CONTENTS PAGE Notes—J. P. Collins --...... 1 Rudyard Kipling—Britain's Interpreter— Captain E. W. Martindell 3 Kipling and Alfred Lyall—Lt.- Gen. Sir George MacMunn 4 " The Wound and the Bow "—R. E. Harbord ... 7 " A Marine Mix-Up " Competition ----- 8 Kipling's Historical Verse—The Rev. Aeneas Macdonald - 9 The Prophet in His Own Country—Basil M. Bazley - - 12 Kipling's Queer Sailing Directions—T. E. Elwell - - 15 Kiplingiana --------- 18 Letter Bag ------- _ _ 20 THE KIPLING SOCIETY SALES DEPARTAIENT Gilt Badges : 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. Society's Show Card : Free, where a member can have it displayed in any club, hotel, etc. Journals : Extra copies for mem- bers only : 2/- each. Special prices, which may be 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 All the above are sent post free. Correspondence should be addressed to The Hon. Secretary, The Kipling Society, 100, Gower Street London, W.C.l THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly by THE KIPLING SOCIETY Vol. X. No. 65. April, 1943 Notes THE LITTLE MORE. ONE of the great lines in Kipling figures prominently in two papers in the present issue. It occurs in the manuscripts of Captain Martin- dell and the Rev. Aeneas Macdonald, but with a difference. That is why the editorial pen has made them agree by altering " do " to " should," —a pair of monosyllables to which a history belongs. For in the modest autobiography which beguiled the poet's last illness, Something of My- self, Kipling relates how he was busy with his poem " The English Flag," and this in the presence of his parents. They were paying him a visit at a time when he was making his position secure in London, and the importunate editors and agents of many magazines were wearing out his mat. An impatient exclamation as he wrote, brought from his quick-minded mother, full-grown and perfect, the very line he wanted. What he was trying to say, she said, was " What do they know of England who only England know ?" Both the poet and his father recognised it for a gem of inspiration, but as he set it down on paper he changed the plain indicative to the optative, so that it appeared " What should they know," etc. The improvement cannot be questioned, for with this amendment the line conveys not only a broader challenge and intention, but something of that " quick flutter of the hands " which was his mother's characteristic gesture as she spoke. This, therefore, is why the editor bids me say he has taken the liberty of touching up Mr. Macdonald's paper with an im- provement which was essentially the poet's own. And all true Kiplingites will agree that "should" it should always remain. LYALL AS LYRIST. To turn to Sir George MacMunn's paper on " Kipling and Alfred Lyall " is to interest and gladden all who have ever given a thought to Kipling's literary origins. Nor can critics do justice to his originality and distinction unless they have made themselves acquainted with Anglo-Indian poetry in the fading decades of last century. There and then Sir Alfred Lyall was an undisputed master, for he was deeply versed in the philosophic side of India's folk-lore and evolution, just as Kipling senior was in its artistic and visual expression. Added to this was a grace and lightness of the pen which held its own in a very heyday of finished verse with the best lyrics of Dobson, Gosse and Andrew Lang. And this is what gives point to Sir George's citations by way of parallel between Lyall in the one generation and Kipling in the next. Such was Sir Alfred's versatility (I knew him, Horatio) that one has to trace it through a dozen different veins, and all of them successful— from that masterpiece of cool and quiet vindication, " The Rise of the British Dominion in India," to the chivalrous " Life " of his friend, the " Great " Lord Dufferin, and again to the exquisite little book of " Verses Written in India " that Sir George so justly praises. It is when you read that wistful lyric " The Land of Regrets " (with a title that India has made proverbial), or " Theology in Extremis " (one of the most dramatic oblations ever offered to religion by a freethinker) that you really appreciate the best of those early influences that found 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 such magical response from Kipling's muse even as a lad,—or very little more. MIRAGE OF HOME. " Northerner II " in the Yorkshire Post made an excellent leader-note the other day out of the welcome verdict on good authority that Kipling is one of the poets most read in the Russian army of to-day. Truly, how times have changed. The writer adds, on the word of one of our Public Relations officers, that Kipling also remains in great demand among our own soldiers and their commanders— as Field Marshal Wavell has showed more than once since the war began. Then the writer turns to indicate in a flash or two how often some stanza or couplet of the poet's comes home when we think intently on any vivid aspect of the present struggle, by air or sea or land. Finally, after giving examples of his own favourite Kipling passages descriptive of the war and its far- flung horrors, the writer quotes a veritable word-picture of an English scene—just the very passage that must haunt the memory of any war- exile and lover of quiet green re- freshing places in the utmost heart of England, thus— There's a valley under oakwood where a man may dream his dreams, In the milky breath of cattle laid at ease, Till the moon o'ertops the alders and her image chills the stream, And the river mist runs silver round their knees. As the remembrancer adds, the exiles " need look no farther than this in their search for the spirit of England." THE VERB " TO CLUNK." A serio-comic protest that crops up on a later page of this issue from the pen of that fine dramatic critic of years ago, Mr. R. K. Risk, was obviously written with his tongue in his cheek, yet is no less obviously the work of a man who loved his Kipling in the main. For many a year Robert Knox Risk was a licensed jester and a popular member of one of the wittiest coteries in the Savage Club, and the strain of Caledonian in his blood made it easy for him to throw any passing impatience like this into highly articulate form. But his ruling mood was one of gaiety and good-humoured tolerance. After all, one cannot deny that in the eager discussion aroused by Kipling's stories and verses in a period when his out- put was at the flood, there was usually someone ready to growl at his fond- ness for " hardware " and technology. TECHNICAL ACCURACY. It might have made the cynics still more cynical had they known how the poet nursed a self-confessed weakness for scanning curious lists and catalogues whenever they came his way. The reply for the defence is clearly that he wanted on occasion to produce the sense of technical accuracy and realism, just as much as he did temperamental idiosyncrasy or landscape glow and colour. Above all, he wanted to familiarise the reader with the racy talk of engineers and mechanicians as part of the glamour that he himself found below deck or in the foundries. The only time, so far as one remembers, when this kind of hobby took a tragical note, came when a news-hand on a London morning paper of those days passed a bogus paragraph sent in as a paltry practical joke. It spoke of " the clunking of the clunkers," and the laughter this aroused in print cost a good man his job—not the per- petrator, but that hapless sub-editor; and when Kipling heard of it he said— indignantly and rightly—that it was " a d——d shame." J. P. C TO OUR MEMBERS Members are asked to note that the address of the Society's Office is now 100, Gower Street, London, W.C.I. April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 Rudyard Kipling—Britain's Interpreter "WHAT SHOULD THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND, WHO ONLY ENGLAND KNOW?'' by CAPTAIN E. W. MARTINDELL HOW far can it be said that Kipling was the Nation's great • interpreter ? We must all be eternally grateful to him for the following special acts of interpretation. It is to Kipling that we are indebted for our understanding of the common soldier, the man in the ranks, the man behind the gun and the man behind the bayonet, thereby restoring to the nation its army. It is to Kipling that we owe our knowledge of India as he interpreted for us the head of the district, the builder of the bridge, the native policeman, the men of the Hill tribes, the Baboo, the Rajpoot and a hundred other of the types to be met with in that vast country. It is Kipling who interpreted for us the' men of the Empire and made intelligible the speech and thought of the native-born, the men of Canada, of Australia, of New Zealand, and of South Africa—in other words the men of our great self-governing Dominions—and also of the men of our Colonies, revealing to us how great is their local patriotism, which, if properly treated and understood, would in no way run counter to or exclude the greater patriotism which we one and all owe to our King and to the Empire as a whole. Is it not Kipling, too, who has made us understand the jungle and its life, even if he had to use an im- aginative medium of the highest kind to attain his end? There are many ways