"Stalky and Co" Fifty Years After The Kipling Journal. The Organ of the Kipling Society. QUARTERLY No, . 18 JUNE, 1931 Contents. Frontispiece : Stalky & Co. News and Notes ...... 33 The Rhinoceros—His Spots . .. 50 Stalky's Message ...... 35 Kipling and Jungle Life .. 51 Annual Meeting... ...... 36 Kipling the Interpreter .. 59 The Luncheon ... ...... 37 Letter Bag ....... .. 60 Kipling's Prose ... ...... 41 The Essence of Literature .. 63 Kipling and Empire Union ... 43 Membership Roll and More Yarns ...... 49 Announcements .. 64 News and Notes. The Society is indebted to Mr. G. C. Beresford for the photo- graph from which the block for the frontispiece has been made. X X X X X Mr. Rudyard Kipling has accepted the invitation of Lord Crewe and the executive committee of the British Institute in Paris to become a member of the London committee. x X x x x There have been three meetings of the Society since No. 17 was published. The sixth meeting of the session was held in The Rubens Rooms, Buckingham Palace Road, S.W.I., on April 15, 1931, when Mr. B. C. Allen, I.C.S., read a paper entitled " Kipling and Jungle Life." It will be found else- where in this issue. Miss Flora Reader sang " Two Seal Songs," " Our Lady of the Snows," and another. Colonel C. H. Milburn was in the Chair. On May 7, another evening meeting was held in The Rembrandt Rooms, Thurloe Place, South Kensington, S.W.7., when Professor L. F. Rushbrook Williams spoke on Kipling and India. We hope to present this talk in the next issue of the Journal. Miss Beatrix Gardyne and Mr. Eric Young sang, and Major Gen. J. D. McLachlan was in the Chair. An extra and Special Meeting was held at the 34 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Rembrandt Rooms, South Kensington, on June 9, when the Hon. Secretary of the Society in the U.S.A., Rear-Admiral L. H. Chandler, U.S.A. (Ret.) spoke on the Society in the States and on Kipling's writings in general. The President was in the Chair. We have the M.S. from which our visitor talked, and hope to print it in the next number. X X X X X According to one of the London daily papers, Mr. Rudyard Kipling is preparing two new books for autumn publication. One of them will be entitled " East of Suez," a title which suggests a return to Mr. Kipling's earlier work. We have failed to get confirmation of this promise, but watching for a more definite announcement will give zest to the perusal of book- sellers' catalogues. X X X X X Captain A. J. Cameron suggests that the reference to Olputs Patent Concrete Railway Sleeper is to an invention by Messrs. Dunn and Olpherts. The latter was an engineer on the E.I.R. coalfields at Giridih. The official name was the D and 0 sleeper, but the native would certainly corrupt Olpherts into Olputs! Kipling refers to this sleeper, which incidentally is of iron, and cast from old railway metals in The Giridih Coalfields and Among the Railway Folk—pages 308 and 292 of Vol. II From Sea to Sea. X X X X X An interesting and rather unusual entry in the catalogue of a Lancashire bookseller runs as follows:— AMERICAN INTEREST.—Kipling's Presentation Set to Miss Warner for Saving his Life with inscription guaranteed in the famous Author's handwriting on the title page of Vol. 1. (" Plain Tales from the Hills.") The tribute paid to this well known American Authoress reads, " Helen M. Warner, from Rudyard Kipling, in memory of a little pneumonia, April, 1899." One would have thought the Warner family should have held on to this, but the vicissitudes of life are very, very strange. Unfortunately, this is not a complete set, there are only 15 volumes though the others will still be procurable in America, as this is Scribner's New York edition. We are only charging you for Volume I with the inscription, the rest are thrown in, THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 35 and comprise:—Plain Tales from the Hills, Soldiers Three, In Black and White, The Phantom Rickshaw, Under the Deodars, The Jungle Book, The Second Jungle Book, The Light that Failed, The Naulakha, The Day's- Work, From Sea to Sea, Early Verse, Stalky. Together 15 volumes, the best edition. 8vo., cloth gilt. £10 10s. 0d. the lot (well worth £100 being unique and fully guaranteed). New York: Scribner's, 1898-1900. The offer was that of the Export Book Co., Preston, Lancs. The catalogue is dated June, 1931. "Stalky's Message." "STALKY " takes this opportunity of sending, by the hand of his friend, Rear-Admiral L. H. Chandler, U.S. Navy, Re- tired, of Tilden Gardens, N.W., Washington, D.C., a mess- age of greeting from the scene of the annual luncheon of the Kipling Society in London, on June 10, 1931, to all those in the United States of America who know and admire the works of Rudyard Kipling, and to invite them all to become members of this Society of which he, Major-General Lionel C. Dunsterville, is the President. Founded in honour of our great writer and poet of the Anglo-Saxon race, our members are bound together by their admiration for Rudyard Kipling and for his work, and should, so " Stalky " believes, gather together and establish friendships founded on their great and moving common interest, by which association and mutual exchange of ideas and informa- iion, they may gain a deeper and more intimate knowledge and appreciation of the inspiring work of this " uncrowned laureate of the Anglo-Saxon race." " Stalky " therefore cordially in- vites all those who may receive his present message to get in touch with Rear-Admiral Chandler, and with this invitation extends his warmest greetings to all of his fellow enthusiasts. London, L. C. Dunsterville (Major-General), 10.6.31. President of the Kipling Society. 36 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. The Annual Meeting and Luncheon. THE annual general meeting of the Kipling Society was held 1 on June 10, at The Rembrandt Hotel, Thurloe Place, South Kensington, S.W.7., when the President, Major General L. C. Dunsterville, was in the Chair. Submitting the report, the President stated that the live re- gister on that day was 735; 485 in the United Kingdom and 250 overseas. The number of "Life" members was 39 and "Donor" members 32. The accounts showed a cash balance of £248, which in all circumstances might be regarded as satisfactory. During the past year extra expenditure had been incurred in the hope of attracting additional members; but as yet, the effort had not borne much fruit; no doubt it would in due course. The favour- able balance was largely made up of the subscriptions of Life- Members ; but this year the Executive Council hoped to balance- income and expenditure. Colonel C. Bailey, the Secretary, observed that the Society had had an exceptional year in losing members, who in almost every case had given the present economic depression as the reason for their resignations. Mr. J. H. C. Brooking, the Hon. Organizer, urged that in- future years the balance sheet should be dealt with in regard to Life Members in such a way that their subscriptions did not come into the Revenue Account. Major General J. D. McLachlan proposed and Captain E. W. Martindell seconded the adoption of the Accounts and the Report for 1930-31. On the proposition of Rear Admiral Chandler, seconded* by Lt.-Gen. Sir G. E. MacMunn, Major General L. C. Dunster- ville was re-elected President for the current year. Major General J. D. McLachlan, Sir Harry Renwick and Captain E. W. Martindell offered themselves for re-election as. members of the Executive Council, and their re-election was proposed by Mr. G. E. Fox, seconded by Mr. R. E. Harbord. It was reported that Lord Brotherton and Sir Percy Fitz- Patrick (S.A.) had died, and that other Vice-Presidents had resigned. The Council had co-opted others, and the under- mentioned appointments were confirmed :— As Vice-Presidents, Major-General J. H. Bruche, C.B.r C.M.G. (Australia), Sir Francis Goodenough, C.B.E., Dr. G. H. