CONTENTS Notes—J. P. Collins...... ........... 1 The Nostalgia of Mandalay and the Danes—Lt.-Gen. Sir George MacMunn, k.c.b., k.c.s.i., d.s.o. ......... 3 The British Overseas ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 The Verse of Rudyard Kipling—Selected by Lord David Cecil 7 Is Kipling Out of Date?—by "Bones" ... ... ... ... 9 On the Great Wall—Sir Stephen Allen, k.b.e., c.m.g., d.s.o. 11 The Dictionary of National Biography on R.K.—Original Member ........................ 14 Letter Bag ........................ 15 THE KIPLING SOCIETY SALES DEPARTMENT Postcards : Burwash or Kipling's Grave. 1d. each or 9d. per doz. * * * Book Plates : 1d. each. List of Members : Extra copies for members only, 6d. JOURNALS : Extra copies for members only, 1/- 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 c/o Airborne Forces Security Fund Greenwich House 11/13 Newgate Street London E.C. 1. Tel. : City 8295 THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly by THE KIPLING SOCIETY Vol. XVII. No. 96 December, 1950 Notes THE ANNUAL LUNCHEON THE new President, Lt.-General Sir Frederick Browning, took his honours with engaging modesty at an enjoyable function which coincided with his inauguration. This was the annual luncheon, held at the De Vere Hotel, South Kensington, on Tuesday, October 10, with a fuller attendance and a better feast, by the way, than one can recall this side of the war. After the Chairman of Council, Lt.-Colonel J. K. Stanford, with a few words of introduction, had voted him to the chair, the President spoke of the years of enjoyment he had derived from Rud- yard Kipling's writings. In his turn the President introduced the guest of honour, the Dean of St. Paul's, the Very Rev. Dr. Matthews, and raised a smile by avowing a hapless lack of acquaintance with any of his many books, though he hoped to amend in that respect hereafter. The Dean re- paid this touching confession by offer- ing to post him a list of his published works with commendatory annotations, or words to that effect. The ripple of laughter that ensued showed how far the proceedings had been well and truly launched, leaving the company free to express their hero-worship, frankly and unashamed. The Dean is a past master in this particular field of interest, and knows how to keep his friendships in repair. He was the guest of honour only three days before at a rival to-do, namely, the annual luncheon of the Johnson Society of London. Having heard his address on both occasions, one noted how easily he kept those two doughty opponents clear of each other—the lexicographer from Lich- field, and the wizard of genius from India. But it soon became apparent where the secret lay—in the tenacity of ripe scholarship, and in tempering the winds of erudition to the shorn lambs—possibly in view of the rise in our annual subscription? VANISHING SLUMP To proceed, the Dean soon made it plain that he had not always seen eye to eye with Kipling's politics, especially his attitude towards the Boer War, nor was he alone in this respect half a century ago. But he had since come to consider Kipling as a gifted spokes- man of this country's mission over races less fortunate than our own. Similarly, the poet's detractors had now seen the light, so that the recent slump was practically over (cheers). He thought any country's aristocracy should be determined by code of merit, and not by career or chance ; moreover, he thought that some of those races he had mentioned would say the same (hear, hear). In any case many of them might today be disposed to look back with regret on past relations, and forward with a wish that they had the benefit of our help and guidance in difficult days like the present (applause). The Dean, in conclusion, extolled what he knew of Kipling's poetry at its best, and felt convinced his im- mortality as a writer and poet was secure. The Dean has a knack of happy endings, as he has so long shown by his Saturday sermons in the Daily Telegraph, and it all helped to make the applause unanimous at the close. FROM SKYE TO PACIFIC The Hon. Secretary of our Auckland (N.Z.) Branch, Mrs. Buchanan, sends an interesting correspondence proving the hold that Kipling has in New Zealand, as well as among Mediterranean regions of song and ' sunshine. Dr. Phyllis Johnson, of Takapura. recounts how months ago she stayed on a sheep-farming station 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 about a day's journey north of Gis- borne. The terrain she describes as "steep, rough, sheep-and-a-half-to-the acre country, ten miles from post- office, store, or pub," and all this "at altitudes of two or three thousand feet with paddocks four hundred