"The Little House at Arrah." From Bengal: Past and Present.—Vol. V., 1910. The Kipling Journal. The Organ of the Kipling Society. QUARTERLY No. 32 DECEMBER, 1934 Contents. News and Notes .. .. .. 101 Kipling : a Poem...... 126 Kipling's Use of the Old Letter Bag......., 130 Testament 110 ... Our Bookplate...... 131 "The Little House at Arrah" 119 Message from the President 131 Kipling is not a Jingo ..121 Secretary s Announcements 132. Reviews and New Books .. 124 News and Notes OUR chief illustration in this issue is a view of "The little House at Arrah," taken from a plate in that excellent and valuable work, "Bengal : Past and Present," Vol. V., April-June 1910. The original sketch was made by Major V. Eyre and dedicated by him to the heroic garrison. On another page there is a reproduction of the new bookplate. x x x x x The First Meeting of the Session was held on the afternoon of October 11th at the Hotel Rubens, about 100 members and friends being present. Introducing the lecturer, the Chairman, Mr. G. C. Beresford, said :—" Sir George MacMunn does not need any intro- duction. He is a strong but not a silent man; in fact, one might say, a strong and loquacious man. His lecture is on ' Kipling's Use of the Old Testament.' I have heard of people using the Testament to prop up tables; we shall now hear what Kipling used it for." After the Dis- cussion a vote of thanks to the Lecturer was proposed by Sir George Godfrey :—" I certainly find it a very easy thing to ask you to join me in thanking Sir George MacMunn for his interesting talk, because I am sure you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I am going to buy a Bible in order to study the references just pointed out to us. We have heard that Kipling had a marvellous sense of rhythm and that he always made full use of his extraordinary memory. I am sure that if we continue to 102 THE KIPLING JOURNAL have such interesting lectures, the Society will keep up a large member- ship." During the proceedings Miss Nancy Price gave a most impressive re- citation of " Mother o' Mine " (by special request), following this with " Recessional." There was a call for an encore, so Miss Price read " The Bell Buoy," making the action of the poem a living thing to her hearers. Mr. Edwin Spencer, an old favourite at our Meetings, gave fine renderings of the undermentioned settings :—" Pity Poor Fighting Men " (Martin Shaw), " Rolling down to Rio " (Edward German), ''Boots" (J. P. McCall) and "Submarines" (Edward Elgar). Mr. Spencer was m fine voice and aroused great enthusiasm ; his accom- paniments were excellently played by Miss Dorothy Atlee. Capt. E. D. Preston proposed and Mr. John Sanderson seconded a cordial vote of thanks to the entertainers. X X X X X In a review of " Happy Dispatches " by A. B. Paterson the Melbourne Weekly Tines (Sept. 1st) quotes this paragraph :—"Kipling was remark- able in that his life was so very unremarkable. He hated publicity as his Satanic Majesty is supposed to hate holy water ; and in private life he was just a hard-working, commonsense, level-headed man, without any redeeming vices that I could discover. . . . Though he was a very rich man, I found him living in an unpretentious house at Rottingdean. The only thing that marked it as the lair of a literary lion was the crowd of tourists who hung about from daylight to dark trying to look over the wall. . . . By having his car brought into the garden, and getting into it from his own doorstep, Kipling was able to dash out through the ranks of autograph hunters, even as a tiger dashes out when surrounded by savages." x x x x x It is good to hear of another successful setting of a Kipling poem. The Saturday Review (Dec. 1st) informs us of this :—" To most people the name of Roger Quilter is associated with charming, rather delicate songs, settings of Elizabethan and Restoration verse in frankly melodious vein. When I picked up his Non Nobis Domine I could hardly believe my eyes ; here was a robust Quilter, a patriotic Quilter I had never suspected. The poem is Kipling's—an event in itself, for Kipling is not over-fond of submitting his verse to the tender mercy of composers, however eloquent and loyal. Of this, Mr. Quilter has made a setting for male chorus in two parts, with an accompaniment conveniently THE KIPLING JOURNAL 103 available for orchestra, piano or organ ; while another arrangement is for mixed voices with strings or full orchestra." X X X X X The last words in " The Little House at Arrah " seem peculiarly apposite to-day ; we hear that a conference in London has passed a reso- lution to establish a committee to examine all school text books, in case they be of a militaristic, patriotic, or capitalistic tendency. The Bolton Evening News tell us that " A previous similar protest was against the History of England by Kipling and Fletcher—because it included Kipling's poems. It was regarded by the objectors as 'too much in- clined to wave the Union Jack.' That protest failed." It would appear that there are still disciples of that Little England statesman who was dubbed " the friend of every country but his own." X X X X X Members will cordially welcome Mr. Robert W. Bingham, the American Ambassador, as a Vice-President and Life Member of the Society. Mr. Bingham's ancestors come from Dorset, and it is inter- esting to learn from the County paper that Kipling once had an idea of living at Weymouth, but negotiations for acquiring a house at Rodwell broke down. x x x x x There will also be a cordial welcome to our first Honorary Member, Konsul Alfred Holm Laursen of Copenhagen, whose poem to Kipling appeared in Journal No. 3. Konsul Laursen has kindly sent a volume of his poems for our Library inscribed " to the Kipling Society from a very grateful fellow-admirer of the greatest of Empire-Poets." He has also sent a poem called " The Black Tyrone," of which the refrain runs :— And the hell of a yell will arise when they tell The Army the wonderful news, But the canteen will fear for the beer, when they hear That the Black Tyrone is turned loose. x x x x x Mrs. H. M. Stanley Turner, a member of the Society and daughter of the late Capt. Bayly, very kindly brought the interesting relic des- cribed in the following note to show to the Meeting last October :—¦ " At the time he wrote the " Fleet in Being," Rudyard Kipling was the guest of the late Captain E. H. Bayly, C.B., R.N., on board H.M.S Pelorus. This shield was presented to the ship by Rudyard Kipling 104 THE KIPLING JOURNAL to remain in the ship as long as there was an officer on board who had been there whilst he was there, after which it went to the Bayly family." x x x x x In describing the discussions regarding the Bronze Memorial to Rhodes, Mr. Herbert Baker, in his book, " Cecil Rhodes ; by his Archi- tect," writes :—" Of his own vision of the man he (Kipling) sent me these lines : As tho' again—yea, even once again, We should rewelcome to our Stewardship The Rider with the loose flung bridle-rein And chance plucked twig for whip. The down-turned hat brim and the eyes beneath Alert, devouring—and the imperious hand Ordaining matters swiftly to bequeath Perfect the work he planned. Kipling also composed for us this inscription which was cut deep in great letters in the gigantic wall of the temple:—'To the Spirit and life work of Cecil John Rhodes who loved and served South Africa ' ; and these verses for the pedestal, which carries the bronze head :— The immense and brooding Spirit still Shall quicken and control. Living he was the land, and dead, His soul shall be her soul ! His hope was, he told me when he sent these words ' that those who go up to the Memorial shall come down from the Mountain with perhaps more strength and belief.' " Charing Cross Road recently supplied us with a most fascinating essay (source unknown) in English by the late M. Louis Fabulet, the doyen of Kipling's French translators. In this article M. Fabulet shows that he is not merely the mechanical interpreter, great though he is in that, but a critic of parts ; his words might be taken to heart by those " lesser breeds without the Law " (particularly the Law of anything to do with English Literature) : " Certain English critics have treated as a reactionary this admirer of the soldier, of war, of property rights of human energy. They have pretended that his influence would serve, only to retard the march of the world. For me his work could never be THE KIPLING JOURNAL 105 reactionary nor could it retard the march of the world—a work which