CONTENTS PAGE Notes........... 3 The Kipling Traditions—Viscount Goschen, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E. 7 A Visit to H.M.S. Kipling—The Hon. Secretary . . 8 Kipling's Worst Slip—Basil M. Bazley . . . . 10 The Forged Letters—W. G. B. Maitland . . . . 11 Uncollected Kipling Writings III—Captain E. W. Martindell 13 Kipling Questions......... 18 Kipling's Characterisation of Children—Dr. H. Boyd Graham 19 A Tribute to Kipling in Verse...... 23 Kipling and the Younger Generation..... 25 Reports from Branches ........ 27 Letter Bag.......... 29 Book Reviews.......... 31 A Kipling Letter of '98 . . . . . . . 32 THE KIPLING SOCIETY 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. Binding Cases for Journal : 3/6 each. 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MAX BEERBOHM'S LETTER AND CARICATURE OF RUDYARD KIPLING IN " THE SCHOOL BUDGET," HORSMONDEN SCHOOL, KENT, IN 1898. 45, Upper Berkeley Street. Friday, May 20th, 1898 Gentlemen, Many thanks for the copy of your admirable magazine. I have read Mr. Kipling's letter, and I agree with you that its tone is quite monstrous and unpardonable. I have much pleasure in complying with your request for a caricature of Mr. Kipling. If it meets with your approval do not forget to send me a copy of the issue in which it appears. I am an ardent collector of my drawings. With best wishes for your prosperity, I am, Gentlemen, Yours obediently, MAX BEERBOHM (Illustration lent by Captain E. W. Martindell). THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly by THE KIPLING SOCIETY Vol. VII. No. 53. April, 1940. Notes MRS. KIPLING'S PASSING. THE men and messages that keep rolling " Home " from overseas, in defiance of mines and other menaces, show how under stress of war the pulse of the Motherland is more than ever the heartbeat of a vast concentric circle nearly commensurate with the earth itself. They also show how everything relating to the poet-patriot who kept his touch upon that pulse and made it vocal, is " first-class cable matter " for " world service," as the press phrase goes. The death of Mrs. Kipling has awakened a universal chorus of homage and gratitude to a lady who will be remembered as a sort of high-priestess at an altar of immortal thoughts and memories. HER BEST WREATH. As if to show his marvellous command of utterance, and his power of putting grave things lightly, the best conjugal tribute Kipling ever paid with his pen turns up again inevitably, and is truly characteristic of his modesty, humour, and depth of feeling. Written on one of the manuscripts he presented to Magdalene College, Cambridge, it reads as follows— " He's the man that wrote the Jungle Books, likewise The Seven Seas; He's the man that knows the private soldier's life; He's the man that gets the credit, but he owns on bended knees— He isn't any good without his Wife." ROSEMARY, NOT RUE. There has been just the same modesty, and an admirable promp- titude, in fulfilling one of the dearest wishes of both husband and wife,—the bequest of " Bateman's " to the nation as a permanent memorial, through the National Trust, with an endowment on suitable lines. Something of Myself tells us what a wealth of pains and discussion went to the fashioning and ripening of this old Jacobean home of theirs, with its rare equip- ment of " period " furniture, and all things seemly for the solace and composure of a diligent and gifted mind. His orderly and noble study with its books and belongings, and certain of the living rooms, are to remain as before, for the 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 public to visit on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Altogether, it is hard to think future occu- pants will ever greatly change the configuration of the garden, with its lawns and lily-pond and sober Dutch terraces, where one almost expects to meet the shades of More and Erasmus. It was by way of conserving the water-rights of the estate that Mrs. Kipling went to law and the House of Lords, so as to keep this shrine of olden Sussex at its best, and gained a virtual victory. One favoured visitor will never forget the sparkle she put into her narrative of this " taste of law," or the wistful smile with which she plucked a sprig of rosemary, and handed it over, saying in Ophelia's moving words, " That's for remembrance." WINDSOR & WESTWARD HO As against that treasure-house of the past, the buildings just added to the Imperial Service College, Windsor, are fresh security for the links between Kipling and the future. As designed by Mr. Clyde Young and Mr. Bernard Engel, these " Roberts " and "Con- naught " houses form a nucleus of additional boarding space for the boys, and reinforce a quaint impression made by the whole school, and especially its new and stately exhibition hall. In their plain lines and pink severity, they remind one in a way of the old school houses that Kipling knew at Westward Ho ; and so far from any discredit, this enhances the merit of the design with an old and cherished association. Extra links are supplied by means of a bold leaden plaque on the southern façade of the new premises. For this assembles in a happy synthesis many of the best-known figures in the Jungle Books, from Shere Khan to Rikki Tikki, Mang, and Kaa. Here the sculptor, Mr. Ben- no Elkan, has outshone himself in the way of western art with an eastern fragrance. One foresees many an I.S.C. medal taking its cue of symbolism from this hand- some panel, to carry all over the world the fame of these Rudyard Kipling Memorial Buildings, and the old school that its most illus- trious pupil helped to rejuvenate and plant afresh " upon the banks of Thames." A CORPS OF CORREGIDORI. One of our high departments of war-time omniscience might almost start a branch to censor the output of those paper-gossips who knock off so many slick paragraphs con- cerning Kipling and his works. One of his old papers in India, for instance, lately told its readers that the only witnesses at his wedding were his publisher and one of his uncles. But why omit the " best man," Henry James, April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 the novelist, and in his day a more famous man than either ? Then again, a popular essayist recently misinformed us about one of Kipling's grandsires, and many readers, we learn, rushed to the rescue of outraged fact. But an- other champion of the truth strikes a deeper note when he takes the " columnist " to task for accusing Kipling of a continuous " streak of cruelty." Where, it is asked, does this appear in books like Kim, The Day's Work or The Light that Failed ? Another cor- rector asks what of his poignant and piteous " Song of the Women?" But as the offender pontificates regarding prose and prose alone, perhaps he has not yet come across any of Kipling's verse. "MUD-WALLED STABLES." Talking of truth and the film, a Hollywood expert wrote to a London friend some time ago in regard to an interesting point in connection with a recent filming of elephant interest. A request was put forward for photos or faithful descriptions of elephant stables on the real and princely scale. Men of wide Indian exper- ience declared, when questioned, that these were built like Dutch barns,—that is to say, as light and airily as was consonant with strength. This meant substantial walls of THE RUDYARD KIPLING MEMORIAL BUILDINGS presented to the Imperial Service College, Windsor, comprise two houses, each having accommodation for 50 students, with master's houses attached, and in the centre, matron's quarters common to both. 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 brick strengthened by iron pillars supporting an arched roof of corrugated iron, as being best for air and shade. A Kiplingite present at the discussion stood out for mud walls and was scoffed out of hand. Quite unabashed, he retorted by fetching down Many Inventions from the shelf. There in My Lord the Elephant, the testimony stood forth as " mud-walled stables," and fact, like memory, was once more justified of her children. POUM-GRANIT. " Many who listened to Mr. IN the December number of the Journal the story was told about the epitaph Kipling wrote for the Sudbury War Memorial, which could not be used owing to its late arrival, but what was not made known was the great care and trouble the author took in composing the epitaph. From The Legionary (Montreal) of November, 1939 (copied from The Sudbury Star) we learn that when Captain Ferry wrote to Kipling on November 17th, 1927, for an epitaph for the Sudbury Memorial, Kipling replied on December 20th, 1917 as follows : " I have made several trials to get the verse that you want for the Memorial, but so far without success. You see that unless one gets this kind of work as good as one can it had better not be done at all. Val Gielgud declaiming one of Kipling's "Just So Stories," writes the Star man in his Diary, " must have been surprised to hear him pro- nounce pomegranate poum-granit ! A colleague who looked it up in an opulent dictionary found Mr. Gielgud correct, for it gave no alternative pronunciation. Our Australian friends will be surprised, for " Pommy " is the name they give to all British visitors, whose faces are so much redder than their own sun-burnt, wind-swept com- plexions." The Story of an Epitaph I am taking it away for the holidays, and will write you again later." When finally Kipling sent the verse he had composed, on April 17th, 1928, he wrote from the Hotel du Palais, Biarritz :— " I enclose herewith the verse that I have made for your memorial at Sudbury, and I only wish that it