of gaining a nation's love. One man wins a battle, another sinks a ship or destroys an aeroplane at the risk of his life, a third writes such words that tens of thousands are ready to do what he bids them. Was not such a triumph as this last achieved by Kipling with his Absent-Minded Beggar, when the nation as a whole rushed to pass the hat for their credit's sake and paid, paid, paid ? What was the charm that Kipling used to fascinate his countrymen ? Surely it was simply that he was able to express in writing the thoughts and ideas of the patriotic Englishmen of the best type. He could tell the man in the street what he wanted to say and in words and phrases that he could understand. We are not always at war and worked up to a pitch of fanaticism, and even today there are probably those to whom the war does not appeal in any sense as a personal matter. They look upon it rather as a political upheaval, which must be settled by the politicians at the end of the War, and are content to leave it at that. But Kipling's patriotism was not an unreflecting patriotism; it could condemn as well as applaud. Con- tinually he declared that Britain's duty was to do justice and work righteousness. His Imperialism was based on service rather than on glory, the service of the stronger and more advanced nations on behalf of the weaker and less progressive races, as so clearly expressed in The White Man's Burden. Fichte said of the Germans of his day : " The Germans hold that the only necessity for a God is that He may look after our interest." And this is the German conception of the Deity today. How different was Kipling's conception— "to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." Wherever the heart of man beats high, wherever he loves truth, wherever he toils worthily and serves nobly and rises to the grandeur of sacrifice for some worthy end, Kipling discerns a true discipleship. Some of our recent writers lead us into a quagmire, where we stumble and are sad. With Kipling we climb up a hill at sunrise, and today may be permitted to misquote Clough and say in honour of the sweeping victories of our Russian allies :— " But eastward, look, the land is bright." 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 Kipling and Alfred Lyall by LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR GEORGE MacMUNN MOST of those who study more intimately the work of Rudyard Kipling delight in noting how so many of his effective phrases and sayings are taken from Holy Writ, from Shakespeare, from Jonson, from Masonic ritual, and many other sources. We rejoice in this as indications of the wide knowledge of the reading and study that was his, and the in- stinct with which he uses, often unconsciously, the text with which he is so familiar. Nor need anyone think that this means any disparage- ment of his originality—" For that which has' been is that that shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun." In this connection, it may be ob- served that almost all the great sayings of Our Lord are taught from the Old Testament, whether Canon or Apocryphal. I myself have lately drawn attention to some of the clever writings of India of the decade or so before Rudyard Kipling and have pointed out that from them some of his ideas and inspirations must have come. There is another writer, however, of Indian verse, as searching and as sympathetic as anything that Kipling wrote, and in which the latter must have rejoiced. I refer to the writings of Sir Alfred Lyall, who at one time was Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces of India. Sir Alfred dated from a generation before Kipling, as his experiences as a young civilian in the Indian Mutiny inspire some of his verse, and his presence in Afghanistan in Lord Robert's time, others. Like Kipling, he brought his muse home, and has many pathetic and stirring verses on other themes. What he considered to be the best of his work he published in Verses Written in India many a year ago. Let us look for ourselves. 1. THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S MERCY " Abdur Rahman the Durani Chief, of him is the story told. His mercy fills the Khyber hills— his grace is manifold; He has taken toll of the North and the South—his glory reacheth far, They tell the tale of his charity from Balkh to Kandahar." It begins with the story of a ' dog of Hind ' who had struck an Afghan. Abdur Rahman, the Amir el Kebir, had ordered his execution, and the wretch prayed hard for life. The Captain of the Guard was a bastard of the blood who had been throwing his weight about. The Amir el Kebir, the Great Amir, had ordered this man to honour the wretch by slaying him, by way of humbling his pride. That night Yar Khan the bastard endeavoured to slay the Amir to wipe out the insult. The Amir caught him, and had him stoned, but not to death. The second night they sought the Amir amid his girls, saying :— " And risked their lives thereby. Protector of the Pitiful, give orders that he die!" And the Amir said, " Bid him endure until the day." 2. THE AMIR'S MESSAGE ' ' Abdur Rahman, the Durani Khan, to the Ghilzaie Chief—wrote he " God has made me Amir of the Afghans, but thou on thy hills art free. I rule by the sword and signet, I care not to flatter or bribe, I take nor fee nor tribute of the noble Ghilzaie tribe. I look for a wise man's counsel, and I would that Afghans were one. From Merv, last home of the free- lance, the clansmen are scatter- ing far, And the Turkman horses are harnessed to the guns of the Russian Czar." The upshot is that the Amir asks the Ghilzaie chief to name some faith- ful friend, as a go-between and peace- maker. April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 " The Ghilzaie Chief wrote answer— Our paths are narrow and steep The sun burns fierce in the valleys, and the snow-fed streams run deep; The fords of the Kabul river are watched by the Afreedee We harried his folk last spring- tide, and he keeps good memory." Then he queries whom can he name : " Noor Ahmed the man whom the Ghilzaies trust He has long lain lost in a dungeon, his true bold heart is dust." Or the Jamsheedee Aga, or the Moollah in Ghuzni, the Chief Faizulla, " He is gone with the rest—all van- ished, he passed through thy citadel gate." It ends up with these bitter lines from the Ghilzaie ; " Let the Ghilzaie bide on his moun- tain, and depart, as thy message has said, When but one sure friend the Amir shall send—when the tombs give up their dead." 3. THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S JEST This is also a cruel, bitter story, but it begins with beauty :— " When spring-time flushes the desert grass, Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. Lean are the camels but fat the , frails, Light are the purses but heavy the bales, As the snowbound trade of the North comes down To the market-square of Peshawur town." And Mahbub Ali, the muleteer, tells the latest from Kabul, and the story of Wali Dad ; " His sire was leaky of tongue and pen, His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen." And Wali Dad wandered north to the Oxus, and came back full of yarns to seek the royal favour with : " Legends that ran from mouth to mouth Of a grey-coat coming, and sack of the South." But the Amir, who loved not scares, turned on him :— " And the Russ is upon us even now? Great is thy prudence—wait them, thou." And put him up in a peach tree to watch till they came and he ringed the tree with bayonets till :— " Sleep the cord of his hands untied, And he fell, and was caught on the points and died." 4. THE AMIR'S SOLILOQUY The last is the tragedy of the lonely Amir el Kebir, a soliloquy in the Bala Hissar, as he rests, his ambitions attained and his troubles begun, and Shere Ali expelled by the British :— " Thus is my banishment ended; it's twelve long years, well nigh, Since I fought the last of my lost fights, and saw my best men die." " May he rest, the Amir Shere Ali, in his tomb by the holy shrine; The virtues of God are pardon and pity, they never were mine." " And yet when I think of Shere Ali, as he lies in his sepulchre low, Driven from his throne by the English, and scorned by the Russian, his guest, I am well content with the ven- geance, and I see God works for the best." And Abdur Rahman looks out from his citadel " on the near hills crowned with cannon, and the far hills piled with snow." It is not an easy throne to which the English had called him. " Fair are the vales well watered, and the vines on the upland swell, You might think you were reigning in Heaven—I know I am ruling in Hell." " And the lord of the English writes, ' Order and justice, and govern with laws,' And the Russian he sneers and says, ' Patience, and velvet to cover your claws.' " Now of these four verses so similar in spirit and treatment, numbers 1 and 3 are Kipling, and 2 and 4 are Alfred Lyall, who had seen it all with his own eyes. But let us turn from the fierce, bitter drama of the Afghan Hills, and read them on gentler themes :— 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 A QUEST IN VAIN " Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, Ever they pass me—I watch, I wait— Ever I dream, and awake to meet her; She cometh never, or comes too late." " When and where have I seen and passed her ? What are the words I forgot to say Should we have met had a boat rowed faster? Should we have loved, had I stayed that day ?" And then the rather more jaunty :— TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS " Will you conquer my heart with your beauty, my soul going out from afar ? Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious shikar ? Have I met you and passed you already, unknowing, unthinking, and blind ? Shall I meet you next season at Simla, O sweetest and best of your kind ? Does the P. & O. bear you to meward, or, clad in short frocks in the West, Are you growing the charms that shall capture and torture the heart in my breast ?" The first of the two is Lyall. But there are many more points of sympathy and resemblance :— A RAJPOOT CHIEF OF THE OLD SCHOOL " The courtezan had travelled far, Her songs were fresh, her talk was free Of the Delhi Court, or the Kabul War." In fact much more amusing than his chaste and high-born princess wives, and the touch of the ballad is the touch of The Last Suttee. There are two of Lyall's themes that Kipling never ventured on,—the powerful tragedy of Joab's end, in Joab Speaketh and Pilate's Wife's Dream though we may be sure he had read them, for he must have treasured his Lyall as much as I, and many others do. Mr. A. Woollcott MR. Alexander Woollcott, the American journalist, dramatic 'critic, and broadcaster who died after collapsing during a broad- cast in New York was a Life Member of the Kipling Society, with which he had been associated since February, 1934, and was for many years one of the best known figures in the life of New York. He visited London frequently, as he did many other parts of the world. When in London not long ago he gave a series of broadcasts for the B.B.C. Wherever he went he made friends. Alexander Woollcott was born at Phalanx, in New Jersey, on January 19, 1887. He studied at the Central High School, in Philadelphia, and then went to the Hamilton College, where he graduated in 1909. He then went to New York to take a post-graduate course in literature at Columbia University, and there formed a lasting friendship with Professor John Erskine, one of the leaders in literary life in the city. In 1913 he joined the " New York Times " as dramatic critic. Later he worked in the same capacity for the " New York Herald " and the " New York World." Many of his criticisms have stood the test of reprinting. When the United States entered the last war Woollcott joined the American Expeditionary Force, and served for two years. For a time he was a member of the editorial staff of the " Stars and Stripes," then, as now, the daily newspaper of the force. In his later years he contributed to many magazines and journals particularly the " New Yorker," in which his wit found full and free scope. Woollcott is caricatured in the play " The Man Who Came to Dinner," now running in London. He was unmarried. April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 " The Wound and the Bow " A Further Note on Edmund Wilson's Book by R. E. HARBORD [In the December, 1942, issue of the " Kipling Journal," Mr. Basil M. Bazley reviewed Edmund Wilson's book, " The Wound and the Bow," which contained a section entitled " The Kipling that Nobody Read." In the following note Mr. Harbord brings further criticisms to bear upon the book, which we feel sure will be of interest to our readers.] WITH reference to my friend Bazley's review in the December Journal of the Kipling section of the book, I agree that Mr. Wilson has shown keen appreciation of Kip- ling, but the main thesis running through the whole, and indeed in- dicated by the title of the book, is not proved in the case of Kipling. If Kipling must be described as subconsciously embittered because he wrote stories with characters showing hate or cruelty, he must also have been subconsciously of deep religious feeling because of the outlook of some other characters, and similarly he must have been a humourist, etc. The " bitter stories " are, I find by careful counting, fewer at all periods than some of the other classes, and I have not found any marked increase in these tragic stories as Kipling grew older. So what was he on balance ? Quite of normal subconscious mind presumably. This seems the simple answer to the main thesis of the critic, but although he does not express unmixed pleasure with any one story he does admit :— (a) remarkable talent. (b) among the few genuine masters of his day. (c) later stories become more skilful and intense. To give reasons for disagreeing with Mr. Wilson as set out by him on page 77 :— (a) Kipling was a happy man : witness Castlerosse (now the Earl of Kenmare) and several of Kipling's relations. Their testimonies deny that " the whole work of Kipling's life is to be shot through with hatred." His happy family life is probably the best reply. (b) Many of Kipling's grimmest tales are not original (see MacMunn). These stories were taken from various sources and much improved in the new telling, but they did not originate in Kipling's subconscious mind at all. Most original of all groups of stories are the humorous ones in- cluding (by the way) " Stalky " stories. (c) Mr. Wilson's point about animal allegory as in A Walking Delegate " is puerile—it would condemn Aesop also. To deal definitely with some mis- takes made by the critic. He treats Stalky and Co. as seriously as Kim— he is so well satisfied with his opinions too, but he seems entirely without humour, or indeed without any idea of fun, or still a step lower, a sense of the ridiculous. Too much value is placed on Stalky and Co. It is not history. Does Mr. Wilson realise how well Westward Ho compared with other public schools of 1875- 1882 ? His remarks on sadism show he has fallen into a trap ; he should have been warned by the differences between General Dunsterville's and Beresford's versions of Westward Ho. What one remembered the other contradicted, but neither suggests that Stalky and Co., was an accurate history of the school, nor did Kipling think so either. There is no doubt that he wrote the stories for his own and other adult amusement—more than as a boys' book. It was also written as a set-off to Eric and similar stories. The curious mistake made by the critic about the Boer who captured Private Copper shows that he has no experience of India and that 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 makes much of his criticism valueless (the story itself pointedly rules out the possibility of the captor being an Eurasian). There are other mis- takes of fact in the pages. Whilst pointing out so many things in which Mr. Wilson has gone wrong, we must note his keen appreciation of Without Benefit of Clergy, and it is to be the more regretted that he leaves a feeling of dislike of Kipling, either personal or political (possibly subconscious). We ought to be thank- ful that in Kipling we have had a good conservative author, free most of his life from financial worry, who could write when he liked and not to order. The only traceable bitter- ness is against the German Military mind which certainly was not sub- conscious, and which is shared by most of us. IN The Academy of November 5th, 1898, one finds the following curious comment from R.K. Risk on The Day's Work :—" Of the Bandar-Log and their ways all readers of the Jungle Book are aware. There is also it seems a Kipling-Log and the Kipling-Log are wroth with their admired author for his persistent and increasing love of technicalities, hence this pathetic cry : Protest of the Kipling-Log against the Hardness of their Day's Work. Here we sit in a thoughtful row, Conning the wonderful things you know— Grades and switches and loco-brakes, Upper-deck stringers and garboard- strakes, Roaring scuppers, full furnace- draught ; Thrustblock, cylinder, flawed tail- shaft. We have struggled, in very deed, Master, thy tale is hard to read. All your talk we have ever heard Uttered by bat or beast or bird, Hide or fin or scale or feather, Jabbered at high speed and all together— Give us that over and over again, But don't make machinery talk like men. Yea, by our aching heads we plead, Master, these tales are hard to read. Then hear our fervent prayer, and as you're strong forswear These arid technicalities your stylo slings, Drop over in your wake hotbox and garboard-strake— Be sure, as we are sure, you're fit for better things. "A Marine Mix-up " Competition THE answers to this competition of seven verses of four lines each are as follows in the order in which they appeared in No. 64, Vol. ix., (December, 1942) of the Journal; the names of the poems being :— (1) The Peace of Dives; (2) A St. Helena Lullaby ; (3)McAndrew's Hymn ; (4) The Prairie; (5) Alnaschar and the Oxen; (6) The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House; (7) Delilah; (8) A Code of Morals; (9) Municipal; (10) Jobson's Amen; (11) Lukannon; (12) Sussex; (13) The Galley Slave; (14) The Three Decker; (15) The Parting of the Columns; (16) Mandalay; (17) Cholera Camp; (18) Naaman's Song; (19) With Drake in the Tropics; (20) The Song of Diego Valdez; (21) The White Man's Burden; (22) The Betrothed; (23) With Scindia to Delhi; (24) The Last Chantey; (25) France; (26) The Flowers; (27) Very