for the two absorbing pictures ; the bridge under construction and flood, and the conclave of the gods. The Devil and the Deep Sea—for its sheer romance and the wonderful tale of endurance and perseverance. An Habitation Enforced—for the delightful picture of English country life. The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney—lot the fun and intrigue which is irresistible as told by Mulvaney. Love o' Women—for its intense drama heightened by Mulvaney's wonderful spell-binding style. The Man who would be King—for the thrilling tale with its intensely dramatic finish. My Lord the Elephant— for its glorious fun. My Sunday at Home—for its perfect picture of an English country scene on a glorious Sunday in summer. Steam Tactics—same as " Bonds of Discipline.'' They—first, for its delightful sketch of a ride through downland and then, for the charming and touching fantasy of the children ; a wonderfully tender fabric woven from the gossamer threads of loving and cherished memories. Mrs. R. F. Thorp, confesses, as will others we are sure, that her favourite story is the one she has just read. " They are all so good, and so different, and much depends on whether one wants amuse- ment, sympathy, or stimulus! " Here is her list:— The Head of the District; Little Foxes; The Man who Was; The Tomb of His Ancestors; The Mark of the Beast; Watches of the Night; Brugglesmith; Garm; The Maltese Cat; Wee Willie Winkie; His Private Honour ; Drums of the Fore and Aft. 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Mr. N. Croom-Johnson, submits the following :— The Man who would be King; An Habitation Enforced; Red Dog ; The Drums of the Fore and Aft; Without Benefit of Clergy; The Brushwood Boy ; The Knife and the Naked Chalk ; The Incarn- ation of Krishna Mulvaney: The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat; Kaa's Hunting ; The Man who Was ; William the Conqueror. Mr. G. C. Ashton-Jonson's selection is as follows: - The Brushwood Boy; The Maltese Cat; William the Conqueror ; The Finest Story in the World; They ; The Drums of the Fore and Aft; The Edge of the Evening ; The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat, In the same Boat; With the Night Mail; At the end of the Passage; The Gardener. A member who writes from Acton and is content to endorse the list "No. 157," chooses :— In the Presence ; Without Benefit of Clergy ; They ; Toomai of the Elephants; An Habitation Enforced; The Brushwood Boy; My Lord the Elephant; Brugglesmith; The Drums of the Fore and Aft; The Bridge Builders; Brother Square Toes; The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat. Mr. H. S. Williamson, of Tynemouth, who admits that his first list contained 60 titles, with difficulty he has got it down to the presented number :— An Habitation Enforced; The Eyes of Allah ; The Head of the District; In the Rukh ; Judson and the Empire ; The Man who would be King ; Only a Subaltern; On the Gate; Red Dog; The Vortex; Old Men at Pevensey ; The Tree of Justice. Miss Winifred Sewell, of Loughton, sends the following :— The Children of the Zodiac; The Miracle of Purun Bhagat; The Winged Hats ; The Bridge Builders; The Man who would be King; The Head of the District; They ; Garm—a Hostage ; Their Lawful Occasions ; The Knife and the Naked Chalk; Kaa's Hunting; With the Main Guard. Mr. Hubert O. Roberts, of Kensington, has chosen :— The Brushwood Boy; They; An Habitation Enforced ; The Wish House; The Drums of the Fore and Aft; An Error in the Fourth Dimension ; The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat; The Head of the District; The Man who would be King ; William the Conqueror ; My Sunday at Home; At the End of the Passage. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 Major A. Corbett-Smith, writing without access to his library, can't say offhand, but should certainly include :— The Village that Voted; Maltese Cat; The Night Mail; The Roman Stories from Puck ; William the Conqueror ; Drums of Fore and Aft. Miss F. R. Pearson of Corsham, puts her favourites in the fol- lowing order:— The Finest Story in the World ; The End of the Passage ; Mrs. Bathurst; Little Foxes • The Tomb of his Ancestors ; Bread upon the Waters; The Devil and the Deep Sea; William the Conqueror; A Sahib's War; The Comprehension of Private Copper ; The Men who would be King ; Maltese Cat. Miss R. M. Bloch, of Chiswick, tells us that her favourite stories are : — They; The Brushwood Boy; Beyond the Pale; The Finest Story in the World; The Man who would be King; In the Rukh ; The Man who came Back ; The King's Ankus ; Toomai of the Elephants. Miss Scott-Moncrieff, of Oxford, votes for :— An Habitation Enforced ; Without Benefit of Clergy; On Green- how Hill; The Head of the District; The Bridge Builders; The Man who would be King ; Marklake Witches; The Knife and the Naked Chalk; The Centurion of the Thirtieth; On the Great Wall; The Man who Was ; As Easy as ABC. Miss Fannie Espen Teller, of Philadelphia, writes : I submit the list of my favourite Kipling Stories, but it is very hard to have to leave out The Mark of the Beast: — Mowgli's Brothers ; The Elephant Child ; The White Seal; Baa- Baa Black Sheep ; His Chance in Life; Young Men at the Manor ; A Centurion of the Thirtieth; Love O' Women; Without Benefit of Clergy; The Story of Muhammad Din; His Wedded Wife; Lispeth. Another over-seas member, Mr. E. J. D. Francis, of Crawford Bay, British Columbia, writes : " No. 4, of the Kipling Journal arrived last night. My wife and I hasten to send you a list of our twelve favourite stories " :— The Janeites ; Kim; The Brushwood Boy ; An Habitation Enforced; On the Great Wall ; The Man who Was; A Conference of the Powers; The Finest Story in the World; Little Foxes; The Head of the District; The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat; The Tomb of his Ancestors. 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Miss Cicely G. Wilcox, of Wincanton, Somerset, thinks the following the best: — William the Conqueror; Brushwood Boy ; An Habitation Enforced; Their Lawful Occasions; Bread upon the Waters; A Conference of the Powers ; The Maltese Cat; .007 J Slaves of the Lamp II; The Tomb of his Ancestors ; Little Foxes ; Red Dog. One or two points have arisen in the covering letters. Miss Wilcox wants to know how to say .007 ? We think an engineer would render it " Point Nought Nought Seven," although a telephonist might prefer, " Dot Double 0 Seven." We prefer the former. Another member asks how Mowgli is pronounced ? We do not know: our own idea is Moo-gli –the " oo '' as a slurred " w " ; to rhyme the first syllable with " cow " spoils the name. Mr. E. J. D. Francis asks whether any fellow member can tell him how many firms have at one time or other published works by Kipling? His own Kiplings come from no fewer than ten different publishing houses. The Characters of Kipling. By Regina Miriam Bloch. IV. Kim speaks: I am the restless mortal mind Which presses on through savage suns. I love the soul