Alice Macdonald Kipling ("Trixie") 1872 " Judy-Baba." The Kipling Journal The Organ of the Kipling Society QUARTERLY No. 45 MARCH, 1938 Contents : Plate: " Judy-baba " (Mrs. J. M. Fleming). News and Notes...... 1 An Opinion on Kipling's 100 11 . Best Poems ...... Branch Reports ...... 4 The Humour of Kipling .. 18 Books and Reviews .... 6 obituary.......... 27 Two Phantom Kipling Books 7 Letter Bag ........ 28 Some Kipling Crypticisms .. 8 Secretary's Corner .. .. 31 News and Notes THROUGH the kindness of Mrs. J. M. Fleming we are able to give an illustration of exceptional interest and charm. The title will give all necessary information, for, since the publication of the Autobiography, we know that " Baa, Baa, Black Sheep " was a story from life. We feel sure that this little picture of " Judy-baba " at the age of "half-past-three" will be greatly valued by all Members. X X X X X The second Meeting of the 1937-38 Session was held at the Wash- ington Hotel, Curzon Street, W., on Wednesday, December 15th at 4.30 p.m. Sir Christopher Robinson, Hon. Secretary, made a brief comment on the enforced change of programme : " You will be sorry to hear that Mr. Bazley, our Hon. Editor, is unable to be here to-night to give his Paper on ' Five Kipling Crypticisms,' and you will be especially sorry for the reason—the serious illness of his mother. A good many of you will remember that she has long been a Member of the Society and that she was at our last Meeting." Lady Cunyng- hame was in the Chair and told those present that the remainder of the programme would be as announced :—" I have known Mr. Brook- ing for many years past. I think it was in 1926 when he came to see me and talked about the founding of the Society, which he was then on the high road to starting. He described the steps he Wanted to take ; I was a little doubtful of his success, but Mr. Brooking is the most optimistic person and absolutely determined to get it founded ; 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL I knew that, if he had made up his mind to do it, he would do it. It is for that reason, remembering that talk, that I am exceptionally pleased to take the Chair this evening. I will now ask Mr. Brooking to give us his Paper, ' An Opinion on Kipling's Best 100 Poems (subject to contradiction).' " After the Paper an unusual and very- charming form of entertainment was given by Miss Florence Marks, Irish Diseuse, late of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, who gave read- ings from " The Courting of Dinah Shadd." Miss Marks pre- sented a really marvellous character study of the celebrated Mulvaney ; her histrionic ability was greatly appreciated by a large audience. The vote of thanks to those who so greatly contributed to the success of the Meeting was proposed by Sir Christopher Robin- son and carried by acclamation :—" I now propose a very hearty vote of thanks to Miss Florence Marks, for her delightful reading, to Mr. Brooking for his great work, and, last but not least, to Lady Cunynghame for so kindly presiding ; she was Chairman of our Coun- cil last year, and under her guidance we saved £100 to invest. I hope this will not lead Members to make extravagant suggestions, because my function seems to be to keep the Society solvent." The vote Was carried with acclamation. X X X X X The third Meeting of the 1937-38 Session Was held at the Wash- ington Hotel, Curzon Street, W., on Wednesday, January 19th at 8.30 p.m. The Lecturer was Mr. J. P. Collins, London Editor of the Civil and Military Gazette ; Col. Sir Arthur R. Holbrook, Bart., K.B.E., D.L., V.D., Chairman, said a few words about Mr. Collins :— " When I came in this evening I discovered that Mr. Collins and I went to Canada together in 1920, with the Delegation of the Empire Press Union, the object of which was to try to get a better class of English news in the Canadian newspapers. To-night I have been introduced to Rudyard Kipling's cousin ; I am very glad to have met her and I told her I would tell the story about him. I used to go to Brighton a great deal when Kipling lived at Rottingdean. A bus owned by the local innkeeper, used to pass ' The Elms,' and the driver would point it out as the home of Kipling—particularly if the family were in the garden. Kipling wrote three letters to the proprietor of the bus, without receiving any reply, so he Went down to the inn to express his complaint in person. 'Did you not get my letters?' he de- THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 manded. 'Yessir, I did,'said the man. 'And why did you not answer them?' said Kipling. ' Well, sir, I hoped you would go on writing— I have sold each of your letters for three guineas—I make more money out of them than out of my bus ! ' Mr. Collins is an old journalist, like myself, and I am sure he will give us some very inter- esting facts." During the evening Mr. Edmund Spencer made a welcome reappearance at our Meetings ; he was in fine voice and gave excellent renderings of " Rolling down to Rio "(German), " Submari- ines" (Elgar) "All the world over," (Shaw) and "Mother o' Mine" (Tours). A vote of thanks to Mr. Collins for his very interesting and charming account of the humour of Kipling, and to Mr. Spencer, was proposed by Major Dawson, seconded by Miss Macdonald and carried enthusiastically, the Chairman remarking that Mr. Collins would feel complimented that Kipling's cousin had seconded the proposition. X X X X X The Kipling Memorial Fund now amounts to over £50,000, so good progress is being made. In this connection, We hear that a committee, with Dr. Murray Butler, President of Columbia Uni- versity, as Chairman, has been formed, with the object of working with the committee here to raise funds for a memorial in the U.S.A. x x x x x Kipling is often quoted but nowhere so effectively as at places like Singapore, Hong Kong or Victoria, B.C. In an address to the Hong Kong Rotary Club, Mr. George M. Murray, of the British Columbia Legislature, gave the lines about that island :— Hail, Mother ! Hold me fast ; my Praya sleeps Under innumerable keels to-day. Yet guard (and landward), or to-morrow sweeps Thy warships down the bay ! He followed this apt quotation, that on Victoria:— From East to West the circling word has passed, Till West is East beside our land-locked blue ; From East to West the tested chain holds fast, The well-forged link rings true ! Mr. Murray is a student of Kipling and recently visited most of the cities on the Pacific rim north of the equator, drawn there, he said, by the writings of Kipling. He lives in British Columbia and is now engaged in helping to extend the trade of his Province to Pacific countries. X X x X X 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL From Mr. Beauchamp of Williams Lake, B.C., we have received a most interesting tribute (Vancouver Daily Province, 15th January) to Kipling's ability to read that mysterious veil which the eye of human reason can seldom penetrate :—" Guns are to be placed in Stanley Park and at Point Grey as in the days of the Great War. But is there anything new in this proposal ? No ! Just read the following : ' My interest Was in the line, the real and accomplished railway which is to throw actual fighting troops into the East some day when our hold of the Suez Canal is temporarily loosened. All that Vancouver wants is a fat earth-work fort upon a hill—there are plenty of hills to choose from—a selection of big guns, a couple of regiments of infantry and later on a big arsenal. ... It is not seemly to leave unprotected the head-end of a big railway. Though Victoria and Esquimalt, our naval stations on Vancouver Island are very near, so also is a place called Vladivostok, and though Vancouver Narrows are strait, they allow room for a man-of-war.' The writer ? Rudyard Kipling, fifty-one years ago, in ' From Sea to Sea,' 1887." Branch Reports Our Cape Town Branch. Thanks to the energy and ability of Mr. E. E. Benham, the beginnings of a splendid branch of the Kipling Society have been made in Capetown. Mr. Benham left a few months ago to settle in South Africa and took with him a commission from our Council to investigate the possibilities of a South African Branch. He certainly lost no time, for very soon after his arrival, news began to come through of his efforts and before very long we were thrilled to hear of a luncheon he organised at which the possibilities of a Branch Were discussed, Amongst others at the lunch We particularly noticed the names of Mr. George Wilson of the Cape Times, Sir Alfred Hen- nessy, the Rev. A. Vine Hall and Mr. C. J. Sibbett. Four existing members of the Society were also present. These were Mr. Willmot and Mr. Lancelot Ussher, both of the Cape, Mr. Grierson of Dublin and Mrs. Frank Straker of London. With such valuable support, success was a foregone conclusion and, aided by some excellent Press publicity, sheaves of enrolment forms duly arrived at the office. The Capetown branch has now received official approval and the Charter was duly despatched to them on the 4th February. The full list of officers and committee and the permanent address of the Branch will be published in a later issue of the journal. Our thanks are due to Mr. Benham for his splendid work, to Mr. H. G. Willmot, and to THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 Mrs. Frank Straker (a home member who happened to be in Cape Town at the time), who threw herself wholeheartedly into the work. A list of the members will be found at the back of the Journal amongst the usual list of enrolments since last issue. Victoria, B.C., Canada. The third Annual Dinner, held on the anniversary of Kipling's birthday, was a great success. Following the toast to " The King," the evening's entertainment Was opened