The Kipling Journal. The Organ of the Kipling Society. QUARTERLY No. 25 MARCH, 1933 Contents. Supplement : Index to Nos. 1—24. News and Notes ...... 1 New Kipling Books and Re- Kipling Poems set to Music... 5 views ......... 29 Kipling's Literary Allusions... 7 Letter Bag ......... 30 Kipling's Sixth Sense ... 20 Secretary's Announcements 32 News and Notes. At the meeting on the evening of December 28th, at the Hotel Rembrandt, Col. Sir Arthur R. Holbrook, Bart., took the chair, and spoke as follows :—"It is my privilege to-night to introduce to you Mr. Courtauld, who will give us a lecture on 'Kipling's Literary Allusions.' We have had lectures on Kipling in many varied forms, showing his knowledge of literature, his patriotism, and so on ; but this subject is new. I would ask you to give Mr. Courtauld your kind attention." During the evening Miss Tulloch, who accompanied herself, gave the following songs, music by Sir Edward German: "I Keep Six Honest Serving Men," "I am the most Wise Baviaan," "Kangaroo and Dingo," "Of All the Tribe of Tegumai." Miss Clarke-Jervoise recited: "The English Flag," "Lichtenberg," and "The Mare's West." All these were much enjoyed and loudly applauded. In addition to their delightful and artistic renderings of the above numbers Miss Clarke-Jervoise and Miss Tulloch organized a competition in which the sources of quotations from Kipling's poems had to be given. Prizes, which were very kindly provided by the Chair- man, went, the first (most appropriately) to the Lecturer; the second to Mr. Brooking, and the third to an American member, Miss S. Fairchild. As a final item, Miss Clarke-Jervoise and Miss Tulloch gave "The Cat that Walked by Himself," as recited by a young lady from Lancashire, a very solid small boy, a Scots little girl suffering from hiccoughs owing to excitement, and a small child who had been 'trained.' These sketches were very cleverly rendered, and caused much amusement. 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. A vote of thanks to the Lecturer was proposed by Mrs. Dresch- field, and seconded by Mr. Beresford, to which Mr. Courtauld replied. Captain Preston then thanked the two ladies who had so ably entertained everyone that evening, Mr. Bazley seconding the proposition. In conclusion, the Chairman added that he had not listened for a long time to anything that had given him so much pleasure as this entertainment; he also asked that a hearty vote of thanks be given to Colonel Bailey, "our very energetic secretary," because much of the success of the evening was due to him. A most cheery and instructive meeting ended by the audience singing "God Save the King," accompanied by Miss Tulloch. X X X X X In the enforced absence, through illness, of Maj.-Gen. J. D. McLachlan, Mr. G. C. Beresford kindly took the chair at the afternoon meeting on February 15th, at the Hotel Rubens. In calling upon Commander O. Locker-Lampson to talk about "Kipling's Sixth Sense," he said: "None of us know what this is, but we expect to have the matter revealed. Kipling's seventh sense, I imagine, is the Society ! Perhaps it means to him his sense of danger. Personally, I think otherwise, as I think the Society can do a great deal of good. What constitutes danger is when, as has recently happened, contemporary poetry is written up by one's enemy. In the new Encyclopaedia Britannica an enemy, Humbert Wolfe, runs down Kipling and his patriotism— so that it might really be called the Encyclopaedia Anti- Britannica ! But you are asked to listen to a lecture, not on Kipling's Seventh, but on his Sixth, Sense." Owing to illness Mr. Milton Chick was unable to sing for us after the lecture as arranged. Mr. Raymond Beatty who kindly took his place at short notice, sang Bell's setting of "Follow Me 'Ome" and Tours' "Mother o' Mine," and later Willeby's "Mandalay" and McCall's "Boots" ; with beautiful vocal quality, clearness of diction, and resonance he gave us the real spirit of the songs. Miss Helen Adam recited "The Glory of the Garden" and "If" with much feeling. In moving a vote of thanks to the Lecturer, Colonel Kenyon- Slaney referred to the able and instructive address, and said how glad he had been to learn what the sixth sense meant; he had been wondering if it was that sense which enabled cats to fall on their paws when they dropped out of windows ! The motion was seconded by Mr. J. Sanderson. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 3 The vote of thanks to the entertainers was moved by Mr. H. A. Hutchinson, and seconded by Mr. F. W. Mackenzie-Skues. This enjoyable afternoon was concluded by the singing of "God Save the King," accompanied by Mrs. Bailey. X X X X X The Hon. Librarian tells us that he recently found in a London bookshop a signed photograph of Kipling, taken sometime in the late 'nineties. This and a First Edition of " Stalky & Co." were priced at £3. He spoke of this to a member—Miss Fairchild—who immediately offered £1 towards its purchase, and suggested that other members be asked to make up the balance. This was done at the Meeting on February 15th, when the picture was shown, with the result that it and the book are now the property of the Society. The remaining donors were :—Mrs. E. M. Lyon, 2s. 6d. ; two not named, 4s. 6d. ; Miss S. Leeds, 2s. ; Mr. J. Sanderson, 10s. ; the Rev. W. Ff. Sheppard, 5s.; and Mr. R. E. Harbord, 6s. X X X X X The event of the last quarter has been the publication of two new poems by Kipling. One, in the Strand Magazine for February, is called " The Fox Meditates " ; it is written something in the manner of the " Vicar of Bray," and comments on the chase of the fox from the earliest times to the present day, concluding with a well-merited rebuke to inconsiderate motorists ; there are seven eight-line stanzas, each with an effective illustration by Gordon Nicoll. The Times of February 23rd, publishes the second poem, entitled "To the Companions" ; this consists of twenty-eight lines, Horatian in style, and was sent to the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cam- bridge, on the occasion of the Tercentenary of Samuel Pepys ; it will be remembered that Mr. Kipling is a Fellow of Mag- dalene (see No. 22). We here quote the last verse:— Bidding him write each sordid love, Shame, panic, stratagem and lie, In full that sinners undiscov- ered (like ourselves) might say: " 'Tis I!" Of this verse a critic in the Observer says :—" To break a word in the middle has generally been considered a prerogative of the humorous poet." Now, this poem (and this verse especially), have an humorous vein! Besides, Kipling sins in 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. good company; Horace splits a word in a similar place (see Odes I, 25.). Our local Hon. Secretary in the U.S.A., Mr. Carl T. Naumberg, sends us particulars of an important sale of Kipling's works, 128 in all, from the collection of the late Ida O. Folsom. Prices ruled astonishingly high, in spite of had times : presenta- tion copies of " Schoolboy Lyrics " and " Echoes,'' realised £400 and £700 respectively; the copyright issue of " A Doctor of Medicine," £260; and Nos. 1-25, plus a few odd numbers, of the U.S.C. Chronicle, £100. The rest of the prices, though not beating their own high records, were amazingly good. X X X X X At the Ottawa celebration dinner to Mr. Bennett on December 14th last, Mr. Kipling made a speech " by the unanimous clamour of the guests . . . His voice was clear, and his speech, half-whimsical and (in its reference to politicians) half- cynical, finished on a note of confidence." (Evening Standard, 15th December, 1932). He also had a letter in the Echo de Paris, of February 3rd, on Franco-German relations, and he is now contributing a series of articles, "Memories of France," to the Revue des Deux Mondes and the Daily Telegraph. X X X X X Judging by the number of translations and the opinions of the great literary critics, France holds Kipling's Work in high esteem. M. Chevrillon