of human kind, I am the child who reads and runs. I worship the unaltered East, The winding Grand Trunk Road, the way Of camel-train and dervish-feast And the blue Hills to far Cathay. I love the clatter of bazaars, The attars and the nautchers song, The faqirs and the blazing stars, I am the hunger of the young That beats on the Eternal Door. I love the Vina's melting sound; All India is my threshing floor And all the world my hunting ground, THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 "Rudyard Kipling." A Name Study by Miss R. M. Bloch. AT the meeting on December 30, and as briefly reported in No. 4 of the Journal, Miss R. M. Bloch read an exceedingly interesting, if somewhat fanciful, paper on the symbolism of Mr. Kipling's name. She laid it down as a premise that the name of a person is no mere accident. In some strange fatalistic and vi- bratory way it belongs to the unknown potentiality we call the human individual. The theory has its fallacies, for obviously the Smiths and Browns would not fall into line. Yet, with the generality of less ordinary names, Miss Bloch claims to have been successful in estimating the characteristic tendencies and personality of those who bear them. By her method a name, somehow, falls into a group of words and sub-divisions of words formed from the letters of the name, and it is by the preponderance of words with one meaning hidden in the name that an insight is gained into the character and gifts of the name-bearer. Mr. Kipling's full name is John Rudyard Kipling, and his first name has a bearing on his mission in life. John is always a fine name—one of the greatest that can be given to a man. His second, a really uncommon name, is extremely beautiful. " Rud " is red, as in ruddy. Red is the colour of fire, of war, of wizards and of the earth, all emblematical of Mr. Kipling. "Yard" may mean a measure, a sail or garden, as in garth, and thus the whole name symbolises either " the red garden " or " the red sail. " When we recall Kipling as a poet, he is as a red rose-garden, and his love of the sea makes him a magical argosy with a red sail. " Kipp " is Scottish for a sharp-pointed hill, and "ling" means heather. Could anything express Kipling better, with his love of nature, the Sussex downs and the sea ? It is curious that he should have the lucky heather in his name, as he uses two Oriental emblems of fortune—the Swastika and the Elephant's Head. There are three musical notes in the name—D, A and G. The first occurs twice, and is thus the dominant key or life note. The presence of several musical notes reveals a person who would have more than one gift, and one who would respond to many sympathies and influences. The recurring D shows determination of character and a being who would not be satisfied until he had achieved his purpose. Miss Bloch, following her plan alphabetically, found in the outstanding and mystically powerful letters R, Y and K, in Mr. Kipling's name, further proof of her theory that a name is symbolical of character and individual attributes. 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL The Germ of " The Joyous Venture.'' By J. DeLancey Ferguson, of Delaware, Ohio. SO long as we remember the difference between a quarry and a cathedral, nothing about a great author is more fascinating than the discovery of his sources, of the crude facts whence his genius built a work of art. No admirer of Joseph Conrad would willingly forget those little prefaces which tell the origins of his characters and their stories, because they make clear to us, as nothing else could, the power of the brooding imagination which evoked such results from such material. The gulf between a chance-met sailor and a long-shore anecdote on the one hand, and " Nostromo " on the other, is so vast that only when we learn the relations of the two can our dull wits begin to comprehend the creative energy which spanned the gulf, and out of an apparent triviality evolved one of the world's greatest novels. Mr. Kipling, unlike Conrad and Henry James, has never taken his reader into his confidence by revealing the process whereby his stories have grown. For this reason it is all the more exciting to stumble, as I did one summer morning in Chichester, on the germ of so splendid a tale as " The Knights of the Joyous Venture." I was the only visitor in the Cathedral at the time, and a kindly verger turned me loose in the choir to study at my leisure the carvings of the 14th century stalls. I began on the south side, raising each misericord seat to examine the carvings beneath it THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 When I reached the seventh one, all my amateurish interest in mediaeval carvings for their own sake was swept away by the startling realisation that I was looking at an illustration to " Puck of Pook's Hill." The carving on that misericord represents a man engaged in mortal combat with a dog-headed devil. The man's sword is driven through the creature's mouth and out at the back of its head, and its teeth are clenched on the blade. Forgetting the Middle Ages, I began hunting for more Kipling, and my search was rewarded by the discovery that the first misericord on the North side, much more crudely carved, repeats the same scene, with the difference that the man here faces the other way and holds his sword in his left hand. And these two carvings arc the obvious source of this story I have mentioned. Every Kiplingite will remember that when Dan and Una first met Sir Richard he shows them Weland's Sword, on which, just below the hilt, "were two deep gouges in the dull, deadly steel." Later the children learn how those gouges came there. When Sir Richard and Sir Hugh set out on a pilgrimage, after the death of Lady Aelueva, they were captured by Witta, a heathen Norse- man bound for the African coast to trade, or raid, as occasion might serve. Witta pushed on, farther South than any white man had ventured before him, and there, up a river among the fever- haunted swamps of th3 Gold Coast, they won great stores of gold after a fight with creatures which Sir Richard calls devils but which the children recognize as gorillas. Sir Hugh, Sir Richard, 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL and Thorkild of Borkum, alone of the ship's Company, dared go ashore to that encounter. But the story of the fight itself must be quoted in full. " ' I know not how the Devils leaped down, or how the fight began. I heard Hugh cry : ' Out! Out!' as though he were at Santlache again; I saw Thorkild's steel cap smitten off his head by a great hairy hand, and I felt an arrow from the ship whistle past my ear. They say that the Witta took his sword to the rowers he could not bring his ship in shore ; and each one of the four archers said afterwards that he alone had pierced the devil that fought me. I do not know. I went to it in my mail-shirt, which saved my skin. With long-sword and belt-dagger I fought for my life against a devil whose very feet were