acres in area." To visit a "neighbouring" station, they had to splash through rivers on horseback. The manager, Mr. Genelli, produced several of Kipling's books in a good Italian version. If his father was Italian, it seems that his grandmother was a Macdonald from Skye, and boasted of being a cousin of Earl Baldwin. When it was suggested that she might also "call cousins" with our poet, Mr. Genelli could not remember if she was aware of this honour, or if she was too modest to claim it. But they were all united in their liking for his works. WAVELL'S WAR BALLAD Miss Mary Miller, of Owen Sound, Ontario, forwards the following gem from the Toronto Globe, as a veritable war-report composed by Earl Wavell in Palestine in the March of 1913, when he was a brigadier. While driving back to Jerusalem, he com- posed this rhyming and metrical ballad and then sent it to General Pope as an "Appreciation of the Situation" :— The Hows fired on from L 2 ak whence all but they had fled. The Turks had taken Sinjul Ridge, Et Tell, and Beachy Head. They fired point-blank at either flank and still would not retire. They had been told that they must hold with Lewis guns and wire, Until an order came in code, when any left alive Would push along the Natlus Road to N 2 don six five. Their trusty tractors pawed the ground and waited slim and lissom Till H.E. hit them in the guts and spoiled their mechanism. The waited order never came to save these fated gunners— Some dirty work done by the Turk had mopped up all the runners. And so they fell by shot and shell till all lay in the dust; The Hows red-hot fired their last shot and then they simply bust. The General of the Heavy Guns assembled all his Staff. He changed complexion thrice and thus he spoke their epitaph : "I'll greet these men with pleasure when we meet again in heaven," They carried out the principles of my Note No. 7. So by the very latest rules of modern war they fell. But most can never read these Notes —Yours ever, W. A. Vell. THE EDITOR As we close for press, we know that readers of the Journal will be pleased to hear that the Editor, Mr. E. D. W. Chaplin, who had a serious operation on November 12th, is making most satisfactory progress. J. P. Collins. From "THE KIPLINGERS." "Ancient, new and eternal, volume by volume set, Tales so near to our inmost hearts that we who love them forget They are not known to all readers, nor is their love so deep : A man, not a god, has made them, and men not gods must keep Their wisdom bright and their message, though these be hid in our play, Read, interpreted, pondered, more dear to us day by day. Kipling, what of your Message?—And what is our Journal worth If we grudge this tithe of our earnings for the lordliest works on earth " Roger Lancelyn Green. December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 VARIA We are indebted to Sir Christopher, our Hon. Secretary, for the following up-to-date echo (from Paris?) of R.K.'s admonitory poem, " If "— Si le soleil était sans tache, Si je tenais moins au panache, Si tu n'avais pas de moustache, Si tes yeux n'évoquaient la vache, Je t'aurais donné mon amour. According to the records of Edin- burgh Public Library, Stalky and Co. is still in steady demand by both juveniles and adults. This is the testimony given by Mr. W. O. Steuart in his excellent article on the book's half-century, which appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch. J. P. Collins. The Nostalgia of Mandalay and the Danes By LT.-GEN. SIR GEORGE MacMUNN, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., D.S.O. EVERYONE will remember how in 1801 and 1807 it was necessary to deal very roughly with the Danes and the Danish ships, and how we destroyed their fleet to keep it out of the hands of Napoleon, much as we had to destroy, against our wishes, the French vessels at Oran to save them from Hitler. Yet the Danes have long for- given us and understood, so we hope that ere long the lacerated nerves and feelings of the French Navy may recover, and enable them to forgive us too. The Danes are great admirers of the English language and of English literature, and the Danish professor Jasparson is well renowned as a writer on these subjects. Here is another story told by Dr. K. F. Moller in his new book on English literature. Shortly after 1914, another English enthusiast—Dr. K. F. Moller—-trans- lated Mandalay and several other Kipling verses, and Mandalay was set to music by a Danish composer, during the Kaiser's war, but it had not caught on. Then later, another composer, Erling Winkel, gave it a new setting and it appeared in all the Danish song books. In 1941, after the young actor— Mogens Wieth—later an officer in our R.A.F.