CONTENTS PAGE Notes—J. P. Collins........ 1 A Message From Our President ------ 3 The Ephemeral, the Passing and the Recondite, in the Works of Rudyard Kipling—Victor Bonney, f.r.c.s. - 4 The Kipling Society in Schools ------ 6 Kipling Among the Bees—Norman McCance The Kipling Anniversary ------- 9 Kipling Library Notes—W. G. B. Maitland 10 Perfect Reporting—W. C. Fox ------ 12 Kipling Public Readings - - - - - - - 13 Letter Bag ---------- 14 Branch Reports, (Victoria B.C. and Auckland, N.Z.) - 16 THE KIPLING SOCIETY SALES DEPARTMENT 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 : 6d. each. Special prices, which may be obtained from the Secretary, apply however to those 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 to 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. XIII. No. 81. April, 1947 Notes FROM OUR PRESIDENT. NO great servant of the State, and no representative of His Majesty returning from exile and worry, can ever be assured of a heartier welcome from his country- men on his return from India, than our beloved President, Lord Wavell. It is enough for the present to remark how truly consistent he is to himself, in the way he keeps us guessing whether he excels by inherent nobility of thought or by characteristic kind- ness of heart. Beset as he has been of late, with so many unprecedented cares and problems, he still remains the ideal President, for he has found time to write us a message fit to make the Editor proud and every member grateful. In his own felicitous way, Lord Wavell's message bears upon the Kipling Society's coming anniversary —the twentieth—and R. K. himself could hardly have drawn profounder or saner reflections from a rapid survey of a pair of decades fraught with so many disasters and lessons to mankind. Yet we can cry full assent with him in rejoicing, as he does, that our poet was called away to his well-earned rest before this troubled planet went so completely off the handle, as the saying goes. KIPLING'S IDEALS. There remains another consoling war-time thought—and it is this : that but for the providential con- currence of a group of power-wielders like Lord Wavell and his successor, Viscount Mountbatten, under the leadership of Mr. Churchill, the world might as well have put up the shutters of civilisation for many a year to come. Happily, just as we British standfasts were regarded as all but spent, and valued allies were on the way to share our success, we had learned and come to realise as never before, perhaps, the wisdom and hard experience behind Lord Wavell's pre- cept of Preparation. His consistent adherence to this golden rule is likely to stand to his credit with posterity for many a year to come, as that of the ideal administrator at a time of exceptional strain and trial—-calm, unfailing, resourceful, and self-possess- ed. What Kipling's feelings would have been, had he been living at this hour, opens up realms of deep conjecture. But at any rate, we have this note of reassurance avail- able—that the statesman-administra- tor on the spot during one of the most critical launches of State in human history, has been one of the truest exemplars and embodiments we know, of those patriotic standards, ideals and aims that we have all learned from the writings of Rudyard Kipling. TWO EMPIRE STATESMEN. Another aspect of the turn in Empire affairs is that there comes to the retiring Viceroy an advance in the peerage which is certain to be roundly acclaimed throughout the English-speaking world. For one thing his sagacity and mastery of great affairs can never have been more valuable in the counsels of his peers at Westminster than they will be at present. His new honour concurs with the award of the Order of Merit which His Majesty has just made to that other Empire statesman, General Smuts, at the outset of an historic tour which makes it matter for congratulation that the British Commonwealth is happily securer at its outer rims than ever. Truly we must all wish both these hard- proved statesmen additional years in which to enjoy their well-deserved honours, and further the good work they have so far advanced. 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 HAPPY OCCASIONS. Nor is this coincidence of honours the only one that invites attention. Just at a time when Mr. Churchill has been presiding at the happy marriage of his daughter, Mary, amid such brilliant surroundings here in London, Lord Wavell has been enjoy- ing a similar experience, and banishing his cares of State awhile in the radiant atmosphere of troops of friends. For on February 20th the Hon. Felicity Anne Wavell was married to Captain Peter Maitland Longmore, Royal Artillery, at the Church of the Redemption, New Delhi, by the Most Rev. George C. Hub back, Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, Burma and Ceylon. The bridegroom is the youngest son of one of the Viceroy's war-time com- rades,Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore; and other old colleagues like Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchin- leck and General Sir Arthur Wauchope, represented the armies of both countries. Governors and Indian princes were there in force and we are assured that the 1400 guests could never have seen the gardens of Govern- ment House in better trim or graced by a more smiling company. A ROUND-UP OF MEMORIES. The present number is favoured with a first instalment of Mr. Bonney's interesting lecture—a reasoned esti- mate of what our poet's early writings meant to his generation and the early 'nineties. That was the rap- turous and unsophisticated age when the expression, fin de siècle, came in as a conversational convenience, and not as a modernist's casual sneer. The lecturer gives us scented recollect- ions of dances and tunes which matched each other to perfection; and recalls to some of us the delirious fervour that used to come home in the letters of student-kinsmen who were moving about Europe, especially the nearer they got to the dazzling pavilions and palaces of Vienna. Simla, with its wonderful sur- roundings and romantic setting, its beauty and its fashion, and its per- petual programme through the season of a garden-party by day and a carnival by night—how it intensities the ever-recurring wish that it had produced a capable artist equal to recording its personality and charm and colour, as R. K. has done with his unfading pen. Lastly we must all enjoy the fleet of ships that pass like a sun-lit panorama through the lecture, to make a splendid back- cloth, as it were, and help us realise the speaker's breadth and balance of interest and enjoy the retentiveness of his busy mind. FORCING THE CARD. The " sortes Virgilianae " men- tioned by Lord Wavell in his letter is an old intellectual ruse or pastime that figured more in the life and fiction of the last century than it does to-day. Learned volumes have been built upon the cult, as an interesting legacy of folk-lore from the classic age between paganism and Christian- ity. No doubt it throve upon that supernatural repute Virgil so easily acquired, because of his far-seeing vision towards post-Roman times, and his blend of the visionary and the pastoral dreamer. Some good judges hold that his Georgics and Eclogues would have left him im- mortal even if his " tale of Rome divine " had never