by the President, A. E. G. Cornwell reading the cablegram of good wishes from the parent society—a message which was deeply appreci- ated. Philip Hughes, accompanist for the concert, played a Kipling overture of songs, including Cobb's " Mandalay " and Sullivan's " Absent-Minded Beggar." Miss B. M. Carlisle gave a delightful reading of " His Wedded Wife." Owing to illness, the guest speaker, Canon J. Hinchcliffe, Was unable to be present. His place was ade- quately supplied at short notice by the past Vice-President, P. R. Leighton; speaking to the toast, " The pious and Immortal Memory of Rudyard Kipling," he dwelt on Kipling's genius in bringing out in- herent traits of nobility even from the most despicable of his characters. Kyrle W. Symons sang " Our Lady of the Snows " and " Recessional." Harry Davies sang " Danny Deever " and " Ford 'o Kabul River." James McGrath of the Central Films Ltd., (the convener of the enter- tainment) recited with dramatic effect " The Ballad of the Bolivar " and "Back to the Army Again." The proceeds from a competition held during the evening will be used to purchase some copies of Kipling's children's stories for the Fairbridge Farm School on Van- couver Island. The proceedings terminated with a brief and happy speech from the Vice-President, K. C. Symons, who expressed the hearty thanks of all present to the Secretary, T. A. Simmons, and to all the entertainers. The November Meeting Was held at the home of the Secretary. Mrs. A. Wales read " Mulholland's Contract " and Mrs. W. J. Neal gave a short and clever Paper on the historical background of " Proofs of Holy Writ." A Kipling concert is planned for the Spring, with James McGrath as convener. Auckland, N.Z. On November 30th a Meeting was held to wel- come Mrs. E. M. Buchanan, the energetic secretary, after her visit to England. About 60 Members were present including the 12 girl competitors in the " Kipling Scrap-Book Competition." Mrs. 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Buchanan described her interviews with various Members of Council and Officers of the Society in London ; she read a list of the generous gifts made to the Library by Mr. Bazley, Mr. Maitland, Miss Bellamy Brown and Major Dawson (who is now enrolled as a Member of the Branch—a direct link with the Council—an honour for which the Branch is most grateful). Mr. Townley-Little Was presented with the emblem of the Society, from the Secretary, to congratulate him on the very successful Meetings held during the absence of Mrs. Buchanan. Several new Members are expected for the Season 1938-39, the Meetings of which will begin in March. For the competition 12 excellent scrap-books were received : Marjorie Court and Pru- dence Philcox were equal in marks, each receiving a First Prize Dorothy Usher and Barbara Macky obtained 2nd and 3rd Prizes; respectively ; Patricia Hurchison earned a Special Prize, and Norma Harris Hon. Mention for an illuminated scroll. The fine quality of the work Was a great, though pleasant surprise to all Members and visitors who saw it. The five prizes were given by Members : Miss Boult—" Inclusive Verse " (1st) ; Miss Buchanan—" Children's Stories from Kipling " (1st), and " Children's Poems from Kipling " (2nd) ; Mrs. E. M. Buchanan—two copies of " Something of Myself " (3rd and 4th). Mrs. Buchanan sent a letter which she had received from Dr. Joske of Melbourne ; we are glad to hear that there is every prospect of a Branch being founded in that city—advance, Australia ! Mr. Townley-Little sends cordial thanks for the message of greeting sent to Auckland from the President and Members of the Council of the Kipling Society. Books and Reviews Vol. XV. of the Sussex Edition, " Rewards and Fairies," has now appeared. The Observer (6th February) says of Messrs. Macmillan's tribute to the memory of Rudyard Kipling : " Let us say at once that no other author whatever could have survived within two months of his death so princely an oblation. The captains and the kings de- part. . . . Not so with Rudyard Kipling. He Was a classic in his life and death, which attacks all other reputations, has no power upon him. Other great names, George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and John Galsworthy sink into a temporary oblivion as their star dips— to rise again. But Kipling does not abide such temporal question. It is supremely right, therefore, that there should be erected, while THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 the rumour of his passing is still in our ears, this superb shrine." We are very glad to learn that Sir George MacMunn's excellent study of our Master's work—" Rudyard Kipling, Craftsman"—is about to appear in a second edition, which will be completely revised up to date. Two Phantom Kipling Books By DeLancey Ferguson ON April 26, 1890, the New York Critic reprinted from The World of London a rather long account of an interview with Kipling, then newly come to fame. It is written in a lush journalistic style, and for the most part tells things now familiar to every Kiplingite. But two statements about the young author's future plans arrest our notice. Among the things the interviewer claims to have seen in Kipling's rooms in Embankment Chambers was " in a very small characteristic handwriting, the MS of a forth- coming novel, already promised to the public in ' Plain Tales from the Hills,' which will be called ' Mother Maturin.' " A few para- graphs later is the other item : " ' The Book of the Forty-Five Morn- ings,' which will shortly appear, contains for the most part reminiscences of his travels." Neither of these titles, of course, ever appeared in print. About " The Book of the Forty-Five Mornings," however, there can be little doubt since the publication of Something of Myself. In the fourth chapter of that autobiography Kipling mentions that in the intoxication of his first fame, " I had intended a book ' to take advan- tage of the market.' This I had just sense enough to countermand." It was obviously a selection from the Indian travel letters later gathered in From Sea to Sea. Their author realised that many of these were no more than journalistic potboilers, and his keen self-criticism told him that they could not help his reputation, and might hurt it. Their ultimate collection was in fact forced on him by the appearance of pirated editions in America. But what was ' Mother Maturin ?' The first temptation is to conclude that the interviewer was romancing after reading the story, " To be Filed for Reference," which closes Plain Tales from the Hills. But there is more to it than one reporter's statement. Nearly a year later, on 21st March, 1891, the Critic's column of literary gossip contains this note : " Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who is busily engaged 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL on his new story, ' Mother Maturin,' will go out to India in the autumn with his father, who is returning to Lahore." What, then, became of this ghost book ? In the absence of any definite statement from its author, one man's guess is as good as another. My own guess is that it was the first draft of Kim, that in its original form it failed to satisfy its exacting author, and that he therefore held it back for a decade until it ripened into the masterpiece we know. Some Kipling Crypticisms By Basil M. Bazley (Hon. Editor) PERHAPS the Word " Crypticism " is scarcely the correct term for the examples selected, but a Kipling line or phrase, which has been generally misunderstood and misinterpreted is frequently called a Crypticism. I begin with one that is hardly to be classed as difficult, though it is very often quoted in the wrong connection. The Well- known beginning to " The Ballad of East and West " reads :— Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat ; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth ! Now, the uninstructed and popular World nearly always take the first two lines (sometimes only the first line) and read into this couplet a meaning never stated, much less intended, by the author. There are people who deduce from it an intolerance entirely foreign to Kipling's nature and not borne out by his writings in general. Yet, if the second couplet be added, Kipling's meaning will easily be seen ; it is that, whatever difficulties may be caused by barriers of race or caste, when the higher types of humanity come together, they will meet as equals on the same plane and will part with mutual esteem. Another excerpt from a poem, apparently puzzling to our bellicose advocates of universal peace, comes from " Recessional," not a poem that most of us would consider highly jingoistic in tone. But the phrase, " Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law," always seems to excite a certain type of mentality to frenzy. It is generally assumed that that a bitter contempt and condemnation of all other nations and races is intended. Those nations may be France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, the United States, Argentina, Czecho-Slovakia, or Jugo-Slavia—anyone will do if Kipling can be blamed for doing something of which our New-Clever do not approve. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 Some of these gentry interpret the lesser breeds as the peoples who do not yet enjoy the blessings of civilisation, though one would have thought that some of Kipling's character sketches might have dispelled this illusion. Others, again, apply the phrase to the Little Englanders (this is a Boer War term, but the folk under this category still exist) ; here, this may be the right solution. I am inclined to think, however, that, though Kipling may have had these • friends of every country but their own ' in mind, his real, underlying idea was to express his horror of people who did belong to a low grade type of humanity : that he did not mean those who had faith in honest doubt, but folk rather akin to his own creation, Tomlinson—lesser breeds in every sense of the Word. " Without the Law," I take to be his definition of a being without decent feeling, without consideration or toleration, and without charity of thought. That may seem a very wide and vague reading of the phrase, but I feel that any narrow application of it, however apt or likely, is too much out of keeping with the spirit of a noble poem. Next I shall submit to you a very interesting case, where there has been almost universal misunderstanding. Here are the lines :— Idle—except for your boasting—and what is your boasting worth If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth ? Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set, Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep. Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep. I ask pardon for mentioning these lines here, as there was a note about them in Journal No. 42 (p. 34), but this is too good a case to be omitted. Mr. E. V. Lucas, in his book " Post Bag Diversions," tells us that he did not believe in the generally accepted idea that " the lordliest life on earth ' meant conscription as on the Continent, and that he wrote to Kipling to ask what the meaning Was. Kipling replied by referring him to the 4 lines that followed ; you will notice how similar this is to the misreading of " East is East," etc. Our Author pointed out that it was life in England at that period when things were more comfortable than they are now, in the year 1902, that Was " the lordliest life on earth ;" his idea was that a year of service or training, on the mild lines suggested by Lord Roberts, was a small price to pay for the continuance of good things. " Fair is our lot—O goodly is our heritage !" Now we come to a case where the mistake was made, in the first place, by our Master's cousin, Sir Philip Burne-Jones. I daresay 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL you will remember that that picture represented a man, utterly ruined in body and mind, with a syren-kind of woman leaning over him ; it is in every way an effective picture, but, to my mind, it does not express the motive of the poem. Think of the lines from "The Vampire," at the end of each of the three verses : 1. Belong to the woman who did not know (And now we know that she never could know) And did not understand ! 2. Belong to the woman who didn't know why (And now we know that she never knew why) And did not understand ! There are the endings to the first two verses ; the third ending makes the meaning quite clear :— 3. It's coming to know that she never knew why (Seeing at last, she could never know why) And never could understand. The whole tragedy of this powerful little poem lies in the fact that the woman did not know and could not understand the sacrifice that was being made for her—the infatuated lover realises this at last, but too late. The man has viewed a mercenary, rather soulless woman as an ideal ; she Would probably have been very puzzled, had she been told that she represented to him something noble and elevating. We get the same idea, though expressed with less intensity, in the story "Wressley of the Foreign Office" (Plain Tales); Wressley falls head over ears in love with a peculiarly shallow little girl who did not under- stand his serious worship of her : " He held peculiar notions as to the Wooing of girls. He said that the best work of a man's career should be laid reverently at their feet. Ruskin writes something like this somewhere, I think ; but in ordinary life a few kisses are better and save time." Here is the woman who did not know, nor could she faintly understand ; unfortunately, the man was deeply wounded by her light-hearted callousness and degenerated into a " report- writing hack, who would have been dear at three hundred rupees a month." An even better example of this tragedy of lack of understanding is to be found in the heroine of " The Light That Failed." The fact that Bessie, a totally futile painter, incapable of love, or at all events incapable of loving Dick Helder, should have inspired him with such deep affection is the tragedy in his life. It isn't her fault ; it is his misfortune that she is absolutely cold-blooded. That doesn't make it any better for Dick ; she " never could understand," THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 I give these two examples to show that Kipling did not create a type specially for " The Vampire " (the name has, perhaps, misled people ) ; he knows the type and its variations, be they as far apart as Maisie and Tillie Venner ; he knows also the harm that they will do to an earnest man who takes them too seriously. I don't think there is any melodrama here ; it is just a grey tragedy of ordinary life. My fifth and last case is very easily explained, but I mention it on account of the worry it has been to some of the younger critics. Not very long ago Kipling was denounced very heavily for false senti- ment when he put these words into the mouth of a Loafer:—"For the sake of my mother as well as your own." Here was an ordinary enough expression between two Freemasons twisted into a profaning of things most sacred. Of course, a little enquiry on the part of an over-eager critic would have saved a bad blunder. Kipling's meaner- minded critics, however, do not seem to mind blundering—I use the present tense because this sort of thing is still going on in a feeble sort of way ; they throw mud, hoping that some of it will stick—if it hits the mark ; more devoutly still, they hope that someone will see them do it—any notice is better than none. " He has noticed us ! Bagheera has noticed us," screamed the Bandar-log. By way of conclusion I ask a question : in the Autobiography this statement occurs :—" Luckily the men of the seas and the engine- room do not write to the Press, and my worst slip is undetected." What was Kipling's worst slip ? It is evidently something to do with marine matters so perhaps ' the critic who never grew up ' will be able to get on the scent ; I am sure it would please him to succeed. An Opinion on Kipling's 100 Best Poems By J. H. C. Brooking, m.i.e.e. WHEN my subject—' Kipling's best 100 Poems "—was first arranged for it was thought that it would make one of the most interesting and debatable subjects to put before you. But since then, there have been so many enquiries for a cheap edition of Kipling's verse that it seemed advisable to deal with the subject from that standpoint. I do not know whether the Powers-that-be will consider an issue of this kind, but on discussing it with certain influential people I have been encouraged to proceed with the selec- tion. For those who can afford it, Messrs, Macmillan and Co., publish 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL the Sussex Edition at £87 10s. There is also a very small edition of Songs from his books at 7/-. Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton publish the 1932 edition at 25/-. Messrs. Methuen publish " The Seven Seas," " The Five Nations," " The Years Between," " Depart- mental Ditties " and " Barrack Room Ballads " at 7/- each. There are also three books published by Messrs. Methuen—Twenty Poems at 1/-, Selected Poems at 1/-, and A Choice of Songs at 2/- : that means that you can buy 80 poems for 4/-. But these are not suitable—because they are paper-backed—for gifts or for hard wear. Also, I grieve to state, the choice of poems in these cheap editions does not seem suited to the average reader ; and it is to this large body of readers that most publishers look, by the sale of such sample booklets, to produce a good impression for their regular and more expensive editions. I have compared the poems in these three cheap booklets with those on my selected list and I find that not much more than half of them figure on that list. I have called it Kipling's best 100 Poems ; but one might rather say, perhaps, Kipling's most suitable 100 poems for a cheap edition. It will mean exercising a good deal of limitation in selection, which I have done to the best of my ability in the lists that have been distributed. The following are some notes I have made :— 1. Omit several of the longer poems. This will be necessary to keep the price low. 2. Omit several poems of too high-brow a character, to enable the general reader to enjoy himself. 3. Omit censorious poems on individuals and offices, in view of the general and international circulation. 4. Omit poems dealing with out-of-date, local topics, such as many of the Indian ones. 5. Choose as varied subjects as possible, to illustrate Kipling's enormous range. 