has written the best appreciation of him to be found anywhere ; M. Andre Maurois (now one of our Vice-Presidents we are glad to note), ranks Kipling with Shakespeare and Dickens as one of the three greatest English writers; M. Legouis of the Sorbonne says that "no foreign writer has held them (our boys) with an equal spell;" and M. Marcel Brion, who has devoted a volume to the subject, writes: "Kipling does not describe—he shows." (A transla- tion of M. Brion's book by the Hon. Editor will shortly be placed in the Library). Yet, although a German critic says that the ideas in " If " suggest Goethe's philosophy, the Arch- bishop of York wishes to abolish it—because it ends with " You'll be a Man, my son!" THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 5 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 7 Kipling's Literary Allusions. By Mr. S. A. Courtauld. IT is somewhat curious that Kipling, quoting as he does from a very large number of Authors who have written during the last century, and from others who have written in very ancient times indeed, yet refers hardly at all to some of the best- known Masters of English Literature, or perhaps I should rather say English Fiction, for in short stories and poems such as Kipling's, one would hardly expect to meet with references to Historians and Philosophers. Yet in the very ample range of the serious, the comical, the pathetic prose and verse which we possess in Kipling's work, I should have, I confess, expected to find here and there apt quotations from, say, The Antiquary; David Copperfield and Pickwick ; The Vicar of Wakefield ; Vanity Fair; and Silas Marner. I am not for a moment thinking of adverse criticism, 1 merely note such omissions which seem to me curious ; but on the other hand, I cannot remember a single paragraph in Kipling where one would say:—"Why doesn't he mention allusively such and such an Author?" No, from other well-known or fairly well-known writers (and very many there are) he chooses his references more aptly, and I hope this even- ing to interest you in a fair number of these. I should like to say, too, that, as far as I know or can remember, I believe no Author of our time connects himself so intimately with us, or adds to our enjoyment of his work so greatly as Kipling does by bringing old friends into his books. First in order I take the Bible. In the late Sir G. O. Trevelyan's "Life of Lord Macaulay" you will find in a letter to his sister the dictum that a man who prides himself upon his knowledge of English Literature should have the Bible at his fingers' ends. Now in Kipling's works there are a number of very apt allusions to passages in the Old and New Testaments. I take first his well-known school song :— Bless and praise we famous men— Men of little showing— For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continueth, Great beyond their knowing ! 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. based, of course, on the chapter in Ecclesiasticus which is to my knowledge read annually in at least two of our Public Schools. Here you have Kipling expanding in his own inimitable manner the "motif," the intention of the Apocryphal Author, and in- sisting not only on ordered discipline, but also on modesty in achievement. Again in Gallio's song concluding the story of "Little Foxes," we have an wholesome and sarcastic expression of contempt for the ignorant, busy politician, just as in the Acts of the Apostles we read of the Roman Official's common-sense refusal to interfere with questions of words and names and Jewish law. "One thing only I see most clear, As I pray you also see, Claudius Caesar hath set me here Rome's Deputy to be. It is Her peace that ye go to break— Not mine, nor any king's, But, touching your clamour of 'conscience sake,' I care for none of these things ! ' ' Referring again to the Acts of the Apostles, remember Kip- ling's "Last Chantey"— "Then cried the soul of the stout Apostle Paul to God; 'Once we frapped a ship, and she laboured woundily. There were fourteen score of these, And they blessed Thee on their knees, When they learned Thy Grace and Glory under Malta by the sea!'' The word 'frapping' is the technical English word for 'under girding,' i.e., passing ropes round the hull of the ship to keep the timbers together. Going on to the Old Testament, I would refer to the well- timed and pathetic poem "En-Dor," where our Author warns those who mourn deeply for the loss of their nearest and dearest against the cheats and charlatans who claim super- natural power concerning Life and Death :— "And nothing has changed for the sorrow in store, For such as go down on the road to En-Dor." There are several other allusions by Kipling to episodes in the Bible; that in "My Son's Wife," where Midmore, the subject of the tale avoids, by absenting himself, the three Job's comforters:—Eliphaz the Temanite ; Bildad the Shuhite; and Zophar the Naamathite. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 9 The story of "Uriah," where Jack Barrett is sent to Quetta to be got out of the way and killed by the climate and over- work, just as in the book of Samuel Uriah is placed in the forefront of the hottest battle and sent to his death, in order that King David might make Bath-sheba his wife. And I must mention the striking verses "A Song at Cock- Crow," and "Gehazi," but won't do more than mention them, since, for all I know, there might be some controversy here concerning their application. There are two more allusions to passages in the Bible to which I must refer; first, in one of Kipling's finest songs "The Long Trail" :— "There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid ; But the sweetest way to me is a ship's upon the sea In the heel of the North-East Trade." where the equivalent verse in the Book of Proverbs is :—' ' ' There be three things which are too wonderful for me ; yea, four which I know not ; the way of an eagle in the air ; the way of a serpent upon a rock ; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid." and lastly; the very striking little poem in Kipling's last volume of stories, "Limits and Renewals," a poem which is supposed to have been written by St. Paul immediately before his execution :— I am made all things to all men— Hebrew, Roman, and Greek— In each one's tongue I speak, Suiting to each my word, That some may be drawn to the Lord. I am made all things to all men— In City or Wilderness Praising the crafts they profess That some may be drawn to the Lord— By any means to my Lord ! Since I was overcome By that great Light and Word, I have forgot or forgone The self men call their own (Being made all things to all men) So that I might save some At such small price, to the Lord, As being all things to all men. 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. I was made all things to all men, But now my course is done— And now is my reward— Ah, Christ, when I stand at Thy Throne With those I have drawn to the Lord, Restore me my self again ! Leaving the Bible I turn to the subject of Hymns. In the story, ".007," about an American locomotive, the Yard Master quotes, alluding, I suppose, to the shining new loco- motive, ".007," Mrs. Alexander's well-known Hymn, "All things bright and beautiful." Again in that grim and most powerful story, "At the End of the Passage," Hummil sardonically chants one or two verses of Bishop Ken's evening hymn, "Glory to Thee my God this night," and I cannot resist the temptation of quoting what I believe must have been in Kipling's mind when years ago he wrote this story, the beautiful lines from Henry Vaughan's "Departed Friends" :— "Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective still as they pass ; Or else remove me hence unto that hill, Where I shall need no glass." Going on next to the English Prayer Book, Kipling twice quotes from the "Benedicite Omnia Opera," first in the story "With the Night Mail," in the year A.D. 2000, when the crew of