"The Naulakha," Brattleboro, Vermont, U.S.A. The Kipling Journal. The Organ of the Kipling Society. QUARTERLY No. 28 DECEMBER. 1933 Contents. Plate : " The Naulakha," Brattleboro, Vermont, U.S.A. A Message from the President 101 The Kipling Birthday Book... 123 News and Notes ...... 102 Reviews and New Books 126 Kipling's India as I saw it in '33 111 Kipling Prices Current 129 " Such as in Ships and Brittle Letter Bag ......... 130 Barks" ......... 120 Secretary's Announcements... 131 A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT. I THINK Members realize that a Society such as ours is bound to be affected by the general wave of financial depression, and that in consequence of this we have lost many valued subscribers. In spite of this, however, we have reason to be proud that we have maintained our position on a firm basis, and our membership is now over seven hundred, showing a substantial increase since last April. It seems to me, therefore, that the time is opportune for me to remind Members of our wish to bring together admirers of Kipling's works, and that it is principally through the individual effort of our Members that such people can get to know of our existence and our aims. May I, therefore, ask Members to help as much as they can in this way? Not to persuade people to join, but just to let them know about the Society and its aims, and how they can become Members. Doniford, December 7, 1933. L. C. Dunsterville. 102 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. News and Notes. THE First Meeting of the Session was held on Thursday after- noon, October 26th, at the Rubens Hotel. There was a record attendance, over one hundred and twenty members and friends being present. The Chairman, Sir Walter R. Lawrence, Bart., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., C.B., in introducing the lecturer, said :—" Sir George does not need any introduction to any meeting of the Kipling Society, but as I am in the Chair I suppose I ought to say something, and I think you would like me to say how glad we are to see him back here, how very sorry we were to hear of the accident, and how much we sympathise with him in his suffering and tribulation. I take special pleasure in being present here to-day because I think I probably have known Sir George longer than most of you. I knew him many years ago, when as a young officer he was starting on his venturesome and most distinguished career. And I noticed then at once his shrewd, quick, kindly insight into Indian character. It is a gift which few possess. It is a gift that has stood him in good stead all through his life, and it is a gift in which we shall participate, I think, this after- noon. I do not know what Sir George is going to say, but I have come here rather hoping that he will tell us that the India he has so recently seen is not very different from the India which Rudyard Kipling knew and loved and made live for ever." (Applause). " The longer I live and the more I think, the more convinced am I that human nature has not changed much in the last two thousand years, and that despite political experiments and perfervid theorists human nature will remain very much as it has been in the past in India : that human nature will look up to us with that inscrutable smile on her wrinkled face." In the course of the Meeting a very excellent entertainment was given. Mr. Basil F. Statham, who has a voice of most pleasant quality, sang four songs, which were much appreciated by the audience:—"Big Steamers" (Sir Edward German), " Mother 'o Mine " (F. E. Tours), " The Love Song of Har Dyal " (Mrs. Geo. Batten) and " The Gypsy Trail " (Gallo- way) . Miss Marion Logan Wright charmed the company with her recitations, " A Song in Storm " and " Mine Sweepers." Miss Eileen Fairbank was a most efficient accompanist. Mr. A. Tresiddar Sheppard proposed, and THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 103 Lt.-Col. Breithaupt seconded, a vote of thanks to the lecturer. The thanks of the Meeting to the artists were expressed by very cordial applause, and the proceeding's closed with the the singing of God Save The King. x x x x x It is interesting to note that the Chairman, Sir Walter R. Lawrence, is the author of a book of reminiscences, " The India We Served," a fascinating account of his life in the Indian Empire for some thirty years. The book contains an intro- ductory letter to the author, signed " Rudyard," and some Kiplingana. X X X X X Another testimony to Kipling's faithful treatment of India has just come to hand, a book written by an American lady, Miss E. R. Scidmore, entitled "Winter India," published in 1903,. On arriving at Simla the author says:—It was like turning the pages of "Plain Tales from the Hills" even to read the street signs as we lumbered about that crescent ridge of the summer capital. Jakko, the Mall, the Ladies' Mile, Elysium Hill, and all the rest were there .... we said we had come to Simla as a tribute to Kipling ; that we should not have been satisfied to leave India without visiting this scene of so many of his stories. We assured the landlord (of the hotel) that we could not have appreciated nor understood India but for Kipling, nor Kipling but for India ; that we now realized our debt to Kipling and the measure of his genius." The writer of this book covered most of the country described by Kipling, and her comments are original and interesting, though she is in agreement in general with his accounts of things and places and people. X X X X X The Society has lately enrolled a distinguished member, Miss Nancy Price, the Director of "The People's National Theatre," that excellent undertaking which is doing so much to induce folk to make a cult of the theatre proper instead of being machinely crammed by films. It is indeed good news to hear that Miss Price is going to recite to us at our after-Christmas Meeting. It may be that, in spite of what ignorant or ultra- smart critics assert, there is an intellectual, as well as an Imperial, appeal in Kipling's work, 104 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. That our author's works make a permanent impression upon the educated is plainly to be seen by a glance at the Press of to-day, where there will be found many paragraphs of this kind :—"There were people then (two years ago) who thought that Britain's twilight had begun. They did not live in this country, which is seasoned both to triumph and disaster, and can ' treat those two impostors just the same '." The foregoing, from the Observer of October 8th, is but one of a multitude of similar uses ; it will be noticed that the author's name is not thought to be necessary—any ordinary reader being expected to know who wrote the words within inverted commas. Further, the latter, as can be seen in the same extract, are not always deemed essential. This would seem to be real recognition : no one stops to ask who wrote such lines as "All the world's a stage." x X X X X It has been said that the severest test of an author's merit is that he should be able to amuse adults and also hold the attention of children. The latter appears to be the rarer gift, when we count the books for children which are really in the front rank without quibble or question. In "The Reader's Index and Guide," September-October, a small magazine issued by the Croydon Public Libraries, there is a highly appreciative article on Kipling, one of a series entitled "Great Authors for Boys and Girls." Considering the limits imposed by its length, this is a very good summary of those books which make a strong call on youthful tastes. Space prohibits adequate extracts from this concise essay, but the final paragraph should be quoted in full :— "Songs of Youth" are written especially for you. The theme of his School Song is ' Let us now praise famous men,' and we may adapt this saying of Ecclesiasticus and praise Kipling himself, the famous friend of children, who is able to delight them with bright, exciting stories, in a perfect word setting." X X X X X That women can, and do, like what has been termed the sterner side of Kipling's work is shown in an article by Miss Ethel Rolt-Wheeler, "Machinery in Literature, II.