The Kipling Journal The Organ of the Kipling Society QUARTERLY No. 50 JULY, 1939 Contents ; Plate : Group at United Services College 1880 From the President 41 " Till the Sure Magic Strike!" 54 The Jubilee of our Journal 42 Annual Luncheon...... 64 News and Notes ...... 43 Prize Essay Competition 75 Branch Reports ...... 48 Obituary.......... 75 Books and Reviews...... 50 Annual Conference 76 Poem " In Westminster Abbey " 53 Secretary's Corner...... 77 Our Fiftieth Number FROM THE PRESIDENT 1 SHOULD like to commemorate this 50th issue of our Journal by tendering my heartfelt thanks to all our Members, and I trust they realize that in this quarterly publication we try our best to give them something really worth reading and recording. This applies principally to those Members who live too far away to enjoy our Meetings, and especially to those overseas. It is only on very rare occasions that we are able to meet any of the latter and it is therefore only through our Journal that we can keep in touch with them. As I personally have nothing to do with the actual preparation of the contents I may be allowed to pay a tribute to our Hon. Editor, Mr. B. M. Bazley, who spares a great deal of time in a very busy life to do his best for us. I am afraid that those who have never had to under- take this class of work may not realize the amount of time and trouble it involves. I have evidence of a certain amount of appreciation of our efforts and it has been very gratifying to me to receive on many occasions letters of thanks and congratulations from Members overseas ; there is nothing more pleasing than being thanked for work that was entirely carried out by some other fellow. L. C. DUNSTERVILLE. Britain House, Waddesdon 42 THE KIPLING JOURNAL The Jubilee of Our Journal By the Hon. Editor " FIFTY not out " is a very creditable score for a Quarterly which is devoted to a single subject ; the Kipling Society has reason to be proud of the record of its Journal which has been issued at regular periods from the very beginning. In March, 1927, our very excellent first number appeared, ably edited by our Founder. No. 2 was also produced by Mr. Brooking, as the new Hon. Editor, Mr. W. Arthur Young, could not take over the responsibility until No. 3 ; as Mr. Brooking was also our very capable and energetic Hon. Secretary for the whole of the Society's first year, he is to be congratulated on the skill with which he conducted his onerous dual office. With No. 3 Mr. Young took the reins ; to his wide experience as a journalist and knowledge of his subject we owe the present form of the Journal, for, since his time (as readers may notice), the changes in its make-up have been few and slight. It may not be known to all Members that Mr. Young is the author of " A Kipling Dictionary— 1886-1911," a work that has established and held its reputation as a book essential to all students ; he had collected a wonderful galaxy of Kipling portraits and illustrations to various works, which he kindly exhibited at a Meeting. With No. 19 (September, 1931) Mr. Young's labours as Editor came to an end ; his professional work increased to an extent that forbade any additional duties. His departure from the Editorial Chair was universally regretted, and his cheery presence at our Meetings was greatly missed by all who knew him. With No. 20 I went into office ; " eheu fugaces . . . labuntur anni ! " If the personal pronoun may be forgiven, I want to take this oppor- tunity to thank all those who have so kindly and effectively assisted me in my work for the Society. All readers (and the Hon. Editor in particular) owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Journal Sub-Committee : Mr. Brooking, Sir George MacMunn and Capt. Martindell ; their actual spade work has much to do with the finished article, and their extensive knowledge of our Master's works is invaluable ; to their names I must add that of Admiral Chandler. Nor must I forget those Members who, from time to time, help very much by contributing articles and interesting items of information. And, once more, for help and sympathy, my thanks. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 43 News and Notes OUR illustration in this issue is a group taken at the United Ser- vices College, Westward Ho ! with Kipling near the centre, sec- ond on the left of the master ; the original was sent to us with a num- ber of press cuttings, but we have been unable to discover the source. The picture reproduced here was shown to the late G. C. Beresford, who gave the following comment on it in January, 1937 :—" The photo must have been taken by W. C. Crofts (King) as it is only a casual one, taken with the boys sitting on a pile of boxes and trunks, heaped up at the side of the road or avenue, ready to be carted to Bideford Railway Station for breaking-up day. The date would be April 1880. I get the date thus—the master is H. Green who was a house master who left the college end of 1880. The month must be April, as if it was December some of the boys would have top coats; if it was July some of the boys would have straw hats. It is a capital portrait of Gigger with a natural smile, and his dimpled chin, and his cap perched on top of his head. R. K. would be 14 years and 3 months old. I recognise several of the boys ; but can't put names to them. . . H. Green, house master of the end house that occupied Nos. 11 and 12 next the Gym is interesting, as it was through him that Kipling got all the information about how the masters carried on and chatted in the Common Room, that is incorporated in " Stalky and Co." . . . Kipling told me this shortly after the book appeared." Those who criticised that celebrated work as ' unreal ' will now at long last under- stand that Kipling had foundation for his characters. The third Meeting of the 1938-39 Session was held at the Basil Street Hotel, Knightsbridge, S.W.3., on Wednesday, 5th April, 1939, at 4 p.m. The speaker was Miss Ellen Bowick, and the subject, " Kipling: the Man and his Work." The Chairman was Lady Cunyng- hame, Vice-President and Member of Council, who introduced the lecturer in a few words :—' I was very glad to accept the invitation to preside this afternoon, because I felt that we were going to have an exceptionally interesting address from Miss Bowick. She has taken a big subject—" Kipling : the Man and his Work," but I feel sure, from all the study she has made both of the man and his work that we shall go home from this Meeting with many fresh ideas.' After the lecture Lady Cunynghame proposed a vote of thanks to Miss Bowick 44 THE KIPLING JOURNAL for her talk and recitations; this was carried with acclamation. Owing to lack of space, the Report of this meeting is held over until our next issue. It is not likely that Kipling will ever be forgotten in England : it seems even less likely that he will be forgotten in France. Without anything abnormal taking place in the way of Kipling news, an article has recently appeared in Le Patriote des Pyrénées (May 20th), which is one of the most striking tributes to our Master's genius ever written. The author, M. Louis Delune, gives his reasons why Kipling should be looked up to as a model by all young men : " Kipling's life, broad- ly speaking possesses few prominent features to form a biography fitted to hold the interest of the reader. But he has, in his make-up, a character so noble, so generous, so sincere—steeped in tranquil courage and unconquerable energy—that it endures as a model." Later on, M. Delune tells his readers to study these traits in the author's works :—" Si je consacre cet article à Kipling, sans raconter par le détail ses voyages dans le monde entier c'est qu'il vaut mieux vous laisser à vous-mêmes le soin d'étudier et d'apprécier l'exemple qu'il nous donne dans ses livres ; c'est surtout parce que je veux vous faire con- naitre l'admirable poème à son fils que tout jeune Français devrait apprendre par coeur, méditer et mettre en pratique." Here follows a good translation of " If—" which, though M. Delune is in error in supposing that Kipling wrote it to his own son, is a poem even more appreciated in France than it is with us. The final words maintain the spirit of this tribute :—" And it is just because Kipling had under- standing and love for our country even to his death in 1936, even to the point of giving to it what he held most dear, that I ask you in your turn to love him through his literary work that is at once the most human, the most genuine, and the most impassioned that exists." X X X X X Our Society is lucky in having ladies and gentlemen of outstanding ability to look after its interests in the far-flung corners of the Empire ; it is a great tribute to our Master that his work attracts people who have achieved eminence and distinction in many walks of life. Among these we must mention Mr. Donald Mackintosh, first secretary of the Melbourne Branch, champion gun-shot, lover of dogs and poet. Mr. Mackintosh has a charming way of asking his friends to remember him—he presents them with a calf vellum bookmark which bears an apposite quotation for the recipient, inscribed by Mr. James Forman, THE KIPLING JOURNAL 45 Australia's master calligraphist. One of these was given to Lord Nuffield who, on the date of presentation, had given away £12,000,000 ; it expressed the hope that his lordship would " find in memory's garden fair twelve million happy memories there." Our President has been similarly honoured and displays his bookmark with pride among his Kipling treasures ; in his case the inscription runs :—" Lest we forget." " Poetry is the music of the soul and, above all, of great and feeling souls!" X X X X X The United Services College Old Boys' Luncheon was held on May 26th at the Criterion Restaurant. Among the fifty or so present were Major General L. C. Dunsterville, C.B., C.S.I., and General Sir Alex- ander Godley, G.C.B., K.C.S.I. Since last year the O.U.S.C. Society has suffered a great loss through the deaths of Mr. A. H. Gayer, first President of the revived O.U.S.C. Society, and Lt.-Col. H. A. Hill, who also had occupied the Presidential Chair; their passing brought a feeling of sadness to the occasion. General Sir Alexander Godley was unanimously elected as President of the Society. Kipling Society members who met Lt.