CONTENTS PAGE Notes—J. P. Collins ...----- 1 Kipling's "Remarkable Rightness"—Major Irving E. Mansback 3 The Germans Feared Kipling—Basil M. Bazley - 5 Memories of Rudyard Kipling—Madame J. H. C. Taufflieb 6 Kipling and His Critics—Cecil Hull ----- 8 The Manuscript of Recessional - - - - - - 11 Stalky's Verses " Touched Up " By R.K.- 14 The Philosophy of Rudyard Kipling—J. V. Carlson - - 15 Letter Bag - - -- 17 Kiplingiana --------- 18 THE KIPLING SOCIETY SALES DEPARTMENT 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. 67. October, 1943 Notes LORD WAVELL, VICEROY. FROM every point of view the appointment of Viscount Wavell as Viceroy justifies all the con- currence of approval it has aroused. Nor is it in mere deference that the Kipling Society hails it with some- thing like exultation. He is known as a true appreciator of Kipling and his works; this came out in the crucial time when he was C-in-C. for the Middle East. To raise our spirits there came the triumph of Sidi Barrani and the imminent promise of Bardia, and when the Secretary, Sir Christopher Robinson, sent him the Society's congratulations, with every wish for " Tabaqui's discomfiture," he was rewarded with a racy reply in the genuine idiom of the Jungle-Books. This ran—" Many thanks. Hope Shere Khan's skin will soon be on Council Rock." The reminder is hardly needed that Tabaqui is the dish-licker and the talebearer who plays the jackal to Shere Khan, the lame tiger who brought shame on the Free People and boasted that he " killed man for choice and not for food." If it is another who is to spread the hide of the chief malefactor on the Council Rock, we may be sure of one thing at least : that Lord Wavell will be there at the grim investiture in spirit, to signalise that India has been saved, and Asia as well. WELCOME MESSAGES. Since those first days of Libya's rescue, the wheels of war have scored many " traffics and discoveries." For one thing Tabaqui (alias Musso the mangy) has been consigned to the pit of universal execration, there to await the arrival of his gangster confederates. THE APT WORD. There has been the same disarming simplicity in the new Viceroy's utter- ances since. There was his talk to a group of pressmen at the India Office when he began with the unexpected- ness of his appointment and went on through his years of Indian service, to enlarge on his whole-hearted sym- pathy with her political aspirations and his firm belief in the glowing future to which her size and im- portance, her traditions of industry and kindliness entitled her. Then came the reluctant doffing of his uniform for the plainer guise of mufti, followed by his eloquent order of farewell to the armed forces of the India Command. Like his famous lectures on generalship, preparation and military training, these allocutions showed his happy faculty for the apt word and the well-turned sentence —no slight asset for a ruler whose words are to find currency among so many millions of souls. Happily he rejoices in a confrere of like mind in Sir Claud Auchinleck, the proved comrade and collaborator in many a trying year of India's fortunes and development. Lord Wavell may still hold to what he said in his essay on " Statesman and Soldier " where he declared : " No longer can one man hope to exercise both callings, though both are branches of the same craft, the governments of men and the ordering of human affairs." The administrator who can survey his so many great problems in a cool grey light like this, when the age itself is robed in blood and horrors, can hardly fail to see the task through to the haven he desires. 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 TURN OF THE TIDE. The new Viceroy is wreathed with favouring auguries—passionate esti- mation from the armies he has led to one victory after another, the profound trust he enjoys inspires in monarch, premier, and the peoples of both motherlands, and the possess- ion of a partner like Lady Wavell who has charm as well as humour, and blends many other covetable qualities with a profound belief in her husband and his destiny. Never- theless it may prove that India's new chief enjoys one circumstance without a precedent among his long and illustrious line of predecessors, from Lord Cornwallis who was the first to promulgate the doctrine of trusteeship, to Lord Linlithgow, who is coming home with laurels of gold. One new and harmonious note is heard even above the din of a world war, and it is this—that for the first time in our long history of mutual relations, Russia is a sworn friend and ally who has sacrificed four millions of her best and bravest sons at the altar of human liberty. What a pity that Kipling never lived to see these days when Russia is with us in the war of world-liberation and the tide of battle is on the turn. J. P. Collins. "Forster's Note Book on Kipling" A LETTER FROM CHILE I HAVE just come across a little pamphlet of 20 pages, entitled " For- ster's Note Book on Kipling." This was published in November, 1898, at the price of 6d., by the Holland Company, 12, Cherry Street, Bir- mingham. This was No. 1 of the Note Book and it is stated therein that it was proposed to issue further numbers later on. I have searched my books of refer- ence and also the files of the Kipling Journal, but I found no reference to this publication and I should be interested to know if any of our members have any further information on the subject. — Tom P. Jones, Casilla 21—D., Punta Arenas, Chile. (Captain E. W. Martindell writes : I once possessed a copy of Forster's Note Book on Kipling, which I record amongst my ' Kiplingiana ' in my Bibliography of R. K.'s works. I never came across another copy of any further Number. This is corroborated by the late Mr. Ellis Ames Ballard, who refers to it in the Appendix to his ' Kipling Collection,' p. 231, as follows : " Forster's Note Book on Kipling. A twenty-two page booklet published at Birmingham, England, by the Holland Company, November, 1898. Price Sixpence. Bound in rough, purple paper covers. Contains com- ments on Kipling and his books. This was intended to be a continuous publi- cation, and there is a note that ' The Editor will be glad to receive any item of interest to Kiplingites suitable for publication in No. 2 of this Note Book." " I have not seen a copy of any later number " Ballard's note concludes.') October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 Kipling's " Remarkable Rightness by MAJOR IRVING E. MANSBACK (EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A.) THE communiqués that come from the Fronts remind us , each day, more and more, of what Kipling told us about the nations with whom we are at war. Only in one premiss so far, has Kipling's " remarkable rightness " proven, up to this time, incorrect and that is his estimate of the " Bear that walks like a Man." This is the one great inaccuracy. We can see " the dust of the Grand Trunk Road," and see our troops travelling " up into the cool hills " and " down to the hot flats " in each communiqué. In certain phases of the Burma Campaign, we are informed that elephants are moving guns. Kipling tells us about these elephants or their predecessors piling teak in the great forests. In The Tomb Of His Ancestors, we are told how a British family controlled the destinies of a hill- tribe and led them in small border raids. Only last week, the newspapers related how such tribes in northern Burma were raiding Japanese supply columns under potentially the same type of leadership. Peculiar to relate the name of the tribe in the communi- qués, recently was Kacklin. The name of the British family in The Tomb Of His Ancestors is Chinn. JUNGLE WARFARE. It is a question whether Kipling foresaw the débacle