CONTENTS PAGE Notes—J. P. Collins -.....-- 1 Kipling and His Critics—Victorian ----- 3 The Bookshelf—Basil M. Bazley - 4 The Brains Trust and Kipling ------ 6 Kipling and the Viceroy ------- 7 R. K. and a Wounded Soldier - - - - - -8 " The Last Chantey "—J.P.Collins - - - - - 10 A Nightmare of Names.......13 Australia and New Zealand Branch Reports - - - 14 Letter Bag ---------- 16 Library Note ---------17 The Annual Conference - - - - - - - 17 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. XL No. 70. July, 1944 Notes PLEASURES OF MEMORY. IT surely gives the Society an extra glow to possess in Lord Wavell a Vice-President of the active, and not the merely passive, order. His new book, " Other Men's Flowers," has had a wonderful press, and deserves a bolder title, except that the modesty implied in the actual one is an essential part of the man. He has given the vogue of the anthology a new lease of life, by raising the standard without im- pairing the form. His enthusiasm for Kipling will endear the volume to all members, as well as his evident passion for poetry; and as our review says, his example should give a new impetus to the lost art of memori- sation. In fact, if he had not kept so many gems intact in the tabernacle of an accurate and retentive memory, I doubt if he could have embroidered his pages with so many shrewd and persuasive opinions of his own. That is why the appeal of the book lies in its double charm of choice citations and appreciative estimates sandwiched together. As a scheme, this realises to the full what Wordsworth called the " happy tone Of meditation slipping in between The beauty coming, and the beauty gone." RIDING AND RATTING. It adds another link with Kipling that our Viceroy Vice-President is a doughty Browningite, avowed and unashamed. Let me hasten to say he has nothing in common with those laborious rhapsodists and annota- tors derided by the late J. K. Stephen in his skit beginning " There's a Me society down in Cambridge." By the way, the collocation of anthologies and Cambridge recalls a long summer day spent there years ago as a guest of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who has just passed away. He told me of the work he put into " The Oxford Book of English Verse " and of the generous help he received from his friend, the late York Powell, whose learning, as he says in the foreword, " proved his friends' good fortune." Powell asked him what he was in- cluding of Browning's, and when he was told, exclaimed, "Ah, I ex- pected that infernal Ride and those d—d Rats." But he was mollified to learn that the Pied Piper had been left out, and his suggestions must have counted, for the ultimate selection was a lavish one, like Lord Wavell's, and Kipling would not have objected, since his fondness for Browning was proverbial. All the same, Lord Wavell has improved on the example, for as against the three poems that " Q " gives us from Kipling, here we get twenty-six, and an admirable all- round choice they make. POETRY AND ACTION. Richelieu said it was better to make history than to write it, and like the man who first said honesty was the best policy, the great French cardinal had tried both. Similarly we may say it is better to be a performer on the lute than a mere professor of poetry and here again " Q " shone in a double capacity. It always struck me, however, that if R. K. had ever been an apostle of English literature installed in a university chair, he would have done exactly what " Q " did when he tired of the formal dais and desk and bundled his audience off to his own rooms. There he let them crowd round his big armchair against a background of well-lined shelves, and help them- selves, if necessary, from his sizable and quaint tobacco-jar. Being an audience of one and old enough to be frank, I asked mine host if he felt he had gained or lost by years of 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 probation in the Liberal camp, and what he had to say to those who thought that, like Birrell, he had given up to politics what was meant for literature and mankind. " Q " laughed aloud with that whimsical mouth of his, and shook his head. As near as I can recall his words, he said he had always thought that with the rare exception of genius, men gained decidedly by the study of contemporary affairs, apart from their duty as citizens, and whatever line of life they pursued. MAKING AMENDS. There was a tussle to be expected when we talked of Kipling, but no bones were broken. As against the suggestion that this Liberal period had delayed his appreciation of Kip- ling and Empire, " Q " threw out the reminder that our poet started with anything but Tory views, and we might depend that this phase had saved him from becoming the rampant Jingo that some of his de- tractors chose- to paint. Then he went on :—" Most of us looked on Kipling at first, you must remember, as an alien prodigy, and of his cruder barrack-room stuff we said things in the same vein with interest. It was when he sailed into the full tide of his stories that we began to take the measure of the man, and then we soon made amends." " Q " went on to admit that the present age was turning out " tosh " that exceeded anything on the part of the tyros of years ago. The worst of it was that some of these trite and untunable youngsters claimed Kipling as their model, which simply added insult to injury. In the main, "Q" considered this modern epidemic of rubbish was neither a novelty nor a thing of permanence. It was a symptom of exuberant energy in an age that was badly unsettled by sensational wars and the inventions of science, a surfeit of pleasures and distractions, and accessibility to print for any ephemeral scribble that had a headline or a " kick." All this, " Q " has far better said, after all, in his " Studies in Literature " and the essay on jargon in " The Art of Writing." I came away thinking how much his genial admonitions gained by the spoken word over the printed book. In this way for years through the medium of literature he has spread wisdom, discretion and taste among the undergraduates of the past quarter of a century. It was in much the same way that Abelard diffused philosophy among the pil- grim-students who lay around him in their litter of straw at the Uni- versity of Paris Centuries ago. POINTS FOR DISCUSSION. Some of the pages of this Journal sure of being most eagerly read are those given up to brief accounts of the Society's proceedings, at branches in Australia and New Zealand. No- body knows save those who have been burdened with the task of fram- ing a sessional programme and carry- ing it through to success, how diffi- cult it is sometimes to find fresh aspects of R. K.'s writings for study and discussion. One common fault is allowing things to lapse into a level of inexcusable insipidity or same- ness, and lose sight of the great "hori- zon of his inspiration to lead us on. For the better pursuit of this en- deavour to keep things going, let me heartily commend Lord Wavell's " Other Men's Flowers " as a quarry of apt ideas. For instance, there is the suggestion that in The Song of Diego Valdez, Kipling has fused or confused