CONTENTS PAGE Notes—J. P. Collins ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 What I Feel About Kipling—W. J. Turner ... ... 3 Stalky—Boy and Man—Captain E. W. Martindell ... 6 Kipling and the Germans—-Basil M. Bazley 9 The India of Kipling Today ... ... ... ... ... 12 The Kipling Society's Library—W. G. B. Maitland ... 14 " Kipling's Worst Slip " and Other Extracts— from THE Yorkshire Post ... ... 16 Kipling and the Critics ... ... ... ... ... ... 19 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. Book Plates : 1d. 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. All the above are sent post free. Correspondence should be addressed Lo The Hon. Secretary, The Kipling Society, 105,Gower Street London, W.C.l Tel. Euston 7117 THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly by THE KIPLING SOCIETY Vol. XII. No. 76. December, 1945 Notes A BROWN STUDY. WE are much bounden to the Editor, surely, for printing several critiques from other publications concerning Mr. Hilton Brown's monograph on Kipling. It may be giving the book rather more publicity than it deserves ; and in any case it has had what is called " a good press."" Some of them show how easy it is nowadays to beat the critic at his own game, and serve him up a verbal grapefruit squash without the sugar or any warming touch of cordial. When the book was first announced, one's thoughts flew back to a certain lecture here in London seven years ago where the audience was English and Indians mixed, and the monologue seemed conspicuously mixed as well. It was Mr. Hilton Brown's debut in this line, we gathered and he was dealing with the fiction of Southern India. But the climatic colour was warmer than the appreciation, and here and there the effect seemed acrid, if not cantankerous. He had all the qualifications of local knowledge, having spent responsible civil service years in Madras ; but where we expected humour from an avowed and practised humourist (well, he was a " Punch " contributor, anyway) the humour seemed thin or wanting. STRIKING A BALANCE. Somehow, authors in India never seem so meagre as when they are paraded in procession like the spectres in " Macbeth "; and to one hearer at least, this stream of semi-celebrities across the stage gave the effect, more or less, of fakirs fasting on " points," like one of our war-time banquets. The worst of it was that nothing seemed to suit Mr. Brown, once he had touched on Kipling as a sort of warrior from the Northern hills, because he had filled the bill with his genius, and left precious little for anybody else. Yet, Kipling it was who threw India open to the reading public here at home, and this was said by one or two listeners who rose to correct the lecturer's fallacies, etc., and adjust his con- clusions to the facts. But it hardly struck one as the germ of a full- blown book like this, and it is to be hoped that we are not in for another procession of Kipling nightmares from all the imitative publishers in turn, with the dose of gall and vitriol measured out beforehand like a pre- scription. HOMER ON THE NOD. What would Mr. Brown not have given for some of the instances cited in the present number, where Kipling has occasionally nodded, much as Homer did? For every fault the author critic hints, Mr. St. John Ervine supplies some first-class bout of delinquency elsewhere, and in tre- mendous company. It makes one think of Macaulay squelching poor Montgomery, or Thackeray burlesqu- ing Dr. Maginn, and there is no need to beg permission of the house where everyone present can warm his hands at the bonfire of such stout resent- ment. None the less, it is just as well to have them diagnosed and treated by a master hand in his own field like Mr. Harvey, the Australian engineer, who adduces several interesting flaws in Kipling's technique and terminology, and wastes no time on the familiar peccadillos of " M'Andrew's Hymn." Nor does he boggle at the labelling of Kipling with the familiar attribution of " the Engineer's Poet," seeing how he revelled in the oil and steam, the rattle and the flash, the labour and the power-control, of mechanism working at high speed or regulated pressure. After all, why should not a writer who has the secret and the soul of words in him, bring out the glow and eloquence that generations of workers have stowed away into a single term, whether onomatopoetic or metaphoric ? Every intelligent reader can surely relish the devotion of a craftsman who mas- tered more secrets of his calling than most of his detractors have ever heard or dreamt of. On the other hand, if self-constituted critics like to snatch at a passing notoriety by holding on like this to the coat-tails of an author whose work and fame will keep their names in the bibliographic records when they would otherwise have been left in merciful oblivion, then we need not grudge them their sorry bargain. Because they can no more besmirch or injure our author with posterity than Sydney Smith's fanatics could disturb the Dean and Chapter by scratching the dome of the cathedral with their finger-nails at a height of three hundred feet and more. A KEEN KIPLINGITE. By the way, it is worth while draw- ing attention to the coincidence of name drawn from the columns of the Yorkshire Post. Its editor, Mr. W. L. Andrews, has about as little leisure as any man of our time for, as is well known to members of his craft—even Mr. Hilton Brown—to be the editor of a first-class provincial daily is to say good-bye to literary pursuits and social delights, as compared with the average professional man. But Mr. Andrews is no ordinary individual in anything, least of all, the cultivation of a crowded diary with the usual allowance of only twenty-four hours a day. He is a keen Kiplingite though, immersed in a host of local and patri- otic movements, and takes an active part in all. He is editor, for instance, of the Brontë Society's Transactions, and infuses a world of human in- terest into this as he does into his paper; he rushes up to London half a dozen times a month for various conferences, and he has taken on the presidency of the Institute of Journalists at a time when its for- tunes are more in the balance than . ever in the whole course of its sixty years existence. That Mr. Andrews should take a keen interest in our affairs, and the niceties of Kipling's handiwork, down to the last couplet in the Hymn of his namesake with a Mac,—all this instils respect into the 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 observer, and makes one reverence the shire of broad acres more than ever, for its sheer energy and rejoicing- sanity. SALUTE TO STALKY. This is no common number of the Journal, that brings into occultation a pair of luminaries like Major General Dunsterville and Captain Martindell. The first is likely to be remembered as the most typical Englishman in Kipling's immediate group of friends ; the other deservedly ranks as the greatest authority we have on Kipling's life and work. But these superlatives are crowned by the fact that Stalky now adds another to his many inter- esting aspects—that of an octogenarian, and admirably does this tributary article trim him off. It is a model of concise and summary narrative, with plenty of that double element of personality which, like the quality of mercy, blesses him that gives and him that takes. One of the notes in this memoir appeals because it embodies the knack of disarming frankness in which the Major-General notoriously excels. Thus we learn, that as a lad of parts he translated the name of Westward Ho into an active principle, and parked there and then by running off to sea. Characteristically he avows that he never wanted to be a soldier. It was the navy that took his fancy, because none of the girls would look at a red coat when they could capture a blue. It is no less typical of the man as a born leader in awkward places, that although the Bolshies spoiled his Caspian plans, this never interfered with his liking for the Russians. He emerges from Captain Martindell's brief study as the happy warrior par excellence, ringed with unbreakable friendships, and happy to the latest of his days. To conclude, will he excuse this casual personal note ? It befell me a year ago to spend a summer holiday at Torquay, as a grateful and not unresponsive guest. But it would have made that visit memorable, had I realised that ten minutes walk away, Stalky had been a resident for years. It adds to the irony of things that I have never seen him except in print, and print is simply not equal to saying how the overrated arm of coincidence came short on that occasion. J. P. Collins. December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 How I Feel About Kipling By W. J. TURNER WHETHER Kipling will be as widely read in the future as he was in the past is a quest- ion nobody can answer. It is always difficult, if not impossible to predict from great contemporary prestige the future fame of an author, but there are some contemporary re- putations to which not only the public at large, but the author's fellow- writers subscribe. To win the es- teem of fellow-craftsmen and