CONTENTS PAGE Notes—J. P. Collins ......... ... ... ... 1 "Recessional" in Retrospect ... ... ... ... 3 Some Lesser Known Aspects or Kipling in the East— Pt. II.—Lt.-Col. J. K. Stanford, O.B.E., M.C. ... 4 The Ephemeral, The Passing and The Recondite in the Works of Rudyard Kipling.—Victor Bonney, F.R.C.S. Pt. III...................... 7 A Schoolboy's Prize Essay—-Rowland Anthony ... ... 9 The Society's Annual Conference—1947 ... ... ... 10 Kipling Library Notes—W. G. B. Maitland ... ... 11 Rudyard Kipling the Universal—Our Fellow Man— Mrs. Guy Goddard (Victoria, B.C.) ... ... ... 14 Letter Bag ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 15 Connecting the 9.15—T. E. Elwell ... ... ... 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. List of Members : Extra copies for members only, 6d. Society's Show Card : Free, where a member can have it displayed in any club, hotel, etc. Journals : Extra copies for members only, 6d. each. Special prices which may be obtained from the Secretary, apply however to those numbers which are nearly out of print. All the above are sent post free. Correspondence should be addressed to— The Hon. Secretary The Kipling Society 98, Gower Street London, W.C.l. — Tel.: Euston 7117 — THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly by THE KIPLING SOCIETY Vol. XIV. No. 83 October, 1947 Notes " LEST WE FORGET." THE fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Recessional is some- thing more than a date, or indeed a whole grove of palm-trees. It stirs the blood like the northern lights from a quiet sky, for it reminds us that not for the first time in our rough island story have we been sorely beset, but mercifully wakened up to serenity in time. The fact is that we were drifting clumsily along to the first South African war, and Sir Wm. Butler was vainly warning Mr. Balfour and Mr. Brodrick, and ministers generally, of disillusions to come. But the Diamond Jubilee came like an extra and universal summer to put the various races of the Empire in a glow. The enthusiasm that surged around " the great white Queen " simply surpassed description. Things almost seemed as if the Empire, like the Frenchman in the play, realised how it had been wasting its loyalty on common prose when all the time it might have been singing poetry. Sure enough, when the moment came, there dawned the poem and this from the least-expected quarter. Some folk surmised that young Mr. Kipling was anxious to take away the taste of his " barrack- room " liberties about the Widow of Windsor. But the only apologetics in Recessional are to the Almighty, and fervent at that, as the churches duly recognise when they use it as a hymn. Annotators have traced its similarities to Cardinal Newman's " England " both in metre and in tone ; to Quarles and his " Lord God of Gods " written two centuries before ; as also to Heine and Emerson for their use of the vivid antithesis, " palm and pine." As for Bible echoes and allusions, they are almost legion. But the taunt of vaingloriousness that came from the " Little England " quarter is banished when we realise the circumstances under which the piece was composed. A STORY OF ORIGINS. Sir Roderick Jones has recalled in an interesting letter to " The Times " (as Mr. Thurston Hopkins did years ago) how Kipling chafed under recollection of a promise he had given the paper for something to mark the great occasion. One day an American guest, Miss Sara Norton, asked his leave and fished a memorandum out of the waste- paper basket. As the result of a ladies' conclave, this fragment re- ceived a new chance of life, and after a few revising touches, it went off post-haste to Printing-House Square there to appear next morning in all the prominence it deserved. That day " the air was all hats," as the saying used to go, for in a flash every- body saw that the poet and the man had arrived. There has been nothing like it since the dismal and more recent day when Queen Victoria's grandson and the real laureate went out of life almost together. The late Ian Colvin, in the " Morning Post," touched off the double event with the happiest quotation I ever remember—a couplet from one of the great French tragedies about the King and the Poet going up to Parnas- sus hand in hand, and exchanging laurels or something near it. Mr. Shanks is far from being susceptible to pietism or the emotions, and in his thoughtful monograph on Kipling from the standpoint of literature and political ideas, he points to Recessional as the occasion which lifted him to his first maturity 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 and changed R.K. " from a brilliant man into a great one." To-day, if an impartial critic can say as much, then men whose responsibilities work in a more human region, are surely free to say that for them, or many of them, it went far to renew the face and colour of social creation. Certainly no poem in the nation's repertoire has done sounder service. For it tempered any national tendency to mere exultation ; it bade us assign the boon of victory to the proper quarter ; and it has chastened races and armies and captains alike with corrective doctrines of war that arc so often apt to be over-borne. On the other hand, if these verses have occasioned scandal to a pious minority, it half-justifies the jibe that shock tactics like this seem to be their staple industry. In any case let us venture to say that whoever can recite that poem on his knees without feeling a better man must be a soul in difficulties. And as for the nations that are proud to use it and always should be, those stanzas of Kipling's may have helped to propitiate " deaf Heaven "' more than once. Think of the plots and dangers that have threatened Britain and her Commonwealth and the merciful way in which they have been averted, during the fifty eventful years since that little masterpiece came so oddly and circuitously into the light. A TYPICAL LETTER. The facsimile letter in the present issue (pp. 12/13) is one of the most character-revealing bits of Kipling in his lighter mood. It rounds up, on the proverbial sheet of notepaper, several of the author's inmost qualities, and all in the most delightful vein. First of all, it recites his pedigree, as one of which he was just as proud as any coat-of-arms with umpteen quarterings to be found in the gorgeous pages of Burke or Debrett. Secondly, it lays down as with the flourish of a challenge, the pride he felt in his Yorkshire roots and especially in a county that may liken itself—with its three Ridings—to these islands of ours in their range and variety, resourcefulness, and downright in dependence. Lastly, it glories in the great-hearted forefathers for two generations who endowed him with that teasing, half-ambushed humour which comes