-Col. and Mrs. Breithaupt at our Luncheons during the late Colonel Bailey's Secretaryship will be interested to hear that they are both very well and enjoying their life in Rhodesia. X X X X X Mr. W. O. Steuart sends us a short account of the Daimler Company's Museum at Coventry that appeared in the Scotsman (14 March) :— " Another veteran is the 1903 12 h.p. Lanchester which was owned by the late Rudyard Kipling, and immortalised by him as the ' Octopod ' in his ' Steam Tactics.' This car, also, is in excellent running order, and has successfully competed in the London—Brighton veteran car run on nine occasions. The engine is mounted amidships between the front and rear seats, and the starting handle is at the side. Air louvres, protruding on either side and facing forwards, assist the engine cooling system. The driver sits over the front wheels with a tiller at his right hand, and with a folding apron of patent leather across his knees for protection from the wind." We recommend our readers to look up the reference in the story named ; they will be struck with the faithful description of the make and capabilities of this early and efficient machine. X X X X X A writer in the Calcutta Statesman (May 4th) quotes the little poem 46 THE KIPLING JOURNAL beginning ' To Love's low voice she lent a careless ear," and says that he does not remember having come across these Kipling lines before, adding, quite truthfully, that the lines mentioned are very beautiful. They are indeed beautiful, but they are not to be found in any collection of Kipling's verse for the very good reason that they were not his. They were written by his mother and appear in that very delightful little book, " Hand-in-Hand : Verses by a Mother and Daugh- ter." The mother was Mrs. Lockwood Kipling and the daughter is Mrs. Fleming (Alice, or Trix, Macdonald Fleming), Kipling's sister. X X X X X All members of the Kipling Society in London, including those from other lands who have visited the office or attended a Meeting, will realise that we possess a very celebrated piece of work in the bust of our Master by Mme. Bingguely-Lejeune; one replica of this wonder- ful portrait now rests permanently in the National Portrait Gallery. Mme. Bingguely-Lejeune tells us that she was specially invited to exhibit her study of Kipling by the Société Coloniale des Artistes ; it was given the " place d'honneur" at the 1939 Salon, and that bust now holds the unique record of having been exhibited at the Salon for three years in succession. M. Charles Fouqueray, President of the Colonial Association, says that the work is a " very remarkable bust of the great Rudyard Kipling whom I knew well, and whose bust is a splendid portrait. He is at his place amongst us who understand the merits of this great Englishman that we admire so much." The talented sculptress was congratulated on " her great achievement " by M. Albert Lebrun, President of the French Republic. At an exhibition at the premises of the Fine Art Society in Bond Street a number of other works, all of outstanding merit, were on view ; other qualities apart, all of them had the virtue of ' life '—one felt that they were studies of people in the full glow of living ; this remark applies in particular to a wonder- ful study of Lord Nuffield, also a Salon Exhibit, which is styled " a vigorous and impressive piece of work " by the Paris Daily Mail. It is perhaps needless to add that Mme. Bingguely-Lejeune, Lauréat and Life Member of the Société des Artistes Français, is a member of our Society, a member of whom we can all feel proud. We offer her our most hearty congratulations on her phenomenal success. The fourth Meeting of the 1938-39 Session was held at the Basil THE KIPLING JOURNAL 47 Street Hotel, Knightsbridge, S.W.3. on Tuesday, 20th June, 1939, at 8 p.m. Always a popular Meeting with London Members, this gathering was a very happy occasion due to the presence of the Presi- dent, an unusually fine Paper from Mr. G. E. Fox, two good enter- tainers, and a welcome break about half way for refreshments and informal talk ; this last feature was much appreciated by the 100 who were present—indeed, one remarked—" I never knew that there were so many pleasant people in the Kipling Society ! " Our President was in excellent health and in good form ; his words of greeting struck a happy note at once :—" It is a great pleasure to me to find myself here with you all again, in the Chair—not, of course the latter part ; I should like to see somebody else in the Chair and to sit at my ease without having to think of all the various things I have to do, many of which I shall probably forget. As your Chairman I have to welcome you all here, and especially Mr. and Mrs. Rowe who are here from India for the first time. It may be that there are others here from that great country with which our author was so intimately connected, or from other distant lands : if there are any such, I hope they will stand up, just so that we may give them greeting ; we want to make all those feel how glad we are to welcome you, and how proud to have you on our list of members. I have nothing to add except to say that this is probably the last time I shall be here. I am sure the company will agree with me that it is quite time you had some fresh blood in the Chair (Cries of " No! ). It is very kind of you to be so nice about it, but I am not playing up to that—I really do think you should get some- body on the juvenile side instead of me ; however, I leave it to you." After the Paper, the Hon. Secretary made his announcements and gave the assembly the sad news about Mr. Benham of the Cape Town Branch. There was a short discussion, previous to which Mrs. Marney Mason sang three songs from the " Just So Song Book " (Edward German), giving very charming renderings of these numbers. Later on, Miss Florence Marks gave some fine readings of poems, concluding with a delightfully humorous touch in part 2 of " The Legend of Evil." The Vote of Thanks to the Lecturer was proposed by the Presi- dent and carried with acclamation ; Mr. B. M. Bazley (Hon. Editor) proposed and Mr. W. G. M. Maitland (Hon. Librarian) seconded a very hearty vote of thanks to the artistes. On the following day, at the Criterion Restaurant, the Annual General Meeting was held. This immediately preceded the Annual Luncheon which, like the Presidential Meeting on the evening before, 48 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Was one of the most successful parties organised by the Society ; every- thing went with a swing, the speakers were brilliant, the lunch itself very good, and the attendance very large. Our Hon. Secretary, Sir Christopher Robinson, Bart., is to be heartily congratulated and most sincerely thanked for the pains that he took to render these Annual Meetings so successful. Reports of Tuesday's Paper, the Annual Meeting and the Lunch will be found on other pages ; and in the Obituary will be found a few words about the late Mr. E. E. Benham. Branch Reports Victoria, B.C., Canada. At the January Meeting Mrs. G. R. Thomson read four of Kipling s shorter Indian stories : " The Pit that they Digged," " Naboth," " Haunted Subalterns," and " Jews in Shushan." Comments were given by Mr. G. R. Thomson in the form of three amusing limericks. Mr. Thomson also recited " Old Mother Laidinwool." A donation was sent from the Branch towards the fund for the purpose of placing a plaque of Kipling in H.M.S. " Kipling." A Paper was read by Mr. C. V. Milton at the February Meeting: " Studies of Kipling's Animal Characters." The speaker pointed to the reality of the animals portrayed, and said that in some of the stories where they talked like human beings they still retained their animal habits and characteristics. As illustration, Mr. Thomson quoted from " The Maltese Cat," " Garm—a Hostage," " A Walking Delegate," and others, ending with " The Bull that Thought." Mrs. C. Badger read the poems, " The Law of the Jungle," and " The Outsong." " Kipling s Message to Us " was the title of a Paper given by Mrs. M. Barclay in March. Mrs. Barclay related her personal reminiscences of Kipling when she was a small child and he, as a young man, visited her parent's home in India ; she also showed a letter written by him to her on Christmas Day, 1936, shortly before his death. Mary Neal, Publicity Secretary. LIMERICKS NABOTH Greedy Naboth turned out a bad actor, And imposed on his kind benefactor. Through his covetous greed He encrouched with such speed That his vineyard went under the tractor. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 49 HAUNTED SUBALTERNS When the subalterns went on a revel, They were haunted and plagued by the devil. But, if Kipling could speak,— With his tongue in his cheek, He would say : " This is not on the level !" Melbourne. The first Annual Meeting was held in the Scot's Church Hall, Melbourne, on March 30th. The President, Dr. A. S. Joske, was in the Chair, and about 100 Members and friends were present. The Secretary, Mrs. Broughton, read the Annual Report and gave a full account of the Branch activities during the year. The Treasurer, Dr. Boyd-Graham, presented the Balance Sheet, which showed a small credit after all dues and expenses were paid. The adoption of these two reports was moved by the President and seconded by Sir Julius Bruche (Vice-President of the Society). For the ensuing year the following officers were elected : Dr. A. S. Joske (President) ; Major Gen. Sir Julius H. Bruche, K.C.B., C.M.G., and Mr. Donald Mackintosh (Vice-Presidents) ; Mrs. G. Broughton (Secretary) ; Dr. Boyd-Graham (Treasurer) ; Mrs. G. V. Brown (Librarian) ; and Mrs. Walsoe, Mr. W. Astley and Mr. Maurice Walsh for the Committee. After the business meeting Sir Stanley Argyle, M.L.A., gave a very interesting talk on " Kipling in his Home " and illustrated this with moving pictures he had taken when visiting Kipling at Burwash ; these were so much appreciated that Sir Stanley showed them twice. He also told of his correspondence with Kipling in connection with the Ode for the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance, which Kipling wrote for us, and which Sir Stanley read at the Opening of the Shrine by H.R.H, the Duke of Gloucester in 1934. He concluded his talk by reading Kipling's verses written for the King George V. Jubilee Naval Review, " The King and the Sea." The poem, " Sussex," was feelingly recited by Miss Meyer, and Miss Eakin sang " Merrow Down " in pleasing fashion. After supper, more Just So Songs were sung by Mr. Gordon Williams of the Argus staff, who roused great enthusiasm by his spirited renderings of " The Camel's Hump " and " Rolling down to Rio." The First Annual Report tells us that the Melbourne Branch came 50 THE KIPLING JOURNAL into being in February, 1938, when Kipling readers were invited by Dr. Joske to meet him at the Public Library ; the first Meeting was held at the Scot's Church Hall and was well attended, 30 members being enrolled that night. Since March, 1938, there have been 8 meetings, all well patronised ; the year ended with a membership of 60. Interest- ing talks have been given by Sir Julius Bruche on his association with the London Society and on " Some Kipling Origins :" by Mr. Mac- donald on "My Favourite Volume of Kipling;" and by Dr. Boyd Graham on " Kipling's Child Characters." Kipling's books, " Many Inventions," "Rewards and Fairies," and "Puck of Pook's Hill" have been studied and discussed by members. During August Mr. Mackintosh asked to be relieved of the Secretary's work ; his place was taken by Mrs. Broughton. Mr. Mackintosh is now a Vice-President. Suppers were initiated during the winter and proved very successful in bringing members together; this year a social committee has been formed, with Mrs. Hall as leader. At the Christmas Meeting Mr. John O'Day presented the Branch with 20 volumes of Kipling's works, to start a library for the use of members. The Committee wish to thank members for their confidence ; the steady increase of members during 1938 has been very pleasing and seems to prove that our little circle of Kipling lovers is filling a definite corner in Melbourne's literary world. Grace Broughton (Hon. Secretary) Books and Reviews " Poems of a South African," by Arthur Vine Hall (Longmans, Green and Co., 10s. 6d.). In No. 47, p.8o, we reviewed in this column " Katrina and Other Poems " by the same author ; we now have before us Mr. Vine Hall's complete work, a beautifully produced volume with ten coloured plates, six of which are by E. J. Detmold (one of the re- maining is a fine study of the Victoria Falls by the