were better. It is not easy work to do. Please let your committee know that, if it does not suit them they need not feel the least scruple about throwing it out. I shall quite understand." In the last sentence we see the native humility characteristic of our great Master. I am indebted to Colonel E. A. Pridham, M.C, of Winnipeg for the copy of The Legionary (Montreal) from which I have been able to write this brief note. E. W. M. April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 The Kipling Traditions By VISCOUNT GOSCHEN, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E. TO those friends of Kipling who lived through the sorrows of the last war and are now called upon to pass through days of like anxiety and stress there surely must come a feeling of relief that his sensitive soul has been spared the bruising which the present tragedies would have in- flicted upon it. And yet amid the dark clouds which overshadow the world he would have seen a bright light illuminating that vision of true Imperialism which in so many of his writings he held up before his readers : of an Empire bound together not by the iron bonds of domination but by the silken threads of affection, respect and mutual ideals of liberty, freedom and justice. That vision has be- come a reality. From East and West and South and North the men of our Empire have flocked to join their Military Units. On land, on sea, under the great waters and in the air they are coming to the help of the Mother Country inspired by these ideals, imbued with the same spirit, the Volunteers of freedom for nations and for men. What she has given to them they are anxious in full measure to secure for others. Nor is it only man-power which has been offered. Many a Crown Colony has contributed in money, material or goods to the utmost of its ability moved by a desire to associate itself whole-heartedly with the aims for which we are fighting. But surely what would have appealed to Kipling is that this rallying of the Empire to the support of the Mother Country and her Allies has not arisen from an outburst of emotionalism or romanticism but from a faithful- ness and steadfastness to her ideals. And on the Home Front the same spirit is preserved by all sections of the people, fighting forces and civilians. Kipling would have rejoiced to find the soul of the Nation calm, confident, trusting in the justice of its cause, not given to boastful- ness or the utterance of the foolish word, but inspired by an altruistic desire for a universal peace under which in secure surroundings hu- manity may march along the road of spiritual and moral progress. And so may we not say that the Kipling traditions, to be read in his writings to the peoples of the Five Nations and borne in the memories of his many friends with whom he talked in the last war, are fully maintained ? The un- selfishness of the objects for which the war is being fought—the courage 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 —the cheerfulness—the humour of our soldiers, for whom he had so soft a corner in his heart—the determined but restrained spirit of our people : it is in faithfulness to these traditions that we face the task before us with confidence and hope. A Visit to H.M.S. Kipling by THE HON. SECRETARY. HEARING that the Kipling had put into a certain port after her trials to get some- thing done to something, I thought it would be an excellent oppor- tunity to call upon her Captain and officers, to see my son and to deliver to her crew a hundredweight and a half of dartboards, darts and "flights" (whatever they may be), the de- livery of which was beginning to worry me. The only thing I can mention about my journey is that it is no joke to escort a dozen dartboards anywhere in time of war. Done up in parcels, they look (and feel) just like depth charges, and I spent most of the journey trying to persuade suspicious officials that they could be safely examined without being first plunged into tanks of water. My train journey home was, how- ever, enlivened by the experience of having to sit for 24 hours in a snow-drift, without food, heat or anything in the way of literature ! H.M.S. Kipling is a lovely ship ; at least she is lovely to the eye, with beautiful lines which give a striking impression of speed. But her deck and superstructure are strewn with weird and complicated-looking engines of destruction which infect the artistic beauty of the ship with a sinister atmosphere. One cannot see her without feeling how deadly efficient it all is, leaving one divided between one's amaze- ment at the ingenuity of man and one's ad- miration at what naval training can accomplish. The Captain had kindly invited me to lunch on board and I had an excellent meal in charming company. He and his officers were amazed and delighted at what our Society had so far been able to do for the ship* and I felt at the time that if only our members * The accounts of our H.M.S. KIPLING Fund, to which members have so generously contributed, will be published in the next issue of the Journal. April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 could have heard the nice things that were said about them all round the table, they would still be blushing ! But I am sure that they will be pleased to know not only how much their kindness has been appreciated, but to what an extent their generosity has really helped and encouraged all hands in the difficult and dangerous tasks which lie before them. So far, the late Mrs. Kipling's presentation of Kipling's works for the officers had not arrived, but one of our members, Mr. H. E. Pears had most kindly presented the men with 24 bound volumes of the Tauzchnitz edition of Kipling and these were received with the utmost delight by the crew. Our members' knit- ting was, experts tell me, of an unusually high standard and was much welcomed ; but in spite of the many articles of this kind which we have sent them, a very great deal more are required. Our money contributions have so far been spent upon dart boards and equipment, football jerseys, shorts, stockings and wool. We have given the Ward Room a silver cigarette box and six ash trays engraved with the ship's crest and an inscription " Presented by the Kipling Society." In conclusion I must apologise to members for giving them so sketchy an account of the ship, but, as all know, the restrictions imposed by the Censorship prevent me from giving further details and also prevent the Captain from giving us just now, what he would so much like to do, photographs of the ship and of the ship's company. Our Council have been much gratified by the splendid response of our members, but without in any way appearing ungrateful for what they have done, I hope I may be permitted to remind them that the War is not over yet, and that until it is, our efforts to do what we can for officers and men must be maintained at their present high standard. C.H. Robinson * * * FROM THE COMMANDER OF H.M.S. KIPLING My dear Sir Christopher, We were all certainly very proud when we heard of our appointment to the ship bearing the name of Kipling, but not one of us had any idea of the joys in store for those who are fortunate enough to be looked after by the Kipling Society ! I know you will excuse such a short letter from a very busy man at the present moment, but I beg of you to take the first opportunity of letting your members know how much we appreciate their great generosity, and to say how much their many kind gifts have added to the comfort and happiness of all on board. Later on I hope to be able to write more fully, but in the meantime I hope you will all accept our delighted thanks for all you have done and are doing for us. Yours sincerely, (Signed)-------------------- * Commander. * The Commander's name is omitted owing to censorship. 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 Kipling's Worst Slip REFERRING to " the men of the seas and the engine-room " in his Autobiography, Kipling says :— " My worst slip is still underided." There have been many speculations about this mistake ; as might be expected, many people assume that it must have something to do with the sea. But is it not possible that Kipling was trailing a red herring, to divert attention from this "worst" slip? Possibly he was trying to pull the leg of a critic—not for the first time ! There is, however, a real mistake in " The Bull That Thought," from " Debits and Credits," though the subject is only trivial. Most readers will remember the sparkling wine, which M. Voiron termed ' champagne.' M. Voiron, in answer to a question, says :— " If you were lucky, before the War, and paid thirty shillings a bottle, it is possible you may have drunk one of our better-class tisanes." On being asked where this wine is to be obtained, M. Voiron says :— " Here . . . We growers exchange these real wines among ourselves." Now there are several errors here. The word tisane means 'decoction,' neither more nor less, unless it is followed by de champagne, when it means 'light champagne for invalids.' If you ask for a tisane in France, they send you to a pharmacie—not to a café ; in other words, it is medicinal only. By law, the name ' champagne ' may only be applied to wines produced in the Champagne district round Reims and Epernay. Further, though many little-known but de- lightful wines are produced in the country between the Bouches du Rhône and the Spanish Frontier, there are none of the champagne type emanating from these parts. The point is not a vital one, but the error is palpable. One wonders how Kipling, with his knowledge of France, went astray