the great aeroplane hear the voices of the unseen singers on the hospital airship :— "O ye winds of God, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever." and again in "Captains Courageous," at the Memorial Day Service for the lost fishermen of Gloucester in America :— "Oh ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him for ever!" Leaving sacred I must turn now to profane letters, and first, "Shakespeare." In one of Kipling's finest stories, "The Court- ing of Dinah Shadd," there is a reference to "Hamlet" where Polonius speaks the well-known lines :— "Beware Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee." which in Mulvaney's words are interpreted :— THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 11 "Don't fight wid ivry scutt for the pure joy 'av fightin', but if you do, knock the nose av' him first an' frequent." There is another reference to 'Shakespeare' in one of his slight "Plain Tales from the Hills," viz :—" Watches of the Night," where Kipling writes of Shakespeare alluding to the pleasure of an Engineer being shelled by his own battery, but, frankly, I am unable to find the passage. And the last Shakespeare allusion I want ,to mention occurs in what is per- haps the most powerful, most pathetic and tragic of Kipling's stories, "Love o' Women," when the soldier dying from dissi- pation, carried on a litter when his regiment marches in to Peshawar, finds almost supernatural strength at the moment of death, and stands up to greet the woman whom he has ruined:—"I'm dyin', Aigypt, dyin',"—the very words of Anthony (to Cleopatra) in Shakespeare's tragedy. Read the whole of the story from beginning to end, and see how won- derfully apt is his comparison with the tragedy of "Anthony and Cleopatra." I want next to refer to Dr. Johnson. In the very comical story, "Brugglesmith," you will remember how the teller of it is chased round the Church of St. Clement Danes, and, re- membering the good and god-like man who held a sitting in the place scarcely a hundred years ago, and asked by the policeman, "What are you tryin' to do?" replied, "Sir, let us take a walk down Fleet Street." And in "The Dog Hervey" Kipling constructs a most ingenious but rather diffi- cult parallel between Johnson's affection for his friend Harry Hervey, kind, but vicious, and the man in the story who had been a drunkard but was loved and married by the heroine. Then take 'Tennyson.' In Kipling's "From Sea to Sea," he describes the Pagoda at Moulmein with its gorgeous splendour, and heads the chapter by quoting from the "Palace of Art" :— I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell, I said "Oh, soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well." and when he comes to Penang he describes the hot, heavy sleepiness of the country and the atmosphere:—"on the top of the hill lay a fat cloud, just like an eiderdown quilt tucking everything in safely," and in the afternoon they came unto a 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. land in which it seemed always afternoon," the very well- known lines from the "Lotus Eaters." Lastly, in the wonderful story "The Man Who Would Be King," Kipling compares the blank paper of the newspaper re- porter to the shield of Modred ; blank because he had not as yet done any noble deed, the reference being to Tennyson's Idyll, "Gareth and Lynette." Next I want particularly to mention Kipling's extraor- dinarily clever story "Wireless." This, of course, refers very closely to the great poet, John Keats, who was apprenticed to a Surgeon, was a medical student at Guys Hospital, and died of consumption when he was 25 years old. A kind of dream sketch of Keats and his beautiful poetry in the " Eve of St. Agnes," is given in Mr. Shaynor's unconscious utterances, and I believe " Wireless " to be one of Kipling's greatest successes. I come next to Macaulay. In the story of the "Horse Marines" we have Mr. Morshed "apostrophin' his 'andiwork over 50 square mile o' country with 'Attend all ye who list to hear !' right on to 'the red glare on Skiddaw roused those beggars at Carlisle', which he pointed out was poetic license for Leith Hill." And in "Stalky & Co." when Mr. Prout, the House Master, had turned the three boys out of their No. 5 Study, Kipling very aptly quotes :— " But by the yellow Tiber, Was tumult and affright." From 'Browning' Kipling quotes as a close to his powerful story, "At the End of the Passage" the famous lines from "Times Revenges" :— '' There may be Heaven ; there must be Hell ; Meantime there is our Earth here—we-ell ? " a kind of half ironic commentary on the brave adherence to duty of English Civilians in India. And in one of his Indian stories, "The Education of Otis Yeere," he quotes Mrs. Browning's stinging yet almost affectionate lines on the hard, unscrupulous woman :— " Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart, Pass ! There's a world full of men; And women as fair as thou art Must do such things now and then." Before coming to Two Authors, of whom Kipling seems to THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 13 be particularly fond, I must run through a number of refer- ences in his books to various other writers. I wonder whether people still read Captain Marryat's Sea Novels, but almost as a matter of course Kipling quotes him : the old motto "Duty before Decency" in "William the Con- queror," though he applies the words in a sense very different from Marryat; and in the "The Fleet in Being" there are the well-known words of Chucks, the Boatswain :— " But we were zealous, Mr. Simple." In " My Son's Wife " there are allusions to " Jorrocks " and "Handley Cross," and in one of his stories about children he mentions "Gulliver"; Grimm's Fairy Tales; and Smedley's "Frank Fairleigh," a book probably forgotten now, but of which I was very fond as a boy. Then, I wonder how many people here this evening could identify "Captain Nemo" in Kipling's extraordinarily funny story "Steam Tactics'" He is the hero of Jules Verne's ro- mance "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." In that utterly amazing story, "The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat," there is an interesting reference to William Hone's " Every Day Book " which was published about 100 years ago, and Kipling finds the reference to a village dance founded on Druidical mysteries on which he draws for one of the most comical incidents, the "Gubby Dance." Hone, by- the-by, is quite worth looking through, all sorts of odds and ends of information with queer illustrations. It is hardly necessary to mention the late Dean Farrar's School Stories, "Eric" and "St. Winifred's" for "Stalky" and his friends deride them again and again. Two or three of Ballantyne's Books for Boys, old favourites such as "The Gorilla Hunters" and "The Coral Island" are alluded to, and in his remarkable story called "The House Surgeon" there is a reference to " Sherlock Holmes." In "Stalky & Co." is an ingenious reference to Mrs. Oliphant's very fine ghost story, "The Beleaguered City," and in the curious tale, "To Be Filed for Reference" there is drawn a very apt comparison between it's wind-up and Anstey's "Giant's Robe." The "Two Chiefs of Dunboy," the single novel of J. A. Froude, the Historian, is referred to in "A Fleet in Being," and Stevenson's "Trea- sure of Franchard" is very neatly quoted in that delightful story, "An Habitation Enforced." 