Many People; (28) A St. Helena Lullaby. The first four answers sent in were received in the following order from United Kingdom entrants : (1) Captain E. W. Martindell, (2) John R. McLaren, (3) Arthur E. Pollard and (4) Commander P. N. Brock, R.N. Two of the entrants desired that the prizes should be allocated to the Journal Fund, which has been done. We hope to be able to print the names of the winning members, who reside abroad, in the next issue of the Journal. The Day's Work A NOTE FROM " VICTORIAN" April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 Kipling's Historical Verse by THE REV. AENEAS MACDONALD [The first part of an address given to the Melbourne, Australia, Branch of the Kipling Society.] IN any attempt to discuss the historical verse of Kipling the first task which presents itself is obviously that of deciding what comes under that caption. A large part of his verse rules itself out at once; it is in no sense concerned with history, " King Solomon drew merchantmen, Because of his desire For peacocks, apes, and ivory, From Tarshish unto Tyre." That is not history, though it uses history as a starting point, and a great many more poems do not even get as near as does The Merchantmen to history. But we are still left with a large mass of our author's verse which does deal with what to us is history. Practically every poem in The Years Between, for example, which contains what he wrote in verse about the last war, or such a poem as " Cleared " in Barrack Room Ballads, whose theme was an episode in the Irish Home Rule struggle of last century, is history. To take one as a test case are we therefore to regard those last bitter lines as a part of what we are here to consider ? I have turned the question over in my own mind several times and have found no reason compelling me to change my original answer, which was, " certainly not." It must be admitted that the contents of the book which we mentioned and of the poem, were concerned with events which happened in history. Book and poem will help to provide the historians of those periods with material, for they offer the reactions of a con- temporary and singularly alive mind to the events of which they sing. But their value to the historian will lie in the fact that they are the re- actions of a contemporary. Kipling was not writing as a historian when he set them down, but as a com- mentator, " Cleared " is a leader in verse—and a savage one at that, on an event of the day,—contemporary comment on an event of the day, not an exercise of the historical im- agination on an happening of the past. There, in that distinction, we seem to have come upon the canon for which we are looking. Kipling's verse about events of the day is one thing and would provide a large subject in itself, but his histori- cal verse is quite another. To it belongs all the poems in which he employs the historical imagination on facts of past history, happenings, movements, tendencies, or individuals through whom he looks at such facts. You may not agree with this narrow- ing of the scope of our subject, but such are the limits within which this paper will try to keep. The historical imagination is a very interesting subject and a precious possession. Some people have not got it and will never get it. There is a stone in a wall in an Edinburgh suburb known as the Bore Stone. In that stone James V of Scotland stepped his standard before he marched to Flodden. Some people can see that stone and know what it is with as little emotion as they memorised "1066, Norman Conquest." Others see it and the whole tragedy of that dark day of Flodden rises before them and James lying dead; " At his side Montrose and Athol At his feet a Southron lord." In some again that power lies dormant. Nothing has ever rubbed this lamp and called the gift to life. It is there, however, only needing to be awakened. And with Kipling we are in contact with one who is to be so described, one with whom the historical imagin- ation is comparatively late in awaken- ing. The claim so made may seem some- thing of a large one, but had Kipling died in 1900 when he was only 35— 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 nine years younger and no more than Robert Louis Stevenson was when he died, by the way—there would have been some of his finest work as our legacy, but little or no need to embark on this subject, for material would have been lacking. The books themselves are the proof of that. There is verse of an historical nature amongst the " Other Verses " in Barrack Room Ballads, " With Scindia to Delhi," but it stands alone. Kipling in his young sense of power was trying many methods and themes then, and here was another, but it did not appeal to him with force enough to make him wish to repeat the experiment. The stimulus was still lacking. One book of that earlier period, Many Inventions, does contain a story, a story not in verses, though there are some striking verses in the story, in which the historical imagin- ation does display itself, and with remarkable power. The story in quest- ion is that called The Finest Story in the World, the tale of a boy whose virgin mind was transported by poetry into other and earlier lives which he had lived. In one of these he had been a galley slave and his ex- periences on the rowing bench are described with brilliance. What quickened the writer's imagin- ation to such a display it would be most interesting to discover, but it must have been, for all its strength, but a momentary stimulus, since the story stands so completely alone. Something of a vogue existed about the time the tale was published for books which took their hero through a succession of lives—" Phra the Phoenician " is the only one which still sticks in my memory—and Kipling may have thought he would have a shot at that sort of thing too. But if that was the way of it, something suddenly gripped him, stimulating his historical imagination, as he went about the experiment, something which, as was said, let him go again once the story was written. But it had proved that the historical imagination was there, waiting for its call. That call came with the settlement at Bateman's about 1902. It is T. S. Eliot in his Choice of Kipling's Verse who is really responsible for what I have been suggesting. No doubt others of us have also been so fortunate as to see that volume and the highly stimulating essay with which it begins. At any rate we have all read the exceedingly interest- ing press criticisms upon it collected in a recent number of the Journal. The Essay itself is a landmark in Kipling criticism. This is partly be- cause Mr. Eliot has been for years one of the most sacred voices of the younger intelligentsia, though now, I understand, they are growing a little impatient with it. There are other and newer gods. Still to have him so speak is a portent. But the Essay is memorable for another reason ; the approach to its subject is so fresh and fair. Mr. Eliot is not ashamed to admire the older writer and he has much to say about him that is wise and suggestive. I would not venture to claim that I have under- stood everything in the Essay, but only very superior intellects do under- stand all that Mr. Eliot says. None the less the assertion which is to the point here is quite easy to understand. Mr. Eliot's words are " The simplest summary of the change in Kipling in his middle years is ' the develop- ment of the imperial imagination into the historical imagination.' To this development his settlement in Sussex must have contributed : for he had both the humility to subdue himself to his surroundings and the freshness of vision of a stranger." What he is at pains to emphasise is that at first Kipling was conscious of England as something in space, as he puts it, something contemporary and all about us in the Empire. His concern is to make others also con- scious of England in the same way. The well-known line " And what should they know of England who only England know?" is an exact mirror of his thought. His chief aim is to make men know. England as revealed and interpreted in the Empire. Such was Kipling's aim until he settled in Sussex when gradually— we can see evidence to the point in Something of Myself—he became con- scious of England historically too, of the past that lay in depth beneath depth below the present England, April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 Nor was it a dead past; it was a past that lived on in the present. It is all this which he tries to express in Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, specially. The very essence of this new awareness is to be found in Puck's Song which opens the former of these two books, ,' See you the dimpled track that runs All hollow through the wheat ? O ! that was where they hauled the guns That smote King Philip's fleet. And see you, after rain, the trace Of mound and ditch and wall ? O ! that was a Legion's camping place When Caesar sailed from Gaul. Trackway and Camp and City lost, Salt Marsh where now is corn— Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, And so was England born !" [ The second part of Mr. Macdonald's Address will appear in the next issue of the "Journal."'] Read in the Red Army A member sends us the