been written ; but certainly the sublimated patriot- ism of the " Aeneid " was assured of popularity as soon as the printed book came in. What could be more convenient than to prod a hair-pin or a comb- tooth between the edges of a closed volume, and light upon a passage which lent itself to the first ingenious explanation ? Sometimes the differ- ence between alternative courses was more apparent than real ; sometimes a self-seeking enthusiast might mark off a short cut to the quotation he required. But all doubts dismissed, it is astonishing to realise how many critical turns have been given to the course of history and biography by this simple dodge of a legend, a book, and a pin. For one thing, the " sortes " had this easy advantage, that if either party failed to see the applicability of one or two citations he (or certainty she) might easily call for another attempt. J.P. Collins. April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 THE SOCIETY'S TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT VICEROY'S CAMP, INDIA. I send the Society my warmest congratulations and greeting on its Twentieth Anniversary, and wish it all success in the future. I think we should be glad on the whole that Kipling was spared the strain of the Second World War. It would have been heart-breaking for him at his age to have had again to live through perils against which he had warned us. I fell to thinking what he would have said about it all; and remembering the classical practice of taking sortes Virgilianœ—i.e., passages chosen by opening his works at random—I decided in the short time at my disposal to take a few sortes Kiplingenses. The result was, I think, rather striking. I turned first to " The Book of Words," opened it on his speech on the English character, and read the following:— " Our national weakness for keeping to the easiest road to the latest possible minute, sooner than inconvenience ourselves and our neighbours, has been visited upon us full tale." That will serve well for 1939, My other two sortes were taken from the volume of Collected Poems. The first will serve for a reminder of 1940 and 1941:— " When you come to London Town, (Grieving—Grieving) Bow your head and mourn your own, With the others grieving." My final sors opened at the poem " The Gods of the Copybook Headings," and on this couplet:— " But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy; And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said, if you don't work you die." I think that will perhaps serve for the present time. But what a wonderful poem he would have written us on Dunkirk! WAVELL, F.M. 17/1/47. 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 The Ephemeral, the Passing and the Recondite IN THE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING By VICTOR BONNEY, F.R.C.S. The first part of an address to the members of the Kipling Society in London A VERY wide education is re- quired to appreciate completely the full point and power of Rudyard Kipling's writings, and the most learned amongst us, have, I take it, been occasionally baffled by some of his references ; either because they concern matters which were purely ephemeral, or, being more lasting than that, have yet by now ceased or are ceasing to exist ; or because, in themselves, they are beyond common know- ledge, or what is termed recondite. There is no hard and fast line between the three, but the grouping is convenient for a discussion on some of these references, failure to under- stand which often deprives the poem or tale of much or all of its significance. THE EPHEMERAL. Taking the ephemeral first, the whole of the social life at Simla, which forms such a feature of his early work ; the dresses of the women, the talk of the men, the very places of amusement, was a passing show outside the memory of most people, whilst of the actual participants very few can remain. I wish there was attached to these stories and poems a map of Simla as it was in the eighties, with all the places mentioned clearly marked —Benmore, for instance : " And all the long verandahs elo- quent With echoes of a score of Simla years, Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment Babbling of kisses, laughter, love and tears." How many of our younger readers know what " See Saw," " Dream Faces " and " Goodbye " stand for ? But those of us who have topped seventy know very well. They were waltzes with delightful tunes, the memory of which brings back the glamour of the Victorian ball-room —which seen en masse was so much more decorative than the dance halls of to-day. Mulvaney speaks of the " Sherapis " (Serapis), and elsewhere the Crocodile and the Jumna are mentioned. What were these ships ? They belonged to a group of square-rigged white- painted government transports with ram bows and yellow funnels, and each had a distinctive colour band along its side. All soldiers going to or coming from India in those days knew thim well, but they have long since been broken up. Kipling names many other ships. The City of Rome mentioned in The Captive was an Anchor liner with a fiddle-bow and a turtle-back stern. She was the first liner to have three funnels, and there used to be (and maybe still is) a model of her in South Kensington Museum. In The Ship That Found Herself we have " The City of Paris " (an Inman liner, later taken over by the Ameri- can line and renamed " The Paris ") ; " Majestic " (White Star) ; " Servia " (Cunard) ; " Touraine *' (Compagnie Transatlantique) ; " Kaiser Wilhelm " (Norddeutscher Lloyd) ; " Werken- dam " (Holland American) and " Arizona " (Guion Line). All these ships were household words on the North Atlantic at the time the story was written, but are forgotten now. I was born in Chelsea not very far from the barracks in Lower Sloane Street, and the red-coated soldier, with his narrow striped trousers and swagger-cane, walking April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 out with his girl, was a very familiar sight in my young days, hence : " Tho' I walks with fifty 'ouse- maids outer Chelsea to the Strand". There are many other ephemeralia but these must suffice now, and I will pass on to things which, though too lasting to be called ephemeral, have yet with the passing years disappeared, or are soon to disappear. PASSING THINGS. Many of Kipling's references con- cern machinery, and the most notice- able of his writings in this respect are M'Andrew's Hymn and The Devil und the Deep Sea. The marine engines described therein were re- ciprocating engines, with three cylinders (high, intermediate and low pressure) supported vertically by steel columns. To the piston rods were attached the connecting rods which transmitted the power to the crank- throws rotating the screw-shaft. The total height of the engine of a large ship was twenty-five feet or more and the tops of the cylinders were but little below the level of the upper deck. The piston rods were con- tinued above the cap of the cylinders, as the tail-rods and through the engine-room skylights could be seen rhythmically rising and falling " Whaurto—uplifted like the Just The tail-rods mark the time." But now the reciprocating engine has been largely replaced by the steam turbine, and visitors to the engine room of a modern liner only see huge casings, and not a