hands, and who whirled me back and forth like a dead branch. He had me by the waist, my arms to my side, when an arrow from the ship pierced him between the shoulders, and he loosened grip. I passed my sword twice through him, and he crutched himself away between his long arms, coughing and moaning. Next, as I remember, I saw Thorkild of Borkum, bare-headed and smiling, leaping up and down before a devil that leaped and gnashed his teeth. Then Hugh passed, his sword shifted to his left hand, and I wondered why I had not known that Hugh was a left-handed man; and therefore I remembered nothing till 1 felt spray on my face, and we were in sunshine on the open sea. That was twenty days after." "' What had happened? Did Hugh die?'' the children asked. "' Never was such a fight fought by christened man," said Sir Richard. "An arrow from the ship had saved me from my Devil, and Thorkild of Borkum had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship could shoot it all full of arrows from near by ; but Hugh's Devil was cunning, and had kept behind trees, where no arrow could reach. Body to body there, by stark strength of sword and hand, had Hugh slain him. and, dying, the thing had clenched his teeth on the sword. Judge what teeth they were ! " ' Sir Richard turned the sword again that the children might see the two great chiselled gouges on either side of the blade. " ' Those same teeth met in Hugh's right arm and side," Sir Richard went on .... THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 And Hugh's fight even to the detail of the sword shifted to the left hand, is the fight depicted in those two carvings at Chichester . . . . What happened must have been somewhat in this wise. Mr. Kipling, visiting Chichester, was struck by the fact that two different craftsmen, of unequal skill had repeated a strange motif. He must have wondered if by any chance a distorted tradition of some real event could have given the artists their idea. The dog- headed Devils bear a striking resemblance to apes, which of course would bring gorillas to his mind. But who in the Middle Ages knew anything of gorillas ? Hanno the Carthaginian, to be sure, had brought back an account of them some fifteen hundred years before these stalls were carved, but it is incredible that the fact could have been known to these Sussex craftsmen, and even if it were, the meagre record which survives gives no hint of such a fight as this. On the other hand, we know that the Norsemen were the boldest seafarers of the Middle Ages, and that for many years they maintained a regular trading-post on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. Might not some daring navigator have ventured as far south as the Gulf of Guinea, and either seen the beasts himself, or heard reports of them ? With so much of a start, the outline of the story must have been clear in the author's mind. It remained only to account for the tale's reaching England, and that was easily managed by having a couple of Sussex men held as prisoners on the Viking ship. It is obvious to me at least, that the story must have germinated by some such process as that which I have just outlined. Search through history-books will doubtless reveal other sources whence Mr. Kipling obtained details such as the description of Witta's ship, this chance discovery at Chichester really explains everything about the origin of " The Knights of the Joyous Venture," everything that is, except the power of the genius that could span the gap between this crude suggestion and a finished masterpiece. Mr. DeLancey Ferguson's illustrations were drawn from photographs by Miss Natalie Saville. The President expects to be in England from June 1 to 15, during which fortnight it is hoped to arrange the Second Annual Luncheon. 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Kipling and the Critics. Some Additional Titles. SEVERAL titles by way of supplement to Mr. W. A. Young's list of books dealing with Mr. Kipling's works have been suggested since the publication of No. 4. Perhaps the most important is Six Famous Living Poets by Coulson Kernahan pub- lished first in 1922 and reprinted in a cheaper edition in 1926 (Thornton Butterworth). It is a study written in a sympathetic style with many quotations. From a second source we are reminded that there is a short article in Arnold Bennett's Books and Persons published in 1917 (Chatto and Windus). A third member reminds us that The Less Familiar Kiplingana by G. F. Monkshood published in 1917 (Jarrold and Son's) was not mentioned but agrees that it is not criticism. That, was the Editor's reason for omitting as well as Arley Munson's Kipling's India published in 1916 (Everleigh Nash). Miss F. E. Teller, from Philadelphia, writes :- I have several books on Mr. Kipling not mentioned in your recent Journal, one is Around the World with Kipling, Kipling at Home, by Irving S. Cobb; Rudyard Kipling, a Biographical Sketch, by Annie Page Cooper; Rudyard Kipling's Place in Literature, by Richard Le Gallienne; Rudyard Kipling, by William Lyons Phelps ; Rudyard Kipling as a Frenchman, by Andre Chevrillon and The Kipling Index. The book contains some valuable and interesting facts. In Contemporary Portraits, First Series, by Frank Harris, there is a critical essay on Mr. Kipling denouncing his philosophy and imperialistic policy. About ten years ago, there appeared in The Atlantic Monthly (Boston) an article by Katherine Fullerton Gerrould called " The Remarkable Rightness of Rudyard Kipling," in which she lauds his treatment of human relationships and the note of warning he had sounded about England's arming against attack. Kipling—Some Early Influences. More Reminiscences By M'Turk. AS briefly intimated in our last number, Mr. G. C. Beresford read a paper at the Birthday Meeting of the Society held on December 30, 1927. From that paper we now print some passages which we are sure will be appreciated by members. Mr. Beresford stated that he had often been asked what were the early THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 influences that made Kipling a laureate and a laudator of a Greater England. What, indeed, had been the strong moulding power of his writings, so that he might be considered one of the makers of a Greater England or at any rate one who had finally destroyed the Little England School ? It had been said that Kipling had had jingoism so rammed into him at his hard-shell Military School, as to make it impossible for the poor penman ever to get it out of his system. These critics were convinced that militarist ideals were incessantly held up to him and would take no denial. Life had moved in step to drum taps, and imperial ideals were blindly absorbed and followed faith- fully, until the bias toward chauvinism was firmly fixed, and thereafter could not be shaken off. What were the facts, and who were the moving spirits incessantly piping this particular tune ? First, the masters, men who hailed not from clamourous messrooms but