artists as well as the popular favour is a somewhat rare distinction. It is one that very few best-sellers achieve; and, it must be added, still fewer of those whose literary fame has lasted a hundred years have been writers who have enjoyed the largest public in their lifetime. Kipling is one of these rare exceptions. He won the respect of the highly critical as well as a popularity far greater than that of any of his contemporaries, and it is significant that his fame and his public were not confined to his own country and to English-speak- ing readers. PRESTIGE IN FRANCE. It is also significant that whereas most English writers of his time who had a foreign reputation and a foreign public, won it in Germany—John Galsworthy and Bernard Shaw are outstanding examples — Kipling's prestige was greatest in France, whose public is less susceptible to sentimental and emotional appeals, and has a more fastidious taste, and a greater respect for craftsmanship, than that of other countries. Many English critics, indeed, have attri- buted Kipling's fame in France pri- marily to his craftsmanship, which is generally acknowledged to be superb. It should be added, however, that as a story-writer Kipling was like Thomas Hardy, both a realist and a deeply moving writer. The fame of Hardy has grown steadily ever since his death, and will con- tinue to do so. Most of his brilliant and successful contemporaries are today unreadable, whereas there is a depth of individual sincerity, character and force in Hardy which keeps his work alive. But Hardy was never the accomplished pro- fessional craftsman that Kipling be- came; his masterpieces have that quality of unmistakable genius which we find sometimes in Nature. His genius is so clear in its vital inspiration, that small or large, there will always be a public for him and that public will include not the superficially clever, but the choicest and pro- foundest spirits of every age. Can we say the same for Kipling ? The very fact that I have brought Hardy into the comparison will suggest to perceptive readers that I think we can. There is something funda- mentally simple about both these writers which separates them from their contemporaries, and justifies their being linked together, different as in other ways they are. A TARGET FOR THE CLEVER. Both have been a target, not to say a butt, for the clever. Both have been mocked at by the intelli- gentsia of our time. The bright young men from our universities have annually satirised and laughed at Kipling ever since the beginning of the century, while the fashionable George Moore, that arbiter of literary taste, wrote such a vicious attack on Hardy in Hail and Farewell, a travesty so plausibly clever that any reader of it, unfamiliar with Hardy's work at first-hand, might be forgiven for thinking that it dis- posed of him for good. What displeased the clever, the superficial and the knowing ones in both Hardy and Kipling, was that they were both men of uncommon independence and toughness of character. Their outlook on life, their attitude to society was one of un- compromising . realism. They shared neither the conventional religion nor the popular idealism and popular illusions of their fellows. For Hardy, 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 life was essentially tragic as, I think, we can claim that it was for Kipling also. Kipling looked on life as an unending struggle into which a man must put the whole of himself as a worker and a fighter, doing his duty and expecting little or nothing in return. In politics his natural con- servatism was based on the con- viction that labels do not change men, that the world is kept going by the honest and simple who do not exploit their fellows but always give more than they get : Thus the artless songs I sing Do not deal with anything New or never said before. As it was in the beginning Is today official sinning, And shall be for evermore. Thus he speaks in his " General Summary " at the beginning of De- partmental Ditties, and the future is likely to endorse his stern prophecy. This early volume of brilliant verse contains many examples of biting satire and his versatility and range even here are noteworthy. Civil servants, Members of Parliament, soldiers, writers, Englishmen, Indians, women—all are seen through spectacles without a tint of rose. If he speaks through the mouth of a young girl he is not likely to idealise her. There is a poem entitled My Rival in which a girl describes an older woman. Here are three verses : I go to concert party, ball— What profit is in these ? I sit alone against the wall And strive to look at ease. The incense that is mine by right They burn before Her shrine. And that's because I'm seventeen And She is forty-nine. 1 cannot check my girlish blush; My colour comes and goes, I redden to my finger-tips And sometimes to my nose. But She is white where white should be And red where red should shine, The blush that flies at seventeen Is fixed at forty-nine. But even She must older grow And end Her dancing days; She can't go on forever so At concerts, balls and plays, One rag of priceless hope I see Before my footsteps shine; Just think that she'll be eighty-one When I am forty-nine. SAW THINGS AS THEY ARE. Essentially human, simple and down- right, Kipling had the shrewdness of the honest man who is no fool, but sees things as they are because he looks straight and hard at life and does not wish to deceive him- self or see things as he would like them to be. It is for this that the sentimental idealists of his and our time have never forgiven him, but it is also this quality which endears him to the very young. School- boys, I venture to predict, will always read Kipling with zest. Also, they enjoy his skill, which truly is pro- digious. He is generally writing something they can understand and writing it exceedingly well. As a writer of light verse that is not mere nonsense, his technique rivals Gilbert, while the substance of both his verse and his prose can be both realistic and highly imaginative, as in that wonderful story The Brushwood Boy. In that story we get the mystical, poetic side of Kipling, which is very strong. It is this quality in him that has won a recent tribute from that highly sophisticated and in- tellectual poet, Mr. T. S. Eliot. There is a strain of almost Biblical prophecy in Kipling, which is very English and sometimes very disconcerting. It co-exists with the practical strain so that not only can he give truth with unforgettable vividness in his stories about plain people—sailors, soldiers, mechanics, etc.—but also bring to life more mysterious and subtler characters and incidents, and his convincingness (apart from his few failures) is always due, I think, to the essential passionateness of his nature. There was nothing shallow or trivial about Kipling's character, and it is because both character and talent are combined in him to a rare degree that he will always interest readers. Here is a man wholly individual, not like other men, who sees and thinks for him- self in so idiosyncratic a way that he never bores. We may violently disagree, but we are stirred and made more alive by his presence. The December 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 older we grow the more we value such a man, and the more satisfactory we find such a writer. Kipling was not an abstract thinker, or a man of a philosophical turn of mind, but he was never vague or woolly- minded, and he had a literary talent so enormous that it is not likely that his fame will ever seriously diminish. THE ELEPHANT'S CHILD This illustration, drawn by Kipling himself, from " Just So Stories," which is reproduced in Messrs. Macmillan & Co.'s booklet entitled " Something of Rudyard Kipling and his Works," is reprinted here by kind permission of Mrs. Bambridge, and with the approval of Messrs. Macmillan. As men- tioned in the booklet, ' these twelve tales are an inimitable medley of the sort of natural history not previously known to the Zoological Society, as in ' How the Camel got his Hump,' and the unorthodox but highly con- vincing etymology of ' How the Alphabet was Made . . . . ' 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 Stalky—Boy and Man By CAPTAIN E. W. MARTINDELL The real life story of this famous character provides as many ad- ventures as the most daring Englishman could wish, and a splendid picture of the qualities which have made our countrymen admired and respected in all corners of the earth. (The following article is reprinted from "England," by permission of the Royal Society of St. George). MAJOR General L. C. Dunster- ville, C.B., C.S.I., better known as "Stalky" of Stalky &Co., was born in the same year as Rudyard Kipling—" Beetle " in Stalky & Co.