in this manner. Basil M. Bazley. Our Cover WE thank the many members who have expressed approval of our new cover. "We disclaim any interest in politics," writes one correspondent, " but recent history has taught us to dislike the colour red, and to mistrust the swastika as a badge. Our new cover eliminates both of these signs of ill omen. " And that plaque of R. K. is really wonderfully like the man as he was—much better than most of his photos." April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 The Forged Letters Mr. W. G. B. Maitland here deals with the series of letters, now proved to have been ingenious forgeries, which were said to have been written by Rudyard Kipling to an American author. ON December 28th, 1939 the Daily Telegraph reported that a number of letters alleged to have been written by Rudyard Kipling to an American author had been discovered to be forgeries. As the man to whom they appeared to have been written met his death in a motor accident we shall never know whether he forged them for his own amusement or for less praiseworthy reasons. That they could not, under any circumstances, be genuine should have been obvious to anyone with a knowledge of Kipling's character. In the first of these letters, dated November, 1925, there is a bitter attack on Swinburne. This, in itself, is sufficient to arouse sus- picions, as Kipling's admiration for Swinburne's work is well-known. The same letter contains references to Shelley and Keats, and in quoting the former's lines to Keats the writer of the letter has badly maltreated the metre. Had Kipling written the letter he would never have made such a mistake as :— " Till the future dare forget the past His name and fate shall be An echo and a fight unto eternity. There is also a sentence which reads more like a police report than anything R. K. ever wrote :— " We only returned today from our holidays abroad and are now proceeding in a few days to the country." Then, there is a reference to " an occasional excursion across the moors," an allusion presum- ably to the heather uplands of Ashdown Forest. The word "pro- ceeding" is very unlike Kipling. A brief note which also bears the date of November, 1925, contains an invitation to spend the day at " Bateman's." Now, as most stu- dents of Kipling know, Burwash is four miles from Etchingham Rail- way Station, yet the letter contains no hint that the car would meet Mr. S—D—, nor are any train times mentioned. Surely a curious lapse ? On excellent authority I learn that all invitations issued from " Bateman's " contained informa- tion about the times of the arrival and departure of trains. But it is in a letter dated 1st June, 1927 that the most obvious forgeries occur. Once again there are attacks on other poets : the first is levelled at the Poet Laureate of whom the writer of the letter says :— " You must be made keenly to understand that I am no admirer of the Poet Laureate .... The Poet Laur- eate is a barnacle whose tenacity is equalled only by his taciturnity .... he obstinately refuses to retire." 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 The second is directed towards Dr. Robert Bridges whose Ode on the Ninth Jubilee of Eton College is described as " rubbish." Des- cribing him as a pedant and prosodist the forger goes on to say of Bridges that he is an arid theorist whose theories have pro- duced nothing but dull, dreary doggerel. I submit that such harsh criti- cisms of the worth of others was entirely foreign to Kipling's char- acter. Even still more unlikely is it when one realizes that Dr. Bridges' poem was on the funeral of his son.* In the same letter is an account of a " conversation " Kipling is supposed to have had with H.M. King George V on a Belgian battlefield. A quotation from the letter reads—" Just as Watson was rejected in favour of Austin so I was passed over in favour of, Bridges." Then follows a quota- tion from The Widow o' Windsor, which, the letter says " ruffled the dignity of Queen Victoria." " I have never heard," says the letter, "any other explanation of the preference shown for Dr. Bridges over me, and the King gave me clearly to understand this when we chatted informally on the Belgian battlefields near Ypres soon after the War. I assured him I would * R.K. felt his own tragic loss too keenly to ridicule another's memory of a dear one. decline an offer of the Laureateship even if it were made to me, to which he replied that I was the Empire's unofficial Laureate .... and suggest- ed a compromise of a peerage which I firmly and finally declined." That anyone in his right senses could believe the above to be the words of Kipling is utterly ridicu- lous. In the first place, had that conversation ever been held R. K. would never have repeated it in a letter to a man whom he knew to be engaged in writing articles about him. It is so completely un-English and un-Kipling-like that one positively shivers at the thought that anyone could believe him guilty of such an offence. In the second place, he would never have dreamed of complaining that he had not been made Poet Laureate. The story that Queen Victoria's ruffled dignity at The Widow 0' Windsor was the reason the Laureate- ship was never conferred on Kipling is well known on both sides of the Atlantic, and it seems fairly obvious that Mr. S—D— built his audacious forgery on what has never been anything but a stupid rumour. The whole letter is an extremely clever fake and its exposure is timely, lest " the lesser breeds " find in it yet another peg upon which to hang their foolish criticisms. W. G. B. Maitland. Readers who wish to propose friends as members of the Kipling Society, may obtain membership forms from the Hon. Secretary, 45, Gower Street, London, W.C.I. April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 Uncollected Kipling Writings. III. In the following notes Captain E. W. Martindell included two Kipling Poems which, we believe, will be new to most of our readers. [This is the third of the articles on Kipling's uncollected writings, specially contributed to the Journal by Captain E. W. Martindell.] SHORTLY after Kipling left Westward Ho when he was sub-editor of the Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore) in 1882, he wrote the following poem :— THE SONG OF AN OUTSIDER E'en now the heron treads the wet Slush swamps of Goosey pool, Now proses vex my Latin set, That first set upper school. E'en now, across the summer air, The call bell's clamour floats, Down to the weed-hung rock pools where The Juniors sail their boats. E'en now the gorse is out in bloom Along the Torridge Valley, E'en now the sparrow meets his doom From catapult and " Sally." * E'en now to Cory's bath they flock Old comrades, after three. E'en now the lower schoolboys "rock"† The Bideford bargee. For me no call bell rings, alas ! For me no proses are, No lounging on the playground grass, No sails across the bar. The hot winds blow, the punkah flaps Incessant, to and fro. Ah well for those most lucky chaps Who lark at Westward Ho ! The sunlight thro' the palm tree falls, Full on the whitewashed roof, And worse than any College " calls " Are printers' calls for proof. More dread than any sudden squall A careless prose could raise, Are people who drop in to call And take my busiest days Grimmer than any " thousand lines," The lines that I must read More crabbed than Euclid's worst designs A correspondent's screed. What wonder, while the punkah flaps, And hell-like hot winds blow, I envy those too lucky chaps Who work at Westward Ho ! * " Sally" is a " saloon pistol" † " rock" is "stone." Apparently Kipling was longing to be back at school again when he penned these lines. This manu- script poem was in the possession of the Misses Craik, daughters of Professor Craik, before the late Mr. Ellis Ames Ballard acquired it some years ago. It was first printed in Mr. Ballard's Catalogue of his Kipling Collection. It was with the Misses Craik that Kipling and his sister lived after they were removed from the tender mercies of ''Auntie Rosa,'' of Southsea. ''My mother, on her return to India, confided my sister and me to the care of three dear ladies, who lived off the far end of Kensington High Street over against Addison Road in a house filled with books, peace, kindliness, patience and what today would be called ' culture.' But it was natural atmosphere." This 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 we learn from ' Something of My- self.' Kipling referring to his journal- istic work in India says in " Sou- venirs of France " as follows :— " At that time—'83 to '88— the French Press was not nationally enamoured of England. I answer- ed some of their criticisms by what I then conceived to be parodies of Victor Hugo's more extravagant prose. The peace of Europe, how - ever was not seriously endangered by these exercises." There were four of these parodies entitled respectively " The History of a Crime [After Victor Hugo]," "Les Misérables —A Tale of 1998," "Le Roi en Exil" and " An Interesting Condition" The first two dealt with Indian taxation and finance, the third with an imaginary visit paid by Lord Dufferin, when Viceroy of India, to the exiled King Thebau of Burma, who gives the Viceroy some advice as to the best way of securing the pacification of that recently conquered King- dom, whilst the fourth and last one deals with Gladstone and the East. They are all topical, of course, but full of fun and are delightful RUDYARD KIPLING IN 1882 from the W. C. Crofts' collection. {Lent by Captain E. W. Martindell) April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 