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 37 Locke, M.A., LL.D. (Canada), Lord Wakefield, C.B.E., LL.D., Major-General J. D. McLachlan, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., Mr. S. A. Courtauld and Brigadier-General the Hon. Sir Charles P. Crewe, K.C.M.G., C.B. (S. Africa). Sir Francis Goodenough will act on the Council, vice Major- General J. H. Bruche, who resigned 011 his return to Australia. Mr. W. G. B. Maitland, who has acted as Hon. Librarian since November 13 last, was confirmed in that post. The other officers of the Society were all re-elected. The President states that Colonel Bailey had had a letter from Miss Catherine Sutton Sharpe, of Lincoln, suggesting that a 'bronze medal should he struck by the Society and presented to Mr. Rudyard Kipling. The suggestion was noted. Votes of thanks concluded the proceeding and the Luncheon followed. THE LUNCHEON. Major-General L. C. Dunsterville was again in the Chair, and after the toast of " The King," Lord Chelmsford, as chief guest, proposed the toast of " Rudyard Kipling." When, he said, he first received the Society's invitation he thought to himself " What fun!" But as the day had gone on he had realised that his was a formidable task. He took com- fort in the thought that there were some 120 people present who presumably were there as admirers of Rudyard Kipling, and he would wager that no one of them would regard any tribute by any other person as adequate to the man they so admired. With the exception of the Chairman perhaps, he had started to read Kipling as early as anybody there. At Oxford in the 'Eighties and early 'Nineties he acquired " Plain Tales from the Hills," " Soldiers Three " and other works in their paper covers. He had these bound together, and the volume was one of his treasured possessions. From that time he had bought every book of Rudyard Kipling as it came out. Rudyard Kipling was a writer whom one should approach •chronologically, and he traced Mr. Kipling's growth from the Jubilee celebrations of '87 and '97, and our growth as an Im- perial people. Kipling interpreted us to ourselves, and he founded the Imperial spirit. He began by making himself the prophet of Tommy Atkins, portraying his grit, his humour and his long suffering patience. He himself could appreciate the latter because he went out to India as a company commander in 1914 with the 1st Division of Territorials who replaced the 38 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. pre-War Army in India. Those Territorials absolutely refused to accept the conditions under which the pre-War Army in India lived. He himself had written to the Commander-in-Chief on a question of pay. Think of a company commander writing to the Commander-in-Chief! Anyway, he received a letter from the Adjutant-General in which he said the Commander-in-Chief had asked him to thank Lord Chelmsford, and that the matter would be put right. He believed that those Territorials did more for the comfort of the British soldier in India than had been done by Army Headquarters for 50 years previously. Referring to the influence of ships and machinery on Kipling's writings. Lord Chelmsford thought M'Andrew's Hymn one of the greatest of Kipling's poems. In his writings on Sussex Kipling stood out, whether in prose or poem. There was also his love of animals and children. He confessed that when he- first read the " Just-So Stories " he failed to appreciate them, but the moment his children got the book they showed him he- was wrong, and that those magical repetitions which adults could not always enjoy were just what children loved. He related that a lady who was seeking a book at a well- known library said that she did not want any of Kipling's writings " because he made animals speak." The attendant offered her " Kim," then newly published, with the assurance that it was something different from the " Just-So Stories." The lady exclaimed, " I am not going to take it on trust," opened the book and observed: " Why, here's a lama speaking in the very first chapter!" He remembered when staying for a week-end at a country house with Kipling as a fellow guest, that on one occasion Kipling was discovered seated on the terrace with one little girl on either side and half a dozen boys leaning over him. He had a twig in his hand, which he whittled as he told them a story. Of course when men rose to the height of eminence which Kipling had achieved, no one was going to judge him by stories here and there. They were going to say: " What are the beliefs of this writer, and what is his message?" He believed that Kipling would reply: " I believe in Youth and I believe- in Courage, and if you want my message (though he disliked the idea that he was ever delivering a message), myself I know no message more concise, more covering all that I ever meant to teach, than that poem of mine entitled " If." Viscount THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 39 Chelmsford then proposed the toast of Rudyard Kipling, which the company rose and drank with enthusiasm. To Sir Francis Goodenough fell the task of proposing the toast ' The Kipling Society and its President." Like the President he came from the best county in England—Devon. Before lunch a friend had asked him if the President (Stalky) was really as naughty as he had been depicted. He had replied '' No, but he has changed much since." He thought a great service Kipling had done was in making us realise the value both in public (and business life), of " the sahib."—The man whose word was his bond. They were needed very much in the trade and industry of the Empire. The President, replying, thanked Sir Francis Goodenough for the kind way in which he had proposed the health of the Society coupled with his own name. He thought the luncheon had been very well arranged and run by Colonel Bailey, their excellent Secretary, but he thought that was a department in which the ladies might come to the fore—in the following sense. At another meeting at which he was down to speak recently, and at which he had arrived primed with some good ''stuff"— quotes and so on—just before he commenced to speak a lady came and said: " Don't speak too long because there are some rather interesting' speakers coming later." It is for that reason that he would suggest that in future a lady should have some- thing to do with the running of the annual luncheon. He would like personally to thank Lord Chelmsford for coming to the luncheon and speaking to the assembly. He also re- ferred to the presence of Admiral Chandler, who had come all the way from the United States to be present, and said he and Admiral Chandler agreed on the desirability of a proper under- standing between ourselves and our friends across the sea—the United States of America. He was sure this was tremendously fostered by such an institution as the Kipling Society and that great writer Mr. Kipling. He also addressed a welcome to Sir Charles and Lady Crewe from South Africa, to Captain Martin- dell, back with them after a long absence due to ill health, and to Mr. Courtauld—who had had such an anxious time recently. He said the Council was a little disappointed at the result of the Donor Membership Scheme, and urged more of his hearers to become Donor Members. The Hon. Editor was not there on that occasion, but they all owed a debt of thanks to him. 40 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. It had been hoped that the American Ambassador would have been present at the luncheon, but unfortunately he was unable to come though he had written a very kind letter of regret. Mr. Ellis A. Ballard, of Philadelphia, had also been unable to attend, and in a letter regretting his inability to do so he had mentioned how greatly he enjoyed reading the Journal. He (the speaker) thought it would be a very happy event if as many members as possible could attend a meeting in the United States at some future date. He forsaw difficulties, but felt sure that some of those present could attend such a meeting. The toast of " The Guests " was proposed by Lt.-General Sir G. F. MacMunn, who expressed to the general satisfaction of those present in having with them at luncheon an ex-Viceroy of India. Nothing could be more suitable on such an occasion. He also alluded to the presence of Mr. de Witt MacKenzie, who represents the London Branch of the Associated Press Bureau of the United States. He more particularly mentioned this guest because the Society needed publicity. They wanted more people to know of this active and large Society which is trying to maintain the interest in and the glory of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and his works throughout the world. They wanted more members in order to achieve that object. The speaker hoped Mr. MacKenzie would help to spread the gospel throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. Rear-Admiral L. H. Chandler replying said it was with much hesitation that he rose to try to reply to the wonderful things that had been said, and to try and acknowledge in some small way the wonderful things that had been done for him since he had been in Britain. He was in a dream for the loveliness of it all. He had been treated so kindly by everyone, and he had seen and learnt so much that as yet he could hardly realise it. He wished to give those present a message from two of their Vice-Presidents—Mr. Ballard of Philadelphia, and Mr. W. M. Carpenter of Chicago. They both sent by him their greetings and good wishes, and regret that they could not attend. Mr. Carpenter may be present at their next annual meeting. He thought Mr. Kipling's works contained an expression of appreciation of fineness, of honour, of manhood, of square deal- ing and of everything else that is good, and he thought that when they held these meetings and carried on their work, they ¦were doing a work which far transcended any mere feeling in THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 41 regard to Mr. Kipling's work. They were striving for the ideals for which Mr. Kipling had striven. They were two branches of a great race, a race which had made from the begin- ing for progress, civilisation, honour and all things good. The two countries had their troubles. England her difficulties here; they in the United States their difficulties on their side of the ocean. But although their difficulties differed in detail they were alike in essentials. And they must face them. He thought that if they faced them together, helping each other, putting aside petty things, they would all the sooner achieve the ends for which both sought. It was his hope and prayer, and his message: May they do this great work together. During the gathering the President handed Rear-Admiral Chandler, a message for members in the U.S.A. We print this elsewhere in this issue. Kipling's Prose.