of the Malayan Peninsula campaign. He was aware of the difficulties of jungle warfare. " He took Lungtungpen naked." In these words he reveals the shirts and shorts of today which are the uniform used in jungle warfare. He also tells us of the heat and dank of the forest, of the difficulty of hewing one's way in the underbrush, of the lack of food suitable for white men and the danger of drinking water unboiled out of the water holes. Kipling's knowledge of the Far East is being utilized by the Indian Army. In an article in the New York Times of December 27 th, 1942, we are informed " there is a school for jungle warfare in India where the only text book used is a thin volume of Kip- ling'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.". . Kipling knew the Colonies and Dominions would have to be closely united in order to beat, in war, an aggregation of nations such as the Axis. He says, " By my house and thy house hangs all the world's Fate." In England's Answer, we may infer the alliance between the two great Anglo-Saxon nations : ' So long as the Blood endures, I shall know that your good is mine : ye shall feel that my strength is yours : In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all, That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall. • Draw now the three-fold knot on the nine- fold bands, And the Law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands." Kipling foretold that the English could " take it " in If. He could not have foreseen the bombings, nevertheless, the words " If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat these two impostors just the same," have double-weight mean- ing today. In the Parade Song of the Camp Animals we have the animal side of logistics portrayed in poetry. The elephants, the bullocks, the horses, the mules, and the camels tell their stories and do their work as they are doing in actual combat today. No words can describe their lot better than :— " All the Beasts Together." " Children of the Camp are we, Serving each in his degree; Children of the yoke and goad, Pack and harness, pad and load, 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 See our line across the plain, Like a heel-rope bent again, Reaching, writhing, rolling far, Sweeping all away to war ! While the men that walk beside, Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed, Cannot tell why we or they March and suffer day by day. Children of the Camp are we, Serving each in his degree; Children of the yoke and goad. Pack and harness, pad and load !" In 1914, in the poem For All We Have And Are, Kipling foretold the danger of the Hun cast loose on the world as a fighting nation. The words of this poem, written nearly thirty years ago, are as trenchant now as they were at the time they were written. " For all we have and are, For all our children's fate, Stand up and take the war, The Hun is at the gate ! No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all— One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall ? Who dies if England live ?" In 1909, when With the Night Mail appeared, it was considered as fantastic as any Jules Verne story. Today, with New York slightly more than sixty hours distant from Australia and no point of the globe more than that time from any other given point, Kipling's fantasy of world wide aerial commerce, with his description of control, communications and speed, is no longer in the realm of dream but pure fact. Many a Chaplain soothes the torn feelings of his men in field service with the kind words of Hymn Before Action and Recessional. With the advent of this world war, we have at last come to the point where all must realize that Kipling in his poems and his stories covered the globe. In The "Mary Gloster" are the lines " we knew we were making our fortune but she died in Macassar Straits." In the Song of the Banjo are the words " you couldn't raft an organ up the Nile, and play it in an Equatorial Swamp." In the Song of the Cities are men- tioned Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong, Halifax, Quebec and Montreal, Victoria, Cape Town, Melbourne, Sydney, Bris- bane, Hobart and Auckland. In Puck of Pooks Hill and Rewards and Fairies, England is covered both historically and from a legendary side. In from Sea to Sea we travel from India to China to Japan, to United States, to Canada, thence to England. KIPLING'S KNOWLEDGE. As a citizen of Pennsylvania, I was naturally intrigued when I read Philadelphia and Brother Square Toes in Rewards and Fairies. As the result of investigations I have made on the ground, I find that Kipling's knowledge of the geography, Indian ethnology, customs of the people, terrain and local colour is excellent. Monsieur Genet was in Philadelphia and did talk of what France had done and did tell the people how " the United States would join her (France) to finish off the English in this war." Race Street was called Race Street because men raced their horses down this street. A " Real Red Indian," called " Red Jacket " used to hang around Second Street where there was a Baker Shop run by a Conrad Gerhard. Kipling's description of the Penn- sylvania Germans is perfect. Unto this day, they like " good victuals " and music. They have gardens that are clean and luxuriant. One can also say today that " I haven't yet found any better or quieter or for- bearinger people than the Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church of Philadelphia." How did Kipling know that there was a " Pastor Meder of the Moravian Church in Phila- delphia ?" If in this year of our Lord I were to travel from Lancaster to Bethlehem, I would use the words " in the cool o' the morning, the cat-birds sing " and " there is a smell of wild grape- vine growing in damp hollows which you drop into." "So's the puffs out of the pine woods of afternoons. Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and later on the fire-flies dance in the corn." "Cornplanter" was really a great Indian Chief, Conrad Wysor, Washing- ton's ambassador to the Indians, who kept the Peace by treaty and by action along this Blue Ridge " first frontier," during the most critical formation October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 years of Colonial Pennsylvania. Corn- planter, Red Jacket, and Tudescong, Indian chiefs of the first rank of the Seneca and Delaware tribes, and Conrad Wysor held many conferences in Easton, Penna, to keep this peace. But how did Kipling know ? At the time Kipling sets the story Brother Square Toes, there was a yellow fever plague in Philadelphia. From the Aleutians to the Kuriles, from England to South America, from the United States to the Congo, from Suez to Finland, from Table Bay to Sugar Loaf Mountain, from the Himalayas to the Yellowstone, Kipling knew all he wrote about and knew his facts. The world was his stage. The Germans Feared Kipling by BASIL M. BAZLEY FOR many years past, practically from the 11th November, 1918, the Germans threw dust in the eyes of the British—not merely the governing classes but the great mass of the people. A few of us saw be- hind these wily moves of the last two decades—still fewer said so in public; some because they knew that they would not be believed, others because they did not wish to embarrass the government which, they hoped, was making preparations in secret (against popular inclination) to meet the inevitable German attack. To their lasting honour, Churchill and Kipling came into the open and told us of our danger, but they were like the late Lord Roberts who, advo- cating National Service before the last war, " pleaded and was not heard." While these two great men were being denounced as war-mongers, the Germans, with quicker perception, recognised that