parodies of Victor Hugo. I shall not enlarge on them here as Sir George MacMunn has dealt with them more fully in his book " Rudyard Kipling : Craftsman," which every member of the Kipling Society not only has read and re- read, but no doubt possesses. I shall only add that these parodies appeared in The Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore) and The Pioneer (Allahabad) between 1886 and 1888. On his way back from India in 1889 Kipling was made an honorary member of the Bohemian Club at San Francisco and in return for this courtesy he composed the follow- ing verses about The Owl, which was the Club's " Patron Saint." THE OWL Men said, but here I know they lied, The owl was of a sullen clan, Whose voice upon the lone hillside Foreboded ill to mouse and man— A terror noiseless in the flight, A hook-nosed hoodlum of the night. But I have found another breed, An owl of fine artistic feelings, A connoisseur of wine and weed Who flutters under frescoed ceilings, Nor scorns to bid the passing guest Abide a season in his nest. I saw him on the staircase sit And blandly wink at gibe and joke, An arbiter twixt wit and wit, A god enshrined in baccy smoke, While round his pedestal there beat The clamour of his servants' feet. Some toiled in journalistic fetters And some in stocks—and stand-up collars ; Some worked his will in Art and Letters And some their own with things called dollars. Whate'er they said or wrote or drew The owl was monarch of the crew. With humour bright as Frisco air In speech as dry as Frisco sand, He blithely bade me welcome there And stretched a claw to take my hand, Whereat I found acceptance free Among his jovial company. A wanderer from East to West, A vagrant under many skies, How shall a roving rhymster best Requite, O Owl, thy courtesies ? Accept in lieu of laboured stippling A simple 'Thank You' Rudyard Kipling. These verses I have also culled from Mr. Ballard's Catalogue of his wonderful Kipling collection. In 1889, too, when Kipling was on that same journey home from India he came across an Englishman in Japan, who kindly conducted him to a Japanese temple which Kipling had vainly tried to locate. That Englishman was the late Mr. Charles Holme, who founded and for many years edited " The Studio." In course of conversation Mr. Holme learnt that the Englishman was the son of an acquaintance of his named John Lockwood Kipling, the curator of the Art Museum in Lahore. Mr. Holme, being greatly taken with young Kipling's clever- ness and witty conversation, about a year or so later—in 1891 to be exact—when he himself was Presi- dent of a Society of bookmen called " The Sette of Odd Volumes," invited Kipling to dine with the " Sette " as his guest. Kipling's letter in response to this invitation was characteristic of him and is reproduced overleaf in facsimile. To the kindness of Mrs. Charles Holme, who possesses the original KIPLING'S LETTER 'TO CERTAIN ODD VOLUMES" April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 letter sent to her husband by Kipling, I am indebted for the above particulars and I also am privileged to reproduce the letter. Mrs. Holme is in her 93rd year and in possession of all her faculties, besides being a lady of remarkable charm and vitality and blessed with a marvellous memory. Her house is a veritable storehouse of literary and art treasures. The late Mr. John Lane in 1923 made the following statement with regard to this letter :— " This letter from Mr. Kipling was sent to me through Mr. Moreton Fullerton, a member of The Times Staff, in reply to an invitation to Mr. Kipling .... I handed the letter to the late Mr. Charles Holme, and I assume it is in the possession of the family. I should say that Mr. Holme had met Mr. Kipling in Japan some years previously, and was immensely interested, indeed entertained, at his lively manner of making notes and remarks on everything which attracted him." This statement is recorded in my bibliography and bears out what Mrs. Holme told me last year. On Easter Monday, 1898, Kipling wrote from Cape Town a letter to The School Budget, the magazine of Horsmonden School, Kent, in response to a request from the editors of that magazine for a contribution to it. Kipling in his reply said inter alia " You seem to be in possession of all the cheek that is in the least likely to do you any good in this world or the next . . . But on the other hand and, not- withstanding, I very much approve of your " Hints on Schoolboy Etiquette " and have taken the liberty of sending you a few more." He then gave six hints as follows :— (1) What to do when in doubt about a quantity ; (2) why the two most useful boys in a form are (a) the master's favourite pro-tem, and (b)his pet aversion; (3) the value of a confirmed guesser on a Monday morning ; (4) what to do when meeting a master when out of bounds ; (5) where to run when pursued by the native farmer ; and (6) why Sunday is the best day in which to take other people's apples. In conclusion Kipling says " You will find this advice worth enormous sums of money, but I shall be obliged with a cheque or postal order for 6d—at your con- venience, if the contribution should be found to fill more than one page." In a later number these enterprising schoolboys secured a caricature of Kipling, as well as a letter, from the pen of Max Beerbohm. This let- ter says " I have read Mr. Kipling's letter, and I agree with you that its tone is quite monstrous and un- pardonable. I have much pleasure in complying with your request for a caricature of Mr. Kipling." Max Beerbohm's caricature and letter form the frontispiece of this issue of the Journal. 18 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 Kipling Questions Readers may test their knowledge of Kipling with these questions. The answers will appear in the next issue of the JOURNAL. [A member offers a prize of Kipling interest to the first competitor whose correct solution of all the following questions reaches the Editor by May 30th, 1940.] 1. Who said: (1) "Are you coing to see my faver and the horses ?"; (2)" We're playing the game, and we've the great advantage of knowing the game;" (3) "Listen. Just because a man looks a little sun- burned and talks a little chuffy, don't think you can be fretful with him "? 2. Where does Kipling make this quotation from Byron's " The Giaour," " He who has bent him o'er the dead "? 3. Who quoted and to whom this proverb " I will change my faith and my bedding, but thou must pay for it"? 4. In which stories occur :— (a) The Clouded Tiger; (b) The «Great Pop Picnic'; (c) Friar's Pardon; (d) Le Vicomte Bouvier de Brie ? 5. What story ends with these words :— " Next morning we sent back to the livery-stable what was left of the yellow horse. It seemed tired, but anxious to go"? 6. Which of Kipling's poems was declined by The Times ? 7. What do you know about "The Old Volunteer"? 8. Where do you find these words : " There are two ways of '' inspecting" ships. The first is to go round the ship before taking déjeuner on board. The second is to sit quite still after dé- jeuner on board, and let the ship go round you." (2) "There is no heat in the mid-day sun nor health in the wayside grass." (3) "He travels the fastest who travels alone." (4) "Man, failing, takes unfailing pride In memories of his frolic youth." (5) " Pray, brothers, pray, but to no earthly King." (6) "And from afar we could hear the soldiers singing ' Two Lovely Black Eyes ' as they drove the remnant of the rioters within doors." (7) " The whole weight of the world at the present moment lies again, as it used to lie in the time of our fathers, on the necks of two nations, England and France " ? 9. Who were the following and where do they come in Kipling's books :— (1) "The Worm"; (2) Miss Biddums ; (3) Billy Fish ; (4) Nobby Clarke ; (5) Machura Appa ; (6) Vixen ; (7) Angelique ; (8) John Pennycuik ; (9) The Nilghai ; (10) Darzee ? 10. What was the original title of " The Explanation " and where and when did it appear originally under that title ? April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 19 Kipling's Characterisation of Children An Address by Dr. H. Boyd Graham, given to the Melbourne Branch of the Kipling Society. THE creative artist must be the fortunate possessor of imagina- tion which will be coloured by his experiences and convictions without becoming stunted or cir- cumscribed. It is not unusual to find that adults fail to understand the fantasy life of the child ; they have themselves suffered re- pression of imagination and are so imbued with the idea that " life is real " and " earnest " that they train the children in ' 'utilitarianism' ' almost from the cradle. In his works we can see con- vincing evidence that Kipling had a remarkable understanding of children ; he has written many stories and verses that children love and enjoy and that appeal strongly to those of maturer years who have managed to retain some of the powers of imagination which make up the childish outlook. Children and older children like to hear of the lives and adventures of people in other parts of the great British Empire and in foreign lands. Stories of adventure are especially attractive when they centre around soldiers or sailors or secret service agents. Kipling has given us adventure stories in profusion full of the interest assoc- iated with details of local colour, appropriate language and illustra- tions from the world of nature. Characteristic incisive phrases, quaint remarks and coined words stick in the memory and please us. While we are young the stories are self-sufficient for us and we go on from