out so well in this friendly note to a fellow " tyke." But to such a one the most appealing trait of all is the familiarity it betrays and boasts, in fact, with the uplands of Craven—that inner and spacious region which goes back inland, far beyond the springs of Nidd or Wharfe or Ribble. It forms, in fact, the watershed of streams that have taken centuries to forge a path for each between parallel ridges of the dales, and thus converted a vast and arid moorland into a billowing landscape of pastoral vales and woodland and water, with some of the most en- chanting fishing ever known. KIPLINGS OF CRAVEN, Burnsall in Wharfedale between the Strid and Grassington is a centre for anglers and knapsack tramps, and there after a busy day you will find them, well fed and smoking hard, talking over the sport of the day, or the fell races up the face of the opposite heights, or the oddities of the villagers and their quaint old dialect. As to the piety of past generations lingering still, there are special reasons why the moral balance of the neighbourhood should enjoy a little uplift, considering how its celebrities include that half-genteel scoundrel, Eugene Aram, and that sour old baggage Mother Shipton. There is no resisting the roguish nature of Pateley Brig, or the nestling village domesticity of Appletreewick, snuggling down between hills as if hoping never to be disturbed. But the crowning memory of your tramp lies in the climb over Whernside, with the long and winding descent by way of Semmerwater, and for six or seven hours never a sign of a human being or any companionable creature save a hare or a crow. It is in these solitudes and stresses that life distils itself, and produces the wealth of unmistakable character and emotion that emerges in stories of intensive humanity like On Greenhow Hill. J. P. Collins. October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 "Recessional" in Retrospect (The following article, which is reproduced by courtesy of " The Times," appeared in that newspaper on July 17th, 1947. It recalls how on that date fifty years ago, Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, "Recessional" was pub- lished in " The Times.") IT is fifty years to-day since Kip- ling's fanions poem Recessional appeared on this page, as " the captains and the kings " were depart- ing from the scene of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. To- day it has been informally adopted into the liturgy of patriotic dedi- cation ; what is more remarkable in retrospect is the instantaneous acclamation with which the nation received it on its first appearance. It has become the fashion to look back upon the Diamond Jubilee as a supreme manifestation of jingoism, of vainglory, of the crude and vulgar rejoicing by a materialist generation in mere wealth and mere physical power over less fortunate races. To all such sentiments the austere and devout lines of Recessional are a rebuke. That the sentiments had been ex- pressed at the Jubilee is undeniable, or it would not have been necessary to rebuke them, but the immediate recognition of the truth and greatness of the poem is equally good evidence that it corresponded to a feeling in the heart of the people that was no less characteristic of their mood, though less loudly expressed, than the exaltation they had been pro- claiming. THE LESSON. The response suggests that Re- cessional made articulate the impression remaining in the minds of the public as they looked back upon the Jubilee itself. They had been engaged in giving thanks for the unexampled power and prosperity that sixty years of the Queen's reign had brought to their country, and naturally they gave thanks with joy. But as the immediate excitement faded they were left to think over the lesson they had been taught, and substantially they agreed with Kipling that to render thanks for power in the sight of God is above all to acknowledge that power means responsibility, and its exercise is a divine vocation. That is the doctrine that Recessional crystal- lized. The Times on the same day attempted to express it in prose :— To be humble in our strength, to avoid the excesses of an over-confident vanity, to be as regardful of the rights of others as if we were neither- powerful nor wealthy, to shun " Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law "— these are the conditions upon which our dominion by sea and land is based even more than on fleets and armies. " IMPERIALISM." If the men of 1897 were asked to give a name to this reverent attitude to the responsibilities of power, they could have proffered no other than " imperialism," The great conception of Empire has been ignorantly tra- duced as if the word were synonymous with alien domination imposed by force, and it is well to be reminded of what it meant to the men who first proclaimed it with the fervour of a gospel. In the earlier part of Queen Victoria's reign it had been fashionable to regard the colonies as encumbrances, destined in the very near future to drop away naturally to the economic advantage of the Mother Country. It was against this pusillanimity, as they thought it, not against the sort of megalomania that may or may not have seized the nation at the time of the Diamond Jubilee, that the great teachers of imperialism—men like Seeley, Cham- berlain, Dilke, Milner—reacted. They told their countrymen that dominion over palm and pine was a trust not to be laid down until its service was accomplished. England must indeed liberate her colonies. Liberation, how- ever, did not mean turning them adrift in a hostile world, but guiding them over a long period in the practice of the arts of freedom that her own people had worked out through cent- uries. There was no contradiction 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 between Empire and liberty ; Empire was the medium through which the idea of liberty was to be diffused, and the means of protection while its practice was learnt. So the great acts of emancipation which followed so quickly upon the Diamond Jubilee, the federation of Australia in the last year of the century, the union of South Africa within a few years of the military defeat of the Boer republics, were not repudiations of imperialist thought, but its fulfilment. And so too the still greater act which is to take place next month, when two Indian dominions take upon themselves the responsibility for which two centuries of the British Raj have been the preparation, does not mean that a repentant Britain has forsworn some imagined ambition of despotism that she set before herself in the Victorian era. This long-prepared release is British im- perialism, continuous and consistent with itself, and proceeding now to a consummation which Macaulay, more than a century ago, explicitly