the Valdez who captained a squadron in the Armada, with his brother who was captured by Drake and afterwards ransomed. There is the acute remark that Shakespeare knew his Oriental well, when he made Othello the only hero in all his plays who faces death with a full-dress peroration, all the rest are brief and to the point. Finally there are some of the Vice- roy's own principles, where he puts up this supplication—" May the spirit of adventure and self-sacrifice be rekindled and stay with us after the war." Or else this cue of patriotism— " As for a vacant heart, easy life and a quiet death, I -desire none of this. It was the slogan ' Safety First ' that nearly ruined an Empire." May we not say that in a Vice-President like this we have not merely a spring of action but an inspiration ? J. P. Collins July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 Kipling and His Critics By VICTORIAN AS far as I know, I do not think any mention has been made in the Journal of American criti- cism of Kipling's early writings, but in 1890 the following criticism appeared in the New York Herald : " The most forcible impression which is left on the average mind by Mr. Kipling's works is the dismalness, insincerity, brutality and utter worth- lessness of all classes of British hum- anity in India." However, this whole- sale condemnation of the British in India evoked a delightful parody of Longfellow's " Hiawatha " in The Pioneer Mail of November 20, 1890, entitled " American Critics." As I think it will amuse readers of the Journal I am giving it in extenso. We are " insincere " they tell us, " Brutal " are we, " dismal," " worth- less," So our cousins very plainly Shout across the western water From their land where all are candid, Gay, sincere, and very worthy With a worth which knows its value. Lepel Griffin tells the story Of the happy life out yonder, Of the cultured minds of Boston, Of the bacon of Chicago, Of the Chinaman of 'Frisco, Of the negro of New Orleans, Of the Red Man and his whiskey. Of the sanctimonious Mormon, And the innocent revolver, And the mildly playful bowie. Rudyard Kipling, too, has told us As from sea to sea he journeyed Of the happy gracious manners Of the Land of Minnehaha, Of the land of laughing water. Very grave is our demeanour, But we sometimes yield to laughter, When America rebukes us, From the very mouth of Kipling, From the mouth of Rudyard Kipling For the very sins we cherish,— And quite candidly are proud of,— For brutality, moroseness, Insincerity and so on. Then indeed we ache with laughter, And the Himalayas echo, And the Baboo stops to wonder What on earth the sahibs laugh at, What disturbs the dismal white man. How should they know where the joke comes ? They, our very distant cousins, Who are all sincere and happy In a land which owns no loafers, Where no Tommy stains the sunshine, And the women shun flirtation? There it is, as someone tells us, " Humbug has a solid vally," And the politician labours For his countrymen's advantage And is very, very honest. There the negro has his franchise, And John Chinaman is happy, And the Red Man drinks his whiskey, And the Irishman finds refuge From the brutal, dismal Balfour, And the " average observer " Finds the Anglo-Indian hateful. Well, he is not such as we are, And may well misunderstand us, So we freely laugh and freely Bless the Transatlantic critic Who provokes our sudden laughter As we think of Rudyard Kipling And his quiet smile of pleasure As he reads that we are " brutal," " Dismal," " insincere " and " worth- less." Twelve years later in 1902, when all and sundry were furious at the appearance of The Islanders, even Sir Henry Newbolt felt constrained to lecture Kipling for his declension in a poem entitled An Essay on Criti- cism, but he did it very gently and sorrowfully. I shall only quote the last two stanzas of his mild reproof. O Rudyard, Rudyard, in our hours of ease (Before the war) You were not hard to please : You loved a regiment whether fore or aft, You loved a subaltern, however daft, You loved the very dregs of barrack life, The amorous colonel and the sergeant's wife. You sang the land where dawn across •the Bay Comes up to waken queens in Manda- lay, The land where comrades sleep by Cabul ford, And Valour, brown or white, is 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 Borderlord, The secret jungle life of child and beast, And all the magic of the dreaming East. These, these we loved with you, and loved still more, The Seven Seas that break on Britain's shore, The winds that know its labour and its pride, And the Long Trail whereon our fathers died. In that Day's Work be sure you gained, my friend, If not the critic's name, at least his end; Your song and story might have roused a slave To see life bodily and see it brave. With voice so genial and so long of reach To your Own People you the Law could preach, And even now and then without offence To Lesser Breeds expose their lack of sense. Return, return ! and let us hear again The ringing engines and the deep- sea rain, The roaring chanty of the shore wind's verse, Too bluff to bicker and too strong to curse. Let us again with hearts serene behold The coastwise beacons that we knew of old; So shall you guide us when the stars are veiled, And stand among the Lights that never Failed. Thus we see Kipling castigated in the one case with a bludgeon and in the other with a switch. Perhaps our members may agree with Newbolt when he says :— " 'Tis hard to say if greater waste of time Is seen in writing or in reading rhyme." The Bookshelf by BASIL M. BAZLEY THE DAYS WE KNEW. By J. B. Booth. T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. Nov. 1943. 21s. THOSE of us who are old enough, and whose memories are good enough, to recall the general scene in the theatrical and sporting world of the later part of the last century will be enthralled by this book of reminiscences. Among the many who appear in this cavalcade are Arthur Roberts, Marie Lloyd, R. S. Sievier, Henry Irving, Dan Leno and H. H. Dixon (" The Druid.") Like many of us, Mr. Booth regrets the mechanisation of our present times, in spite of the obvious facilities which we now enjoy; as he says, " the coming of the motor-bus, and the motor traffic which eliminated the horse from the London streets, deprived those streets of a peculiar humanity which had its humorous and intimate side." Even more does he sorrow over the elimination of the music-hall; it was not a perfect institution, but it did portray the life of the people and allowed the emergence of personality, a feature that is sadly lacking in our life to-day : " The old music-hall, as an institution, is dead. The bards have hung up their lyres; and the singers, such as are left of them, have transferred their activities to the revue stage or to the films .... to-day there are no new choruses, so the camp sing- song falls back on ' The Lily of Laguna' and tried old favourites of the present- day warriors' fathers." All this brings us to Kipling's views on the change; no less than eleven pages are devoted to him and to the reproduction of some fifteen of his letters (one in facsimile) which have not, to