one volume to another eagerly. As our minds mature we find that many of the stories have a moral. The story-teller has not made the mistake of putting the moral into words, but has skilfully built it into the structure of the story. The moral may be found by the thoughtful reader and sensed at least even by the growing child. Some of the lessons are for adults only, but unfortunately for those adults who through lack of interest are least likely to read the stories. The lessons for adults often revolve around the subject of interesting themselves in the emo- tional development and character formation of their own children. Kipling did not advocate the provision by parents for children of the things that money can buy, but he does stress the importance 20 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 of the things that really matter more. The public of Melbourne flocked to the picture theatres to see " Captains Courageous " and " Wee Willie Winkie." In the film ver- sions considerable liberties have been taken with the text of Kipling's stories, but the powerful portrayal is in the spirit and brings out the essence admirably. Harvey Cheyne, the boy who got two hundred dollars a month pocket money and whose mother had two private railroad cars, the " Harvey " and the " Con- stance," falls into the sea and is rescued by the " Portugee " Manuel while fishing for cod in his dory. Captain Disko Troop, his son Dan and the other members of the crew of the " We're Here " break Harvey in to the life on board a fishing schooner. Dan and " Harve " be- come great friends and a man is made of Harvey amidst the rollick- ing fun and hard work and rough- ness of the seafaring life. The way Harvey's telegram announcing his safe arrival on shore puts new life into his distracted mother and galvanises his railroad father into action makes a good story. A delightful reunion takes place and Harve's mates see the " Constance." Disko Troop owned himself to be " mistook in his judgments " when he met Harve's father and found that he really was a millionaire. The father who realised how very little he had known his son opened his heart to the " well-set up fisher youth " who had learned to earn his " ten and a half dollars a month " and was " worth his keep." In the end, after a college education, Harve becomes the master and Dan is his man as old " Doctor " the black cook who was " mystic " had foretold. Percival William Williams, better known as Wee Willie Winkie, Coppy's friend, was a " very particular child." From his ten- derest years he was put " under military discipline " by his father " the Colonel of the 195th." His rescue of Miss Allardyce who had gone " across the river " which was the boundary between British India and the Afghan country makes a very droll story admirably told by Kipling. In it he shows a fine appreciation of the temper and spirit of the child though the story strains the reader's credulity almost to breaking-point. Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, on the other hand, is a very valuable story. Those who have not read it should read it and those who have read it should read it again and again. Punch and Judy are delightful as young children in Bombay but unfortunately they were sent to " Downe Lodge " in England to the care of " Auntie Rosa " and " Uncle Harry." They have to live with the horrible Harry, the black-haired boy. Thoroughly mis- April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 21 understood, Punch is dubbed a liar ; on the doctrine " untrust- worthy in one thing, untrustworthy in all " he becomes the " Black Sheep " at the Lodge and at school. He is taunted and stung until he becomes almost desperate. It is only the arrival of his mother to collect her children that saves him from becoming an "incorrigible" boy. We should all bear this story in mind when we have occasion to consider the effect of environment on the conduct of children. Another study in the ethics of home life is the story of His Majesty the King whose " reward was Love and the right to play in the waste-paper basket under the table." Through his innocent cap- ture of the "'parkle crown" his mother and father became sensible and reasonable parents. The glorious death of the boy drummers, Lew and Jakin, the drums of the " Fore and Aft " in the encounter with the Afghans was not in vain. The whole story is filled with the unquenchable glory of the British Army and the key-note is courage and patriotism. Kimball O'Hara, known as Kim, is probably the finest child creation of Kipling's genius. What a joy his story has been for a wide number of adolescent and adult readers ! The cunning and resource of the native-bred boy and the intelligence which made him a worthy associate in " the Game " of Colonel Creigh- ton, Lurgan, Mahbub the horse- dealer and the Babu are strongly drawn characteristics but the friend- ship between Kim and the Lama is an epic of literature. Kipling's contribution to the great tales of the life of school- boys in England is a notable one. Stalky, McTurk, Gig-lamps and Co. at Westward Ho are safe for a long time to come. We learn unmistakably that Gig-lamps or Beetle (who was R.K. himself) could not play games, and thought they were over done at the school, but he did appreciate the esprit of service and sacrifice which is so prominent a feature in any healthy school. " Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be ; When we are grown and take our place, As men and women with our race. " Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride, For whose dear sake our fathers died ; Oh Motherland, we pledge to thee, Head, heart, and hand through the years to be ! " The stories in which Dan and Una figure reveal yet another facet of Kipling's greatness. We like to think that he wrote them for the special delectation of his own children, but they have delighted many thousands of others. They vivify traditions and are altogether lovely. The children Dan and Una are fitted into the scheme of things most artistically and as naturally as the theme allows. Mowgli is an outstanding char- 22 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 acter in the world of phantasy. In the construction of this figure Kipling has been very daring but very successful. He has different- iated between inherited and acquir- ed characteristics and between savage and cultured behaviour. We cannot escape the feeling that he wished us to recognise the comparative justice and good sense of the jungle and the artificiality of our civilisation. Kipling aimed very high indeed in They and in the Brushwood Boy. These fantastic stories of dream life and the fate after death do not appeal to all readers alike. Those with imagination enough can go furthest with Kipling. Personally I think that " They " may have been real enough for the blind lady but the appearance of a child at an upper window when the man's car entered the grounds of the house for the first time is improbable and jars the sense of artistry. It is of passing interest that in response to the question " You're fond of children ? " the author of the story gave " one or two reasons " why he did " not altogether hate them." We are probably justified in taking this statement as the personal view of Rudyard Kipling on the subject. * * * The Brushwood Boy and the Brushwood Girl is worked out too far to satisfy me. It was all very well to conceive of their experiences in adolescence as a dream state, but the revelations of mutual recognition as adults towards the end of the story does not seem to be an artistic success. The story of Mary Rose does not contain anything incongruous. THE CHILDREN—1917. These were our children, who died for our lands : they were dear in our sight. We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and laughter. The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another's hereafter. Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it. That is our right. But who shall return us the children ? That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven— By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires— To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes—to be cindered by fires— To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation. But who shall return us our children ? {John Kipling was killed at Loos September, 1915). ILLUSTRATIONS ETC., FOR THE KIPLING JOURNAL Members of the Kipling Society who possess letters, press cuttings, photographs or sketches associated with Rudyard Kipling and his works, which they think might be suitable for publication in the Journal, are invited to send particulars to the Hon. Editor, The Kipling Journal, 45, Gower Street, London, W.C.1. April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 23 A Tribute to Kipling in Verse A fine poem to Rudyard Kipling's memory, MOST tributes of praise to Rudyard Kipling are pre- sented in the form of prose, but the Rev. A. Vine Hall has chosen verse as his medium. How well he has succeeded is to be seen by his verses which we reprint below.