foresaw as the proudest moment in the history of the Empire. Some Lesser-Known Aspects of Kipling in the East—II By Lt Col. J. K. STANFORD, O.B.E., M.C, (I.C.S. Retired), KIPLING'S treatment of the Civil Services is by no means " arro- gantly cocksure " or narrow. In eighteen years (spent mainly in a backwater), I found myself con- stantly identifying the types he had painted, both in the jungle and in Calcutta and Rangoon. There was, as one might expect, a strong contrast in his work between the Secretariat official and his over-worked under- helped district counterpart. These last he loved to describe, ' grubbing weeds from garden paths with broken dinner knives,' from Scott, the engineer on famine duty, described as ' my pearl among bullock-drivers,' to Otis Yeere, forgotten in Lower Bengal, who had " damned the collective eyes of his intelligent local board for a set of haramzadas, from old Mr. Wick in retirement to Orde or Tallantire, working on the frontier without the book, and knowing that any experiments would " recoil on the district officer m the end." He has many delightfully true, if sub-acid pictures from that of the Secretariat officers, " all head, no physique and a hundred theories " demanding a census of wheat-weevils, or the Commissioner whose business it was " to stir up the people in Madras with a long pole, as you stir up tench in a pond," to Wressley, the expert on native states, who was ' dowered with sympathy, insight, humour, and style for 230 days and nights.' And where will you find a more complete or enlightening summary of the I.C.S. than in One Viceroy Resigns in the passage which ends :— earnest narrow men But chiefly earnest and they'll do your work And end by writing letters to " The Times." BRILLIANTLY TRUE. No finer tribute to the Indian political and district officers has ever been paid than in Chapter XIII of Letters of Marque. It is too long to quote what he says of the Hat- marked Caste, cut off from Simla and gossip, the ' main current ' of Anglo-Indian life, working unfettered over vast charges ; but it is brilliantly true. When Kipling writes of native treasuries, run ' to the confusion of the Durbar Funds ' one could have wished that he had met the late Sir Harcourt Butler. He told me of one state where the player who hit the winning goal in the annual inter-state match was made Finance Minister for six months, as a reward ! October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 With uncanny touches, Kipling- paints the Government scene ; the Government itself tender and kind, ' also—but this is a detail—blind ;' the Under-Secretary in The Puzzler who caused a £3,000,000 insurrection by sitting on some green-labelled correspondence ; Rustum Beg of Kola- zai who, hoping for reward, ' began to sanitate ' and, being disappointed, " Disendowed the gaol, stopped at once the city drain, Turned to beauty fair and frail, got his senses back again." That was as true in 1927 as it was in 1880. As D. C. Prome, I knew well a main drain which under native municipal auspices had attempted to flow uphill through the middle of the town for seventeen years. And where in all that has been said of Secretariats migrating to the hills in the hot weather will you find a pithier argument for it than in the Tale of Two Cities ? Nor do Rulers rule a house that men grow rich in From its kitchen R. K.'s EARLY DAYS. One sidelight on Kipling's early days our member, -Major Hopwood, has told me. He knew well the late Statter Carr, also of the Forest Service, from whom Kipling derived much of his story, In the Rukh. I gather that the real name of Gisborne in that tale was Gibson and that some of the ' naughty French songs ' (which he was supposed to have learnt while on probation at Nancy) were taught to him by Kipling himself ! The gigantic German Muller of that tale, who was then Inspector-General of Forests, was a man called Ribben- trop. His house had a lurid reputation in Simla and perhaps he was the forebear of yet another of that ilk, recently gathered to his fathers. Mr. Hilton Brown has criticized the picture of Muller supervising his cook in the jungle as exaggerated. Having had the privilege of travelling at times with men who lived much of their lives 300 miles from a railway, I can assure you that it is not. Of Kipling's ' howlers ' much has been said. The Journal shows how few they are, considering his immense range and variety of subject. One occurs in The Tomb of his Ancestors where John Chinn, a noted shikari, is made to go tiger-shooting in a white helmet. But no shikari (men not given to reticence) could ever have described so vividly as Kipling the ' agonies of a jungle stalk,' though he probably never went after a tiger in his life. In The Maltese Cat some of the polo is hard to understand, but Kipling was describing the old game before the offside rule was abolished and no one could get in front of the opposing back. The only obvious error there, in a most enthralling story, seems to occur at the end where the back attempts to meet the ball with six or seven ponies coming at him and then ' pulls aside in time to let the rush go by.' One can hardly imagine a ' crack player ' doing either, and risking a monu- mental foul. Normally Kipling is uncannily accurate about horses and very obser- vant, as A Walking Delegate shows. There is a description of a ' maneater ' about to attack, " swaying his head close to the ground with a curious scythe-like motion." I once in the Kachin Hills saw a pony knock down and savage a Mussulman sowar in exactly the way Kipling described, and realized what an uncommon sight we had both been privileged to witness. The two most nostalgic poems for Anglo-Indians in the language are Christmas in India, as true now as it was when written, and In Spring- time :— ' Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of Springtime range Give me back one day in England, for ifs Spring in England now.' ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION. And may I, in these troublous days, when we seem about to give up India to whatever Gods there be, invite you to read in full One View of the Question, as true now as in the 'nineties. First the Mussulman's view of strikes : " When they have in all things made light of the State, they cry to the State for help and it is given, so that the next time they will cry more." Read the rest of 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 this passage and see how apt it is, and then the description of Congress, with the ' white people here digging their own graves ' and Congress ' hoping to turn our land into their own orderless Jehannum.' The whole of that letter brands Kipling as a seer of the first water and I cannot do better than end this rambling talk with those words. The Tale of a Misprint A QUAINT misprint, which escaped the. vigilance of expert proof readers, occurred in our July issue. In the paragraph on page two, headed " The Mandalay Tradi- tion," in which Mr. Collins referred to Lieut.