* DURING the past quarter, there has been published a book by Mr. A. C. Ward entitled Foundations of English Prose, in which the author devotes several pages to Mr. Kipling's writings. We reprint some of the passages :— Of Kim. The strands of the story are equally intertwined: military efficiency and religious credulity, subtlety and ingenuousness, modernity and antiquity, sophisticated youth and childlike age. Kim, like Treasure Island, is a miracle and unique; but, un- like Treasure Island, it is a major miracle and fully alive. Of the Short Stories. There seems no need for hesitation in saying that Kipling brought the English short story of the traditional type to a full perfection which should be independent of changes in taste and outlook. However much some of Kipling's ideas may be de- tested, no one with a sense of literary values can fail to concede that he has done a particular piece of work as well as it is possible for such a piece to be done. Of the Present Age. He is the Laureate of the Mechanical Age. He is this in more ways than one. Not only has he written of modern Foundations of English Prose by A. C. Ward, crown 8vo., 5s. net. G. Bell and Sons, London. 42 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. machines, but his own mind has the unrelaxing efficiency of a thoroughly well-constructed and well-managed machine. This is not to say that his literary craftsmanship is mechanical in the way in which the American short story has become mechanical. He does not work to a set formula; he has no stereotyped tricks; he has mannerisms of style, but no deliber- ately exploited mannerisms of construction. Of Machines. For Kipling, the beauty and the significance of the machine consists not in its appearance but in the full performance of a set piece of work. The reader also develops an awareness of the beauty and significance of machines in this relation, because few normal beings can resist the attraction of contemplating that which is perfectly accommodated to its end. Of India. The needs of India and of subject races are, in Kipling's view, too urgent to allow scope for the operation of human weaknesses. And if this is the purpose for which British people are in India, it is necessary that they should be helped in their duty of civilizing and uplifting the Indian by the Indian him- self. The Indian should therefore allow himself to be served (that, for the time being, is his function) and not desire hurriedly to serve himself or to make himself independent of those who are there to perform that duty for him. From this conception arises Kipling's impatience (or, as some would prefer to say, his intolerance) of native endeavour and of the desire for independence which seems to the Nationalist mind the quickest and most direct way of arriving at upliftment and civilization. Of the Future. Of all the modern English writers Kipling probably stands to gain most by the passage of time. When the differences of opinion, of which he has been the disturbing centre, are no longer urgent in the minds of readers, his subtle literary qualities, his understanding of children as well as of animals and machines, and his absolute efficiency as a craftsman, will receive proper appreciation. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 43 Kipling and Empire Union. AT an evening meeting held in the Rembrandt Rooms, Thurloe Place, South Kensington, S.W.7., on March 11, 1931, at 7.30 p.m. for 8 p.m., Lt.-Col. R, V. K. Applin, D.S.O., M.P., read a paper on " Kipling and Empire Union." Lt.-Gen. Sir George F. MacMunn, was in the chair. Col. Applin said that he proposed to illustrate his talk with quotations from his author's works, and indeed did so with marked effect, to the no small pleasure of a goodly company of members and friends. When they thought of Empire and Empire Union, their minds went hack to Disraeli and Joseph Chamberlain, but surely Mr. Kipling was a poet of Empire Union. " If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation." Those words, written in 1660—a long time ago—by one Andrew Fletcher, were true to-day. Kipling was really strong on Empire Union. When he made his wonderful tour in 1908 he wrote letters which were published in the Morning Post week by week, and called them " Letters to the Family," which, really, was the keynote of the whole thing. The Empire was the family of Britain, and the fact that its members were scattered over a world-wide Empire made it no less on that account. Kipling went to Canada and wrote on trade unity, and led up to the same conception existing to-day, of world-wide Free Trade within our great Empire. Again, there was the letter which Kipling wrote on September 5, 1908, to one W. Lamb, in which he used these words " There never was an Empire which offered such opportunities as ours, and I sometimes think there never was an Empire whose people took less advantage of those opportunities." 1908! Was not that absolutely true to-day, 1931! A Prophet as well as a Poet! Kipling's inspiration was something deep in his soul. It was a religion with him and would be as permanent as his writings. It sprung from a love of energy, strength, and particularly, strength of character. He worshipped honour, cleanness, orderliness, speed. To him the English race was the embodi- ment of that strength and cleanness. This strength and orderliness in civilisation was best illust- trated by " The Bridge Builders." An engineer was throwing a vast steel girder bridge across the Ganges, and like all English- 44 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. men, he put his heart and soul into his task, and at night he dreamed that a flood came down the Granges and swept the bridge away, and that the thing was done by the River Gods. He dreamed that the River Gods spoke together and one suggested that the flood should come and sweep the bridge- away, but another God answered and said, " It would be use- less, because these English will not give in. To-morrow would see them at their work again, and if you. swept the bridge away from end to end they would begin anew." That was the spirit which has created the Empire! The sons of England loved and served the lands they ruled. In the Indian story, " On the City Wall," Kipling wrote " Tear by year England sends out fresh drafts for the first fighting* line, which is officially called the I.C.S. These die or kill them- selves by over work or are worried to death or broken in health and hope in order that the land may be protected from death and sickness, famine and war, and may eventually become capable of standing alone." With the vision wonderful he saw events that were happening to-day, the Round Table Con- ference to bring in India as a self-governing unit of the Empire All the work was done for that one object—that each unit might become capable of standing alone—yet not alone—within the British Empire, under the British Flag. India was still the brightest jewel in that fine Imperial crown. Quoting again to illustrate Mr. Kipling's building up of this idea of Empire Unity Colonel Applin claimed that Kipling was the epic Poet of the Empire. If they would take history in sequence, the first thing to notice was the building; the taking up of the burden by the Pioneers. As each unit of the Empire- came to the Old Country to pay its homage, it was accepted as a son or a daughter; as a self-governing unit within the Empire. Quoting from " The Lost Legion," the speaker said his sympathies were very much with the pioneers. He had had some experience in pioneering, and wondered how many good fellows that poem had inspired to stick it when they wanted to chuck it up and go home. Many a man had stuck it with that poem in his ears. In " The Native Born " there was the idea of the free nations beginning to feel themselves as nations, and part of the great Empire. Read the poem again to see how Kipling hits the nail on the head, and