—had sung it publicly to a mandoline accompaniment, and recorded it for the gramophone, it became, says Dr. Moller, Denmark's national song during the German occupation. The Germans permitted the Doctor to lecture on English literature, though the German police came regularly. Knowing how the Danes loved Mandalay, he describes, under the title "Kom igin Soldat fra England" how he ended his lecture by reciting Man- dalay amid great applause—and after the line "Kom igin, soldat fra England" made a long significant pause before continuing. The Germans at once came demand- ing to see the text. After spelling through all the verses he says "they fell into deep reflection, and then suddenly broke out in unison, gesticul- ating wildly "Aber die Pause. Die pause ist ja nicht da!" He got away with it, but all his lectures were ever after forbidden. The distinguished admirer of Kipling, Rear Admiral T. P. H. Beamish, C.B., writes that he is not ashamed that he always feels a little chokey over this tale which he has told to me. We know how the north-west nations of Europe have for centuries been under the threat from the East and today, perhaps, more than ever ; and civilization may be compelled to see that no rough stuff will come to those countries who, at present, have escaped the Iron Curtain. (a) Dr. Moller's book in which he tells of "Kom igin, soldat fra England" was reviewed by "The Times" Literary Supplement of September, 1949. (b) Baudelaire paa Barrikaden; og andre Causerier, Copenhagen : Gyldendaiske Boghandel. K.R. 10.0. 4 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 AN INTERESTING DOCUMENT By courtesy of the Chairman of the General Committee of the Savile Club, we are able to publish this extract from the entry in the Club's Candidates Book relating to Rudyard Kipling's membership. As will be seen, the page contains the signatures of many famous men. December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 5 The British Overseas "TO A WHOLE GENERATION HOMESICKNESS WAS REVERSED BY INOCULATION WITH KIPLING'S MAGIC" [The extract below from "The British Overseas," by C. E. Carrington, M.A.— Cambridge University Press, 42s. net-—is reproduced by permission. The passages are from Chapter XII : The New Imperialism : South Africa to 1912. Section (3) Rudyard Kipling.] THE two profoundest influences parodies in the manner of Swinburne and Browning on Anglo-Indian life and politics ; he filled odd columns in the Civil and Military Gazette with cynical short stories, owing much to Bret Harte and more to De Maupassant, which revealed, in this boy of nineteen or twenty, a terrific power of minute observation. "This young man," said Oscar Wilde, "has seen many remark- able things through keyholes." He was far from complacent about British rule. He distinguished then, as later, the unselfish, unrewarded labour of the pioneer, up-country and alone, from the ponderous remote bureaucracy of Simla and Whitehall. His lip-service was to the Law, to the Flag ; his real admiration was always for the irregu- lar, the guerrilla-fighter. In a thousand solitary settlements young Englishmen of the middle classes toiled and im- provised to pacify the savage, to turn the wilderness into a garden, to make wealth out of poverty, knowing that they would not be enriched by it. Here were the words for which they had waited, the sentiments they were too inarticulate to utter : "By the bitter road the Younger Son must tread, Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own,— 'Mid the riot of the shearers in the shed, In the silence of the herder's hut alone— In the twilight, on a bucket upside down, Hear me babble what the weakest won't confess." Kipling's first literary creation was the cockney soldier, a guttersnipe without manners, morals or traditions, homesick for London : " for the sounds of 'er an' the sights of 'er and the stinks of 'er, orange-peel an' hasphalte an' gas comin' in over Vaux'all Bridge" ; rude, ignorant, and yet dimly aware of the honour and privilege of exercised by the English upon the history of the world may well be English commercial expansion and English lyric poetry. These lines of force do not often meet, and only in dealing with the 1890's need a historian of one concern himself with the other. There was then a poet whose verses were constructed with such curious art as to appeal to the artless and the illiterate, who for a moment made poetry popular with the middle classes, and who wrote on imperial themes. The doom reserved for all who are supposed to write down to the vulgar was pronounced upon him by the pontiffs of the cult of sophistication, until, after his death