-Colonel Stanford's contri- bution to that number, these words appear : " But he has paid his enemy a tribute well worth having." The relative words in the original typescript, which were added by Mr. Collins in his own handwriting, were : " But he has made his essay a tribute well worth having." The nonsense of the printed rendering is thus made clear, and we apologise to Mr. Collins and Lieut.-Colonel Stanford for this incredible mistake. The changing of the word ' essay ' into ' enemy ' in this context might well lead readers to ask : Would an enemy of Rudyard Kipling join the Society, or read a paper consisting of what was meant to be keen appre- ciation ? (In effect, Lieut.-Colonel Stanford showed, in his contribution, how very rare were Kipling's errors of fact about Burma, despite the poet's scanty local knowledge). He showed also that " derisory critics " (and there were many) invariably fasten on Mandalay as being so full of errors that it could be written off, and the rest of Kipling with it. The " road to Mandalay "—which did not in fact exist until about 1927 —became a staple jest in India. We hope, therefore, that those who read too much into the offending sentence may be reassured by the original words of the note as written. Misprints will occur, especially in these difficult days, and we trust this paragraph of correction will emerge from the press unmangled-—-but one never knows. The classic example is that of the provincial paper which, in its report of a police court case, wrote : " Mr. Jones is a well-known defective in the local Police Force." Readers of the report, including Mr. Jones, having bitterly protested, the paper in its following issue endeavoured to make amends. The correction ran : " We regret that we described Mr. Jones as a defective in the local Police Force. He is, of course, a detective in the local Police Farce." The Society's New Address THE Kipling Society has once more been compelled to change its offices. Our comfortable quarters with the National Institute for the Deaf, are, unfortunately for us, required in view of the Institute's greatly increased work. We have, however, been extremely fortunate in finding almost precisely the same accommodation in the house opposite, at 98 Gower Street, London, W.C.l. October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 The Ephemeral, the Passing and the Recondite IN THE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING By VICTOR BONNEY, F.R.C.S. (This is the third and concluding part of an address to members of the Kipling Society in London. Parts 1 and 2 appeared in the April and July, 1947 numbers of the Kipling Journal, Nos. 81 and 82). THE number of subjects in Kipling's writings to which the adjective " recondite " applies is so large that I have only space to refer to a few of them. I will pass by the many native words which occur in his Indian tales and poems because glossaries exist, and also the references to Free- masonry, since all members of the craft understand them, and give as my first example his many medical technicalities. KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICINE. He took a great interest in medicine and a very close friendship existed between him and Sir John Bland Sutton, the famous surgeon, under whom I served in my younger days. Under the pseudonym of Sir James Belton he drew a wonderful word- portrait of him in The Tender Achilles which all surgeons who knew J. B. S. would instantly recognise. In The Eye of Allah Roger of Salerno is one of the characters, a celebrated physician, who worked at the famous medical school at Salerno in Italy, in early medieval times. The French doctor in Mark- lake Witches is René Hyacinthe Laennec whose invention of the stethoscope laid the foundation of all knowledge of diseases of the heart and lungs. You will remember that Jerry Gamm listening to Laennec's chest, says: " Unless I've a buzzin' in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make about the same kind of noises as old Gaffer Macklin, but not quite so loud as young Copper. It sounds like breakers on a reef—a long way off. Comprenny ?" This is a perfect word-picture of the breath sounds heard over a tuberculous lung, and it is astonishing that a layman should be able to describe so accurately, sounds he could never have heard. Laennec himself died of tuberculosis, and in the story his reply to Gamm's observation always brings a lump into my throat—-and talking of Mark- lake Witches, how many readers of that lovely story know that the great Duke of Wellington, then Sir Arthur Wellesley (or Wesley), com- manded a brigade in Hastings in 1806, after he returned from India ? A birth-mark, the result of pre- maternal impression, is the chief point in the Ballad of Boh da Thone, and this much debated subject is introduced into the story with exceed- ing skill, whilst in The Dying Chauffeur: " That cursed left-hand cylinder the doctors call my heart Is pinking past redemption—I am done." is a perfect description of the cardiac irregularity exhibited in certain forms of terminal heart disease. MYTHOLOGY. A good knowledge of the Hindu Pantheon is required to understand the many references to the gods and goddesses in his Indian stories, The Bridge Builders in particular ; and of the old Norse Legends and Sagas to fully appreciate The Finest Story in the World, for which also acquaint- ance with the doctrine of Pythagoras is needed. LITERATURE. The wonderful imagination dis- played in Wireless cannot be perceived unless the reader knows Coleridge's and Keats's poetry and in addition, the life of the latter. Sometimes Kipling explains his allusions, as for instance Dr. Johnson's tribute to Lord Hervey in The Dog Harvey, but he does not disclose who Lord Hervey was. Persons well read will remember him as the courtier-statesman of 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 George the Second's time, likened by Pope to " a curd of asses' milk." But generally Kipling leaves the reader to find out things for himself, which is why he cannot be fully appreciated save by people of con- siderable education. Let me give you another example : the quotation introducing the poem The Oldest Song : " For before Eve there was Lilith." Who was Lilith ? According to Hebrew legendary lore she was Adam's first wife, and she is represented as a sort of female demon. Adam seems to have been an unlucky man ! HISTORY. Puck of Pooks Hill and Rewards and Fairies teach history, but a substantial foundation is needed before the lessons are of much use, and this applies to