there were passages in " Our Lady of the Snows " that might have been written after the last Imperial THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 45 Conference. It expressed, years and years ago, the exact policy of Canada to-day. Wonderful man that he was, Kipling had been able to seize not only the ideal and the idea, but actually what was occurring and must occur, and put them into wonderful verses that rang truly. Kipling realised that the Colonies would make the first move and wait for us to respond. There was another poem, written in 1901, just after the South African War, about Australia. Australia had sent a magni- ficent contingent to that country. He remembered serving with a Mounted Unit, the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, and doubtless their Chairman would remember the difficulty they had in keeping their horses. When the Australians were in the vicinity, horses mysteriously disappeared. Quoting from " The Young Queen," Colonel Applin suggested that the line " Her hand was still on her sword-hilt, the spur was still on her heel," showed Australia entering the Union of Nations. Come next to the soldier, who if he did not create the Empire, consolidated it. But for him, in garrisons all over the world, they would not have an Empire at all. Garrisons were necessary •everywhere, especially in India, with all its difficulties. An Empire could not be governed without Tommy Atkins, and 'Tommy Atkins was always in the minority; always up against a tough job. It was not only in action that he excelled; he shone in times of peace, and could be relied upon always to do his best. Kipling once wrote a poem entitled " M.I.," and it appealed to men very much. In the Boer War it was found that the ordinary foot infantry were not much good, and a regiment of Rough Riders and Sharp Shooters was raised in London. The method employed to decide whether a man should be one or the other was to put him on a horse and gallop him round the barrack square. Then the Serjeant would suddenly shout " Halt!" and the horses would stop with a jerk and dig their feet in the ground. The men who managed to cling on were detailed to the Mounted Infantry. Those who fell off were Sharp Shooters. After existing the poem, Colonel Applin asked whether it was possible to get a more perfectly splendid description of the M.I. of that period, and the work it did. They laughed at the M.I. in those days, but the M.I. had the laugh of all of them to-day. They were put on horses without knowing how 46 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. to ride them, and had to learn many other things of which they had had no experience. Take next the Marines, which had always been rather the laughing stock of the Army, and had had rather a hard time from the soldier man. Yet there was probably no finer corps in existence than the Royal Marines, and Kipling" recognised that fact and had shown the Royal Marines in the most delightful way in " Soldier and Sailor Too." He had discovered that day at the Royal United Service Institution, the names of several officers gazetted to that Regiment as it was being formed in 1690. Before leaving Africa Colonel Applin quoted from " Bridge Guard in the Karroo." During the South African War, he commanded a guard on the Orange River Bridge, and Kipling described exactly what happened when he- was on duty there at the time. The poem was a really wonder- ful description of South Africa ! One of the items in the District Orders was:—"Lines of Communication—Regiment will supply details to guard the Orange River Bridge." Dealing with criticism of Kipling, the speaker declared that much of it was not criticism of the poet or the poems that he had written; it was criticism of the sentiment of those poems, the criticism of the Little Englander, the criticism of the anti-Empirist, of the Pacifist. If he might say so, all th* adverse criticism was inspired by political opposition and personal enmity. Richard Le Gallienne was guilty of such a criticism. Did they recall the story " On Greenhow Hill "—a story of India? A deserter who had stolen away with his rifle and ammunition lay in wait for the sentries at night to shoot them. They would not catch the man, but one of the Soldiers Three on the mountain side suddenly saw him about five hundred yards down the hillr took careful aim, and when the smoke cleared away, the man was lying there dead. Le Gallienne wrote of that description of the shooting of the deserter " This is murder as one of the fine arts "; casually adding ' this man had been troubling the camp at night.' Troubling the camp! There was no hint of civilised feeling for the men who were nightly murdered. Another poet, William Watson, had dishonoured his calling by writing a parody on " The Recessional," which is sacred to every man and woman in this country. It ran:— THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 47 Best by remembering God, say some We keep our high Imperial lot. Fortune, I think, has mainly come When we FORGOT; when we FORGOT. But here was a delightful parody that Kipling himself would have laughed at:— This is the Song of the Black Sheep, And the Song of the White Sheep too, And the Auk and the Armadillo And the Crocodile know it's true. " Have I wool ?" Said Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, " You ask me have I wool, When I yield each year to the sounding shear As much as three bags full." " Have I wool?" Said Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, " It is found in the Sailor's socks, Warming his feet from the cold and the sleet, And the Gale of the Equinox." The lecturer concluded by reminding the company of Kipling's association with art. Two of his aunts married artists, and he became closely connected with artists. A quotation from " L'Envoi " beginning " When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried," brought a delightful talk, lecture, paper, call it any or all of them, to an end. DISCUSSION. Mr. B. M. Bazley thanked Colonel Applin for the lecture, and the way he had brought out so many interesting things, Many people had done a lot in Empire building. Kipling had done it in the best way. Mr. Bazley thought it was this that made Kipling's opponents so angry with him. The only way to sneer at his ideas was to sneer at the man himself. The British Empire excelled in colonisation. The French were fairly successful, but Germany had failed. Kipling respected the rights of other nations, and his poems were a better argument for peace than the deliberations of the League of Nations. Mr. Bazley called attention to a remarkable description. In one of the poems quoted, Kipling referred to " The click of the rest- less girders as the steel contracts with the cold." How wonder- ful for a poet to notice that. Only Kipling would have done 48 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. so. It was worth noting that when the " hat was sent round " for Mr. William Watson, Kipling was one of the first to sub- scribe to the fund. Mr. J. H. C. Brooking suggested that General Bruche might like to refute the slanderous references to the Australians. He regretted that as the General was leaving for Australia soon, that would be the last meeting he would attend—at least for some time. General Bruche did not know why he should be called upon to speak, but he would start by having a difference with Sir George MacMunn. Sir George had referred to the Empire as the Commonwealth. General Bruche preferred the "Empire," which word meant a lot more to the Australians, a great many of whom—including himself—were British born. Australia herself was a Commonwealth, and the word " Empire " had a greater and wider meaning. General Bruche had a great love for England, and was saddened at the thought of leaving. He had many delightful memories, which would remain with him always. General Bruche protested against the allegation that "the Australians were responsible for the missing horses in the South African War. It was the other way about, and the Australians suffered badly in that direction at the hands of the British, who seemed adepts at acquiring their mounts. He had always been a great lover of Kipling, but Colonel Applin had made him realise how well the poet's verses fitted in. It was a very difficult thing to choose the right verses, and he hoped some time to give a lecture himself in Australia, and, with Colonel Applin's permission, would take the verses in the •same sequence. THE "KIPLING JOURNAL. 49 More Yarns. The President's New Book.