single moving part. Internal combustion engines of the Diesel type give more to look at, but the movements seen are com- paratively small, finicky and chatter- ing, and not to be compared as a show with the stately stride of the old twelve-foot connecting rod. In a few years more, it is probable that the gas-turbine will replace both the present types, and possibly in the future an entirely new kind of engine driven by atomic power, so that in fifty years hence I doubt if any of the readers of Kipling will know what M'Andrew was talking about or appreciate the miracle wrought under Mr. Wardrop's direction. If mere technical knowledge was all that was in question, ignorance of it would be no great matter, but Kipling used its details to convey great lessons in allegory : " Now a'together, hear them lift their lesson—theirs an' mine : Law, Order, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline." Those who object to his meticulous descriptions of mechanism stand self- convicted of narrow grasp and sensitiv- ity. It is no use arguing with this sort of people : as well descant on the beauties of a rainbow to a person colour-blind. They remind me of a noble lady who, totally ignorant of all that the gun symbolizes to the men who serve it, wrote a letter to The Times deploring the touching monument at Hyde Park corner. Before I leave M'Andrew let me quote him again : " Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamos." In those days electric-light machin- ery had only recently been installed in ships, and the dynamos, small things, scarcely larger than a cabin trunk, were housed in the tunnel down which the screw-shaft ran. M'Andrew tells us that his ship was 6000 tons and 7000 horse power. This exactly describes the largest P. & O. and Orient liners of that time " We're creepin' on wi' each new rig—less weight an' larger power " referring to his engines. Did he foresee, I wonder, as far as the 150,000 horse power of to-day ? The line embodies a prophetic vision But will our grandchildren under- stand ? (To be continued) 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 The Kipling Society in Schools A NOTE FROM THE GIRLS OF SHUTE SCHOOL, Nr. AXMINSTER, DEVON (Shute School is the first to take advantage of our new scheme of Cor- porate Membership, whereby an entire school may become a member of the Kipling Society, at an annual sub- scription of One Guinea. We hope very much that other schools will follow the example set by the Head- mistress of Shute School, Miss Bridie, who tells us that this concession is very popular with her pupils). AS soon as we heard that the Council of the Kipling Society had decided to establish a corporate membership for schools, we decided that we should like to join. A number of us got together and discussed the project with our Head Mistress, who has been for many years a Life Member of the Society. We have always been specially interested in Kipling's verse and stories, and have read much. We were gratified to hear that this was the first school to organize a School Branch of the Kipling Society. We had an Inaugural Meeting on November 5th, when we discussed the conditions of membership. It was decided that membership should be entirely voluntary, but should be limited to girls over fourteen. Then thirty-five girls signed the Register of Members, and the bright gilt " R. K." badges were pinned on. We then decided that each member should undertake to read one book a year that she had not previously read, and should learn one new poem. An Annual Prize (a copy of Rudyard Kipling's Verse, Inclusive Edition) is offered by the Head Mistress for the best dissertation on a book read during the year, or some other relevant subject. This will be judged by a competent outsider. It was also decided that copies of the Kipling Journal should be placed in the Reading Room, the Common Room and the Den (Seniors' Common Room), and that notices of all meet- ings of the Kipling Society should be put on the notice board for the information of any member who might be in London at the time. It was also agreed that there should be two meetings of the Shute Branch of the Kipling Society each term, one the week before the half-term, and one the week before the last week of term. At our second Meeting on December 5th we carried out the Programme which will be followed in future :— 1. Roll Call of Members. 2. Reading of " Land of our Birth " by the Chairman. 3. Reading of a short story or serial. 4. Reading of special articles in Kipling Journal. 5. Discussion, or talk by visitor. 6. Two other poems, chosen and read by members. A Chairman and Secretary were elected from girls in Forms VI and V, and the proceedings duly recorded. In addition to these two Meetings, we had a thrilling and wonderful Lecture by Lieutenant Niall Robinson, D.S.C, on the short but glorious life of H.M.S. " Kipling." We felt that he did indeed use " the lesser word to cloke the greater deed." Members are particularly requested NOT to make out cheques for their subscriptions, etc., to individuals. They should always be made payable to " The Kipling Society." Members overseas are asked to note that, owing to currency difficulties, we cannot accept cheques or bills on overseas Banks (unless payable at a Branch in the United Kingdom). Ordinary currency notes, however, can be easily negotiated in London. April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 Kipling Among the Bees By NORMAN McCANCE (Melbourne, Australia) From a Talk given to the Melbourne Branch of the Kipling Society BUT these be real bees, these be ! Not so much perhaps have I in mind my beautiful golden- banded Italian bees that I keep in the hills, but those that interested Rudyard Kipling. He tells us in his story " The Vortex ", that he was not only a member of the Country Bee Keepers Association and an apiarist of good standing, but when bees were on the warpath he tucked his trousers into his socks, for he was an apiarist of experience. Kipling bred British black bees down at Batemans, Bur- wash, in Sussex, and in his auto- biography Something of Myself, he tells of a brook at the foot of his garden which would flood devastating- ly. This is remembered in his stories Friendly Brook and My Son's Wife, and in one of his finest poems he tells how one night it rose and swept all his hives away. " GARRISONED WITH AMAZONS." Have you ever heard a finer des- cription of bees than Kipling's in this poem The Song of Seven Cities, published in August, 1914, with " The Vortex " ? " I was Lord of Cities very sumptuous- ly builded. Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from afar. Ivory their outposts were—the guardrooms of them gilded, And garrisoned with Amazons in- vincible in war." A gorgeous line, " Garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war !" That someone should by now have set to music—preferably Sir Edward German who made such a wonderful job of Kipling's Just So Songs. This too, is a lovely verse :— " Banded, mailed and arrogant from sunrise into sunset, Singing while they sacked it, they possessed the land at large. Yet when men would rob them, they resisted, they made onset, And pierced the smoke of battle with a thousand-sabred charge !" A thousand-sabred charge, however, is an understatement, for though golden-banded Italian Bees are gentle and docile, they can get thoroughly out of hand at times, and tucking trousers into socks is not proof against their onset. But Kipling's beehives vanished— " The River rose at midnight and it washed away my Cities, They are evened with Atlantis and the towns before the Flood." Curiously, in this poem, Kipling says he will build anew his cities and fill them " with peoples undefeated of the dark enduring blood." If this means that he will prefer the British black bee to the golden-banded Italian, he is the only apiarist on record to do so. ITALIAN QUEENS. It was the British black bee that could not withstand the wax-moth, or the terrible Isle of Wight disease that ravaged all the hives of Britain for twenty years, from about 1902, which was the year in which the Kiplings bought Batemans. Event- ually the British bee-keepers imported Italian queens from America, with an egg-laying record of 5,000 eggs a day. This enormous increase in the hive population keeps the Isle of Wight parasite under control, and the Italian bees have always been able to deal adequately with the wax-moth. Kipling wrote about The Mother Hive, in which he describes what happens when the wax-moth gets a footing among the frames :— " There was black comb so old that the bees had forgotten where it hung, orange, buff and ochre- varnished store-comb built as bees were used to build before the days of artificial foundations, and there was a little white frail new work— the whole gummed and glued into twisted scrap-work, awry on the wires, half-cells, beginnings abandoned or grandiose, weak-walled composite cells pieced out with rubbish and 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 capped with dirt. Good or bad, every inch of it was so riddled by the tunnel of the wax-moth that it broke in clouds of dust as it was flung on the heap." (Kipling goes on to describe how all of this went into the bonfire as the apiarist cleaned and disinfected the ruined hive). Though he has most graphically described the damage done by the moth, I think as an apiarist he relies too much on his vivid imagination when he tells how the Princess of the hive, and her little loyal swarm— " You could have covered it with a pint mug "—hung in an old oak, where they had swarmed after the bee-master had opened and smoked the hive, and where they waited for the hive to be swept and garnished for their rehabilitation. THE FAMOUS ERROR? No : I think it most unlikely that this could occur, and it may possibly be the famous error which Kipling himself declares remains undiscovered. But Kipling's even greater mistake in describing the habits of bees is to be found in " The Vortex." That diverting account tells how bees took possession of an English village, and raged up and down, putting a military band, a picnic, a politician and a train of excursionists to flight. In it Kipling asks a delightful question : " Do you know that if you sting an engine driver it is the same as stinging his train ?" She starts with a jerk that nearly smashes the couplings, and runs barking like a dog till she is out of sight." But the inexcusable mistake, (re- membering that Kipling said he was an experienced apiarist), was in making a boy on a bicycle loaded with four paper bonnet-boxes, carry four full swarms of bees, which when upset by a collision with Kipling's motor, threw a peaceful village into utter confusion. A full swarm of bees weighs ten pounds, so that it is unlikely that a boy would carry nearly half a hundredweight of bees on a bicycle, nor is it at all likely that swarms of bees gorged with honey, and therefore disinclined to sting, would take possession of an entire village. POETIC LICENCE. However, a poet who is also an apiarist may surely be given poetic licence about bees, and it is quite easy to become poetic over bees such as my queen Ligurians that flew from Kangaroo Island. And if you challenge that, I will say they did so, by aeroplane, with nurses, cooks, masseuses and waitresses in attendance for they are the only living creatures authorised to travel in, and not merely with, His Majesty's mails. Kipling's first description of bees was in that Indian story of Mowgli, "Red Dog", in which the hunting pack of Indian dingoes was routed by the terrible Apis dorsata, the tiger fly of India, a true bee that some misguided idiots tried to acclimatise and domesticate in U.S.A.—fortunately without success. It can kill a man and put an elephant to flight. Kipling has a marvellous description of Dor- sata : " These were the clotted millions of the sleeping bees .... There were other lumps and festoons and things like decayed tree-trunks studded on the face of the rock, the old combs of past years or new cities built in the shadow of the gorge .... and as he (Mowgli) listened, he heard more than once the rustle and slide of a honey-loaded comb, turning over or falling away somewhere in the dark galleries, then a booming of angry wings and the sullen drip, drip, drip of wasted honey guttering along till it tipped over some ledge in the open air and sluggishly trickled down on the twigs." ZEST FOR KNOWLEDGE. With his tremendous zest for know- ledge and admiration of skilled tech- nique, Kipling would surely have been a master apiarist had he either lived longer, or taken up the craft earlier, and had he started earlier he would surely have lived longer. It was a sad day for England when Kipling and his King died almost within a few hours of one another, and so that people said " The King has gone and has taken his Trumpeter with him"'. Yes, if Kipling had worked more among his bees, down by the brook at Batemans, Burwash, that trumpet April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 might have sounded for England in the years when she had most need of it. Because nearly all the bee- masters of history lived to very ripe old ages, round about the middle nineties, most of them. This was due to a number of factors—they worked a lot in the open air with an absorbing hobby so fascinating that it never grows stale, they were men of calm control and temperament, trained to sure unhurried movement among the hives, they ate plenty of honey ; and they were stung sufficient- ly often to keep free of rheumatism. I cannot yet say if bee stings will cure rheumatism, but I do believe that a little stinging now and then will prevent it. The great thing about bee stings is that while no one yet has a cure for them, not even with blue bags, they simply don't hurt if you let the bees practice on you fairly regularly. After about your fifteenth sting, you get a sort of immunity, and the bees in disgust agree that it's not much use wasting perfectly good stings and shortening their lives by attacking someone who just laughs at them, or pretends to ! So I like to think of Kipling among his bees, down by friendly brook, with his trousers tucked in and his smoker going full blast, and his glasses shining like headlights behind his veil. But I hope he did not wear gloves. To work among your bees with bare hands and arms requires just that nice amount of moral courage that keeps even angry bees under control. Of course, the proper costume for a bee-keeper among his hives is a bathing costume. I mean it, though I do not recom- mend it, but if you had the courage to handle bees in a swim suit, they would be so vastly impressed by your confidence and superiority, that they would leave you in peace to manipulate the hive. I believe it has something to do with fear causing adrenalin in the blood, so bees know when you are scared of them, as do dogs and horses as well as tigers in the circus arena. I do know that bees have a great respect for those who walk up and open their hives —after carefully smoking them first —and say, as if standing no nonsense, " Now, then, move over, there !" In my case, of course, it's a tremend- ous bluff, but it always works. What a far cry it is from Batemans down in Sussex to my beautiful docile Ligurians on the Mt. Dand- enong hill tops. What of them, now Winter comes.? They have thrust forth to perish the golden drones that were so diligent in " a serving of her Majesty the Queen " and the whole community is being run very smoothly and very efficiently by a bunch of feminine economists, or economic feminists—please yourself !