the many historical references scattered throughout his writings. Thus in The Lost Legion John Lawrence is mentioned. He was a great figure in India eighty years ago, but to-day is only known to those well versed in Anglo-Indian history. MISINTERPRETATION. Finally I would cite some of his poems and stories, the inner meaning of which seems to be habitually missed by the average reader ; for instance, the quaint and fanciful allegory of the coming of Spring in Pan in Vermont. The Mother Hive is frequently regarded as an amusing account of Bee life, whereas it is one of the most trenchant satires ever written, equalling in force Gulliver's Travels. Even that most touching story of an illegitimate son The Gardener has been misinterpreted, perhaps for want of remembering that the first person to meet the Risen Christ was Mary Magdalene, and she mistook Him for a gardener. "THE CRAB THAT PLAYED." Much of the foregoing is already familiar to you, so for a change I will give you something really new. Here is Kipling's own explanation of this story taken from a letter written to his friend Bland Sutton. I quote it verbatim :— " In the Pusat Tasek, which is the navel of the sea—a large hole in the ocean bottom—sits a gigantic crab, which twice a day goes out for food. While he is sitting in the hole the waters of the ocean are unable to pour into the underworld, the whole of the aperture being filled and blocked by the Crab's bulk. The inflowings of the rivers into the sea during these periods are supposed to cause the rising of the tides, while the downpouring of the waters through the great hole, while the Crab is absent searching for food, is supposed to cause the ebb. Over the gulf of Pusat Tasek grows an immense tree (Pauh Jangi), probably a tradition of the Coco- de-mer or double Co Co nut existing only on the Seychelles, the nuts of which are sometimes cast up on the Malayan Islands. From what I know of the author of the tale to which you refer I should imagine that he compounded Pau out of Pauh-Jangi, invented Amma, and presented the composite as the Crab's name. You can rely on the Crab being authentic Malay Folklore." He gives as his reference " Hugh Clifford, quoted by W. W. Skeat in " Malay Magic " (Macmillan, 1900)." A GUIDE WANTED. I have a purpose in reminding you of the many things in Kipling's writings which are in danger of be- coming buried under the sands of Time. Our Journal is a veritable mine of information, but it is not accessible enough to form a guide for the general reading public. Taken collectively, this Society has an under- standing and intimate knowledge of Kipling's works which far exceeds that of any individual, and I should like to see it produce, as a collective effort, a Reader's Guide wherein would be explained all the references and passages which present difficulty to the average reader of to-day, and which will present still more difficulty to the average reader of the future, when all of us who belong to the period Kipling wrote about will have passed away. The longer such a Guide is delayed, the more difficult it will be to get the informa- tion. October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 Kipling has been Called The Banjo Bard of the Empire A SCHOOLBOY'S PRIZE ESSAY (For a number of years Captain E. W. Martindell has presented a prize in a Kipling Essay Prize Com- petition for boys at Victoria College, Jersey. This year, the winner of the prize, whose essay appears below, is Rowland Anthony. He has won the Martindell Prize at the School two years running). MANY foreigners—the ' lesser breeds without the Law '— even our own people are saying, " England is dead. She is a dying nation. Nothing can be done about it. Her strength is gone now that she has exhausted herself fighting to save other nations." This from the lips of a nation acknowledged to be the upholder of every virtue which free-thinking people hold dear. This on the tongue of a nation which created the finest Empire since the pre-Christian era. This is the voice of a nation which fostered and inspired the author of countless lyrical stories in praise of an Empire, mighty, universally ad- mired and envied. THE REASON. The reason for this lethargic and despairing state of mind is that we lack incentive ; we need inspiration. Our great leader, and orator of World War II cannot speak for the Empire and nation. And right at our hand is the force we need. It lies in the written work of a man who was in- spired by the magnificence, in strength and in beauty, of the Empire which his country had made. Rudyard Kipling loved the lands he lived in. He loved the countries, the climates, the peoples and most of all, the many animals. To him those animals were human beings with all the emotions, good and bad, which are a part of us. Through them he expressed the many senti- ments which, out of any other lips, would have sounded forced, but in their natural simplicity were the foundations of all the virtues he admired, In his works dealing with the Empire, he sang its praises throughout. Sometimes it was the main theme on which he built his picturesque stories. In others he used the idea to bind the tale together, giving it a striking air of reality, such as in the Mutiny of the Mavericks or The Man Who Was. The ideas are natural expressions, phrased with all the simplicity which is understood and admired by the ordinary people for whom they were written. To read a story with characters who are really alive is a too infrequent pleasure at any time, but when a choice can be made with certainty from the very mention of a name—then there is no more trusting faith or unspoken praise which can be given to a man. This is the right of Kipling. THE SIGNIFICANT DETAILS. Never before had the lands which England fostered been brought so close to the minds and hearts of their Motherland. With all the tenderness of a craftsman for the object of his creation, Kipling painted in the signifi- cant details which are so often omitted by other writers. All the skill of a composer has gone into the de- scription of his tales—even to the extent of having a subtle rhythm which, though not immediately per- ceptible, is easily apparent when once it has been found. The term ' banjo bard ' is a vivid and nearly comprehensive description of Kipling. In it there is all the friendly familiarity which is associated with the bard of olden days. Then, a travelling minstrel was a source of entertainment for countless hearers. He sang to them in their own tongue of deeds which they easily under- stood. The songs were straight- forward narratives unencumbered by complicated reasonings—they were simple stories of heroic endeavour— of national heroes but also of the common man 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 In the