they were men danger-, ous to the ambitions of the Third Reich. So, at various times during the pre-war years, German publicists reviled them just as our own country- men did. But the German cursing was founded upon the fear that they would be listened to; the British feared that their comfort would be destroyed. In the Daily Mirror of the 19th August, 1935, we find the following, under the caption, " Nazis Turn On Kipling " :— " Nazis, severely criticised by their own ' financial dictator,' Dr. Schacht, for their attacks on Jews, have found another victim— Mr. Rudyard Kipling. They are ex- horted not to buy any of his books. One of their culture leaders, Professor Urbach, writing in the Official Nazi newspaper, Voelkischer Beorbachter, denounces both Kim and The Jungle Book as ' Undiluted expressions of Anglo-Saxon Imperialism.' The article, as quoted by Reuter, concludes : ' Kipling has always been one of the bitterest enemies of Germany and for years has led a fanatical cam- paign against our nation.' " Bismarck once said that it was very easy to deceive people by speak- ing the truth; he used to affect an air of blunt sincerity. Now, his successors have been equally sincere in regard to Kipling; they knew that he disliked them, not from any motive of blind hatred but from knowledge founded on their character and pleasant little ways; he always spoke his mind about them without any equivocation. We may recall with advantage some of his sayings from The Fringes of the Fleet, which show his thorough understanding of the German mentality ; here, it will be evident, even to the lowest intelligence, that the average German's sense of the fitness of things is—not quite on the same plane as that of the Briton :—" Oh, if Fritz only fought clean, this wouldn't be half a bad show. But Fritz can't fight clean." " And we can't do what he does—even if we were allowed to." " No, we can't. 'Tisn't done. We have to fish Fritz out of the water, dry him, and give him cocktails, and send him to Donnington Hall." " Do you suppose Fritz really under- stands any of it ?" " No. Or he wouldn't have Lusitaniaed. This war was his first chance of making his name, and he chucked it all away for the sake of showin' off as a foul Gottstrafer." 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 Well, we know now. We know several things that need the pen of a Kipling to describe in their full horror, though the naked truth is bad enough : things that happened after a ship had been torpedoed, little incidents of certain daylight air raids, and the bestialities suffered by most of the Continental peoples which we have mercifully been spared. We have, however, been bitten twice (the French thrice); perhaps, as again Kipling says :—" It is all that beastly English pride. You think no one dare conspire ! That is all tommy- rot." But Kipling would remind us if, happily, he were still with us, that a dog is only allowed one bite; we still have his glowing words to impress upon us that we must never delude ourselves again. Memories of Rudyard Kipling by MADAME J. H. C. TAUFFLIEB (Madame la Generale Taufflieb who here contributes the first instalment of her reminiscences of Rudyard Kipling, is an American by birth, whose ac- quaintance with Kipling dates back to the time of his residence in the United States, and continued until his death.) IT is with hesitation and real emotion that I respond to your request and send a few reminiscences of the great man who honoured me with his wonderful and rare friend- ship, from the day when we met to the day when he passed to another world, mourned by all people. We first made acquaintance in my mother's house in Morristown, New Jersey. My mother had met Rudyard Kipling on a trip going to Bermuda. Mr. Kipling appreciated my mother's great intellectual qualities, and it was one of the joys of her later life to come in contact with such a true genius as Rud was. My mother invited Mr. and Mrs. Kipling to visit her at her house, and needless to say what a joy it was for us all to meet and know them. For some years I only saw the Kiplings at intervals, but kept in close touch with them and after 1907 when I went to live in Europe, we saw each other constantly. The Kip- lings would come to stop with me in my chateau in France and we would go across the channel to stop with them in Burwash. They had three children : Josephine, their first and she was a fairy child. When she was taken from them at a very early age, Rud never seemed to become recon- ciled to her loss. The second child, Elsie, " Ladybird," as Rud called her, was so full of life, so intelligent and attractive. She is now Mrs. George Bambridge. John was a bit younger and such a dear. He bade fair to be very brilliant. Rudyard Kipling was always " Uncle Rud " to my beloved daughter, Frances, and I was " Aunt Julia " to his children. One Christmas the four Kiplings came to visit me over the holidays, and Mr. and Mrs. Henry Van Dyke, Minister to The Hague, and two of their children were of the party. You can imagine what a Christmas that was. One not easily forgotten by old or young. Each year the Kiplings' and ourselves would be 'somewhere together. They would come to me, or I would go to them in their quaint Elizabethan house snuggled away on the Sussex Downs. We were in Marienbad, Vernet-Les-Bains and several other trips, and the last winters of Rud's life we were all in Cannes. When the war came in 1914, John insisted on enlisting, and in a letter Rud wrote me, dated the 28th of August, 1914, he says, " John is trying very hard to get his commission but as he is only 17 and his eyes are not what they should be, it is some- what difficult." Lord Roberts was an intimate friend of Rud's and John insisted so much that I believe Lord Roberts rather over looked the calen- dar. Suffice it to say that John joined the Irish Guards on September 2, 1915, and immediately left for France, and on September 27, 1915, after the Battle of Loos, he was reported October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 missing. He was never heard of again. Some years later I met Colonel Vesey, John's Colonel, and heard from him all there was to know. John and another young lad started on a hazardous mission without real orders, and they were last seen leaning against a barn. A shell came, des- troyed the barn, and nothing was ever heard of those two gallant young soldiers again. For months the Kipling family heard nothing, and neither the father nor the mother believed John killed. I was in London in December, 1915, and went to see them at Brown's Hotel. One could never imagine that a tragedy had occurred in their lives. They seemed absolutely cheery and evidently had not allowed themselves to believe that they would not see John again. However Rud, seeing me to my car that evening, at the foot of the stairs, took hold of my arm, and pressing it so that it almost hurt, said, " Down on your knees Julia, and thank God that you have not a son." I knew then that he knew. Rud was never the same in any shape or manner after John's death. After the war, in 1919, General Taufflieb, the three Kiplings and myself, took a motor trip along the battlefront to Verdun. In a letter written after this automobile journey, and after having passed two days at Verdun, where the General took such pleasure in showing Rud all over the scarred battle fields, Rud writes, " I got more information from the General on certain matters than I would have gathered from a whole war staff. He gave me an explanation on the top of his fort with the land- scape laid out before us that cleared the situation up like a photograph." The evening of the last day at Verdun Rud came in, took off his cap, passed his hand over his head