my knowledge, seen the light before their appearance here :— " There was one man who saw, and realised to the full, the influence of the music-hall, and of the stage, and their appeal to the national in- stincts—Rudyard Kipling, and in Something of Myself he reveals the part that influence played in setting the scheme for Barrack-room Ballads. It was in Gatti's Music Hall, during July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 his sojourn in Villiers Street, ' in the company of an elderly but up- right barmaid from a pub nearby, that I listened to the observed and compelling songs of the Lion and Mammoth Comiques.' And he goes on, ' the smoke, the roar, the good fellowship of relaxed humanity, " set " the scheme for a certain sort of song.' The correspondence began in this way, says Mr. Booth, a correspondence that lasted over ten years :—" It was in 1925 that he first took up the theme. I had sent him a copy of a book of mine, Old Pink 'Un Days, in which I had tried to preserve mem- ories which were fading all too quickly of those songs of the people, and in many a subsequent letter he revealed his interest in the subject, and his lasting admiration for Nellie Farren, which is for all to read in The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat. By permission of his daughter I am en- abled to quote from some of those letters." Then follow the extracts referred to. I can cordially recommend all readers to get this book and read them, for there is much in them that reveals Kipling as a close student of humanity; also, there is much genuine humour—the power of being amused by little ordinary things and of amusing others by describing them. Kipling seems to agree with Mr. Booth in regretting those old days, as these few words from one letter will show :—" I sometimes wonder if the motor takes people to as much sheer fun as the old hansom cab did. But the Pavilion of to-day would have been something of a revelation to that lost world." The Kipling letters lie in two groups in this book. I shall end with the lines that precede the second batch : —" An intense admirer of ' The Druid ' of a different type was Rud- yard Kipling. Has there, I wonder, been a great writer with a wider range of interest and knowledge than Kip- ling? For no reason whatever he was extraordinarily kind to me and to my efforts, so, as some slight attempt at a return, whenever I came across anything that I thought might in- terest him I would send it to him." Certainly a book for all lovers of Kipling's work to have and to hold. "AMERICA AND BRITAIN." At last people are beginning to discern the real meaning of Kipling's teachings and better known phrases. From an exceedingly clever and appo- site little book (" America and Britain," by Maurice Colbourne), we cull the following comment on the Kip- ling idea of the British Empire :— " Gone are the Britons who got drunk on Kipling. Even Colonel Blimp, though suffering so badly from history's time-lag and a Kipling hangover that he still confuses the Third (British) Empire with the Second, now knows that Kipling's keynote was not boastfulness about ' dominion over palm and pine,' but a plea to the Lord of Hosts to be with us yet—' lest we forget, lest we forget.' Ever since he began writing Kipling has warned against the power doctrine and told us that Empire, though gratifying in the best sense to our pride, has many and various responsibilities; that he may have been deliberately misinterpreted by the ' new-clever ' and the old high-brows does not impair the truth of his message. No other writer has had his meanings so distorted and his words so purposely mis- understood as Kipling; we must be thankful that understanding has come at last. 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, London Road, Harrow-on-the-Hill. In the case of cuttings from overseas publications, senders are asked to obtain formal permission to reprint from the Editors of the journals concerned, for which due acknowledgment will be made in " The Kipling Journal." 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 The Brains Trust and Kipling NAMES FOR THE BRITISH MUSEUM'S TWENTIETH TABLET AT a recent session of the B.B.C. Brains Trust, the following in- teresting discussion took place, in reply to the question : " What names, since Browning, would the Brains Trust place on the twentieth tablet in the British Museum Reading Room ?" Donald McCullough (Question Master) : The next question comes from the Rev. Edgar Jackson at Harrow. " In the British Museum reading room there are twenty tablets. Nineteen bear the names of the great ones of English literature, from Chaucer to Browning. What names, since Browning, would the Brains Trust place on the twentieth tablet ?" This is no doubt a very practical question, which we may be quoted on, if we can make some suggestions. And the last one was Browning. I think I can guess who— Ian Hay : Kipling. Dr. Joad : It's not quite clear, is it, whether they've got to be dead or not. Q.M : I don't think it matters. Joad: Oh it doesn't. Well, I'll say Shaw, who I think is the greatest English writer since Shakespeare, and noting that he's now 88, the question whether he's got to be dead or not doesn't matter very much. The great thing about Shaw-—he's probably the only great man that I know who wouldn't mind one saying that about him. Q.M : Well, if he's listening, per- haps he'll let us know how he feels. Then the first suggestion is George Bernard Shaw. Ian Hay: Well, I repeat again Rud- yard Kipling. I still think he's the greatest thing we've produced in the last century. Q.M : .... Lord Samuel ? Lord Samuel : There've been only nineteen from Chaucer to the pre- sent day; I rather doubt whether there's been anyone since Brown- ing who is quite fitted to fill the twentieth tablet, and it would be advisable, I think, to keep it in reserve. If it were necessary to make some suggestion, I certainly think that probably Shaw is more likely for immortality than any- one else in recent years—certainly more so than Kipling. Q.M : Shall we have one name from each person ? Miss Thomp- son, would you care to give one name ? Miss Sylvia Thompson : Well, having considered Noel Coward, I think perhaps, not Noel Coward, but I know I rather agree with Ian Hay—I think Kipling—I don't sup- pose I like the same things in Kip- ling if we should discuss it right the way through, but I think he's got an extraordinary variety that he isn't given credit for, because a great many people say he's an Imperialist or jingo-writer, and don't read him, or only read that aspect of him. Ian Hay : Quite true. Q.M : King-Hall ? Commander King-Hall: Well, I must say I favour the compromise of— perhaps a rather typical liberal compromise, if I may say so, of my friend Lord Samuel. As I understand the question, there are only twenty tablets. We're now going to fill up the last tablet for all time, and I'd give two or three hundred years breathing space be- fore we fill that last tablet up; but I think Shaw would be on the waiting list. Q.M : Well, there's the question of two hundred years. I'm afraid we can't just fit it in this session; we'll leave it to some future