tradition of the tellers of stories of deeds great and small, has not Kipling a justifiable claim to the title of ' bard '—a claim which he expresses in the words of Gobind, the native teller of tales : " God has made very many heads, but there is only one heart in all the world, among your people or my people. They are children in the matter of tales ?" And what then are Kipling's stories ? Are they the highly-polished, sophisti- cated ramblings of a tortuous mind —or are they the almost spontaneous outpourings of one who, although undoubtedly possessed of creative and even journalistic gifts, painted the background and characters with few but unerring strokes ? More- over, while extolling the Empire, Kipling shows its greatness has been derived, though they would be the very last to admit it, from the devotion to duty of the ordinary civil servant, administrator and soldier. While the older bards told a story for people who appreciated the prob- ably exaggerated stories as children would, it cannot be disputed that the subject matter was of first importance—the song which carried the story quite subsidiary. But Kip- ling, the modern bard, delights our ears in his poetry with the metre —the song simple, yet satisfying and clear. Boots, Big Steamers, Recessional, all have been set to airs by musicians, but it is a moot point as to whether that which was already music needed further adornment. THE BANJO. Take his instrument : the banjo could never be used for anything but the simple expression of one man's thoughts. Kipling's medium is on no account that of cumbersome sym- phonic arrangements, interpreted in terms of heavy and intricate prose. For him there is an individual in- spiration which pervades all his work with a free atmosphere. A simple, ordinary instrument playing an irre- sistible melody for all who desire to listen. But is the appellation ' banjo bard of the Empire ' accorded to Kipling as one of the best Bards of all the ages ? Or is there a disparaging note, even one of derision, in the qualification ' banjo ' ? If so, then surely the answer is that the banjo, giving its melody by the plucking of strings, plays also on the heart strings. And is not love of the Homeland and of the Daughter Lands not more a matter of the heart than of the brain ? Today more than ever, in a world where so many words are uttered and yet so little said, the simple things lie nearest the truth. The real worth of Kipling as ' the banjo bard of the Empire ' is perhaps best summed up in his own words which he applied to others :— " For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continueth Greater than their knowing !" " The Brushwood Boy." The Society's Annual Conference, 1947 (Communicated by the Hon. Secretary). THE Annual Conference took place at the offices of the Society on the 18th June, 1947. Owing to a previous engagement our new President, Lord Wavell, was unable to attend, and a letter from him wishing the Meeting luck was read. The Chair, therefore, was taken by the Chairman of the Council, Mr. Victor Bonney. The business transacted was purely formal. Captain Martindell, Mr. Collins and Mr. Bazley, who had retired from the Council last year under the Rules, were unanimously re-elected for a further term of three years. The President, Vice-Presidents and Honorary Officers of the Society were re-elected for the ensuing year as were the Honorary Auditors to whom a vote of thanks was passed for all their help during the period under review. The Chairman paid a special tribute to Mr. Chaplin in regard to the maintenance of the very high standard of the Kipling Journal under his Editorship, and assured him that the results of his labours were greatly appreciated by all the members, October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 Kipling Library Notes By W. G. B. MAITLAND SO far, in these Notes, I have not touched upon the section of the Library containing the books, etc., about Kipling and his works. This is well worth examining, for we are fortunate in possessing a number of essays and critical studies repre- senting a cross-section of opinion by some of the best-known writers of the past century. Imbued as we are with a justifiable admiration for Rudyard Kipling and all he stood for, it is as well to consider the views and opinions of others, however much they may conflict with our own. With this idea in mind I would recommend the under- mentioned as being among the best selection from a dozen or so titles. First, and foremost we have Three Studies in English Literature by André Chevrillon : a masterly study of Kip- ling's work and, from a literary stand- point, the most valuable. Lionel Johnson's Reviews and Critical Essays is a collection of early reviews written for The Academy in 1891 and 1892. The Kipling section dealing with The Light That Failed; Life's Handicap ; and Barrack-Room Ballads —and Rudyard Kipling, by Cyril Falls, are worthy of a place on the bookshelf of the serious collector. An interesting comparison between the recollections of their early school- days at Westward Ho, and their relationship with R.K., can be made with Major-General Dunsterville's Stalky's Reminiscences on one side and G. C. Beresford's Schooldays with Kipling on the other. For the collector of Kiplingiana there are the Bibliographies of Captain Martindell and Mrs. Livingston, and in less erudite style we have Knowle's A Kipling Primer, G. F. Monkshood's Less Familiar Kipling and Kipling- iana, besides others of a similar nature. For descriptive writing on the Sussex and London locales of so much of Kipling's work we must turn to Thurston Hopkins and his Kipling's Sussex and Kipling's London. Reference must also be made to Sir George MacMunn's achievements. His Kipling's Women deals with a subject not attempted to any great extent by any other author, save in the pages of certain literary journals of a decade or two ago. During the ten years which have elapsed since his death, several books on Kipling have made their appearance and have been duly reviewed in the pages of the Journal. But we are still patiently and hopefully awaiting the authorised " Life " which, if the scanty information to hand is to be relied upon, may one day make its appearance. Bequests THOSE of our readers who are unable in these difficult times to help us as much as they would wish, are reminded that a practical way of assisting us to keep the memory of Rudyard Kipling green, and to bring his great ideals before the coming generations of young people, is for them to remember the Kipling Society in their Wills ? Such legacies afford proof of a desire that our work should go on beyond the span of the donor's lifetime and afford great encouragement to those who believe that the creed of Kipling is eternal. The following simple form of bequest should be used : " I bequeath to The Kipling Society, 98, Gower Street, London, W.C.l. a sum of (£ ), free of duty, to be applicable for the general purposes of the Society. And I declare that the receipt of the Hon. Treasurer or other proper official for the time being of the Society shall be a good and sufficient discharge to my Ex- ecutors." 