from the peaceful banks of the Cam and Isis : mentors to whom imperialistic ideas were foreign, to whom double firsts, honours and " blues " meant more than the trumpet call or the tented field. King stands out as the dominating figure, a Brazenose honour graduate, energetic in guiding public sentiment, safeguarding and shepherding youthful minds, but in no sense a patriotic pedagogue. King was a keen Liberal, a truculent Gladstonian, loathing Beacons- field and his policy of " Peace and Honour " and sniffing scornfully at his institution of the title of Empress of India. The Head's attitude was detached and philosophic, as befitted his association with the Pre-Raphaelite artists and writers in London and his friendship with Burne-Jones and Morris from his college days. Prout was a firm and determined " Nothingarian," and during the 1880 election declared sententiously that both sides wish well and both did their best for their country but in different ways, a dictum which was retailed as one of his characteristic absurdities. In a word the masters were most blandly Liberal, and that was enough at that time and in that place to make the boys violently Conservative. Possibly the reaction against environment might have been one of the secrets of Kipling's Big Englandism. On the whole Kipling had no political or social enthusiasms. He was busy envisaging the world—or as much of it as he could see— and made no choice. The world was a stage, to be depicted as it came and used as material for his art. His London relatives and connections he held naturally in high respect. The Burne-Jones's 18 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Morris's and Rosetti's had made good, but these artists in letters and paint were more concerned with " The light that never was on land and sea " than with everyday actualities. Left to himself Kipling seemed heading for the complete Cockney litterateur, and in that event the pundits would not have had a word to say against him. It was the violent wrenching of him out of his shell that did the damage and made the trouble with the hyper- critical. A tendency to precociousness was reinforced by an extra- ordinary avidness of literary study ; by the range of his reading and the intensity with which he launched himself on anything bearing on letters. When in 1890 or thereabouts he burst upon London, the critics regarded him as a tenderfoot, and pointed out that here was native untaught genius showing the way to the stale and used- up products of Western Culture, whereas he was merely one of the old firm, who had dived down and bobbed up in a new place. In the matter of India, this cultured and very young man regarded it as exile, and a thwarting of his ambitions. His own inclinations were towards Fleet Street and the pavement land. Exceedingly short-sighted he could have no aspirations towards a life of action or adventure, either in the " Great Open Spaces," or in the shining East. Fortunately for Kipling and for literature, when the time came, Lockwood Kipling's representations were sufficiently convincing to move him the intervening 4,000 miles. In India by some decree of Providence, he found the true material for which his genius was waiting. The logic of circumstance and the experience of actual things turned him from what he called later " the little street of bred people " and his first outlook. To India Kipling went, with tendencies and ideals smooth as clay, and ready for any stamp. India stamped on the clay and stamped hard! An American Sale. High Prices for Rare Editions. ON January 16 and 17 a big collection of first editions, manuscripts, autograph presentation copies, autograph letters, and proof sheets were dispersed at the House of the American Art Association, Inc., of New York. The foreword to the catalogue stated that it was an English collection, but the name of the owner was disclosed neither in the catalogue nor in the newspaper reports that reached us. The lots numbered four hundred and nine, and the total sum realised was £18,000. One of four copies of the first edition of " Letters of Marque," Volume I., issued in London in 1891, which THE KIPLING JOURNAL 19 escaped suppression at the hands of its author, was bought for $10,900, a record price for the American market. Other prices were $5,000 for a first edition of " Plain Tales from the Hills," which was one of five extant copies of the first issue, and bore a signed inscription, " To the Lady of The Dedication ''; $3,300 for " School Boy Lyrics," Mr. Kipling's first book, of the first edition of which there were only 50 copies ; and $3,000 for a proof copy of " Kim." For an autographed report to the Royal Automobile Club of an automobile trip in France made by Mr. Kipling, the J. F. Dratte Company paid $3,900. The same buyer gave $3,100 for the autographed manuscript poem, "Ford of Kabul River," comprising about 360 words. A complete file of the Scots Observer and the National Observer in 16 volumes, November 24, 1888, to November 14, 1896, realised $250. The run contains 25 poems by Mr. Kipling. A run of The Week's News, published in Allahabad between January 7 and September 15, 1888, realised $2,900, while a first Indian edition of the " City of Dreadful Night"—a " tall" copy with the advertisements at the front and back– was knocked down at $2,500. First editions issued to protect the copyright of individual poems and tales were eagerly bought at high prices ; that of " The Elephant's Child," for example, going for $600. A high price for an item in this group was $1,800 for the English copyright issue of the first separate edition of " With the Night Mail," but that was capped by the $3,300 paid for " Cold Iron." Pirated and unauthorised editions are not yet greatly in demand among collectors. The Rand, McNally & Co., 1891, issue of "The Light that Failed " went for $15, which price was also paid for "Departmental Ditties," with "The Vampire" and other poems published by the Lark Press in, or about, 1898. Two rare pamphlets, " The Science of Rebellion " and " The Sin of Witchcraft," each realised $150. They have been sold in this country up to £20 apiece, and the pair were sold together on one occasion for £44, yet as we reported in No. 4, the former was sold at Sotheby's in December for £5, and the latter for £5 5s. A pamphlet of three leaves—the first and only known separate copy of " The Seven Nights of Creation " with the pagination from 1 to 4, was bought for $2,200. Thanks to the courtesy of a personal friend the Hon. Editor has a copy of the catalogue with each item priced. He has also a complete record of the prices realised at the Martindell Sale in 1921. The Hon. Editor will be pleased to supply information 20 THE KIPLING JOURNAL about any particular items from either, but would point out that prices realised at the dispersion of celebrated collections are usually much higher than those obtained when a few isolated items, however rare, pass through a sale room. X X X X X Sotheby and Co. will offer on April 3, at their Sale Room in New Bond St., London, W.1., two items of great interest to Members. They are catalogued as follows :— 378 (The Property of a Lady). KIPLING (R.) SCHOOLBOY LYRICS, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE IN ORIGINAL BLANK PAPER COVERS, INSCRIPTION ON PAPER COVER E.M. FROM A. K[ipling], the back-strip and corner of upper cover slightly defective and small stain on lower cover 12mo (61/8 in. by 41/16 in.) (Printed for private circulation only). Lahore. Printed at the " Civil and Military Gazette " Press. 