—The Laureate of Machinery," in Great Thoughts for November. Here are many good sayings :—" . . . the picture that Kipling has drawn for THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 105 us : of a Machine Age indeed, but of one beautiful, mighty, romantic." The writer comments on "Romance brought up the 9.15" and "M'Andrew's Hymn," concluding with "The Ship that Found Herself." Here is her estimate of the technique— "There are some who can love without accurate knowledge . . . But Machinery is an exacting mistress : you cannot write vaguely about jack-screws and hot-boxes. Kipling has delighted in making himself master of all the intricate devices of mechanics. Indeed it is sometimes asked whether he is not too proficient for the uninstructed reader. Many are apt to ignore his machinery stories . . . Yet the machinery stories are unique. Kipling has dragged all the minutiae of figures, calculations, diagrams, construction into the realm of imagination. He has brooded over his machines until they have become animate with his genius. Then, too, he is a supreme craftsman in words . . . Walt Whitman sometimes interrupts his poetry with catalogues of unrelated raw material ; but Kipling is always Lord of tech- nicalities, and subdues them to his will." It may not be out of place here to quote a few lines from Kipling's speech to the Liverpool Shipbrokers just five years ago:—" Some of you here have—like Shakespeare or Michael Angelo—to create masterpieces on approval every few years. But if your imagination be at fault as to her lines ; if you have not imagined the best system for driving and fuelling her ; if she fails to come up to speed and consumption standards : you cannot throw her into the waste-paper basket. She is there— every foot and ton of her—a burden on her shareholders, and a museum of useful warnings to your rivals in the same game." (See K.J., No. 8). X X X X X Mr. A. E. G. Cornwell of Victoria, British Columbia, has sent us a beautiful booklet issued by the British Columbian Government setting forth the commercial and scenic charms of that province. This is a well-written and finely illustrated pamphlet, particularly to be commended to Members of the Society, for the introduction is a long extract from the chapter called " Mountains and the Pacific " in " Letters to the Family." The inclusion of Kipling's tribute to the unexploited potentialities of British Columbia is a recognition of his influence as an Empire Builder. 106 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. From Mr. W. T. Day, the European representative of the Civil & Military Gazette of Lahore (the paper in whose columns the bulk of Kipling's early work appeared), we have received two issues, each containing an article from the pen of C. Grey on Kipling origins. The first of these deals with the celebrated Strickland, who is stated to have been an ex-police officer of high rank named Christie ; though a pure European, he was born in India and had the further advantage in his native disguises of possessing " the peculiar grey blue (eyes) occasionally seen among Afghans." The second essay concerns the story called " In the Matter of a Private," and gives chapter and verse for the incidents in that tale. Those of us who only know the Army from, say, the Second Boer War to the present day, may well feel astonished to read the commencing lines:—"I do not think, that, in any peace time period of its existence, the general conduct of the British Army was worse than from 1880 to 1890." The author does not say what, in his opinion, were the reasons for this : it may have been the type of man recruited, or the manner in which he was treated, particularly by the civilian population, both at home and abroad—if he were an outcast to begin with, he was certainly made to feel that he was one after he had joined the colours. Here is seen the great work that Kipling did for the soldier ; what Dickens did to raise the lot of the inmate of the Workhouse, Kipling did for the soldiers of the period named. A glance at the general literature of those years will convince anyone that the poem, " Tommy," which appeared in 1890, correctly gives the public opinion of the soldier of that time ; in that, and other poems, besides many of his tales, Kipling roused the nation to regard the soldier as a human being, " most remarkable like you." X X X X X A most extraordinary outburst against " Recessional " by Canon Rogers, Rector of the Parish Church of St. Martin's, Birmingham, is reported in the Birmingham Post for November 13th. We are told that the Rector said:—"It is most magnificent poetry, and it would, perhaps, be a pity if it were not sung at times and in certain circumstances ; but, as you all know, there are lines in that hymn which are distinctly "sub-Christian" (?). The expression "sub-Christian" is new to us, but we presume it may be regarded as implying THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 107 that the sentiment of " Recessional " is opposed to the precepts of Christianity ; if such be the intention, why is it desirable to sing this hymn at some times but not at others? As the poem, known throughout the English-speaking world and one of the most quoted in the language, is now celebrating its thirty-sixth birthday, it seems a little late in the day to discover that it smacks of heresy. It rather suggests Matthew Hopkins and a smelling-out of witches. X X X X X On page 73 in No. 27 we gave an example of the quaint manner in which some modern writers criticise. The same journalist, in The Passing Show for October 7th, has written an article under the title of " Mr. Kipling Simply Doesn't Know," containing some abuse and much non sequitur; but, apart from this, it is not easy to find what the article attempts to set forth, except that, in the writer's opinion, Kipling is out of date and is not read. Still, it is as well to let people speak for themselves, so we submit the first lines to our readers:—"Rudyard Kipling has bequeathed to posterity 803 pages of verse. It is the work of thirty-seven years. Yes, and, strangely enough, it is a Tory history of thirty-seven years. It is all in one book. There are 520 poems. They weigh 21bs. lloz. It is a mixture of Isaiah and Mrs. 'Enry 'Awkins—prophecy on one page and slang on the next." Perhaps the writer of the above simply doesn't know. x X X X X In this issue we present an illustration of another Kipling home:—"The Naulakha," Brattleboro, Vermont, U.S.A. It will be noted that the spelling of the name of the house differs from that of the novel, the letters ' k ' and ' h ' being trans- posed. Kipling lived here from 1892 till 1896, with a few intervals—one at Tisbury, Wilts, for six months in 1894. For this view we are indebted to Rear Admiral Chandler, who, we regret to learn, is seriously ill ; we wish him a speedy and complete recovery. x x x x x It will be good news to our musical readers to hear that the very charming setting of " The Gypsy Trail," by Tod B. Galloway, which was sung at the last Meeting, is published in England by Messrs. A. Weekes and Co., Ltd., as well as in the United States. 108 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. After many rumours it is at last announced that " Kim " and " Captains Courageous " are to be made into talk-films. It is stated in several papers that " The Man Who Would Be King," " Without Benefit of Clergy," and " The Light That Failed " either have been or are about to be turned into subjects for the " screen "—silent films in these last instances, but nothing definite has been heard yet. Some of our readers may remember, that some years ago, Punch had a very droll sketch of what " Kim " would be like as a film, the title rôle being played by two ladies then very prominent in filmland. We shall see what we shall see. In November last, Mr. Kipling himself was shown on a talk- film in connection with the Canadian Authors' Association, when that Society visited England during the summer. The picture appears to have been made at the banquet, when Kipling made a speech. Mr. G. K. Chesterton suffered the same fate on the same occasion. X X X X X The following letter appeared in the Daily Mail for November 16th:—" Sir,—A correspondent gives the following names of present-day celebrities, and asks by what they will be re- membered in the years to come : Shaw, Barrie, Kipling, Dean Inge, Justice Avory, Augustus John. In my view the only name and reputation in the list that will survive is Kipling's. He is a little out of fashion at the moment, I dare say, but so great a talent will not be entirely submerged by the mass mediocrity characteristic of to-day.