—who :— (a) Do not like smoke. (b) Work always in silence. (c) Never take their hair down to play. Kipling called the female workers of the hive : " The harsh envenomed virgins that can neither love nor play." There is a great moral lesson here for someone and perhaps it is that our national community would be better run by women. But, hush ! that, as Kipling would say, is another story. Quite another story. The Kipling Anniversary THE SOCIETY'S WREATH OF REMEMBRANCE THE founder of the Kipling Society, Mr. J. H. C. Brooking, writes :— "On the 11th anniversary, our usual wreath of remembrance was placed on the grave in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, the in- scription reading as follows : We remember today and mourn for RUDYARD KIPLING Britain's Patriot-Poet and Prophet. Kipling Society, Gower St., London. Jan. 18, 1947. " If England was what England seems, An' not the England of our dreams, But only putty, brass an' paint, 'Ow quick we'd chuck 'er ! But she ain't !" Some bystanders agreed that this quotation from The Return might have been written today." 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 Kipling Library Notes By W. G. B. MAITLAND READERS of Kipling can be divided into several distinct classes. Those who read merely for the pleasure they extract from his books, those who read and re- read, gaining some fresh interest each time they dip into a favourite volume, and those who like to learn something of the author's method of work—his choice of the right word in the right place, and it is for this latter class of reader I have prepared these few notes. It is well known that Kipling was meticulously careful in the revision of all his collected works, and a little research into this subject well repays, with a reward of interesting discoveries, the tedious work of collating. The first reaction of the average reader to this might well be, " What is the use in discovering that a comma, (say), has been changed to a full-stop, or the tense of a verb altered from the present to the past ? Where is the interest or value of all this collating?" The answer to this kind of question is, of course, for the reader to make a few comparisons for himself be- tween original magazine or news- paper appearances, and the collected version, when the interest to be gained by such collation will once again become apparent. SOME EXAMPLES. Let us take some examples of revision. In " The Vortex " (Scrib- ner's Magazine, August, 1914), collected into A Diversity of Creatures, towards the end of the story it will be re- membered that Lingnam is taking evil pleasure in smashing up a bicycle by driving the car over it. When Mrs. Bellamy tries to protest he threatens to " drive upstairs and Crippen you." In a Diversity of Creatures "Crippen" has been altered to " kill." Now, the reason for this is fairly obvious. The Crippen murder case was still fresh in the public mind when the story was written, but by the time A Diversity of Creatures was published in 1917 it was no longer news. Hence to have let the name of Crippen remain would have been stale journalism. Another, and more valuable example is the correction of an error in the " The Explorer." In the eleventh stanza in the first edition of The Five Nations Kipling wrote, " David went to look for donkeys." In subse- quent editions " Saul " was correctly substituted. Two further poems, "Tomlinson" and " The Last of the Light Brigade " both shew extensive differences be- tween original and collected versions. A comparison between the text of Tomlinson as it was when first written and the collected version in the Inclusive Verse Edition, 1885- 192G shews something like forty alterations, including the deletion of the following six lines from the end of the poem :— " So Tomlinson took up the flesh in his home in Berkeley Square, And syne he heard the coffin head that bumped upon the stair, He shifted the shroud about his mouth and garred the watchers scream. ' I have lain ' quo' he, ' in a droughty trance and dreamed a murderous dream : But whether I rise from the red fever or the redder mouth of Hell By God His Will, for good or ill. I'll live my life mysel.' " In its original state " The Last of the Light Brigade " carried, in addition to a long prose heading, a penultimate verse which ran as follows :— " They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog, They healed the spavined cab- horse ; they housed the homeless dog; And they sent (you may call me a liar), when rebel and beast had been paid, A cheque for .... enough to live on, to the last of the Light Brigade." (A remarkable alteration in the title of one of the best-known poems April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 1l occurs in the Definitive Edition, whereby the original " M'Andrew's " is changed to " McAndrew's.") THE PROSE VOLUMES. Turning to the prose volumes we find many instances of Kipling's careful revision : " The Brushwood Boy " and " The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes " are examples where the deletion of long passages have been made from the text. In the first named, in addition to innumerable instances of alterations to, and substitutions of single words, we find that no less than three such passages have been omitted from the collected version in The Day's Work. Here is one which immediately follows the words, " control each other." " On the other side—Georgie did not realize this till later—was the wiry drill-sergeant, contemptuously aware of all the tricks of ten genera- tions of boys, who ruled the gym- nasium through the long winter even- ings when the squads were at work. There, among the rattle of the single- sticks, the click of the foils, the jar of the spring-bayonet sent home on the plastron, and the incessant " bat- bat " of the gloves, little Schofield would cool off on the vaulting horse, and explain to the head of the school by what mysterious ways the worth of a boy could be gauged between half shut eye-lids." " The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes " as it appeared in The Phantom Rickshaw (A. H. Wheeler's Indian Railway Library, Allahabad, 1889) had a final paragraph which was omitted from all other collected ver- sions, except certain American private issues. This paragraph reads :— " To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a gold mohur a month—a sum which I still think far too little for the services he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that devilish spot again or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I have done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to do. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that someone may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I have given above, the corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting suit." DIFFERENCES IN TEXT. Differences in text lie not only between original and collected versions but also between the individual con- tents of English and American Editions of the same book. Plain Tales from the Hills, Under the Deodars and Soldiers Three are cases in point. The American editions of the above named volumes each contain material not included in the ' Uniform ' edition published by Macmillan & Co. Plain Tales from the Hills contains " Haunted Subalterns " and " Bitters Neat." Under the Deodars contains the " Pit that they Digged " and " The Track of a Lie," and Soldiers Three contains " Of Those Called " and " The Wreck of the Visigoth." All these four stories are included in The Edition de Luxe and the Sussex Edition, excepting " The Wreck of the Visigoth " which was excluded from the Edition de Luxe. IMPRIMATUR A NEW LITERARY QUARTERLY FOR. BIBLIOPHILES SUBSCRIPTION - FOUR ISSUES - TEN SHILLINGS Remit by International Money Order to — LLOYD EMERSON SIBERELL, P.O. Box 51, EVANSTON STATION, CINCINNATI, 7, OHIO, U.S.A. 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 Perfect Reporting THE SUPREME MASTER CRAFTSMAN By W. C. FOX KIPLING'S works are rarely dis- cussed anywhere for very long, before someone draws attention to the very wide range of subjects and the intimate knowledge of them which is displayed. An ability to talk of ships and medicine, Indian Mythology and bridge-building, the Army and the Navy, and many other subjects as one intimate with the inner mysteries of all of them, is regarded with wonder. But there is little wonderful about it—it is what every able reporter is doing every day, and is still doing, as an ordinary and normal part of his work, and Kipling before all else was a reporter. COMMAND OF WORDS. He has told us many times and in many ways that he was a reporter, and was trained in his later years at school for that very type of work. If one regards him as a very gifted and capable reporter, much of what he has written becomes quite clear and understandable. The wonder of his writing is not that he could write as an expert on so many subjects, but the magical, almost incredible command that he had of words. In his hands, they became as the colour on the brush of the artist— as well they might, seeing the artistic background of Kipling's home life —to portray every shade of meaning and emotion, crisply and without ambiguity. But, as it is the custom in these days to sneer at ' the reporter ' as someone beneath recognition, it may be as well to outline briefly the work and outlook of a reporter. His busi- ness in life is to report on every- thing and anything, accurately and, if it is at all possible, interestingly. His report has to be acceptable to the expert and the layman—and to make a blunder is an unpardonable offence. That the job is reasonably well done, should be obvious from the number of technical journals there are, and the circulations they enjoy. It is the ordinary reporter who writes the reports for the majority of them, as he does also for the daily paper which employs him. How wide the range of subject covered can be gauged by a glance at any of them, or at the pages of the better class newspaper. VALUED ANONYMITY. The last thing the ordinary reporter wants or seeks, is the limelight. His anonymity is precious beyond all else, and in the days of Kipling's youth, was even more precious if that were possible. Even to-day, when newspapers are regarded as suitable gambles for high finance, it is more difficult to get the name of a reporter from his paper than to convince a Labour leader of the error of his political arguments. Most reporters dream of becoming an author of some note : very few do, and even fewer rise to the pinnacle that was so easy for Kipling, for very few have had anything like his ability. Bearing these facts in mind, Stalky and Co. takes on a different meaning in many particulars. It is clear that young ' Beetle ' was being trained for the Press. He was editor of the school magazine, and more than that, was interested in type and printing in a practical way, other- wise he would not have tampered with the examination papers when in the forme and so successfully altered them—to take type out of a forme and replace it with other type is, for the inexperienced, like playing with a Chinese puzzle. His references to the acid utterances of King and the glee with which he collected and used them on his school- fellows, is only the cub-reporter trying his hand with a good phrase. (They still do it, and not always with the same success). "ALL THE CARDS," In Something of Myself it is made quite plain that he had all the experiences of the junior reporter : he reported anything and everything one day, and the next, in his capacity April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 of sub-editor ' knocked the reports into cocked hats ' because there was not the space in the paper for them. He even had the experience of attempts at bribery, but where the English junior has only his tongue to scarify the offender, Kipling had the far more effective weapon of the low-caste sweeper by which to return the high-caste bribe. Later he tells us that he was ' dealt all the cards by Fate and only had to play them.' A very modest statement. How well the average reporter knows those cards—the thrilling story from some unlikely individual, told casually in the train, or some similar experience —and how difficult, sometimes im- possible, it is to " play " them properly. In this connection Kipling himself gives an example of the difficulty of proper play in his story of the submarine earthquake, and the deep sea monster thrown up by it. Wherever his stories deal with the concrete matters of everyday life they are reporting, perfect re- porting. He was in every respect the supreme master craftsman of reporters, and rigorously maintained every one of the very high standards of that close and little known or understood body of craftsmen, re- porters. Rut, above all, he had a wonderful, almost divine power over words. In that was his real great- ness. Kipling Public Readings A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT AT HOVE WE commend to readers a most excellent idea of one of our members, The Rev. H. A. Thomas, M.A., Vicar of St. Philip's, Hove. During the last quarter of last year, Mr. Thomas held six public readings of short stories by Kipling. On every occasion the audience con- sisted of about fifty people, who came in spite of the bad weather, and great appreciation was expressed by everybody of the enjoyable time spent at these meetings. A silver collection was made, as a result of which all the expenses of advertising the meetings, and . of printing and distributing leaflets were paid, leaving a profit of £5 0s. 0d. to