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 This copy of a letter written by Rudyard Kipling to Dr. Bateson, a Yorkshireman, in 1896, was given by him to Miss Florence Macdonald some years ago. Kindly lent by Miss Macdonald, M.B.E., the letter is copyright, and is published here by permission of Mrs. Bambridge. 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 Rudyard Kipling THE UNIVERSAL—OUR FELLOW-MAN. From an Address by Mrs. Guy Goddard at the Annual Dinner of the Victoria, British Columbia, Branch of the Kipling Society. AS Rudyard Kipling's love for and understanding of his fellow- men was universal, so his appeal was and still is, world-wide. Too thinly spread, for many more of our contemporaries should read him, but, never-the-less, wide-spread. Can you think of any large class of humanity that he has not brought to vivid life for us ? Even our animal friends —and enemies—have been made clear to us by his genius. What a child misses who does not know his Jungle Tales, both in sheer pleasure and in a fine chance to learn fundamentals of living and succeeding. Recall all his Mowgli stories. The Black Panther, Bagheera and the Old Brown Bear, Baloo, who taught the man- cub all the laws of the jungle as well as the magic tribal phrases (you might call them) that made all the different animal clans give speedy aid in time of need. Even in unexpected en- counters there was no danger if the correct call, the right form of approach was given. Tales of the wild Jungle— habits, beliefs, customs, laws of its inhabitants. Are they so very differ- ent from those of our man's world ? Have we no prototypes for Akela, the wise old wolf who led the pack because of his cunning and wisdom— or for Tabaqui, the jackal, the dish- licker, and many of the Jungle-folk ? Who among us does not feel that all the backbitings and misunder- standings—all the danger that threat- ens the future peace of the world, would be nullified if we—each group or clan or race—could and would give the right call, the magic words that make for understanding, help and protection ? THE MOWGLI STORIES. While Kipling does not really personify in his Jungle and Just So stories, there is enough likeness to human traits and to human life to make one think a little of Aesop's Fables. The Mowgli stories should be a part of every child's education, (and pleasure) if for no other reason than because the fundamental laws, truths, and ideas of straight-dealing and loyalty to the tribe are so like what our own should be. Is there much difference in the cause of Mowgli's casting out by the village, and the way an animai is cast from his companions if he goes contrary to their accepted regulations ? The child can learn this and realize that even wild animals must obey the rules of their kind or evil will befall. Old Baloo says, after explaining jungle laws, " Now these are the laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they But the head and the hoof of the Law, and the haunch and the hump is— Obey ! " What could a child learn better ? We are too prone, from childhood up, to stress the Individual and to forget what Kipling understood so well, that the Individual in any well balanced society, must be in accord with the order of his kind. In these times—the era of the Personal— we need Rudyard Kipling and men like him who believe that " The game is more than the player of the game, And the ship is more than the crew." That Race, country, pack, come first. That we, as individuals, are the out-growth of centuries of develop- ment and environment. Man cannot live to himself, no matter how much he tries. Ages before ours have formed us, for " The past still travels with us from afar And what we have been, makes us what we are." Read The Palace. India, he paints for us—living, forceful, tempestuous, compelling, se- ductive, taking from England many of her finest sons, but giving of her- self at the same time with a lavish hand. India, the hard mistress, the October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 step-mother of Britain's sons. He makes us feel with him all the tragedy of the young " subs " trying to struggle against rules and traditions—lack of money, lack of so many of the things that could prevent sorrow and broken lives. Do you remember the catas- trophe in his simple but gripping story, In the Pride of his Youth ? In this, as in everything he has written, he has shown his sympathy with youth and failure. He pities always and forgives the weaknesses of the unsuccessful, the under-dogs, whether of our own race and kind or of the " pore benighted 'eathen." The broken men, derelicts, wanderers, dying in far-off lands in Britain's service, or condemned not to serve the country they sometimes think they scorn, but to whose memory they cling. The ex-soldiers and sailors home again in smoky, grey, lonely London, facing the kind of life that they have forgotten during years in strange lands, under tropic skies, in desert dust-storms, in heat and cold on stormy seas, forlorn and ill-at-ease and half angry at the new old life that they had almost out-lived. (To be continued). "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" MR. JUSTICE BIRKETT'S TRIBUTE TO RUDYARD KIPLING (We are indebted to Mr. W. C. Fox for the following extract from Sir Norman Birkett's speech at the annual dinner of the United Wards' Club of the City of London. He was proposing the toast of " The British Empire," to which Lord Birdwood responded). SIR NORMAN BIRKETT said :— " Mr. President, there is one name which I value and cherish for I am afraid he has not quite received that admiration which is his due. He certainly understood the spirit of the Empire—Rudyard Kipling. I dare say there are very few of you who have not read Stalky & Co. But that wonderful preface to Stalky & Co., illustrates, I think, better than anything else this part of the Toast—the great men who made and maintained the Empire, for you will remember at the beginning of Stalky & Co., these lines occur:— Let us now praise famous men — Men of little showing— For their work continueth, And their work continueth. Broad and deep continueth Greater than their knowing ! Here Sir Norman completed the whole quotation. Mr. Fox mentions the fact that his version is not strictly according to the book, but " he made it without any notes or hesitation, and no suggestion of having learnt it by heart, or making a special effort." Mr. Fox adds :—"Lord Birdwood, in his reply, said the only thing he could remember of Kipling was ' What do they know of England who only England know ? ' and then he went on to tell tales of his fifty years in India ... in a way that would have delighted Kipling's heart." 