1881 Kipling's first book and extremely rare. The book was printed in India by Kipling's parents while he was at school in England. Probably about fifty copies were printed, of which perhaps half, the first to be issued, were in blank covers. 379 (The Property of a Lady of Title). KIPLING (RUDYARD) "THE BALLAD OF AHMED SHAH," Autograph Manuscript Poem signed, of 94 lines, in small but neat writing on two sheets of 4to notepaper, on one side of each. At the end of the second page, Mr. Kipling has written : " Originally appeared in the I.P.G. (Indian Planters' Gazette) about 1886-7-8; I've forgotten exact date." This very characteristic poem does not appear in the collected edition of his works ; and it is not mentioned in Martindell's Bibliography. It was written out for, and given to the late owner, when he was in India at the same time as Mr. Kipling. One of the finest Kipling Manuscripts ever offered for sale. We shall record the prices these lots realised in our next number. Will members please note that No. 1 of the Journal is completely exhausted- O.P. in short. New members will get Nos. 2 and 3 so long as the supply lasts. Here may we tender an apology to a few members overseas who have been surcharged on their copies. We will try to ensure full postage in future. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 21 Three New Books. " A Book of Words," by Rudyard Kipling (Macmillan 7s. 6d. and 6s.). "Stalky's Reminiscences,'' Maj.-Gen. L. C. Dunsterville, C.B. C.S.I., (Cape 7s. 6d.). " Scrutinies," by various writers (Wishart 7s. 6d.). The middle of March was marked by the publication of three books, likely to appeal to Members of the Kipling Society. First to appear on March 16, was the selection from the speeches delivered by Mr. Kipling over a period of twenty-one years, beginning with the Royal Academy Dinner in May, 1906. The themes covered by these speeches are varied and include arts, literature, reading, responsibility, values in life, travel, some aspect of the Naval and Military callings, surgery and shipping. The audiences forgathered in London, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Sorbonne, Strasbourg, St. Andrew's, Dundee, Edinburgh, Oxford and Le Bassée, yet despite the different occasions and the outlook of the listeners, there is in every one of the thirty-one speeches something to turn over and over in the mind for those who care anything about the direction in which events have moved and are moving at home and overseas. The book, which has no foreword, has not been widely reviewed. The Morning Post adopted the almost unprecedented course of making it the subject of the first Editorial Note on the day it was published, and quoting at some length from several of the speeches, found " the philosophy of this closely reasoned book, both modern and ancient.'' Summing up, the leader writer declared :- There is deep and close-packed thought in these speeches, which are finely fashioned after a manner nearer to essays than to oratory. We like their maturity, and the luminous quality of their style; but what we like best about them is their courage. Mr. D. T. Mackintosh in the Daily Telegraph was, perhaps, even more happy:— Twenty-one years is a considerable period in the life of any man. In those particular years events of cosmic magnitude have occurred, and it would have been no strange thing if Mr. Kipling's message and philosophy had changed with circumstances. But while there are changes of emphasis and a certain widening perhaps, of sympathy—the war has awakened Mr. Kipling to a new sense of France's importance to the world—his teaching remains what it has always been. He remains the preacher of the 22 THE KIPLING JOURNAL stoical doctrine that the gods sell their good things only at a price which must be paid in full by men or nations. So he warned the young Rhodes's scholars at Oxford. A great part of the price to be paid consists of self-sacrifice, self-restraint, and self-denial, —three things all-important in the building of character, which is the greatest thing in the world. For our own part the speech in the book which will draw us time after time to A Book of Words is that on " Some Aspects of Travel " delivered on February 17, 1914, before the members of the Royal Geographical Society. Here, in very truth, is that "magic of the necessary word," which was the subject of the first speech in the volume. The best passages in the Travel speech are too long to quote. They are concerned with " two elementary smells of universal appeal—The smell of burning fuel and the smell of melting grease. The smell, that is, of what man cooks is food over and what he cooks his food in.'1 Mr. Kipling reminds us elsewhere in his new book that " the magic of literature lies in the words, and not in any man," and that magic was given into his hands when he developed the ideas just mentioned. For the rest there is a passage in the address delivered in 1907 at the McGill University, Montreal, which will always bear repetition. Speaking of the "first rush of the great game of life'' Mr. Kipling asked the students, after the first-heat of the game, to watch their fellows for a while, for:— Sooner or later, you will see some man to whom the idea of wealth as mere wealth does not appeal . . . Watch him closely for he will presently demonstrate to you that money dominates everybody except the man who does not want money ... Be sure that, wherever you meet him, as soon as it becomes a direct issue between you . . . you will do what he wants: he will not do what you want . . . whatever you gain, he will gain more. And, added Mr. Kipling, " I would like you better to be that man." Space on this occasion forbids any further " dipping," but A Book of Words is likely to prove a well from which truth and wisdom may be raised whenever circumstance or opportunity provides the mood for them. x x x x x Comes next, the President's Reminiscences, a very different sort of book but somehow of a like vintage. Major-General Dunster- ville does not take himself seriously—nor would his world recognise him in such a frame of mind—and is content to recount THE KIPLING JOURNAL 23 many trivial incidents and recall a host of practical jokes and funny stories. The earlier chapters up to the time he left the famous school at Westward Ho, will make a strong appeal to those who are interested in Mr. Kipling's early career. The account of the School, the