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. In a general way Kipling seems to regret the extinction of the old type of Novel, "The Three-Decker," as he calls it, the three volume novel which many years ago used to arrive from Mudie's in a box. With their comparatively placid incidents and usually comfortable ending, "when they all lived happily ever afterwards," these old novels often managed to satisfy people perhaps as well or better than their successors in our own times. Here are two verses from his "Three-Decker" illustrating what I mean :— " By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of cook, Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest. I left 'em all in couples akissing on the decks, I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques. In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed, I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!" In Kipling's songs there are several allusions to well-known old favourites. In "The Ship That Found Herself" the sounds made by different kinds of marine engines are com- pared respectively and most felicitously to the tunes of "The Old Obadiah," "Madame Angot," and "The Funeral March of a Marionette." Then at the end of "William the Con- queror" are quoted some of the well-known old Christmas Carols, and "The Brushwood Boy" is prefaced by:— " Girls and boys come out to play, The moon is shining as bright as day." In "Stalky & Co." you will remember how the three boys had named their ambush "Aves," alluding to Charles Kings- ley's verses about the pleasant Isle of Aves in "Westward Ho," and "In the Finest Story in the World," Kipling makes his hero quote Longfellow's :— " I remember the black wharves and the slips, And the sea-tides tossing free, And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea." and the last of his verses I would refer to is his "Holy War," a war poem, and a very clever and effective alliance with Bunyan's book in the cause of National Service :— THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 15 " Likewise the Lords of Looseness That hamper faith and works, The Perseverance-Doubters, And Present-Comfort shirks, With brittle intellectuals, Who creek beneath a strain John Bunyan met that helpful set In Charles the Second's reign." I now want to mention two American Authors. When Kipling was a very young man he travelled in the United States as a correspondent of one or two Indian newspapers, and the last of the American chapters in his book "From Sea to Sea" contains an account of an interview with Mark Twain. It is hardly necessary to say that he had questions to ask about Mark Twain's books, "Life on the Mississippi" and "Tom Sawyer." This latter book must have been very familiar to many of us when we were young, and it is easy to understand that Kipling, whose men-characters so often have so much '' boy " about them, must have immensely appreciated " Tom Sawyer," one of the best boy's books ever written. Then there is Louisa Alcott with her "Little Women" and "Little Men" which I still have among my books, one of them having been there for well over 50 years. Kipling speaks of meeting American girls in a small town on the Monongahela River, and finding them so pleasant and natural, as are their prototypes Meg, and Joe, and Beth, and Amy, in Miss Alcott's charming stories. And now I want to refer to the two Authors whom I have mentioned as being obviously favourites, of Kipling. The first of these is the Latin poet "Horace." In the so-called "Fifth Book of the Odes," in which he is associated with Mr. Charles Graves and the late Mr. A. D. Godley, he has written several wonderfully clever sets of verses which might be admirable English renderings of imaginary Latin originals by "Horace," and there are in his stories and verses quite a number of allus- ions to passages in "Horace," some comical, others very serious. For instance, take one of the "Stalky & Co." stories, "Regulus." It is exceedingly amusing, and yet there could hardly be a better school lesson on this, one of the finest of the Alcaic Odes, than Kipling's story. The mingled humour and seriousness of Mr. King, the Form Master, is just right. Then 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. take "Rimini," the marching song of the Roman Legion, with its allusion to Horace's "Lalage" :— ' ' Dulce ridentem, dulce loquentem '' ; let alone its splendid lilt :— When I left Rome for Lalage's sake By the Legion's Road to Rimini, She vowed her heart was mine to take With me and my shield to Rimini— (Till the Eagles flew from Rimini—) And I've tramped Britain, and I've tramped Gaul, And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall As white as the neck of Lalage— (As cold as the heart of Lalage !) And I've lost Britain, and I've lost Gaul, And I've lost Rome and, worst of all, I've lost Lalage 1" and in "My Son's Wife" there is an apt reference to Horace's "Liris," the peaceful river silently undermining its banks, comparing it to the sluggish stream described in the book; and in that splendid story "Bread Upon the Waters," old Mac- riinmon taunts Steiner, the low-class ship-owner, by calling him "Judaeus Apella," in Horace's satire, "a fool of a Jew, simple enough to credit miracles." And lastly I must refer to the beautiful verses "A Recantation," "To Lyde of the Music Halls" ; but I do so with hesitation, for it may be, I don't know, but it may be that here the Author has written with an application personal to himself :— " Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt." But one thing in this poem I must stress, viz :—the wonder- fully descriptive lines :— Witness the magic coffer stocked With convoluted runes, Wherein thy very voice was locked, And linked to circling tunes. The actual meaning of "runes" is incised inscriptions, and perhaps our Painter in words never minted a happier descrip- tion than this one of gramophone records. And here I want to refer for a moment to Kipling's keen and appropriate sense of what is called "onomatopoeia," name- making, or rather, the use of words in such a way as to express their meaning by their sound. Thus in the Jungle Book THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 17 there is the galloping verse from "The Parade Song of the Camp Animals" :— " By the brand on my shoulder the finest of tunes, Is played by the Lancers, Hussars and Dragoons, And it's sweeter than stables or water to me, The cavalry canter of Bonnie Dundee." Recalling the famous line of Virgil :— Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum." The steed shakes the dusty plain with his thunderous galloping." Again in the "Seal's Lullaby" you will remember the lines:— '' Oh ! hush thee my baby the night is behind us, And dark are the waters that sparkled so green, The moon o'er the combers looks downward to find us Asleep in the hollows that rustle between. Where billow meets billow there soft be thy pillow, Oh, weary wee flipperling curl at thy ease, The storm shall not wake thee nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas." which reminds one of Tennyson's:— " Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles." or even of Homer's :— ðáñÜ èÀíá ðïëíöëïþâïéï èáëÜóóçó And I should like to refer, though perhaps this is a little wide of my subject, to Kipling's exceedingly clever "Sestina of the Tramp Royal." The "Sestina," an old mediaeval form of verse independent of rhyme, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, with a final "envoi" of three lines, must be rigidly elaborated by placing the six final words of the lines of the first stanza in inverted order in all the other stanzas, and in the final "envoi" these six key-words must be repeated in a fixed order. Swinburne has written a very beautiful rhymed Sestina:—"I saw my soul at rest upon a day," which I daresay is familiar to some of you, and Kipling's "Sestina" here referred to is, I believe, perfectly correct in form as well as a very pretty set of verses. I am going to quote two of the six stanzas and the final envoi :— " Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all— The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world, Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good For such as cannot use one bed too long, But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done, An' go observin' matters till they die. 18 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done? I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good, In various situations round