approximates so closely the cinematograph and diffuses so widely an acquaintance with mankind, which brings together so many conflicting circumstances, so many types, so many diverse nations ! But it all has the hall-mark of good sense. Ah, I know well what the ' intellectuals ' carp at ! It is because Mr. Kipling lends himself neither to paradox nor to utopianism ; it is because he carries no stock of sweetmeats into the prisons ; it is because he finds that man was created for action and struggle rather than for enjoyment and laziness." That Kipling's work makes an appeal to every profession and occupa- tion, as Admiral Chandler says, may be seen from this excerpt from an article entitled " Great Things in England," in Cycling, Sept. 28th— " First, there is the Wall. That seems to me so entirely unique a thing that one's knowledge of the country can hardly be complete until one has seen it ; and, further, it is such an extraordinarily romantic thing. For information about that, I really do not think you can do better than read the apposite chapters of ' Puck of Pook's Hill.' They will make the Wall live for you, and the sight of it an ambition." Yet our young folk with picture-palace minds tell us that Kipling's day is over ; we can only feel for them a great pity that their own day has not yet begun. They might be reminded that, as one of Cinderella's sisters said to the other, " it's better to be one of the ' has-beens ' than one of the ' never-wases.' " Lt. Col. Walter A. Young sends this cutting from the Green Howards' Gazette, Oct. last :—" In the little church at Sledmere, North Yorkshire, is a tiny room built up in the roof. ... In this miniature study, which is hung with beautiful tapestry, there is a wooden table and four plain wooden chairs grouped round it. On the table is to be found the Holy Bible, a copy of Kipling's ' If,' a copy of Thomas a Kempis ' ' Imitation of Christ,'and a poem written by a villager . . . dedicated to the simple waggoners on Sir Mark Sykes' estate who laid down their lives in the Great War." The late baronet had expressed a wish that this should be done, specifying the works to be kept on the table, and the room was furnished as a memorial to him. The New-Clever often sneer at Kipling as a Jeremiah, forgetting 106 THE KIPLING JOURNAL that this is a compliment to the truth of his prophecies. Since our last issue, no less than four press-cuttings have come to hand on this very point. The chief is a letter in The Scotsman (Oct. 20th):—" Kipling's warnings and prophecies in his poem, ' The Islanders,' written in 1903 came true in 1914." The writer then mentions "The Mother Hive" and " The Head of the District," both of which seem remarkably appropriate to-day. Secondly, the Daily Courier of Halifax (Oct. 18th) : " Mr. Rudyard Kipling made some remarkably accurate forecasts of aerial developments in his story, ' With the Night Mail,' published nearly thirty years ago, and he may recognise the partial fulfilment of yet another of his ideas in the experiments with a 42-seater Red Cross plane for conveying patients from outlying districts to central hospitals in cases of urgency." Thirdly in Kipling's sequence is the Morning Post (Oct. 4th): ". , . the delegate who talks too long. At Edinburgh. . . when a delegate abused her span, she was suffused, transfigured and flooded by beams of ' flaming red light ' . . . By coincidence, the news from Paris yesterday shows that the preventive resources of light are being studied in the capital of France as well as in Scotland. A light pistol which emits ' blinding rays has been invented ; it was tried at a country fête, where the dancers suddenly getting 150,000 candle-power be- tween the eyes, either fell to the ground or started screaming." Note the parallel to the situation in " As easy as A.B.C," a story published in 1912. " Finally and lastly " we have the Spectator (Nov. 23rd.) in an article, " The English Character," quoting the poem that follows this story. Here Mr. Charles Morgan writes :—" They (the English) have no objection to being ruled. . . . But authority must not pretend to infallibility ; they will be ruled and they will be preached at, for they know how not to listen ; but they will not be bullied and preached at by the same man at the same time. Not to perceive this was the error of Germany and of the commanders of the General Strike : Holy State or Holy King— Or Holy People's Will— Have no truck with the senseless thing, Order the guns and kill ! Or run the omnibuses and trams. Mr. Kipling's remedy may be a little drastic for domestic purposes, but his general truth is being continually confirmed : But Holy State (we have lived to learn) Endeth in Holy War." THE KIPLING JOURNAL 107 Here we have four opinions from varying sources and places. All, however, pay tribute to Kipling as a prophet, not merely on the mechan- ical side, great though he is there, but in the more important matter ; how man will react to these various improvements be they mechanical or moral. Some writers try to show us what the world will be like in the near or distant future, omitting man, by or for whom all these things are done ; Kipling, having the larger vision, tries to show us how man will react to the aforesaid " improvements." X X X X X Kipling collectors will be interested to hear of a small but important item for their libraries. This is the pamphlet issued by the India Defence League, of which Mr. Kipling is a Vice-President, and for which he has written the following message :—" It is not easy to give a notion of the complexity of India to people unacquainted with the administrative fabric of even British India. But this pamphlet over- comes the difficulty with success, and is, to my mind, a temperate ex- position of some of the graver perils inherent in the proposed scheme for the political reconstruction of the sub-continent." The pamphlet is published by Messrs. Lucas and Co. (printers of our Journal) and may be obtained from them at 3d. a single copy (4d. post free), a reduction being made for quantities. X X X X X Commenting on the new book, reviewed on another page, the Inverness Courier says :—" Few autumn books in any publisher's list are so well worth reading as Mr. Kipling's. His book are on booksellers' shelves all the year. . . . I remember, too, the cheap and nasty nicknames given to Mr. Kipling. Rudyard Chickling was one, and Kidling was a second. It was about the same time that Ibsen's plays were dubbed by some literary conservative Ibscene. But Ibsen is alive . . . and most of Mr. Kipling's critics have long been whistled down the wind." X X X X X Kipling items figured prominently at two exhibitions recently held in London. Messrs. J. and E. Bumpus of Oxford Street had a mag- nificent display at their beautiful premises ; here the ordinary publish- ers' exhibits were supplemented by a number of books, etc., from our Society Library and also from the private collection of Mr. W. A. Young our former Hon. Editor. Mr. Maitland has been busy, trying to satisfy the many visitors who demanded information on out-of-the-way sub- 108 THE KIPLING JOURNAL jects ; he must have enlightened a great many of those who are apt to judge Kipling from some half-dozen tales or poems. The other ex- hibition was at Grosvenor House, Park Lane ; here the chief book of note was " The Jungle Book," which has appeared in many editions, including a small paper-bound book in Slovak and the luxurious French edition illustrated by Paul Jouve. X X X X X In " Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate " by Capt. C. A. W. Monckton we have yet another testimony to Kipling's accuracy of observation ; this comment, " Exasperating people they were, one never knew what they would do next ; Kipling's definition of a native as 'half devil and half child,' is a very true one." x x x x x Those who possess the first edition, English or Colonial (but not the American or Canadian), of " The Five Nations " should treasure this as being the exception that proves the rule, for herein is Kipling's one slip in matters Biblical. A correspondent, in a Liverpool paper, says that, to settle his doubts about David and not Saul finding the kingdom, he referred to " The Explorer ;" afterwards, looking up Samuel, he found that it was Saul who " went to look for donkeys." This error was corrected by the author in all subsequent editions. X X X X X It is evident that the work and philosophy of our author continues to attract the general public at divers times and at divers