6. Choose certain poems of perhaps less charm than popular favour—we have to consider the man in the street. I shall do the best I can with the opinions that may be expressed to-night in the hope of improving on my selection, and I hope to send the final selection for consideration by the Powers-that-be. I may just mention that to-night's meeting was arranged as a trial to get our members, if possible, to give short papers, and Mr. Bazley and I decided that we would write two short papers, the discussion THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 of which would not take any longer than the usual meeting. Mr. Bazley's paper was equally short : if I had known that he was not going to turn up I might have made mine a little longer. I hope you will not hesitate to put forward your views—they will be mo?t helpful. I would like to have an expression of opinion as to the price for a cheap book of this kind. I had a chat with one publisher, to whom I suggested 2s. 6d. He said 5s. I hope it may be something between. At the big Memorial meeting a short time ago I sent a letter to certain important people who were present in which I asked them to let me know what they thought of the idea. I have had replies from a number of them :— Mr. Winston Churchill writes : " I think it is an admirable pur- pose to publish a cheap edition of Kipling's poem, and wish you all success." Lord Greenwood says, " I am all for the publication of a cheaper edition, for I am convinced that Kipling means a great deal to the people." Sir William Rothenstein : "I am glad to know that you have in mind a cheap edition of Kipling's best poems : this will be wel- comed by countless people." Mr. £. V. Lucas, Managing Director of Methuen and Co. V I think the idea of a Kipling " Century " a good one and hope it may go through." Mr. Lucas has suggested a number of alterations, also Mr. Gerard Fox among others. I propose to put all these down in a record book, together with the poems you may suggest. I would like you to be destructive as well as constructive. As we have 100 poems on this list, it will be necessary to omit some before we can put others in. Lt.-Colonel B. S. Browne: I hope it is possible to persuade Messrs. Methuen to publish one more volume of Kipling verse : there seems to be quite enough new material since the publication of the last one to fill another, and I am sure we should all like to feel that it was coming. We are asked to make criticisms : I would suggest that " Russia to the Pacifists " and " McDonough's Song " might be left out, on the ground of possible political misunderstanding. " Cold Iron " I would suggest cutting out as it is rather obscure. " Shut-eye Sentry " I would leave out as rather a thing of the past, and " The Widow of Windsor." On the other hand, I very much regret to see the omission of what to me is the most poetical thing he wrote— 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL ' L'Envoi " to the Barrack Room Ballads. I always feel that if any- one says he was not a poet—well, we have that poem and I think it ought to be in. Mr. Harbord: What about "The Way through the Woods ?". . . . Mr. Griffin : I am very pleased indeed to hear that Mr. Brooking is still trying to get published a popular volume of Kipling's poems, and I think we can all congratulate ourselves that he, in his character as founder of the Society, is taking this up. But, is there any magic about the hundred poems ? If they have to be restricted because of the price, rather than give indifferent stuff let us have eighty, or something like that. It is of the utmost importance for this Society that we should do what we can to see that anything that is put in such a volume is worthy of Kipling. I would like to take out at least 25 per cent. of what he has got down as poetry ; let us try to get poetry if it is called poetry. I have a number of suggestions for others : they are—before anything, " To the True Romance," because, apart from its beauty and the compelling lilt of it, it gives expression as no other poem does of what may be seen by all who study his works closely—the science of Kipling. This aspect of Kipling's writing shews a person- ality which commands much more attention than it has received even from members of our own Society, and which is practically unknown to the general reading public. It is of the greatest im- portance that it should be brought out and stressed in any epitome of Kipling's work given to the public. And how could Mr. Brooking leave out " Sussex ?" Mr. MacLaren : I am afraid that all the preparation I have made for this meeting is the hurried glance I have had at the list of poems which has just been handed round. I feel really horrified, however, to hear it suggested that we should eliminate anything high-brow, because we want to put before the general reader the noblest and most idealistic of Kipling's poems—to emulate the master. I was always disappointed in " The True Romance "—there are others I would choose, " The Astrologer's Song," for instance, I am very fond of that ... I am living in Sussex now, not very far from where Kipling lived, and I am saturated with his Sussex country. Major Dawson : I imagine there are a good many of us who have something to say this evening, and I think there ought to be some limit- ation of time for each speaker. To show how strongly I feel that, and to economise time, may I just say that I listened very attentively to THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 Mr. Brooking's remarks and I shall express all I would have said on the subject by merely saying "Ditto to Mr. Griffin." (Sir Christopher Robinson here introduced Miss Florence Marks, who gave a reading from " The Courting of Diana Shadd.") The discussion was then renewed. Mr. Matheson : I can see it is going to be a very hard piece of work to limit the number to 100—it ought to be 200. On reading through this list I think we should certainly include " Bobs " from Barrack Room Ballads, " In the Neolithic Age," and most certainly " The Holy War." We should include, I think, the poem with these lines, " East is East and West is West," etc., and finally, among others I would like to put in, if there is room, " Bonfires on the Ice." Brig.-Gen.Edwards: I have made out a list of poems that I think should be included but various members have already mentioned the ones I was particularly anxious about. There is one, however, which I would like to refer to—"There's a whisper down the field," I do think that should be included; also " The English Flag " and " The Ballad of the ' Bolivar.' " There is also one quite short thing that I think certainly ought to go in—" The Song of the Wise Children "—¦ I expect you all know it, and the wonderful difference expressed in these first two verses, and how he goes on to an entirely different theme in the latter verses. I never really appreciated it myself until I had been to the tropics, but for anyone who has been to the tropics it must, I think, have a great appeal, and I think it should be included. Another small thing : I would rather see " The First Chantey " in than the last; I think that description at the end of it where he says, " Sun, Wind and Cloud shall fail not from the face of it " is beautiful verse. Lt.-Col. G. B. Duff : No doubt Mr. Brooking would be glad to have suggestions in writing. I think nearly all the suggestions the first speakers have made are good, particularly " To the True Romance," " The Legend of Mirth," " When Earth's Last Picture," etc. If Mr. Brooking would not mind having a list of 100 poems sent in to him in writing, I am sure many people would be willing to do it. It would allow more time for really considering the matter, as many of us have only had this list in our hands since entering the room. Lady Moore : May I criticise a little one or two of the poems from the woman's point of view ? There are some on this list that I think might very well be left out. To me, "The Ladies" is vulgar, and it would be better to leave it out. Also "The Mary Gloster." I do not 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL think that, either, shows Kipling to advantage. And, although it may ap- peal very much to those who know engineering and the technicalities of engineering, and it may be heresy to say so, " M'Andrew's Hymn " is rather long. In its present book of poems it takes nearly seventeen pages of print, and, if some of the most delightful poems have to be left out for lack of space, I think it is a pity that this very long one is included. " The Explorer," for instance, does bring home to one the hardships that our pioneers went through, and there is much beautiful poetry in it, such as the description of the land and the moun- tains, and how he went from one extreme to another—from ice to the scorching sands of the desert, and so on—it would be a great pity to leave that out. Mr. Russell Colman : The poem called " The Land," and start- ing, " When Julius Fabricius," seems to me has a particular charm and, though rather long, should be included. Mr. Roper : I think " Sussex " should be included, " The North Wind," " The Way through the Woods," " The Long Trail," " Hymn before Action," The Ballad of Boh Da Thone," and " The English Flag," of course, and " The Islanders." Mr. Mackenzie Skues : I am sorry to see that " The Song of the English " is not all included—I think that the first part at least should go in. Mr. Maitland : What about " The Burden," " Rahere," " Brook- land Road," " Eddi's Service," " Rimini," " Cuckoo Song," and " The Song of the Little Hunter " from the Jungle Book, and all " The Muse among the Motors "—26 of them ! And all the poems in the History of England, excepting "The French Wars," " Big Steamers," " The King's Job," "The Dutch in the Medway," "Brown Bess," "America's Rebellion," and " After the War." I do not think these should go in but all the others in the History of England are good. And what about a recent one—" Fox Hunting " ? These are some that I have on my list. " Lichtenberg," and also the " Bell Buoy." I would like to see " Christmas in India " there too. Miss Macdonald : I was going to suggest " The English Flag," but so many have already done so; I think it is the most beautiful thing he has written. Mrs. Murray : I should like to think that " Brookland Road " Would be included. Mr. Angus : I should certainly vote for " Brookland Road " and THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 " The Bell Buoy." Rev. A. G. B. West : Could we have " The Children's Song " ? I would rather have that than the " Widow of Windsor " and " Lalage." Mr. Brooking : As I expected, I have been torn to pieces ! I am very glad to have all these