* THOSE who were lucky enough to read Major-General L. C. Dunsterville's Reminiscences know that he can tell a story and " put it over " in an amusing fashion. Nothing could be more characteristic than his all too brief preface to More Yarns, for therein he does not " deny the literal truth of two of these stories," explains that " the remainder may be accepted as pure fiction," and with the next dip of the pen sets down something in the nature of an apology. "If," he writes, " a few of them may seem faintly reminiscent to a few old gentle- men of my own age, I must ask them to put it down to coinci- dence." It won't do, Mr. President! Those who have seen you in the flesh, and heard you speak and lecture, will suspect that there is a modicum of truth in more than two of the stories. There are eighteen titles—not all of the contents are strictly yarns or stories—and the subject matter ranges from Algiers in the first story to a corner in England in the sketch of " The Retired Comedian," which seems somehow to strike an auto- biographical note not without a tinge of regret in it. Dog lovers will appreciate " Beatification of Sandy Macnab," a story of a Highland Terrier whose grave became a shrine on the Indo-Afghan frontier, while the humour and grim realism in " A Repentant Sinner," recalls Mr. Kipling's references to those who belong " to the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned." For our part we were best pleased with the yarn entitled " Admiral's Inspection." The gallant officer had one failing: his insistence upon atten- tion to minute details of drill and equipment. On the eve of his annual inspection of a certain ship the officer commanding her discovered in the list of articles likely to be called for one peculiar item, a Shove Wood. What it was he did not know, but certainly not meaning to admit ignorance, he handed the list to his second in command, who passed on the difficulty until it descended grade by grade to the carpenter's mate, who was at a loss only for a spell. In due course he built to his own design something like a snowplough on a small scale. " A V-shaped bow flush with the deck, two handles aft, like the More Yarns by " Stalky," crown 8vo., 7s. 6d. net. Jarrolds Publishers (London) Ltd., 34 Paternoster Row, E.C.4. 50 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. bandies of a wheelbarrow, and two small wooden rollers on the struts below the handles. It was calculated to shove any wood out of its way as it was pushed along the deck." The captain was informed that the Shove Wood had been found, and ought to have inspected it if only to discover what it was like. He forgot all about the matter until the Admiral was before the contraption. " What the devil's that?" he asked, and was in- formed that it was the next item in the inventory. As com- pletely at sea as the rest had been, he inquired next whether it worked all right, and was told that it had not been taken into use. His comment was " These new patterns are not as good as the old. If not satisfactory, send in a report." Two days after the inspection the mail brought to the admiral and the captain simultaneously an official errata slip which ran: " List No. 4063A, Item 35. For " Shove Wood I " read " Shovel Wooden I." The Rhinoceros—His Spots On Hearing of a New Not-So Story. I thought I knew those Just-so Stories, Those gems midst Kipling's other stories. There must have been some new edition, Which I must have missed—Oil sad omission. Oh, do be good and give the titles Of other Tales for my recitals. Perhaps we're told how Strorks, the Whale Grew a great hump above his tail. Or how the Camel went by boat To Timbuctoo and got his throat. Or how the Elephant's Papa Got a new skin in Af-ri-ca. While blue dog Dingo, in Australia, As runner-up was such a failure. The Leopard walked his little lone Telling the Cat in an undertone, That the Crab had stamped on the butterfly And lived on Armadillo pie. And I long to hear in the R.K.J. How the spots on the Rhino came to stay. G.E.F. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 51 Kipling and Jungle Life. Passages from a Talk by Mr. B. C. Allen, I.C.S., at The Rubens Rooms on April 15. I SUPPOSE that one of the most salient qualities of Kipling is his extraordinary gift of realism. He brings places be- fore your very eyes, his characters are not characters in a story, they are men and women living their lives before you. Take one of his more recent stories. From men's earliest child- hood one has known of the apostle Paul. But till a few weeks ago he has been for me a pure abstraction. He was, I know, the author of ' epistles,' a very different thing from letters; epistles full of pitfalls for the translator and commentator; he had had, I knew, various remarkable adventures. But for me he had always remained an apostle, a thing remote from human life. Then Kipling writes a story and Paul becomes a living human being, be becomes alive. Take again the description of the Lamas' march into the Himalayas. " Through the speckled shadow of the great deodar forests; through oak feathered and plumed with ferns; birch, ilex, rhododendron and pine, out on to the bare hillsides' slippery sunburnt grass and back into the woodlands, cooler again, till oak gave way to bamboo and palm of the valley." Think, too, of the picture of Shamlegh. " A huge pasture ground ran up fan shaped to the living snow. At its base was. perhaps half an acre of flat land on which stood a few soil and timber huts. Behind them . . . for, hill fashion, they were perched on the edge of all things . . . the ground fell sheer two thousand feet to Shamlegh midden where never yet man has set foot." But it is in the Jungle Books that Kipling really gives him- self to the Jungle, and in the course of his divagations reaches my own province of Assam. Even Assam is not Eden; the mosquitoes sometimes buzz, the rain is sometimes too penetrat- ing, but the highest praise I still can give to a beauty spot like Corsica in this man-handled continent is to say that it re- minds me of Assam. You may think me rather crazy, but I can cite that great traveller, Sir Thomas Holditch, as a witness on my side. " It is not," he says, " the large flat solitudes nor the cold craggy magnificence of ice fields and snow-capped peaks of the north west that first touch the chords of memory 52 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. of the shelved and antiquated Anglo-Indian official. Rather it is the butterflies and the birds, the wild beauty of Bhutan or the deep, silent, tiger-haunted forests and savannahs of the mystical valley of the Brahmaputra. In " Toomai of the Elephants," Kipling takes us to the Garo Hills, that tumbled mass of forest-clad mountains at the western end of the Assam Range. Petersen Sahib's successors abandoned the district as they ' had swept all the hills clear of all the elephants,' but enough have been left to make the scanty popula- tion adhere to the good old custom of sleeping like birds in trees. The habit is not without its solid advantages. The route which we once were following was infested by a man eating tiger who had taken a large toll. And at night the chaukidar, after telling us of his numerous friends and relations who had been taken for rides by tigers, would retire to a little bamboo hut built in the fork of an elephant proof tree some thirty feet or so aloft, leaving us to sleep on the ground in grass huts through whose walls a tiger could force its way without the slightest difficulty. And though we kept a loaded rifle handy and as a matter of fact slept soundly enough, one could not help feeling that in that sort of country there was a great deal to be said for sleeping up aloft. Unlike little Toomai, I have never seen the elephants' dance, but I have seen their dancing floor. We were following a track made by wild elephants through the forest, and presently we came to a place where the earth had been rammed and hammered in the way that Kipling describes. In these wild forests, as most of you doubtless know, the first paths are laid out by animals, and there is no greater road maker than the elephant. The track twists and turns, here avoiding a huge tree, there skirting a pool, never keeping quite straight, for who can ad- vance straight through a forest? And I always imagine that many of our winding roads in the south of England are still following the tracks originally made by wild animals through the forest hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago. We are a conservative people, and I must confess that it pleases me to think, when strolling down an English lane, that I may be following a route traced out before there was such a thing as the English Channel. Kipling has not laid on his colours too thickly when describ- ing the removal of the elephants from the Kheddah. Strangely enough, they offer little or no objection to the fixing of the THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 53 cables round their necks. But when they feel that they are tied the fun begins. I have seen a large elephant kneel down, stand partly on his head and shove with its hind feet with all its might against the side of the elephant to which it was roped. I have seen an