* These, and the others in his Poems of a South African show him to be a poet of no mean order. Paying tribute to the prowess of Coleridge, Shelley and Keats, Mr. Vine Hall found, like most of us, that by comparison Kipling's writ- ings have a. far wider meaning and greater depth, simply because they describe places, men and their deeds, and the ordinary everyday things which we had been all too apt to take for granted,—or worse still, forget. Kipling tried to teach us many lessons, and in his fine fifteen-verse poem to Rudyard Kipling's memory, Mr. Vine Hall reminds us that we have much to thank him for. W. G. B. M. RUDYARD KIPLING Born December 30, 1865, died January 18, 1936. In a letter to the author, Major- General Sir Fabian Ware says :— ' Rudyard Kipling was a very great friend of mine. His funeral in the Abbey was perfect : you would have thought so. What a temple that Poets' * Written in 1901, when Kipling visited South Africa. Corner is ! At the committal I was standing on Samuel Johnson's grave, next to Stanley Baldwin on Garrick's grave. And they told me at the Abbey, the other day, that when they came to arrange things after the funeral they found that Rudyard's remains were resting on the south transept wall of Edward the Confessor's building. Apropos of what he wrote you [•" The Gates of death are not normally terrible"], a doctor, a great friend of his and of mine, visited him on the last day and said to me, " He didn't know he was dying, but would not have minded a bit if he had.' " Songs with the prophet's lyre that blend ; Songs for the banjo and grimace ; The jungle-man ; the soldiers' friend ; Voice of the far-flung British race— But why recount the varied debt ? Can we forget—can we forget ! A sword with never a spot of rust ; No flowers enwreathe it ; bright and bare— Naught to impede its cut and thrust ; 'Tis no such toy as courtiers wear ; Firmness of grip, not gems and gilt, Is the one glory of the hilt. Since, from the tavern reeling late, Burns deathward drowsed upon the snow, A century* of song as great As any age or clime can show Hath shone for England ; yet, of all The realms these poets hold in thrall, The widest—not most rich and fair— Are his and thine, the wider thine : He deep through Scotland drove the share ; Thy song-ships, furrowing the brine, Are hailed with joy on many a beach Where then was heard no Saxon speech. Yet why amid the Lords of Song Hast thou such eminence ? Too far Their pinions leave the labouring throng ; Not Shelley's rapture, from a star Showering ; nor the soul-release Of Wordsworth thine, mid haunts of Peace. 24 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 We tire of the enchanted night That Coleridge loved ; the thunder- storm Called—Byron ; not always can delight In Beauty's ever-changing form Even though Keats it be who sings, And round him flutter faerie wings. No 'magic casements' thine ; nor vales Where bright gods press the velvet sward ; No 'verdurous glooms' and nightingales. The toiling millions hail the bard Who loves to voice their common life— Pain, joy, hope, fear, sin, sorrow, strife. Of later minstrels e'en the two, Sublime upon an equal height, Receive but fealty of the few : Here rugged cliffs the crowd affright ; There the baronial castle seems Wrapt in old-world patrician dreams. By thee the many speak : thy lay Is music to match the new romance— Romance of life as lived to-day And not with battle-axe and lance. Through thee the Brethren of the Blood Clasp hands o'er continent and flood. What saith the People's troubadour ? Captains and kings ! attend to hear The speech of Demos : to the shore Come the proud billows, blanched with fear Of the million-pebbled beach, and know Their might will melt thereon like snow. What saith the Voice ? ' The crimson A century since that shone o'er France, Was herald not of day but night. From that delusion, as from trance Abhorred, the world awoke—and saw Freedom not as revolt, but Law. ' Let all men reverence Duty : live As in the " great Task-master's eye" ; And let Imperial races give, And conquest cease to mean supply ; Let England vanquish, not to bind But bear the burdens of mankind ' And reverence Man. Though, round the bowl, Coarse and profane as to the lip, As to the heart a hero-soul ! Remember those who on the ship, Forming in line as in the park, Sank from the sunlight to the shark. ' Remember him, in this hot Land Who would not quench his raging thirst But, with last wave of dying hand, Bade his Boer enemy drink first. Call them but " common soldiers "—• say " Mere Tommies ! "—count their cost per day. ' I hail them heroes !—yet but men : " Common "—thank God!—and thus can guess Why He so " loved the world." And when, Forgetting Thee and these, we press To sordid ends—God save us yet When we forget—when we forget ! * From " Poems of a South African " (7th Edit- ion, 1939) by the Rev. G. Vine Hall, (10/6). Published by Longmans, 39, Paternoster Row, London, by whose permission we publish this poem. North Devon and Rudyard Kipling NORTH Devon has a subsidiary interest in the Rudyard Kip- ling Memorial Buildings, which have been presented to the Imperial Service College, Windsor. For the College incorporates the United Services College, which was estab- lished at Westward Ho and had Kipling among its pupils. Over thirty years have passed since the association with Devon was severed, but its memory is enshrined in Kipling's story Stalky & Co. and may outlast the new buildings, substantial as they are in appearance. Western Morning News. April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 25 Kipling and the Younger Generation [In the December 1939 "Kipling Journal " the influence of the works of Rudyard Kipling upon the Oxford undergraduate of 50 years ago was described. Below, a recent President of the Cambridge Union, and former Editor of " The Granta" and of " The Cambridge Review" writes on Kipling and the younger generation.] A SUPERFICIAL observer of the young men who have read everything—whether in Cambridge, Oxford or Bloomsbury or wherever they are found— would probably conclude that the younger generation not only does not read Kipling but that he means nothing to them. Like all general- isations it would be wrong because not only the stout red buckram volumes of his works but the slim pocket edition also continue to disappear from the booksellers' shelves—not all presumably by way of over-enthusiastic uncles passing them on to unappreciative nephews. The fact remains that it is difficult for us to capture the feeling of delighted discovery with which those thin paper-backed volumes first began to dribble out at what now seems so very distant a date. Were they really, one asks oneself, such events as those flat, tall, well-printed volumes by modern poets in their beautiful dust covers which Messrs. Faber & Faber issue in an ever-increasing row ? But if one is wise one doesn't wonder aloud in the com- pany of some Kipling enthusiast who recalls those unambitious paper backs of long ago. He would probably not take more than two choleric minutes to point out that Kipling was an essential part of the world he lived in. Whether it was about India or Sussex he was able to express what everyone who had lived that life experienced and thought, and also to extend by his insight and imagination the boundaries of the familiar. What he would have thought about the contemporary scene and in particular about this war is difficult to imagine. It's difficult enough for us who are so bewilderingly involved in it all, that it is even harder to know what would be the reaction of someone stepping straight out of a world which seems now to have vanished for ever. But at least one negative proposition is possible. He would not have taken out papers of American citizenship and written in America more Plain Tales from the Hills from the cities of the plain. Whatever body of con- 26 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 victions sustained and was implied in his writings was sincerely held and acted upon. The passage of time has very often the same effect on literature as has the process of translation from one language to another. The thing which disappears first and most easily is the idiom, the characteristic surface of the lan- guage itself. But in both cases, either of translation or survival, the shape beneath will emerge in spite of this. The Odyssey the Divine Comedy, Medea, Don Quixote, all lose the surface charm of their language in translation. The dimensions and nature of the original performance are neverthe- less discernible in translation. In the same way the high complexions, white moustaches and bald heads ; the pukka wallahs, the marauding tribesmen and whatever other dis- connected images are evoked in the mind of a young man of today when he dimly reacts to a Kipling whom he imagines he has read, are immaterial. The idiom may have grown old-fashioned, but some of the convictions which sustained the Kipling world have been surprisingly reaffirmed in the course of the past year, by the very young men who a little earlier achieved a good deal of publicity by their declarations of what they would and would not fight for. Kipling wrote in the hey-day of true blue imperialism, but he could always see the danger of that heady wine. He knew and warned against this country's ever becoming drunk with power. He may have talked about the lesser breeds without the law to the indignation of hot-headed and in- dignant youths whose experience of the peoples of the earth is confined to Hampstead, but it was his particular wisdom to cry " Lest we forget." Now that the youth of the Empire is rallying so magnificently when the old country is in danger, it is clear that Kipling was justified. We did not accept power for its own sake, or entirely for our own ends, and the Empire as a result remains an experiment with life in it—a thing which is recognised, not only by every independent country in the world, large or small, but by hundreds of thousands of the people who have never read Kipling. But the poet of Imperialism was one of the form- ative and constructive influences in