—Leonard Hale. X X X X X As our illustration is a view of Kipling's home in Vermont, it is pertinent to recall the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's re- marks (" Memories and Adventures ") :—" I saw Kipling most nearly in his very early days when he lived at Brattleboro, & little village in Vermont, in a chivalrous desire to keep his newly married wife in touch with her own circle. In 1894, as I have recorded, there was a good deal of tail-twisting going on in the States, and Kipling pulled a few feathers out of the Eagle's tail in retaliation, which caused many screams of protest, for the American was far more sensitive to such things than the case-hardened Briton. I say " was," for I think as a nation with an increased assurance of their own worth and THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 109 strength they are now (1924) more careless of criticism. The result at the time was to add oil to flames, and I, as a passionate believer in Anglo-American union, wrote to Kipling to remonstrate. He received my protest very good humouredly, and it led to my visit to his country home. As a matter of fact, the concern shown in America, when the poet lay at death's door a few years later, showed that the rancour was not very deep ... I had two great days in Vermont, and have a grate- ful remembrance of Mrs. Kipling's hospitality. The poet read me " M'Andrew's Hymn," which he had just done, and surprised me by his dramatic power which enabled him to sustain the Glasgow accent throughout, so that the angular Scottish greaser simply walked the room . . . My glimpses of Kipling since then have been few and far scattered, but I had the pleasure several times of meeting his old father, a most delightful and lovable person, who told a story quite as well as his famous son." X X X X X At the 25th anniversary dinner of the Poets' Club (Daily Mail, 7 December), Lord Dunsany made a brilliant speech in which he said that Kipling was in one respect like Dante, " who was the first writer in Italy to write in the vulgar tongue." With this tribute may be bracketed that of George Moore, by no means an adulatory critic, in " Avowals " (1904) :—" His language is copious, rich, sonorous. One is tempted to say that none since the Elizabethans has written so copiously. Others have written more beautifully, but no one that I can call to mind at this moment has written more copiously." Both these writers state the same thing ; that Kipling makes his appeal to the world at large, not to the merely literary section of mankind. X X X X X Most of our readers will remember that the Strand Magazine for June, 1900, contained a facsimile of a letter written by Kipling at the dictation of a soldier, who was wounded at Paardeberg, to his mother. Underneath the signature the following note appears:—" (Dictated, R.K.). The above statements are true. Tour son is coming on very well. Rudyard Kipling." The original letter was sold recently at Christie's for £11. 110 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. In the near future we hope to give some particulars about the sale figures of Kipling's current books, but we have been anticipated, in one respect, by Messrs. W. H. Smith and Sons' " Book Window," wherein it is stated that the sale of his poems, as published by Methuen, amount to 1,298,000 copies to date. This is a large figure, and it is the more surprising when we remember that it leaves out the first fifteen editions of " Departmental Ditties," including the paper sixpenny edition published by Newnes—the only cheap complete Kipling book on record in Britain. It also omits " Songs from Books," which was published in similar format by Macmillan. X X X X X In a little book of poems by Sir Henry Newbolt, called " Songs of Memory and Hope," published in 1909, the author has a verse, entitled " An Essay on Criticism," attacking Kipling for his political and patriotic views, but at the same time praising the literary merit of his work ; this attitude of mind may be commended to the young and foolish " critics " of to-day. It is a clever piece of writing, as the annexed quotation shows :— In that Day's Work be sure you gained, my friend, If not the critic's name, at least his end ; Tour song and story might have roused a slave To see life bodily and see it brave. With voice so genial and so long of reach To your Own People you the Law could preach, And even now and then without offence To Lesser Breeds expose their lack of sense. Return, return ! and let us hear again The ringing engines and the deep-sea rain, The roaring chanty of the shore-wind's verse, Too bluff to bicker and too strong to curse. Let us again with hearts serene behold The coastwise beacons that we knew of old ; So shall you guide us when the stars are veiled, And stand among the Lights that never Failed. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 111 ''Kipling's India as I saw it in '33." By Lt.-Gen. Sir G. F. MacMunn, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., D.S.O., R.A. ACCORDING to the orders of your energetic secretary that I should come and talk to you to-day, I suggested I should try to present India as I have seen it quite lately, with which Kipling has made us so familiar, and of which he has shown us the delightful side. I went out to India in January in the very proud position of Representative Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery. His Majesty, who was Colonel-in-Chief of the Regiment, sent for me, and asked me to give a special message to the Artillery, and when he heard I was going to see all the veterans at a big gathering at Umballa he asked me to convey to them what he himself would like to have said. My visit took me all over India, travelling most of the way by train. Those of you who know Indian trains will know how they dally at the stations, how one passes the time of day with every funny " old bird " on the platforms, and meets many interesting people of all sorts and kinds. I arrived in India very early in the morning. There was a pearly grey mist over Bombay Harbour, the sun coming up in the distance, making one of the most beautiful scenes in India, as the great towers, magnificent buildings, beautiful palaces and minarets came into view. Bombay is an island, and came to us as the bridal portion of King Charles II's bride Catherine Braganza. Her old Portuguese castle still stands, and I am always hoping the Army Stores will be able to give it up and its grounds may be laid out as gardens for the people. Bombay is an enormous city, and has been so for generations. My thoughts went back to when I first went there 45 years ago. I wanted to see if there was much difference. But no ! Squirrels and crows as before. True ! Now the streets of Bombay are crowded with motor cars and 'buses. The old horse tram- way with the horses in pith hats! has gone. You see beautiful Parsee ladies, and now since the purdah is broken, Hindu ladies in luxurious motor cars instead of horsed carriages. The Afghans and tribes from the frontier come down to work in the docks. They are rather a handful, but it is one way of getting them off the frontier, Arabs still bring in race ponies, 112 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. just the same as ever. Then you see those magnificent fisher women with baskets on their heads, and wonderful figure and carriage, showing everyone how to walk ; Bombay is still full of them. The Parsee merchant is still there, with his old tin hat ; many of them wear western clothes, but the mass of people still wear the old tin Parsee hat or the Mahratta pugaree. I went out with a Gandhi cap and a red shirt tucked away in my portmanteau, but was told that neither was in demand now. Mr. Gandhi had very largely been forgotten ; Bombay had gone through the agonies of strikes, and lost much thereby, and was very much more concerned in restarting trade than bothering about Mr. Gandhi. I heard one rather amusing story connected with the excite- ment of three or four years ago. Then, as you know, crowds of excited students were picketing outside European shops. Outside a big general store in Bombay were crowds of these boys, when there came along a Scotch ship's captain, with a certain amount of liquor on board, comfortable and rather happy, who made as if to go into the shop. He just said " Huh " and the crowd dispersed. Then he sat down in the door-keeper's chair and went to sleep. When he woke, the crowd had gathered again, so he said " Huh " again, and they ran away. At this, the