suggestions. But I wish you could look through this book of Kipling's verse, in which I have turned down the leaves, and put innumerable O.K's and crosses and query marks ! I started by going through every one from the point of view I mentioned, with the various limitations in mind. In the first lot, instead of getting 100 I got 250. Then I went through more carefully, and I nearly wept over everything I had to cross out, but I got it down to 140. After some more days of agony I managed so get the list down to 100; but even now I am dreadfully sorry about some that have been left out. It is a most difficult thing to do, but of course it is really a question of space. I cannot now think how I came to leave out some of those that have been mentioned. I also feel that the general public should know more about Kipling, and a newly-published book like this will have a great deal of publicity. I think that the Kipling Society, having started this project, might possibly have its name included in some way, and the more publicity the Kipling Society is given, the more people will join it, to their own benefit. I do not think, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have time to go through the the whole of this list again, for me to tell you why I have included some and left others out; but I have got down all your suggestions and I will certainly go over them very carefully, and, where there is a predominance of opinion about certain suggestions, such as " To the True Romance," etc., they will be included whatever my own opinion may be. And why not leave the publishers a certain amount of scope—submit something like 120 poems, or so, and leave it to them ? They might be rather pleased. There are plenty of ways of dealing with the matter and of giving most of us about 80 per cent. of satisfaction. And I am afraid we shall have to be satisfied with 80 per cent. Lady Cunynghame : They would submit the final selection to you, would they not ? Mr. Brooking : Probably. I should like to consult certain of my friends present a little more closely, and a good deal will depend, of course, on the number of pages which the publishers say can be allowed for 2S. 6d. As I say, certain publishers have been optimistic; others are hopeful. The three people who will probably be interested are 18 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Messrs. Macmillan, Methuen (the principal ones) and Hodder & Stroughton. Mrs. Kipling, advised by Mr. Watt, has, of course, the final say. Lady Moore (again) : May I ask why 2s. 6d. ? It seems to me a very low price and rather cheapening the poetry. The three small books which Mr. Brooking mentioned are published at 4s. Mr. Brooking : I had hoped I made this point clear in my paper. The Humour of Kipling By J. P. Collins (London Editor, Civil and Military Gazette). "WHEN I was requisitioned by your Librarian, Mr. Maitland, and we agreed on this aspect of the great man in whose name we are met together, it was because after an inspection of the Kipling bibliographies from time to time, and a fairish acquaintance of what has been written about him and about, both pros and cons, I noticed one thing. I failed to find that anyone had tried to determine the main characteristics of his Humour, its beginnings and develop- ment, its range and value to him as a writer, or as a relish in conver- sation and in life. Nobody who has ever made a guess at the extra- ordinary scope and pace and variety of his reading, from boyhood onwards, can help observing that this very change and mixture was the only way to satisfy his inappeasable hunger for knowledge about men and things past and present, about ships and travel, and races and customs, and those less regarded creatures that he loved still more,—children, dogs and horses, and in fact, the sentient, all organic, responsive part of Creation. " In this, I think, we may claim for Kipling that since Chaucer and Shakespeare, unless it be Dr. Johnson or Billy Cobbett, there has been no man, and certainly no author, so incorrigibly and indomitably English. (hear, hear). The very mingling of races in his blood,— Dutch and Scots, and perhaps an element of Northern Irish,—sub- stantiated his claim to represent a highly composite race like the British. But he had affinities and prejudices as well, that rounded up his vast horizon, and made his fertile brain a choice arena for all human emotions to come into play. He often reminds me in himself of the immense and all-embracing character he so often attributed to Cecil Rhodes. It is said that one night at dinner he was asked it his friend Rhodes had ever married, and he said, " Yes, to tens of thousands of THE KIPLING JOURNAL 19 square miles of British territory. England can't afford to have a man like him married in any other Way.' " Now, whether that was wit or humour, you will agree that it was downright Kipling. But the audacity of the remark, its adroitness in avoiding negative or explanation, and the magnificence of its tribute, —all make me realize my own temerity in attempting to follow some of the lighter workings of his mind before an audience of men and women, some of whom probably know their Kipling better than I do myself. But at least I can say that in a life which has precious little leisure, it has been a fascinating task to put all other reading aside as far as possible, and skim once more through the favourite passages of so many years,—things that you thought you knew by heart from many readings, only to find you rejoice that you don't, since they come once more fresh and vivid with all the same force, and perhaps a new flash of unsuspected meaning, due to a widened experience of life (cheers)." Mr. Collins described one of those rare occasions in Kipling's life when he attended and addressed an open-air meeting. This was in the early years of the present century and his purpose was to help the campaign started by his friend, Lord Roberts, in aid of marksmanship and the ideal of the Citizen Army. Having consented to inaugurate a rifle range which a well-known firm had set up alongside a railway track on the skirts of South London, Kipling stood on the grassy slope with his back to the line and delivered himself of a stirring address in his briskest and blithest conversational vein. What was more, he punctuated it with side-remarks of increasing fervour every time that a train came past and broke up his periods ; and this gay pretence of petulance led to Mr. Collins's friend securing a breezy snapshot which had ever since been a favourite with Kipling lovers. Another occasion the lecturer recalled was the poet's visit with Mrs. Kipling to Sturry School near Canterbury to open the wing which had been endowed by Lady Milner as a memorial to her departed husband. That day Kipling paid a splendid tribute to his old friend's ill-requited and unstinted services to the Empire, and entered on a closing talk with the schoolboys in his best and " Stalkiest " vein. It ended something like this :— " All education is primary, not to say primitive. It is one's school that teaches one how to keep one's temper and when to lose it. If one is too clever and shows it, it is one's school that helps one to suffer fools. If one is a fool oneself, then it is one's school that tells one precisely what sort of fool one is (laughter). Lots of men go through life without discovering that 20 THE KIPLING JOURNAL great fact. If one knows how everything ought to be done, (and some people seem to) it is one's school that recommends one to go and do it, in- stead of standing and talking. This means that you can pick up the rudi- ments of self-control, knowledge that really matters, and the happy knack of burning your own smoke—keeping your mouth shut (loud laughter)." It was one of Kipling's favourite poets, Chaucer, who first exemplified in English literature the Protean quality of what we nowadays call humour, and it was typical enough that he started his principal work, " The Canterbury Tales " by throwing open the window, as it were, on to an English April morning. Since then the term has gone through many phases of usage and meaning—from the " humours " of the body or the eye (as, for instance, the vitreous humour or the black humour, which we now call melancholy) to a variety of psycho- logical and emotional ideas. It not only included the changeable- ness of mood that Ben Jonson expressed in his play-title " Every Man in his Humour," but also the disposition for an author or a listener to indulge in a " certain liveliness " or waywardness, until at last it had come to embrace the gamut of the lighter emotions, and cover an important part of literature and drama. The late Dr. Saintsbury had said :—" The higher humour is the humour of humanity, and takes all life for its province." Thackeray who had a special affinity for Kipling because of his being born in India, had spoken of the affection with which we moralised upon a humourist after he had gone, and how " yesterday's preacher became the text for to-day's sermon." But for once that he alluded to Thack- eray, Kipling alluded to Dickens half-a-dozen times, and perhaps this was due to the exuberant vitality he found in " Boz," a sure com- mand of all the springs of laughter, and the fact that like Kipling him- self, he had fathomed such misery in his years of childhood. Laughter and sympathy were the solvents of unhappiness, and that was how true humour, the link between comedy and tragedy, came so near to realising what George Meredith once said to the lecturer,—that the sterling rule of life was to exercise " a large compassion." Never- theless, the faculty of laughter could not be excluded, and that was why humour embraced even a flippancy like that of Mark Twain's when he remarked