following noted from the " Yorkshire Post." SOLDIERS WHO SEEK KIPLING. IT is not altogether surprising to learn that of all the British poets Rudyard Kipling is one of the most read in the Red Army to- day. His rousing patriotic sentiments will understandably appeal to men who can fight for their homeland as the Russians are fighting to-day. An Army Public Relations Officer tells me that Kipling is also in great demand among British soldiers; and, when one comes to consider it, many people on the Home Front might profit by brushing up their Kipling these days. Lord Woolton's appeal for table economy would gain much if everyone kept in mind those lines in Kipling's " Big Steamers, 1914-18 " :— For the bread that you eat and the biscuits you nibble, The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve, They are brought to you daily by all us big steamers, And if anyone hinders our coming you'll starve. If the production experts are seeking a new propaganda line they might try the grimly pointed approach, as in Kipling's epitaph " Batteries out of Ammunition " :— If any mourn us in the workshops, say We died because the shift kept holiday. SPIRIT OF ENGLAND. Kipling is not all vigour and un- conventionality, of course. The Red Army soldier—or his British comrade, thinking of home—might turn to such gentle lines as :— There's a valley, under oakwood where a man may dream his dream, In the milky breath of cattle laid at ease, Till the moon o'ertops the alders and her image chills the stream, And the river mist runs silver round their knees. They need look no farther than this in their search for the spirit of England. Mrs. F. W. Macdonald MRS. Elizabeth Anne Macdonald, whose death in London, we regret to record, at the age of 85, was the widow of the Rev. Frederic W. Macdonald, a native of Leeds, who was uncle of Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, Rudyard Kipling and Sir Philip Burne Jones. She was the second wife of F. W. Mac- donald, to whom she was married in 1916. The link with Rudyard Kipling came through F. W. Mac- donald's sister Alice, who married Kipling's father. 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 The Prophet and His Own Country by BASIL M. BAZLEY Fatis aperit Cassandra futuris Ora dei jussu non unquam credita Teucris. Virgil, Aen II. IN June, 1904 the Morning Post published a sketch or romance called "The Army of a Dream." This attracted some attention and aroused some favourable comment, but after 1906 it was dismissed as a piece of hopelessly old-fashioned jingoism. Many there were who liken- ed Kipling to Jeremiah; he was alarm- ist, hysterical, a prophet of evil, a chauvinist. Even the events of the 1914-18 war did not convince these people of their error; for a time they kept silent, only to re- commence a similar parrot-like chorus that was audible until 1939. But let us get back to the year 1904. In a fantasy of a Britain ready for war, and able to land a powerful fully-equipped force on any part of the Continent, Kipling sketches the manner in which this may be brought about. In several forecasts he shows us the scheme of an amphibian army :—" Then we do sea-time in the war-boats. Just like Marines, to learn about the big guns and how to embark and disembark quick." Here we see the germ of the com- mando, but the operation is carried out on a big scale :—" We pile the men on to the troop-decks, stack the rifles in the racks, send down the sea-kit, steam about for a few hours, and land 'em somewhere." After speaking about this work being done at several ports one of the - characters explains :—" We don't like to con- centrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the Continent jumpy. Otherwise I be- lieve we could get two hundred thou- sand men, with their kits, away on one tide." On being asked why so many men were wanted, the reply is given :¦—" We don't want one of 'em ; but the Continent used to point out, every time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid England if they got command of the sea for a week .... You've no notion what a difference that sort of manoeuvre makes in the calculations of our friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what invasion means. It's like dealing with a man whose nerve has been shaken." Just imagine if Britain had had a preponderant Air Force in 1938 : would there have been quite so much talk about a Greater Germany, or, thirty years earlier, would the Panther have gone to Agadir ? " THE RIGHTNESS OF R.K." In 1918, Miss K. F. Gerould wrote an essay on the Rightness of Rudyard Kipling (Kipling Index; Doubleday, Page and Co.,) wherein we read :— " Then, too, he has an unlucky trick of seeing ahead. When ' The Edge of the Evening ' was first published (in 1913), it passed for hysteria." Here is more " hysteria," in a letter written to Henry Bordeaux, before Hitler became dictator :—" We have no other ally whose interests agree with those of our countries. For that, I am following the track of the constant attacks coming from various sides against an Anglo-French agreement. One thing is certain (and each month proves it more)—the Boche has learned nothing from the last war, during which he suffered relatively so little. It is equally sure that as soon as he sees his way clear, he will recommence his activi- ties." Now let us look back to 1902, to " The Islanders." Perhaps a million remember " the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals," but how many think (or thought) of the warning con- veyed by that much-misunderstood poem ? The ninth line, among others, may have annoyed them, because they felt that the cap fitted :—"Ye stopped your ears to the warning —ye would neither look nor heed." This was written about our unpre- April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 paredness for the South African War, yet the British Public continued gaily, with the encouragement of their leaders, to believe in perpetual peace and comfort. The strange thing is that, after the terrible experience of twenty-five years ago, anyone could fail to see the folly of not being ready, even though the leaders, in every party, of the past decade, were far more guilty than the men of 1911. Well does Kipling put it :— " Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers ? (Because ye were idle both ? Pride by Insolence chastened ? Indolence purged by Sloth ?)" " DO YE WAIT ?" We have three times experienced the effects of not being ready; more by luck than judgment we have survived. Our last terrible punish- ment for slack thinking was not sprung upon us; our enemy could not help giving us warnings of what he planned, even before 1933. What fate held in store for us was set forth in ringing verse, but plain language :— " Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid ? For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast towns burn? (Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn). Most of us have seen that " light " and have had to suffer it while counter- measures were being got ready. Here is another word-picture that needs but little change of terms to make it applicable to to-day's incidents :— " From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent, And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent." Dwellers in Dover and other towns of the south and east could explain the truth of this picture to those who still wish to copy King Ethelred. Kipling, in common with Mr. Churchill, was screamed at more loudly than ever during those last fateful years that led up to the present reign of terror in Europe. Both men persisted, in the face of sneers that would have discouraged any vote-catching politician or popularity- hunting author. In 1932 " The Storm Cone " appeared—a poem most aptly named :— " Stand by ! The lull 'twixt blast and blast Signals the storm is near, not past; And worse than present jeopardy May our forlorn to-morrow be." At the end of the following year came " Bonfires on the Ice," with the sub-heading of a number of terms then in common use among politi- cians, such as avenue, appeasement, limit of risk. The appositeness of these lines is obvious :— " We know the Fenrys Wolf is loose. We know what fight has not been fought. We know the Father to the Thought Which argues Babe and Cockatrice Would play together, were they taught. We know that Bonfire on the Ice." One can only suppose that the New- Clever did not know of the Demon Wolf of Nordic Mythology, or were too lazy or too self-opinionated to look up Fenrys. The line about Babe and Cockatrice aptly suggests Germany and Austria. No. 32 of our Journal contains a letter from Mr. Angus on " Kipling's Warnings." The writer points out that the Speech in May, 1935, to the Royal Society of St. George was largely lost because it was broadcast on a day and at a time when few were listening, and that even many members of our Society were not aware of it. There is nothing here for great sur- prise, but I was astonished that I could not find a full report of that speech in the newspapers on the next day—the Times alone had nearly all of it, including the important excerpts given here :—" The world outside England had other pre-occupa- tions. Like ourselves it had dealt with an opponent whose national life and ideals