Brains Trust. The suggestions have been Shaw, Kipling and—waiting for a little time. That of course is— present company excepted. July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 Kipling and the Viceroy OTHER Men's Flowers." Compiled by A. P. (Field- Marshal Viscount) Wavell. (Cape, 10s. 6d.) If according to the great Victorian orator, John Bright, a man's books reveal his character, there is surely a deeper revelation in this individual choice from the reading of years. To find an emi- nent man of action, deservedly set high in power, thus openly avowing his love for the best in many kinds of poetry, is to be confronted with imagination and the great harmonies of mind. Lord Wavell showed these qualities in his famous lectures on war, and again in his chivalrous apologia for a kindred spirit and comrade, the late Lord Allenby, to say nothing of his recent speeches of farewell to the Army and of greet- ing to India. But all this cloud of witness is enhanced and eclipsed when we find the new Viceroy, vir- tually in the pipe and slippers vein, reeling off a bookful of his favourite poems from memory. It adds to privilege the sense of being lifted to a level of intimacy and exhilaration— the more so, perhaps, from the fact that this book was not intended for publication, and we may never get its like, perhaps, from a still busier man with the like qualifications. Listen to this from the foreword :— "The Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, has stored in his prodigious memory much poetry which he de- claims on apt occasion; I have had the pleasure of hearing some of the verses of this anthology repeated by him—with characteristic gusto. Lord Allenby was another under whom I served, with a great store of poetry in his head, and the ability to give it forth in season." BACK TO THE SAME GEM. The point of memory here is im- portant, if not vital. Lord Wavell believes " one can never properly appreciate a poem until one has got it by heart." We cannot wonder at poetry-lovers without this en- viable gift, consoling themselves some- times with the satisfaction of coming with some measure of freshness back to the same gem again and again, Nevertheless both possession and dis- closure are striking in the case of a man of action who has reached a position of such power and respon- sibility. The long gallery of India's Viceroys is starred with men of wide and humane intellectuality—Dufferin and Curzon occur to mind among the moderns. But we have to go back to Macaulay—member of India's Supreme Council a century ago, and codifier of her laws—for a parallel in respect of versatility and unrelaxing memory, to say nothing of the kin- ship of literature in general and verse in particular. Admiring, as we must, Lord Wavell's harvest of enthusiastic reading, we cannot help congratulating him and ourselves at well. MEMORY PALES. In the inviting foreword already quoted, Lord Wavell admits that war has impaired his turn for memori- sation, but who can be surprised ? At least he has raised what used to be called the " commonplace-book " to the level of a contemporary classic that bids fair to last. Dust and oblivion threaten Southey's " The Doctor," that corner-cupboard of scraps and oddities, and Tooke's " Diversions of Purley," which may be called the frolics of a brainy rebel. But we can see this " posie " of " Other Men's Flowers " taking a permanent place among popular gift- books, and bringing the practice of memory back from the folly of neglect by pure force of example. Talking of versatility and intellectual sympathies, Mr. Gladstone once con- jured up a vision of this nation of ours being crowded off its island into the surrounding " moat " by sheer accumulation of bookstuff— a calamity happily postponed by our salvage crusade and the pulping mill. Stay, was there not a chance of the danger recurring a few years ago by an excess crop of anthologies ? Possibly the vogue has been slackened by the conviction once expressed to the present reviewer by a great authority in the book trade—that an anthology nowadays to be success- 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 ful ought to have a personality behind it. Now, this is exactly what Lord Wavell supplies. For we get not only nearly three hundred poems and extracts, and each hall-marked by catholicity of taste, plus the stamp of personal endorsement, but we also get a number annotated with refreshing candour. True, the viands cannot be seasoned, but the setting is, and the pastry is often the best of the pie. PERSONAL ELEMENTS. It is here that the present epicure indulges in a groan—not from re- pletion, but from lack of space in the way of paper. For it would take a page or two to comment on these commentaries, they are so brim- ful of interest and the personal ele- ment. They tell us why Lord Wavell never took to Greek as he did to Latin, and why King Saul remains a hero in his opinion more than David. This says something, truly, for Brown- ing as an apologist, but plenty of readers will agree to differ. It leads us to the more important fact that the Viceroy prefers Browning and Kipling to Tennyson or Wordsworth. Here is Lord Wavell's verdict :— " Browning and Kipling are the two poets whose work has stayed most in my memory, since I read them in impressionable youth. I have never regretted my choice. They have courage and humanity, and their feet are usually on the ground." GENEROUS ALLOWANCE. Twenty-six of Kipling's poems and twenty-one of Browning's are a gener- ous allowance. The former include McAndrew's Hymn, the 'Mary Gloster,' Diego Valdez, If, Tramp Royal, The Long Trail, The Feet of the Young Men, The Last Chantey, True Thomas, The Banjo, Tomlinson, Gehazi, My Boy Jack and several short pieces from the volume Songs from Books. If we miss several of our old favourites, Lord Wavell recalls several pieces we had probably forgotten, so we are still his debtors. And we are left wondering if the following passage from Flecker's Hassan was not in- cluded in the foreword—as an after- thought, perhaps—when the fate of India was gravely in the balance a year ago :— " Caliph : Ah, if there shall ever arise a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets have forgotten the people, though they send their ships round Taprobane and their armies across the hills of Hindustan, though their city be greater than Babylon of old, though they mine a league into earth or mount to the stars on wings—what of them ? Haman : They will be a dark patch upon the world." THE UNKNOWN. Fortunately anything like a sinister note is rare in the book. It was said of Coleridge that the unknown was dearer to him than the known, but as a rule, the man of action has done with hypothesis the moment his plans are complete. On the whole, it may be doubted if Lord Wavell has ever done anything more thorough than this garland of happy blossoms culled in his youth. Doubt- less this is why an indefeasible spirit of youth and Kipling pervades it from beginning to end. R.K. and A Wounded Soldier FROM a member, the late Mr. E. H. Crussell, of Sacramento, California, whose recent death is recorded elsewhere in this issue, we received a