author). However, it is with the literary contents of this collected edition that we are most concerned; first, let us say that the remarks in No. 47, which deal with the section entitled " Katrina and Other Poems," need not be repeated; we can only say that re-reading confirms us in our favourable opinion— like good wine, these verses improve with keeping. Taken as a whole, Mr. Vine Hall's poems are cheerful, manly and sincere ; he also has the quality of music—a rare attribute in these days when cacophony holds sway. Here, there are no ' morbidities,' no false psychological THE KIPLING JOURNAL 51 studies, no ugly sex-revellings. Of the longer poems, " Round the Camp Fire" and "Table Mountain" stand out; and there is a mystic note in "The Aeroplane": We whirl adown the steeps of air, Circling amid the petals fair Of such a rose as to Dante seemed Fragrant with rapture of the Redeemed. Very delightful are the verses for children—a suggestion, without any imitation, of Robert Louis Stevenson. In " Katrina " we noted a very fine poem called " Rudyard Kipling;" in this book the author gives another entitled " Poetry:" ' That you can care for Kipling, who Shelley love and Keats, Amazes me : I call it one of your acrobatic feats.' ' A nurseryman,' I answered, ' may specialize in roses And cultivate no other flowers, but errs if he supposes ' That he has made a garden. His roses will complain That among her subjects only a queen can be said to reign. ' Poetry is a garden—a profusion of delight ! And every blossom that is there is there with equal right. In conclusion we quote Kipling's preface to an early edition of this book :—" I who know the boat as she comes from the builder's hands, do not accept the author's more than modest estimate of her worth. Good luck go with her, and may she be the first of a fleet of tall galleys, built of African oak, putting out to the ends of the earth from under the Mountain we both love so well." Those who enjoyed Mrs. Fleming's Memories of Rudyard Kipling in the March issue of Chamber's Journal will be well advised to get the July number of that excellent publication, for here is a further install- ment of recollections :—" More Childhood Memories of Rudyard Kipling." Needless to say, this article is just as revealing and fascinat- ing as its predecessor ; take this little paragraph :—"I knew I was only a few minutes away from the little house (the Southsea scene of ' Baa, Baa, Black Sheep '), but my heart failed me, and I hurried back to the shops, and the sea, and my hotel. I dared not face it. The next time I met my brother he told me that he had had much the same ex- perience ; I think we both dreaded a kind of spiritual imprisonment that would affect our dreams. Less than four years ago I asked him whether he knew if the house still stood. ' I don't know, but if so I should like to burn it down and plough the place with salt.' " After this come happier memories of time spent in a house on whose site now rises part of Harrod's Stores ; here are some truly gorgeous tales 52 THE KIPLING JOURNAL of how brother and sister played tricks on passers-by, by leaving small packages on the pavement in front of the house ! Cousin Stanley Baldwin makes another appearance—the article is worth reading for this one incident alone ; it is to be hoped that modern theorists in teaching the young will duly note and digest. Mrs. Fleming demolishes the curious and unfounded story that her brother did not like cats— nay, that he was cruel to them :—" If it were possible to find, in a Zoo or out of it, any animal or bird that Rudyard hated, I would undertake to kill it with my bare hands and eat it raw! He, like his father before him, loved all living things, and neither of them ever owned a gun." The narrative ends with a projected plot to rob the old South Kensington Museum, which is too good to be spoilt by short quotation. Once more, let us express our gratitude to Mrs. Fleming for her reminis- cences. Our Vice-President in Australia, Maj.-Gen. Sir Julius Bruche, never forgets to send us any item of Kipling interest from his Continent. To him we are indebted for a copy of The Scotch Collegian (December 1938) the magazine of the Scotch College, Melbourne, which contains a very fine appreciation (or criticism; which you will?) entitled "The Other Kipling," the Moyle Prize Essay by A. L. Burns. We do not know the age of the writer; anyway, he has turned out a very fine piece of literary criticism. Read this :—" In short, everybody knows Kipling, Poet of Imperialism, but only those who have really read him know Kip- ling, Poet of the Second Romantic Revival. I use the word ' romantic ' here advisedly—-not the sickly, sexy romanticism which publishers seem to think the public demands, nor the voluptuous Eastern roman- ticism of Byron, nor yet the milk-and-water romanticism of the Lake poets. I mean something more like the ancient tales of high adventure which the troubadours once sang all over Christendom, and which have descended to us, watered down, in the form of children's stories." This side of Kipling's art—still almost unknown to those writers whose literary equipment is slender—is well shown all the way through by good comment and apt quotation: —" But poetic art—art that could invent lines like— "Ever 'neath high Valhalla Hall, the well-tuned horns begin, "When the swords are out in the underworld and the weary gods come in," or THE KIPLING JOURNAL 53 " Dust of stars was under our feet, glitter of stars above," raises it to a height of romantic oratory. In this issue there are also two real poems from the same pen : '' The Challenge '' and '' The New Spires. " In spite of a slight metrical error in one we may say that there is good work here—we predict a bright future for "A. L. B." IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY A THOUGHT AT EVENSONG—March 29, 1936. (The Poem below is reprinted from The Dickensian ; to the Editor of that journal we tender our very sincere and grateful thanks for his permission to give this charming piece of work to our readers. We must also thank Mr. A. E. G. Cornwell, President and Founder of the Vic- toria, B.C. Branch for drawing our attention to it). Three Wizards lie in Westminster. No sculptured marbles show In polished phrase, from classic tongue, Whose ashes rest below The stones, by which so many feet Tread daily to and fro. Around are crowded sepulchres Of men, so good and great : Kings, warriors, priests, philosophers Rulers of Church and State. No marvel that, on cherub cheeks, Stone teardrops weep their fate ! Some threescore years and six have sped Since the midmost " Mage " laid down The magic pen, wherewith he wrote True tales of London Town That won far him, the wide world o'er, " Love " and not mere " Renown!" A wizard of the countryside To right of him is laid, A chronicler of Rustic Folk, Of " Tess " the tragic maid, And echoes from great battlefields, And men who empires swayed. And meet it is a ' West ' Minster Should serve as place of Rest For one who wove a web of words That captured East and West. For Dickens, Hardy, Kipling, Their Maker's Name be blest ! Florence Tyler. 54 THE KIPLING JOURNAL "Till the Sure Magic Strike ! " By Gerard E. Fox WHEN, in May 1906, our Master submitted the toast of "Liter- ature " at the Royal Academy banquet, he said that he found the occasion a somewhat terrifying one ; so that if I feel like that now, I am at any rate in very good company. No doubt every member of this Society has read and re-read the " Book of Words " where the address mentioned finds pride of place. We remember how the speaker referred to the legend (probably made up for the occa- sion) of the first man who had performed a most notable deed. This man was anxious to tell his tribe about the deed, but, when he tried to do so, he was smitten with dumbness ; he lacked words and sat down. Then, said Kipling, there arose a masterless man, one who had no particular virtues and had nothing whatever to do with the notable deed, but who was " afflicted with the magic of the nec- essary word." This man learned all about the deed and then described it to the tribe in such a way that his words became alive and walked up and down in the hearts of his hearers. The tribe was much disturbed and feared that the masterless man might hand down untrue stories about them to their children, so they went and killed him ! Later, however, they discovered that the magic was not in the man but in the words. The speaker went on to say that a thousand excellent or strenuous words may leave us cold, or put us to sleep, whereas some half hundred words, breathed on by some man in his agony, or in his exalta- tion, or in his idleness, ten generations ago, can still lead whole na- tions into or out of captivity ; can open for us the doors of the three worlds and can stir us so intolerably that we can scarcely abide to look at our own souls ! It is a miracle ; one that happens very seldom. I have ventured to quote these thoughts of our Master because they appear to me to open the first of the windows into Rudyard Kipling's mind to which I want you to look tonight. My text is taken from the poem " Sussex." So to the land our hearts we give Till the sure magic strike, And Memory, Use and Love make live Us and our fields alike— That deeper than our speech and thought, Beyond our reason's sway, Clay of the pit whence we were wrought Yearns to its fellow-clay. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 55 I wish to suggest that this Society was founded because the sure magic of Kipling's words and teaching had struck into the heart of its founder, Mr. Brooking. He found men and women, over whom the Magician has also wrought his spell, to help him, and, except for our sins, that is why we are here tonight. The first window I want you to look at is, or was originally entitled "Twilight in the Abbey." We may imagine our Poet in that great building wherein his ashes were eventually to rest. The rays of the setting sun blot out the window frames : My new-cut ashlar takes the light, Where crimson-blank the windows flare. By my own work before the night, Great Overseer, I make my prayer. If there be good in that 1 wrought, Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine— Where I have failed to meet Thy Thought I know, through Thee, the blame was mine. Just consider the humility of the man ! I am positive he never published a line which was not absolutely sincere. No one was more conscious of the powers he possessed, but he held them humbly as a great responsibility and in no way to be proud of or boasted about : One instant's toil to Thee denied Stands all Eternity's offence. Of that I did with Thee to guide To Thee, through Thee, be excellence. It may be doubted if he ever wasted a moment of his short seventy years. Compare the line in " If— " —" If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run." Like Thomas Carlyle he had a passionate joy in work, " for the night cometh when no man can work." One stone the more swings into place In that dread Temple of Thy worth. It is enough that through Thy Grace, I saw nought common on Thy Earth. Take not that vision from my ken— Oh what so e'er may spoil or speed. Help me to need no aid from men That I may help such men as need ! E. V. Lucas said of him that " he knew enough to annotate the Bible verse by verse," and here we have his sympathy with Isaiah as to the potter and the clay and the lesson he learnt from