— and like him was born abroad, but in Lausanne, not Bombay Nor does the similarity end here as both were placed under the care of a guardian owing to their parents' absence abroad in India and, of course, both went to school at the United Services College, Westward Ho, in North Devon. Whereas, however, Kipling's early life was made a veritable purg- atory by the " Woman in the House of Desolation," Stalky's guardian " was a charming lady, who let the children do exactly as they pleased, so that it was like a fairy story," as we learn from Stalky's Reminiscences. In 1875 at the early age of ten, Stalky was sent to school at West- ward Ho, and in about his second or third term he ran away to sea. He records in his Reminiscences that " in taking this action I was impelled by many considerations. I had a great love for the sea, which has never left me. I never had the least desire to be a soldier, I wanted to be a sailor .... 1 wanted free- dom and adventure .... I wanted to get away from the tyranny of masters and boys, to get out into the wide world, to make my own way in life, to find possibly a gold mine." However after three days' absence the truant had to return ignomin- iously to his school. As to his doings recorded in Stalky & Co. he says, " Stalky & Co. is a work of fiction, and not an historical " Stalky's Reminiscences " was pub- lished by Jonathan Cape, price 7/6, a book worth buying and keeping. record. Stalky himself was never quite as clever as portrayed in this book and the book makes no mention of the many times he was let down. But he represents, not an individual .... but the medium of our then prevailing spirits of this most un- typical school." The school's motto was " Fear God and Honour the King," and the boys' pride in this showed that they were not entirely heathen. Stalky states that his re- ligious education was extremely varied, which was an enormous advantage as he learnt accordingly that nobody is ever entirely right, and one's oppon- ents are often very far from wrong, and he comments, " What a lot of hatred is taught in the name of a religion of love !" In 1883 Stalky entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, much to his surprise, for, though he did not actually go as far as wishing to fail, he certainly had no desire at all to pass, but had a sort of romantic idea of enlisting as a private soldier and working his way up to Field Marshal. After an uneventful year at Sandhurst in August, 1884 he was gazetted to the second battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment then stationed at Malta, which was the headquarters of the Mediterranean Squadron. At the first Ball at Government House, he found to his sorrow that no girl will look at a scarlet coat when there is a blue jacket around, and the room seemed full of midshipmen., After serving for a brief time in Cairo, Suez and Suakin he arrived in Rawal- pindi in the Punjab in January, 1886 and soon began to interest himself in the people of the country and their languages. Owing to straitened means as well as being much attracted by the smartness and general appearance of the Indian units he applied for transfer to the Indian Army, which was no easy matter, but owing to his perseverance his application was event- December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 ually sanctioned and he was posted to the 24th Punjabis. Being a good raconteur and a great hand at sporting songs Stalky was a great favourite wherever he was stationed and was always in de- mand socially. He confessed that he lived up to the anagram of his name " Never Sit Dull," but he was a very late sitter and when he went out to dinner he never wanted to go home again ! It was not long before he realised that the most im- portant part of his education lay before him and he set himself to learn something of Indian history and the languages, re- ligions and customs of the men with whom he was to serve. STALKY'S 80th BIRTHDAY. In September, 1894, the regiment was ordered to proceed to Dera Ismail Khan to help in delimit- ating the frontier in Waziristan. During this bor- der incident Stalky records an amusing incident An alarm was sounded and as he was leaving his tent after breakfast, Stalky met an excited Staff Officer who running in his horse yelled out " Turn out your men " and on his asking where the enemy were, the Staff Officer replied, " Look up on the hills there." There sure enough—-there were line upon line of tribesmen showing only head and shoulders. Three points of view immediately flashed through Stalky's mind; (1) Tribesmen never attack at breakfast time, (2) tribes- men do not prepare for attack by turning up on the skyline, (3) if they were really coming, they were some way off. Orders, however, had to be obeyed and in a few minutes they were all at their posts. Immediately after the enemy flapped their wings CONGRATULATIONS and good wishes, in which all connected with this Journal heartily join, have been sent to Major-General Dunsterville on the occasion of his 80th Birth- day, which he celebrated on November 9th. A correspondent writes:— " Stalky's' anniversary puts me in mind of Russell Lowell's lines:— ' Past my next milestone waits my eightieth year, I mount no longer when the trum- pets call ; My battle harness idles on the wall, Not without dints, and all in front, I trust.' " and flew up into the sky—they were vultures. In August, 1895 Stalky left the Tochi Valley and proceeded to join a garrison class at Chakrata to pass his examination for promotion to the rank of Captain, after which he obtained his first leave to England after eleven years' service. During this leave he visited Germany and Russia learning both languages and passing his examination as Interpreter in both in October, 1896. On the outbreak of the China war in August, 1900 the regiment re- ceived orders to embark for Wei- hai-wei en route for Tientsin, but they arrived too late to take part in the relief of the legations in Pekin. However, they were kept busy all the winter marching and counter-marching in their efforts to bring the Boxers to a pitched battle, but this they wisely evaded. Stalky seized the opportunity of studying the Chinese language and succeeded in passing the necessary examination in 1901. At the end of that year we find Stalky at Tientsin taking over the duties of Railway Staff Officer, where he had many amusing experi- ences to record. During the following years up to the outbreak of the Great War, his life was the usual uneventful life of a soldier in peace-time. He succeed- ed to the command of his regiment early in 1908. In January, 1914 the tenure of his command ended and he returned to England. Shortly after the outbreak of the Great War, he was appointed a train-conducting officer in France, which appoint- ment he vacated in March, 1915 to assume command of the Jhelum 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 Stalky, like so many Englishmen before and since, found adventure in plenty in North West India. Above is a picture of a Camel Train winding through the famous Khyber Pass. Brigade in India. Then, being trans- ferred to Peshawar a month later he took command of the 1st Infantry Brigade, and in the autumn of 1915 marched out against the Mohmands. Operations against these tribes con- tinued till the end of 1917, when on Christmas Eve of that year he re- ceived secret orders to hand over the command of the Brigade and to pro- ceed to Delhi for further instructions. His new destination was North West Persia and the Caucasus and the raising of the Dunsterforce. Few Russian troops were left in Persia by the end of 1917, and it was to fill a gap of 500 miles from Khanikin to the Caspian Sea that the Dunster- force was called into being. Stalky's task differed from that of the other commanders. He was to be given a nucleus of some 200 officers and N.C.O.'s and with these he was to proceed from Baghdad through Persia to Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, and try and re-organise the revolutionary units and restore the line confront- ing the Turks. The whole scheme broke down owing to Bolshevik oppo- sition which prevented Stalky from crossing the Caspian Sea until the Turks had captured the railway line from Baku to Tiflis. By the end of January, 1918 Stalky had collected twelve officers and with this small nucleus set forth travelling in Ford Vans with an escort of one armoured car, fighting their way through snow-storms and digging through 12-foot snow drifts on the mountain passes in Persia till they reached Baku, the southern port of the Caspian Sea. Here they were confronted by 2,000 hostile Bol- shevik soldiers, who controlled the town and shipping, and 5,000 well- armed Gilanis under the renowned Kuchik Khan, who threatened to massacre the party. When the situ- ation was quite hopeless Stalky's party slipped away one night with- out encountering any opposition. At the end of May, Stalky renewed his efforts to get in touch with Baku and prevent the Turks from captur- ing it. This he eventually succeeded in doing early in August, but after endeavouring to hold a line of 20 miles with 900 rifles, feebly support- ed by 5,000 town troops for about December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 six weeks, it was obvious that it was an impossible proposition and then Stalky decided, after the Turks broke through on September 14th, to evacuate his force and return to Enzeli, which was successfully accom- plished. Here the whole force was re-organised