facsimile of a letter written by Rudyard Kipling for a wounded soldier during the South African war. As the reproduction on the opposite page shows, the letter was written in a hospital train on the way to Cape Town and is dated February 24th, 1900. The photo- graph of the soldier with the com- ment below, as shown, appeared with the letter in an issue of the Strand magazine of that time and the duplicate illustration was sent to the Kipling Society in London for the Library. It is reproduced here by permission, July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 " The Last Chantey " ONE GREAT ARTIST'S TRIBUTE TO THE GENIUS OF ANOTHER By J. P. COLLINS [THE LAST CHANTEY by R Kipling, illustrated by Laurence Hous- man, Pall Mall Magazine, 1893. The original Pen and Ink Drawings mounted and bound together with the original published Pall Mall version, in green buckram, with green leather lettering labels on front cover and spine, have been acquired by the Kipling Society for the Library.] IT has been given to few authors, poets especially, to supply a fit accompaniment of drawings to their own written work—or anyone else's—and with instances like those of Blake and Dante Rossetti, the list among the chief of them is soon exhausted. There have been authors like Thackeray, Chesterton and Wells, whose ability in draughtsmanship never did justice to their writings, for the reason that their gifts in the way of prose left their graphic powers far behind. In effect, the culti- vation of one faculty reduced the other by comparison to a mere re- creative hobby, or at best a rough indication of the line their later illustra- tors should pursue. A FAMILY OF ARTISTS. Rudyard Kipling came of a family and a group of artists who all won their share of fame. Two of his mother's sisters married Royal Academi- cians—Sir Edward Poynter and Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Nor is there much doubt that these painters helped his father to obtain the art appoint- ment which took him out to Lahore and Bombay for many years, and linked his son's gifts and memories with India for ever. Kipling senior, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of all forms and ages of art, had con- spicuous powers as a modeller and sculptor of genuine charm and origin- ality. His favourite mode of illustra- tion, for his own writings and those of his wife and family, was to develop each conception in low relief and then commit it to a photograph for reproduction. His son, Rudyard, while respecting and admiring this round- about method, preferred plain pen- and-ink drawing, and it was in this vein that his own books found some of their most successful illustrations. It was not until Rudyard Kipling came to England in the 'eighties —via Mark Twain and the United States—that his rapid vogue in the magazine world created a new editorial problem. This was how to find black-and-white artists equal to render- ing graphic interpretation worthy of those strange visions that he put into prose or verse, and more especially the haunting, adventurous ballad- hymns, for which he found so much of his inspiration and descriptive eloquence in the Authorised Version of the Bible. In those intimate chap- ters of autobiography called Some- thing of Myself he has told us that as a child in uncongenial surround- ings at Southsea, he was often given passages of Holy Writ to be learned by heart for punishment, and this dismal task-work familiarised his boy- ish mind with the sacred text to such an extent as to colour his poetic phraseology and imagery for life. Indeed, no-one can range through the extraordinary wealth of his poems without perceiving that on solemn themes and occasions the Bible in its vividness and grandeur has supplied him not only with standards of style but substance and incentive as well, from that stinging satire, The Story of Uriah, to his resonant epic of Calvinism, McAndrew's Hymn. EARLY LYRICS. Halfway between early lyrics like Departmental Ditties and the Eight Ballads which may well be ranked with the Nine Symphonies of Beethoven, there came the best of those forty or fifty poems which he devoted to the sea. It was almost his native element, born as he was at the port of Bombay; it was certainly his first love among the elements, and the magic carpet that bore him to and from the only school he ever knew, on the edge of the sandy shores of July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 ONE OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS from the bound volume of " The Last Chantey " with the original drawings by Laurence Housman, which has been acquired by the Kipling Society for the Library. northern Devon at Westward Ho. It was the sea again, that brought him back around the globe to London and fame, and was to waft him off for many a voyage of imagination and adventure, leisure and ease— journeys more real than those of his fictive three-deckers bound on the way to " the Islands of the Blest." No wonder the sea swept through his mind when in times of inspiration he turned to the stories of Job and Jonah, the terrible admonitions of Isaiah, and the breathless experiences of that hardy mariner and pioneer, St. Paul, to obtain fresh material for brain and pen. When Pope said of verse-making that "the sound should seem an echo to the sense," he might have included the angle of sight and observation as well. Who at any rate can question it was the league-long rollers across the Pacific or Atlantic that moved our poet to such superb manipulation of the longer metres in The Song of Diego Valdez or The Ballad of the Bolivar ? Short measures came in naturally for rapid and dramatic narratives in verse, and brief sen- tences for animated dialogue or swift consecutive emotional prose; but when it came to spiriting the reader away on wings of fancy across half the world, there was no medium so ample or irresistible as the anapaest and the hexameter. He wrote The First Chantey almost as an experiment, it would seem; but for The Last Chantey, four years away, he went to the " Book of Revelations," and the vistas of eternity did the rest. This poem was written at the outset of the 'nineties, before the heyday of the English magazines had begun to fade and dwindle under the onset of the cheap reprint in attractive cloth. The first Lord Astor had given a couple of enterprising English friends carte blanche to start a first-class monthly, and in a single number " The Pall Mall Magazine " had made its name. In that opening issue the chief literary feature had been Swinburne's monody on Sir Philip Sidney entitled " Astrophel," and the welcome it received stirred the editors to secure for the second number something comparable from Rudyard Kipling, then the most talked-about young man in London. He let them have the serial rights, as they were called, of The Dipsea Chantey, but as the sea or mariner element in it had been merely second- ary to the supernatural, with a per- 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 spective reaching away to Judgment Day, he allowed the editors to re- christen it The Last Chantey. They commissioned another rising celebrity, Laurence Housman, to