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. 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL October, 1947 Letter Bag Correspondents are asked to keep letters for publication as short as possible. BEES AND R. K. Mr. Norman McCance, of Melbourne, who wrote " Kipling Among the Bees " in the April, 1947 issue of this Journal, supplies a thoroughly genial survey of Kipling's interest in bees, whether as writer or an amateur producer. Most of us know the familiar story of R. K.'s trials in dealing with those imperious and wayward creatures, the honey that went to waste, the mistakes of various kinds that had to be overcome, and the stings that had to be accepted without repining as a receipt of such experience. Mr. McCance is a trifle superior in the light of his own proficiency, although the poet would have owned up to faults in any case, and has actually done so in voluntary expiation for his various errors, much to the world's benefit in print. Indeed, I must confess that after all the books and articles I have read of bees, I find Kipling's story worth the lot. It is the only chapter I can recall that will vie with the narrative given many years ago at the Savage Club by a popular veteran member, the late W. B. Tegetmeier, then editor of the Field. One fine summer morning a breath- less and tattered messenger came clattering up to his office and then up the editorial stairs, to break in with the palpitating news that the Strand was blocked. PERCUSSION WINS. " Vey say you're the bloke as knows all abaht bees, sir, and police- sergeant he says to me, "Ere, Jimmy, run up to the Field office and ask for the Heditor. Tell him he's the only man to help, and we want him now,— quick, Gawspel, sir." " Fetch me a cab," was the editor's comment. It was the work of minutes to round up a tin tray and a poker, and don the old high hat and coat. Bundling into the vehicle, he was trotted down in state, to find the Gaiety Theatre invaded by a truant swarm of bees. He was greeted first with silence and then a roar of laughter, at sight of his homely implements. " Moses and the bee-rushes," was one bystander's remark. The crowd by this time was banking all approaches forty or fifty deep ; traffic was nil ; and the police were more zealous in keeping the excite- ment down than escorting Mr. T. to the charge. He disappeared into the box-office which the stall had vacated in panic, and the clatter of his tintinnabulum faded for awhile in a muffled but tremendous buzz. Presently he emerged, a veritable Jack-in-the-Bush, or an automatic fire-alarm up an animated yew tree. As he could not see the cab, it had to be guided towards him on the kerb. He bundled in, banging lustily away ; cabby whipped up the trembling steed ; and the cortege pottered off to home and garden, miles some- where up north-west. His brother Savages gave him a tributary dinner later in honour of the event. The Gaiety management failed to persuade him to accept its hospitality ; but there was a box there at his disposal for the remainder of his days.— J. P. C, London. Connecting the 9.15 By T. E. ELWELL RAILWAYS, trains and stations part of The Vortex ; it figures also in recur frequently in Kipling's The Brushwood Boy, and most im- writings. The station itself portantly in Uncovenanted Mercies. appears in many of the occult and Two railway journeys take place in humourous stories. On its platform Kim, and the stations at Lahore, is staged My Sunday At Home and Lucknow, Somna Road, Delhi and October, 1947 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 Saharunpore also play their parts. Five train trips—whose possibility has been denied by critics—occupy the greater part of In the Same Boat, and the story of Mrs. Bathurst is told in a broken-down brake-van on a South African siding. In the U.S.A. we have " .007 " and the elder Cheyne's trans-continental dash in Captains Courageous. The Three C's of The Naulahka was probably a Wolcott Balestier contribution, but Kipling would welcome it. The Man Who Would Be King begins with a station, and The Man Who Was ends with one. In An Error In The Fourth Dimension the crux of the plot is a railway. A train figures funnily in the animal back-chat of The Undertakers, and we have The Bridge Builders, Folly Bridge and The Outsider as occult and sarcastic themes. The Way That He Took begins with a hospital train in the Boer War. In Land and Sea Tales, The Bold 'Prentice is, of course, the juvenile fiction version of Among the Railway Folk of From Sea to Sea. If the Three C's was Balestier's, Rawut Junction that opens Chap. V of The Naulahka and ends the story was certainly Kipling's. Applying modern psychology one would deduce that Kipling had known some acute mental pain at a railway- station, perhaps in India, and that the humorous treatment of the scene was the mind's defence, as the farcical presentation of Death and the Devil in the earliest plays was mankind's snook-cocking at the two terrors. Even with readers Un- covenanted Mercies produces a sombre effect, which My Sunday At Home removes. May not the writer have felt both, and in a greater degree ? "Ten Stories" IT is gratifying to know that the lower-priced Kipling, for which we have been waiting, is now available, thanks to the enterprise of Pan Books, Ltd., who recently published their first volume of the prose works under the title " Ten Stories.''* That great care was taken over the selection of the tales is proved by the contents which are as follows :—The Man Who Would Be King ; A Matter of Fact ; The House Surgeon ; On The City Wall ; ' Bread Upon The Waters ; ' ' Wire- less' ; Fairy-Kist ; The Story of Muham- mad Din ; ' My Son's Wife ;' and The Gardener. As the publishers themselves remark the book makes publishing history' Well printed and attractively produced at the modest price of One Shilling and Sixpence, it deserves all success. I shall look forward to further attempts by Pan Books, Ltd., to place more of Kipling within reach of a reading public whose means are slender and who want good value for their money. It may also be of interest to those members whose literary tastes lead them to other authors to learn that Pan Books, Ltd., also have an attractive range of books by James Hilton, Hugh Walpole, A. E. W. Mason and others. W.G.B.M. *Pan Books, Ltd., 20, Headfort Place London, S.W.I. NOTICE TO MEMBERS The Society's New Address is 98, Gower Street, London, W.C.l W. H. Houldershaw, Ltd., Printers, 49-55, London Road, Southend-on-Sea.