building up that great experi- ment. Every member may help the Kipling Society by proposing friends, who are genuinely interested in Rudyard Kipling and his works, as members. April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 27 Reports from Branches CAPE TOWN BRANCH THE activities of this Branch were interrupted by the death of Mr. E. E. Benham, its most able secretary. Mr. Benham was an enthusiastic lover of Kipling and student of his works, and his death is a great loss to the Society, more especially to the Cape Town Branch, making a void difficult to fill. Mr. Benham at the beginning of the year drew up a list of suggestions for the activities of the Branch in 1939. The suggestions were laid before members of the Annual General meetings and were accepted. At the first meeting, Mr. H. G. Willmot read the Rev. E. Kennedy Shipton's paper, " Kipling as a Patriot," with the discussion that followed when the paper was read in London. At a later Meeting Commander Tim Healey read Com- mander Locker Lampson's paper "Kipling and the Sea." At the August Meeting Miss Hawkings (principal of the Girls' High School, Wynberg) read a paper, " Kipling and the School." Most interesting discussions followed the reading of these papers, the more so as amongst the members there is a fair percentage who knew Kip- ling personally and even intimately. One reminiscence followed an- other, anecdotes were repeated, sayings quoted, and there were many " do you remembers ?" " were you there when Kipling —?" trifling details, but trifles that made Kipling a more vivid personality to those who had never met him. The declaration of war and the crisis here seriously hampered the activities of the Branch. Members who had promised papers were un- able to fulfil their obligations, either being called up or being over- whelmed with work, and so unable to give their attention to writing papers or—sometimes—to attend meetings. Fortunately, however, it was possible to hold the meeting at which it had been arranged to have a discussion on Kipling's twelve best short stories. Mr. Ritchie Fallon opened the discussion taking the following headings and the particular story of Kipling's he would place under the heading :— Adventure : " The Man who would be King." Comedy : The speaker was torn be- tween— " The Village that voted the world was Flat," and " Horse Marines." Tragedy ; "Without benefit of Clergy." Love Story : "William the Conqueror." Stones for Children : " The beginning of the Armadilloes." Stories of Children : " Wee Willie Winkie." War : ' ' The Taking of Lungtungpen. " School Boys : " In Ambush." The Civil Service : " Pig." Tales of Animals : " Tiger, Tiger." Gruesomeness : " Bisara of Pooree." Hunting Story : " Tomb of His Ancestors." Fantasy: "Gloriana." "The Brush- wood Boy." 28 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 An animated debate followed and alternatives were suggested, such as : " The Man Who Was " in the place of " Without Benefit of Clergy : " "The Mark of the Beast " instead of " The Bisara of Pooree " and " They " in the place of " Gloriana " or " The Brushwood Boy." The meeting ended on a note of hilarity mixed with indignation after hearing, read by the Chairman, Marie Corelli's lines on Kipling in " The Silver Domino." MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. The subject for the October Meeting, " Kipling and the Doc- tors," was ably handled by Dr. J. F. Mackeddie, who recalled his acquaintance with Kipling during his student days in Edinburgh. Dr. Boyd-Graham supported Dr. Mackeddie and mentioned little- known facts about Kipling's doctors, notably Dr. Conland of New Eng- land, who had introduced Kipling to the cod-fishing community there, and Dr. René Laennac, the inventor of the stethoscope. For December the subject was Kipling and India, on Kim. The President, Sir Julius Bruche, made the characters in the story live again. He produced a genuine Tibetan pen case, a facsimile of the one carried by the Lama in the story, being " a piece of ancient design, of an iron that is not smelted in these days." Fitted at one end with the inkwell, the whole made a truly weighty weapon. These pencases (as the Lama tells) could be used in a hand to hand fight—"the heavy iron pencase that is the priest's weapon." We hope to forward a photo of this interesting relic. Mr. Morton, who served in "Stalky's" regiment, supported Sir Julius, and described the Grand Trunk Road through India. He illustrated his talk with a map of North-West India show- ing the trails followed by Kim and the Lama.—Grace Broughton, Hon. Secretary. AUCKLAND, N.Z. We had the pleasure, writes Mrs. Buchanan, the Branch Hon. Secre- tary, of welcoming Mrs. Stuart, wife of the Chief Justice of Samoa to our 4th Anniversary Birthday party on the 21st November. A niece of Dr. Jameson, and a personal friend of Kipling, Mrs. Stuart was able to tell us many intimate stories of Kipling and his family. Her presence made the celebrations more significant, and added much to the pleasure of the Meeting. About 38 members assembled with their friends and the Rev. C. E. Perkins, who gave the party, presided. Readings from Kipling's works were given by eight members. Branch Reports for the next issue of the Journal should reach the Editor by June 3rd, 1940. April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 29 Letter Bag Owing to limited space, correspondents are asked to keep letters for publication as short as possible. KIPLING ORIGINS. IN his book, The Land of no Regrets, the late Lt.-Col. A. A. Irvine mentions how the lawless banditti of the Bagulpore Hills were tamed by the conciliatory methods of the Collector, Mr. Cleveland : ' Cleveland died in 1784, almost deified by the inhabitants, at the early age of twenty-nine—on the monument erected to his memory there is mention of how " without bloodshed or the terrors of authority, employing only the means of conciliation, confidence and benevolence " he succeeded in attaching the wild men of the hills to the British Government " by a conquest over their minds ; the most permanent, as the most rational mode of dominion." Compare this with the inscription on the tomb of John Chinn the first in the story, ' The Tomb of his Ancestors.' —R. B. Phillips, (Lt. Col.), Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand. "ECONOMY OF IMPLICATION." On page 72 of " Something of Myself" Rudyard Kipling refers to a phrase in "A Wayside Comedy " into which he had succeeded in getting a certain " economy of implication." I vote for the last sentence in the story " in a little station we must all be friendly." If I am right, then here is a striking resemblance in craftsmanship to a tale written at the opposite end of his life and at the opposite pole in sentiment, namely " The Gardener." There of course the whole point and ex- planation of the story (the most closely constructed that he ever wrote) lies in the last sentence, and it is curious to note who see it and who don't. It came out (in The Strand, I think) during the General Strike of 1926, and I remember reading the closing sentences to a fellow Special Constable, who did not appear to be a particularly churchy individual, and he said at once " That sounds like a bit out of the Bible," while friends of the most devout, and even one in Holy Orders, have asked me who the Gardener is meant to be ! I suppose that the explanation is that they were reading rapidly and skipping, a thing that you can never do with Kipling, and so missed the assonance of the last sentence with St. John's Gospel. I would commend " The Doorkeepers of Zion " for special reading during the war. It is heartening, and more appropriate than " For All We Have and Are " to the present genre of warfare. But I should like to ask one question : what is meant by the two fellowships of Zion referred to in the third verse ? Zion is a Biblical term and surely should not be mixed up with any outside implication. But I can think of no fellowships of Zion in the Bible. On page 212 of " Something of Myself" he says " and my worst slip is still underided." Has anyone any theories on this ? It evidently refers to some technical slip, and not to the famous, and corrected, " David went to look for donkeys." A brother officer, who had begun life by training as a marine engineer, once told me that the line in " The Ballad of the Bolivar," " Hoped the Lord 'ud keep His thumb on the plummer-block " was quite wrong technically. Can any of our engineering members en- lighten us ?