furnish the illustrations, and he justified their choice by handing in a set of draw- ings which made a sensation, for they were not only rich in human interest and symbolistic quality, but decorated his four allotted pages with a strong allegorical framework for the text of the poem. Stage by stage, the figures of mariners and angels are woven into a fascinating group or frieze where everything is designed to satisfy the mind's eye of the beholder with inner mean- ing as well as to vindicate the ways of God to men. THE SHIPWRECKED APOSTLE, Taking its cue from the Apocalypse of St. John, with a literal acceptation of the text " And there was no more sea," the poem conjures up picture after picture of what this dread con- tingency would mean, alike to fisher- men and pirates, to Greenland sealers from Gothavn, or to the Elizabethan gentlemen - adventurers. Finally it turns to the shipwrecked apostle of the gentiles and the doomed betrayer of the Redeemer—that unhappy Judas whom the legendary lore of the sea consigned centuries ago to the sorriest of expiations—unending misery and drifting in the Arctic regions. All these hordes of sea-farers in their turn raise their clamour against the threatened extermination of the sea they have learned to love as the only home and foster-mother they know. And so we arrive at a happy ending in accordance with the facts, for the Creator in His mercy withholds His hand. No poem of Kipling's more subtly or daringly condenses into perfect form the threefold theme he found so often in the Bible, the sea, and the sailor's life. SEA-LORE. Nor is the technique and wording of the poem in any way inferior to the majesty of the theme or the pomp and amplitude of the resounding verse. It enlists the service of some of the oldest and choicest fragments of sea-lore to be found in many tongues. " Picaroon," usually meaning pirate, is used to denote a pirate-ship or vessel engaged in the evil trade of bartering human life and liberty. " Frapped " is the time-honoured method of saving a tired and damaged ship from breaking in half, by the process of binding strong cable round and round the hull. This process, by the way, is described to the life in the fine old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens (a great favourite with Kipling, by the way) and in the terrible storm recounted in the twenty-seventh chap- ter of the " Acts of the Apostles." As for the consonantal form " frapped " instead of " wrapped," it is merely the Scandinavian equivalent, and this interchange of " f " for " w " occurs in many old east-coast names and sailor terms. " Silly," of course, is an old synonym for " innocent " or " simple;" and "jolly " is probably an enclitic particle or space-unit to lighten the strain of a line. Again, the verses reveal the poet's rich stores of knowledge in history, natural or otherwise—as well as the use of the globes. The "barracout" is a ten- foot fish of voracious habit infesting the Indian ocean; and the " fulmar " is the North Atlantic petrel, alias the " molly-hawk." This bird pur- sues whalers and sealers for the sake of the refuse thrown away at skinning or " flinching " time, the last being the period when whales are dismem- bered for the blubber harvest. Finally, the " windless, glassy floor " is an- other vivid picture derived from " Revelations," and in this way the Bible remains to the end of the poem the grand enchiridion of poet and apostle and mariner alike. Since making these wonderful draw- ings, Mr. Housman has done many things and grown famous in other ways—-as a humanist enlisted in one progressive cause or another, as author of a " best seller " of years ago, namely, " An Englishwoman's Love-Letters," as a biographer, romancer, folklorist, and poet. After producing many books of note in the exuberance of his versatility, Mr. Housman lit in his maturity upon those " Little Flowers of St. Francis " which he turned into play-vignettes that have made him a reputation around the world, and have helped to make the " Spouse of Poverty " more widely July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 beloved than ever. Then came those other single-act plays on episodes in Victorian history which have given us new conceptions of the great and matriarchal Empress, and sought to do justice to her brilliant court of statesmen and divines, inventors and lawgivers, poets and philanthropists, many of whom have made their permanent mark on modern history. All this, in his own appealing fashion, Mr. Housman has invested with a freshness and lightness and humour that have caught the fancy and approval of the English-speaking world. But it may fairly be questioned if he has ever shown his talent and discern- ment in more poetic guise than in embroidering this lofty allegory of the sea so truly characteristic of the master-pen of Rudyard Kipling. (Publication rights reserved.) A Nightmare of Names AN IDEA OF THE JOURNALISTS TRIALS '' AS people grouse at the names of places in Burma," writes a member, " I thought the enclosed verses, A Nightmare of Names, which appeared in the Civil and Mili- tary Gazette at the time of the Burmese war in the 'eighties, (when we took over the country during the Vice- royalty of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava), might interest readers of the Kipling Journal. They give an idea of the journalist's trials when the fighting in a practically unknown country had to be written up." The lines are as follows : It was a wearied journalist who sought his little bed, With twenty Burma telegrams all waiting to be read. Then the Nightmare and her nine- fold rose up his dreams to haunt, And from those Burma telegrams they wove this dismal chaunt :— " Bethink thee, man of ink and shears," so howled the fiendish crew, " That each dacoit has one long name, and every hamlet two. Moreover, all our outposts bear peculiar names and strange : There are one hundred outposts and, once every month, they change. If Poungdoungzoon and Pyalhatzee today contain the foe, Be sure they pass tomorrow to Gwebin or Shwaymyo But Baung-maung-hman remember, is a trusted Thoongye Woon, The deadly foe of Maung-dhang- hlat, Myoke of Moung-kze-hloon. Poungthung and Waustung-chung are not at present overthrown, For they are near the Poon beyond the Hlinedathalone ; While Nannay-kone in Ningyan is near Mecakaushay, But Shway-zet-dau is on the Ma, and quite the other way. Here are some simple titles which t'were best to get in writing, In view of further telegrams de- tailing further fighting :— Malé, Myola, Toungbyoung, Talakso, Yebouk, Myo, Nattik, Hpan-loot-kin, Madeah, Padeng, Narogan, Mo. Pakhang, Samaitkyon, Banzé, Mine- tseil, Minethe-Kulay, Manngtsankin, Toungbain, Bompan, Aeng, Naung, Bana, Kan-Sau-mya, Kteepauts, Salung, Enlay, Yindan, Nwa-koo, Mahan-gyee-kin, Kek-kai, Nat-lone, Salay, Toung- lone, Yihon, and lastly Tsin." It was a wearied journalist—he left his little bed, And faced the Burma telegrams, all waiting to be read; But ere he took his map-book up, he prayed a little prayer :— ; Oh stop them fighting Lord knows who, in jungles Deuce knows where !" 