elephant jib and then come through the gate like an avalanche, dragging with it the two tame elephants to which is was bound. They dashed into a large tree, boiled and surged round it till they dug it up by the roots and then disappeared into the jungle. You may wonder why the tree was left stand- ing there. But wild elephants are most suspicious; there must be nothing to suggest a trap, and the stockade itself is covered so thickly with creepers and green jungle that even a man can walk into it without realising what he has done. In " Toomai of the Elephants " I believe that I have detected a mistake in the detail with which Kipling imparts such a wonderful air of reality to his stories. One of the Mahouts says: " Bapree Bap, how many windings has the Dihang river? Here is another ford and we must swim the calves." Defenders of the infalli- bility of the master might argue that " How many windings has the Dihang river " is merely an exclamation. But I doubt whether Mahouts would swear by the Dihang. As you know it is the name given to the Tsanpo in Thibet where it breaks through the Himalayas and flows south to what is called the Brahmaputra. The Tsanpo, the Dihang and the Brahmaputra are, of course, merely three names for three different sections of the same river, though it is only of recent years that the Dihang has been even superficially and inadequately explored. The people who live in those tills do not welcome strangers, and express their disapproval in ways that even the dullest must understand, for so long as he is allowed to understand anything at all, so that in no part of its course is it much visited by mahouts. I suggest such a thing with considerable hesitation, but it really looks to be as though Homer had nodded and was under the impression that the Dihang was a river of the Garo Hills. Everyone who loves the Jungle must feel his heart stirred by the Jungle Boohs, and few of the stories are more true to life than the one called "Letting in the Jungle." All over the wilder parts of Assam, men are filching away the jungle and letting in the plough. But in many cases they are only reclaiming what were once the kindly works of men which were swallowed up by the jungle many years ago. I have ridden through village 54 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. after village, depopulated by the terrible outbreak of Kala Azar which burned up the country like a slow fire at the end of the last century. At Dimapar in the centre of the Nambar there are the ruins of a considerable city, and indeed the whole of this enormous forest is thought to have been at one time under cultivation. I once had on encounter with a rhinoceros in a "tank, and as you know the rhinoceros is no friend of man and is only to be found at a great distance from his haunts. That particular engagement showed how correct Kipling is when he says that animals never look up. I broke through a belt of high jungle and dropped down into a tank. At the same moment a huge rhino was doing precisely the same thing at the opposite end, and we advanced through the water to meet one another. He evidently neither saw me or my mahout. It was before the days of h.v. rifles and, as my elephant was a very slow one, I did not kill him with my first bullet, and never saw him again. As a matter of fact rhino take a lot of punish- ment. On another occasion shooting with a friend at dusk we loosed off two barrels of an eight bore and one of a .577. The rhino turned and we tracked him till dark. The next day we followed the trail till we lost it in a tangle of others, and we came to the conclusion that we must have missed him altogether. Two days later we saw vultures gathered and going to the spot found our friend lying there with three bullet holes that you could have covered with the palm of your hand, just behind the shoulder. But to get back to " Letting in the Jungle;" dotted about, especially near the frontier, are the remains of brick buildings. The Government of the day became ' spineless,' as our Moslem friends say, the hill tribes came down and the abandoned palaces were soon reduced to this order. For some years past the tide has been flowing the other way and the jungle has been driven back. But the Assamese cannot keep the hillmen out, and if once the Gurkhas cease to guard the frontier much of Assam will revert to the condition of nature. In " How Fear Came " Kipling describes how the primeval simplicity of Eden was broken by the reckless conduct of the tiger who killed first a buck and then a man. Are wild animals really wild, are savages really savage, or have both the be- nignity shown by the pacifist towards all those who abstain from hinting that possibly he may be wrong? I once embroiled my- self in controversy with a learned man who argued that primitive THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 55 man was naturally peaceful, and poured scorn on one of the Cecils who had ventured to suggest that he was not. I cited savages I had known, who though in many ways attractive, were not people to whom. I would willingly entrust my head. My learned adversary swept down on me with reports of travellers who declared that primitive pygmies were kind-hearted till aroused. He rather cut the ground from under my feet by laying' down that man ceased to be primitive if he had any possessions, and that however savage you might appear to be, you were really the victim of over-civilization if yon attempted to grow any crops for your own consumption. I countered by asserting that it was natural to primitive man to progress and gradually grow crops, breed animals and do other things, and that it was not really safe to assume that pygmies who had remained in a state of arrested development were typical of the primitive man from whom you and I have evolved, in as much as they lacked the capacity for progress which normal primitive man had obviously possessed. My learned opponent, however, remained almost viciously unmoved by my arguments, and still contended that man was born essentially good and peaceful, and that it was only the possession of property that has converted him into the quarrelsome thing he now is. I have never had the opportunity of meeting the purely primitive person, for though I once spent a happy hour with a gentleman who was supporting life on grass-hoppers, this was merely an unpleasant interlude in his career. I have met people who wore no clothes worth mentioning, though this I understand is now a symptom of the higher forms of Teutonic culture, and I have met people who have been head hunters in the past, and are not likely, if Indian politics con- tinue in their present line of development, to become head hunters once again. My own belief is that savages, if, pace my learned friend, I may dare to apply that term to persons who have been so corrupted by civilization as to grow a little rice, are rather quick of temper, I do not suggest that they go about biting everyone without cause like mad dogs, though head hunters can be rather troublesome. But in my experience they are quick to take offence, and when they do, their methods are not those of which the League of Nations would approve. The same holds good of animals. We have established sanc- tuaries in Assam, and in them the game is extraordinarily tame. Wild buffalo browse around you while you fish, and I have 56 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. known wild deer stroll calmly out of the forest and lie down barely a hundred yards away. I have seen deer and a wild pig, rather a curious combination, nuzzling one another. Elephants I consider never to be really wild or really tame. I have known them to come up in the stockade 24 hours after their capture and take plantains from my hand. On the other hand, elephants with many years of good character behind them, will break out suddenly like one of Ibsen's heroines. The rhinoceros is always an unfriendly beast, and most elephants are afraid of him. I doubt whether he ever was really the home pet. Tigers usually are harmless, to man I mean, and when they kill man for food, they kill for a good cause, though it is humiliating to feel that you are a potential joint. One tiger I heard of, apparently killed men for pleasure, but he was probably a homicidal maniac. Elephants also, apart from going musth, occasionally destroy life and property in a most unreasonable way, and as Kipling says, " of all things in the Jungle the wild elephant enraged is the most destructive." As a rule animals will let you alone unless they are provoked, but it takes remarkably little to pro- voke many of them. This is Kipling's view, for he tells us that " None of the Jungle people like being disturbed, and all are ready to fly at an intruder." Apart from the doles and monkeys, nearly all the animals in the Jungle Boohs are most attractive creatures. Baloo, the old brown bear, is