and said, " For the first time in my life, I have come to the place where I feel that if any- one gave me another idea my head would not stand it,—it would burst." Some years later he was to be re- ceived at the Sorbonne and the Kip- lings were stopping at the Hotel Meurice in Paris. We went to call on them in the afternoon previous to the presentation and such an array of caps and gowns came to my eyes. Naturally Rud had none of his own, and the professors of the Sorbonne, not knowing his stature, had sent him all sizes. Rud was like a boy trying them on, and I wish I could recollect the amusing comments he made. At last he found one to fit him. The reception at the Sorbonne was tremendous. Rud had always loved France since his father took him as a small boy to the Exposition of 1879. He spoke French fairly well; fluently, but not always correctly. He was more beloved by the French people than any English writer (I was going to say than any Englishman.) I know of one French general who carried some of Rud's books with him all through the four years of war. One day Rud showed me a paper-covered copy of The Light That Failed translated into French. It had a bullet hole right through it. A young French soldier had sent it to Rud with the words, " You have saved my life, so I think this book belongs to you." Again we were together when Rud was received at the University of Strassburg. The President and Mme. Poincaré were present, and the Alsatians were as enthusiastic in their welcome of Kipling as their brothers of the Sorbonne had been before them. One evening in Paris I gave a reception for the Kiplings in my home at Neuilly. I procured the services of one of the great actors of the Comédie Française to recite Rud's great Ode to France which alone would have endeared Rud to the French people. The poem had been translated by a great many authors, and I was literally persecuted as to whose translation I should select to be recited. ( The concluding instalment of Madame Taufflieb's reminiscences of Rudyard Kipling will appear in the next issue of the "Journal") 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 Kipling and His Critics By CECIL HULL (AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND). The first part of a broadcast talk from IYA, Auckland, N.Z. [Miss Cecil Hull is a Vice-President of the Auckland, N.Z. Branch of the Kipling Society. A previous paper by her entitled " Kipling Awakes " appeared in the December, 1942 issue of the "Journal"—No. 64]. RUDYARD Kipling. We all know him. We have known him all our lives. His name and his work are household words. If no author of our time has been so warmly worshipped, none has been so severely criticised. Yet his books still sell, and that, of course, is annoying for the hostile critics. Now, however, a counter-reaction is setting in, and it is largely this counter-reaction— this important attempt to re-value his work without prejudice—that has led me to talk to you to-night about Kipling and his critics. Rudyard Kipling's life reads like a story out of the Arabian Nights. Pitchforked into the hard school of practical journalism before he was 17, he reaped the reward of the fairy- tale apprentice, and at the age of 23 had made a world-wide reputation. But he had also made some bitter enemies. Precocity is not a particularly attractive phenomenon, and the cock- sure knowingness of Departmental Ditties and Plain Tales from the Hills accounts in part, I think, for the virulence of his enemies at that time. Oscar Wilde said of the Plain Tales : " As one turns over the pages, one feels as if one were seated under a palm-tree, reading life by superb flashes of vulgarity. From the point of view of literature, Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates." Richard le Gallienne thought that " for the most part, Mr. Kipling's work is an appeal to, and a vindication of, the Englishman as brute. For progressive thought," he continues, " there has been no such danger in England for many years. Of all that our best poets, philosophers and social economists have been working for, he is, directly or indirectly, a powerful enemy." And Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, after some similar criticism, remarked wistfully, " And the pity and the sin of it is that now and then, by flashes—as in The Miracle of Purun Bhagat—he sees the truth." Perhaps Kipling's father, the critic who counted most with his son, best summed up a considered judgment of that early work when he said : " It wasn't all so damn bad, Ruddy." Far from resenting these criticisms, Kipling, in his fragmentary auto- biography, Something of Myself, speak- ing of his early success, says : " People talked, quite reasonably, of rockets and sticks, and that genius, J. K. Stephen, dealt with Rider Haggard and me in some stanzas that I would have given much to have written myself. They breathed a prayer for better days when The world shall cease to wonder At the genius of an ass, And a boy's eccentric blunder Shall not bring success to pass. When there stands a muzzled stripling, Mute, beside a muzzled bore; When the Rudyards cease from Kipling And the Haggards ride no more. Now, most of the early critics, while finding fault with Kipling's politics, or his prose style or his habit of writing ' Jingles,' never denied that he was a genius or that his influence was great. But that was before 1906. In 1906 a General Election took place, and the Liberal Party, after a long period of obscurity, came triumphantly into power. " Then," in the words of Mr Shanks, one of Kipling's latest and ablest critics, " the opinion grew that Rudyard Kipling was no longer an enemy to be reckoned with, and his younger critics, instead of October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 defining his faults, began to deny that he had any merits. Thus in 1913, one critic wrote : " His occasional talent for vigorous rhythms is the only specifically poetical gift he has .... Spiritual inspiration and im- aginative vision he lacks completely. He is a man who, meant to play the piccolo of the temporal, insists on trying to blow the trumpet of the eternal. And every time he blows the trumpet, he blows the gaff." Incidentally, this remarkable effort in criticism was made in a review of Songs from Books, a collection which includes Harp Song of the Dane Woman, My New-cut Ashlar and The Way through the Woods ! If we are talking of gaffs, there is a gaffe, with an " e." But, as Miss Dorothy Sayers points out in another connection, that critic simply wasn't trying. That is the trouble with so many of Kipling's enemies. They hate him so much that they can't read him. Their knowledge of his work is, we might say, bounded on the north by a line from If, on the south by another line, usually misunderstood, from Recessional, while the other points of the compass are obviously covered by East is East and West is West, This ignorance, while perhaps a natural outcome of their dislike, must be held to detract somewhat—indeed, " more than somewhat "—from the value of their criticism. On the other hand, of course, it simplifies their task. As Mr. Lytton Strachey said in the preface to Eminent Victor- ians, " Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian—ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, selects and omits, with a placid perfection un- attainable by the highest art." This dictum, I think, applies to critics as well as to historians. Mr. H. E. Bates, for instance, one of Kipling's most vigorous opponents in recent years, refers to the very well-known Kipling story as " The Miracle of Phanda Bhagat." Nobody, one would think, who had ever read the story could forget the name of Purun Bhagat. It is not of course