and after the Empire as Kipling described it had passed away, he was reinstated on a modest but respectable literary pedestal by Mr. T. S. Eliot. It is not likely, however, that Kipling's work, except a few of his simpler ballads and children's stories, will be much read by future generations. He was a journalist of genius, but his writings are too topical and allusive to be understood when the allusions are forgotten and the topics stale. His career is a far more significant episode in the history of the British Commonwealth than in the history of English literature. . . . His father was a scholar, an arche- ologist, and his mother, whom Kipling thought the "wittiest woman in India," had been one of the Pre-Raphaelite circle in London. The boy knew some- thing of artistic craftsmanship as taught by William Morris, and some- thing of the French impressionist writers on whom he modelled his style. "THROUGH KEYHOLES" Kipling achieved a local fame, first among the British residents in the Punjab, then throughout India when he was taken up by Lord and Lady Dufferin, until finally his reputation reached London, He wrote skits and 6 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 his task to serve "the Widow of Windsor" ; much exposed to the criticisms of pharisees and the romanc- ing of stay-at-home novelists— "It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and ' Tommy, 'ow's your soul ? ' But it's ' thin red line of 'eroes ' when the drums begin to roll"— attacks which Tommy repulsed on either flank with equal vigour. He was neither blackguard nor ' thin red hero.' This humblest of empire-builders, gay, humorous, impertinent, courageous, enduring ; without a touch of ferocity ; devoted to dogs and children and beer ; imperturbable and unchanged whether his fate was to march with Howe to Bunker Hill, or Roberts to Kandahar, or Allenby to Jerusalem, or Mont- gomery to Alamein, Tommy Atkins had at last found a voice. THE IDEAL EMPIRE When first Kipling became known outside the narrow limits of the Punjab, he was recognised as the soldier's poet ; he was next hailed as the poet of empire. In 1889 an Indian newspaper sent him eastward on a world tour to Burma, Japan, California and at last to London, where he lived solitary in lodgings and was unhappy though prosperous. He felt himself out of place, sharing the bitter feelings of so many young men from the Dominions who have come to the land they were taught to call ' home,' to find them- selves strangers in a cold unfamiliar society. He married an American lady and took her back to New England which he liked even less. He shook the dust of America off his feet and rarely again wrote a line about the Americans without abusing them, unless they should have the grace to become Anglicised. At last finding in South Africa the ideal empire for which he had been seeking, he divided his time for several years between Cape Colony and Sussex. In 1904 he settled finally in England, turning his back on the Empire and his mind to- wards other themes which lie outside the scope of this book. The period of his travels in North America and South Africa, and of the voyages to and fro, had filled his notebooks with dramatic incidents and pictures, with patches of local colour and snatches of technical jargon which he cunningly wove into the fabric of his later songs and stories. To a whole generation homesickness was reversed by inoculation with Kipling's magic. Englishmen felt the days of England "sick and cold, and the skies gray and old and the twice- breathed airs blowing damp" ; heard the East a' calling; fawned on the younger nations, the men that could shoot and ride ; were conscious of the weight of the White Man's burden; learned to read and talk the jargon of the seven seas ; while, in the outposts of Empire, men who read no other books recognised and approved flashes of their own lives in phrases from Kipling's verse ; the flying-fishes and the dawn coming up like thunder across the Bay of Bengal ; the smell of the wattles at Lichtenburg in the rain ; the voyage outward-bound till the old lost stars wheel back and the Southern Cross rides high ; the palm- tree in full bearing bowing down to the surf under a low African moon; the aching berg propping the speckless sky at hot Constantia; the wild tide- race that whips the harbour-mouth at Melbourne ; the broom flowering behind the windy town of Wellington; the islands where the trumpet-orchids blow and the anchor chain goes ripping down through coral trash ; the western rail- way where the trestle groans and shivers in the snow; the Golden Gate of San Francisco where the blindest bluffs hold good and the wildest