surrounding country, and the pen-portrait of Cormell Price, explain a lot that has been obscure in Stalky and Co. The leader of the trio is determined, however, that if you want to discover the real product of the system that prevailed you shall read between the lines, not only of his own story, but of that earlier book in which the three boys play so big a part. The two works act and re-act and further comparative study of the school stories and the reminiscences seems to promise yet more enlightenment. If Mr. Kipling had only a meagre press after publication, that accorded Major-General Dunsterville was generous in a marked degree. Mr. Ernest Raymond, who appears to have served under him in the Great War, was easily first with his tribute in the Sunday Times, where he wrote ;— The book being Stalky's the fun prevails ; I swear there are as many laughs to the page in this volume as there are in a Wode- house or a Leacock story. Often when the tenderness or the profundity peeped, I had my wonder whether he might not have enriched the texture of his work by giving us more of these parts of himself, but Stalky is Stalky, and we remember how once when the deepest things in him were hurt by a vulgarian, he took his trouble away with him to an empty place. All of us who were associated with Major-General Dunsterville in his romantic rush across Persia to Baku, spoke of two great qualities in our Chief, his tact and his modesty. Well, those two qualities have most patiently taken command of his book, and, it must be confessed, thinned it. His modesty seems to have whispered to him : " Jest, jest; rehearse the vastly amusing anecdotes of which you have such a store, but don't touch the problems which are a statesman's task.'' And this from Dunsterville, who is potentially a finer statesman than they all! In a few pages on China, he is deeply informative, and towards the close on India; but he soon runs from these high matters, as if they had no place in a light book. And more than once his pen trembled to write of things which would have had an immense significance for us all—the religion of the Stalkys of England, the religion of an adventurous Anglo-Indian officer, the mysticism of India and the wisdom of Persia—but he stayed his hand. 24 THE KIPLING JOURNAL To which references to China and India the present reviewer would add those passages in Chapter X. which touch upon the revolution in Russia and the situation that has since emerged in that distracted country, Is it too much to hope that having given us these inklings of a deep insight into what is going on the world round, Major-General Dunsterville will someday expand the serious parts of his book ? His long and intimate relations with the men who make up these countries are likely to give such a work a significance not to be found in books written by their rulers or by those who only know the people at second-hand. X X X X X Remains the third book in our list this month. " Scrutinies " is announced as " a volume of unsympathetic studies of Our Elders by some of their Juniors." The book contains twelve essays on ten writers and two phases of literature, and the editor's foreword warns the reviewers not to describe the volume as " the merely inevitable reaction " because reaction is never inevitable ; it is only necessi- tated by the incompetence of a previous period of criticism." The implication at any rate is inevitable, and the method of approach is clearly indicated. Mr. Robert Graves is responsible for the " revaluation " of Rudyard Kipling and his effort is an amazing performance. The man who could write of Kipling, that he " has himself a great personal gift for hysteria," and presents "through- out his works the spectacle of men on the point of hysteria but restraining themselves by pride " may find that the future holds for him the necessity for yet another revaluation! Will members please take notice that letters concerning Membership and the Society's work should be addressed to the Hon. Secretary. Mr. J. H. C. Brooking, 1, Vanbrugh West, Blackheath. MSS. and communications relating to the Journal should be sent to the Hon. Editor: Mr. W. A. Young, Crowland, Shawfield Park, Bromley, Kent. Neglect to differentiate entails extra work upon both officers of the Society. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 25 Kipling and Lawrence. At the January Meeting, Miss Winifred Sewell of Beech House, Loughton, brought up an interesting matter for discussion. The following extract from correspondence is itself explanatory. Miss Winifred Sewell in a letter dated February 2nd. wrote:- Either Kipling or another whom I admire has been guilty of plagiarism. In Puck of Pook's Hill we find the young centurion Parnesius in ' On the Great Wall' singing thus :- And I've lost Britain and I've lost Gaul And I've lost Rome, and worst of all, I've lost Lalage. In Col. Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert, on pages 69 and 70 appear the words :- " the whole arab guard, right, left and centre broke together into the rousing regimental chorus :- I've lost Rome, and, worst of all, I've lost Lalage—" only it was Nejd they had lost, and the women of the Maabda and their future lay from Jidda towards Suez. Yet it was a good song, with a rhythmical beat which the camels loved, so that they put down their heads, stretched their necks out far and with lengthened pace shuffled forward musingly while it lasted. " Is it possible'' asked Miss. Sewell " that the Ageyl tribesmen are Kiplingites? Or did Kipling translate an Arabic marching song and call it a Roman one ? Could the Arabs know of Rome or Gaul or Britain—or Lalage ? Yet the 'Revolt' is an abridgment of the famous Seven Pillars of Wisdom which is an historical document, not a novel, and Col. Lawrence certainly takes his Arabs destinies too seriously to introduce an impish jest about Kipling's poem, which might bring doubt upon his truthfulness.'' None at the meeting, knew anything about it. Miss Sewell then wrote to Robert Graves, the author of Lawrence and the Arabs, and he replied as follows, on February 9th :- " Lawrence was writing figuratively, as the context makes clear— Nejd is not yet part of the British Empire. But Lawrence admires Kipling as a master of style and put this in as a complement. He sent Kipling a copy of Seven Pillars before publication to get his opinion on its style. I regret that I am not a Kiplingite. A ' scrutiny' of Kipling in a volume of essays shortly to be published by Messrs. Wishart makes my position clear. 