an important point in itself, but it is symptomatic of the writer's deeper ignorance of the real Kipling. Another high spot in Mr. Bates's tirade, which occurs in his recently " published book, The Modern Short Story, is the distinction he draws between Wells and Kipling. " Wells," he declares, " is the prophet, the seer, the visionary who has the doubtful satisfaction of seeing his visions be- come all too terribly true : Kipling, by contrast, is the voice of the dying hierarchy which for all its cruelty, violence, stupid complacency and re- action he seeks to perpetuate." We'll leave aside the question whether all H. G. Wells's visions have come true. I seem to remember him as looking forward confidently to an orderly state where scientific dis- coveries and a scientific attitude toward life had done away with all the mess and confusion of an unregulated world. But however that may be, what of Kipling's prophecies ? What prophet ever saw his vision become more terribly translated into fact in 1914 than the author of The Islanders, written in 1902 after the Boer War— verses of which Mr. Bates has possibly heard only the phrase " the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goal ?" He certainly cannot have read the bitterly ironical opening :— No doubt but ye are the people— your throne is above the King's, Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things. Is that the language of the smooth sycophant of the accepted order ? Or take these lines even more obviously addressed to the old school-tie brigade, or what Mr. Bates would call " the dying hierarchy "—Kipling is speaking to the great land-owners who refused to give up any part of their game preserves for rifle-ranges to train volunteers : Will the rabbit war with your foemen—the red deer horn them for hire ? Your kept cock-pheasant keep you— he is master of many a shire. Lines like that—and there are plenty more of them—didn't please and were not meant to please, those great land-owners, the " dying hierarchy which" according to Mr. Bates, "Kip- ling was seeking to perpetuate." Mr. Bates says of Kipling's India : " Kipling chose to interpret only one voice, the voice of the ruling 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 caste." Now it is true that rightly or wrongly, Kipling did believe that the English threw up in greater numbers than other peoples men who were entitled to be called rulers. Yet, as Mr. Shanks points out, it would be easy to call him as a witness against the whole fabric of the British rule in India. He provides texts in profusion throughout his Indian years, notably in The Masque of Plenty. These satirical verses tell how the Government of India, having heard complaints about the economic condition of the people, appoints a commission to enquire into the matter. The well-fed commission then reports that all is well with the hungry natives, who are depicted by Kipling as thus expressing their gratitude : God bless the Squire And all his rich relations Who teach us poor people We eat our proper rations. We eat our proper rations— In spite of inundations, Malarial exhalations And casual starvations, We have, we have, they say we have, We have our proper rations ! Why doesn't Mr. Bates quote that mordant criticism of the ruling caste ? Well, I can suggest two reasons. (1) Because it would conflict with his preconceived ideas : and/or (2) Because he has never read it. (To be continued). The World of Action WHEN recently re-reading that interesting book The World of Action, the autobiography of Valentine Williams, (published in 1938 by Hamish Hamilton, London), writes a correspondent, I came across the following reference to Rudyard Kipling : " Journalism provides a good train- ing for authorship. It sharpens the observant faculties, it strengthens the memory, it teaches accuracy. Rud- yard Kipling and Arnold Bennett and, in my own line of country, Edgar Wallace, remained newspaper men at heart, and in John Galsworthy and H. G. Wells, with their minute eye for detail, a brace of magnificent reporters was lost to Fleet Street. Kipling, in particular, remained a reporter to the last. To him, more than to any writer I have ever known, my father's French tag applied. He went through the world to the day of his death absorbing knowledge. Details were his cup of tea. He could apply his magnificent imagination un- assisted to situation and plot : but details he liked to gather from the man who could tell him. Not only details of machinery, details of the hundred and one kinds of ' shop ' that men talk in the different pro- fessions and trades, but also details of sounds, of smells, of sights, which helped to create atmosphere, of which he was a master. " When he wrote the History of the Irish Guards, in memory of his son John, who was killed with the regiment, in a letter to me he said, ' I am conscious of having ploughed to some extent with your heifers,' a characteristically generous allusion to my own story of life in the Irish Guards at the front, The Adventures of an Ensign, which I had presented to him . . . Once at Brown's Hotel, where he always stayed when he came to London, he began to question me about my experiences in Macedonia, in the Balkan War. Out of our talk, he proceeded to evolve a short story centring about the figure of a Mace- donian Komitaji, a Balkan bandit, which, to my consternation, he insisted that I should write. In his enormous kindness to young writers he sub- sequently sent me several letters on the subject, elaborating ' our ' story, as he called it, in great detail. Ultimately I wrote it, but it was a bitter and rather cruel story and I was not very happy about it. I showed it to an editor or two but no one would publish it : therefore, I left it and said no more to Kipling on the subject. So it remains in my drawer, following R.K.'s own idea as set forth in his autobiography, of keeping MS. in cold storage. One day I shall take it out and look it over again, and maybe, this time it will get into print." October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 The Manuscript of " Recessional " A RARE DOCUMENT IN the July, 1943 issue of the Journal we reported the purchase by Mr. C. W. Parish, the tenant of Batemans, Burwash, of the manu- script of Kipling's Recessional, which is reproduced, by permission, over- leaf. Meanwhile, we have received the following note from Mr. R. E. Harbord, Deputy Chairman of the Kipling Society, who sent a personal subscription towards the purchase fund, and suggested acquisition of the manuscript for the Kipling Society. That was not possible, but Mr. Parish's action in securing the document means that it will be offered to the National Trust, for permanent pre- servation at Batemans. Mr. Harbord writes :— " The idea had been in Kipling's mind all through the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the poem was written, he says, in the nature of a " Nuzzer Wattu " (an averter of the Evil Eye). No doubt he also had in mind " The Song of the Three Holy Children " Apocrypha to the Bible—" Never- theless in a contrite heart and a humble spirit let us be accepted." The first draft he called " After " He was so dissatisfied with this that he threw it away. It is said to have been rescued by Mrs. Kipling from the waste paper basket, and given by her to Mrs. Sara Norton, an American friend of the family. She in turn gave it to her cousin, Francis Bullard, and he presented it to the Harvard University Library, U.S.A. The next draft was called " Re- trocession," and that is in the Hunting- ton Library in the U.S.A. It is thought to have reached that Library by similar stages to those by which " After " reached Harvard. On 16th July, 1897, Kipling sent Recessional with a