police had a happy thought. They put two bamboos on either side of the door-keeper's chair and carried the captain around, and wherever they carried him the crowd ran. If you have seen Jack Hulbert in a police film you will enjoy this of the Bombay traffic policeman—very smartly dressed—who had got into difficulties. Something had happened, there was a frightful traffic jam, and everywhere there were trams, 'buses and cars, horns hooting, and the policeman hadn't the faintest idea what to do, as he stood up helpless on his masonry platform. So this is what he did : he just took off his belt and truncheon, his uniform and his pugaree, put them down neatly folded, and went ! He thought it was the best way of solving the problem. It's the same old India we always knew. I left the comparatively modern Bombay and went up into the beautiful Deccan—great rolling tableland of the Mahrattas, where still they tell you at night they hear ten thousand horse and their hoofs beating, of Baji Rao, the last of the Peishwar. There I struck Young India. One of our " Round-Table THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 113 Indians " was going to address 2,000 Mahratta students all about the last Round Table conference. It was great fun. Two thousand jolly students all arriving on bicycles, and they were all very pleasant and very nice. The only thing that amazed me was when the lecturer said he very much deplored the safe- guards that were being given to the Viceroy, though it didn't matter tuppence as he would have no power to use them ! One reason young educated India is so difficult to handle is because so many of them, highly educated with the western education, cannot possibly get jobs suitable to their high attainments, and it is a great problem what to do with these educated young men. Then 1 went up into the real Deccan—to Hyderabad in the biggest of the Indian States, which, though largely Hindu, is curiously enough known as mogulai, the Mogul country, because only here have the Mogul chiefs continued to rule. Directly you leave the ordinary westernised portion of any town you find the bazaars that Kipling understood so well, which go back often for miles and miles, with the sacred bull walking up and down the streets, licking all the things in the shops, nibbling at the fresh vegetables and licking the sugar ; and the crowds of beggars with their beggar bowls ; the same scene that one might have seen hundreds of years ago. All Indian people are very charitable and very pious, and it is good to give the religious beggar something, though of course it is not good to give him too much. There is a delight- fully small coin in India, the cowrie shell, of which there are about thirty-two to the farthing, and you give the beggar two or three of these. It is not very expensive and you have been charitable and religious; and off goes the man content. This still goes on in the Hindu cities. Things do not change very much off the macadam. When speaking of Bombay I forgot to mention a very charming thing that happened. Kipling often tells of the Indian servant and his faithful ways. When I arrived in Bombay, there grinning on the quay was our old Madrasi servant, looking twice as fat as usual. He came to say he was a head club butler and could only give me two days, but he had a good nephew. He had kept him in pickle for me. I had not written to him, but he knew I should want a servant, so there he was. This was part of the old India Kipling tells 114 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. us about—" the servants of your fathers and your grandfathers." When I went to Kirkee—a big Artillery Station outside Poona—and called in at the Mess, a servant came out and salaamed and called me by name, and said " Don't you re- member me? I used to be your dressing boy. Don't you remember how you used to lock me up in a portmanteau and roll me about on the lawn?" That was 44 years ago, and now his beard was white! As I travelled down the railways, up and down the platforms, I still heard, too. the cry that goes out from the windows— '" O Bhisti bring water "—" O Man of Paradise bring water." What a delightful name Bhisti is. Bhisti is ' paradise ' or rather ' heaven.' One of the nice traits in India is the wonder- ful names the country gives the humble ones. The Bhisti— the Man of Paradise. The humble sweeper is always known as "0 Prince," and another nice domestic character, the Darzie, the tailor who sits in your verandah all day, is known as Khalifa, the successor to the Prophet. It is not irony : it is kindliness really. It always attracts me, and I like to think of Gunga Din, "The limping lump of brickdust!" and see him on the railway platform. When I was in Bombay Mr. Gandhi had just issued a sort of policy with regard to the depressed classes of India, and the reaction going on was rather amusing. The very westernised Indians took it up for a short time, and it was very fashionable to give tea parties to all the dhobies in the place. I was told that in one place two sweepers had got a tonga and trotted through the town inviting all high caste Hindus to come and have a drink with them. This phase, however, soon passed. In the Madras Province of 45 million people, the reformers wanted to introduce legislation to allow the depressed classes to enter the Hindu temples. The Viceroy very wisely said " No. If it is going to be introduced at all it must be in the Central Parliament." It was introduced there and it was thrown out. It is much too big a question to hasten in. The depressed classes, as you know, are the descendants very largely of a conquered and subdued race of 2000 B.C. There is no doubt that the caste rules we hear so much of were the provision of the Aryan invaders to prevent mixed marriages. I was talking to an educated Hindu lady coining home, and in talking of the two great divisions of THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 115 Hinduism—the people who worship the deity in the form of gentle Vishnu and the people who worship the deity in the form of Siva, who deals with the harder and rougher aspects of life. She said the people who worship Vishnu have a horror of taking- life, and of flesh and of the blood sacrifice, and to admit the depressed classes, who do eat meat, into the Vishnu temples, would be unthinkable. The people who follow the Siva form, to whom the blood sacrifice is not anathema, could perhaps admit them without the same shock. It is all mixed up with deeper things that we can understand. Hinduism is really based on a conception of life known as Karma—"As a man sows so shall he reap " and in the rebirth of souls, when what you are in the next life corresponds to what you are in this life . . . etc. To be kind to the depressed and untouchable is flying in the face of Providence. That soul is working out its own destiny. Herein lies the essential doctrine of Karma, and it is difficult for the orthodox Hindu mind to accept our western ideas for the raising of depressed classes. So many of Kipling's stories deal with the faithful Gunga Din and the sweeper and those wonderful people who are outside the pale of orthodox Hinduism. If western- isation is going to uplift the depressed classes socially, it is going to upset the whole of Hinduism. It is a tiling that no one can interfere with ; certainly we cannot. When Mr. Gandhi pro- duced this programme of his he really tore the Hindu ideas of life right across. As you talk to the people on the trains you find them very cognisant of all the changes that are going on, but very anxious that Great Britain should not lose its complete grip on things. They rejoice in the various openings that are coining, but are anxious that we should stay with sufficient grip to steady the ship. In many Stations a rather charming, simple thing happened to me—the bearer would bring in a salver with some paper on it, and I found that the paper was a chit which my wife or I had given ten, fifteen, even perhaps twenty-five years ago to servants, contractors or tradesmen. They had heard I was there and sent in the chit as a sort of visiting card. Several of them gave me photographs to bring back ; they thought my wife would like to see them. I just had time to go to Mysore, one of the great Indian States. In the Indian States, especially those to the north, conditions 116 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. about ten miles from the capitals have changed little