that Chaucer " might have been a poet but he was no peller." The instant and abiding friendship that was struck up between Mark and Kipling was briefly traced from the day that the young man called upon the older one, to the long campaign they waged together against a universal pest to literary folk. This was the autograph- THE KIPLING JOURNAL 21 hunter, whose persistence made Mark resentful, as he himself said, " enough to make a man swear his teeth loose." It was remarkable that a man like Kipling who was so intensely and incorrigibly English should have so subtly entered into the psychology of other races, the French especially, and this lasted him all his days. It began as he himself admitted, when he was a lad and his father gave him the run of a Paris exhibition on his own account. Even in those early days the lad showed his turn for humour by announcing to his sire that he had been watching the poodle-clipsters on the quay-sides of the Seine, and had discovered how they divided themselves into two schools—those who began clipping at the head and those who began at the tail. Next to France, Kipling had a passionate admiration for Scotland, as became the son of a Macdonald its record in literature and war, in colonisation and the learned professions. It was this racial appeal that smothered his objection towards one of the most ferocious phases of religion, and led him to make the sectarian strain part and parcel of that superb creation, M'Andrew. More than any figure in his poetry or fiction, that stern unbending Calvinist philosophising on the bridge of destiny, with so many lives in his hands, seemed an avatar of the old Greek chorus, that used to invade the stage between the acts of a tragedy, sparing neither the personages in the play, nor the feelings of the lookers-on. But it would be cramping our con- ception of humour if it failed to include such a scathing bit of satire as the one where Mac launches out against the aristocratic shipowner who badgered him with his inanities. (Here the lecturer quoted the familiar passage, which was well received.) But India was Kipling's first affection, and when he went back there, its boundless sunshine did so much to quicken his development that it almost excused the suggestion of a fatted calf returning to the pro- digal sun. (Laughter). The lecturer gave some anecdotes of Kip- ling's rapid and brilliant probation during his years in the office of the Civil and Military Gazette at Lahore, and the rich harvest of observation when he had the run of northern India in the service of that daily. It made him a devout and unfailing believer in the Army, and furnished him with a code of life based on order and discipline, so that he developed something like contempt for methods of govern- ment by statute and deliberation. The social changes that had made pleasure a necessity of everyday life to-day instead of an occasional relaxation, had had their effect 22 THE KIPLING JOURNAL even on recruiting ; yet in the core of his being, the British soldier had remained true to the type that Kipling described in many im- mortal stories and lyrics. This was the result of studying him in all his haunts, from the canteen to the music-hall, and to the wistful, discontented life of the time-expired man. The lecturer said he had long since come to set the Eight Ballads somewhere near the Nine Symphonies, but they were no better than some of the "Barrack Room Ballads " and " Departmental Ditties " (applause). It was strange that Kipling had not taken a Scot for one of his immortal " Soldiers Three," but there was no resisting the Cockney flouts of Ortheris or the sturdy Yorkshire pride of Learoyd, culmin- ating in that exquisite touch of irony and pathos at the close of the story " On Greenhow Hill,'' which Kipling admitted he obtained from his father. Yet his supreme creation in this army vein was that splendid soldier and scapegrace, Terence Mulvaney, with his irresistible blend of blarney and roguishness, and an extravagance of " divilmint " which showed that Kipling's party politics, even in regard to Ireland, had a deeper and more tolerant foundation than most politicians ever reach. Various attributions and conjectures had been hazarded as to the original Paddy in the ranks who inspired that wonderful character. To the most circumstantial of them all Kipling had replied that he was quite prepared to accept the suggestion, provided it answered an enigma that had baffled even himself. There the matter rested, and Mulvaney remained inexplicable except on the simple score of genius. Here the lecturer analyzed the story of " My Lord the Elephant," and read the climax in a racy brogue which brought applause. Innumerable passages might be quoted to exemplify the infinite range of Kipling's humour—the humour of raillery and of badinage, the clash of race or character, of the practical joke, of mischievous irreverence, of escapade and paradox. He never had any need to fall back on the device of abrupt anachronism endeared to his friend Mark Twain, for when he took us back to the Roman legions or to 1066 and all that, he shaped his fun out of the very spirit of the period. No one could pace along the banks of the little stream that watered the meadows of his Sussex estate (a stream he had made into a glorious poem-panorama of English history) without realising what deep, quaint, precious talk he must have exchanged with it in the leisure moments of that busy and memorable life. Nor could they meander through his work as they had done that evening without acknowledging how most of it appealed with all the old zest of enjoyment. For in THE KIPLING JOURNAL 23 the whole range of British literature there was surely no writer who endowed his readers so liberally, cheerfully and pleasantly with forti- tude against the onset of tedium and despair. (cheers). DISCUSSION Mr. Brooking. Mr. Collins has referred to the source and origin of humour : there is a thing I like very much—" The Necessitarian"—in which Rudyard Kipling very definitely states that the Deity is responsible for humour. It is not very well known—I do not know whether perhaps I have time to read it—it is not very long, if I may be allowed to do so : # # # (last verse) " Yet it must be on wayside jape The self-same Power bestows The self-same power as went to shape His planet or His rose." That seems very clearly to indicate where laughter originates, and the source of it and of what you have taken as humour. Mr. Griffin. The point brought out by Mr. Brooking showing that the Deity was responsible for humour is put with much greater force in the " Legend of Mirth," and with greater wit. In connection with wit, I am very interested in the lecturer's endeavour to give us a definition of humour. When I got the card of the meeting I looked it up in the dictionary. The dictionary draws very definite lines between humour and irony and wit, and Kipling, of course, was a master of them all ; but I do not think that Mr. Collins touched at all on Kipling's power of irony. In the last fortnight, talking of short stories at a friend's house, I was given a book by a French writer. . . . I took it home and after about two hours had indigestion. I turned for relief, for clean humour, for subtlety and unexpected points, to my favourite author, and the first book that came to my hand was " Debits and Credits," the first story—his " Enemies to Each Other," about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, how they were made enemies to one another and the judgment passed on them because of tasting the forbidden fruit. Miss Macdonald. I should like on behalf of Rudyard's family to correct the impression that I think has got about—that the awful woman at Southsea was a relation. She was not a relation at all, though the children referred to her always as " Antirosa," but only as children do— they were only five and three. She was simply one of those people who took Anglo-Indian children and cared for them while their parents were abroad, and she was paid for it. She was no relation. Chairman. I am very interested to hear that. I lived in Southsea for many yeais and took a lot of trouble to find out who his " Aunt " was. Of course, one remembers that in some of his writings Rudyard Kipling did not seem to admire that woman very much ; but that is quite common ; all nurses experience that at times. Captain Gladstone Solomon, who succeeded Kipling's father in charge of the Bombay School, is present ; I should like to hear a few words from him. Captain W. E. Gladstone Solomon. I greatly enjoyed Mr. Collins's most able and stimulating address in which he has indicated so vividly the points in Mr. Kipling's humour. For eighteen years I lived in the bungalow in Bombay in which Mr. Rudyard Kipling is said to have been born. When I met Mr. Kipling in 1930, he said to me, " It is true I was born in a house that pro- bably stood upon that spot, but I do rot think it was the same house." There was a good deal of dispute as to whether that was actually the birthplace of Rudyaid Kipling. In reply to a letter which I wrote to him, asking for further information, he said his birthplace had been demolished and rebuilt on a slightly different site some yards away. The old shed which had served for a studio of instruction in Mr. Lockwood Kipling's time, has now been made the depot for teaching commercial art. A record on permanent lines of the interesting associations of the building with Rudyard Kipling has been placed there at the instance of Lord Lloyd. There is a person living in India, probably a doyen of the College— Pestonjee Bomanjee, the old Parsee artist, who was a great friend of mine in Bombay and a student of the Bombay School of Art under Mr. Lockwood Kipling from