covering letter to The Times and it was printed on the 17th July. The Times Literary Supplement print- ed a brief article and Kipling's covering letter on the 13th April, 1901— " So many accounts of the way in which Recessional reached The Times have been published ' on the very best authority,' that it may be as well to dispose of them by the publication of the following letter, which en- closed the M.S. " Dear Enclosed please find my sentiments on things, which I hope are yours. We have been blowing up the trumpets of the New Moon a little too much for white men, and it is about time we sobered down. If you would like it, it is at your service—on the old conditions that I can use it if I want it later in book form. The sooner it is in print the better. I do not want any proof. Couldn't you run it to-night so as to end the week piously ? If it is not your line, please drop me a wire. Ever yours sincerely, R. K." Page 1 of the July Journal (No 66— July) gives further particulars and details of the two holograph copies made by Kipling. It is thought that the original which was sent to The Times is now in the British Museum having been bequeathed by Mrs. Kipling in her will." Authorities—Mrs. Livingstone, Ellis Ames Ballard and Admiral Chandler, also, of course, Kipling's own " Some- thing of Myself," chapter VI. 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 STALKY'S VERSES ' TOUCHED UP ' BY R.K. Stalky sends us the original of this interesting letter which was written to him about fifty-five years ago by E. Kay Robinson, Editor of the Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, to whom he had submitted some verses. Although the note is undated, it was probably written in the year 1888. " 1 am sure," writes General Dunsterville, characteristically, " that members of the Kipling Society will be interested to learn that Stalky was a poet once upon a time, but couldn't get through without a little help from the master hand." As the letter shows, Kipling had ' touched the verses up,' and Stalky adds : " I haven't the least idea of what they were about." October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 The Philosophy of Rudyard Kipling by J. V. CARLSON The first part of an address to the Melbourne, Australia, Branch of the Society. I F a man brings a good mind to what he reads, he may be- come, as it were, that spiritual descendant to some extent of great men, and this link, this spiritual hereditary tie, may just help to kick the beam in the right direction in a crisis; or may keep him from drift- ing through the long slack times when, so to speak, we are only fielding and no balls are coming our way." These lines are from the Book of Words on the Uses of Reading. It is to this spiritual effect of his work that I wish to draw your atten- tion, and it is an acute awareness of the same philosophy which he taught, and not any special sense of fitness on my part which is the reason for the writing of this paper. Kipling tells the story of " the Greek scholar who took every scholar- ship and gold medal in sight, and before twenty-five he was appointed as a lecturer in his own college. One evening he called on one of the Dons. The old man said, " You know Plato, of course." My friend in a modest way said he thought he did. He had an idea in the back of his mind that he knew more about Plato than most men of his time. " Well," said the old man "what's it all about?" My friend scratched his head as he realised that although he knew pretty well everything else connected with Plato, what Plato was after, what his game was in the world he did not know. He sat down to think of what Plato was about. He's still thinking !" It seems to me that we are in some- what a similar position. THE GREAT LITERARY CRAFTSMAN. The great literary craftsman, the great Englishman, his insight, vision, knowledge, prophecy, have all in their season received our thought and attention; but what Kipling is about, what he is driving at, what his attitude was to the world, and what effect his writings have on people, have only received passing comment and have not been the subject of our whole-hearted attention and study. True, I have heard our Secretary say, " We are here because we love our Kipling," and one Vice-President, " in speaking of Kipling I am speak- ing of the greatest friend of my life." But we do not love the work of even the greatest writers or call them friend just because their verses scan, or their stories entertain. It is because of the spiritual effect of their thoughts expressed in their writings, and this is the inner cause, the spiritual reason for our association together in Kipling Societies. It is significant that the three great poets who have societies dedicated to their memory have one especial trait in common. They are all lovers of humanity. Now it may be said that these societies are evidence but not proof, of their greatness, but surely they are proof of the love and affection their work has inspired. We may also ask ourselves whether the following of Shakespeare and Burns is as widespread as that of Kipling. Shakespeare is an English in- stitution and it is traditional for him to be revered. The academy and the stage have also kept his memory alive. Lovers of Burns are not all Scottish but it would be a gallant Sassenach indeed who would brave the door of a Burns Society to identify himself with the immortal Robert. The membership of the only Kip- ling Society I have knowledge of represents a cross-section of the whole community. Of course, many people would say that everything pertinent to human life and happiness has been said and well said, and records of lives lived full of precept and example have been left for us to follow. Kipling says however, " The utmost any generation can do is to rebaptize each spiritual or emotional rebirth 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 in its own tongue." So the teaching of philosophy or wisdom can never end until mankind reaches perfection, and that end is obviously so far off that we need not seriously concern ourselves about it. His conception of himself as simply " a singer to my clan," carries even more responsibility to-day than in the Neolithic Age, and Kipling took his craft, and indeed any craft, very seriously. Early life and training have lasting effects and he was able to say to Scottish students " Men in any walk of life who have been taught not to waste or muddle material under their hand are less given to muddle or moral, intellectual and emotional issues, than men whose wastage has never been checked, or who look to have their wastage made good by others." So because, however great and truthful his message " unless a man pleases he is not heard at all " (or as Gilbert says, " he who would make his fellow-creatures wise should al- ways gild the philosophic pill ") and because he must write well be- cause he takes a pride in his craft, his writings contain many layers of structure. Also, " a man must justify himself to himself in order to keep on good terms with himself (and that applies to nations also) and " at all times he praises Allah who gave him two separate sides to his head." To his early training, too, he owes his understanding of that rarest of gifts, " Truth and God's own common- sense," which is more than knowledge and that " Man must finish off his daily work, right or wrong his daily work and without excuses." (To be continued). Annual Conference THE Annual Conference of the Kipling Society was held in London on the 21st June. At the General Meeting which followed, the Chairman of the Council, Mr. R. E. Harbord, who has held that office for the past two years, was elected Deputy Chairman, and Mr. Basil M. Bazley was appointed Chairman