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 Australia and New Zealand REPORTS FROM MELBOURNE AND AUCKLAND WAR conditions have necessarily brought about certain delays in communication with the Branches of our Society overseas, but we are very glad to have news from Melbourne and Auckland, which comes to us in the following reports. The note from Melbourne covers the Branch's 1944 Annual Meeting, and that from Auckland relates to activities reported early in 1943. In spite of the delay in publication of these details in the Journal, we know our members everywhere will be interested to see how well these two Branches are maintaining their work for the Society in difficult times, and will wish us to convey their greetings to all concerned. MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. Mrs. Grace Broughton, Hon. Secre- tary of the Melbourne Branch, writes : " At our last Annual Meeting in February, 1943, it was decided that the Branch would still carry on, in spite of the increasing war duties of so many of its members; and as the black-out rules had been relaxed it was agreed that we would go back to meetings in the evening instead of the afternoon. This decision brought a great improvement in our attendances and we have had five good gatherings through the year. Our Annual meeting was quite the most successful we have yet had, with visitors from the other literary societies and many friends and mem- bers. Our guest speaker was Mr. Norman McCance, a well-known Mel- bourne journalist, who gave an ex- cellent talk on Kipling in Melbourne, and recreated for us the Melbourne of the 'eighties. Mr. Croll sup- ported him in some of his statements and comments were also made by Mr. McMicken of the Dickens Fellowship, these gentlemen being special visitors that night. In April the book " Actions and Re-actions " was discussed and interesting papers on six of the stories were given by members. In June Mrs. Brown favour- ed us with a fine talk on Kipling as Painter in Words which raised much discussion and argument. In Sept- ember, Mr. Morton inspired us all with his paper on Kipling the Im- perialist, about which there was no argument, only complete agreement. And we finished the year in November with a lively night, when all present, visitors included, had to tell which was their favourite story or verse and why, and a great diversity of ideas resulted. Last year the Library was once again taken over by Mrs. Brown, our original Librarian, and she is making arrangements to have our Kipling books more suitably stored where members can have easy access to them. Members are very grateful to Miss Strom for deputising for Mrs. Brown in her absence. The Social side of our meetings in Miss Tuxen's absence through illness has been taken charge of by Mrs. Morton and we are all very glad of her help in this direction. As reported at our last Annual Meeting our little ship H.M.S. Kip- ling was lost, so not having it to work for, it was decided in September that we support Mrs. Graham's scheme of " Gifts for Moresby " and so help our own men in New Guinea. Mrs. Graham, having been there in charge of a Mobile Canteen, was able to tell us at first hand of the needs of the men in the way of literature, gramophone records, etc. As our Bank Balance was in a favourable condition, the sum of £4 4s. 0d. was voted for this scheme and handed to Mrs. Graham. Through the year we have gained two new members and lost none, though since June we have greatly missed Dr. Mackeddie and Miss Tuxen, who have both had long terms in hospital. However, we hope to have them back with us this year, and both as keen as ever. In conclusion, the Committee would like to thank all those members who have so loyally stood by through a difficult year and helped to make our little Society the success it is, while very special gratitude is due to our President, Dr. Boyd-Graham, who, in spite of increased war duties and July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 heavy work in his own profession, has never failed as our leader in all discussions. Also his excellent sum- maries at the end of each meeting are eagerly looked for by every mem- ber attending. The Sixth Annual Meeting of the Melbourne Branch was held on February 24th, when there was a very large attendance of members and friends, including members of the Dickens Fellowship and the Shakes- peare Society. The President, Lieut- enant-Colonel Boyd-Graham was in the chair, and after the singing of the National Anthem, he referred to the splendid work of our soldiers and airmen in keeping Australia free • from invasion, and asked all present to join in singing two verses of Kipling's Recessional, " Lest we forget." Our guest speaker for the even- ing was again Mr. Norman McCance of the Melbourne Herald. His sub- ject was " Kipling, Master of Words " and he took for his text the story Proofs of Holy Writ. Mr. McCance quoted various verses showing that it was the right word at the right moment always with Kipling, and specially referred to the wonderful descriptions of the sea in the poem The Sea and the Hills, many lines of which were quoted. His talk was inspiring in every way, and went right to the hearts of the Kipling lovers present. Altogether it was a very encourag- ing Annual Meeting and one that gave hope to the Committee for a successful year in 1944, while, best of all, four new members were en- rolled that night. AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. From Mrs. Edith M. Buchanan, Hon. Secretary of the Auckland Branch, comes the following note, dated February 24th, 1943 : The swift descent of Japan through the China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, almost to the shores of Australia, darkened somewhat the outlook of this Branch of the Kipling Society at the beginning of the Season 1942. Conditions of Emergency Pre- cautions Service of Home Guard and of black-out were discussed and arrangements were made for the meetings to be held in day time, at least four times in the Season at the house of the Honorary Secretary. After two of these meetings had been held, members expressed a desire to hold the usual monthly meetings at night, as before, and at the house of Dr. Hilda Northcroft, which is centrally situated. Seven meetings were held : the average attendance was eighteen out of the full number of forty members. Mr. T. S. Eliot's critical appre- ciation of Kipling's work created much interest. At our first meeting, in April, Mr. Faigan, Chairman, read extracts from it, with critical comments. Later in the Season, Miss Hull read a very amusing address entitled, " Kipling and his Critics." All the meetings were much en- joyed. Of great interest was Mr. Faigan's address on " Rudyard Kip- . ling's re-actions to America and Americans." The subject matter of the address was taken from the Journals of the Kipling Society, and Some- thing of Myself. This " Research " revealed an America very different from that of the present day, and incidentally, Rudyard Kipling's develop- ment as an Englishman. Mr. Brandon took " Soldier Stories" as the subject of his address. The next evening was spent in reading aloud by members, in turn, " The Army of a dream." This prophetic account of a peoples' war gave rise to much discussion. The last evening was spent by members in reading their favourite poem from Kipling's works. The choice corresponded closely to Mr. T. S. Eliot's selection. The loss of H.M.S. Kipling was a great blow to the Kipling Society. This Branch felt great pride in her achievements, and desires to express sympathy with the relatives of those who were lost in action." 