and Stalky returned to India to take up the command of the Agra Brigade, which appointment he held till he retired in January, 1920. Here we must leave him in his well-earned retirement. As was only fitting, Stalky has been for the past seventeen years the most efficient and popular Presi- dent of the Kipling Society. He closes his Reminiscences with these words : "I find leisure for philosophic contemplation and I reflect on the words of that great Persian Poet, Sheik Saadi : " The world, oh my brother, is passing away. Let it suffice for you, then, to fix your heart on Him who created it and you. Put not your trust in land, wealth or raiment; for the world has pamper- ed many such as you only to annihi- late them in the end. When the pure soul sings its last flight from Earth, at that hour what matters it if one is seated on a throne, or lying in the dust !" Kipling and the Germans By BASIL M. BAZLEY (This is the first part of an address delivered to Members of the Kipling, Society in London by Mr. Bazley, at a meeting held in October, 1945). MUCH of what I have to say to you on this subject must, I fear, be a repetition of what I wrote in the Kipling Journal for July, 1945. For this I shall ask your indulgence; if I cannot add very much to my previous remarks, I shall endeavour to elaborate some of my points. It must have been noticed that Kipling did not have very much to say about the Germans until a relatively late stage of his literary career. There are two good reasons for this : first, the Germans them- selves do not appear in a leading role in the European theatre until the early years of the present century; second, Kipling did not come across them very much in his early years. THE FIRST REFERENCE. Perhaps the first definite mention of this nation occurs in a poem called " An Imperial Rescript," which appeared in the St. James's Gazette in February, 1890; this was a satirical comment on a proposal by the late German Emperor that the great Powers should meet in conference to see if there could be some amelioration of the conditions of the manual labourer in all countries. The conference lasted a fortnight and then broke up, having settled nothing. There has been some specu- lation as to what lay behind this German plan; in most quarters it was thought that it would appease popular opinion in Germany. To my idea, Kipling saw more behind it; I do not think that he would have bothered to write about it unless he had thought that it was one of those many schemes (by now we are all too familiar with these obscure German plans), for getting other countries to reduce their efforts and preparations, either for war or com- merce, so that the Germans might have a free hand for their own developments. We do not know anything of Kip- ling's reaction to the Kaiser's tele- gram to Kruger in 1896, but it is, I think, fair to assume that this open manifestation of spite set him thinking. However, the obvious ex- hibition of our military shortcomings in the Boer War seem to have pre- occupied him; perhaps he was mindful of the Scriptural saying :—" First cast the mote out of thine own eye." Then, too, many things were happen- ing in his own life, for it was about this time that he decided that his future permanent home was to be in England. His interests still lay 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 in convincing the British Public of our unreadiness to repel attack— an uphill task, if ever there was one. That his thoughts were far from the idea of an aggressive war may be seen by his two poems, The Ex- plorer and The Settler. By 1902 the signs of coming trouble were clear to Kipling's eyes, so he broke new ground with his great poem, The Islanders. Most of his critics, with that fatal flair for grasp- ing the non-essential, held it up to ridicule and searched their vocabularies for vituperative epithets; some of this criticism was light and amusing, but the more serious condemnation came from misguided, though possibly sincere people, who bluntly denounc- ed him as a war-monger. History repeated itself in the 1930-40 decade. Both periods, to borrow one of his telling phrases, may be labelled " the drugged and doubting years." Let us take note of some of the more telling lines in this poem :— Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie, Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the months go by Waiting some easy wonder : hoping some saving sign— Idle—openly idle—in the lee of the forespent Line. Idle—except for your boasting— and what is your boasting worth If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth ? Ancient effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set, Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep. Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep. " THE LORDLIEST LIFE." Of course, the phrase, " the lordliest life on earth," provoked an out- burst; here was Kipling advocating conscription, on Continental lines, for its own sake ! But the late E. V. Lucas doubted this, saying :—" From the very first the words ' the lordliest life on earth ' were taken to refer to the Army; and when the Great War came they were again much quoted with the same application. Having an idea that their author did not mean that, I asked him for a ruling; and here is his reply :— ' But don't the lines following on " the lordliest life on earth " make it clear what that life was ?' (Here follow the four lines which include the one about life so long untroubled). ' By that I meant to picture the ordinary English life that they were born to-—not the life of a " year of service," which they grudged. As to the Territorials, the next war will be a civilian's affair. The People themselves will be attacked from over- head without warning and before Army or Fleet can mobilize. If we have not enough fighting planes up and out (it will be a question of hours) to beat off the enemy bombers, we shall be gassed and burned to quietude in a few days.' " This was written in 1934. Now comes the terribly accurate prophecy, the fulfilment of which we all know only too well :— For the low, red glare to south- ward when the raided coast towns burn ? (Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn). In a later poem, The City of Brass (1909), the same tale of warning is stressed :— Swiftly these pulled down the walls that their fathers had made them— The impregnable ramparts of old, they razed and relaid them. Kipling might almost have seen the Fleet, Army and Air Force reductions that were carried out after 1918. In that year he gave a further warn- ing in his verse entitled Justice (1918) :— Heavy the load we undergo, And our own hands prepare, If we have parley with the foe, The load our sons must bear. Before we loose the word That bids new worlds to birth, Needs must we loosen first the sword Of Justice upon earth. We all know that the Sword of Justice was kept carefully in its sheath, with the result that the Germans thought we were both weak and December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 foolish. It is not our purpose here to-day to apportion blame, for, with a few honourable exceptions, the whole nation was at fault, Churchill, Kipling, and anyone who pointed out the extent of German rearmament, was screamed at as a war-monger; even mild lines like these from the above poem were condemned :— For agony and spoil Of nations beat to dust, For poisoned air and tortured soil And cold, commanded lust, • And every secret woe The shuddering waters saw— Willed and fulfilled by high and low— Let them relearn the Law. * * * * Whereby our dead shall sleep In honour, unbetrayed, And we in faith and honour keep That peace for which they paid. That Kipling had no patience with, or love for, appeasers, is shown by the trenchant couplet in The Holy War (1917) :— No dealings with Diabolus As long as Mansoul stands. In 1902, contemporaneous with The Islanders, Kipling wrote a short verse called The Rowers. This dealt with the project that Germany and Britain should make an armed demon- stration against Venezuela, ignoring or defying the feelings of the United States, to collect debts owing by the small South American republic. Even at that early date Kipling visualised the schemes of German diplomacy; he saw that this action would give grave offence in the States and he also saw the obvious objection to our being made a cat's- paw by the Germans. One or two verses will illustrate the depth of his feeling on this matter :— They sang :—' What reckoning do you keep, And steer her by what star, If we come unscathed from the Southern deep To be wrecked on a Baltic bar? Last night you swore our voyage was done, But seaward still we go, And you tell us now of a secret vow You have made with an open foe ! That we must lie off a lightless coast And haul and back and veer, At the will of the breed that have wronged us most For a year and a year and a year ! There was never a shame in Christ- endie They laid not to our door— And you say we must take the winter sea And sail with them once more ? The whole poem breathes horror at being mixed up with the Germans in a scheme that was purely mischief- making in its idea, and this horror is painted in scathing words :— Of evil times that men can choose On evil fate to fall, What brooding Judgment let you loose To pick the worst of all ? In sight of peace—from the Narrow Seas O'er half the world to run— With a cheated crew, to league anew With the Goth and the shame- less Hun ! (To be continued). Please Remember the Kipling Society in Your Will The following Form of Bequest should be used LEGACIES from Members who wish to support the work of the Kipling Society are accepted by the Council with gratitude. The following Form of Bequest should be used :— " I bequeath to The Kipling Society, 105 Gower Street, London, W.C.l., a sum of (£ ) free of duty, to be applicable for the general purposes of the Society. And Ï declare that the receipt of the Hon. Treasurer or other proper official for the time being of the Society shall be a good and sufficient discharge to my Executors." 