the very embodiment of kindliness and wis- dom. Our black bears in Assam were the absolute converse: stupid and savage, though their savagery very possibly was partly due to stupidity. The Bandar-log are people whom Kipling holds in small esteem. " They are always just going to have a leader, and laws and customs of their own, but they never did, because their memories would not hold over from day to day, and so they compromised things by making up a saying, ' What the Bandar-log think now the Jungle will think later.' They boast and chatter, and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the Jungle, but ,the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten." There is little doubt that Kipling felt that there are certain sections of the human race to whom this description might justly be applied. But worthless though they may be, the description of the rush through air is a fine one. " His escort would rush him up to a tree till he felt the thinnest topmost branches crackle and bend under them, and then with a cough and a THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 57 whoop, would fling themselves into the air outward and down- ward, and bring up hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree. Sometimes he could see for miles and miles across the still green jungle as a man on the top of a mast can see for miles across the sea, and then the branches and leaves would lash him across the face and he and his two guards would be almost down to earth again." Those of you who from some little clearing on a hill have looked out across miles and miles of Indian forest will appreciate that description. Of the wild dog I have little knowledge: he may be as nasty a customer as Kipling says. But I can recall one fine beast with bushy tail and glossy coat, who was a real thing of beauty as he sunned himself on the bank of a forest stream. According to Kipling, Mysa, the bull buffalo, has nearly the worst temper of anyone in the jungle. That is not my experience. With us bison are much more dangerous, as they are apt to double on their tracks and charge from the side the shikari following them. But how he hits off the startled buffalo when he describes the great dripping bull breaking out of his wallow like a shell exploding. But what wisdom is there in many of the jungle laws. "Strike first and then give tongue," and " sorrow never stays punish- ment, but punishment settles all scores." What humour in its inhabitants, Kaa, Ikki, who is ' full of stories half heard and very badly told '; Bagheera who checks Kaa's ' there are tales I could tell that '—with a " that need a clear night when we are well fed to praise properly." Kaa the thirty foot python who complains that the branches are not what they were when he was young, " rotten twigs and dry boughs are they all." There is wisdom, too, in the adjutant in " The Undertaker," who holds that " To be clever is one thing; to dust, sweep and sprinkle seven times a day wearies the very gods themselves." Take again this description of his feelings after eating some- thing in Calcutta. ' Immediately I was afflicted with an ex- cessive cold which, beginning in my crop, ran down to the ex- treme end of my toes, and deprived me even of speech . . . The chief wonder of the matter, setting aside that marvellous cold- ness, was that there was nothing at all in my crop when I had finished my lamentings.' The adjutant had done his very best to describe his feelings after swallowing a seven pound lump of Wenham Lake ice." 58 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. I have had hardly any personal experience of muggars. In Assam they are rare, though we have many gharials, who take a heavy toll of fish, but leave men as a rule alone. I knew one poor fellow who was grievously mauled by one, but as he had inadvertently driven his fish spear into it, he could hardly com- plain if it paid him back in kind. As Kipling says, a mortally wounded crocodile can get away into the water 99 times out of 100, so they afford poor sport, and being let alone increase greatly in numbers. Pelicans, cormorants, porpoises and gharials, are a perfect pest to our fisheries, and we have no- machinery to keep them down. In " The Tomb of His Ancestors," Kipling describes with unerring touch the persistence of the tradition of administrators amongst the jungle tribes. As he says, India is full of the tombs of forgotten Englishmen. They are to be found on the old frontier between Bengal and Assam, covering the remains of traders who lived and bartered there nearly 150 years ago, when the Brahmaputra valley was still under native rule. One I knew belonged to an adventurer in the Khasi Hills, who had taken a lease of certain lime quarries for as long as he remained above ground. His heirs to maintain their title buried him in a masonry vault whose floor rested on and not under the earth. To those of us who have known and loved the jungle, the great gift that Kipling offers is to recall the jungles of our youth. To those who know the forests of the Central Provinces his books make most appeal, but even in outliers like myself they awaken poignant memories. Once more I can hear the water clattering down the rapids, and see the little waves shimmering under the moon. Once more I hear the elephants trumpeting and the peacocks calling in the forest, the cry of the barking deer at night, and the curious rasping noise of the leopard seeking his prey. The charm of the jungle lies in the fact that here one sees the earth as God made it, here for a space one turns back the clock and lives for a time with primitive man. And it is Kipling whom we have to thank for unlocking these fragrant chambers in our memories. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 59 Kipling the Interpreter. How a South African Sees Him. IT is only within the last few months that I have had the opportunity, through the medium of the Kipling Journal, of learning the views of other admirers of one whom we delight to honour. It is with some envy that I read, at a distance of six thousand miles, the accounts of meetings and fore-gatherings of the Society's members in Great Britain. The very fact of my distance from the scene of the Society's activi- ties has, however, emboldened me to set down in writing my ideas on one of the many aspects of Kipling's work which stamp it with greatness. In October, 1904, a British South African born and bred, I visited England for the first time. Standing in Westminster Abbey an hour or two after my arrival in London, the line from " A Matter of Fact," flashed across my memory, and I, too, heard " the wings of the dead centuries circling round " me. It was my first conscious realisation of Kipling as the Interpreter, and in my twenty-five years that have followed he has interpreted for me many other things; the English char- acter, the soul of the army, the sea and her men, and above all, the spirit of adventure and the destiny of the British races. One can enter on no new phase of life, upon which Kipling has written, without realising the master touch. I quoted the " Lost Legion " once to a battered old reprobate, who shouted " How does he know? He has never been chased over the ' Pan ' by the Mounted Police, but I have, and I can hear their hoof-beats in his lines." And so it is with one's own experiences: Kipling seems to have trodden the path before you, and to have chartered a clear course through your oft-times bewildered impressions. What is the secret of his universality? Is it the genius of the Master-mind, or the common touch of " If?" The answer is clear: Kipling unites the two as no other writer has ever done. Robert Browning had great genius, but for lack of the Kipling touch his works, with few exceptions, will never appeal to the plain man. My knowledge of men and things is largely confined to my own Country. " South Africa," " Piet," " Two Kopjes," " Chant Pagan," and other poems ring true in every line. I make bold to say that no South African or other poet has 60 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. written anything so vividly descriptive of this country as " Bridge-guard in the Karroo." Kipling's poetry is ever that of the pioneer, of the " great spaces washed with sun," and of Cecil Rhodes' ' hinterland.' He never fails to rouse the ire of the complacent Little Englanders and their friends, and revels in " jeering the fatted Soul of Things." In other words he appeals strongly to the spirit of adventure and achievement which lies deep at the roots of the British character. I cannot think that many of those who have drunk deep of Kipling's verse expected the official laurel wreath to fall on the brows of the Poet of Empire, but the man who will " Draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as they are," needs not, and does not, seek reward at the hands of " brittle intellectuals," and