26 THE KIPLING JOURNAL An Open Letter To Mr. Henry P. Croom-Johnson, of Stowe School. Dear Mr. Croom-Johnson,— Every member of the Kipling Society will have been interested to hear the opinions of the rising generation on the work of R.K., and some of them look upon you as a reincarnation of that "youngest critic" so touchingly referred to in the lines beginning, " When earth's last picture is painted." If you have not yet read those lines at least fifty times, I would recommend you to do so. As the Editor has been able only to give us excerpts from your essay it would be unfair to you to pronounce too harsh a judgment on this youthful effort, and as the Editor remarks, you will doubtless revise many of your opinions as time goes on. But there are one or two statements in your essay which ought not in my opinion to be allowed to go unchallenged, and indeed uncorrected. You say that R.K. often prefers sound to sense, and this I categorically deny. Any writer who prefers sound to sense, as you truly suggest, is merely a writer of jingle, but R.K., even at his worst—and none will deny that he has written some bad stuff— does not write jingle, Sound with him is of tremendous importance, but there is sense in every word he has written, though doubtless you and many others of us may not always have the knowledge or capacity to understand exactly what the sense is. You gave two instances of what you believe to be sound without sense. You say that the refrain, " Ye have heard the song —How long ? How long ? Wolves of the Abazai," is nonsense, and has no meaning whatever. If you had ever been in Afghanistan, or if you were not entirely unacquainted with that country and its history and folk-lore, you would not have written what you did. As a matter of fact, this refrain, which you characterise as nonsense, has a very real meaning, and if the words oft repeated in this refrain were omitted, then instead of making no difference to the ballad as you suggest, such omission would spoil the whole ballad, and its deeper significance to those who understand. Your second example of sound without sense is even stranger than the foregoing, and I must quote your exact words to make sure that I am not misjudging you. You say of " The Anchor Song" that it "consists of entirely mythical commands – they sound very fine, but mean nothing at all: Mr. Kipling has THE KIPLING JOURNAL 27 evidently made them all up." This, to quote your own words, is nonsense, and it is well to be emphatic on the subject, because if your statement were true, or even partly true, it would appear to me to strike at the root of R.K.'s claim to be a genius at all. Surely one of his great characteristics is his marvellous technical knowledge of every subject which he handles. Every command given in " The Anchor Song" is based on actuality, tho' of course R.K., by his genius, weaves them into a rhythm which they may not have had when used aboard ship. No officer would have said " Heave, ah, heave her short again " - but he would have said " Heave her short," and so on right through this magnificent example of R.K.'s poetic power and absolute knowledge of a sailing ship and its soul. There is not a single command or a single expression in the lines from beginning to end which were not used in some form or another in the old days in weighing anchor and putting a sailing ship to sea. As for the poetic grandeur—to anyone in love with sailing ships and the sea— of this anchor song, you may some day come to understand that it is indisputable. Well, ah, fare you well and its Ushant slam the door on us. Whirling like a Windmill through the driving scud to lee, Till the last, last flicker goes on the tumbling water rows. Ask any man with any poetic sense who has passed Ushant in a sailing ship under such conditions what these lines conjure up in his mind, and then—you will think again. In conclusion, may I beg you to read again R.K.'s, " In the Neolithic Age," " The Story of Ung," and " The Conundrum of the Workshop," and " My new cut Ashlar," and ponder over them, for R.K. was about right when he penned those lines so sarcastically :— The tale is as old as the Eden-tree, and as new as the new-cut tooth, And each man knows e'er his lip-thatch grows he is master of art and truth, And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart, The devil drum on the darkened pane,' You did it, but was it Art.' Yours sincerely, Gerard E. Fox. Bristol. [Comments on pages 6 and 28.—Editor]. 28 THE KIPLING JOURNAL The Anchor Song. A Sailorman's Opinion. MR. GERARD E. FOX, of Bristol, whose open letter to Mr. H. P. Croom-Johnson appears on page , wrote at a date later than that letter: " As to the Anchor Song, I have had a confirmation of my views from a quarter beyond challenge. My old friend, Capt. W. W. Petherick, was Com- mander of one of the old tea clippers for years, and what he does not know about sailing ships is not worth knowing." Captain Petherick, who is in his eighty-second year, wrote to Mr. Fox from Bude, a letter which contains the following passages : - ..." You may depend Rudyard Kipling was not far out in the poems which he wrote and which I read many times years ago. "Walk her round and heave her short." All sailors know what that means, to get on the forecastle deck and man the capstan, walking it around, and heave the cable short. There is often 20 or 30 fathoms of cable laying on the bottom when a vessel is anchored—this must be hove short when getting under weigh. Then "get all sails set, snatch her over, and hold her on the pawl," means to fleet the cable over on the windlass ready to heave again and break the anchor out of the ground holding it by the pawl. Brace her yards back and full means to back the foreyards and furl the mainyards in which direction you want the ship to cant when the anchor is released from the bottom. Ready jib. Hoisting up the jib to pay her off. Break her starboard bower out means to heave the anchor from the ground to the bows, and when you can see it awash and clear, the order is given to hook on the catfall and tally on to it, hoisting the anchor to the cathead, then stop or reave the chain stopper and seize or belay. To " fish " is to get a large iron hook under the fluke, take it to the davit, haul it up and in board. " Wheel" means the helmsman or quartermaster to go to the wheel and keep her full and bye, which means to sail her as close to the wind as she will lay until a compass course is given. Bonnets and gaskets are trappings aloft that the sails were fastened with. They must be fastened in their respective places. I fear I have not given a very clear description of the performance, but you must understand it was in January, 1865, that T last helped get a ship under weigh in this fashion." THE KIPLING JOURNAL 29 News from Overseas. Extract from Letter from W. T. Panton, Dept. of Lands, Papua.— " I am a Staff Surveyor in the employment of the Papuan Govern- ment, and have been an ardent admirer of Rudyard Kipling for the last thirty years. In fact, I know most of his poems by heart; and as the nature of my profession compels me to live a most isolated life in the bush of Papua, I very seldom have much intercourse with my fellow men. But I never go without a set of Kipling, an old, yet ever new friend." Extract from Letter from Chas. D. Edwards, 69, Group, via Busselton, Western Australia.