places. We have received six long reports on Kipling lectures delivered during the autumn at Eastleigh, Hants; Barnstaple, Devon; Halton, Lancashire; Oxenhope, Yorkshire ; Keswick, Cumberland ; and Bedford. From the accounts it appears that the lecturers were really critical and, rarer still in these days, knew their subject. We again commend this piece of news to our New-Clever, particularly the young gentleman who thinks that Kipling wrote the words of " Land of Hope and Glory." XX X X From our local Hon. Secretary in the U.S.A., Mr. Carl T. Naumburg, we have received two interesting press-cuttings. One is a long and rather discursive article in the World-Telegram of New York, in which the writer say that Kipling has no ideas, no vision ; and that he is mori- bund. Among the remarks we find this paragraph :—" If you open the literary and political reviews you won't find his name once in a THE KIPLING JOURNAL 109 thousand issues. Maybe he is dead, at that. But if you go into a book- store around Christmas time you'll find the customers calling for the " Jungle Book " by Rudyard Kipling. And his Garden City publishers say his last collected poems have sold 110,000 copies." Most living authors would be very glad to be as dead as this ! By the way of contrast, here is a reply from the New York Saturday Review of Literature :— " Would to God there were more of us just so moribund. Has Mr. Hansen seen that extraordinary collection of Kipling's speeches (A Book of Words. 1928) which certainly shows a mind ranging in full power over the problems of our world. ' Brother, thy tail hangs down behind.' " X X X X X The societies founded in honour of Shakespeare, Dickens and Brown- ing are well known, but there is also one dedicated to George Eliot. Our Secretary received a most courteous invitation from the George Eliot Fellowship that our Society should be represented at the Annual Dinner of the former. This, unfortunately, was impossible ; so the following message was sent:—"The Kipling Society, which was found- ed in order to do honour to, and to study the works of, a great British writer, wish to present their homage to a Fellowship that, in like manner, honours so great a portrayer of character, and human nature and its tragedies and joys, as George Eliot." The Fellowship was founded in 1930 and its headquarters are most suitably at Nuneaton in Warwick- shire. X X X X X Lady MacMunn, wife of our Hon. Treasurer and Chairman of Council, passed away on November 26th. We offer our sincere sympathy to Sir George on his bereavement. X X X X X Our member, Mr. Peter D. Vroom of Chicago, has presented the Library with a little book of poems by Margaret, Kate and Edward McPhelim. Apart from its general merit, this book has a special interest for us, as it contains a poem entitled " Kipling " which will be found reproduced in full in this issue. This particular item is from the pen of Kate McPhelim (Mrs. Cleary) ; it is reproduced by permission of her son, Mr. J. M. Cleary, who says, in a letter to Mr. Vroom :—" About 30 years ago Kipling was very ill. To have something available in the event of his sudden death the Chicago Tribune asked my mother to 110 THE KIPLING JOURNAL write some verses, she being one of his most ardent admirers. They were never published, except in the enclosed booklet." X X X X X A correspondent sends us the Winnipeg Free Press for November 14th, which has a note called " Kipling remembers Medicine Hat :" this refers back to an article he wrote in 1910, " Kipling's Ad- vice to ' The Hat. " We get here one of those rapid but accurate psychological judgments that are worth many portly volumes ; here is the extract. " The Mail and Empire, Toronto, publishes a letter received by one of its subscribers from Rudyard Kipling in which Mr. Kipling discusses a question put to him as to whether courage is more often found in men of humble origin than in men of high estate. ... Of the first he says, ' As to your question about courage and character, the biggest man in every way I ever knew, never said or hinted in any way under any conditions whether he was hot or cold or full or empty or sick or sorry. That's character, and I think it gives the highest form of courage. But the very rarest, the courage that takes responsibility seems to need antecedent training on top of natural gift ... If you can send me any news about how Medicine Hat came through the drought—anything I mean from the local paper—I'd be grateful. I always loved that cheery little town" "Kipling's Use of the Old Testament" By Lt.-Gen. Sir G. F. MacMunn, k.c.b., k.c.s.i., d.s.o. WHEN Colonel Bailey paid me the compliment of asking me to give the first lecture and talk of this session, I thought perhaps I should interest you if I tried to talk about Rudyard Kipling's use of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact I propose to talk to you about his use of both Testaments, because as you study his work you can clearly see from constant references, that he was well read in both, and as he grows older works very definitely in both milieus. You will find that Kipling's use of the Old Testament divides up into many definite and different classes. All his readers realise that he has been an ardent reader of the best literature of all times, for as you study his works you find how deep was his knowledge of the great books of the world and it is a commonplace to say that the Old Testament is, merely as literature, perhaps the best in the world. It has often been said that no writer can write beautiful English THE KIPLING JOURNAL 111 unless he is familiar with the Old Testament, and has been accustomed as a boy or young man to read the Lessons aloud at school or elsewhere, for thus his mind instinctively acquires its rhythm. The Old Testament was of course, translated in the very best period of the English language. The Translators were past masters in Latinity and the cursus of Cicero and they greatly understood cadence of language which is the reason why the Old Testament is of such help to the ordinary writer. I would advise young writers who aim at writing beautiful English, to make a study of the Old Testament. There are one or two passages which I will read to you, to illustrate what I mean by the cadence. One I think, must be familiar to all of you, especially those of you who belong to Masonic Lodges, I mean the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, that allegory of old age. This one from the II Esdras will not be so familiar ; ' Before the fair flowers were seen, or ever the immovable powers were established— Before the innumerable multitude of angles were gathered together—' ' Or ever the heights of air were lifted up. Before the measure of the firmament were named, or ever the chimneys in Zion were hot, .... and then on to the existence of God before Time was. II Esdras. vi. 1—6. Here is that from Ecclesiastes : ' Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth While the evil day comes not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt never have pleasure in them '—so to its beautiful end, and again; ' Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken— or the pitcher be broken at the fountain or the wheel be broken at the cistern.' The Old Testament stories of Noah, Daniel, Delilah and the tragedy of Uriah, and many others which have always been household words find their counterparts in everyday life. And it is their plots you will find Kipling uses. Even the Old Testament howlers delight us. You remember perhaps that made by the small girl at the Sunday School, when asked by the teacher who Salome was—" Please Miss, she is the young lady who took off her clothes and danced in front of Harrods !" Also there is that made by a boy when asked who Elisha was, replied—" Oh, Sir, he was a holy man, but "—a serious but—" he went for a cruise with a widow !" 