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 The India of Kipling To-day SOME EXTRACTS PROM "IMMORTAL YEARS" SIR EVELYN WRENCH'S NEW BOOK IMMORTAL YEARS, 1937-1944. As viewed from five continents by John Evelyn Wrench. (Hutchinson, 18/- net). READERS of the Kipling Journal who have associations with and memories of India will be in- terested in Sir Evelyn Wrench's latest book " Immortal Years," in which he relates the story of his travels " as viewed from five con- tinents " during the war years. For over two years in that period from November, 1941, he lived in India, where he held the appointment of America Relations Officer to the Government of India. The following are extracts from " Immortal Years " in which he refers to Rudyard Kipling. " I woke up next morning to find we were passing through Cawn- pore. It is so extraordinary seeing names with which one has been familiar since schooldays, and I seemed to be turning over the pages of Kipling again. We are now in the United Provinces, crossing plains of brown earth, with fields of last summer's maize, and a succession of mud villages surrounded by mud walls in the shade of trees. As far as human habitations are concerned, nothing could be more primitive than these Indian villages, and the dwellers therein must be living just as they did 4,000 years ago. We passed small mosques and Hindu shrines, and many water wheels, with two oxen being driven up an incline, a wheel with buckets filled with water, and the contents emptied into irrigation canals, after which the oxen are driven back again, and the process is repeated. There were large blue cranes and storks, and wild peacocks, as also several trees full of monkeys, and as we neared Delhi we saw carts drawn by supercilious camels. " The Viceroy and Lady Lin- lithgow had asked us to stay with them at the outset of our tour. On leaving Delhi Station, we sped along the tree-lined highways on the five-mile drive to New Delhi, getting a passing glimpse of the old Moghul Red Fort, from which fluttered the Union Jack. New Delhi is on a much more magni- ficent scale than anything I had visualised, and is a worthy capital for an ' Indian Empire,' though I wondered who would be occupy- ing it in a hundred years' time. The only thing that seemed at all comparable to us was the scale of building at Washington." RE-READING " KIM." Concluding his description of the six-hundred mile journey from Luck- now to Lahore, the author writes : " In Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, one is in another world. Here we were able to observe a provincial government, elected on a popular franchise, functioning efficiently, and therefore an object- lesson to the rest of India—due largely no doubt to one man, the Premier, Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, who unfortunately died a year later. " I called to see the Editor of the Civil and Military Gazette, Mr. F. W. Bustin; just outside his office is a metal plaque stating that Rudyard Kipling worked on the paper from 1882 to 1887. We are always thinking of the Jungle Books, and have been re-reading Kim, which gives the best account of the Grand Trunk Road ever written. We lunched with the Glancys; Sir Bertrand is very highly spoken of and considered one of the ablest Governors in India. Indian posts do strange things as I realised—not for the first time— when Sir Bertrand asked me had I received his letter written fifteen days earlier, inviting us to stay ? As it happened, we actually found it waiting for us when we returned to the hotel after lunch; December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 it had been pursuing us from place to place ! We met several I.C.S. officials, Indian and British, also an old friend, Professor R. C. Coupland; like so many recent arrivals he was suffering from dysentery and looked terribly weakened. We know something about the fatigue of this constant travelling and interviewing, so we are able to sympathise with him. To get the Muslim League point of view I went to see the Nawab of Mamdot, a fine upstanding and dignified Muslim, who assured me that, whatever might be said to the contrary, the vast majority of Muslims were behind Jinnah, and that the Muslims infinitely preferred the British to the Hindus. " After the unkind things that have been said to us in other parts of India, it has been cheering to meet people who are free from any anti-British complex." KIPLING'S INDIA. Again, in the chapter headed " Peshawar—Gateway of India," the author is reminded of the India of Kipling. The passage runs :— " In the North-West Frontier Province we were in the India of Kipling and of the British raj. One morning we drove out to the Fort of Shabkadar, it was like a lovely spring day at home; the fruit trees were just coming out and afar off we saw the snow- flecked mountains of Afghanistan. A fine-looking Pathan acted as our guide; he was proud of the fact that his father had fought in the British Expeditionary Force to Kabul. All day we never saw a European. We passed con- tinuous trains of camels, with their shaggy winter coats; water buff- aloes are used as beasts of burden, from afar they look like moving haystacks, with probably a small child perched on the top of the household possessions. Numerous Muslim cemeteries were situated on the banks of the rapidly flow- ing Kabul river; the tombs were without inscriptions, just little mounds with pebbles and stones on them, or perhaps a slab of slate as headpiece. " Wild-looking Pathans, carry- ing rifles, with cartridge belts, were a frequent sight; in the Frontier Province the price of a rifle is three times that of a wife. We were in the land of blood feud and the vendetta. Murder is a common crime; seven or eight hundred murders are committed in the Province every year. " The goal of our excursion " (says my diary), " Shabkadar, a walled town with tier upon tier of flat-roofed buildings, the whole dominated by the Fort of the Frontier Con- stabulary, a brick building with a tall round tower, from which flew the Union Jack—a look-out post against hostile tribes, also used nowadays for spotting air- craft. We walked through the winding and narrow streets, the guard presenting arms as we entered the courtyard. There we found beds of familiar flowers, planted by the previous Commandant; the air was sweet with the scent of violets. A small English child was playing with a dog." The book is specially interesting as it records personal experiences of travel in many lands under abnormal war-time conditions, for the author and Lady Wrench, before arriving in India, visited Canada and the United States, Honolulu, New Zealand —" God's own country,"—Australia, Java and Singapore. On their re- turn from India they spent ten weeks in the Middle East, and re-visited Palestine. In his foreword the author writes ;— " The purpose of this book is to try and give a faithful picture of what I have seen, and to share some of the lessons I have learnt. (1) Every country refuses to face facts, and tries to keep out of war as long as it can. (2) No country is strong enough to stand alone. (3) The British Commonwealth and Empire is an essential buttress of civilisation. (4) The first step towards the ultimate goal of world unity—is British-American co-operation." 