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL July, 1944 Letter Bag Correspondents are asked to keep letters for publication as short as possible. KIPLING AND RUSSIA. THE enclosed clipping from the New York Times may not have come to your notice. I was not aware of the wide popu- larity of Kipling's writings in Russia though from my own experience knew how highly they were esteemed in Switzerland and France. Russia gives many surprises.—F. F. Baldwin, Clayton, Georgia, U.S.A. (Enclosure). KIPLING NOT UNKNOWN TO RUSSIA To the Editor of " The New York Times " : May I correct an erroneous im- pression which Topics of The Times of Feb. 4 probably left on many readers ? Your columnist states, in speaking of Russia, that " Kipling • is not a widely translated author," that his " having the reputation of being an Imperialist would not com- mend him to people in Moscow." Facts, however, do not bear out the above assertions. Until I left Russia in 1943 I taught English in the Moscow Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages. The reading and study of Kipling's prose and poetry were part of the required class and outside reading of all the Russian students. Aside from that, the students were more than familiar with Kipling's works before coming to the Institute. Kipling is not only a widely trans- lated author in Russia but I venture to say (on the basis of many years' residence and extensive travel in that country), one of the most popular. I have had many Russian teachers tell me that Kipling's hymn " Reces- sional " was considered by Russians one of the finest poems in the English language.—Rowena Meyer. New York, Feb. 4, 1944. FORSTER'S NOTE BOOK. Thank you very much for publish- ing my query regarding the above, which one might say was a forerunner of the present Journal, and I was very interested to read Captain Martin- dell's comments on same. I have referred again to Captain Martindell's Bibliography and the reason I missed the reference before is because this item does not appear in the Index to that most excellent work. The late Mr. Ellis Ames Ballard was not correct in referring to this Note Book as "a twenty-two page booklet." The last-but-one page is certainly numbered 21 but actually, as I men- tioned in my previous letter, the booklet contains only twenty pages bound in rough, purple strong paper covers. In the numbering of the pages the front cover was apparently incorrectly included. Trusting this additional information will be of interest.—Tom P. Jones, Rio Seco, Punta Arenas, Chile. H.M.S. "KIPLING." !t may interest your readers to know that I showed the excellent photograph of H.M.S. Kipling in the Journal to a friend who was serv- ing in the ship when the photograph was taken. He assured me that she was not "in action against enemy aircraft" but was, with other destroyers, in the act of charging through a smoke screen to attack the Italian Battle Fleet the other side of it. They emerged within a few hundred yards of the fleet, discharged their torpedoes with great success and withdrew through the smoke screen.—London Member. KIPLING ORIGINS. Your correspondent Mr. McAdam, of Toronto, who supplies answers to three of the four questions originally raised in the Kipling Journal of April, 1943, as to the origins of the four lines by R. K. beginning ' Ah ! what avails the classic bent . . . .' still seeks information about the fourth line ' To the roar of Earth on fire.' The answer is La Nuit Blanche. (Departmental Ditties.) — J. H. C. Brooking, 346, Nell Gwynn House, Sloane Avenue, Chelsea, S.W.3. (Colonel G. A. McL. Sceales, Exeter, writes to the same effect. Ed.) July, 1944 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 THE MYSTERY POEM. May I draw your attention to a printer's error in the version on page 11 of the Kipling verses, of which a photostat copy appeared on page 9 of this month's Kipling Journal ? This copy shows that the lines, as written by Kipling, ended with the words :— " And he certifies here that he drank the beer "And always stuck to the truth." But the printed version gives " certi- fied" for " certifies," and I fear that, if attention is not called to this slip, the mistake may be reproduced as being the correct version. I would like to take this opportunity to express my congratulations on the amount of interesting matter that appears in successive issues of our Journal, despite all the difficulties of the present times. — Charles Wingfield, 63, Bedford Gardens, London, W.8. (We thank our correspondent for this correction. The word, as he says, is certifies, and not certified. Ed.) The Annual Conference THE Annual Conference of the Members of the Society met at 68, Warwick Square, London, S.W.I., on 5th June, 1944. The following are the Minutes of the proceedings :— Chairman. 1. The outgoing Chairman, Mr. B. W. Bazley, was unanimously elect- ed for a second year of office. President. 2. The President of the Society was re-elected with acclamation. Vice-Presidents. 3. The Vice-Presidents of the Society were re-elected with the exception of the following whose membership had lapsed :— The Dowager Viscountess Downe. M. André Maurois. Commander Locker Lampson. Mr. Alfred Noyes. Hon. Officers. 4. The Honorary Officers of the Society were unanimously re-elected. 5. The Honorary Auditors were unanimously re-elected with a hearty vote of thanks for their work in the past. The Journal. 6. A Special Vote of Thanks was unanimously passed to the Hon. Editor for the outstanding work he had performed in keeping the Kipling Journal up to its very high standard. 'H.M.S. " Kipling " Fund. 7. The Members decided that the balance of the fund collected on behalf of H.M.S. Kipling should be shown as a separate item in the accounts until the end of the war. Library Note By W. G. B. A GIFT of books from the Library of the late Mr. A. E. O. Slocock, to which I referred in the last issue, includes, amongst other volumes, a few " Firsts " and other early editions, viz :—The History of the Irish Guards; Songs For Youth, with MAITLAND Kipling's Autograph signature pasted on the title page; The Day's Work; Soldier Tales; The Naulahka; Puck of Pook's Hill; The Five Nations, etc ; The Jungle Book (second reprint) ; The Second Jungle Book (first reprint). Obituary IT is with deep regret we have to announce the death of Mr. Edward H. Crussell of Sacramento, California, news of whose passing came to hand as we went to press with No. 69 of the Kipling Journal. A gift he made to the Library shortly before his death, which occurred last December, was described in our last issue. Edward Crussell, a keen and know- ledgeable collector of Kipling News was always ready to offer advice on all matters connected with the prob- lems which beset the Kipling collector.