Peter's vision on the 56 THE KIPLING JOURNAL housetop. How true is it that Kipling never saw anything "common " on God's Earth ! As to the last two lines of this poem, which I have seen found fault with, Kipling did sincerely desire to be a help to his fellow men, and it is obviously absurd for the guide at the top of the rope in an Alpine climb to invoke aid from those below. Not being a Freemason, I admit that there may still be points in this poem hidden from me and others beyond the pale but what we do see is good enough for us lesser breeds. This reminds me of another Masonic poem, " The Palace." Who can read the descriptions by Sir Leonard Woolley and other Explorers of their discoveries of building below building without being reminded of this poem ? There is a symbolic meaning in it, too, for those of us who may have been struck by, or happen to have experienced, its true magic. When I was a King and a Mason—in the open noon of my pride, They sent me a Word from the darkness. They whispered and called me aside. They said—"The end is forbidden." They said—"Thy use is fulfilled. "Thy palace shall stand as that other's—the spoil of a King who shall build." I must now turn to another poem :—" The Comforters." Tennyson gave us nearly a hundred years ago his reference to " vacant chaff, well meant for grain!" But, for how many of us who may have gone through the mill, has not the sure magic of these lines struck ! So, when thine own dark hour shall fall, Unchallenged canst thou say : " I never worried you at all For God's sake GO AWAY!" Then we have " The Prayer"—only six lines so I quote in full :— My brother kneels, so saith Kabir To stone and brass in heathen-wise, But in my brother's voice I hear My own unanswered agonies. His God is as his fates assign, His prayer is all the world's—and mine. I think we may assume that in 1919 Rudyard Kipling was at the zenith of his fame and, like Carlyle and his friend Teufelsdroch, not to forget the great historical instance, Kipling had to undergo his temptation in the wilderness. . . He must have been pursued with offers of honours and money and power, offers not always of a dis- interested nature, and so we find, at the beginning of '' The Years Between," published in 1918, these lines :— THE KIPLING JOURNAL 57 Seven Watchmen sitting in a tower, Watching what had come upon mankind Showed the Man the Glory and the Power, And bade him shape the Kingdom to his mind. "All things on Earth your will shall win you " ('Twas so their counsel ran). "But the Kingdom—the Kingdom is within you," Said the Man's own mind to the Man. Not only our authorised version of the Bible, but, I believe, the whole of the Apocrypha, he could annotate verse by verse. My next illustration is from the poem called " The Land " . . . Party politics had no interest for our poet, but in some ways he was Socialist. At any rate he saw nought common on God's earth and how horror- struck some of our conveyancing lawyers and game-preserving land- lords would be at the sentiments here expressed :— Georgii Quinti Anno Sexto, I who own the River-field, Am fortified with title-deeds, attested, signed and sealed, Guaranteeing me, my assigns, my executors and heirs All sorts of powers and profits which—are neither mine nor theirs. I have rights of chase and warren, as my dignity requires. I can fish—but Hobden tickles. I can shoot—but Hobden wires. I repair, but he re-opens, certain gaps which, men allege, Have been used by every Hobden since a Hobden swapped a hedge. Shall I dog his morning progress o'er the track-betraying dew ? Demand his dinner-basket into which my pheasant flew1? Confiscate his evening faggot under which my conies ran, And summons him to judgment ? I would sooner summons Pan. His dead are in the churchyard—thirty generations laid. His name was old in history when Domesday Book was made ; And the passion and the piety and the prowess of his line Have seeded, rooted, fruited in some land the Law calls mine. Not for any beast that burrows, not for any bird that flies, Would I lose his large sound counsel, miss his keen amending eyes. He is bailiff, woodman, wheelwright, field surveyor, engineer, And, if flagrantly a poacher—'taint for me to interfere. My next example of the sure magic is that much mis-understood poem, " The Sons of Martha." Some of my friends, even members of this Society, assert that Kipling counted himself a Son of Martha. I am certain he thought no such thing. Whether he was thinking of himself in his legend of the masterless man I would not say, but he would never have exalted the Marthas and made fun of those poor dears, the Marys, had he not counted himself among the latter. He admired the men and women who did things or made things far above those who merely talk or write about them. Like the poet Gray he might rather have wished to conquer Quebec than write the Elegy. Remember 58 THE KIPLING JOURNAL how he admired the Puzzler :— For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions—largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none ; But sometimes, in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done. And so we learn how the sons of Mary have cast their burden on the Lord And the Lord, He lays it on Martha's Sons. We must now look at a poem which I ought to have mentioned earlier —" In the Neolithic Age." I have reason to know that the poet laid great store by the ideas which he expressed in these lines and they prove a very important window into the Poet's mind. The sure magic of them must have struck us all. Still a cultured, Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak and rage, Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk ; Still we let our business slide—as we dropped the half-dressed hide— To show a fellow-savage how to work. Still the world is wondrous large,—seven seas from marge to marge— And it holds a vast of various kinds of man ; And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu, And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban. What a lesson for us to learn. As he says elsewhere Here is a health, my brothers, to you, However your prayers are said, And praised be Allah Who gave me two Separate sides to my head ! Thus the whole question seems to resolve itself into when and where and how the sure magic strikes. For it to do so there must be the answering resonance. What windows these examples open for us. Kipling called himself a two-sided man. I would call him a Glamis Castle of a man ! Hundreds of windows into the chambers in his mind, and, perhaps, just one window through which none of us should venture to peep ! I must hurry on. Here are four examples of his passion for duty ; 1. A Song in Storm. Be well assured, though in our power, Is nothing left to give But chance and place to meet the hour. And leave to strive to live, Till these dissolve our Order holds, Our service binds us here. Then welcome Fate's discourtesy, Whereby it is made clear, How in all time of our distress As in our triumph too, The game is more than the player of the game And the ship is more than the crew ! THE KIPLING JOURNAL 59 2. The Queen's Men. Valour and Innocence Have latterly gone hence To certain death by certain shame attended. Envy—ah ! even to tears !— The fortune of their years Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended. A friend of mine, who had the complete poem inscribed on a memor- ial to the regiment in which his brother was killed, was asked for the name of the author, it being suggested that it must, of course, be by one of the Elizabethans. 3. Then these lines from M'Andrew s Hymn :— Now, a'together, hear them lift their lesson—their's an' mine : " Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline:" Mill, forge an' try-pit taught them that when roarin' they arose, An' whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi' the blows. I have heard the uncircumcised sneer that Kipling set himself up in comparison with the poet Burns :—" Lord, send a man," he writes, " Like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o'Steam," and then he proceeds to sing it himself ! Yes, and we know how magnificently he achieved his object. Kipling was far too modest and humble to dream of such notions as these, people would infer. We are reminded of the equally untrue and nonsensical remarks about the Recessional and the way in which the phrases " lesser breeds without the law " and "Lest we forget" have been twisted out of their original and obvious meanings. I was going to say wilfully twisted, but I think these would- be fault finders deserve our pity rather than our condemnation because it is evident that in their case the sure magic of Kipling's lovely mind has failed to strike—there being no answering chord in these little mental- ities. My fourth example of our poet's reverence for duty is from " The King and the Sea," published in the Times in July, 1935, on the occasion of the Jubilee Naval Review: — " Wherefore, when he came to be crowned, Strength in Duty held him bound, So that not power misled nor ease ensnared him Who had spared himself no more than his seas had spared him !" With his regard for duty went along a passion for freedom and the belief in free will. Study the poem entitled " Natural Theology " of which I quote the concluding verse :— This was none of the good Lord's» pleasure, For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free ; 60 THE KIPLING JOURNAL But what comes after is measure for measure, And not a God that afflicteth thee. As was the sowing so the reaping Is now and ever more shall be. Thou art delivered to thine own keeping. Only Thyself hath afflicted thee ! The Dawn Wind. I have heard this poem repeated omitting the last stanza, it being apparently over-looked that the title has added to it the words, " The Fifteenth Century." The beautiful description of the dawn as sym- bolic of the dawn of freedom culminates in the closing lines :— So when the world is asleep, and there seems no hope of her waking Out of some long, bad dream that makes her mutter and moan, Suddenly, all men arise to the noise of fetters breaking, And everyone smiles at his neighbour and tells him his soul is his own ! How Kipling must have appreciated Henley's lines—" I am the Master of my fate, I am the Captain of my soul." One more example from " The Reeds of Runnymede " :— And still when Mob or Monarch lays Too rude a hand on English ways, The whisper wakes, the shudder plays, Across the reeds at Runnymede. And Thames, that knows the moods of kings, And crowds and priests and such like things, Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings Their warning down from Runnymede ! But for all this love of freedom we also find a strain of fatalism as exemplified in " The Answer" and those weird lines, "By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed." And we all know how the Master flirted with the idea of re-incarnation even if he did not really believe in it. As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gode of the Market Place. Peering through Reverent figures I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook headings, I notice, outlast them all. X X X X When the Cambrian Measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, the wars, of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe. And the Gods of the copy-book headings said : "Stick to The Devil you Know." I must now refer for a moment to that strange poem which