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 The Kipling Society's Library SOME NOTES BY THE HON. LIBRARIAN (W. G. B. MAITLAND) NOW that the war is over, and an attempt has been made to return to a more normal life by resuming our regular meetings, it is felt that the time has come when an interest in the Society's Library might be re-awakened in the minds of members. My task is not too easy because for the past six years I have been engaged in war-work, and have had little time to devote to Library affairs. So if this brief article should fall short of what might be expected from the pen of the Librarian, I crave the indulgence of the Members. BUILT UP FROM GIFTS. It is, I think, generally known that the Library ' depends largely on gifts—and indeed, it has been for the most part built up from that source. Purchases have, of course, been made from time to time, but with the limited funds at our disposal, expenditure has to be most carefully considered. The contents of the Library are divided into three main groups which, broadly speaking, may be described as follows : (a) The more valuable and scarcer type of book. (b) A large collection known as the " John Sanderson collection," and, (c) The more ordinary and less valuable items. In the first group are included such items as the Sussex Edition. autograph letters, and certain other desiderata; in the second group, as its title implies, fall the collection of volumes presented to the Society by the late Mr. John Sanderson. This collection alone makes a con- siderable and most varied library of Kiplingiana, to which I have referred more than once in the Journal. The third group consists, in the main, of the usual type of Kipling volume which, prior to the war, with its exasperating paper control, could be bought at any bookseller. Reference to past numbers of the Kipling Journal will reveal several notes and descriptions of various items of unusual interest. Additions to our shelves are always welcome, but the field covered by Kipling is so wide and varied that it is not possible to give an exact catalogue of " Wants." One of the chief aims of the Society is to build up as extensive a Library of Kipling material as it is humanly possible to do. From one small book-case when I became your Librarian in 1930 the Library has increased to such proportions as to show that my labours have not been in vain. It has been a pleasant task and one in which I have taken great pride. Auckland, New Zealand BRANCH REPORT AUCKLAND members and their Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Buchanan, are to be congratulated on the successful year 1944-1945, in which they have continued their activities in spite of difficulties. " We have been delighted to wel- come back our President, Sir Stephen Allen, once more in our midst," states the Annual Report. "We en- joyed his provocative address on ' Kipling and Home Influences ' and hope that our members will be in- spired to pursue the theme. During this Season we have held nine meetings with an average attend- ance of fifteen members. In November our Chairman chose Lord Wavell's book ' Other Men's Flowers ' as the subject of address and the numerous poems of Kipling in this choice were read to us by him. December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 We have enrolled seven new members from whom we expect renewed in- spiration through research and study of the magnificent bequest to us by Kipling of a literature that encom- passes the peoples and countries of the British Empire and immortalises their endeavours and aspirations. We are greatly indebted to Dr. Hilda Northcroft for her generous. hospitality which has held us together during these difficult times. Our gratitude is due also to our Chairman Mr. D. W. Fagan, who has given much valuable time to this Branch.." 'A Diversity of Creatures' Recalled THE following note, which reached us too late for insertion in our last issue, comes from a valued member of the Society, Mr. Francis McMurtrie, who writes :— " Just as I was leaving for the Netherlands the other day I saw the advertisement of which I enclose a note. Perhaps it may be of sufficient interest to incorporate in the next issue of the Kipling Journal." The extract runs :— " An advertisement on the front page of The Times of August 14th, vividly recalled to me page 198 of A Diversity of Creatures. Here is the text of the advertisement : ' Earth is Flat; believers please write (names not divulged). Write Box N176 The Times,, E.C.4.' " This must surely have been in- serted," writes Mr. McMurtie, " by the Society which arrived at the village of Huckley bearing ' rolled banners, a reading desk in three pieces, and .... a collapsible har- monium.' " The Society's Brochure MEMBERS will have received by now their copy of the special Brochure which the Society has just published. So far, reactions have been excellent, and members seem to approve our efforts. We feel that it is the most effective " recruiter " we have yet issued, as it outlines the enormous field of human interest covered by the works of Kipling. It remains for us—and for our members—to see that the Brochure is used to the best possible effect. Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son have taken a thousand copies for sale on their bookstalls, and Messrs. Wy- mans, 250. Many other newsagents in the country—at the suggestion of local members—have placed orders. Not only is this an excellent method of ensuring distribution for the Broch- ure, and therefore of reaching potential members, but it provides revenue for the Society which, we hope, will enable us, if necessary, to issue a second edition. All members are invited to try to obtain an order for a dozen or two brochures for sale by local newsagents. Our terms are; selling price less one third, that is to say, the newsagent pays one shilling per copy and sells for one and sixpence, a very reasonable profit. For really large orders, we should be prepared to consider an even larger trade discount. 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 Kiplings Worst Slip and Other Extracts FROM THE YORKSHIRE POST WE are indebted to the editor of " The Yorkshire Post," for permission to reprint the follow- ing extracts from that newspaper, which, always kindly to Kipling, has of late devoted increasing atten- tion to items of Kipling interest. KIPLING'S WORST SLIP. Writing from Hull an admirer of Kipling draws my attention to the following passage in the poet's auto- biographical sketch, " Something of Myself," and asks for enlightenment — Per contra, I have had miraculous escapes in technical matters, which make me blush still. Luckily the men of the seas, and of the engine room, do not write to the Press; and my worst slip is still underided. " Most people," says my corre- spondent, " are, I think, aware of the alleged mistake in ' Mandalay,' when Kipling makes the ' dawn come up like thunder outer China 'crost the bay ' (which is understood to be an impossibility), and of the im- probability of the Chief Engineer taking over from the Second, as described in ' M'Andrew's Hymn.' Neither of these, however, strike me as being major slips, and I am left wondering which of his mistakes is still underided." I believe that Kipling defended himself against the " Mandalay " charge, though I cannot recall the exact nature of his defence. But it will be remembered that " the old Moulmein Pagoda " (in Mandalay) " looks eastward to the sea," and it seems to me likely that " the bay " in this case was not, as is popularly supposed, the Bay of Bengal, but the Gulf of Tongking. The dawn would have a long way to come, but somehow it always contrives to cover the distance. As to the other alleged slip, M' Andrew himself sharply reminds one of his subordinates that " this isn't the Cunard," and I doubt if the old man would have been hide-bound by tradition. I fancy the slip re- ferred to by Kipling himself is some- thing far more technical. Perhaps some reader can lay his finger on it. KIPLING'S SLIP DETECTED ? Mr. L. Batty, of 8, Woodland Park Road, Headingley, has, I sus- pect, laid his finger on the technical error referred to cryptically by Kip- ling in his book, " Something of Myself," as " my worst slip." The relevant passage was quoted in this column on Tuesday. Mr. Batty— and he is the first of several corre- spondents to make the observation— draws attention to these lines in " M'Andrew's Hymn " :— We're creepin' on wi' each new rig—less weight an' larger power : There'll be the loco-boiler next an thirty knots an hour ! " No seaman " he points out, " would say ' knots an hour,' because a knot is a measure of speed, not of distance, and 10 knots means 10 nautical miles per hour." My suspicion that this is the slip which made Kipling blush is strength- ened by the discovery that whereas, in the 1896 edition of " The Seven Seas," the word is given as " knots," in more recent editions of the poet's works it has been amended to " miles." It looks to me as if Kipling, having realised his error, had made haste to correct it. It would be interesting to know if this is indeed the case. A KNOTTY POINT. Kipling, I am now told by a corre- spondent, had no need to blush over his use of the expression " 30 knots an hour." In his " Text Book of Navigation and Nautical Astronomy," written for those studying for the professional examinations, Captain A. P. W. Williamson, himself possessed of high qualifications and Principal of the Navigation and Engineering Departments under the School Board, Vancouver, B.C., in 1915, several times speaks of " knots per hour." My correspondent referred the matter to a friend who, though now a Colonel, was formerly an officer of the India Steam Navigation Company, and ob- December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 tained this expert opinion : " ' Knots per hour ' is unobjectionable to a seaman, and a novelist, writing for the general public, might be well advised to prefer the phrase. What really would make a seaman shudder would be for