for the current year. The Annual Report and Accounts were adopted and an Amendment of Rule 7 of the Rules of the Society approved. The President, Vice Presidents and Hon. Officers of the Society were unani- mously re-elected to their respective offices. The Chairman described the circumstances relating to the ac- quisition by Mr. C. W. Parish of one of the only three existing copies of the MS. of Recessional, which has been presented to the National Trust, to be deposited at Batemans, Burwash. A message of congratulation upon his appointment as Viceroy of India was sent to Viscount Wavell. Bequests WE venture to remind those of our readers who are unable in these hard times to help us as much as they would wish, that a practical way of assisting us to keep the memory of Rudyard Kipling green and to bring his great ideals before the coming generations of young people is for them to remember the Society in their Wills. We re- cently received a legacy from the Executors of a late and valued member and this proof of a desire that our work should go on beyond the span of the donor's lifetime is a great encouragement to those who' believe that the creed of Kipling is eternal. The following simple form of bequest should be used : " I bequeath to The Kipling Society, 100, Gower Street, London, W.C.l. 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 Exe- cutors." October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 Letter Bag Correspondents are asked to keep letters for publication as short as possible. A JUNGLE TEXT BOOK? IT has come to my attention that the Indian Army is using as a "Jungle Text Book" excerpts from Kipling's works. Could any reader of the Kipling Journal who is in touch with friends in India, inform me whether it is possible to obtain a copy of this book ? If so, I would appre- ciate it. — Irving E. Mansback, (Major-Res.), 832, Paxinosa Avenue, Easton, Pennsylvania. " QUEER SAILING DIRECTIONS I would recommend to Mr. Fox two quotations from Something of My- self, No. 1, page 217, which run :— " In respect to verifying one's re- ferences, which is a matter in which one can help one's Daemon, it is curious how loath a man is to take his own medicine," No. 2, page 218, makes a clean breast of it : " There are always men who by trade or calling, know the fact or inference that you put forth. If you are wrong by a hair in this they argue ' False in one thing, false in all.' Having sinned, I know." Mr. Fox would be justified in enjoying his New Zealand passage in sail without knowing a thing about sails: he would not be justified if in recounting his enjoyment to friends ashore, he posed as having intimate knowledge of the working of a wind- jammer. Doubtless The Ancient Mariner will live as long as The Anchor Song, but Coleridge did not rely on technical terms, true or false, to create an atmosphere. The worst thing about a good story or poem that contains absurdities of fact, is that its merits will cause admirers to think and argue wrong things right, for the sake of its other qualities. Shakespeare may give a sea-coast to Bohemia, but should admiration of his works lead someone, ignorant of geography, to believe that Bohemia has sandy beaches, that in itself is bad. And if Shakespeare knew no better, and relied on others being in similar case, that is worse. Curiously enough, I recently aban- doned half-way the reading of a story —Opium Clipper—because it was pack- ed with ridiculous and irritating work- ings of a sailing-ship. On reproaching the writer by letter he replied almost in the words of Mr. Fox—" I would point out, however, that nowhere, as far as I know, was Opium Clipper claimed to be a text-book of square- rig seamanship "—yet this is just what one third of the book posed as, and reviewers who knew no better, made exactly this claim for him, also his publisher's blurb was of " his intimate knowledge of his subject." The same claim was made for Kipling. To hit errors whenever we see them, as Irishmen did heads at Donny- brook Fair, is one way of justifying our existence. In tales of fantasy, and four dimensions, all things are possible and allowable, but stories of shoes, ships and sealing-wax, should not shock cobblers, sailors, and station- ers respectively, nor should poems of cabbages and kings make market- gardeners and courtiers writhe. Kipling should either have read his proofs to a sailing-ship man, or have avoided technicalities altogether, and Something of Myself shows him to be big enough to admit this— privately, at any rate.—T. E. Elwell, Drew's Court, Churchdown, Gloucest- er. " W. KIPLING." There is a fairly scarce coloured print of our Civil War period, in- scribed " Mower U.S.A. General Hospital, Chestnut Hill, Phila. A. McArthur Arch., J. Queen del., P.S. Luval and Son Lith. Phila. Ent. acc. to Act of Congress in the year 1865 by W. Kipling in the Clerks Office of Dist. Court of the U.S. for the Eastern Dist. of Pa." I have never known of another instance of the name Kipling occurring here. It does not appear in the present telephone directory. I have not looked up city directories of the 18 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 Civil War period in the Hist. Soc. of Pa. as yet however. The name Kipling being certainly anything but common I wonder if this W. Kipling was related to Rudyard Kipling and if any branch of the family ever settled in this country. I have been a member of the Kipling Society for a number of years and take this opportunity of wishing it all prosperity in the years to come following the victory of our cause which I trust is not far off. Sincerely, —Frank S. Stone, 138, West Highland Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "A TREE SONG." The date A.D. 1200 heading A Tree Song should not be obscure to the Rev. Aeneas Macdonald. Surely it alludes to a time when a half- Christianised people were still moved by pagan practices. " Oh ! do not tell the priest our plight, Or he would call it a sin ; But—we have been out in the woods all night A-conjuring Summer in !" Baal-fires, worship of Balder, etc. Hugh the novice is tolerant of Way- land Smith, and in The Conversion of St. Wilfrid, where The Tree Song could well have been placed, Eddi made a cross on a seal's muzzle. Most of the dated songs in Puck and Rewards are of this transition period.—T. E. E. Kiplingiana Press and other comments on Kipling and his work "A GENERAL WHO READS KIPLING." A CORRESPONDENT in Hart- ford, Connecticut, U.S.A., sends the following cutting from the Hartford Courant, which appeared under the heading " A General Who Reads Kipling " : Major General Alexander M. C. Patch,—" Sandy " to West Point class- mates,—is our new commander on Guadalcanal. According to those who know him, he has a temper " like the. devil before dawn." By the same authority he stands six feet and weighs only 150 pounds—" all wildcat." In short, he seems just the kind of fighting man we like to think of as representing us way out there. But what most delighted us is the revelation that General Patch is a devotee of Kipling. He has read everything that the Sage of Burwash ever composed, and be- cause Kipling was undoubtedly the greatest soldier's poet ever to sing since " 'Omer smote 'is bloomin lyre," we know General Patch is bound to lead his command to victory. Like every true lover of Kipling, the general will recite yards of the Bard with or without provocation whether his guests like it or not. That is all to the good. In dealing with his doughboys, we hope he remembers that " Single men in barricks Don't grow into plaster saints'." And in facing the enemy, we can; even at this distance, hear him roaring out : " One watchword through our armies, One motto through our land— No dealing