the world— For 'im that doth not work must surely die; But that's no reason man should labour all 'Is life on one same shift; life's none so long. And then the Envoi . . . Gawd bless this world ! Whatever she 'ath done— Excep' when awful long—I've found it good. So write, before I die, " 'E liked it all !" I think you will recognise how great must be the difficulty of this kind of governed composition in verse. And the second and the last of the two Authors is "Jane Austen." Kipling's story, "The Janeites," published a few years ago, is to my thinking, an extraordinarily clever pro- duction. A story of the War, very tragic in part, yet abound- ing in humour, full of amazing allusion to Jane Austen's books; for instance, to "Pride and Prejudice," and "Emma"; and "Jane" becomes a kind of Secret Society or Password, which at last secures the teller of the tale a place in the Hos- pital train. I will just read the little poem at the end, where Kipling, you observe, brings in four great literary names which I have not mentioned before :— Jane went to Paradise; That was only fair, Good Sir Walter met her first, And led her up the stair. Henry and Tobias, And Miguel of Spain, Stood with Shakespeare at the top To welcome Jane— Then the three Archangels Offered out of hand Anything in Heaven's gift That she might command. Azrael's eyes upon her, Raphael's wings above, Michael's sword against her heart. Jane said: "Love." Instantly the under- standing Seraphim Laid their fingers on their lips And went to look for him. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 19 Stole across the Zodiac, Harnessed Charles's Wain, And whispered round the Nebulae " Who loved Jane?" In a private limbo Where none had thought to look, Sat a Hampshire gentleman Reading of a book, It was called PERSUASION, And it told the plain Story of the love between Him and Jane. He heard the question Circle Heaven through— Closed the book and answered; I did—and do 1 Quietly but speedily (As Captain Wentworth moved), Entered into Paradise The man Jane loved ! '' And here, Ladies and Gentlemen, I may well bring this Paper to a close. I could mention a good many more Authors to whom there are allusions in Kipling's works, but I have engaged your attention long enough. May I say now (what I certainly should not have said a little while ago), that I am grateful to Colonel Bailey for pressing me to read this Paper, because I have thus been, as it were, compelled to peruse, and peruse with keen enjoyment, a good deal of Kipling once more. For those of us who are getting on in life, whose memory extends many years back to the books of our Youth, books now unfashionable, books which we haven't looked at for a long time past, Kipling's references are full of interest, and it is entirely pleasurable, and puts us on good terms with our Author, when we find scattered through his pages the names which we recognise as old friends on our library shelves. DISCUSSION. The Chairman invited discussion on the Lecture, and re- marked that those of "us who had lived a long time must have been amazed by the wonderful literary research displayed by Mr. Courtauld." He was sure that all present would agree with him that the Paper had shown a great deal of diligent critical study, which must have occupied a great deal of time. 20 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Mr. Beresford told how Kipling used to study Browning and Swinburne, but he didn't pore over them—he just took them in his stride. He wrote a good deal in Swinburne's various metre and, when some of this was shown to Swinburne, Swin- burne didn't like it apparently, for, although asked to comment on it, he would not say anything. Perhaps he felt that Kipling was poaching on his preserves, or feared that another Swinburne was coming along. It was true about Kipling's being given access to the Head's Library; after finishing that, he read through the Padre's.' He always wanted libraries—a library to him was like a book to some other person. Mr. Brooking (Founder) expressed a wish that an edition of Kipling could be brought out with all the quotations named. He brought up the question of the pronunciation of " Rewards," stating that he thought it must be " rewards," which means fairies, and not " ruards " which means wizards. He then told of his experience in handling munitions workers during the war, and how strongly we felt that Kipling's wonderful poem The Holy War, should have been published at that time in papers which could reach the manual worker instead of in a Christmas magazine. Kipling's Sixth Sense. By Commander O. Locker-Lampson, C.M.G., D.S.O., R.N.V.R., M.P. ISUPPOSE that achievement in the realm of letters can roughly be divided into that which is creative and that which is critical ; and I have a feeling that those who create have not time to be critical, while those who are critical have not the genius to create. I cannot myself boast of anything creative in my career ; and I know that I often lack that critical faculty which is most needed in mastering wrong impulses and directing life. I am therefore ill-qualified to assess the claims of a poet, who is a creator in many realms and a critic of life in his creations. Indeed, I have only this to my credit. My admiration of Kipling (to use the language of medicine), is both active and chronic. I came under his spell long ago and remain there; and I thought that without attempting any general estimate of him, I would yet try to convey to others my sense of values. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 21 I therefore called this lecture "Kipling's Sixth Sense," and I will at once explain the significance of that title. We were all brought up to believe (perhaps erroneously) that we possess five senses, namely, those of sight, scent, hear- ing, feeling and taste ; and we are generally aware that we can indulge all five at once. Let me give an illustration of this, however homely. I may be pouring out a glass of beer and thereby be giving all five senses the pleasantest thrill. As I drain the glass, so I can see the rich liquid disappearing, scent its fragrance on the way down, feel the quiver of the glass under the lusty flow, hear the jolly gurgle against lips and palate, and at length taste the brown tonic itself in the plenitude of its bouquet. These five active senses are media through which we can be emotionally stimulated and satisfied. Some artists approach us through one or other of these avenues ; and a very few seem to reach us through them all. Now Mr. Kipling not only exercises each of his own five senses to the full, and energizes ours into equal action, but he seems to possess a sixth sense (just as Mr. Wells discovered a new dimension in space) whereby he can soak himself in the atmosphere of life and re-convey it. He not only becomes aware of much of what we miss. Many writers can do that. He goes farther, and through the gift of this sixth sense, through the medium of what must perhaps be some mysterious antennae, he can divine the spirit of a scene and transfigure it, so that our response is not delayed as with other artists, but is instantaneous. It is not, of course, that Mr. Kipling really possesses this extra sense, but that he contrives to use existing senses uniquely; so that our entire sensibility is put into commission, and heightened to create the illusion that this extra partner is co-operating, until we become steeped in his impressions as the sorcerer waves his wand. How inadequate this analysis seems. Let me, however, give a few instances selected at random through Mr. Kipling's works. With this embargo. That, to limit my enquiry and make it manageable I will arbitrarily exclude all sea de- scriptions and stick to dry land. Now I need not urge at the outset that Mr. Kipling does not require a colourful country or picturesque conditions to achieve 22 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. his consummate evocation of atmosphere