—B. S. Browne, (Lt. Col.) Bournestream, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucester. A DEED OF DARING. With reference to the interesting fifty years' old Spectator review of Soldiers Three, which appears in the December Kipling Journal, in looking through an old scrap-book I came across an article from The Spectator of April 23rd, 1892, which should appeal to all Kiplingites. It consists of three closely printed col- umns in the small type of the period. The subject is not Rudyard Kipling but one of his friends, who is well known to members of the Kipling Society—but 30 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 whose bravery ae a young officer may be a story yet unknown to the younger ones. It is entitled " A Deed of Daring " and relates to the exploit of a lad named George MacMunn, who on February 9th, 1892, as Lieut. G. F. MacMunn, R.A., an officer of three and a half years' service, undertook a fighting march in the mountain frontiers between China and Upper Burmah, which aroused universal admiration at home. Here pirate and raiding bands were being occupied, and a Post at Sadon was being formed. The account is too long to send to you for publi- cation in the Journal, but it may be summarised as follows :— " Mr. MacMunn had been ordered to march with fourteen men of whom fortunately for him, twelve were Gurkhas, to convey some stores, principally rum, to a post in Burmah fifty miles away. On the way he learnt that rebels of the Kachyen tribe intended to bar his path. This meant he must either retreat, or force his way through streams and jungle through a hostile force which might number hundreds, and did in fact number sixty at least. He decided to go on." " Lieut. MacMunn," says the account, " a youngster (he was wounded in the wrist) almost yesterday from Woolwich, had led twelve Gurkhas on a march down a jungle road of twenty-four miles, hampered with mules and commissariat stores ; had crossed two rivers by fording and carried three stockades, doing the whole work under continuous fire from an enemy far superior in numbers, far swifter of foot, and as far as constructing defences went, almost as expert as sappers." The article concludes " Villagers in Southern India, utterly cowed by a man-eating tiger, will attack the beast on foot, and with insufficient weapons because an Englishman who knows nothing of tigers is ready to lead the way." That young Lieutenant of 1892 is today Lieut.-General Sir George Mac- Munn, Chairman of the Council of the Kipling Society, and the author of many books including " Kipling's Women" and ''Rudyard Kipling, Craftsman."—London Member. "THE VAMPIRE" It may interest your New Zea- land member, who wrote about a pirated edition of The Vampire, to know that there is another with the same title but different contents. In 1920 I bought two Kipling pirates from Woolworth's in Ottawa. One— The Vampire published by R. F. Fenns & Co., New York, is bound in stiff brown paper and contains The Vampire, and sixteen poems all from Depart- mental Ditties, plus The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House. The other was Barrack Room Ballads, same pub- lisher, bound in white paper with a window, pond, flower pots, etc. I also have thirteen little paper covered pirates which used to sell in the U.S.A. for 5c each ! But I expect you have seen these as I sent a set of them to the Society in the early days.— E. T. D. Francis, Crawford Bay, British Columbia. "SLAVES OF THE LAMP." Probably many other members have already answered Mr. Preston's question on page 43 of the December issue of The Kipling Journal, but if not I can tell him that the lines quoted are from Robert Browning's poem " Waring." I think the meaning is obvious to anyone who reads the poem. McTurk evidently did understand it. May I congratulate you upon the improved form of the Journal and especially upon the new cover ? — F. S. Kennedy- Shaw (Colonel), Kings Orchard, Teffont Magna, Near Salisbury. {Lt.-Col. B. S. Browne also replied on these lines to Captain Preston's query.—Ed.] "PUNISHMENT WITHOUT CRIME." In December 1937, I drew attention to an article by a writer in the Daily Telegraph on the film which he called " Wee Willie Winkie" and you dealt very faithfully with the gentleman in No. 44 of the Journal. On January 15 th this same contributor in the same paper, sheds much ink on the film of " The Light that Failed," which appears to have given an added stimulus to an inveterate prejudice. His article is headed in enormous cap- April, 1940 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 31 itals " Punishment Without Crime," the " punishment " apparently being Dick Heldar's blindness, and the "crime" it is suggested lies in Dick having "gone unshaven for a time." " If there is any moral," says our friend, " it is possibly just Kipling's Victorian Calvinism com- ing out." "Blindness and sudden death were fitting punishments for low fellows who hired models, and probably knew Aubrey Beardsley." He ends with " The characters are a shallow lot." Fancy that now. And all these years we had been thinking that The Light That Failed was quite a good story. He sets up as a critic to sell us his Petty conceit, and pettier jealousies. But I would like to know something more about "Kipling's Victorian Calvin- ism "-A. E. Hanford, Tolworth, Surrey. " Letter Bag " letters for the next issue of The Kipling Journal should reach the Editor by June 3rd, 1940 Book Reviews THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES. By Holbrook Jackson, 6d. (Pelican Series—Penguin Books Ltd.) This admirable and eminently read- able summary of the most fascinating decade in English Art and Letters first appeared in 1913 and was reprinted in 1922. Never easy to find, either on bookstalls or in libraries, it now re- appears, thanks to enterprising publish- ers, in pocket form for a modest six- pence. Especially is it valuable to members of our Society for its chapter on Kipling—a stimulating and impartial study that exhibits two qualities rare in critics of his work : knowledge of the subject and fairness. Evidence of the author's wide judgment may be seen by the following : " And if his teaching at times seemed unnecessarily blatant it possessed an undercurrent of courageous wisdom as far removed from blatant jingoism as jingoism is from the Imperial or patriotic idea." This gives a much- needed rebuke to those littérateurs who mistake abuse for disquisition. Kipling, in the period covered by this book, was blamed for not belonging to a school or set—it was more difficult to appraise a writer who had found and kept his own road than one who fell into the mould set by a recognised literary group :— " He knew what he thought and said what he thought in his own way, with as little apology to precedent or convention as the most ultra-realist or impressionist." Kipling, as Mr. Jackson points out, was original, but he was original in his own way, instead of following devoutly in the steps of the self-styled illuminati. Mr. Jackson reviews his subject from all angles ; in common with the French critics he finds the underlying message from stories as different from each other as " The Courting of Dinah Shadd " and " They "—from poems as widely sundered as " M'Andrew's Hymn " and " The Vampire." As mentioned before, this study is impartial —it is no hymn of praise ; if the author likes a Kipling opinion or one of the works, he says so ; but, he gives reasons. On the other side, he states, quite frankly, that he does not consider such-and-such verses as poetry. There is, however, no hesitation about his admiration for Kipling as a writer of the short story :— "As an artist, then, Kipling won his spurs at the outset by writing a cycle of short stories unsurpassed in our literature, and finding their only parallel for bulk of output and high achievement in the stories of Guy de Maupassant." There remains the feeling, all the way through, that Mr. Jackson has given time and research to his work ; most important of all, he is sincerely honest in his likes and dislikes. B.M.B. MORE SELECTED STORIES by Rudyard Kipling (with a sel- ection of poems) 3s. 6d. (Mac- millan & Co., Ltd.). We have received a copy of this new selection of Rudyard Kipling's best-known stories and poems, which 32 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1940 is a companion to Selected Stories, which for long has been a popular volume for gift purposes. The new volume contains, amongst others : The Drums of the Fore and Aft (from Wee Willie Winkie) ; If (poem from Inclusive Verse) ; The Ship that Found Herself (from The Day's Work) ; M'Andrew's Hymn (poem) ; The Rout of the White Hussars (from Plain Tales) ; The Land (poem) ; A Kipling Letter of '98 ELSEWHERE in this number a contributor writes on the forged Kipling letters, a subject which has aroused considerable interest among the general public. Mr. Geo. B. Burgin, the author, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, writes '' I am much interested in your exposure of the forged Rudyard Kipling letters and of the value attached to them. Many years ago I was doing an article on the amusements of eminent authors and received the following letter from my old friend the late lamented Rudyard Kipling : August 19th, '98. Dear Burgin,—Allow me ' in the " The Kipling Boys " EXTRACT from the News Chronicle, from a reader : " I gladly pass on to you the happy discovery, made by me this morning, that at 45, Gower Street, the Kipling Society and the Noise Abatement League have offices on the same floor. You can't improve on that." " Nor, we hope, would we ever attempt to butt rashly in on any such inscrutable scheme of Pro- vidence, merely remarking mildly that there must be moments with the Kipling boys at No. 45 when the silence 'angs that 'eavy you are 'arf afraid to yell." The Bull that Thought (from Debits and Credits) ; The Gods of the Copy- book Headings (poem) ; " Wireless " (from Traffics and Discoveries) ; "Brug- glesmith " (from Many Inventions) ; The English Way (poem). THE NATIONAL REVIEW for February contains some brief but charmingly intimate memories of Mrs. Rudyard Kipling by Lady Milner. most delicate manner in the world,' as Chucks said, to ask what is the good of an amusement if you let the public (who have their own amusements) into it ? Not one of the new popular mags has gone in for a series of thoroughly interesting Kodak illustrated articles on Fleet dock- yard and naval administration : which is what we very much need at the time. You try that and earn the gratitude of thousands. There is a big field waiting for the luck——(word not clear). Yours ever sincerely, Rudyard Kipling The Elms, Rottingdean, Nr. Brighton.