about 1870 to 1875. He is a very old man and perfectly remembers the little boy Rudyard running about in the compound, and has often told me amusing reminiscences of this precocious child—he was very precocious. He remembers his coming into a room where the students were modelling and pro- ceeding to pelt them with clay. He was a real nuisance to the class 24 THE KIPLING JOURNAL THE KIPLING JOURNAL 25 until his father came in, took him by the scruff of the neck and pushed him out. He had many humorous stories to tell of incidents of this kind, which indicate that Kipling's sense of humour was there at a very early age. Pestonjee Bomanjee was devoted to the memory of Mr. Lockwood Kipling. His great regret was that from a student of modelling he had to turn to the inferior art of painting because Mr. Lockwood Kipling went to Lahore in 1875 to start the Govern- ment School of Art there and the Bombay School was taken over by Mr. John Griffiths. The question arose as to whether Pestonjee Bomanjee remembered the exact site of the bungalow. He drew out a plan and shewed that it was very near if not exactly on the site of the present bungalow. The old School of Art, when Mr. Lockwood Kipling took it over along with Mr. John Griffiths and Mr. Higgins was a long, narrow shape. There were about forty or fifty students when Mr. Kipling took it over. Now, I think there are about 620 students. It is used for Commercial Art Classes and is functioning much in the same way as when Mr. Lockwood Kipling was there. It may seem perhaps that I am prejudiced, but I do think that hardly enough notice has been taken, so far as I know, of the very important fact that Rudyard Kipling was born in India, although one of his finest poems is about the City of Bombay, and what a splendid tribute he pays to it. ... "For I was born in her gate Her power is over mine, And mine I hold at her hands !" He paid that tribute to the land of sunshine, romance and colour in which his early youth was spent and to which he returned in his early manhood ; because that war the inspiring factor of his work and probably the secret of the magnificent colour that one notices in all his work, which, to some extent, is found also in the work of that great literary genius, Thackeray—also born in India. Major Dawson. As I listened to the lecture one thing came into my mind—a thing that has very often struck me, and I think it must have struck the lec- turer—what I might call the Rabelaisian quality of Kipling's humour. By that I mean the real joy of a joke—it is illustrated in the story about the man who threw the hive of bees over the railway bridge, etc.— pure fun of the most roaring description ; and the same with regard to the monkey puzzler. That kind of humour brings Rabelais to one's 26 THE KIPLING JOURNAL mind—perhaps it is a primitive kind of humour, but the right sort of healthful enjoyment is got from it. Replying to various speakers in the discussion the lecturer said that as regards the poem, " The Legend of Mirth " that one of them cited as specially apposite to the theme of the evening, he was fully concurrent in the way of admiration, and had quoted a line as illustrative of the rest, namely " The wise half-smile that passed from lip to lip." As regards the reproach that the element of irony had been neglected that night, he was afraid that this must remain for another occasion. It was perhaps less appropriate for this occasion, especially when they recalled Burke's conviction from hard experience, that irony was a " dangerous weapon," and realised how it belonged rather to the political debating-club than a bi-sexual society. With regard to Rabelais and a hypothetical link with Kipling, he thought there was a parallel with one of Mulvaney's best outbursts in " Love o' Women " and the celebrated passage where the shipwrecked Panurge devoutly wished he was on terra firma with somebody kicking him to make him feel he was in reach of home (laughter). He thanked Miss Macdonald for attending that evening, and in correcting his conjecture regarding " Antirosa " It had always troubled him to account for Kipling's parents entrusting him as a child to an ogress of whom they ought to have known rather more, and in assuring them now that she was no relative of the family, Miss Macdonald had cleared the family scutcheon (cheers). Mr. Collins mentioned that an old colleague on the Civil and Mili- tary Gazette, Mr. Edwin Haward, had just come home on leave from Shanghai after a laborious, anxious, and exciting time as editor of the North China Daily News and its associated weekly the Herald. That evening Mr. Haward was addressing the Institute of Inter- national Affairs at Chatham House, or else he would have attended this lecture and doubtless have given them some welcome reminis- cences of the period when he was editor at Lahore, instead however, he had sent a message containing the following sentences:— " I have greatly appreciated your illuminating studies of Kipling's life and work, and I should have been happy to hear more. Of one thing Kipling would have been proud, as indeed his last and autobiographical work showed, and that is the virility of his first love, the " C. and M.G." " We in China have often longed for someone to do for us what Kipling did for India. Mr. J. O. P. Bland's charming pen has THE KIPLING JOURNAL 27 gone nearest to fulfilling these aspirations, and quaintly enough its wielder would shake hands with Kipling in the refusal to abandon old political deities." Obituary The Scythe of the Reaper has recently thinned our ranks ; with deep regret we chronicle the deaths of seven Members, two of them Vice- Presidents : Major-General J. D. MacLachan, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. (Vice-President—No. 236 in the roll of the Society) ; Capt. W. Van- sittart-Howard, D.S.O., R.N. (Vice-President—No. 599) ; H. F. Homan (No. 589) : The Rev. R. L. Bellamy (No. 244) ; Major A. H. Coltart (No. 613) ; a more recent Member, G. A. Collum ; Mrs. Fraser of Tornaveen ; and G. C. Beresford (No.l). Major-General James D. MacLachan will be deeply lamented and greatly missed by all, especially by those who live in London, to whom he was well known ; We shall miss his genial presence at our Meetings, as well as at the Council Board, for he was an able speaker and a most efficient Chairman of Council ; added to this, he had a charming and kindly manner, and was always most considerate for the difficulties of others. A ripe classical scholar, he Was also well versed in the great things of our English literature, while his knowledge of Kipling's works was profound. He had a flair for discovering original items not mentioned in the bibliographies, and readers of our Journal are under obligations to him for his many valuable contributions of Kiplingana— The Hon. Editor in particular expresses deep gratitude for the numerous and interesting pieces of information which the late General McLachan used to send, generally with a wish that there should be no mention of the source of the news. With feelings alike of respect and affection we bid him farewell. The firm of " Stalky and Co." has suffered a second loss through the passing of George C. Beresford, who died of heart failure at Brighton on Feb. 21st, though the sad news was not known until it appeared in the Times of March 1st. No. 1 in the Roll of the Kipling Society, he work- ed hard at all times for it ; he was an active Member of Council and put in attendance regularly at the Members' Meetings. Seldom indeed did he speak without arousing keen interest, for he had known Kipling as well as any except our President. His nonchalant manner led many to think him indolent, but his seemingly appearance of indifference covered 28 THE KIPLING JOURNAL a brain with an edge like that of a good razor. He was an essential and complementary part of the famous trio at Westward Ho !, for Stalky (Dunsterville) was the planner of schemes, in which he had the support of Beetle (Kipling) with the Written word and M'Turk (Beresford) with spoken utterance. Not for nothing is M'Turk described in Stalky and Co." as "a dark and scowling Celt with a fluent tongue," and in "Some- thing of Myself "as " the acrid, devasting Turkey who, as I have written, ' lived and loved to destroy illusions ' yet reached always after beauty.' " This reaching after beauty was, perhaps, the keynote of Beresford's life ; it led him, first of all, to appreciate the coming great- ness of our Master when they were boys at school together, for he could see the beauty of the written word that Beetle was pouring out even then—a man of parts himself, he could praise and appraise worth in others, with true artistic generosity. Like his two schoolfellows, Beres- ford went to India, as an engineer ; the climate, however, proved un- suitable to him, so he returned home after about four years. He then turned his attention seriously to painting and kindred arts ; he exhibited at the Royal Academy and was an intimate friend of the late Sir William Orpen. In later years he took up photography with even greater success for he had the real artistic touch without which the best apparatus is useless. He also achieved eminence as an antique dealer ; one might say of him in his professional capacities:—Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. The Society had the benefit of his photographic skill in the wonderful series of portraits that appeared from time to time ; these he freely gave, " seeking praise nor guerdon." If, at times, he seemed to belittle (or ' debunk ') Kipling, it generally followed that he produced some evi- dence that gave his schoolfellow an even greater claim to greatness ; for none could see more clearly than ' M'Turk ' the difference between