112 THE KIPLING JOURNAL The Old Testament is intensely modern and if you wish to scold young women of to-day why not borrow from Isaiah—who scolds the women of Israel for " their stretched forth necks and their mincing gait, the whimples and the crisping pins and the changeable apparel." We have been told that the story of Ruth, is the finest short story which has ever been written in any language. No wonder Kipling finds suggestions in the Book of Books ! Now if you study his use thereof, you will find that it divides itself into the definite headings to which I have referred. Such as titles of modern stories, the use of Biblical phrases, the use of plots and stories, invective, allusions and style. They show how the same human stories run through life as it was and is now. You remember the story of the School Tie, where the Army con- tractor is referred to as the ' unjust ' caterer. Occasionally Kipling takes the plot of the Old Testament for a modern story, but perhaps he is best when he comes to invective. The Old Testament is good at invective. He is not however, the only poet who has so used it. Perhaps you remember Adam Lindsay Gordon, girding at the Unco guid. " Do they the gloriamus swell or the quart fremuerunt ? And then imagine them and David singing Psalms " and Uriah singing the chorus—neither they nor the proudest of Judah's King, as a model can stand before us." Kipling makes many allusions to the New Testament in his later stories. The Church at Antioch, is an illustration of the way in which Kipling can even write the continual troubles of the Epistles and Acts. As examples of nomenclature, like many others, Kipling uses the dramatic story of Uriah, which began " Jack Barrett went to Quetta." Then again, Kipling takes Delilah, as his title to his song of Delilah Aberystwith, the vamp. The " Prodigal Son " is another instance. The return of the unsatisfactory son of modern times as Kipling expresses it in his verses. ' Here I come to my own again, Fed, forgiven and known again. * * * * I would not wish to be rude to you, But Brother you are a hound.' Other examples are Naboth, A Servant when He reignetk, Boanerges' Blitzen, Angles Court and many more. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 113 We come next to the phrases Kipling used from the Testaments, as in the title verses, for examples in " The Army of a Dream " and " The Stranger within the Gate." Perhaps you remember in " Private Copper " the Testament phrase—' The sun rose and the rivers ran in their course.' Also in " Brugglesmith " this phrase ' a good name is a savoury bakemeat.' Then we come to plots and stories. The poem entitled " The Peace of Dives," was one in which Kipling's vision was for once somewhat at fault. Before the War most Statesmen and financiers said there could not be a war between civilised nations or it could not last for three months for financial reasons, so interwoven were the economics of nations. I will allude to its Bible metaphor later. Other examples of his telling an actual Scripture story in his own manner are seen in " Jubal and Tubal Cain," " Jews of Shushan," and " The Legend of Mirth." Then there is Naaman's Song,"—' Go wash thyself in Jordan, Go wash thee and be clean.' I have spoken of his use of invective from the Old Testament. You remember when one of our great politicians, who now sits in the seat of the Duke of Wellington, was the subject of serious accusation and Kipling wrote in " Gehazi "— " Whence comest thou Gehazi So reverend to behold, In scarlet and in ermine And chains of England's gold " " Stand up, Stand up, Gehazi, Draw close thy robe and go, Gehazi, Judge in Israel, A leper white as snow." Once again there is the bitter theme in " Cleared " about the Irish Leaders who were concerned in the Phoenix Park Murders. We had the same when Sir Henry Wilson, the murdered Field Marshal, was asked by Lloyd George, after the War, to meet five Irish and five British politicians. And Sir Henry's reply is said to have been :— " I do not want to hear five murderers talk with five cowards." Let me quote from the poem " Cleared " :— " They only took the Judas gold from . . . out of jail, " The charge is old ? As old as Cain—as fresh as yesterday. Old as the Ten Commandments—have ye talked those laws away ? We are not ruled by murderers but only by their friends." 114 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Here are some of the simple allusions Kipling used from the Testament. Listen to this, from " The Thousandth Man "— ' One man in a thousand Solomon says Will stick more close than a brother.' You will find that Kipling is rather great on Archangels, especially in his later writings, for instance in Azrael— " When a lover hies abroad, Azrael smiling, sheathes his sword" In the story " At the end of the Passage," he tells how three white men living in the terrible heat of the Lower Indus dine together once a week. Each one lives alone, twenty miles from each other. One evening to relieve the tension of Hamil, who is at breaking strain, one of the men, Mottram by name, strums out the latest music-hall songs on the wheezy piano. Spurlow whispers to Mottram " Well done, David," and the other replies " Look after Saul." Nevertheless poor Hamil destroys himself when they are gone. There are plenty of allusions in that rather attractive ballad " A Truthful Song." A young man building flats at the Marble Arch is asked " who might you be, young man." " The young man kindly answered them, It might be Lot or Methusaleth Or it might be Moses (a man I hate) Whereas it is Pharoah surnamed the Great." For, of course, there is nothing new in the world or in the building trade. Then they go down to the Chatham Docks and there ask an old man the same question to which he replies :— " The old man kindly answered them It might be Japhet, it might be Shem Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark), Whereas it is Noah commanding the Ark." In the Rabbi's Song the reference is shown in II Samuel xiv. 14. This is how it runs :— " For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again ; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him." Kipling sings it in almost the same words :— " Our lives or tears as water are spilled upon he ground, God giveth no man quarter— THE KIPLING JOURNAL 115 Yet God a means hath found A means whereby his banished Are not expelled from him." Which is as you see almost the text of II Samuel. I referred to " The Peace of Dives " earlier this evening. Do you remember the theme, the intermingling of trade and business making all war impossible ? As told in the Old Testament style. Here it is :— " Hast Thou seen the pride of Moab ? For the sword's about his path, His bond is to Philistia, in half of all he hath And he dare not draw the sword Till Gaza give the word As he gets release from Askalon and Gath."— We have of course, many references to Eden. For instance, " When first by Eden Trees, The four great rivers ran."— which is from " The Song of the Fifth River." And now we come to " The Return of Imray "— All the contempt that the Devil left when Adam was evicted from Eden."— and we come to the phrase— " a leper white as snow "— lastly, in " One Viceroy resigns "— " You're young—you're young— and you hold by a hundred Shibboleths." Here is another reference to Adam and Eve. I have already mentioned a few, this is another taken from " The Four Angels "— " As Adam lay adreaming beneath the apple tree." Now we come to the New Testament subjects. Do you remember " Cold Iron ?"— " Here is bread, and here is wine—sit and sup with me, Eat and drink in Mary's name, the while I do recall How iron cold iron, can be master of us all." * * * * " See these hands pierced with nails, outside my city wall, Show iron, cold iron to be master of men all." 116 THE KIPLING JOURNAL And then we have the Carol— " Our Lord who did the ox command To kneel to Judah's Lord." I have spoken just now of the change of use, to a certain extent, and from the use of the Old Testament plots and names to those of the New. You will have read " The Church at Antioch" I think it comes in the latest collection—" Limits and Renewals." It is the story of an Old Roman Police Officer, at Antioch and his nephew comes out to him and is a Police Officer under him. We have the Early Church and the great discussion as to whether Christianity were meant for the Jews only or for the Gentiles as well. Paulus and Petrus are there and the sheet full of unclean animals is mentioned. Kipling also shows how the trouble of the food at the Love Feast of the Christians is mixed up with the economic side, and what the butchers want. The police boy is killed by a tribesman and that is the end of it. The dying Police boy quotes Mithras " Lord of the Morning " as he, like most young Romans, belongs to that cult. He quotes "They don't know what they are doing." And Petrus is much struck. Kipling shows us the actual picture in words, whereby you actually see burning dis- cussion amongst the early Christians as a living question. He is also beginning to be mystical in his use. Then you have that remarkable story of the Phoenician skipper at Marseille, where one