and does not even have to visit a place to conjure it up. In order to interpret these powers, let us consider heredity for one moment. Kipling was born not in a lettered highbrow set; but in an artistic centre of unambiguous simplicity. His father was a draughtsman ; one uncle was the painter, Sir Edward Poynter; another uncle was the mystical pre-raphaelite Burne-Jones. Kipling may have been born with eyes and these eyes may be like those of his vulture, "telescopic." Nevertheless they required training, and got it in this inspired school. You must become as ignorant as I am to know what can be taught. You may imagine that people must be born with an ear to distinguish tunes, but I assure you that with practice you can improve your ear and educate your eye out of all recognition. I really do not know good pictures from bad ; people should go round a gallery with an expert to know why Raphael is better than Rubens, or Michael Angelo than Phil May. If a dunce can learn good from bad and be taught what essentials to look for, how much more can a man of genius? It is said that great painters are mostly born in flat lands because the "countryside composes." That is a revealing phrase which means this : that there is a composition of nature's awaiting only an instructed intelligence for translation on to paper or canvas. Just as a policeman is trained to observe and would notice now if I had no roof to my mouth (which I have) or was intoxicated (which really I am not) while you might let slip (and indeed should) such an observation, so any artist can be trained to respond more and more to the richness of life ; and how much more when the master is a flaming power like Burne-Jones and the pupil is a blazing portent Kipling. Kipling was the adored and adoring disciple ; and his own illustrations to the "Just So" stories are evidence that he learnt actually to draw. His technical debt is yet more obvious when the picture which he paints is in words. Indeed in the realm of colour, scent and sound, he is super-sensitive ; and no living writer approaches him in enlightened interpretation. Furthermore he has expanded the language wondrously by dipping into any lucky bag for nuggets, endowing even mechanical futilities with flesh and blood, and employing these astounding new counters with a precision which is not merely pat and smart; but which constitutes a revolution in vocab- ulary and a transformation in technique. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 23 First of all please notice his sense of smell. We are told by our doctors and nurses to avoid smells ; and patients passing open drains in the street are still required to spit. "When Boswell was in Scotland with Dr. Johnson at Edinburgh, do you remember he turned to the doctor and said "How this town smells." "Sir," said the doctor, bent upon improving Bos- well's grammar even at the expense of good manners, "Sir," he replied, "you, Sir, smell; it, Sir, stinks." Indeed, as this shows, we are chary of discussing the reactions of our nostrils. The nose is still the best joke on the music-hall stage and the action of blowing our noses in public is dubiously decent, and, at any rate, is accepted on all hands as inartistic. Kipling, however, has no such inhibitions. He has told us in "Lichtenberg" that "smells are surer than sounds or sights to make you heart-strings crack" ; and has shown often in "Kim" that pleasant aromas can allure; when the "smell of marigold and jasmine was stronger even than the reek of the dust." But he can awake the nostalgia of dear dead days and strain the cordage of our souls with other less artistic odours. He can idealise the nastiest of all. Take this from "The Broken Men" : "Day long the diamond weather, The high unaltered blue— The smell of goats and incense And the mule-bells tinkling through." How actual and transforming is that materialization ; and yet the smell of goats is proverbially unpleasant and who but this originating genius would have dared to try and make the memory of 'such' picturesque and enthralling. He is more daring elsewhere, taking an animal still less aesthetically inviting and making the reek of it romantic. Could he select anything more poetically repellent than a member of the finny tribe. Yet listen to this from the "Feet of the Young Men" : "Do you know the pile-built village where the sago-dealers trade— Do you know the reek of fish and wet bamboo ? Do you know the steaming stillness of the orchid-scented glade When the blazoned, bird-winged butterflies flap through?" 24 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. After which it is easier to take the camel of the desert and transmute him ; from the Ballad of the King's Jest : "And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk A savour of camels and carpets and musk, A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke, To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke." The smell of goats, the savour of camels and the stink of fish have all been glorified. Do not laugh or complain, for he is just being true to the ideal which he set himself as a young man in "My New-Cut Ashlar." "One stone the more swings into place, In that dread Temple of Thy worth. It is enough that through Thy Grace, I saw nought common on Thy Earth." This in a few sentences is his reaction to scents. Now, as to his sensitiveness to sound. He has an uncanny ear tuned to catch the slightest crisp crepitation or to record and report the muttering even of thunder. Do you recollect in "Tiger- Tiger !" the buffaloes "lumbering out of the sticky mud with noises like gunshots." How reminiscent and authentic; and now notice his equal power of reproducing small sounds and this often in words almost identical ; and let us take the letter "c" and watch the variations of words which begin with "cl." Note first his use of the verb "click" in "Bridge-Guard in the Karoo" : "We hear the Hottentot herders As the sheep click past to the fold— And the click of the restless girders As the steel contracts in the cold"— Twice he uses it there in one verse for a similar sound made by different objects—without any loss of power; and the same word is just as apt in describing the same noise in again a different context in "The Feet of the Young Men." "And the bar of sun-warmed shingle where a man may bask and dream To the click of shod canoe-poles round the bend?" And this word is applied again to another object in "The Broken Men," without weakness or any feeling of surfeit: THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 25 ''On church and square and market The noonday silence falls; You'll hear the drowsy mutter Of the fountain in our halls. Asleep amid the yuccas The city takes her ease— Till twilight brings the land-wind To the clicking jalousies." He has used this word with effect in four different con- nections ; and now hark ! He wants to describe the sound not of a metal-ended paddle or steel girder or sheep or wooden blind, but the noise made in "Fear in the Jungle" of bamboos, which have withered in the heat and are what—"clicking" do you think, "When the hot winds blow?" No! two letters only are altered and a miracle is achieved. It is just what bamboos do when withered—I have heard them "clank" like men's sabres. And now to quote from the "Dirge of Dead Sisters" when he wants to describe the nurses sitting at meals and the sounds of the teacups. Does he use "click?" No! Does he use "clank?" No! This time he alters just one letter of "click" and one of "clank" and we get this. Hark: "Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order, (Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?) And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter, And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?" I hope this is clear. And please note that this "click" and "clank" and "clink" may not suit animate objects. The banana is different to the bamboo. In the "Song of the Wise Children" : "To