in the last thousand years, but the capitals themselves I was surprised to find ablaze with electric light—far more than in British India. Not only do they like a blaze of light, but all down the bazaar streets you hear horrible loud speakers and noisy gramophones. What I think I noticed more than anything was the appearance of the tin lizzie, the cheap American omnibus. There would be half a dozen waiting at the station to take people out to the villages. There were no roads, and the buses would be driven till they broke down and lay like a dead camel on the ground, having been driven and made a profit, never oiled, rarely cleaned and rarely repaired. Delhi was as full of interest as ever, and the old Mogul city unaltered. New Delhi is an appalling place really, in the bigness of it. The old fashioned merchants in the old Delhi are still the same, but the young people are different. Everybody drives in cars ; the Indians run garages and there are cars for sale everywhere. At Delhi itself you meet a great many Indians of all kinds at dinner, society, games, etc. What was so very new to me was to meet the Indian ladies out of purdah, very charming and beautiful, at dinner parties and dances. The high caste people are very fair, and there they are, dressed in semi- western clothes, very pretty to look at, very nice to meet. The new palace of the Viceroy is the most wonderful you ever saw. There is the great Hall of Audience hung with the colours of many regiments and many trophies, and there are the enormous Government offices on the high raised plinth, laid out with a vista right over the countryside. As you look out from New Delhi you look down a great vista like a glorified Mall, but much bigger, and in the distance some magnificent ruin or cluster of domes. The trouble is it is only occupied about six months in the year, as Delhi has the worst summer weather in India. In winter the hill Stations like Simla are pretty well deserted. I went up to Simla, and there happened to be very little snow. The real Kipling Simla is still there ; and once again I went out to The Mashobra tunnel where Lord Kitchener had his leg- broken. He was riding through a narrow tunnel when some muleteers ran into him and knocked him over, and his leg was broken by the Mashobra mule, but the more he called for assistance, the faster they ran away. Above Simla I went to see Elizabeth's House, "The Bower," the house that was built some THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 117 80 years ago for a hill girl, she of whom Kipling writes in his story, "Lispeth of the Mission." It was at Simla I heard the story of an old Indian woman who died there and left a will in which she expressed the wish that her money, which was to be found under the floor of her room, be divided between Johnnie Baba and Willie Baba. Then it was discovered that the withered old lady who had been living there had apparently years ago been a hill girl from the Mission and had married an officer of the Gurkha Regiment then stationed at the place. She had two children, Willie and Johnnie, but they had been spirited away from her, the father taking them home. With great care the Cantonment Committee succeeded in tracing the boys, and found Willie captain of a sailing ship off the coast of Florida, and Johnnie sheep farming in America. They got their mother's little legacy, probably never having heard of her before, and she had never heard of them since the day they were spirited away from Her. But times at last are changing in Simla. There are a great many Indians in the administration, and the old trading firms and shops are going. Mr. Pelliti is still there—the name remains. Many of the old European shops are closing, there is not enough trade for them. But the monkeys still " pouch your breakfast roll," cars rush up the hill roads by Jakkho and Taradevi; the " clinking Tonga bell " is heard no more. Being a soldier and having spent many years on the Frontier, back there I went, and 1 did a great deal of frontier travelling. I was very interested to see modern ways mixed up with old. There were buses running through the Khyber Pass. At one place I saw buses full of school children from 400 miles away, and was rather sorry that not enough trouble was taken to show them around and tell them what the Frontier really means. On the Frontier is the same soldier that Kipling writes about, but better, because of all the trouble that has been taken with his education. When I said to the men "You are not only as good as you used to be, but better, but," I also said, " You jolly well ought to be, after the trouble we've taken over you." I could not help thinking that the men were very suitably dressed, in the hot weather wearing shorts like girls, and puttees and open necked shirts, not at all like the British Army of years ago in their red coats and white belts and shakos. Motor roads are being run up these frontier valleys every- where, and this has made a great difference to a lot of the tribes- 118 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. men. They use old Fords, things tied up with string, that only a native chauffeur can work. In these you probably see ten tribesmen coming down ; they cannot sit with two knives, rifles and bandoliers, ten in a car, so only one man brings a rifle, just to show what sort of a cove he is. That is having a very civi- lising effect, men are learning that they can go about the frontier as they like without their rifles. Oh, yes, civilisation is coming. Wives whose noses have been cut off for larking, get them re-grown in the Mission hospital ! I heard a story of some tribesmen who objected to the British building a certain road—they did not want the bridge that had been put over their river and would blow it up. But their women said they were tired of aeroplanes and bombing, and ten of them went on to the bridge and lived there for days, cooking their food, and staying there so that the bridge should not be blown up. Another change on the frontier has been brought about by the wireless. In the old days if the troops had communication at all it was by telegraph lines, and the great fun in tribal life was to cut the wire and lay an ambush for the repairing party. Now with wireless they cannot do that. Reinforcements, too, can be sent in lorries along the new motor roads, instead of having to be marched out in a hurry. On the other hand, when it comes to actual fighting the tribes are remarkably well armed; where there used to be one rifle there are now a dozen ; all the derelict rifles of Europe are there." Sir George referred to the Kipling stories of the Anglo-Indian, who is now a pathetic problem and needing all our help, and said, "I always like that Kipling story of the British soldier who was captured by the Boers ; suddenly he heard one of his captors talking in English with the staccato accent of the half- caste. His spirit stirred at the sound, and he socked the sentry and got away. I should like to draw attention to a very remark- able phenomenon which is connected with this problem of what we call the Anglo-Indian. In Lahore there were 100 English women married to Indian gentlemen, in Hyderabad 50. There are a very large number of mixed marriages going on. not between European men and Indian women, but between Indian men and women of this country. I tried to find out whether these are successful, and was told, in certain cases, yes, but to a great extent, no. It is a point that is worthy of grave consideration here since many girls here of some education marry these attractive Indian students and go out to India. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 119 There is an illuminating book called " Marriage to India," about an American Swiss girl who meets a very nice young Indian at a University in America. They went out to India, where he hoped to make his way. She had a dreadful time, and after five years could stand it no longer. If an English girl marries an Indian who is going to live in Western style and in a Western residence of some kind, and he is a good fellow, life may be quite satisfactory. There are quite enough of them to make their own society if the mem-sahib frown on them. But it needs a Kipling to tell the real tragedies that some of their lives must be. These are a few impressions and stories I thought might interest people here, especially those who knew India in the old days." DISCUSSION. In expressing the thanks of the meeting to Sir George, the Chairman, Sir Walter Lawrence, said he was specially interested in the lecture because he had been resident in India at the same time as Sir George and apparently there had not been much change—policemen in Bombay act as they have always acted and will always act. The lecturer had made some very significant remarks about caste. People did not realise that without caste the Hindu is nought, and if anything is done to destroy caste all administration becomes impossible. Referring to the effect on India which it is claimed some recent changes will have, such as the Indian ladies coming out of purdah, and the introduction of motor buses, etc., the Chairman said he remembered the coming of the railways to India, and the Afghan who said "This is impossible ; it is magic. To show you I will put my arm into the railway." He did, and his arm was cut off. Sir Walter had seen the railways come and had seen no change in the people, and he was not sure that the buses were going to make much more change in the character of the people than the railways had done. The railways were a far greater change than any of the later inventions. Yet India remained the same as ever. Lieut.-Col. R. V. K. Applin said how pleased he had been to hear Sir George talk of the Bhisti and the Paradise Man, and he recalled the time when he was a captain in the South African War, and Sir George, who was then a major, had acted as "Paradise Man" to his men. It was after a scrap, and the men were dying of thirst, their tongues clinging to the roofs of their mouths ; Sir George shared with them the last bucket of water of his two guns which he then commanded. 120 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. " Such as in Ships and Brittle Barks." By Rear Admiral L. H. Chandler, U.S.A. (Ret.). WITH one of his " Brazilian Sketches," published in the London Morning Post, on December 16, 1927, and, in the United States in a magazine entitled " Liberty," for the week ending February 18, 1928, Mr. Kipling published, as a " heading," three verses of eight lines each, beginning: " Such as in Ships and brittle Barks Into the Seas descend." " Brittle Barks " is rather an odd expression and arouses some natural curiosity. Now it so happens that a quite accidental and casual glance at a copy of " Westward Ho !", by Charles Kingsley, revealed the following, in Chapter XXVII. : " Here Yeo broke in— 'Aren't you ashamed, John Squire, to your years, singing- such carnal vanities, after all the providences you have seen ? Let the songs of Zion be in your mouth, man, if you needs must keep a caterwauling all day like that.' " ' You sing 'em yourself then, gunner.' " ' Well,' says Yeo, ' and why not?' And out he pulled his psalm-book, and began a scrap of the grand old psalm— " ' Such as in ships and brittle barks Into the seas descend, Their merchandise through fearful floods To compass and to end ; There men are forced to behold The Lord's works what they be ; And in the dreadful deep the same, Most marvellous they see.' " Here was a lead to the " Brittle Barks," and a search was made among a considerable number of versifications of the psalms found in old Bibles and other places, by the present writer and his friends, but for some time there were no results attained. None of them contained that particular expression. Finally, however, the old versification was found, through the kindness and research of Dr. Frederick W. Ashley, Chief Assistant Librarian of the Library of Congress, in Washington, THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 121 D.C., and his most courteous assistants. Dr. Ashley says, in a letter dated March 21, 1930: " I send herewith a photostat positive of page 64 of the 1576 edition of Sternhold and Hopkins' ' Whole Booke of Psalmes,' calling your attention to the 23rd stanza (Psalm 107). This is not the earliest edition, but it is the earliest dated edition we have. " Also goes with it a page from the edition of 1712, showing the progress of orthography in 136 years. ' We have numerous intervening editions, and one un- dated and quite positively earlier edition than any mentioned above. " Thomas Sternhold died in 1549. This 107th Psalm in the edition of 1576 bears the initials ' W.K.,' that is, of William Kethe, one of the ' others ' mentioned on the title page. He contributed 25 of the 150 psalms in this ' Old Version,' as it was long called. " So now you have the text of an issue contemporary with the action of ' Westward Ho !' As to its being the issue that Salvation Yeo ' pulled out ' (of his pocket?) I am dubious. We have, apparently, no issues that I would care to carry in my pocket." Upon seeing a copy of the above letter, a friend, Mr. E. H. Crussell, of Sacramento, California, wrote : " I have just received your note anent the 107th psalm. I wonder what you will think of me when I tell you that I have a copy of Sternhold and Hopkins' Whole booke of psalmes collected into Englifh meeter, dated 1640. It has the 107th psalm initialed ' W.K.' The psalms are bound up with the New Testament in Latin, and Yeo could easily have carried this edition in his pocket, as the two together only make a book measuring 3fin. by 5|in. by fin. thick. But Yeo would need to have better eyesight than mine to read easily from its pages." Dr. Ashley's comment, upon receiving a copy of Mr. Crussell's letter, was : " Since the receipt of your recent letter, we have found two editions of the Sternhold and Hopkins' psalm book, one of vest-pocket size (1675, measuring 6in. by 3lin.). and the other of rather large pocket size (1640, measuring 71/8in. by 5½in.), 122 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. " The former couldn't have been carried by Kingsley's Salvation Yeo, I suppose, since it was published after the action of ' Westward Ho !' was ' all over.' And the same is probably true of the latter. But we must not insist on such minute fidelity to details in ' stage properties ' if the text is true to the psalmody of the age." The first book mentioned in Dr. Ashley's first letter, of which a photostat of the appropriate page was made, was " The Whole Booke of Psalmes, collected into englishe meter by Thomas Stern. John Hopkins and others, conferred with the Hebrue, with apt Notes to sing them with all . . . Imprinted at London by John Day. Cum gratia and priuilegio Regiae Maiestatis per Decennium. Anno 1576." The 23rd verse of the 107th Psalm there appeared as follows :— " Such as in fhyppes or britle barkes, into the feas defcend : Their marchaundife through fearefull flouds to compaffe and to end. Thofe men are forced to behold the Lordes workes what they be : And in the daungerous deepe the fame moft marueilous they fee." This same verse, in the edition of 1712, reads : " Such as in fhips, and brittle barks into the feas defcend, Their merchandize thro' fearful floods to comparfs and to end ; Thefe men are forced to behold the Lord's works what they be : And in the dreadful deep the fame moft marvellous they fee." It will be noted that the Kipling verses follow the form of the versification of the Psalms, as given in these old psalters, and that the whole Kipling poem is an adaptation of the old line of thought to present day conditions. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 123 The Kipling Birthday Book. By Several Contributors. THOSE members who possess "The Kipling Birthday Book" compiled by Joseph Finn, and published by Macmillan in London and New York in 1896, will have, no doubt, noticed that many of the quotations therein are from " Un- collected Matter." It is now possible to trace these quotations to their source. January 3rd. Prologue for Theatrical Performance in Snow- don, Simla, in aid of Summer Homes for Nursing Sisters. Pioneer, August 1, 1887. January 17th " Letters of Marque, IV.," in " Out of India." An unauthorised American publication. This particular sentence deleted from authorized editions. February 1st " Reflections of a Savage " (" City of Dread- ful Night "). Sentence in " Out of India," but deleted from authorized editions. February 2nd " Council of the Gods " (" City of Dreadful Night." " From Sea to Sea." Vol.II.). February 16th " Vulcan's Forge " (" Among the Railway Folk." "From Sea to Sea." Vol. IL). February 29th "Letters of Marque," VII. ("From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). March 2nd " Letters of Marque," I. (" From Sea to Sea." Vol. 1.). March 6th " Concerning Lucia " (" City of Dreadful Night." "From Sea to Sea." Vol. IL). March 15th " Concerning Lucia." March 23rd " Concerning Lucia." March 28th " Vulcan's Forge." April 22nd " Vulcan's Forge." April 28th " On the Surface " (Giridih Coal-Fields. " From Sea to Sea." Vol. IL). May 7th " Vulcan's Forge." May 12th " City of Dreadful Night " (" From Sea to Sea." Chapter vi. Vol. IL). May 15th " Our Lady of Rest " (" Early Verse. Edition de Luxe), 124 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. May 21st "Letters of Marque," I. ("Prom Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). May 29th " Letters of Marque," VIII ("¦ From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). May 29th Heading to "Beyond the Pale" ("Plain Tales from the Hills."). June 6th " Vulcan's Forge." June 14th " Letters of Marque," III. (" From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). June 19th " Letters of Marque," I. (" From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). June 24th "Letters of Marque," VII. ("From Sea to Sea." Vol.1.). July 2nd " Vulcan's Forge." July 7th " Council of the Gods." July 14th " Perils of the Pits " (Giridih Coal-Fields. "From Sea to Sea." Vol. IL). July 18th " Reflections of a Savage " (" City of Dread- ful Night." " From Sea to Sea." Vol. II.). August 4th "Letters of Marque," II. ("From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). August 29th Prologue for Theatrical Performance in Snow- don, Simla, in aid of Summer Homes for Nursing Sisters. Pioneer, August 1, 1887. September 30th Title should read—" Giffen's Debt." October 4th "To the Address of W.W.H." (An Un- collected poem which appeared in the Pioneer, June 1, 1888). October 16th " Vulcan's Forge." October 23rd "Letters of Marque," IX. ("From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). October 31st " L'Envoi " to " Life's Handicap." November 2nd " Hot Weather Counsels " by Il Vecchio.* (Uncollected from " Civil and Military Gazette," May 17, 1888). November 13th "Wee Willie Winkie." As Preface to: (in certain early authorized editions). November 18th " Letters of Marque," V. (" From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). November 24th " Letters of Marque," IL (" From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 125 December 2nd " On the Surface " (" From Sea to Sea." Vol. IL). December 8th "Letters of Marque," VII. ("From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). December 17th " Letters of Marque," VII. (" From Sea to Sea." Vol. I.). December 19th " Vulcan's Forge." December 24th " Song of the Engines." Heading to " The Ship That Found Herself." (Not in magazine version, nor " Inclusive Verse." In " The Day's Work " and " Poems, 1929."). The fact that the book was authorized by Kipling gives proof that he wrote certain items about which there has been some doubt. *" Il Vecchio." Under this pen-name in the Civil and Military Gazette during 1888 and 1889 appeared not only " Hot Weather Counsels," but also three short sketches entitled respectively " Drawing Room Draperies," " Notes on Sign- boards " and " Experimental Agony." All four were reprinted in " Turnovers " from the Civil and Military Gazette as follows :— " Turnovers," Vol. II. (April to June, 1888), " Hot Weather Counsels." " Turnovers," Vol. V. (January to March, 1889), " Drawing Room Draperies." " Turnovers," Vol. V. (January to March, 1889), " Notes on Signboards." " Turnovers," Vol. IX. (January to March, 1890), " Experi- mental Agony." E.W.M. 126 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Reviews and New Books. Rudyard Kipling's Inclusive Verse, 1885-1932 (Hodder & Stoughton, 25/-. Also in India paper. In leather, 35/-). WHATEVER we English may do in other directions, there is one art in which we excel : the making of books. Mr. Kipling has always been fortunate in the manner in which his works have been produced by the publishing houses ; a striking proof of this excellence of format lies before us now in " Inclusive Verse, 1885-1932." The preceding " Inclusive " volumes of verse are attractive and handy books, and were deservedly popular, the 1918 issue running to eighteen, and the 192(5 to eleven, impressions. The new book brings Kipling's verse to date a little beyond 1932, for it includes " The Fox Meditates," a poem which appeared in the Strand Magazine for February, 1933 ; as announced in our last number, there are sixty-two new poems. The colour of the cover has been changed from blue to an effective shade of Indian red, which suits the wide-mesh linen binding most admirably. Another new feature is the beautifully produced portrait frontispiece, a splendid reproduction of a photograph by G. L. Manuel Frères of Paris, perhaps one of the happiest likenesses that Mr. Kipling has ever had. The paper is of pleasing quality and, though perfectly opaque, is sufficiently thin to keep the volume a handy size. Turning to the book itself we note that the excellent plan of giving the additional poems a contents table to themselves is retained ; all the additions are also included in the general contents, and there is an index to first lines at the end. The new items are arranged in groups : Verses from " Limits and Renewals;" Brazilian Verses; Miscellaneous Verse; and The Muse among the Motors." We are glad to renew acquaintance with such pieces as " Supplication of the Black Aberdeen," " His Apologies," and " Hymn of the Triumphant Airman." It is good to see those two short poems of great charm, " The Glories " (from " A Choice of Songs ") and " Very Many People " (from " Sea and Sussex ") brought out into the light of day ; in spite of their merit ; few readers seem to be familiar with them. And we ought to be grateful for the inclusion of the Kipling contribution to " The Legion Book :" in these days of idle talk the final four lines of " The English Way " are most inspiring:— THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 127 Greater the deed, greater the need Lightly to laugh it away, Shall be the mark of the English breed Until the Judgment Day ! In lighter vein we rejoice in the real humour and subtle cleverness of " The Muse among the Motors." A group of fourteen poems under this title appeared in the Daily Mail in 1905 ; they were collected and added to in Volume XXV. of the Bombay Edition, and made a further appearance in the three Volume Edition of Kipling's Verse published at £15 15s. 0d. They now number twenty-six, and may be considered as the cleverest group of parodies in the English language, the more so as the author has chosen unusual models. The Chaucerian excerpt is very faithful:— With them there rode a lustie Engineere Wel skilled to handel everich waie her geere, Hee was soe wise ne man colde showe him naught And out of Paris was hys learnynge brought. So, too, is that from Tusser :— Ere stopping or turning, to put foorth a hande Is a charm that thy daies may be long in the land. Though seventy-times-seven thee Fortune befriend, O'ertaking at corners is Death in the end. Among others, Herrick, Donne, Milton, Prior and Words- worth yield their tribute; " The Idiot Boy " in the manner of the last-named is very droll :— He wandered down the mountain grade Beyond the speed assigned— A youth whom Justice often stayed And generally fined. A piece of the Tennyson verse runs :— To see the England Shakespeare saw (Oh, Earth, 'tis long since Shallow died! Yet by yon farrowed sow may hide Some blue deep minion of the Law)— To range from Ashby-de-la-Zouch By Lyonesse to Locksley Hall, Or haply, nearer home, appal Thy father's sister's staid barouche. 128 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Both the Brownings' verses are good, especially " Lady Geraldine's Hardship " (E. B. Browning) :— I turned—Heaven knows we women turn too much To broken reeds, mistaken so for pine That shame forbids confession—a handle I turned (The wrong one said the agent afterwards) And so flung clean across your English street Through the shrill-tinkling glass of the shop-front— paused, Artemis mazed 'mid gauds to catch a man, And piteous baby-caps and christening-gowns, The worse for being worn on the radiator. Turning from the more serious note of " The Dying Chauffeur," we are made to rock with laughter over " The Ballad of the Cars " :— Then up and spake the Babe Austin— Had barely room for two— " 'Tis time and place that make the sin, And not the deed they do." " For when a man drives with his dear, I ha' seen it come to pass That an arm too close or a lip too near Has killed both lad and lass." X X X X X Then spake a Morris from Oxenford ('Was kin to a Cowley Friar) :— " How shall we judge the ways of the Lord That are but steel and fire?" " There is never a lane in all England Where a mellow man can go, But he must look on either hand And back and front also." But the chef d'oeuvre of the collection is " The Marrèd Drives of Windsor, '' with a Preface by Samuel Johnson ; never before have we had Shakespeare so gloriously transposed. We are introduced in Act I. to Falstaff as a motorist in glorious, rollicking farce ! We hope, for their sakes, that the new-clever read Shakespeare ; if so, even they may be made less morbid. The ordinary human reader will be charmed with this handsomely bound and beautifully produced book. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 129 While an author is living, any " inclusive " edition of his works may be described, in the words of a well-known advertise- ment, as "always complete but never finished." Two new Kipling pieces have just appeared, both in the Morning Post :— "The Pleasure Cruise (with apologies to Lucian)," on November 11th, and "Bonfires on the Ice" on November 13th. The former, as its title indicates, is a dialogue in the manner of the Greek sophist and depicts the return to this world of a party of soldiers who died in the War; they speak bitterly of a "Philosopher- fellow here, who smiles upon us, took no hand in the War except to talk comfortingly to the enemy out of side-doors and from back-gates." Eventually, Hermes conducts them back to Charon, much disillusioned by their trip. The second piece, which is a poem of 32 lines, is a very suitable sequel to the first, as will be seen from the following quotation of the third stanza :— We know that Ones and Ones make Twos (Till Demos votes 'em Three or Nought) We know the Fenrys Wolf is loose, We know what Fight has not been fought. We know the Father to the Thought Which argues Babe and Cockatrice Would play together, were they taught, We know that Bonfire on the Ice. From Dr. Wagner's "Asgard and the Gods" we learn that "the universal destruction which was to come at the end of days was typified in the all-devourer, the Fenris-Wolf, who was to devour the Father of the world himself." Both these new works are warnings, like "The Islanders" and "The City of Brass" ; we can only hope that they will not fall on deaf ears. Kipling Prices Current. A BATCH of fourteen letters from Kipling to the late Sir Walter Besant was sold at Hodgson's rooms on November 1st. Most of these realised about £4 each, but two brought £7 15s. and £7 10s. respectively. One contained a pen-and-ink drawing of a suggested coat-of-arms for Sir Walter on his knighthood ; this went for £9 10s. Another, with a drawing of a " double-faced " publisher, signed in full, and written from Villiers Street, Strand, November 20 (1889), realised £15 10s. 130 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. A very interesting and scarce item was catalogued by the Frank Hollings Bookshop in their November list. This was the first edition of " Letters to the Family," Toronto, 1908, in paper covers and with introductory poems to each of the letters. These poems were omitted when this work was published in " Letters of Travel " in 1920. There were two editions of this little book, but only one thousand copies of each issue were printed, so it is quite natural that it should be rare—paper bindings do not lend themselves to permanency. The second edition appeared in 1910. Letter Bag A friend of mine recently asked me whether Kipling had any particular person in mind when writing " The Vampire," and pointed out that be mentions a number of times, almost in every verse, " she was a woman who did not know " or " she did not understand," etc. Had Kipling any particular woman in mind when he wrote, had he seen the effect of such person on the life of some man he knew, or was he simply generalizing? It is quite probable that the latter was the case.—-B. H. Cooper, Captain, New Jersey, U.S.A. I want to know the date of our man's poem, " Pagett M.P.," and if possible who the fellow was R.K. had in mind. He must be dead long ago, so there should be no objection to a direct enquiry.—George Milne, Lonmay, Aberdeenshire. Re " Jane's Marriage " in No. 27. In the verse under 9th December (G.E.M.'s contribution) the sixth line should read " who walked up by her side "—not waltzed.—(Miss) Ethel Hicks, Looe, Cornwall. " The Vampire " was written to describe a picture by Philip Burne-Jones, exhibited in the New Gallery in 1897. " Pagett M.P." appeared in the Pioneer, June 16, 1886, and later on in the same newspaper in September 11 and 12, 1890, was printed "The Enlightenments of Pagett, M.P.," which was collected in Vol, IV., " In Black and White," Edition-de-Luxe. E.W.M. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 131 The Ode of Horace beginning " Tu ne quæsieris . . . ," to which Dean Lewis refers in his letter on page 94 of the September number of the Kipling Journal, is, as no doubt most of your readers know, Ode XI., Book I. Of the many trans- lations of this ode one of the best is that of Charles Stuart Calverley. In the hope that it may prove of interest I quote it : Seek not, for thou shalt not find it, what my end, what thine shall be : Ask not of Chaldea's science what God wills, Leuconoë : Better far, what comes, to bear it. Haply many a wintry blast Waits thee still ; and this, it may be, Jove ordains to be thy last, Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sandstone-reef. Be thou wise ; fill up the wine-cup ; shortening, since the time is brief, Hopes that reach into the future. While T speak, hath stolen away Jealous Time. Mistrust To-morrow, catch the blossom of To-day. James D. McLachlan. Secretary's Announcements. (1) Meetings. Session 1933-34. The remainder are :— 3rd 14th February, 1934 (Wednesday), Hotel Rubens, 4.30 p.m. Lecturer: Rev. H. P. Kennedy Skipton, F.S.A., F.R.Hist.Soc. Subject: "Kipling as a Patriot." The singer will be Mr. Dale Smith (B.B.C. Baritone). 4th 18th April, 1934 (Wednesday), Rembrandt Rooms, 8.30 p.m. Lecturer: M. André Maurois, C.B.E., M.C. Subject: " E.K. and his works from a French point of view. " In the chair : Lady Cunynghame. M. Maurois will speak in French, with a short address in English at the beginning, and end, of his Lecture. 5th (Special), 19th June, 1934 (Tuesday), Rembrandt Rooms, 8.30 p.m. (Evening before the Annual Conference and Luncheon). Note : All the above are subject to confirmation by card. Guests are very welcome, as usual. (2) Annual Conference and Luncheon. 20th June, 1934 (Wednesday), Rembrandt Rooms 132 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. (3) Notice. The International Fellowship of Literature have kindly invited any Kipling Society Members to attend their Lectures at Livingstone Hall, The Broadway, Westminster, at 8.15 p.m. on Thursdays. January 4th: Charles Williams. February 1st : Marjorie Bowen. March 1st : Audrey Hodgson. April 5th: B. E. Punshon. It is hoped that some of you will go, as we are reciprocating, and hope to be of mutual assistance to one another. For further details apply to me. (4) U.S.A. Members who pay their Renewal Subscriptions through Mr. Carl T. Naumburg, are notified that, in future, they will not receive a sterling receipt from me, the local receipt being all that is necessary. C. Bailey, Colonel, Secretary. ROLL OF NEW MEMBERS TO DECEMBER, 1933. Nos. 1218 to 1241. 1218t+ Maj.-Gen. F. E. Coningham Bath 1219+| General A. G. Little Portsmouth 1220+ L. E. Halliday Liphook 1221 Miss Nancy Price London 1222 Miss Ethel Chapman London 1223+ Colonel C. H. Rowcroft Camberley 1224 Rev. Bernard Ford Ifield 1225 Mrs. Blanche E. Hutchinson London 1226 John C. M. Sargon BOMBAY 1227t George Milne LONMAY 1228Î Maj.-Gen. J. C. Rimington London 1229+ Colonel H. A. Hill Liphook 1230 Mrs. J. B. Williamson N. Shields 1231 Mrs. Bucklehurst Phillips JERSEY 1232 Lady Beynon London 1233 W, A. B. Pailthorpe London 1234 J. B. A. Parish London 1235t Mrs. J. A. Batley London 1236 Dr. J. Kenneth Clark MELBOURNE 1237 D. P. Besley Southampton 1238 Madras University Library INDIA 1239+ Lt.-Col. H. St. J. Cruickshank SOUTH AFRICA 1240 F. G. C Pullinger Woking 1241t H. E. Barlow N. NIGERIA Correction : Journal No. 26.—1170 B. St. L. Ten-Broeke, should be as now given. t" Life " Members. +O.U.S.C, (and Staff).