the Church. The stories selected were by way of showing the extent and range of Kipling's genius. These were :— The Ship that Found Herself ; Baa, Baa, Blacksheep ; My Lord the Ele- phant ; The Finest Story in the World ; The Man Who Was ; The Return of Imray; An Error in the Fourth Dimen- sion and My Sunday at Home. Mr. Thomas hopes to repeat his experiment next Autumn. "Epitaphs, by Kipling" COLONEL C. H. Milburn writes:— It may be remembered that in an article on " Epitaphs, by Kipling," published in No. 39 of the Kipling Journal, of September, 1936, I described an Epitaph which was carved on a National Historical Memorial to Admiral Arthur Phillip, R.N., and placed on the outside of the Church of St. Mildred's, Bread Street, London. Admiral Phillip was the founder of Australia, and first Governor of New South Wales. St. Mildred's Church (except for the Tower) was totally destroyed by enemy action : and it has been recom- mended by the Bishop of London's Committee on City Churches, that it shall not be rebuilt. The Admiral's Memorial was broken piecemeal, though the bust fortunately escaped serious damage. As it is uncertain as to when the Memorial shall be recon- structed and placed, it has been decided that in the meantime, the bust shall be entrusted to the care of the Royal Empire Society. It was accordingly handed over to the President of the Society (the Earl of Clarendon) at a meeting in the Assembly Hall on January 18th. 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 Letter Bag Correspondents are asked to keep letters for publication as short as possible. " TOO LAZY TO READ." I WAS only yesterday thinking of my first meeting with R. K.'s work. It was when I was at my prep. school, just outside South- ampton. During the Blitz we spent most nights down wine-cellars (con- verted into shelters). There one of the senior boys unofficially used (by torch) to read us the Jungle Book and Just So Stories. My range of reading is from R. K. to H. G. Wells. The latter was a very good novelist, but when for example, people see me reading The Invisible Man and say, " Oh yes, jolly good film. Goes to Dartmoor, doesn't he ?" it really makes me mad ! I don't think that R. K. has had this happen to his works -—yet, so its our job to see that it doesn't. I've heard many of his short stories on Wednesday Matinee, but that I approve of, as it teaches those who are too lazy to read.— C. I. Ashby, No. A1714, Epsom College, Surrey. AN ENGINEER IN COMMAND? I must thank Mr. Elwell for further information regarding the Kites engines (Journal, Oct., 1946, p. 16). I was unaware that the earlier editions differed from the pocket edition from which I quoted. Kipling evi- dently corrected his earlier mistake, in itself interesting as showing his care. As to the Mary Gloster I hold to my opinions. The lines quoted by Mr. Elwell do not seem apposite since they deal with the voyage out, and not actually with the sinking. The line " And Mac he'll give you your bonus the minute I'm out of the boat " seems conclusive, and the preceding and following two lines complete the picture. I feel sure that the great mistake to which Kipling confesses in Some- thing of Myself refers to the employ- ment of M'Andrew as master of the Mary Gloster, and not to any mere error of verbiage or misuse of a technical term. These could have been corrected later, as in the case of the " Kites " engines, but are in no sense serious. But to place an engineer in com- mand of a ship, is an error of such proportions as to cause " great Mr. Lloyds " to take action. Nor could it be corrected since it is part of the structure of the poem. It is a point I should like to see discussed by other members with greater knowledge than my own. The mote on his neighbour's beam is not taken from the Scriptures, but is purely a Pyecroftian paraphrase and as such I hoped it was familiar to members.—R. M. Harvey, Mel- bourne, Australia. " THE BREATHLESS MORNING." I feel sure that the Society will be interested in the enclosed verse which I have copied from the original, written by Rudyard Kipling in his own handwriting, and bearing his signature. I have been told that it has not before been published, so with the permission of the owner, I pass it on, through you, to the members of the Society. There is, of course, no doubt as to its authenticity but some informa- tion as to how it came into being- may be interesting. The story has been told to me by Mr. Selwyn Miller of Glen Innes, N.S.W., for whose mother it was written. There is no date on the original, but Mr. Miller believes that it was written during the early part of 1901. He himself remembers Mr. Kipling well in South Africa but cannot recall this actual incident. Mrs. Miller was the wife of Major (later Brigadier General) David Miller, Chief Staff Officer Overseas Troops in Cape Town during the Boer War. During their life in South Africa, Major and Mrs. Miller spent much time with Mr. and Mrs. Kipling. When they believed they were going on to England, Mrs. Miller asked Mrs. Kipling for their English address, which request was passed on to Mr. Kipling who left the room and returned with the address written on a sheet of notepaper but preceded April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 by the verse as you see it on the copy, which I have reproduced as faithfully as possible. I suppose it would be a Toast to Australia if there were to be a title for it. Contrary to expectations Major Miller was recalled to Australia where he became administrator of the Federal Capital Territory at Canberra, finally retiring on a property near Glen Innes, N.S.W., in the 'twenties where he died some ten or fifteen years ago. His wife, I believe, pre- deceased him. If there is any further information which you think may be of interest in this matter, I shall be pleased to obtain it.—John Mackenzie, Manilla, N.S.W., Australia. We thank Mr. Mackenzie for his letter. The lines he enclosed beginning " To the hush of the breathless morn- ing" appear in "The Native Born" published in 1894 and appear in The Inclusive Verse. THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN. May I make a few comments on Sir George MacMunn's article in the December number of the Journal ? It is doubtless a slip of the pen that makes it appear that Michael was the Angel of the Annunciation. That was Gabriel according to St. Luke : the angel who appeared to announce the birth of St. John the Baptist is anonymous, but is popularly supposed to be Gabriel also. The most detailed description of the Cheru- bim was vouchsafed to Ezekiel, but their fourfold nature seems to have been revealed to Moses in the wilder- ness, and the Living Creatures of Revelation 4 are surely a further vision of the same beings. The Cherubs of the " doved-winged races " in the Return of the Children are the same that Dinah flushed in Heaven and have nothing to do with such mighty creatures. They are quite unscriptural, a decorative invention of Renaissance artists in Italy, " little cherub boys, all head and wings, and no bottoms " as Elia describes them, and their introduction only confirms my con- tention that Kipling is never serious when dealing with angelic beings. And is there really anything to be learned from Mahomedan tradition in the matter ? Is not that a mere plagiarism from Hebrew originals ? —(Lt.