were based upon a cult—a religion as it now appears— of war, which exacted that all his nationals should be trained, at any cost, to endure as well as to inflict punishment. In this our opponent was excusable. He had won his place in civilisation by means of three well-planned wars waged within two generations .... His path was made easy for him. Stride for stride with his progress towards his avowed goal, we toiled, as men toil after virtue, 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 to cast away a half, and more than a half, of our defences in all three elements, and to limit the sources of their supply and their renewal .... For several years—more than ten, I believe—our responsible admin- istrators dwelt almost with com- placency on the magnitude of the risks we were running, and apparently through all those years our people were made to appear as if they loved to have it so .... we have walked far enough along the road which is paved with good intentions. It is now arranged that in due time we will take steps to remedy our more obvious deficiencies. So far, good ! But if that time be not given to us— if the attack of the future is to be on the same swift ' all-in-all ' lines as our opponent's domestic admin- istrations—it is possible that before we are aware our country may have joined those submerged races of history who passed their children through fire to Moloch in order to win credit with their gods." THE UNSPOKEN QUESTION. The unspoken question at once comes to our minds, why was this great oration kept out of sight ? Were we so unprepared that we had to walk warily for fear of offending the delicate feelings of the German Government ? Some of us thought that this might be the case and, quite naturally, that our rulers had, or would shortly have, in hand adequate schemes of rearmament. As it was, we had a narrow escape from joining the " submerged races." In the San Francisco Examiner (3 June, 1917) there is an account of a meeting at Bordeaux in the preceding month, where Kipling is reported, nor did he deny it, to have said :—" Gradually, step by step, the Germans will have prepared the destiny that awaits them. The man who tells a lie, who violates a woman, who kills a child, knows that he is breaking the human law. But a German does not know it, he does not feel it. The bridges are broken forever between them and us. Hence- forth there will be two races upon the earth—the human race and the German race." * * * Looking back, it seems strange that " The Brutality of Mary Post- gate " has never been used as a title for a squeal by the childish—not childlike—minded intellectuals of the feebler sort. Yet the action which excited Mary's anger against the German bomber was one that has been, and is being, repeated daily in these times; we keep hearing of a tiny village being machine-gunned or of the residential quarter of a town being bombed. Once again, the epithet " bloody pagan " used by Miss Postgate is justified by events. Kipling knew the German mentality. He knew ! Please Remember the Kipling Society in Your Will The following Form of Bequest should be used LEGACIES from Members who wish to support the work of the Kipling Society are accepted by the Council with gratitude. The follow- ing Form of Bequest should be used : "I bequeath to The Kipling Society, 100, Gower Street, London, W.C.I., a sum of ( £ ) free of duty, to be applicable for the general purposes of the Society. And I declare that the receipt of the Hon. Treasurer or other proper official for the time being of the Society shall be a good and sufficient discharge to my Executors." April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 Kipling's Queer Sailing Directions by T. E. ELWELL IN the last chapter " Working Tools " of his autobiography, Some- thing of Myself, Kipling confesses to blushing over his " worst slip .' which is " still underided " because " Luckily the men of the seas and the engine-room do not write to the Press." But of course many letters from such men may have found the waste-paper basket, seeing that our author's mastery of mechani- cal detail was a myth of the 90's, marvelled at, but never critically examined. Literary criticism was allow- able, being a matter of taste, opinion and debate, but proofs of errors beyond dispute were, to put it mildly, unwelcome. Yet for anyone not a seaman or marine engineer to use ship terms freely and correctly would be mar- vellous, and, in connection with sail- ing-ships, little short of miraculous. Kipling could hardly have been afloat much more than six months in his lifetime, and that was longer than most landsmen of his age; but it does not appear that he made one passage in sail. Now with a little experience, much enquiry, and long study of seamanship books, a fair amount of ship-lore may be absorbed, sufficient perhaps to bluff an acute farmer; yet of all shop-talk, ship-shop is the most risky for the writer to essay, and sailing-ship shop is a literary walking of the plank. It was possible for a man to be in sail for forty years, and then to hear a name, and a correct one, given to something he thought had none. Kipling's mistakes about the wind- driven were, therefore, a foregone conclusion, and the earliest, a parody of Wordsworth in Abaft the Funnel declares— " A topsail royal flying free A piece of canvas was to me And it was nothing more." Indeed it was very much less, such a sail having no existence. A royal was usually the highest and smallest square-sail carried, and a topsail was next to the largest and lowest. Here two sails are considered one, but to say— " The penny farthing that I see A piece of copper is to me And it is nothing more." would be just as sensible. A much worse and more complicated mistake appeared years afterward in "The Anchor Song" (The Seven Seas). This poem is a mass of marine absurdities and contradictions. To begin the voyage (in ballast, in those days simply not done) the crew loose all sail before the anchor is aweigh and that with a gale blowing. The vessel is to sail down Channel from her anchorage. Suddenly we learn she is to tow out, for " The hawser grips the bitt " can mean nothing else. Then the anchor is to be brought inboard and housed on deck, as " Not wanted on voyage." No sailing-ship master was ever so san- guine, but if he was, and the ship grounded on a lee shore, a court of inquiry would record some caustic findings. Next we find the crew " snatching the gaskets free " which means loosing the sails already loosed. Then " bonnets " are added to the sail area, though only a fully loaded ship could stand up to such a press of canvas. It is a truth no shellback would think of disputing to say that a ship handled like this would, in- stead of " walking down to Mother Carey," dive down to Davy Jones's locker, and that in a matter of seconds. The atmosphere of the poem charms a landsman: the terms repel a sailor. In legitimate exaggeration of the Three Decker's unwieldiness we are told it cost " a week to shorten sail," but alliteration has dangerously suggest- ed the coupling of " watch to steer " with " week to shorten " thus making the simile meaningless, for any ship, of any size or build, is, when under weigh, being steered all the time. This mistake is followed by one making the crew of a steamer watch 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 the three-decker drop below' the horizon, though surrounded by fog that " ties them blind." Passing to steam, the story " Bert- ram and Bimi " in Life's Handicap commences with a laughable error. During a tropical night at sea, two men seeking cool air carry their bedding to the " Fore peak." Kip- ling evidently imagined this to be on the main deck at the bows, whereas it is the triangular-shaped part of the fore lower-hold, far below the water-line. It is the stuffiest part of the whole fabric, and in a wind- jammer it is the coal-locker. Later the lookout-man is made to ' answer the officer's hourly call from the bridge. The reverse is true, but the hail is half-hourly, after striking the time-bell. Then the ash-lift is said to " jarr as it is tipped into the sea," but an ash-lift is as much a fixture as an office-lift, and it hoists drums or buckets of ashes from the stoke-hold to an upper deck to be carried across and dumped over- board by firemen. In that otherwise fine story " Bread upon the Waters " (The Day's Work), three glaring mistakes are made. First the " Kite " is said to be "squatter- ing in the wake " of the " Grotkau," as the ships steam south from Holy- head into a south-west gale. McPhee, chief-engineer of the " Kite," when relating the adventure says, " Ye canna see green as far as red, or we'd ha' kept to leeward." Now the leeward side of the " Grotkau " was, on this course and with this wind, the port side, showing a red light. Again, no side-lights of a ship ahead can be seen by one following. A third mistake occurs when McPhee states that the " Grotkau," not being under command, exhibited three red lights. The official rule for a vessel disabled is " two red lights vertically, not less than six feet apart." On the engineer side, McPhee says of his owner, McRimmon, " I've seen him reject five intermediates (cylinders) on a nod from me." But the " Kite " is stated expressly to have " simple compound engines " while intermediate cylinders are for triple expansion engines, and McPhee had been in no other ship of McRimmon's. Torpedo-boat No. 267's collision with the Brixham trawler in Their Lawful Occasions is all wrong. The trawler's bobstay would not be high enough to over-run the torpedo- boat's whale-back, but if it was it would probably be a length of chain or an iron bar shackled into her stem. Yet if of rope, it would be tarred hemp of such thickness that no single slash of a knife in a human hand would sever it. And the going astern of the naval ship after the collision would not bring the two boats along- side, but would make them sheer apart. (To be continued). Gifts for H.M.S. Kipling CERTAIN knitted articles for H.M.S. Kipling, mostly from over- seas Branches, have been received by us for distribution after the loss of our adopted ship in the Med- iterranean. We have therefore sent the gifts on to the Port Chaplain at Hull, where the need for these comforts for the sailors calling in at that port is urgent. They have been most gratefully received. In every case, the donor has been speci- fied. We hope that members who have so kindly sent us these articles will approve of our action. 