fulsome admiration, often founded upon erroneous premises, and honest appreciation of merit by a craftsman fit to pronounce judgment. On personal, as well as material, grounds we mourn G. C. Beresford, Kip- ling Society No.l. Vale ! Letter Bag May I contribute a few comments on the book " Rudyard Kipling's Vermont Feud," by Frederic F. Van de Water. (The Countryman Press, Weston, Vermont), which dubious gift has been added to your shelves. Mr. Van de Water gives some account of himself in a small book issued shortly before the Feud book,—" Our Country Home : An Adventure in Serenity," which tells of his losses in the 1929 crash; THE KIPLING JOURNAL 29 Your comment on the book is a very modest expression of the re- action of Kipling lovers in the United States. One noted Kipling collector Wrote me " Of course I shall not buy the book," the leading book reviewers barely mentioned it, the Brattleboro people are hum- iliated and the Kipling public are disgusted. Mr. Van de Water says : " Now that both principals are dead a tale may be told." Con- ceivably that very fact might act as a deterrent instead of an open sesame to exploitation. But " Feud " is a shrewd title, and with the magic word " unexpurgated " one leaps to fame, of a sort, at a bound. The garrulous cannot understand, and therefore resent, reticence, and the lexicon of a reporter in pursuit of copy knows not the word "private." "Naulakha" was the first and only home Rudyard Kipling ever built, and its very name—signifying " cherished possession "—must have reflected the hope that it would prove to him " An Adventure in Serenity." But one lone episode in his four and a half years' residence on that Vermont hillside was exploited into a nation-wide sensation which so destroyed the peace and serenity necessary for his creative work that he closed the house and with his American wife and two young American-born daughters returned to England. That unhappy incident of forty years ago was at the time fully published in the local papers, and reporters from the metro- politan newspapers were on hand at the court hearing to do it full justice, for of such is news made. The trouble was solely a family affair, aggravated by the usual village gossip, and, given the character- istics of the two principals, the action and the outcome were inevitable. There Was nothing scandalous about it,—it was just " a row that might have happened in any family." But it utterly destroyed the tran- quillity and happiness essential to the Kipling temperament so that continued living at " Naulakha " was impossible, and the English Kipling returned to his own country. It is idle to conjecture whether Kipling would have lived permanently in Vermont if this incident had not occurred. He was, naturally, British in feeling and out- look, and the World War would have intensified that loyalty. The resurrection—not its discovery—of this episode, its title and treat- ment call to mind Kipling's own lines :— We are very slightly changed From the semi-apes who ranged India's Prehistoric clay ; He that drew the longest bow Ran his brother down, you know , As we run men down to-day. Mrs. William M. Carpenter Evanston, Illinois, U.S.A. 30 THE KIPLING JOURNAL " The Cat That Walked By Himself " is not a lovable character, and the incompetence and unwillingness, from a Sporting and Dram- atic point of view, of Pussy, so unfavourably compared with Binkie, has, perhaps, given some cause for the belief that Kipling, like his hero, Lord Roberts, " hated cats." Everybody knows of his love for, and sympathy with, dogs ; I have recently learned something which seems to show that he also enjoyed the society of cats, and even inspired something like affection in those mysterious and self- centred creatures. Near the lower end of famous Milsom Street, in the City of Bath, is a small shop where they sell "boiled sweets," and especially a delectable form of toffee in balls, known as " rum and butter." In that shop lives a large, handsome, black-and-white half-Persian cat, named Winkie. The other day, when I Was there, the lady in charge told me that Kipling, on a visit to Bath, used to spend quite a lot of time sitting on a chair with Winkie on his knee, and that Winkie would welcome him, jumping down from his customary place on the counter when he entered, and following him to his seat. E. D. (1107). I am sure that all Kipling admirers will wish success to the appeal recently launched for funds which, amongst other objects, will be used for the provision of suitable memorials at Windsor and Westward Ho ! As is well known, Rudyard Kipling was educated at the Old United Services College, Westward Ho !, after which he went to India to take up a literary career. His old " coll," the furze hills and the great pebble ridge still appear very much the same now as when they inspired Kipling to write " Stalky and Co," and there is no other place in the world that can claim so intimate or romantic an association with the great writer as can Westward Ho ! Every year, Kipling admirers from all over the globe come to seek out the old haunts of " Stalky and Co," just as Shakespeare enthusiasts go to Stratford on Avon to pay homage to that immortal poet. And this brings me to the main point of my letter. What could more be appropriate than the erection of a Kipling Memorial Theatre, Museum and Library at Westward Ho !, wherein, within sight of the old " coll " and the great Atlantic rollers, Kipling worshippers throughout the world could come and derive pleasure from Kipling's plays, songs and even films of his works ? Such a memorial, in the Kipling atmosphere which is so much part of THE KIPLING JOURNAL 31 this North Devon Coast town would ensure that Kipling's memory would be kept green for Centuries to come. A. Eric Parry. Secretary's Corner Members' attention is called to the very nice binder which we sell for the Kipling Journal. Each binder holds eight journals and can be supplied at 3s. 6d. each post free on application to me. Our Journal is the only publication of this kind—so far as Kipling is concerned—in existence and the demand for the back numbers is steadily increasing. They are well worth preservation. Members will see that for wear as a brooch or button we have decided to em- ploy a new badge instead of the book and swastika which is still retained for our printed matter. The new badge will, I am sure, meet with general approval for it is particularly neat in appearance and strikes an original note in comparison with other badges. It is reproduced in this issue as an inset and can be supplied in gold for 15/- and in silver for 3/6, as well as in gilt for 2/6 We are making a great effort to bring our membership up to 1,000 and to maintain it at that figure as a minimum. At present it is 849, and so 151 more new members are required. We are advertising in The Navy ; we have a special Kipling Evening coming off on March 31st, at The Royal Empire Society, and propose to appoint Honorary Corresponding Secretaries in many centres at home and abroad to try and increase our membership in their respective areas. Will members please help us by mentioning us to those of their friends who are lovers of Kipling's work ? The fate of our bust of Kipling has not yet been decided. The Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery are going to consider our offer at their April Meeting when the bust will be sent down to them for inspection. Really beautiful photographs of the bust are available at 2/6 each, post free. Our apologies are due to Mr. Warwick Smeeton who appeared in a recent list of new members as Mr. Warwick Smulon. I am so sorry this error escaped our attention when proof reading. Members will welcome the establishment of our Cape Town Branch which is mentioned on page 136. The absence of a branch in South Africa up to now was always a source of regret to our Council in view of Kiplings' connection with that country. Another very great gap which should be filled is India. A Kipling Society without an Indian branch is sadly incomplete. Will none of our members living in India help ? C. H. R. 32 THE KIPLING JOURNAL NEW MEMBERS SINCE DECEMBER ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL 1535 D. C. Edmonston 1542 E. G. Poole Hongkong Lancs. 1536 Miss F. Patchett L. 1543 Cecil J. Sibbett London Cape Town 1537 Mrs. Briant 1544 H. A. Holt Thornton Heath Surrey 1538 Captain G. C. Hall 1545 Miss D. I. Anderson Sussex London 1539 Dr. Hubert Norman 1546 K. F. Hilder London Co. Durham 1540 W. J. Neill 1547 Miss Florence Marks Northern Ireland Surrey 1541 Group Captain E. W. 1548 P. Maylam Havers Kent Berks. V. 29 P. Oliver Victoria, B.C. C. 1 Rev. A. Vine Hall C. 15 S. E. Ashmead-Bartlett Claremont Cape Town C. 2 G. H. Wilson C. 16 Mrs. C. van der Byl Cape Town Newlands C. 3 F. B. Philip C. 17 Mrs. H. H. Elliott Cape Town Rondesbosch C. 4 Capt. Elsworth, F.R.I.B.A. C. 18 His Hon. H. L. Currey Cape Town Kenilworth C. 5 F. K. Kendall, F.R.I.B.A. C. 19 Miss Barnard Cape Town Claremont C. 6 Gerald Orpen C. 20 Sir Alfred Henessy, K.B.E. Cape Town Wynberg C. 7 Miss Reice C. 21 Miss J. E. Pritchard Cape Town Cape Town C. 8 Miss Chamberlain C. 22 Mrs. Johnston Plumstead Cape Town C. 9 Miss Chaplin C. 23 R. O. Goolden Cape Town (now London) Rondesbosch C. 10 Mrs. Trevor Bomford C. 24 Mrs. E. S. Rice Cape Town Rondesbosch C. 11 Miss C. F. Bomford C. 25 Lt.-Comdr. G. Tim Healey, Cape Town R.N. (retd.) C. 12 Major Hughesdon Cape Town Cape Town C. 26 E. E. Benham C. 13 Mrs. Benham (transferred to Cape Branch) Cape Town C. 27 Lancelot Ussher C. 14 Mrs. Thomas Stewart (transferred to Cape Branch) Cape Town C. 28 H. G. Willmot (transferred to Cape Branch) L. indicates Life Member. C. indicates Cape Town Branch. V. indicates Victoria Branch