a novelist to say, for example, ' one ship was two knots away from another.' " It would be absurd to argue with such a formidable weight of authority, especially as several dictionaries, in- cluding Webster's, give their support to " knots an hour," but I should still like to know why Kipling, or his publishers, substituted " miles " for " knots " in later versions of " M' Andrew's Hymn." AUTHORS' SLIPS. My note on Kipling's worst slip has prompted a London reader to remind me that it was in this column that Compton Mackenzie's attention was drawn some years ago, to a curious error in " Sinister Street." At the end of a football match, instead of each side giving the usual three cheers, he made one side cheer six times. The actual phrase, as printed, was : " There were cheers for the victors by the vanquished, by the vanquished for their conquerors." I recall a spirited correspondence with Mr. Mackenzie until he had sort- ed the thing out, and his plea that it was a genuine printer's error, since he found that in the original manu- script the phrase had read correctly. At the same time he drew my atten- tion to another slip—in another of his books he had made a pre-war officer unlace his boots. Conan Doyle once made Sherlock Holmes do the impossible. Holmes watched a Continental boat train pass through Canterbury. And in his " Loom of Youth " Alec Waugh had another railway mix-up. He put his fictitious Fernhurst School in Derbyshire, and the boys reached it from Waterloo after changing at Exeter. In the Penguin edition of the book, Derbyshire has been altered to Wessex. Many a novelist has come a cropper over the phases of the moon, and I think it was in " The Cathedral " that Hugh Wal- pole caused an Archdeacon to appear in trousers. SUCH IS FAME. Many famous men have been keen apiarists. Sherlock Holmes, mythical prototype of all great detectives of fiction, was one—from which we may surmise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his creator, was interested in the subject; and Rudyard Kipling was another. A friend of mine, whose gardener was an enthusiastic bee-keeper, sat next to Kipling one night at a dinner party. Talking to the gardener next day on the subject of bees, he happen- ed to mention something that the famous poet had said. The gardener wrinkled his brow. " Kipling ?" he said, searching his memory. " Kipling ? I know that name. I've seen his picture in ' The Bee Record.' " KIPLING AND THE BURMA FRONT. Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, " On the Road to Mandalay," which has at least two well-known musical settings, has been for many years a favourite with ballad-singers, but I suspect that if anyone were to have the hardihood to sing it to-day to the troops at a smoking-concert on the Burma Front he would be greeted— if, indeed, he fared no worse—with ironical cheers. I cannot believe that the battle-scarred veterans of the 14th Army find much romance in the land " where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'alf afraid to speak," or that the time will ever come when, having been repatriated, demobilised, fitted out with civilian suits and awarded gratuities, many of them will implore the authorities to " ship me somewhere East of Suez, where the best is like the worst." But you never can tell. Much will depend, I imagine, on post-war con- ditions in our own island. The poem, when it first appeared, by no means won the approval of the multitude. Exception as taken, in some quarters, to two lines which seemed to draw an invidious dis- tinction between the hone t English working girl and her Burmese counter- part who, wearing a yellow petticoat and twanging a banjo, could apparently find no better employment than " wasting Christian kisses on a heathen idol's foot." 18 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 Though I walks with fifty 'ouse- maids outer Chelsea to the Strand, An' they talks a lot o' lov'ng', but wot do they understand ? Other carping critics wanted to know what flying fishes were doing in Mandalay, which lies well inland. But it is a fine poem, for all that. THE OTHER " VANGUARD." The explosion in Britain's largest battleship, H.M.S. Vanguard, at Clyde- bank .... when two workmen were killed and six others received injuries from burns, recalls the tragedy which befell her predecessor of the same name during the last war. On the night of Monday, July 9, 1917, H.M.S. Vanguard, one of our largest dread- noughts, lying at anchor at Scapa Flow, mysteriously blew up and sank immediately. There were only three survivors, an officer and two ratings, and the officer died within a few hours. Altogether, nearly 700 lives were lost. Among the dead were the Vanguard's Commanding Officer, Captain James D. Dick, R.N., and Acting Chaplain the Rev. Hatfield A. W. Back, B.A., who had been at Leeds Clergy School in 1912. The bodies were washed up along the shore at Scapa, and a touching reference is made to the disaster by Kipling in his poem, " The Schol- ars," in which he comments on the Admiralty scheme for allowing young naval officers to complete a Uni- versity education after the war. They have touched a knowledge outreaching speech— as when the cutters were sent To harvest the dreadful mile of beach after the " Vanguard " went. " Vanguard " seems to be a name of ill-omen in the Royal Navy. SOLDIER POET. " Ha ! Ha ! Among the Trumpets." By Alun Lewis. (Allen and Unwin, 5s.) Alun Lewis died on active service in India in the spring of 1944. Had he lived, this young Welshman might have become one of the outstanding writers of his day. Though not so mature a poet as Sidney Keyes, with whom he has been compared, Alun Lewis had already written enough to show what power was being generated within him. Like Keyes he spoke for all soldiers, to whom war had become an integral part of their daily lives. Like all natural poets, his real power came from within himself, but he was stimulated to the miracle of his particular creation by the common themes which his everyday life afforded. These new and last poems, so generously introduced to the reader by Robert Graves, show that Alun Lewis had a most sensitive and pene- trating mind to which he had married, after some striving, a vigorous and original mode of expression. The imagery of poems like " The Crucifixion " and " On Embarkation " is realistic and provocative. The Indian poems have the ' beginnings of the kind of detachment which Alun Lewis was beginning to achieve, and had the true Celtic vision, but he was more than a visionary. He saw life as it really was, though he related all its patterns to himself. With his clear innocent eye he had almost trained himself to choose from the rubble of many experiences the necess- ary essentials which are the stuff of all vital poetry. Alun Lewis is a loss to our language and to his own country. THE WAR HORSE. Since the publication, in last Mon- day's " Yorkshire Post," of a review of a book of verse by Alun Lewis, the young Welsh soldier poet who died on active service in India in the spring of 1944, I have been asked by several readers to name the passage in the Bible from which the title, " Ha ! Ha ! Among the trumpets," is derived. It is taken from the 39th Chapter of the Book of Job, verse 25, and the reference is to a war horse. The complete verse runs as follows :— He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. It was, no doubt, this passage which inspired the famous lines in Kipling's " Recessional " :— The tumult and the shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart. December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 19 Kipling and the Critics IN the last issue of the Kipling Journal, (October, 1945), Mr. Hilton Brown's Book, Rudyard Kipling, A New Appreciation, was reviewed by Mr. J. H. C. Brooking. In view of the renewed interest in R.K. and his life and work aroused by the book, we reproduce extracts by courtesy and permission of the publi- cations concerned from the following reviews : St. John Ervine in ' ' The Spec- tator. * ' It is a singular fact that Kipling has fared worse at the hands of his Mends and admirers than of his enemies and detractors. Except for Mr. Edward Shanks' able book his professed appreciators have done him poor service. ... It appears that Kipling remained a small boy all his life. He had an infantile admira- tion of ingenious gadgets. But why is he to be denounced for this, when Mr. H. G. Wells is admired ? Kipling, too, was guilty of bad taste. *' Every one of us has writhed at one time or. another !...." Has every one of us ? Is bad taste, in- deed, anything more than the offence which is caused to stale minds by fresh minds ? .... Kipling was cocky. Cockier than Mr. Bernard Shaw ? He posed. More than Wilde ? Words intoxi- cated him. His polities were ele- mentary. He had no conception of Progress. He was insincere, arrang- ing facts to suit his purpose ! Have not all prophets done this ? " He betrayed, in fact, his own gospel : he painted not the Thing as he Saw it, but the Thing as he Thought It Should Have Been." What does this pretentious statement mean, and how does Mr. Brown know