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, Lincoln House, Harrow-on-the-Hill. April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 Thomas Kipling, D.D. WAS HE AN ANCESTOR OF R.K.? IF we have any members with archaeological instincts living in Cambridge or Peterborough," writes Colonel C. H. Milburn, " it might be worth while their trying to trace a connection with R.K. by means of the accompanying extract. I came across it, by chance, in looking through the library of a friend. The Dictionary of National Biography con- tains two columns referring to Thomas Kipling, D.D., and states that he was born at Bowes in the North Riding. He was Dean of Peterborough (10/2/1798) and died, when Vicar of Holme-on-Spalding Moor, (28/1/1822). There are many Kiplings in those parts. Can any reader of the Journal say whether this one is ' likely to be an ancestor, or was related to ancestors, of R.K. ?" The extract sent by Colonel Mil- burn runs :— From : " The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography," comprising a Series of Original Memoirs of Distinguished Men, of all ages and Nations. By Writers of Eminence in the various Branches of Literature, Science and Art. (Published by William Mac- kenzie, London, Glasgow and Edin- burgh). Edited by John Francis Waller, LL.D., V.P.R.D.S. No Date. Vol : 3, pp. 37. Kipling, Thomas, D.D., an English scholar and theologian, born in York- shire about 1775. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he was a fellow, and afterwards deputy Regius professor of divinity in the university. In 1778 he pub- lished an improved edition of the elementary parts of Dr. Smith's System of Optics, to which he pre- fixed an introduction. In 1793, he published in 2 vols. folio, at the expense of the university, a facsimile edition of the Codex Theodori Bezae or the Codex D. His enemies say the Latin of his preface is bad; but it is admitted on all hands that the work is of great value. Dr. Kipling brought upon himself a great deal of annoyance by the part he took as the promoter of the trial of Mr. Frend, who was accused of Unitarianism, and expelled the university in 1793. Kipling, who was dean of Peterborough, wrote against Calvinism and the Papists, and died in 1821. B. H. C. We invite every member individually to help by enrolling one friend as a member of the Kipling Society, and those who for any reason are unable to do so, are asked to send an equivalent donation to be allocated to the " Journal " fund. Applications for member- ship (or donations) should be sent to the Hon. Secretary, The Kipling Society, 100, Gower Street, London, W.C.l. 18 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 Kiplingiana Press and other comment on Kipling and his work WITH reference to The World's Desire, mentioned in No. 64 of the Journal (December, 1942) Sir George MacMunn, recalling that the book was written by Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang, writes that "sitting on a fallen column in the temple of Luxor, he (Sir George) discussed this book with Rider Haggard, and asked how he came to collaborate with Lang. In reply Haggard said, " As a matter of fact, I wrote the book but Lang contributed those remarkable verses which are such a feature." A KIPLING BATTLE SCHOOL. There is a school for jungle war- fare in India where the only text- book used is a thin volume of Kipling's poems. An instructor at the school maintains that Kipling has the complete answer to almost every problem likely to be encountered during jungle operations. " And," he adds, " a couplet on forays from Kipling can always be remembered, which is more than can be said for a military manual."— From The Times. POET OF EMPIRE. " Perhaps we have learned to appre- ciate the toughness of the task we have still to do; to distrust the out- come of any battle until it is over, and so have absorbed something of the philosophy of the only great Poet of Empire that England has produced .... " If you can dream . . . and not make dreams your master; If you can think . . . and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same . . . . " But whatever the cause, we have assuredly not signalised these victories that have broken in on the darkness of the bygone years by indulging a flattering hope for the future. We prefer to indulge our sense of continuity with the past."—George Edinger in Overseas. "A PORTENT." " This note should take its place in ' Kiplingiana ' " writes a corre- spondent. "It is to be found in that interesting book Fifty Years 1882-1932,* being Memories and Con- trasts of the period in chapters by twenty-seven contributors to The Times. The contribution on " Books and Other Friends," by Sir Arthur Quiller- Couch, runs as follows : " For yet another recollection.—It was on an evening of those days, (on the late edge of the 'nineties) as I sat by the wine listening reverently, Henry James suddenly and irrelevantly stopped an involved sentence with an, " Oh, by the way ! Have you heard of a wonderful new man who calls himself, if I remember, Kipling, and seems to me almost, if not absolute- ly, a portent ?" " Next morning, following the master's directions, I found the emporium of Messrs. Thack- er and Spink in the City, and dug out from behind piles of cinnamon, aloes, cassia, and other products of the East, a collection of grey paper- bound pamphlets, together with Plain Tales from the Hills in cloth. Years later these priceless little grey-covered things went up to a binder's with instructions to make them a case to hold them intact. They returned to me, the covers stripped off, neatly bound in one volume, half-calf ! Kipling was a portent; and his coming brought a vigour into the aims of many a young writer. It also put vigour concurrently into every com- mercial exploiter who had the quick sense to write " Imperial " or " British" into his prospectus. For the moment we writers admired this sudden genius, but, preoccupied with our trade, let the ferment of that genius, with the possible consequences, go by." WAS KIPLING'S FAG. Brigadier-General Richard Fielding Edwards, aged 77, whose death at *The book referred to was published by Messrs. Thornton Butterworth, Ltd., in 1932. April, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 19 Southampton is announced, was for a time Rudyard Kipling's " fag " at school.—Glasgow Record. MISS SARA ANDERSON. S.C. writes :— On Sunday, October 25, there passed away, at the age of 87, a woman of rare but unspectacular qualities who deserves a tribute in your columns if only because of her close relation- ship with some of the great figures of the past 60 years. Her name was Sara Dunlop Anderson. She may be described as having been a super- secretary. She was also a super- friend. For some years she was associated first with Ruskin, and subsequently with Rudyard Kipling, in both capacities. At other times she did secretarial work for Burne- Jones, for the famous chemist, Sir Henry Roscoe, and for Thackeray's adorable daughter, Lady Ritchie. Rusk- in and Kipling placed her on a pinnacle among those who had served them. Kipling once declared to a mutual friend that she was in a class by her- self and that merely by the tone in which he pronounced the word "Damn" she knew exactly the kind of letter to write. Being on terms of intimacy with her employers she was often the recipient of their confidences and was possessed of many secrets which, however valuable as " copy," were very safe in her hands. Her lively understanding was happily lit up by a sense of humour and she had an appreciation of their foibles, as well as of their genius, their strivings, and their achievements. But after the great ones had departed Sara Anderson never came into the open, never wrote down what she knew, never lectured or broadcast. She lived on serenely in retirement, en- joying literature, music, memories, and most of all conversation with surviving friends. The nature of Miss Anderson's services to Ruskin is indicated in Sir Edward Cook's edition of Ruskin's works. Cook there states that she was Ruskin's secretary from 1894- 1900, but Ruskin's letters show that their friendship was formed many years before.