the trumpet-flowers and the moon beyond, And the tree-,toad's chorus drowning all— And the lisp of the split banana-frond That talked us to sleep when we were small." And now leaving sounds we will proceed to his reaction to colour. "We have forgotten the look of light," he says, in the "Song of the Wise Children" ; and he is very sensitive to its revelations. He paints the twilight "turquoise" in the "Ballad of the King's Jest" and makes day "dun and saffron" in "La Nuit Blanche," and night can be "dun" also without loss of prestige, pray remark : 26 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. "Royal the pageant closes, Lit by the last of the sun— Opal and ash-of-roses, Cinnamon, umber, and dun." The rainbow is, however, not yet exhausted. In the Puzzler he finds the walls are of "blood-red brick and there was cobalt and magenta and purest apple-green in the window glass," etc. These colours do not seem to have been selected out of a dic- tionary for the occasion and pasted on with glue. They are flung upon the canvas with prodigal ease and accuracy, as if he had dipped into each square of nature's variegated paint box, leaving her to mix the pigments. Still even this expansion of our vocabulary is as nothing to its enrichment by Mr. Kipling from another source. Where is and when was there an author as. inquisitive and knowing as he ? There can be few communities of men some of whose slang he has not appropriated ; and hardly a profession the terminology of which he has not ransacked, in order to use words charged still with their scientific sig- nificance but transmuted to serve his craft. It is impossible to begin to speak of his use of occupational terms, or the nov- elty of this creative phenomenon. Shakespeare is said to have invented 30 new verbs beginning with the preposition "out," such as "out-Herod Herod." Someone should give us a Kipling dictionary ; and not merely of the words which he has invented, but of the technical terms which he has harnessed to a literary vehicle for the first time. From the outset he was an originator. Take the scene from the early Bridge Builders, of the mules carrying earth up the vast embankment, which ends with "the swish and roll-down of the dirt." "Swish" was never so used before; "roll-down" is new as a noun; and "dirt" means for the first time not "dirt" or "earth" but "loose earth." Or from a later story, With the Night Mail, "where the man drives his machine bullet-wise through the maelstrom till she cushions with a jar on the up-gust three thousand feet below." "Bullet-wise" is new, and "cushion" for "settling down" and "up-gust" for "upward-draught." Yet he is creatively greater in impounding and improving professional terms. Indeed, such is their variety that I will quote only two lines from "The Prairie" to show how the use THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 27 of a "vulgar," modern mechanical contrivance becomes a magical instrument and image in his hands. "I hear the summer storm outblown— the drip of the grateful wheat. I hear the hard trail telephone a far-off horse's feet." Kipling is of long enough standing and eminence to have evoked detractors and we all know their line of country. He is spoken of as prejudiced in his partisanship and as limited in his emotional range. He is accused, despite his wide exper- ience of man and things, of being nevertheless out of touch and out of sympathy with ordinary folk ; and consequently as deficient in humanity. That very eye, so his critics allege, which enables him to see so much superficially, fails him in piercing to the heart of man. His characters, they declare, are external and stationary. Surely these critics have forgotten the Jungle Books and the human beings who only happen to be wearing wolf skins and the pelts of bears. It is inconceivable that a time will come when old and young will not want to swing with Mowgli through the forest on monkey arms, or totter with him naked but unafraid into the cave of cubs. It was not a superficial or thoughtless observer who wrote those tragic lines about the "Cold Christ" and the "Tangled Trinities," and who said that "when man has come to the turnstiles of Night, all the creeds seem to him wonderfully alike and colourless." My view is that Mr. Kipling could quite easily have satisfied specious present-day needs and the modern passion for in- delicate indiscretion. He could have written plays with a problem or purpose, and fed a debilitated public taste with novels which were naughty, and memoirs which were septic with sex. He could have done all this better than the in- experienced long-haired degenerates who exploit their paltry and unmanly "souls" so gratuitously. He felt, however, that life had a deeper purpose for a re- sponsible author than that of morbid introspection, and that Art should not serve the febrile egoisms of vanity and lust. A study of Dostoievsky must induce many to believe that life is not worth living. After reading the Russian neurotics I want to cut my throat. After reading Kipling I want to cut 28 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. someone else's throat. At any rate the survival value of hap- piness is greater than that of unhappiness ; and I will make this bet, and like most of mine, it is safe for me. Not only that the best of Kipling will outlast that of any contemporary; but that if we were alive a thousand years hence (and why not assume this after all the promise of science) and could meet then and look round we should find this. England might perhaps no longer be an island; the Empire might have been lost by rotten leaders, and with it India. But lovers of poetry and of a language called "English" would learn English (even as we learn Greek) in order to be able to read the choicest works of the best authors in the original, those which time had sifted out. And coming upon a poem concern- ing a little lady who sat beside a pagoda and watched elephants piling teak, those students will look up "pagoda" in the dic- tionary, and ask the encyclopedia where Burma was in order to go where "You won't 'eed nothin' else but them spicy garlic smells, An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple bells." Yes, India might be forgotten, and Macaulay its historian. Every Viceroy and ruler might be unknown. Even Lord Irwin might be a dream and Gandhi a ghost, when "Mandalay" was still sung and loved. Ladies and Gentlemen, I make that bet. Will any of you take it. DISCUSSION. Before declaring the discussion open, the Chairman remarked that he gathered from the extremely interesting Lecture that Kipling's sixth sense apparently meant his sense of the exact word—it might be even a brand-new word coined for the occasion—required to describe the audible, visible and odori- ferous experience of life. Mr. Bazley asked Commander Locker-Lampson if he re- membered that other curious instance of a sixth sense in Kipling's reference to an altar on the Roman Wall erected by some Greek legionaries. The archaeologists said that no Greeks had ever been located there, but some years later a Greek altar was found on a farm close by. He added that Miss Katherine THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 29 Buck, of Wayland Saga fame, in talking about this subject, asked him how Kipling managed to know these things apparent- ly by intuition. General Edwards suggested that Kipling's stories of the Napoleonic war were historically wrong, but that no one had captured the spirit of the times better than he, whereupon Lt.