all this ? My doubt of his sapience is increased when I find him asserting, as part of his argument, that Kipling never became adult, that if an undergraduate were to be placed "in an establish- ment which purveys motor cycles," his mind would be " unlikely to turn to the housing conditions of mechan- ics in Coventry." That, alas, is what the mind of the undergraduate too often does. Nor are these all Kipling's faults. He had tricks, God bless our soul ! His profession of intimacy with tech- nical terms was fraudulent and false; he sometimes slipped up on one ! .... His India has no relation to reality. He drew soldiers who were imaginary—a statement which is dis- proved for me, by the discovery I made in 1916 that the N.C.O."s who trained me in 1916, had stepped, body, bones and blood, out of Kip- ling's pages. Is Mr. Brown suggesting that no Irishmen ever pronounce sir sor ? Let him go to Ireland then and listen. Kipling's desire for privacy is treated as if it were pathological. He had signs prohibiting trespassers exhibited on his land : a politer ban, surely, than that commonly seen in America : Keep Out. This Means You..... Kipling's relations receive a crack or two. His wife was foolish enough to be five years older than her husband .... " One can only say of Caroline —basing the verdict upon his written work—that in spite of the fact that they were happily married for nearly half a century, she does not seem to have added greatly to his knowledge or contributed in marked degree to the sum of his experience." What pesti- lential trash this is ! .... How does Mr. Brown know what Mrs. Kipling contributed to her husband's exper- ience ? Is half a century of happi- ness nothing ? His book abounds in stuff as shallow as this. Attribut- ing to Kipling's father an influence on the son which he neither proves nor shows, if it were a fact, to have been unfortunate, he remarks " Con- ceivably Lockwood Kipling would not have expressed himself in just these words but that is what he probably believed, that is what he probably taught his son." Probably ! Yet Mr. Brown has spent pages in telling his readers that the Kiplings were " unusual " in India and un- popular for that reason. Lockwood was a sahib-worshipper who habitually put up the sahibs' backs !..... It is apparent to the discerning reader that Mr. Brown, very crudely, 20 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1945 supposes progress to be identical with improvement. What Mr. Brown fails to perceive is that his author's un- popularity with a small, but noisy group of people was due, partly to envy, partly to shock. Kipling had committed the unpardonable crime of success, and had committed this crime at the age of twenty- five. . . . He was a patriot in a time of dis-Ioyalty. He believed in the British Empire when the correct belief was in the International. He believed in skill when other people were addicted to intuitions. He loved good craft- men, whatever their class or rank, and he had a deep and abiding regard for common men who knew and did their job. It was private soldiers, not officers, whom he lovingly des- cribed; fishermen, not shipowners, whose feats he celebrated. Such a man. convicted of success, must inevitably become the bane of in- tellectual duds. So they fell upon him and endeavoured to destroy him. But he was indestructible, and the more he was decried, the greater be- came his renown. This was a man of genius, and his genius has not diminished..... Graham Greene in the " Evening Standard, ' ' (London). " Rudyard Kipling : A New Appre- ciation," by Mr. Hilton Brown is hardly likely to affect literary fashions. The book is introduced by Mr. Frank Swinnerton in terms more applic- able to the circus ring than to literature, While Mr. Brown laboured, we are told, " I stood darkly in the background, cracking my whip. " The image is vivid : one sees the bearded ringmaster and the enormous efforts of the trained bear to fulfil his not very difficult task : clumsily mounting a ladder or perching upon a chair back (perhaps " with paws like hands in prayer.") Kipling wrote a warning poem about The Truce of the Bear, and this " appreciation " brings home the truth of the old adage that we should beware of our friends. Here are a few of the appreciative phrases : " In South Africa he was anti-Boer, and he remained besottedly anti-Boer long after it became evi- dent that such an attitude was hope- less and profitless " (this is, of course, quite untrue : see Kipling's fine poem, " The Settler.") " The truth seems to be that he was fundamentally uninterested in political questions, but he felt it incumbent on him to strike an attitude, and in this, once assumed, he petrified." " Kipling's political ideas .... were in the first place not his own ideas, and in the second they were quite inexcusably rigid." The finest political poetry in the language since Dryden is dismissed as " boringly perfervid." And what are we to think of a critic who writes of Kipling, " For vers d'occasion he lacked the equipment of such as Owen Seaman ?" (Punch please copy). Charles Vince in the ' ' Birming- ham Post." Mr. Brown sets out in this " appreci- ation " to see Kipling whole, believing that " his art was an ascending art, becoming finer as it became more adventurous." That is excellently said, but after starting so well Mr. Brown loses his way. He has one eye on Kipling, the other on those critics. His " appreciation " turns to a defence, but over-laboured, and he varies it with very hearty thwacks of his own on Kipling's head. Perhaps the double role confused him, for he flatly contradicts him- self on a point essential in any esti- mate. In one place he says : " Kip- ling's soldiers live just for this very reason—that there is about them a quality of permanence, a fragment of the eternal verities " (could there be much higher praise ?) In another place he says of some of Kipling's women characters : " They share the common quality of vivid and con- vincing life." In another he says : " This is a grim reminder that Kip- ling was rarely capable of creating a character." Which is it to be ? Of the verse Mr. Brown does not say very much, and what he says makes one doubtful of him. One cannot but be doubtful of a man who writes of " the purple patch that tends to disfigure prose but serves to embellish verse," who says nothing of " The Queen was in her chamber " and rather contemptuously dismisses " St. Helena Lullaby," the two poems which Yeats chose out of all Kipling for his " Oxford Book of Modern Verse." December, 1945 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 21 Letter Bag Correspondents are asked to keep letters for publication as short as possible REFERRING to October number, (1944) page 13, the letter of 10th Sept. 1941 from the late Mr. C. Graves, to a friend of mine, copied below, might be of interest.— S. A. Courtauld. (COPY) " The genesis of Horace Odes, Book V was in the brains of Kipling. It occurred to him about the blackest time of the last war, end of 1917 and early months of 1918, as a means of keeping up one's spirits and distracting our thoughts from present troubles, and he wrote to me outlining his plan and making many admirable suggestions for sub- jects of the sham odes. He only wrote one himself (I con- tributed a dozen) but he was "the begetter " of the scheme. His next step was to secure a band of scholars to translate them into Latin, and he could not have got a better-equipped company, Godley, Knox, Ramsay and Powell. Godley also wrote the essay in Latin prose. The little book had a limited cir- culation but a good press . . . ." THE MARK OF THE BEAST This short paragraph, from the " News Chronicle " of October 3rd may be of use to you :—" Those who know France will not be surprised to hear that Kipling is still well to the fore on the boulevards. They are playing ' The Mark of the Beast ' at the Grand Guignol, and a big hit at one of the cinemas is ' The Light That Failed,' with Ronald Colman."' Yours faithfully,—F. A. Underwood, 51, Charnock Avenue, Wollaton Park, Nottingham. 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, arc invited to send particulars to the Hon. Editor, Tae Kipling journal, Lincoln House, London Road, Harrow-on-the-Hill. In the case of cuttings from overseas publications, senders art asked to obtain formal permission to reprint from the Editors of the journals concerned, for which full acknowledgment will be made in " The Kipling Journal." TO OUR MEMBERS W E wish again to thank all those members, at home and abroad, who have written to us during the past few months, and have given practical support to the Society in various ways. We highly appreciate their interest. We invite every member individually to help by enrolling one friend as a member of the Society, and those who for any reason are unable to do so, are asked to send an equivalent donation to be allocated to the " Journal " Fund. Applications for membership (or donations) should be sent to the Hon. Secretary The Kipling Society, 105, Gower Street, London, W.C.l. W. H. Houldershaw, Ltd., Printers, 49-55, London Road, Southend-on-Sea.