—From The Times. KIPLING AS PROPHET. I wonder how many readers can trace the origins of these lines by Rudyard Kipling : Ah ! what avails the classic bent Wit or the works of Desire— Honour and faith and a sure intent To the roar of Earth on fire. Their bona fides has the highest guarantees. They were sent by Mr. T. E. Elwell, of the Kipling Society, to Mr. J. H. C. Brooking, a member of the Council of the Society, who has forwarded them to me.—" London Day by Day " in the Daily Telegraph. THE P.M. QUOTES KIPLING. Everyone who listened to the Prime Minister's broadcast must have re- marked that he sounded at the top of his form, physically, except for a slight, often-repeated cough (per- haps a cigar cough ?) Even this came in, now and then, with dramatic, sardonic effect—as after the delightfully-turned phrase about the Italians' " brief promenade, by German permission, along the Riviera." It is perhaps fortunate for news- papers that Churchill quoted only four lines of Kipling. Possibly this occasion would have been privileged, but four lines is the most that the (rightly) lynx-eyed agents who protect Kipling's copyright allow to be quoted free.—William Hickey in the Daily Express. " IF." Remember, a few short years ago, how all of us were inclined to be a bit patronizing about Mr. Rudyard Kipling ? There were many counts against him : he was outmoded, he was a swashbuckler, he was the singer of a false imperialism, he was over- rated. And so on. Particularly super- cilious sneers, as we recall, were directed at that old poem of his called " If," which, neatly framed, hung on the dormitory walls of sophomores and in the offices of Rotarians and Kiwanians. And there were indul- gent smiles when the senior class at Princeton voted it their " favourite poem." Inspirational stuff, that poem, deserving only the good-natured con- tempt of adults—but that was some time ago. Recently that greatest of modern inspirational speakers, the supreme master of invective and forensics, took as his text those lines from " If " : 20 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1943 " If you can dream—and not make dreams your master ; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim ; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same." If it is good enough for Mr. Churchill to quote, then, maybe, just possibly, the college boys and girls and the Rotarians and the Kiwanians were not so far from the right track. And maybe, also, an apology is owed to Mr. Kipling, the brave and bitter and tender old gentleman of Burwash. —New York Herald- Tribune. KIPLING OUT. Mr. Stephen Williams has chosen a sizzling theme. He calls his book " Woman : an Anthology for Men," thus ensuring an immense demand for it by both the fair and the unfair sex. He has picked out descriptions of women, real and fictional, by writers from the Book of Genesis of the present day, touching on every mood and quality from the sublime to the bawdy. He has included some verses by himself—a saucy, unauthorised account of the story of Potiphar's wife. I wonder why he has omitted Kipling, a gentleman who held pro- nounced views on women. And here is my target. Mr. Williams has left out the Song of Solomon, which, allegory or not, is the greatest des- cription in our language of the love between man and woman.—The Lon- doner's Diary, Evening Standard. Letter Bag Correspondents are asked to keep Letters for publication as short as possible. A TRIBUTE FROM CHRIST- CHURCH, NEW ZEALAND. I HAVE just received my copy of No. 62, Vol. IX, July, 1942. You cannot realise how pleased I was to know that, in spite of all you are enduring in Britain—only a few minutes' bombing distance from the German aerodromes in France—you still find time to keep interest in the Society alive and the Journal going. May I say, as a New Zealander, how much I appreciate the wonderful job you people are doing—running a war which is with you daily, and yet con- triving to keep these other interests going which mean such a lot to us all. I am sure that all New Zealand members appreciate deeply the work of the United Kingdom members, and particularly that of the Com- mittee officials. My recollection of the people of Britain, from my spell of leave in 1917 and later after dis- charge from hospital, is such that I was not surprised at the magnificent spirit of Englishmen during the dark days of 1940, and never had (and do not have now) any doubts about the outcome. A line of R.K.'s des- cribes aptly the courage of mind that has marked the people of Britain over the past three years— " The soul unbroken when the body tires." My salutations to all members of the Society in the Motherland ; to those on war jobs—Good Hunting ! and may it not be too long before Shere Khan's hide is brought to the Council Rock. — A. E. Caddick, Christchurch Boys' High School, Christchurch, New Zealand. A MESSAGE FROM NEW GUINEA You may be interested to know that all issues of the Journal have reached here safely. I am probably the only civilian member in these islands. I could not gather up enough courage to leave the job. It would need a master to sing of the strength of those who have kept us free. Sorry I cannot do anything from here to help the Society in its gallant con- tinuance. When these calamities be overpast, I trust I will be able to call at the Society's Headquarters again. The Vice-President was wonder- fully good to me at Washington in 1940. R.K. will be appreciated more after these things. Salaams.—(The Rev.) H. J. E. Short, London Mission, c/o A.N.G.A.U., New Guinea Forces. THE KIPLING JOURNAL KIPLING AND INDIA. With reference to the interesting article by Sir George MacMunn— " Kipling and the Past In India "— which appeared in the December, 1942, issue of the Journal, it may interest readers to know that R.K. did, in fact, refer to India in two uncollected items, namely, ' Dis Aliter Visum ' (Pioneer, July 4, 1885, re- printed in U.S. College Chronicle, December 15, 1887), which refers to ' John Company ' and Clive, Warren Hastings and Macaulay, as well as Charnock, the founder of Calcutta; and secondly—' The Little House at Arrah,' which deals with the Indian Mutiny of 1857. I have an idea that extracts from the latter were contributed by me to the Kipling Journal years ago. It first appeared in The Pioneer, February 24, 1888, and was reprinted in the suppressed ' The City of Dreadful Night and Other Sketches,' 1890.—(Capt.) E. W. Martindell, Oaklea, Hook, Nr. Basing- stoke, Hants. THE OLD GIBE AT KIPLING. Why does a writer so eminent and talented as Mr. H. G. Wells permit himself to use such a silly expression as " Kipling's Chi-chi Imperialism " (Evening Standard, 19/1/43). The words, if they mean anything, in- dicate the Imperialism of the Anglo- Indian (Eurasian) community, though one generally gathers that Kipling's chief sin, in the eyes of Mr. Wells and those who think as he does, is that his " Imperialism " embraced the whole of the British Empire with all its diverse races. Many people disagree with Mr. Wells political views without denying his literary genius ; why cannot a similar attitude be adopted towards Kipling ? Per- haps Mr. Wells has a grievance be- cause Kipling never attacked him or his views ?—Basil M. Bazley. "WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES" The December issue of the Journal is full of interesting things. I suggest that Mr. St. John Ervine ought, in fairness, to have mentioned the very generous (because so unexpected) com- pliment paid to Kipling by Mr. H. G. Wells in When the Sleeper Wakes. The Sleeper finds a machine grinding out literary records at haphazard, and among them some lines which he at 'once recognises (from memory of for- mer years, before his sleep began) a passage from The Man Who Would Be King. When the Sleeper Wakes was written when the gramophone was little more than a scientific toy.—(Major) E. Dawson, c/o Coutts & Co., 440, Strand, W.C.2. Kipling and the R.A.F. A READER who says that she was glad to see my note the other day recording the demand for Kipling in the Army points out that the men of the R.A.F. would find much of special interest to them in his writings. She mentions as an example, " With the Night Mail," contained in " Actions and Reactions." Though the modern airman's 'plane is different from " Postal Packet 162," she says, he will recognise the weather as not unlike some he has met :— We were dragged hither and yon by warm or frozen suctions, belched up on the tops of wulliwas, spun down by vortices and clubbed aside by laterals under a dizzying rush of stars in the company of a drunken moon. That recalls descriptions of a 'plane that was turned upside down a short time ago. There is a hint of the modern gremlin, this reader adds, in " a globe of pale flame that waits shivering with eagerness till we sweep by; it leaps monstrously across the blackness, alights on the precise tip of our nose, pirouettes there an instant, and swings off," and in " we are never without a corposant grinning on our bows or rolling head over heels from nose to midships."—Northerner II in the Yorkshire Post.