tells of Paulus at Melita. Incidentally, you will remember how Paulus' ship dropped anchor by the stern. When the Revised Version of the Bible was being complied, the translators asked someone at the Admiralty whether there was not some mistake in the original, as surely it was not usual to ' Drop anchor by the stern,' The Admiralty replied that in the Levant it is quite customary to do so, even nowadays ; indeed I often saw it so with Greek boats in the Dar- danelles. You will usually find that the Bible is extraordinarily accurate in details of this kind. May I digress for a moment, with reference to this accuracy, and relate to you this remarkable parallel noticed in Mesopotamia during the Great War. It was my duty to complete some of the trans- actions that Col. Bailey had negotiated. Land had been bought to build a hospital, and the trees were being felled in preparation for the erection of this building, when the workmen were interrupted by an Arab, who told them they had no right to cut down the trees, as we had not bought them, but only the land ! It is a fact that in certain THE KIPLING JOURNAL 117 countries in the East, if you buy land, you only possess the land, and not the trees on it, for if you want the trees as well, you must go to the trouble of buying them separately. Now turn to Genesis and you will find in the book of Genesis that Abraham in buying the field of Machpelah bought " not only the land thereof, but the trees thereon as well." He had in fact both a " Miri Sanad " and a " Tapu Sanad " as well, in modern landed jargon. Then another instance is that in one of " Captivity " Psalms : " Turn our captivity, Oh Lord, as the rivers in the south." And you say " What the devil does this mean ?" It means that the exiled Jews from the non-tidal Mediterranean on the lower Euph- rates and Tigris saw merchandise go down stream in boats without labour, and come back, twice in twenty-four hours, on the tide, for at least 150 miles. As a proof of the extreme humanness of the Old Testament stories, you know that story in Tobit, of the merchant's son, who had been going rather large in Babylon and his father arranged that he should go on a tour to Northern Persia with a friend of his. After describing his farewells and leave-taking to his father, the account ends up with the words :—" And the young man's dog went with him." Again I say, is it to be wondered that Kipling uses such a source, times on end ? I have remarked before, Kipling is very partial to Archangels, and in the " Legend of Mirth " you will find them again. Let me quote therefrom :— " The Four Archangels, so the legend doth tell, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael." The syllable " el " as in Gabriel, in Raphael, Michael and Azrael, means of course, God. Thus the name Raphael means "The Healing of God," Azrael " The Light of God," Gabriel " The Man of God," and Michael " Like unto God." It is the same "el " as in Beth-el. Here from the " The Hour of the Angels "— " Sooner or later Ithuriel's hour will spring on us for the first time, The test of our soul unbacked competence and Power." It was said too :— "Ithuriel's magic spear that makes everyone see himself as he really is." Ithuriel is the fifth Archangel and means, I think, " The Spear of God." And now to finish up my talk to you this evening, I will tell you one more story of the Garden of Eden. During the War, Jurna, at the 118 THE KIPLING JOURNAL junction of Tigris and Euphrates, had just been captured, in a very hot mosquito-y time of year. An officer said to his sergeant :— " Sergeant, they say this is where the Garden of Eden was." " Well Sir," replied the Sergeant, " all I've got to say is that it's no wonder the twelve apostles deserted." DISCUSSION Mr. Beresford, then said: "The talk is now open to discussion. I am sure you are all ready to show your Bible knowledge. But I am not sure that Kipling was a Bible man himself. I do not think at school he got much benefit from it. It never took him by the hand and led him the way he should go, but Kipling is one of those people who develop in all sorts of ways after they leave school. And now I'll tell you the whole truth of the matter. He is the grandson of a manse, he is in fact a grandson of a manse on both sides and it is bound to come out of course—this manse trouble ! It is bound to come out sooner or later. Kipling never spent Sundays in school, so we never knew how he spent them. He was certainly never a Bible banger at school, he possessed a few Bibles of course but never spent much time at them. However, he used to admire the Padre when he read about Sisera in chapel. Yes, he definitely liked that. When Old Price the Headmaster, read about the golden bowl being broken Kipling really liked that as he appreciated the beauty of the phrasing. But all the rest of his Biblical knowledge Kipling must have acquired after he left school and people who really know the Bible can easily see that Kipling thoroughly knows both Testaments. Mr. Bazley. "I must say Sir George has certainly surprised and gratified me at the extraordinary depth of knowledge he has shown in his talk this evening on Kipling's use of the Old Testament and its applicability to modern times. We have just heard the Lecturer give us several illustrations of this. I am very glad he did so as it rather points out Kipling's extraordinary accuracy in even the smallest things, but I cannot say that he knew the Old Testament better than Shakespeare for as we all know the latter's knowledge of the Bible was as perfect as possible. I think that two of Kipling's most impressive things are those two stories of the angels that we get in " Debits and Credits " and " Limits and Renewals." Then there is that perfectly lovely picture of the fussy Archangel depicting the weaknesses of our race ; the remarks THE KIPLING JOURNAL 119 made by the other Archangels are perfectly delightful, and yet in keeping. You will sometimes find phrases in Kipling's works quoted word for word from the Bible. Kipling does not deny using them. After all, modern young writers do not write anything entirely original for how can they when nothing in the world is new ? Mr. Beresford then said:—"I think one of the chief reasons why Kipling uses the Bible is simply because his own inherent instinct for rhythm happens to agree with the rhythm of the Bible. " The Little House at Arrah." IN the suppressed " The City of Dreadful Night and Other Sketches " (1890) appeared a sketch with the above title, which was reprinted from The Pioneer of February 24, 1888. Arrah, as every schoolboy knows, was the scene of one of the most heroic fights against tremendous odds in the Indian Mutiny, when a handful of Englishmen and Sikhs were besieged in the " little house at Arrah " and successfully withstood the attacks of three regiments of Sepoy infantry, supported by the leading landowner Koer Singh and his retainers, till they were relieved by Sir Vincent Eyre from Buxar. We must hear what the author of the sketch on The Pioneer has to tell us :— " Let us go out and visit the ' little house at Arrah ' reverently and with our hats in our hands. . . . The Station bungalows are old-fashioned, very solidly built, and rejoice in compounds of striking size. . . . About half a mile from the railway station lies the Collector's bungalow. . . . The house is raised on arches several feet above ground level, and in its height and bulk is imposing to look at. Thirty-one years ago come July next, that ' very hushiar Sahib, Boyle Sahib," Executive Engineer of the East Indian Railway, came from his bungalow ... to speak to the Collector Sahib—one Hereward Wake, not altogether unknown to fame—and tell him that something had better be done to the billiard- room in the compound, Now this billiard-room stands exactly thirty- seven short paces from the porch of the Collector's house. Like its big neighbour, it is built on brick arches which make a spacious cell- arage, contains two rooms, has a verandah on three sides, and is now tastefully painted yellow with green jilmills and green verandah railings. At a liberal estimate it may be twenty paces square. One staircase only takes into the 'house'. ... A very pleasant place 'to put a man up in ' for a few days is the ' little house at Arrah '. . . . But as a place of defence—a refuge of strong men fighting for their lives—the 120 THE KIPLING JOURNAL notion is too absurd ! From the porch of the Collector's bungalow a few men could smash up the tenement wherein the Judge of