my friends, upon whose judgment I rely, consider our Poet's deepest piece of work—I mean, " To the True Romance." This poem might well occupy a whole evening or article for its adequate analysis I \ THE KIPLING JOURNAL 61 quote only part of one verse :— Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee To gild his dross thereby, And knowledge sure that he endure A child until he die. Published when Kipling was about 29 years of age, the desire was answered. Those whom the Gods love die young, and Rudyard Kipling must have been so loved, for he kept his child simplicity to the end. There is no time to refer again to the stupid critics. We know how Kipling pictures the day when the youngest of them had died and how he made fun of them in " The Story of Ung," that piece of auto- biography, and in " The Conundrum of the Workshops." There was never any complaint or resentment against honest and under- standing criticism but for the " It's pretty but is it art?" variety he had nothing but horror and contempt. Î wish, with your permission, to conclude by quoting a stanza from the poem published in March 1935 ten months before his death, "The Hymn of Breaking Strain." Note the line, "Too wonder-stale to wonder," and compare with the line in " Farewell, Romance." With unconsidered miracle, Hedged in a backward—gazing world. The careful text books measure (Let all who build beware !) The load, the shock, the pressure Material can bear, So, when the faulty girder Lets down the grinding span, The blame for loss, or murder, Is laid upon the man Not on the stuff—the Man ! Within ten months after the publication of this poem in the Engineer our Master's ashes were laid in the Abbey at the moment when the body of his friend and King was lying in State near by. " Your very heart was England's," wrote Masefield—" it is just that England's very heart should keep your dust." So to the MAN our hearts we give, till the sure Magic strike. DISCUSSION Chairman. I have been very glad to have an opportunity of meeting new mem- bers and saying a few words. Now we will commence the discussion 62 THE KIPLING JOURNAL on the very interesting paper we have heard from Mr. Fox. If any member will open the discussion I am sure others are prepared to take part in it. Major Dawson. It seems to me that discussion by the meeting implies a certain amount of criticism and I feel to-night that criticism of the discourse we have heard would be out of place, it is beyond criticism. . . Personally, I have enjoyed this discourse extremely, almost more than any I have heard at these meetings ; it was given in a most admirable and sympa- thetic manner, and, though I do not want to choke off anybody else, it does seem to me that criticism would be out of place. Chairman. We all feel that. I will just call upon Mr. Gemmer to say something of a more controversial nature. Mr. Gemmer. Mr. Chairman, that is not right, I am not going to be controversial at all ; I am proud of having come up from Norwich specially for this meeting. I want to say just one thing. I lent the current issue of the Journal to a very intelligent man in Norwich, not a member but very keen on Kipling, and he put his finger in a moment on a phrase " What do you think of that," he said, "it is a paradox." I said, " It is, it is wrong." This was the phrase : "He searched for the inevitable word." Now, if a word is inevitable you have no search to make for it—it is inevitable : what Kipling would search for, for if ever there was a master of words it was he, was the elusive word. That is in the Journal, not in anyone's paper ; it is a quotation from somebody who is writing. But one thing that may interest you, mentioned in Mr. Fox's dis- course : he spoke of a note on an instrument setting glass in vibration. I have been a violinist all my life ; I have played in public. Sitting in my own dining room with my wife, I struck the exact vibration (Mr. Fox spoke of about 200, we talked of about 435 on A). I struck the exact note and I split a great big salad bowl clean in half ; it was standing on the sideboard, untouched; it must have been thinner than it should have been, but it set up such violent vibrations that that note of mine cut it in half. Mr. Brooking. I have nothing very much to say. One cannot criticise Mr. Fox's wonderful display of memory and eloquence about our R.K, One THE KIPLING JOURNAL 63 or two things struck me—one referred to small errors. There are very few errors in Rudyard Kipling's books, we all know, but in the last one, " Something of Myself," I wonder how many people have found as I have more than half a dozen errors. I feel that at that time he was not feeling so well, or so completely master of everything, and probably proof reading was beyond him. There were a number of printers' errors that he would never have allowed in his previous books. We might have a paper on Kipling's last work " Something of Myself "— perhaps Mr. Maitland will remember that. Mr. Fox has thrown a new light on Kipling for a lot of us in regard to his socialistic feelings, but I would like to say that though he was a socialist at heart in desiring everything for everyone, he was never a communist. (MR. FOX—I didn't say he was). No, but the right hand is not very far from the left hand in this regard, and I know he was dead against communism; I have corres- pondence to shew that. It is possible that these views might get abroad, which I think would be harmful. Perhaps none of us have appreciated fully this practical and sympathetic side of his nature towards the under dog. There are many people now who are saying ' If only Kipling were here, what could he not write about the present situation, how he could enhearten us ! ' But there is hardly anything in the present situation that he has not spoken about, warned about, advised about. This also might be the subject of an interesting paper at an early date, but unfortunately the next meeting will not be for three or four months. The Hymn of Breaking Strain that Mr. Fox mentioned ... I got chat and framed it, and it is in my office now as something that is worth looking at very frequently. I hope we shall hear something from Mrs. Fleming, Rudyard Kip- ling's sister—she is the one, I think, who can tell us more than anybody else about Kipling. I would like too to thank whoever is responsible for bringing that wonderful head of Rudyard Kipling here for our meeting, it is an inspiration to us. I would also like to thank Mme. Bingguelly-Lejeune for having done that work, and the man who presented it to us for having given us such a wonderful gift. Mrs. Fleming. I am afraid I cannot think of any stories to tell you on the spur of the moment. I should like to say, though it sounds rather like adver- tisement, that in the July number of Chamber's Journal there will be an 64 THE KIPLING JOURNAL article, "Some More Childhood Memories of Rudyard Kipling"— of his last days, and also of the time when he was twelve and I was ten and I am afraid we were both rather demons ! (Mrs. Fleming told many amusing incidents of that time, one high adventure in particular when they planned to rob the South Kensington Museum of some of the jewels stored there—to be returned later, of course. She also referred to a correspondence which she had had with one of the Sunday papers in regard to her brother's love of animals, particularly referring to cats, which had apparently been doubted. Mrs. Fleming told how he would sit writing with a kitten on his shoulder, and would alter his own position, or move his papers, rather than disturb the kitten. She defended her brother from the suggestion that he has disliked animals, and had offered, as she said, " if she could find an animal that her brother has really hated, to kill it with her bare hands and eat it raw. " Annual Luncheon The thirteenth Annual Luncheon of the Kipling Society was held at the Criterion Restaurant on Wednesday, June 21st, 1939. The toast of ' The King ' was given by the President, Major-General L.C. Dunsterville, C.B., C.S.I., who was in the Chair. Over 130 were present—a big increase on last year's number. The first toast, ' The Unfading Genius of Rudyard Kipling,' was proposed by Mr. Alfred Noyes, C.B.E:— It seems to me that the title given to this Toast is a singularly apt one, especially at this moment—" The Unfading Genius of Rudyard Kipling "—for as you know in the world around us at the present day there is an extraordinary bewilderment of thought with regard to the things that were usually regarded as permanent in former centuries: principles of art, of literature, of religion—and what more immediately concerns us perhaps at the moment—practical politics. The pledged word has gone in politics, and everything that corresponds to it in art, literature and religion is being attacked at the present day in more insidious ways than perhaps most of us realise. In literature, the subject with which we are more particularly con- cerned now, the attack is an unconscious one very often; often it arises from a sort of idealism which is seeking for the right thing along the wrong road. You get a great many people, for instance, at the present THE KIPLING JOURNAL 65 day who are so concerned to escape from what they call the ' pretty- pretty,' that they resort to the extremely hideous and ugly. They forget that these two alternatives are not exhaustive, that there is a thing which the artists of former days desired and called ' the beautiful.' A curious illustration, too, of the bewilderment at the present day on these things you may find in the way in which people to-day seem to think that if they can only find any meaning at all in some of the things that are put before them, therefore the thing is justified. For instance, there was a tremendous controversy a few months ago in one of our leading journals about two lines of poetry; the lines were these: " The Atlas-eater with the jaw for news Bit out the mandrake with to-morrow's scream." There was a great controversy as to whether those two lines were great poetry. One party affirmed very emphatically they were among the greatest lines of poetry since Shakespeare ; the other party said they had no meaning, and therefore they were not poetry at all. Shortly afterwards someone discovered that these two lines meant a newspaper —"The Atlas-eater with the jaw for news "—I could follow that. But I could not follow the next clause: "Bit out the mandrake,' although "with to-morrow's scream" might quiet conceivably mean the sensational headline of the next day. But the tragic part was this, that having discovered " The Atlas-eater with the jaw for news " was a newspaper, the ' Anti-party ' collapsed, and said " Oh yes, we are every sorry, we were rather stupid, it has a meaning, it must be great poetry," an argument which you might apply to any sort of crossword puzzle, and the crossword puzzle might very properly be compared with much of the stuff that is being turned out at the present day, Among people who are doing that kind of work at the present day, and who are regarded by the literary columns as setting me fashion in literature, it has become the fashion to sweep away the past and the work that has been done in former generations as negligible. You get strange people coming to you and making remarks like this : " Robert Louis Stevenson, of course, is not so great today as he was fifteen years ago.'1 Well, Robert Louis Stevenson is exactly as great to-day as he was fifteen years ago, neither more nor less; whatever values there were in the work of Robert Louis Stevenson are there to-day, and that applies to Tennyson, who was also swept out of existence on the ground mat he had once shaken hands with Queen Victoria, and it applies equally to Kipling. 