-Col.) B. S. Browne, Bourn- stream, Wotton-under-Edge, Glos. Rear-Admiral Lloyd H. Chandler WE regret to announce the death of Admiral Lloyd H. Chandler, and old and valued member of the Kipling Society, and one of its Vice-Presidents. Mr. Carl T. Naumburg, of New York, writes :— "It is with most profound sorrow that I inform you of the death of my very good friend of many years, Admiral Lloyd H. Chandler, at the Naval Hospital at Bethesda, Mary- land, on January 17. I am much saddened thereby, as you may well imagine. Admiral Chandler was literally the father of the Kipling Society in the United States. Having succeeded him as Honorary Secretary for the United States, I can testify as to the tremen- dous and sustained efforts which he made to launch the Society in this country. He was tireless, re- sourceful and painstaking and the results which he obtained were re- markable. As an authority on Rudyard Kip- ling's works, he was ' second to none.' His ' Summary of the Works of Rudyard Kipling ' which was published by the Grolier Society (with a foreword by his friend the late Ellis Ames Ballard) was a monumental task involving many years of intensive research work which established him as a Kipling scholar of rare attainments. His own intensively annotated and cross-indexed loose-leaf edition of Kip- ling which consisted of many volumes is by far the most complete work of its kind and was most eagerly accepted by the Library of Congress a few years ago—a most unique distinction. Parenthetically, I happen to know that Admiral Chandler was offered large sums for these volumes by several wealthy Kipling collectors. ' We shall not see his like again.' " 16 THÉ KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1947 Victoria B.C., Canada THE Branch Correspondent at Victoria, British Columbia, writes :— " Our Branch opens its season in September. We meet on the last Thursday of the month, and are fortunate enough to have a very nice room at our disposal. As near to the 30th December as we can manage, we stage our Annual Dinner which is always most successful. Our year ends in May, when we wind up the season with the election of the Branch Officers. Our only other activity is our Summer Pic-nic in August. During 1946 we have held three meetings. In September, Mrs. Barclay read a poem, The Female of the Species, Mrs. Oliver read a chapter of Kim and Mr. Cornwell gave us extracts from letters of travel. In October, Mr. Symons, our Vice- President, gave us a most excellent Paper on R. K.—Historian. In Nov- ember, the Dickens Fellowship were our guests, this being an annual courtesy we pay each other ! A good deal of cheerful criticism and comparison is bandied about between the two Societies !" ANNUAL DINNER. The Annual Dinner in honour of the memory of Rudyard Kipling was held at the Kit Kat Cafe on Douglas Street. There were thirty-one mem- bers and friends present. Following an excellent dinner each member read a quotation, the others trying to identify the same. The address to the memory of Kipling was given by Mr. K. C. Symons, who gave a very clever rhyming resumé of Kipling's prose and verse. It was moved by Col. Goodland, on thanking the speaker, that a typed copy be sent to the parent society in London for publication in the Journal. This was unanimously approved. A number of songs and recitations was given by Mr. McGrath in the Rivals by Mrs. White and a new setting of the Gypsy Trail was sung by Mrs. Badger. The toast to the visitors was replied to by Mr. Philip Oliver, Jnr., who has recently returned from over- seas service in the Air Force. While in India, Mr. Oliver visited the birth- place of Rudyard Kipling. Another visitor who expressed his thanks was Mr. James Morton, himself a poet of no little ability. Auckland, New Zealand FROM Mrs. Buchanan, Hon. Secretary of the Auckland, N.Z. Branch of the Society, the following report has come to hand :— LADY ALLEN. " I am grieved," writes Mrs. Buchanan, " to report the death of Lady Allen, the wife of our President. Unfortunately his address " Kip- ling as Poet " was to have been given on the Monday following his wife's death, but the address was sent to me and read in his absence. CANON CHANDLER'S VISIT. We had the pleasure of a visit from the Rev. Canon C. W. Chandler, of St. Andrews Vicarage, Cambridge, Waikato, N.Z. His address was en- titled, "Was Kipling a Christian?" The Canon is an excellent speaker and by means of twelve selected poems, let Kipling speak for himself in the most convincing way. 1 am trying to persuade him to form a Branch in the Waikato. THE SOCIETY'S PRESIDENT. We are greatly honoured to have as President of the Kipling Society, Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India. The members of this Branch expressed great pleasure when the fact became known to us. April, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 SEASON'S GREETINGS. The Executive Committee and Mem- bers of the Auckland Branch of this Society have much pleasure in sending their greetings for Christmas and the New Year to the Members of Council, the President Lord Wavell, and the Executive officers of the Kipling Society, London. The Society's Birthday XX ANNIVERSARY MEETING IN LONDON THE 20th Anniversary of the founding of the Kipling Society was celebrated on February 4th, when in the Lecture Room at 105, Gower Street, London, an interesting discussion took place on the subject " Does Kipling Still Live ?" Mr. Brooking, the Founder, who was in the Chair, mentioned that eight of the First Hundred Members tabu- lated in our No. 1 Journal, were still with us, and that three of them were present, including Mrs. Thorp (No. 81) and Mrs. Cornford (No. 90). Our new President, who joined as Colonel A. P. Wavell (No. 19), sent a Message from India, which is published on another page. Messages were also received from Lt. Gen. Sir George MacMunn (No. 96), our Treasurer from the start, and Mr. Gerard Fox (No. 26) of Bristol. All the Messages were read and greatly appreciated. The speakers were Mrs. Lyon, Sir Christopher Lynch-Robinson, Major Clifton Brown, Messrs. Bazley, Har- bord (who applied for Membership before the Society was properly founded), Neville, Angus and Under- wood. The main points of the discussion were connected with the present day's apparent lessened belief in Imperialism, with the increased turn towards Socialism, which it was thought might tend to lessen the interest in Kipling's works. Per contra it was contended that these points were only two out of the . dozen or so others of genius, and of qualities on which Kipling's fame depended, and that the in- fluence of the former features would not count among those people on whose judgment depended the attain- ment of literary immortality. It was also thought that the lack of sufficiently cheap editions pre- vented a large body of readers from knowing more about the charm of Kipling's writings, and of appreciat- ing his points of view. It was hoped that this suggestion might be considered by those responsible, when publishers were in a better position to expand production. KIPLING'S READINGS By ANN WEYGANDT Will the member who borrowed this book please return it to the Library at once W. H. Houldershaw, Ltd., Printers, 49-55, London Road, Southend-on-Sea.