Arrah lives to-day. ... ' The bungalow ' (here speaks the Judge's servant) ' is to-day, and has been for many years, cleaned and painted and mended. You shall find no trace of the great fight left. This was the arrangement of things. All the arches of the verandah that you see had been closed by Boyle Sahib : quite closed except for the loopholes for the guns. Come round the house and look.' Yes, if the place were closed up, as the Judge's servant said, there might be some hope. ' But how about the arches on which the place stood ?' ' Those were closed up altogether. There was no loophole there. Come and see.' The cellarage on the side facing the rose-garden was given up to the dhobi and an assembl- age of hangers-on. The low dark rooms were blackened with the smoke of many years, and the floor was made of soft earth. ' These arches were altogether shut by brickwork, and here the Sikhs lived '. . . A narrow back stairway, just wide enough for one man, connected the basement with the upper storey. ' Down these steps the Sahibs came to eat their dinner, because upstairs there was always the firing. And here, in this room beyond, is the place where a well was dug when they had drunk all the water that they had taken into the house with them. I do not know anything about the enclosure where Wake Sahib's horses were shot by the sepoys in order that the smell might make the Sahibs ill. There was a wall near here—much nearer than the wall by the rose-garden—but that has been taken away many years . . ." It must have stood within fifteen yards of the ' house.' A cheerful place this cellarage must have been in July when the men of Arrah had filled a basement room or two with the damp earth of the well, and the big Sikhs squattered and blundered in the mire. It was not difficult in the half light and smoke-blackness of the dhobi's tenement, to imagine Hereward Wake, Boyle, Colvin and the others coming down the narrow staircase, their shoulders sore with much firing, while the Sikhs stood ready to go up and take their turn at the ' judicious arrangement of loopholes ' on the upper floor. ... ' Come up into the house now,' said the Judge's servant : ' it is all clean and whitewashed.' In truth it was all he said and the Judge was living in it. Under the arches a man could, in some feeble measure, enter into the spirit of the place, put himself back into the troublous past and think things that are unsuited, if the voice of Empire speaks truth to the spirit of the Times. But in the Judge's room the illusion vanished. The 'little house at Arrah ' might have been any civilian's quarters THE KIPLING JOURNAL 121 anywhere in India. And yet not wholly so. ... The French would have covered the building in a glass case, keeping intact each scar of musket and artillery fire. The Americans would have run a ring fence round it and exhibited it at 5 cents per head—a pensioned veteran in charge. We, because we are English, prefer to sweep it up and keep it clean and use it as an ordinary house in the civil lines, for the benefit of Her Majesty's servants ; just as if nothing worth the mentioning has ever taken place in that unattractive compound. . . . We certainly are a nation of Goths and Philistines. But if we had been over-refined, Boyle and his men who stood by him might have tried to escape from the Shahabad District and been dolorously knocked on the head some- where about the flats of the Ganges, and then the 'little house at Arrah ' would never have existed ; and no one would have given way to that sinful and exploded sentiment called Pride of Race. Which would have been undesirable." It only remains to add that for their gallantry Hereward Wake was made a C.B. and Vicars Boyle, the " Vauban of the Siege," four years later received a C.S.I. The latter lived to become the Chief Engineer to the Japanese Government, and died in 1908 at the age of 86. E.W.M. (Mr Alfred E. Caddick, one of our members in New Zealand, has kindly sent us the following interesting article written by his brother. It is here reprinted in full by kind permission of The Press, Christchurch, N.Z.). Contentions. XLII.—That Rudyard Kipling is not a Jingo. (Specially written for the Press by Charles I Caddick). SINCE pen was first put to paper or parchment there have been at at times a few writers whom we shall style " anti-humbugs." We can name at random Rabelais, Shakespeare, Voltaire, and in our own time Anatole France, Mark Twain, and that master-craftsman, Rudyard Kipling. Bernard Shaw began well, but failed to maintain a rigid standard, himself indulging in a popular cant, anti-British or anti- English. In fact he set up his own image of John Bull and still whacks it with Quilp-like pleasure. The great anti-humbugs have their imitators. A few of these are clever ; most are merely shrewd or crafty —popular writers. They set up their little chemist shops or large drug emporiums, and sell the people their patent medicines, the " isms," the " ists," and the " isations ;" and profits accrue. Why not ? The 122 THE KIPLING JOURNAL people can be fooled all the time, so long as the humbug potion is sweet to the taste. In youth at least, it is a rare thing not to be caught in and swept along by the reform rapids. It is our greatest weakness to believe in a future, if we talk enough and write volumes about it. Rarely does a young mind see the cold and brutal facts of life. But such a mind had Rudyard Kipling. He was a seer in youth, and had the added ability to put his vision into words. One must, carefully and without haste, read his verse and prose. There we shall find exposed all the little humbugs and cants of " the babblers, dreamers, and visionaries." These little people who are going to part the world carefully into perfect sections among all colours, races, and, above all things, creeds, do not like to be handed a fool's cap. One little tale, " Reingelder and the German Flag." will suffice to illustrate. A German naturalist is searching in South America for a deadly poisonous snake, coloured or striped like the German flag. He be- lieves it to be harmless, and carries with him a book by one Yates, to prove it. He handles the reptile carelessly, is bitten, and dies. Although Yates was a " great authority," he had, as Reingelder real- ises too late, "lied in print." You may swallow Marx or some other theory, and, as foolish people do, blindly endeavour to put it to the proof. On the Continent you will probably die a sudden and violent death. In the British colonies, and in old England, especially in old England, such a one is tolerated and kindly protected from violence. Yet these little people would willingly dismember the Empire, or the whole universe, if they could, as a sacrifice to their own small fetish. You must not hint to them that the inexorable laws of life were born and. definitely shaped centuries ago ; that, life being what it is, you cannot alter it ; that their own destinies were shaped long ago. The little people are of two kinds, humbugs and simpletons. The simpletons are the great bother. Discarding the Ten Commandments, they will form the world anew. They mean well, but the real world may go hang while they plod steadily towards a mirage. In that masterpiece '' Kim, '' Kipling pictures such a one in the person of Old Lama. A simple, kindly, lovable old man, the Lama wanders over India, seeking " a river of healing." Unconsciously and blindly, he lives an isolated and selfish life, and depends upon others for sustenance and protection. He meets an old Sikh soldier, of whom he asks : "What profit to kill men ?" The answer is ; "Very little, as I know, but if evil men were not now and then slain, it would be a very poor world for weaponless dream- ers." A just and proper answer. We know the policeman on the cor- THE KIPLING JOURNAL 123 ner is fighting our battles ; but we do not admit it, and affect to despise him. It is one of Kipling's sins that he has shown these people that they are very small grains in the sands of time ; that it is not they who do the world's work. That work is done by men who are generally ob- scure, who do not have time to talk or write, and who often die of over- work, not of too much babbling. But that is not Kipling's greatest sin. Over many lifetimes British soldiers, sailors, and civilians have blindly, bravely, and with great pati- ence swept the Seven Seas, found new countries, opened them up and made them safe and comfortable for all races and creeds, Over many centuries, England herself has been a haven of refuge for