—" I am convinced that the Society, formed to do honour to one of the Empire's greatest living patriots, should constitute a fitting link between Britons overseas and the Homeland. Miss Leonora Winn, Simla, has sent us a copy of The Civil and Military Gazette, of Lahore, published on New Year's Day. We hope to quote from its principal article in our next issue. For the present we content ourselves with this pen picture of Kipling at work :— There is now no one on the staff of the Civil and Military Gazette, who can remember Rudyard Kipling when he worked here as sub-editor but tales of him have been handed down. It is said that he was wont to pick up anything that lay handy —reference books, paper weights or rulers—and hurl them at unfortunate press employee who pestered him when he was busy. He was somewhat untidy and Colonel Goulding can well remember him prowling about Lahore in aged trousers and shirt, with his begoggled face crowned with a battered topee. When using a pen he would stab it into an inkpot and then flick ink promiscuously around him. The Letter Bag. I am much interested in your list of books about Kipling, most of which I have. I have also a few which you do not mention, but as I am at the moment away from my books I cannot give you chapter and verse. I remember, however, a slim, red, rather precious volume by G. S. Monkshood, called " Less Familiar Kiplingiana," which is a pure piece of bookmaking, and a rather entertaining but not very good little critical study written some years ago by Cecil Chesterton. It is a curious thing how bad most 30 THE KIPLING JOURNAL of the books and articles written about Kipling are. I thoroughly agree with you that the best of all of them is André Chevrillon's Essay, which is an amazing piece of work for a foreigner to have achieved, and in my opinion the only thing which comes anywhere near it—and that a long way behind—is John Palmer's Study. My note which was printed in the last issue of certain minor mistakes and omissions in Mrs. Livingston's Bibliography has led me into a most interesting correspondence with her, in the course of which she has given me a long list of errors, etc., discovered by herself and her friends on the other side. She writes : — The proofs were read on what was supposed to be my death bed, for I was desperately ill at the time. That prolonged the work until the publishers were almost frantic, and the last proofs were simply skimmed through in order to get the book out in the spring. She also tells me that she has been asked to compile a list of translations into other languages. She has them in twenty-one different languages, and is still adding to the list. Apparently the stories which are appearing in the Strand Magazine are also appearing in McCalls in America. At any rate one had appeared in the November number when Mrs. Livingston last wrote to me. Norman Croom-Johnson. Major Bewley, in his letter in No. 4, gave a transliteration of the runic inscriptions on two of the pictures in the "Just So Stories," but was unable to make out the cross-bar of the H. A writer in the Daily Graphic, shortly after the first appearance of the book, gave the following transliteration :— I also rote all of the plaise as kribed to Mrs. Gallup which rendering may be of interest to other Kiplingites. T. H. Leadenham. May I congratulate you and the General Council on the Magazine and the Society. My only suggestion—if I may venture to make one, is, that the pages should be numbered consecutively through each volume, instead of each number beginning at page 1.. H. S. Williamson, THE KIPLING JOURNAL 31 I note the complaint in the issue of the " Journal" now to hand that no adequate report of R.K.'s speech at the Neuve Chapelle luncheon was given at the time. The Times made good the omission by giving the speech in full in the issue of November 11. 1927. F. H. Brown. May I suggest that members may be asked to send in short quotations illustrating Mr. Kipling's skilful use of words and also the beauty of his prose. S. Scott Moncrieff. Kipling Society Members. Nos. 551—650. January—March, 1928. 551 D. Scott Brenner, Rickmansworth 2 Mrs. Comerford, Epsom 3 A. W. Craigie, NEW YORK 4 G. R. Nicholson, TANGANYIKA, T 5 Major W. Lead, M.C., TANGANYIKA, T 6 Major F. R. Fletcher. R.A.M.C, SIERRA LEONE 7 Dr. H. S. Townsend, GOLD COAST 8 E. Dance, BANGALORE 9 Lt.-Col. H.G. Martin, d.s.o., o.b.e., QUETTA 560 F. Byrd, Weedon 1 Ellis Ames Ballard, PHILADELPHIA 2 H. Thompson, London 3 E. W. Hewson, H.M.S. Calypso 4 Mrs. H. R. Rix (since deceased), PERAK, F.M.S. 5 H. Laver, Jr., TRANSVAAL 6 Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, UITENHAGE, S.A. 7 A. B. Stokes, Cambridge 8 E. K. Allin, PERAK, F.M.S. 9 Canon N. Egerton Leigh, Harrogate 570 G. H. Linden, London 1 Mrs. V. Lockett, Fleet 2 Capt, A. A. Carnell, London 573 V. G. Evans, R.N., Sheerness 4 J. W. Norgrove, Bristol 5 Major E. H. Crick, Ewell 6 F. H. Taylor, London 7 E. G. Frost, M. a., London 8 H. Curwen, C.B.E., EAST GRIQUALAND 9 Mrs. E. H. A. Nicolas, LUCKNOW 580 A. Chamier, SINGAPORE 1 T. J. Hoover, CALIFORNIA 2 Miss L. A. Winn, SIMLA 3 Capt. C. C. H. Smith, CHILAS 4 L. S. Kettlewell , NABROOMSPRUIT 5 L. Kettlewell, NABROOMSPRUIT 6 Mrs. L. R. Griffin, St. Albans 7 A. Richardson, TAUPO 8 R. Stewart Barnes, London 9 H. F. Homan, Rochester 590 C. W. Braine, London 1 A. D. Taylor, VANCOUVER 2 Miss W. Pratt, London 3 Miss E. Pratt, London 4 F. W. Thomas, London 32 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 595 T. H. Thatcher, 6 Ronald de Pass, 7 Dr. F. R. Blaxall, 8 Miss M. D. Mathias, Lee LAGOS Edgware St. Leonards 9 Capt. W. Van S. Howard, Canterbury 600 Miss Flora Spencer, BANABA 1 Mrs. E. Rose Russell, Beaminster 2 Edgar Skinner, 3 R. E. G. Woodman, 4 T. C. S. Hall, 5 R. C. Shaw, 6 W. H. Ritson, 7 A. C. Wood, 8 Miss A. M. J. Saunders, 9 Miss S. E. Cottrill, 610 Lt.-Col. L. A. Bethell, 1 Mrs. H. L. Perrett, 2 R. H. Ferguson, London London London Polegate Durham KOHAT London London Dorking London London 3 Capt. A. H. Coltart, CHATEAU D'OEX Tring 4 Miss P. M. Thomas, 5 H. Broadmeal, Bridgewater 6 Miss B. M. Greenwood, MOTUCKA 7 Miss A. I. J. Martin, 8 Miss H. Wright, 9 R. G. Room, 620 T. German-Reed, 1 Miss I. M. G. Butter, 2 Dr. J. E. Frere, London Bournemouth London London London Fleet 603 Major W. E. C. Pickthall, Tidworth 4 F. O. Austin, London 5 Dr. F. H. Maberly, London MONACO London London Newport London Harrogate Paignton Whyteleafe BOLIVIA 6 Mrs. R. J. Mackay, 7 Miss E. Peacock, 8 F. Dillon Edward, 9 Miss Barbara Green, 630 Miss A. F. Sykes, 1 Dr. David Brown, 2 Mrs. B. Oswald-Smith, 3 Mrs. B. E. Field, 4 Miss D. McEwen, 5 B. Leechman, KAHAMA, T.T. 6 Dr. Elizabeth Mudie, Glasgow 7 J. C. Pape, CHUQUICAMATA 8 Mrs. J. Whitehead, London 9 Mrs. K. Wilcox, London 640 Evan R. Gill, Liverpool 1 Lt.-Col. Sir F. Hall. Bramley 2 Dr. S. M. Wilcox, Kings Lynn 3 Sir Roderick Jones, Rottingdean 4 D. W. Scotland, NJALA PUNJAB Glasgow Glasgow Sutton NEW YORK London 5 H. R. Clancy, 6 G. W. F. Tait, 7 Mrs. I. M. Tait, 8 Sam Bibby, 9 Guy Hamilton, 650 Cecil Enthoven,