66 THE KIPLING JOURNAL There is only one pretext for my speaking here at all, and that is that I have given whatever wits I had, and whatever time I had, to the reading and study of English poetry. It is the fashion to-day to say that the poetry of Kipling does not count in the great tradition of English poetry. Well, I personally am absolutely convinced, in spite of all that the people who write about " Atlas-eaters with the jaw for news " tell me, that when this country is as far away in time from Kipling as we are to-day from Chaucer, Kipling will be still one of its most memorable names in literature. It is the fashion to despise clarity, precision, lucidity, but I am sure, in spite of all that, that it is the business of literature to express itself, to communicate thought and to do it with as much clarity and lucidity as possible. We all know there are subtleties which cannot always be put into clear language, but nobody was more aware of those subtleties and mysteries than Kipling. You find it again and again in his work. Compare the sort of nonsense which I have been quoting with one stanza from his Sussex Poem : — We have no waters to delight Our broad and brookless vales— Only the dewpond on the height Unfed, that never fails— Whereby no tattered herbage tells Which way the season flies— Only our close-bit thyme that smells Like dawn in Paradise. That is great poetry; the man who wrote that stanza is among the great masters of English verse and English poetry, which has one of the greatest traditions of poetry in the whole range of European liter- ature. The argument, of course, very often brought against the work of Kipling is that he was a partisan, that he represented a school of thought in politics, and that politics have no part in poetry. But there is one point I should like to put before you. If art should be entirely independent of all politics, how is it true—and it is true to a certain extent of Kipling, but not nearly so true as even some of his admirers admit—that art to-day is not considered art unless it is completely Left Wing ? How has that come about ? It is absolutely true, even in the literary columns of our most Conservative journals, and what a paradox that is. You will find in the literary columns of our THE KIPLING JOURNAL 67 most Conservative papers doctrines which are in entire contradiction to the doctrines preached in their leading political articles. How can you shape the thought of a civilised world in such a contradictory way ? How can you tell all the young people who are reading to-day the only possible way in which they can keep abreast of the advanced and progressive things in one breath, and then tell them exactly the opposite in your leading articles. You wonder why young men from Eton go over to the extreme Bolshevist camp, and then find your Conservative journals writing long articles explaining that necessarily they lose intellectual caste unless they think so and so. I do not believe in contradictions of that sort. It is perfectly true that Kipling loved his own country, and there is nothing shameful about that, in spite of what the Conservative journals tell us ; there is nothing shameful either in admiring the achievements of your own country; the greatest poets of the past have done it from Virgil down to Tennyson. There seems no particular reason why a tradition of that length, that scope, should be suddenly altered in five minutes at the bidding of young men who talk about " Atlas-eaters with a jaw for news." That is one of the real secrets of the trouble—" the jaw for news." We must have the stunt to-day at all costs ; we must be like the people in Athens who ran about " seeking after some new thing " at all costs ; real originality has nothing whatever to do with that. The man who is really original is not continually bothering his head as to how he can show people how remarkably different he is from other people. The man who is really inspired, who really is original, has something inside him which he wants to express in the clearest way possible. That was essentially true of Kipling, and it made him one of the most original men of his time. There is no question whatever that when Kipling began to write poetry he made a new epoch in English literature ; a great many of the people who have been acclaimed in recent years owe everything to that new spirit which Kipling brought into literature. It is suggested sometimes that Kipling was the poet of a mechanical age, it is suggested by the very people who complain that, unless you introduce the word " stream-lined " into your work, you are somehow out of date. But nobody really understood the age in which he lived better than he did, and when he touched on the mechanical aspect of the life around him, he gave the clue to the right way of introducing it into art. You remember that wonderful passage in M'Andrews Hymn : 68 THE KIPLING JOURNAL They're, all awa' ! True beat, full power, the clanging chorus goes Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamoes. Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed, To work, Ye'll note, at any tilt art' every rate o'speed. Now, a'together, hear them lift their lesson—theirs an' mine : "Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline!" You see how he takes the machinery and in some mysterious way, as only the poet can, brings it into relation with the rhythm of the Universe, which itself may be regarded as a metrical composition, and he suggests what is really the key to one of the greatest bewilderments and perplexities of our time. He suggests that, although mechanism is to be found everywhere, it is everywhere subordinate. You know how in the 19th century a great part of the world came to be looked upon as a kind of mechanism, which robbed us of our free will and everything that really made life worth living ; the egocentrics of the 19th century looked upon the whole thing really in a fatalistic deter- ministic way; we were parts of a great machine, cause leading inevit- ably to effect, and so on. I do not know whether Kipling did it con- sciously, but certainly when he touched on that mechanistic aspect of the Universe, he does everywhere suggest what is the real answer to that fatalistic and deterministic argument: that mechanism is every- where subordinate. In " M'Andrews Hymn " itself he gives a hint of that in the lines I have quoted, because it is all referred back to what he calls the " art effects." " We're creepin' on wi' each new rig—less weight an' larger power ; There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour ! Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began Leaves me no doot for the machine; but what about the man ? The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea : Four time the span from earth to moon. . . How far, O Lord, from Thee ?" There was that note in Kipling all the way through, far deeper than is generally realised. You get it again in those wonderful songs be- tween his tales. One of the most beautiful of them all is " Cold Iron,'' a glorious poem. It is the answer to all those critics who, suggested that Kipling, was the poet of cold iron in the more materialistic sense; " Iron out of Calvary is master of men all !" That note does proceed from a very perfect philosophy of life.. He. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 69 is one of the few modern writers who have had a clear cut philosophy of life, and not a bounded philosophy, a philosophy which although it could be encompassed, yet could be taken also as symbolical, as reaching out to embrace the whole Universe. You get it chiefly in his poetry, because poetry is concerned with the permanent things; I believe it is by his poetry that he will live. In poetry by some myster- ious magic the words are swung into an inevitable order, and then some- how get the authority of a natural law. They cannot be forgotten, you cannot displace a syllable, you get line after line in Kipling, some- times humorous, sometimes tragic, but once read, it can never really be forgotten; it can never die, because the thing has been said in the perfect way. From the humorous side, what could be better than ". . . . we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife.)" Again and again Kipling ' touched off ' all the stupid faults of con- temporary literature ; then when he touched on the true romance, how he comes straight back to that permanent thing which has made great poetry in every age ! That is the real humility of the truly great man. If one were to take the thing that severs Kipling from a generation in literature which has taken the wrong road, one might take the letter he wrote to Tennyson—Tennyson, who is the Virgil of England as truly as Virgil was the Tennyson of Rome, and was despised by all the little folk, the Bandar Log, Kipling speaks of, who were going to do such splendid things, but had not yet done them—when Tenny- son wrote of Kipling praising his work, Kipling said that when the private in the ranks is praised by the Commander-in-Chief, he does not thank him, but he fights the better the next day. Compare that with the attitude towards the predecessor in modern art and literature. What is wrong with the generation which has no- thing but hatred, dislike and malignity for those who have achieved the great things before them ? As Kipling said in one of his bitterest poems— We are the Little Folk—we ! Too little to love or to hate. Leave us alone and you'll see How we can drag down the State ! We see that on all sides in literature at the present day, and I think 70 THE KIPLING JOURNAL it is one of the great functions—if I may be allowed to say so—that a Society like this can perform, to help to bring a rather thoughtless public back to the formation of a better fashion in thought and literature. Will you forgive me if I quote just a few lines from some verses which I wrote on the death of Kipling on the way up to Westminster Abbey— " The Solent glittered. Lean ships from Indian seas— The cool and delicate colours of their hulls Faded by tropic sun—on the grey tide drowsed, Far from their jewelled thrones, like spell-bound queens. There, swinging round, A great red-funnelled Cunarder pointed West ; White, ghostly grey, a silent battle-ship stole Out of the morning mist. And all of these Like shapes of his own thought, His naked haunting phrases everywhere, Remembered and remembered. Portsmouth—the throbbing train the boy-god rode— The wide smooth air-port, waiting for its wings— Fields flashing by, with oak and ash and thorn; The bridges, and men building; and, once more, The roaring station, and grey-coated troops; Dark streets, and London mourning for a king. They also were his own; And all these, too, remembered. Last, in our shrine of shrines, The music crying softly in the dusk, ' News, news of my boy Jack !' The still tense faces as the bearers passed Up the hushed aisle, with that poor mortal load, Under the worn old flag, the quiet group By Dickens' grave; then, breaking on the hush, His ringing truth, his naked phrase once more, Like a strong bugle from beyond the sun, Far-called, but conquering death; While England lives, remembered