the oppressed of Europe. There can be no denial ; and the present wild days are proving it. Many of these people have been grateful, and have become sound and useful citizens. Some have not been so content, but have not been permitted to make a Bedlam of the Mother Country, as their kind has done to some extent in America. In a just and righteous anger, Kip- ling has pointed out the blind folly and ingratitude of such. Above all, he has drawn with great skill—and a little gall—pictures of little people of our own blood, who raised their own childish image of John Bull " to plaster anew with dirt." His greatest offence was committed during the Boer War and pos- sibly just afterwards. He had the courage to suggest that the Boers were not oppressed or ill-treated ; that they, on the other hand, a bit- ter-tempered and jealous people, were at least very unfair to British colonists ; that the ambition of Kruger and the jealousy and mischief- making of other nations were serious contributing factors. He showed, too, with great clearness, the murderous selfishness of English-speak- ing people who joined the Boers for the sake of gain. He stung them in verse and tale, and in a nutshell gave fair and just appreciation of the enemy proper. In " Piet " for instance— I do not love my Country's foes Nor call 'em angels ; still, What is the use of 'ating those 'Oom you are paid to kill ? So barrin' all that foreign lot Which only joined for spite, Myself, I'd just as soon as not Respect the man I fight. Again in " General Joubert "— 124 THE KIPLING JOURNAL With those that bred, with those that loosed the strife He had no part whose hands were clear of gain ; But, subtle, strong and stubborn, gave his life To a lost cause, and knew the gift was vain. So the little people raged furiously, and at various times called him names—Jingo, flagwagger. That he loathed flag-flapping is shown in that fine anti-humbug story, " Stalky and Co." Briefly, Kipling made his points in the old-fashioned way of tales in prose and rhyme. In them you find the good and the bad, the simple and the cheat. It is the su- preme art of the story-teller. Even now his vision is proven. The Empire held, and still holds, a strong measure of justice for all peoples. Elsewhere this is not always so. To-day we see people openly ill- treating each other in the grossest fashion. Kipling is not primarily preacher, teacher, or reformer. You will find one small request running through his work ; and that is, " If you use the Union Jack as a covering in bad weather, and yet will not acknowledge its protective power, at least do not deliberately befoul it." Reviews and New Books Collected Dog Stories (Macmillan, 7s. 6d.). It is very cheering to find an instance, in this age of ferro-concrete, cheap motor-cars and inane films, an artistic venture that is a commercial success ; the above named book has received a welcome such as few works, new or old, re- ceive. Even the Little Englanders express tepid approval, though their praise is more to be dreaded than their blame. As an example of publish- ers' skill, Mr. Kipling's latest ' baby ' deserves high recommendation ; the binding is rich without being gaudy, the paper and type excellent, and the illustrations great. The selection of stories and poems has been done well ; it was a good idea to put the three " Thy servant A Dog " stories in together, as these form a sequence. For Members of the Kipling Society the chief attraction will be the new story (this is absolutely its first appearance on any stage !) and in " A Sea Dog," our author does not disappoint us ; it is a live story. We have already commented in these columns on the charm of these several dog poems, so no more need be said now ; their meaning is obvious and their appeal plain. With the stories, however, it is different their charm does not wither, nor their phrases stale, with re-reading ; they possess an elusive quality which does not trumpet forth on its first appearance but gains in strength with each reading. Attacks have THE KIPLING JOURNAL 125 been made on those which are told in doggy language, but can there be anything in the animal world more poignant than the two sentences at the end of " Toby Dog :"—" Please, this is finish for always about Ravager and me and all those times. Please, I am very little small mis'able dog ! ... I do not understand ! ... I do not understand." It may be that Kipling is wrong in making his dogs utter their thoughts in this fashion, but it does strike every dog-lover that he has come nearer to the truth of the matter than any previous writer. As for the last and latest tale, it is a happy combination of " A Fleet in Being " and the afore-mentioned dog anecdotes. Suffice it to say that it is a lively story about a real dog ; it also deals in equally truthful fashion with the real men of the Navy during the War. The human part, too, is delightful; it recalls the redoubtable Mr. Pyecroft (our author ought to have let us see more of him) at his best. The des- cription of the Volunteer sub as First Lieutenant is very good:—. . . . "A youngster of nineteen—with a hand on him like a ham and a voice like a pneumatic riveter, though he couldn't pronounce 'r' to save himself .... He was used to knocking men about to make 'em attend. He threatened a staymaker's apprentice (they were pushing all sorts of shore muckings at us) for imitating his lisp. It was smoothed over, but the man made the most of it. He was a Bolshie before we knew what to call 'em. He kicked Micheal (the dog) once when he thought no one was looking, but Furze saw, and the blighter got his head cut on a hatch- coaming." The Commander's summing up is also very nice :—' I used to tell 'em they were the foulest collection of sweeps ever forked up on the beach. In some ways they were. But I don't want you to make any mistake. When it came to a pinch they were the salt of the earth—the very salt of God's earth—blast'em and bless 'em. Not that it matters much now. We've got no Navy." Nor must one or two bits of marine painting be omitted :—" He pointed at a square- faced tug or but a little larger—punching dazzle-white wedges out of indigo blue." And this bit of colour rings true :—" And in due time, so far as Time was on those beryl floors, they came back to the Com- mander's tale." This new story is most certainly one of those that improves on acquaintance ; at a first glance some of the more subtle points are apt to be missed. Which is why it will live. The very clever illustrations are by Mr. G. L. Stampa. The other new Kipling composition to be chronicled is the Ode for the Victoria Centenary, when the Duke of Gloucester dedicated the Shrine of Remembrance on Armistice Day. This was published in 126 THE KIPLING JOURNAL practically all newspapers of note, so it is not necessary to say much about it here ; we may however, give two or three short excerpts to show the admirable dignity and restraint which runs through this poem :— So long as memory, valour and faith endure, Let these stones witness, through the years to come, How once there was a people fenced, secure Behind great waters girdling a far home. XXX Then, suddenly, war took them—seas and skies Joined with the earth for slaughter. In a breath They, scoffing at all talk of sacrifice, Gave themselves without idle words to death. XXX So long as sacrifice and honour stand, And their own sun at the hushed hour shall light The shrine of these, their dead ! Kipling By Kate McPhelim Cleary (Written when asked to " say something about Kipling") Nothing to say about Kipling, Nothing at all to say Of the Bringer of Tears and Laughter, Of the poet with power to sway Hearts at his own wild willing,— Of man, of mother, of child, Revealing the world sin-saddened, And the young world undefiled. Nothing to say about Kipling, But many a word to say About bould Terrence Mulvaney, Who had no " good conduc' pay ;" But " a thirst that was most devourin'," And a backward glance when sad, To the place where he had buried The son of Dinah Shadd. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 127 Nothing to say about Kipling, But a word or two to say Of Jack Barrett who went to Quetta, And who shouldn't have gone away ; Of the Finest Story—its Hero Held light as a beggar may hold Ring of a ruler royal, Knowing not brass from gold. Of fearless, fierce Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Of one who went mad with the dread Of living alone with the currents That wouldn't run straight in his head ; Of Gunga Din, ever faithful, Of Cleever the novelist, too, Who learned from some boys that all living Is not only to think—but to do. Nothing to say about Kipling, But of Tommy Atkins a pile, And of Jhansi McKenna's old mother, Who fought the good fight for a while ; Of the lieutenant whose private honour Was manfully cleared from its shame, Of the 'rickshaw dividing the lovers, And the woman who sat in the same. Nothing to say about Kipling, But many and many a word, Of one poor crucified creature, And his tale in the hot night heard; Of him at the end of the Passage, Who saw what no man may see, And live to utter his knowledge For the horror of them that be. Of the queens at Benares all praying For the clasp of children's arms, Of Krishna Mulvaney soothing The pious priest's alarms; 128 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Of the wet and valiant taking Of the town of Lungtungpen, And the " dacincy " of the leader That suffered there and then. Nothing to say about Kipling, But ever so much to say, Of the trampling of one Lost Legion— And the Road to Mandalay; Of William the Conqueror, learning The worth of her true lover—when Flew fast to him fighting the famine, The orders to "Do it again !" Of a night in the green Rukh with Mowgli, When crouched the wild beasts at his feet, And Love through the forest came to him As ardent, as artless, as sweet As it came to the first man in Eden— Of the poor frenzied wreck, who used shriek, And howl through delirium tremens In most irreproachable Greek. Nothing to say about Kipling, But words enough to say, Of that man who threw stones at shadows, Till God's whisper blazed his way; Of the grim old baronet dying, Who spoke to his son grim truth, And went down with all colors flying, To the one sweet love of his youth ! Nothing to say about Kipling, But praise for the women who gave, Love and Life—Dead Sisters, Loyal unto the grave; Of the Brushwood Boy and his sweetheart, Of Danny Deever—who died The death of a craven coward, And of Jones' fair " new-made bride "— THE KIPLING JOURNAL 129 To whom his warning message Was read ere it well began, By one gay and gallant General, " That most immoral man !" Of an invalid gently leading The stubborn elephant down, Of poor mad Ortheris—raving For the stones of London town. Of Larry, who died on the bosom Of her who was never his wife, And who paid for her faith in his falseness Not only with honor—but life; Of that wild scene entrancing, When little Toomai, the wise, Saw the elephants dancing With his own sweet baby eyes ! Nothing to say about Kipling, But a groan that is half a prayer, For the poor blind beggar—tortured By Adam-Zad, the Bear. Of They, all joyously hiding, Sweet, serene, secure, Dropping shy shadow kisses, To comfort, console, allure ! Of Morrowbie Jukes wild riding, Till his good horse stumbled—fell, And he plunged from the Place of the People, Into unspeakable hell; Of honest McPhee and his Janet, Of the death of a boy in his pride, Of the letter that told to his mother, Not—not just the way that he died. Of the Man That Was—but unending Are memories such as these, They rush with roar of breakers From all the Seven Seas ! 130 THE KIPLING JOURNAL While louder words of warning, The Islanders hear yet, In righteous wrath outringing, Lest they forget ! Letter Bag I see that in the last Kipling Journal you give a parody of " Gunga Din." Is not " Gunga Din " itself, I will not say a parody, but a new setting by Kipling of the old Indian services song :— In India's sunny clime, Where you've got to spend your time, Without your English servant you must do, and so on. I am nearly sure that I have heard that song sung in messes before Kipling's " Gunga Din " was published. Probably some of your older Indian members would know for certain. R. F. EDWARDS, Brig.-General. On page 231, of Vol. III of the " Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson," edited by Sidney Colvin, " re-arranged in 4 Volumes," and published in 1911, there is a letter from R. L. S. dated " Vailima, 1891," to Mr Kipling, in reply to one from R. K. The accompanying explanatory note states : "In 1890, on first becoming acquainted with Mr. Kipling's 'Soldiers Three,' Stevenson had written off his congratulations red-hot. ' Well and indeed, Mr. Mulvaney,' so ran the first sentence of his note, ' but it's as good as meat to meet in with you Sir. They tell me it was a man of the name of Kipling made ye ; but indeed, and they can't fool me ; it was the Lord God Almighty that made you.' Taking the cue thus offered, Mr. Kipling had written back in the character of his own Irishman, Terence Mulvaney, addressing Alan Breck Stewart." In the following letter, which belongs to an uncertain date in 1891, Alan Breck is made to reply ; and then follows the reply mentioned above. Can you, or any of the members of the Kipling Society, tell me whether the Kipling letter referred to above, has been published, and if so, where ? Or, is it known to be in someone's private possession ? C. H. MILBURN, Colonel. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 131 Our Bookplate. The Bookplate reproduced here is the work of that clever artist, Miss D. M. Ardley, who has also been responsible for our very effective Christ- mas Card. It is generally agreed that, in addition to the artistic merit of the product- ions, Miss Ardley has been most successful in interpret- ing the spirit of the author. Message from the President "The President regrets that, owing to a severe attack of arthritis, he has been unable to write as usual to his many friends. He is at present in King Edward's Hospital, London. He sends you all his very best wishes." The news recorded above will be received by all Members, and by all Kipling readers all over the world, with deep concern. In their name we send Greetings to "Stalky" and hope that he may soon be restored to his usual health and vigour. Secretary's Announcements. (1) Meetings—Session 1934-35. The remaining are as follows :— 3rd. 13th February, 1935 (Wednesday). Hotel Rubens, 4.30 p.m. Lecturer : Mons. H. D. Davray, C.B.E., (Legion of Honour). Subject : " How Kipling conquered France." (Note M. Davray will speak in English.) 4th 10th April, 1935 (Wednesday). Rembrandt Rooms, 8.30p.m. Lecturer : Commander O. Locker-Lampson, C.M.G., D.S.O., R.N.V.R., M.P. Subject : " Kipling and the Sailors." 5th(Special). 12th June, 1935 (Wednesday). Rembrandt Rooms, 8.30 p.m. (Evening before the Annual Luncheon.) 132 THE KIPLING JOURNAL (2) Annual Conference and Luncheon, 13th June, 1935 (Thursday). Rembrandt Rooms. Note—-Above dates in (1) and (2) subject to confirmation by card as usual. Guests of members always welcome. . (3) Childrens' " Kipling " Matinee 10th January, (Thursday) Duke of York's Theatre. 5.30 p.m. Admission l/10d only. This is arranged by Miss Nancy Price. (Peoples' National Theatre). Please take parties, and tell people of this. (4) Appointments— Vice Presidents. Co-opted by Council under Rule VIII(b) H.E. Mr. R. W. Bingham (American Ambassador in London). (5) Journals. (a) Binding and Index. This number completes the two years, 1933 and 1934. Those who intend binding them, please note that an index for 1934 will issue with No. 33 (March) number. For details of " Standard " Binding see No. 30, page 68. (b) Back Numbers. Revised prices now are :— No. 1. (Reprint) and No. 2 (Reprint) 1/- each. Nos. 3 to 5, 4/- each; Nos. 6 to 8, 3/- each ; Nos. 9 to 11, 2/- each ; Nos. 12 to 23, 1/- each ; No. 24, 3/- each ; Nos. 25 to date 1/- each. This cancels all previous prices. (6) Standard Bookplate as circulated, and shown in this Journal. Prices are, 1d. each up to 100 (8/-) ; Then 3/- per 100 up to 500 ; and 2/- per 100 from 600 to 1000. Per 1,000 £1 10s. 0d. (7) A new leaflet goes with this Journal C. Bailey, Colonel, General Secretary. ROLL OF NEW MEMBERS TO DECEMBER, 1934 Nos. 1288 to 1304. 1288 Wing-Commdr.H.M.Stanley 1298 S. Muir Wilson Turner. St. Helens Abingdon 1299 Mrs. A. H. Garmany 1289 Mrs. D. M. Stanley-Turner Rhodesia Abingdon 1300 Philip A. Stone 1290 Miss J. C. Preston Bristol U.S.A. 1301* Dr. S. E. Crawford 1291t H.E. Mr. R. W. Bingham New Zealand U.S.A. 1302 J. P. Earnshaw 1292 E. C. Barnes Surrey Nyasaland 1303 Miss G. Johnson 1293 M. J. Flanagan London Nyasaland 1304 G. F. Vollmer 1294 W. C. Cortlandt-Anderson Canada London 1295t R. O. Moore NEW ASSOCIATE MEMBERS London A.38 Jeffery Radford 1296 Mrs. M. B. James Fareham Bexhill-on-Sea A. 39 Miss Pat. A. N. MacMahon 1297 F. E. Smith Swanage Southsea t Life. Member. * "Donor" Member