self-conscious ' high- brows,' and I feel sure that Kipling's own attitude towards the Poet Laureateship can be summed up in that last line of " True Thomas," which runs " And-ye-would make-a Knight o' me!" Many of us admire and appreciate the work of the present Laureate, but it would be idle to pretend that he has the supreme claim of the office. The end of the War has ushered in an era of intense nationalism throughout the world. The British are character- istically shy and hesitant about expressing their inner feelings. When however, the deep and growing sentiment of Civis Britannicus seeks a voice, it will find expression and interpreta- tion in the deep sane and joyous patriotism of Rudyard Kipling. Meanwhile the Society is rendering fine service in educating old and young to know and appreciate the work of one of the greatest living Englishmen. Letter Bag. Many thanks for the Journals; we are enjoying them immensely. It is their particular charm, as it is of R.K. in his writings, to make one feel intimate personal acquaintance with persons and places described whom we have never met. It is particularly so with me because by forbears, the Dudleys of Exeter, have left with me old things and old traditions of their existence at Exeter, so when I read of Devon and Westward Ho!, it is as though my " granthers " were here present with THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 61 their tale3 of same localities. You are more than fortunate in having the privilege of being near enough to view these scenes and those now living who have made them live for ever, not only for you, but for many who love them by inheritance, but who will never be able to behold them with eyes to see them as written and talked about.—Henry D. Love, Lexington, Mass. In the April number of the Kipling Journal reference is made to a limerick beginning " There was a small boy in Quebec." In a number of The Cornhill Booklet, published in Boston, in August 1900, containing Occasional Poems by Rudyard Kipling, this limerick appears with the statement that it was contributed by Mr. Kipling to " Wee Willie Winkie," a Scots magazine for children founded by the Countess of Aberdeen.—T. Edward Ross, Philadelphia, U.S.A. " A New Member " will find Kipling's description of his travels in Japan in From Sea to Sea, Letters xi-xxi. He was somewhere between Nagasaki and Kobe on April 17—the year was 1889—and in Kobe on April 19 (see letter xii). He was in Kioto on Easter Sunday— ? April 22 (Letter xv). In addition to the letters in From Sea to Sea, the tale " Griffiths the Safe Man," in Abaft the Funnel, relates an incident that was supposed to have happened in Japan.—W. A. Kirkman, Bradford. The Limerick beginning " There was once a small boy in Quebec," will be found in Livingston Bibliography Index Magazine, Wee Willie Winkie, p. 520. Also in Chandler's Summary, " In Quebec," p. 125. It has been reprinted in many places.—Flora V. Livingston, Harvard. In No. 17 of the Journal I am responsible for the mis-state- ment that E.P. means European Pattern. Sir George Mac- Munn in his remarks makes the same error. The full name of this tent as issued from the Arsenal is European Private, Indian Pattern, abbreviated to E.P.I.P., and further cut down to E.P. It will therefore be seen that E.P. means European 62 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Private, not European Pattern, which would be ridiculous as it is of a pattern that Europe has never beheld.—L. C. Dunsterville. As to our old friend Kala-juggah, does not the attached ex- tract from " A Second Rate Woman," show that Kipling at any rate used it in the ordinarily accepted sense of a discreetly screened sitting out place ? Mrs. Hauksbee (discussing a dance and the Shigramitish woman) loq. " Well to begin with I took the Hawley boy to a kala- juggah." " Did he want much taking?" " Lots! There was an arrangement of loose boxes in kanats and she was in the next one talking to him!" Now kanat probably means screen, and is the name given to the detachable walls of a big tent. It is made of several thicknesses of fabric—tent canvas outside, the lining—and an inner facing of some bright coloured material. The whole is quilted more or less, and it is stiffened at intervals by split pieces of bamboo sewn into it, much as an old fashioned lace or blouse collar was stiffened with pieces of whalebone. The word may have lots of other meanings, but the above is the usual one so far as Europeans are concerned. The uses of kanats are legion, as they can be used to form passages, to screen a verandah or form kala-jaggahs as in this case, etc.—A. J. Cameron, Exeter. If the enquirer about Japan will read From Sea to Sea he will find much of interest. I have the copy of the new Constitution of Japan which R.K. used in writing this letter (or letters) on Japan. On the limerick on Quebec! A newspaper clipping says that U.K. sent it to Lady Marjorie Gordon, daughter of Lord Aberdeen, and editor of a juvenile magazine called " Wee Willie Winkie." It was said to be for publication therein. Un- fortunately the date and parentage of the clipping are not mentioned.—W. M. Carpenter, Chicago. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 63 There seems reason to think that when Kipling made his tour home by way of Japan in 1889, he was interviewed in Tokyo. Is there any report of that interview anywhere in print. It has been suggested that the paper concerned was Tokyo Public Opinion, but the librarians here cannot trace the journal. Does any member know the facts?—E. V. Gatenby, Fukushima City, Japan. The Essence of Literature. MR.. Gabriel Wells, the well known American collector, con- tributed a special article under the title reprinted above in John o' London's Weekly for May 2, in the course of which he prepounded the question:—" "What makes the author satisfying?" And replies to his query in this way, " His ability to invest the fleeting with the sense of the permanent. This is what gives to his work the ring of authority." " Those who qualify nearest under this aspect are Rudyard Kipling, Bernard Shaw, and Sir James Barrie—Kipling for power, Shaw for pleasure, Barrie for peace. Of the three, Shaw stands for definition specifically. In a way, he is the most literary of them all. Shaw stands for Diversion, and Diversion is the soul of Literature. To appreciate the true inner quality of Shaw one must turn to his letters. His letters, like his prefaces and dissertations, all partake of the nature of the essay, dramatically conceived. Shaw, I say, is an essayist above all. And he is at his best in his letters. I consider him the greatest letter writer in the English language, if not in all literature. " And yet Shaw, unlike Kipling and Barrie, has not a creative turn of mind. Shaw is not creative, but interpretative. But that makes him all the more of the Kind Literary. For Litera- iure is the interpretation of Life. Like Voltaire, with whom he shares the lifelong determination expressed in the battle-cry, " Ecrasez l'infâme," Shaw is not a genius, but a prodigy. '' These three, then: Barrie, Kipling, and Shaw. But who can tell ? An element of unpredictability enters into every- thing. And it is well that it is so. Otherwise life would lose much of its zest—the unexpected would always happen." 64 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. KIPLING SOCIETY ROLL OF NEW MEMBERS TO JUNE, 1931. Nos. 1037 to 1057. 1037 William S. Gregg 1048 Mrs. E. M. Scott Middlesex 1038 J. E. S. Sawyer 1039 Capt. E. C. Green 1040 R. H. Svmonds 1041 Samuel Strauss 1042 Walter E. Pepys Middlesex London Herne Bay London 1043 *Admiral J. Spencer DeHorsey Dorset 1044 John T. Webster OHIO 1045 *Brig.-Gen. The Hon. Sir Charles P. Crewe S. AFRICA 1046 Mrs E. M. Slater Surrey 1047 Miss Kate Parsons NEW YORK CANADA 1049 Mrs. James Dwyer London 1050 Lt.-Col. A. G. W. Moore E. AFRICA 1051 Mrs. Dreschfield London NEW YORK 1052 Mrs. J. Drew-Bear PHILADELPHIA MALAYA 1053 J. G. C. Leech London 1054 H. R. Cave Kent 1055 Andre Chevrillon FRANCE 1056 *Brig.-Gen. R. F. Edwards Hants 1057 Ernest E. Benham London * Donor Members. Secretary's Announcements- (1) The notification in these announcements in Journal No. 16 regarding the charge of 1s. per guest at evening meetings, is hereby cancelled. Guests are welcome free of charge. (2) Members are invited to register with the Secretary for a reprint of No. 2 Journal if required. At present the number registered does not justify the reprint. (3 Mr. J. Grierson (a member) of 1, Herbert Street, Dublin, has a number of duplicate Kipling items and two " Absent- Minded Beggar " handkerchiefs to dispose of by sale or in exchange. He is also open to purchase such items. He also has a print of an etched portrait of Kipling, 1900, by Burne- Jones. This can be seen on application to the " Hon. Librarian;" as also the handkerchiefs and a few other items.