and remembered," THE KIPLING JOURNAL 71 I give you the Toast of "The Unfading Genius of Rudyard Kipling." Canon J. O. Hannay (" George Birmingham ") proposed the Toast of " The Kipling Society and its President:" The theme which I have been asked to speak on is not one which inspires to the lofty eloquence reached by Mr. Alfred Noyes, for I have only got to propose the health of your President and your Society, much lesser things you will agree with me, than the Unfading Memory of Rudyard Kipling. I take it that your Society exists for a double purpose : in the first place, that you may enjoy together your apprecia- tion of the works of this great man, because there is very little in life that one can enjoy in solitude. There is so much that is added to every kind of literary and artistic joy by being enjoyed in the company of those who share our feelings. If that was all your Society existed for, it still would have a worthy aim and be worthy of support. But you have something more to do than that. You have to preserve the light burning in Kipling's shrine in a time when in the eyes of many it is beginning to grow dim. It appears to me—in this perhaps Mr. Noyes will not agree with me—almost a law of nature that each generation despises and neglects the gods of its parents. Time after time in literature we have seen the same thing, a man immensely admired and acclaimed by his own generation and his contemporaries, neglected and despised by their children ; it seems almost inevitable that this eclipse should take place ; Mr. Alfred Noyes has already quoted the case of Tennyson. He might have turned to another subject and quoted the pre-Raphaelite artists, and Burne-Jones among them, as men whose reputation suffered for a time an eclipse. There came a generation which did not see much in Tennyson and which regarded pre-Raphael- ite art as actually contemptible, but then comes another generation. The eclipse passes and the reputation which once stood so high is restored again, not perhaps to the place it once held in the estimation of its contemporaries, but by the unfailing judgment of time to its true position, its true place in the world of art and literature. We are now beginning to pass through the stage of the eclipse of Kipling's reputation or greatness. I have no shadow of doubt at all that children now in their cradles or yet unborn will reverse the judg- ment of the present generation of young people of Kipling's work and restore him to that high place which I am convinced he must perman- ently occupy in English literature. I have do doubt whatever that Kipling takes his seat among the immortals, but the question naturally 72 THE KIPLING JOURNAL arises : on what is Kipling's reputation finally to rest ? What is the thing in Kipling's work which we shall ultimately regard—not we, but those who come after us—as his title to supreme greatness ? Is it his verse or his prose ? To me that seems a doubtful question, and I am not sure at all of the rightness of the answer that Mr. Noyes would evidently have given to it. Kipling occupies this curious, almost unique position in English literature, that he is a past master of two great forms of expression : the master of verse and the master of imaginative prose. I do not know in which he is greater. It is true that Milton wrote prose which at its very best was as magnificent as almost any passage in his poetry, but that was not imaginative prose it was political prose, but the prose of an impassioned pamphleteer. It is true that Addison, who wrote the most perfect prose in the whole of English literature, also wrote poetry, but it is on Addison's prose and not on his poetry that his reputation rests. It is true that Scott, the king of all story-tellers, also wrote verse, but what are Scott's longer poems but tales strung into jingling rhyme and his position as a poet depends on a mere handful of exquisite lyrics. He lives in the genius of his story-telling. It is true that Thomas Hardy wrote one poem acclaimed as great by the men of his time, but I am convinced that in the long run Hardy will be known by " A Pair of Blue Eyes " and his other novels when '' The Dynasts " is neglected and unread. It is true that Meredith wrote both imaginative prose and poetry— is this awful heresy ?—I wonder if Meredith is going to live at all. Kipling stands alone, just because this question is doubtful about him as it was not doubtful about any of the others: which will live and burn brightest, the poetry or the prose ? I should like to give one more reason why I fancy the next generation will reverse the judgment of the present young men and women of Kipling's work. Kipling, more than anyone else in English literature, has been the poet of that despised thing, patriotism. There are other patriotic poems in English literature, but they are nearly always the work of men who are not in the first-class as poets, or else like Tennyson's not the best work of the man who is, but Kipling's strange lot it was that some of his very best work, both in prose and in poetry, should be inspired by this spirit of patriotism, this love of country, of which there is so singularly little in great English literature. Patriotism is almost the inspiration of his work, and when once more patriotism THE KIPLING JOURNAL 73 is restored to its rightful position as one of the loftiest emotions of men, Kipling alone will find his great place. To me one of the charms of Kipling is his extraordinary appreciation of the rhythm and beauty of the Authorised Version of the Bible. All English literature is saturated with that; you might almost go as far as Coleridge went when he said :—" No man can write great English prose who has not steeped himself in the Authorised Version of the Bible." Surely no one ever appreciated quite as Kipling did the won- drous rhythms of that quite matchless piece of prose which we call ' The Bible.' Not merely in his prose works do these rhythms occur again and again, but sometimes—and here he is almost unique— he has fitted the prose rhythms into perfect verse. The only other poet I know who has done that exact thing is Swinburne, but Kipling has done it better than Swinburne. If I were going to set an examination paper on the Bible for divinity students, I should take Kipling's works and quote them and then ask " Where in the Bible is that found?" I am not going to ask that question this afternoon, because I have a horrid feeling that you would all be ashamed of yourselves for not knowing, but in your own hearts you can answer this question : where does this quotation come from ? Our lives, our tears, as water, Are spilled upon the ground ; God giveth no man quarter, Yet God a means hath found Though faith and hope have vanished, And even Love grows dim— A means whereby His banished Be not expelled from Him ! (2 Sam. xiv. 14). I give you the Toast of Your President and this Society. Replying to the Toast, the President said :—" I do not propose to keep you very long, but it is my duty and pleasure to respond to this Toast. The Kipling Society are very grateful to the speakers for their words concerning our great writer : I thank the last speaker for the very de- lightful way in which he proposed this Toast. I have to say one or two things about the Society. I am sorry to have to begin with a rather sad announcement. One of our most distinguished members overseas, Mr. E. Benham, Hon. Secretary of the Cape Town Branch, died suddenly at a Members' 74 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Meeting on the 7th of June. We owe the foundation of that Branch entirely to this gentleman's efforts, and he has been the life and soul of it since its inception. He was a deep student of Kipling s works and a man of great personal charm. His last act, just before his death was to make a collection from those present at the Branch Meeting on behalf of the dependents of those who perished in H.M.S. " Thetis." We are very pleased to see three representatives of our Overseas Branches here—Mr. and Mrs. Beeson of Melbourne, and Mrs. Garnet Brown, also of Melbourne. We hope they will take back our best wishes to the Melbourne Branch. We offer our special thanks to Mr. Turnbull for kindly acting as our Honorary Auditor, and particularly for the help Messrs. Milne, Gregg and Turnbull give us in financial problems throughout the year. We are also very grateful to Mr. Clement Cuss, our Honorary Solicitor, who steers us past the rocks of breaches of copyright so skilfully ; and to Mr. Maitland, our Honorary Librarian, for his excellent manage- ment of the library and for all the help he renders us in other ways. Last but not least, we have to thank Mr. Bazley, our Hon. Editor, for all his heavy labours in producing a quarterly magazine which is probably the best of its kind in this country and which is so greatly appreciated by all our members." Lt.-Gen. Sir George MacMunn, K.C.B., K.C.S.I, D S.O., proposed the Toast of " OUR GUESTS." " I do not propose to keep you long in proposing this pleasing and easy Toast—it is pleasing because giving hospitality and receiving gifts is one of the greatest pleasures in the world. In proposing this Toast, I would like to point out that whereas in the past our guests have generally been great pro-consuls and public men or great soldiers, whose appreciation of Kipling's work and writings came from their practical knowledge, to-day we have as our guest of honour Mr. Alfred Noyes, one of the great masters of English prose and verse of the day, who has spoken in a most attractive vein of our master, and we have been fortunate in hearing another great master of prose, Canon Hannay. I hope in future we shall have more of these guests who bring the appreciation of the great artist as well as the appreciation of the soldier and leader of men. I ask you to drink the Toast of Mr. Alfred Noyes, Cannon Hannay, and the other guests, and I would like to add to it the name of Miss Florence Marks." THE KIPLING JOURNAL 75 Responding, Miss Florence Marks said :— They played a dirty trick on me by suddenly springing it on me that I was to answer for the guests. I am not a speaker in any sense of the word, but I do feel that we ought to thank the Kipling Society for the delightful entertainment we have had this afternoon, and the speeches of Mr. Alfred Noyes and Canon Hannay. I have been asked to do something amusing, so I will recite a small poem, The second part of " The Legend of Evil." Prize Essay Competition The competitors this year are again to be complimented on the ex- cellence of their work : the essays sent in show a marked advance on last year, particularly in originality of criticism. The assessors (Lt.- Gen. Sir George MacMunn, Capt. E. W. Martindell and Mr. B. M. Bazley, Hon. Editor) have placed them as follows .