- Colonel G. B. Duff agreed with him, and stated that Kipling's idea of Talleyrand was more accurate than that of the historians. The Rev. W. Ff. Sheppard considered that it is only in a genius that this sixth sense is noticeable. An artist can receive impressions which ordinary people do not get, but it takes a genius to convey the thrill to other people. Goethe seemed to possess it almost instinctively, and to be able to give informa- tion about what was going on in the world. Mr. Sheppard had hoped that the Lecturer would have mentioned They, and tell us about the sixth sense in that story. Commander Locker-Lampson thanked the last speaker for the reminder, but said he was unable to solve this problem. American authors had tried, and £100 had been offered for a solution, but none had been found. He couldn't agree that the average genius had a sixth sense, though he might have five senses abnormally powerful, or sometimes all five were not so developed ; sometimes only one or other of them was exaggerated beyond the ordinary. He added that he had been brought up on Goethe, and remembered having to look up endless passages in the dictionary, and he had never forgiven him for that. New Kipling Books and Reviews OF Sir George MacMunn's book, Kipling's Women (Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 7s. 6d.), we may say that it is a beautiful subject beautifully treated. Real knowledge of the subject, grace of style, acquaintance with the many scenes and types of persons described by Kipling, literary judgment and profound insight into human nature—these gifts combine to make this book one of the most attractive we have read for some time. That it is indispensable to the Kipling reader goes without saying ; for the rest of the world it fills a long-felt want, for in spite of the number of his women readers there are still many critics who say that Kipling has never 30 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. created any noteworthy female characters (some of these gentry only know of Mrs. Hauksbee and Maisie). Sir George Mac- Munn exposes this fallacy by exhibiting a gallery of pen- portraits covering practically the whole range of Kipling's work ; not only does he apply his critical judgment to the two just mentioned, but to lesser lights such as Sophie Chapin (a very charming personality), and to Sitabhai and the Rajputni peasant woman of The Naulakha—two good pieces of character- drawing often passed over by the reader—to Bisesa, Lispeth, and so forth, without neglecting those better known. The author directs our attention in passing to the correctness of Kipling's Irish dialect, and in his sketch of William the Con- queror he gives a stern rebuke to the intelligentsia of the Congress:—"Never a Gandhi or Congress-wallah has helped save a starving district or cared a d . . n about such things, or has the faintest idea how they are done." This book, which is very nicely produced, is one to be read, studied and kept ; for, though it covers a period of more than half a century, its outlook is as fresh as any of the bright young writers of to-day—and rather more balanced. Letter Bag. Heading Sir George MacMunn's Paper on " Kipling's Women," I note that he has missed the whole point of that beautiful story "The Gardener." Sir George says:—"Here another side is stressed, the pathos and tragedy underlying the fact that women with the mothering instinct cannot become mothers at will." The fact is that Lt. Michael Turrell, the alleged nephew, was her own son. Helen had been in the South of France " under threat of lung trouble," and when she returned to her home a child came with her. This child, she said, was the son of her ne'er-do-well brother who had died in India, but the falsity of this was obvious. Nowhere, until the end, is it stated that he was her son; her visit abroad was to conceal her own confinement; only one person guessed the truth, and only One knew it. Mrs. Scarsworth had known, and for years concealed, illicit love, until " tired of lying " she unburdens her soul to Helen. Of the One that knew I cannot imagine a conception more exquisite than Kipling has given us. The secret is so well kept that the words: " Come THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 31 with me, and I will show you where your son lies " come like a thunder-clap.—Victor Bonney. In reference to Sir George MacMunn's lecture, my impres- sion is that Michael was the son of Helen Turrell, who returns from France with her brother's baby, explains the dismissal of the nurse, and hints at having bought off the boy's maternal relatives. She alleges that Michael has his father's mouth, though the author says that that of the baby is better than the family type. Later on when Michael refers to direct enlist- ment being in the family, Helen says: " You don't mean to tell me that you believed that old story all the time." Surely this means that she is surprised to find that Michael still be- lieves that his mother was the daughter of an N.C.O. Helen's reception of Mrs. Scarsworth's confession, and the end of the tale make all clear.—Cecil Richardson. (Mr. T. E. Elwell, of Liverpool, writes to the same effect.— Editor K.J.). Has anybody ever mentioned how very suitable the red leather edition of Kipling's works is for the tropics. Insects of various kinds ruin ordinary bindings very quickly, but my Kipling's, some of which I have had in Ceylon for more than 13 years, are in as good condition as the day I brought them out. I have not treated them with varnish or any such things.—George Gumming, Rakwana, Ceylon. In reply to Mr. J. H. Griffith's enquiry in No. 24, the nearest boy is Wallace major.—H. A. Hutchinson (O.W.H.). I think that Mr. J. H. Griffith is wrong, and that the centre boy in the " Foxy " group is F. P. Howlett, head of the School in 1887 ; the boy on his right (left in the photo) is myself. The third may be Ritchie (Major-General C. A. Ritchie).— Walter A. Young (Lt.-Colonel). 32 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Secretary's Announcements. 1. Meetings—Session 1932-33. 4th 27th April, 1933 (Thursday). Rembrandt Booms, 8 p.m. Lecturer: Robert Stokes, Esq. Subject: " Kipling and the Spirit of the Age." 5th (Special) 20th June, 1933 (evening before Annual Luncheon). Rembrandt Rooms, 8 p.m. Lecturer: The President. All subject to confirmation by card as usual. Guests are very welcome. 2. Annual Conference and Luncheon, Wednesday, 21st June, 1933, Rembrandt Rooms. 3. Appointments. Vice-Presidents. The following have been co-opted by Council subject to confirmation at the Annual Conference. The Countess Bathurst and M. Andre Maurois, C.B.E., M.C. 4. Major O. C. C. Nicolls has a complete set of U.S.C. Magazines for disposal—bound in three volumes. Apply to him direct (see List of Members). 5. With this issue goes a revised yellow List of Members, correct to March, 1933. 6. Journals—back numbers. The following are the revised prices, which cancels all previous ones. No. 2 (one copy only), 10s.; Nos. 3 to 8, 4s. each; Nos. 9 to 11, 3s. each; No. 1 (Reprint), and Nos. 12 to 23 (for a limited period only), at 1d. postage only for one copy of each. Nos. 24 and 25, 2s. each. No. 2 will not be reprinted until sufficient names are registered to warrant the expense. 7. Hon. Editor. See back cover for change of his address on and after 10th April, 1933. C. Bailey (Colonel), Secretary. ROLL OF NEW MEMBERS TO MARCH, 1933. Nos. 1126 to 1150. 1126t Miss M. Howard-Stepney 1139 Mrs. Henry A. Holmes Llanelly U.S.A. 1127t Bernard Collitt CANADA 1140‡ M. C. Lyde CEYLON 1128 John V. L. Hogan U.S.A. 1141 Mrs. Norman Evans 1129 Gordon E. Bowes CANADA Stratford-on-Avon (Transfer from Associates) 1142 E. de M. Rudolf Sidcup 1130 G. W. Worrin Hertford 1143 Miss G. O. Horswell 1131* Cecil Chandless Lyndhurst London 1132 Charles Czajewski 1144‡ Lt.-Col. E. A. Breithaupt POLAND London 1133 Miss E. McCulloch London 1145 M. Andre Maurois 1134* Major G. A. Rosser FRANCE Wiltshire 1146‡ Col. G. C. Hodgson Hythe 1135 Rev. H. P. Kennedy Skipton 1147 Capt. E. G. Spencer Churchill Reigate London 1136 R. Q. Pollock London 1148 Dixon Scott Tynemouth (Transfer from Associate) 1149 Duncan Campbell Lee 1137* Dr. W. W. Chipman London CANADA 1150‡ Capt. C. F. Newington 1138‡ Major S. E. H. Beamish Hythe Staines New Associate Member. A35 R. J. Griffiths London tLife Member. *Donor Member. ‡O.U.S.C.