with Diabolus As long as Mansoul stand !" A general who reads Kipling is worth five armored divisions. THE PRICE OF ADMIRALTY. Referring to Dynamite Cargo, a book published in America and written by Fred Herman, the son of 'a New York bookseller, the London Evening Standard writes :— " Herman signed on in a ship that took part in one of the biggest convoys in Britain's naval history— it was bound for the Soviet Union. No fewer than 75 warships formed the escort. He was in a ship that had thousands of tons of munitions as part of its cargo. Time after time it was attacked from the air and from below the sea. In a tribute to the British Navy, Herman quotes Kipling—' If blood be the price of Admiralty, Lord God October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 19 we ha' paid in full." The American comments, .' Lord God they have.' As far as I know, Dynamite Cargo has not been published in this country. It ought to be. THE IMPERIAL SERVICE COLLEGE. Windsor Town Council have de- cided to buy the Imperial Service College buildings for £37,250. Since the College was amalga- mated with Haileybury last year the buildings have been occupied by a Government Department, which will probably remain there until after the war when Windsor's muni- cipal offices, now scattered, will all be transferred there. The buildings include the Kipling Memorial Hall, costing £60,000, opened a year before the war.—Evening News, London. KIPLING'S FAVOURITE. " One reader sent me the words of Kafoozalum, Kipling's favourite comic song, which a rear-admiral told Cochran was still remembered in old villages on the Cornish coast. One verse about this ' Ba-bah of Jerusalem ' runs : He had a daughter sweet and smirk, Complexion fair and dark blue hair, With naught about her like a Turk— Except the name Kafoozalum. According to the comic coloured cover, the song was ' Sung with rapturous applause by Arthur Lloyd.' " —From The Star, London. KIPLING MEMORIAL. " Some people are wondering," writes the Windsor Express, " what the Windsor Council will do to main- tain the association of the Kipling Memorial building which it now possesses with the name of Kipling. It will be surprising if some of the people who contributed to the mem- orial too, do not want to know what is to be done, for these buildings were not merely a school memorial, but a national memorial to one of England's greatest writers. We trust some way will be found—it will not be easy to keep the association. It will be somewhat easier to main- tain the association of the Hall of King Edward's Horse than for this building, which may be used for a variety of purposes. That such a fine memorial should be so quickly lost to the useful purposes for which it was erected is a tragedy and most unsatisfactory. KIPLING AS ADVISER. Rudyard Kipling called Egypt a kitchen garden, and once in Cairo in January told me that he thought the climate rather worse than London. But he found Sinai congenial. So, too, did he obviously find the then Governor, Major C. S. Jarvis, with whom he was staying. One evening he appointed himself his host's literary adviser and went off to bed with the manuscript of Major Jarvis's autobiography. The next morning Kipling told Major Jarvis that he was a fool be- cause he had put all his eggs in one basket and had crowded into a single volume sufficient material for several. The advice was taken. Major Jarvis in more than one book has described with vividness and humour his experiences in Sinai and Egypt's Western Desert. " Half a Life " covers the author's adventurous career as sailor and fighting soldier and sportsman before he became a Middle Easterner.—From the Daily Telegraph. R.K.'s " FRANCE." Three years ago Claudine, a French schoolgirl, came with her mother to Devon as a refugee from France. Claudine attended the church school in a little town. To-day she is still a schoolgirl and is a pupil of a South- West grammar school. Three years ago she did not speak one word of English. Yesterday, before Professor René Cassin, the Fighting French Minister of Education, she recited Rudyard Kipling's France in cultured English so perfect as to make it im- possible to imagine she was anything but English.—Herald Express, Torquay. A COMPLEX MILITARY PRIN- CIPLE. .... Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who has been called many things, but never as far as I know has been des- cribed as an arch-strategist, reduced to the convenient proportions of a • couplet what it has taken these German military gentlemen volumes 20 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1943 to expound in the form of a complex military principle when he said :— Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, But four times he that gets his fist in fust. If there is any difference will your correspondent explain what it is ? Any one of Mr. Kipling's adorable , Tommies would know the answer. —J. Mostyn Williams in a letter to the Western Mail, Cardiff. AMPHIBIOUS. Did not the great Kipling sing of the Marine as ' a kind of giddy harumfrodite—-soldier an' sailor too ?' What are now called ' combined operations ' are nothing new in the history of this amphibious body. Over a century ago they went in for commando raids surprisingly like those we read of today. The Marines will land under Lieuten- ant Meares, and will, with the assis- tance of some small-arm men, occupy a strong position on the hills to cover the other party while they deal with the convoy .... You will be ex- posed to severe musketry fire, and will have to climb the rocks which are precipitous .... You should be back aboard in two hours after the attack starts. That was in 1811. You will hear all about it, and many other historic battles in which the Marines played a great part in the programme.—• From the Radio Times. ADML. STARK AND " THE DYKES." With a Chinese proverb and a quotation from Kipling, Adml. Stark, Commander of the United States Naval Forces in Europe, delivered a stirring .... message to Americans in London .... Adml. Stark's Chinese proverb was: "If you are planning for one year, plant grain; if you are planning for ten years, plant trees; if you are planning for a hundred years, plant men." He added to it some famous lines from The Dykes by Kipling : " These are the dykes our fathers left, but we would not look to the same. Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again we de- layed : Now, it may fall, we have slain our sons, as our fathers we have be- trayed." " The neglected dykes have burst," Adml. Stark went on. " The walls of our world have been breached and have let in the barbarian."— Daily Telegraph. "ANOTHER KIPLING PRO- PHECY." Mr. Victor Bonney writes :—We hear a great deal nowadays about motor-driven guns. I do not know who first brought the idea to our Army Authorities, but apparently the Germans first made practical use of it in this war. As far as I know, no such guns were used in the last war, but in The Captive, written in 1903, Kipling anticipated its adop- tion, for he puts into the mouth of that most delightful inventor, Zigler, the following words : " But I'll build my next Zigler fifteen hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I must think that up." " KIPLING AT HOME" BY DOROTHY PONTON (a former Secretary of Rudyard Kipling), gives an interesting and hitherto unpublished account of R.K. at middle age. Copies may be obtained from Miss Ponton, 11, Churchfield Road, Poole, Dorset. price 8d., post free. October, 1943 THE KIPLING JOURNAL iii TO OUR MEMBERS 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. Application for membership (or donations) should be sent to THE HON. SECRETARY THE KIPLING SOCIETY, 100, GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C.1