— Name School Marks (300 max.) I. F. W. Woodward Imperial. Service College 270 2. Rosemary Curtis-Wilson Brighton and Hove High School 263 3. P. Yule Princess Helena College 258 4. M. Rodger Princess Helena College 251 5. K. Gore The Grammar School, Leeds 250 6. Sonia Slacke Princess Helena College 240 7. M. G. F. LeBlancq Victoria College, Jersey 221 8. W. E. Ashley Lincoln School 220 9. W. J. Le Quesne Victoria College, Jersey 198 10. C. R. M. Ede Imperial Service College 195 11. R. Vincent Victoria College, Jersey 157 Obituary A feeling of sadness passed over the meeting on June 20th, when the Hon. Secretary told those present about the death of Mr. E. E. Benham, Hon. Secretary of the Cape Town Branch since its foundation. Mr. Benham had been giving a Paper at a Meeting and had taken his usual keen interest in the proceedings ; but, immediately after the Meeting had closed and while many members were still in the room, he collapsed and passed away almost at once. It was typical of his life and character 76 THE KIPLING JOURNAL that he was in the act of taking a collection on behalf of the dependants of those who perished in H.M.S. "Thetis." The President, from the Chair, added a few words :—" I am sure it is a very great shock to us all to hear this news about Mr. Benham who had done such splen- did work for the Cape Town Branch ; it is a most tragic end and a sad loss to the Society. I will ask two members ta propose and second that a Note of Condolence be sent to his family ; it will be carried in the usual way and we shall at least be able to pay that tribute to his memory. Mr. Brooking proposed :—" I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Benham for many years before he went to South Africa, and I suggested to him that he might form a Branch. I therefore feel that I am right in proposing this sincere vote of sympathy with his family, whom I know, and I feel sure the Meeting, and those who knew him, will appreciate what I have said." Major E. Dawson followed :—. I will second that. Mr. Benham was related to me ; I had a letter from him three weeks before he died." The Chairman then asked those present to stand for a few moments in silence. ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE KIPLING SOCIETY. 1939. was held at the Criterion Restaurant, Piccadilly, London, W. on Wednesday, 21st June, the President, Major-General L. C. Dunsterville, C.B., C.S.I., in the Chair. # # # # # 1. The President gave a review of the work of the Society, and commented in moving terms on the great loss the Society had suffered by the death of Mr. E. E. Benham, Honorary Secretary of the Cape Town Branch. A unanimous vote of sympathy with Mrs. Benham was passed, and the Honorary Secretary was asked to convey also to the Cape Town Branch the Meeting's sense of the great loss which they had sustained. (References to Mr. Benham's death were also made at the Annual Luncheon and at the Members' Meeting on the 20th June). 2. On the motion of General Sir George MacMunn the Accounts and Report were adopted. 3. On the Motion of General Sir George MacMunn seconded by General Rimington, The President, Vice-Presidents and Honorary Executive Officers were re-elected for the forthcoming year. The latter received a hearty vote of thanks for the work they had performed during 1938. 4. On the Motion of Mr. Griffin seconded by Mr. Harbord, the following members of the Council who retired under Rule 6 were unanimously re-elected Mr. J. H. C. Brooking ; Mr. S. A. Courtauld ; Lady Cunynghame. 5. On the Motion of General Rimington seconded by Mr. Harbord, Miss Florence Macdonald's election to the Council was duly confirmed. 6. The Meeting unanimously amended Rule 6 by inserting in line 5 after the words " the Society including . . . " the words " the Honorary Treasurer.'' 7. The Hon. Auditors, Messrs. Milne, Gregg and Turnbull were re-elected with acclamation. A hearty vote of thanks was passed to them and especially to Mr. J. R. Turnbull for their most valuable and kindly services in the past. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 77 Secretary's Corner It is with great regret that we hear of the resignation of Mr. T. A. Simmons from the post of Honorary Secretary of the Victoria Branch. Although still small in numbers, Victoria is a very live Branch and Mr. Simmons deserves the gratitude of the whole Society for all he has done for the cause of Kipling in Victoria. To his successor, Mrs. Neal, we offer our hearty welcome and if there is anything we can do at this end to help her new task, she has only to command us. The International situation is not making things any easier for voluntary societies like ours. People are cutting down their subscription lists to the mini- mum and very few will increase their commitments by joining new societies. Nevertheless we are keeping our end up well though our success in recruiting new members has been somewhat eclipsed by our Branches of which Melbourne is rapidly forging ahead. We offer them our hearty congratulations on this as well as on their excellent programme for the coming season which has been set forth in a most attractive fixture card a copy of which we have just received. We wonder whether any of our Victoria members—whose Branch, by the way has made considerable progress lately—were present at any of the functions in British Columbia to greet the King and Queen ? If they, or any others amongst our Canadian members, cared to send us a personal impression of the Royal Visit, I am sure Mr. Bazley, our Honorary Editor, would welcome the chance of publishing such a personal touch on this historic occasion. With this issue of the Journal, members will receive a sample of our 1939 Christmas Card. We hope that they will be as well received as the 1938 Card. Prices remain at 4d. each and overseas members are asked to place their orders early. We might mention that quite a number of Home members failed to get adequate supplies last year through ordering too late. Early orders help us to estimate our requirements; if we underestimate, our printers cannot accept repeat orders after the end of November owing to the Christmas rush. This year, we are asking members if they would be kind enough to pay postage on their orders as the 900 odd samples supplied in advance generally means a net loss on the Xmas Card business. Postage amounts to ½d. for every three cards so that 1d. will pay for half a dozen and an extra 2d. should be enclosed for postage on a dozen. Might I call the attention of Branch Secretaries to Rule No. VI of our Con- stitution which provides for the nomination to the Council of the Society of one member by each Branch Committee. There must be many members in London who have some connection with, or special knowledge of one of our Branches who would only be too glad to represent a Branch if asked. Our Council would be very glad if Branches would take advantage of this Rule for they feel that our Branches which have done so much for the advancement of the Society, should have a very definite say in its government, apart altogether from the value to us of such advice and help. Several members do not seem to have received our list of members published in April, 1938. A copy will be gladly sent free to any members who have not already had a copy. Extra copies may be obtained for 6d. each. May I appeal to members changing their address to let me have a postcard giving their new address. We still get several letters back marked " gone away." It would also be a great help to us if any member who must resign his or her membership, would notify the office of the fact, instead of merely consigning the " Reminder " to the wastepaper basket or cancelling their standing order at their banks! 78 THE KIPLING JOURNAL At the time of writing, the following plays are available to our members at our special cheap rates : Any play at the Open Air Theatre: " Tony draws a Horse;" Any play at the Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage: " To kill a Cat " and " Only Yesterday." These lists change so frequent y that members de- siring to take advantage of these rates are advised to apply to the office for latest particulars. Our Service Department to members is being increasingly used. Amongst various services, the following are selections of the problems we have tackled :— To find a good Wireless Telegraphy School for the son of an overseas member; to arrange a motor hire contract for an overseas member coming home on leave ; to arrange to take a rod or a good salmon river; to purchase household linen at wholesale prices; the supply of a large doll which can say " Ma-ma;" and to find out the ingredients of a new cocktail. C. H. R. New Members since July Issue of the Journal. 1584 Major E. F. Eager Mel. 56 Sq-Leader Waters Charlton Kings, Glos. Toorak, Melbourne C.41. Miss G. M. Chamberlain Mel. 57 Mrs. Waters Plumstead, Cape Province Toorak, Melbourne V.37 Mrs. L. Clowes Mel. 58 Miss Helen Bailey Victoria, B.C. Toorak, Melbourne V.38 H. Trueman, Esq. Mel. 59 Miss Gibb. Victoria, B.C. Toorak, Melbourne V.39 Mrs. Trueman Mel. 60 Mrs. N. M. Ellis Victoria, B.C. Moonee Ponds, Melbourne V.40 Mrs. E. Fryer Mel. 61 Miss F. K. Bennett Victoria B.C. Waverley, Victoria C.42 Howard Jelks, Esq Mel. 62 Mrs. Mackeddie Rondebosch, Capetown Melbourne 1585 Mrs. Leedham Greene Mel. 63 Miss D. G. Pritchard London Kew, Melbourne 1586 Lucknow University Library Mel. 64 Miss Cuthbertson Lucknow Armadale, Melbourne 1587 Miss Dorothy Alexander Mel. 65 A. L. Burns, Esq. Glasgow Hawthorn, Melbourne 1588 C. T. Norris, Esq. Mel. 66 Miss Mollie Meyer Cambridge Moreland, Melbourne V.41 Miss A. R. Williamson A. 85 Miss Bennet Victoria, B.C. Auckland, N.Z. 1589 Commander R. D. Merriman, A. 86 Mrs. Thomassen R. I. N. Auckland, N.Z. London A. 87 Miss Mary McFarland 1590 W. H. Cadwell, Esq. Parnell. Auckland Stockport A.88 Miss Ethel Briarley C.43 Isaac M. Sacks, Esq. Auckland Seapoint, Capetown A.89 Miss Marjorie Court 1591 Mrs. B. J. Jeffrey Remuera, Auckland. Rangoon, Burma How to Join The Kipling Society Members render great service to the Society by enrolling their friends. Below (left) is a General Application Form, to be completed and returned to the Hon. Secretary with the yearly or life membership subscription. Below (right) is a Banker's Order Form, by using which members save themselves the trouble and postage cost of annual subscription renewal. MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION To THE SECRETARY, KIPLING SOCIETY, 45 GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C.I. Please enrol me as a member of the Kipling Society. I enclose — £ s. d. Life Membership Fee (£5/5/-) .............. : : Donor Membership Fee (Subscriptions exceeding 10/6 per annum)........ : : Ordinary Membership Fee (10/6 per annum) ...... : : Total Signature Name............................ (Say Mr., Mrs., (IN BLOCK capitals) Miss or Title) Address (in block capitals) BANKER'S ORDER To....................Bank Ltd. ......................Branch Address of your Bank ............. Pay to Lloyds Bank, Ltd., 132, Regent Street, London, W.1, for a/c The Kipling Society, the sum of...... now and on the first day of this month next year and annually thereafter until further orders. Signed. 2d. Stamp Date................19___ FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date received ................ Membership No............... Receipt No................... Indexed ...................... Sales Department Badges : Gold 15/- „ Silver 3/6 Gilt 2/6 Postcards : Burwash or Kipling's Grave. 1d. each or 9d. per dozen. Kipling Pencils : 2d. each or 1/9 per dozen. Binders for Journal : 3/6 each. Christmas Cards, 1939 : 4d. each, plus ½d. every 3 cards postage. Society's Show Card : Free where a member can have it displayed in any club, hotel, etc. Journals : Extra copies for members only : 2/- each. Special prices, which maybe obtained from the Secretary, apply to twelve of the earlier numbers which are nearly out of print. List of Members : Extra copies for members only, 6d. Book Plates : 1d. each. 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