tales are true. Such tales they heard by camp-fires, of mine and ranch, and moose and caribou, and parrots peck- ing lambs to death ; of little wars with Sayyid Barghash of Zanzibar, and King Lobengula with the smoke- reddened eyes, and Fuzzy Wuzzy who broke a British square; and of Piet, the Boer farmer, with his Mauser for amusement and his pony for retreat, who fought so much better than some crack English battalions. JAMESON South Africa, in the 'nineties, was in a high fever with the temperature rising. The open frontier to the north where there might be gold and cer- tainly would be bloodshed, the labours of engineers at desert railways and deep mines, the scuffling and jostling of ' boom ' towns, the visible march of December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 7 trade and industry, and behind that the steady consolidation of pasture and ploughland, the creation under his eye of a new country by pioneers as bold and ruthless and far-reaching as Drake and Raleigh, were the ingredients of a composition he understood and admired ; the triumph of individualists whose only high ideal was a school-boyish sentimental "loyalty. Rhodes and Jameson were the men after his own heart. "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools." This Rhodes did after the Jameson Raid. Rhodes is the man who "Can talk with crowds and keep his virtue Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch." But the poem was written of Jameson whose name, it has been said, is con- cealed in it as a cryptogram. Kipling has often been described as if he were the poet of orthodox, con- servative imperialism. He is the very opposite of that ; he spoke for those whom he called the "Younger Sons," the middle-class adventurers, the "Sons of Martha" who accepted res- ponsibility and were never too proud for any task, not the "Sons of Mary," the governing class which accepted wealth and power as a right. He is the poet of the frontier rebel, the filli- buster, the buccaneer. He would have sided with Drake not Burleigh, with Raleigh not James I, with Washington not George Grenville, with Wakefield not Earl Grey. To the frontiersmen he gave a voice, but the stay-at-home English no more appreciated it than George III appreciated Benjamin Franklin. When Kipling addressed the English on their Empire it was always, as in Recessional, with a note of warning against "frantic boast and foolish word." But to that warning the English turned a deaf ear. The Verse of Rudyard Kipling TWO B.B.C. PROGRAMMES SELECTED BY LORD DAVID CECIL IN our issue of October, 1950, we published an extract from the script of the first of two programmes (broad- cast in the B.B.C. Third Programme) selected by Lord David Cecil, on The Verse of Rudyard Kipling. An extract from the script of the second broad- cast appears below by courtesy of the B.B.C. and by permission of Lord David Cecil. Narrator: A night or two ago you may have listened to a selection of Kipling's poems. It was meant to give an idea of Kipling the writer of modern folk song; Kipling the self-appointed voice of the English common soldier and the English empire builder. His best poetry, however, is not all of this kind. He can also write poetry of a more orthodox manner. Even then he often chooses a ballad form. Nor is he ever very personal in the sense that he uses the poetic form to declare his private emotion to the world. Kipling's art is always an objective art. But in the second category of his poems both the matters and the language are more like that one is accustomed to look for in poetry. The centre of his inspiration is always that patriotism which was the ruling motive of all his thoughts and interests. But patriotism in an imaginative man starts many trains of thoughts and associates itself with many other phases of feeling. Two in particular show themselves in Kipling. One is his sense of landscape : because he loved England, he looked at her, and he had a wonderfully sharp eye to note the characteristics and details of her appearance. Here is a rhapsody in prose of that part of England he knew and loved best, Sussex. Reader: "Sussex" 8 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 Narrator : Note how vivid and economical his descriptive phrases are—"bare slopes where chasing shadows skim," and "Our blunt bow-headed whale-backed downs." Kipling doesn't only convey the appearance of a landscape ; he can also express the mood it evokes. Listen to this. "The Way Through The Woods." Reader: "The Way Through The Woods" Narrator : Isn't that magical? If anyone says that Kipling isn't a true poet, tell him to read "The Way Through The Woods." Incidentally it illustrates the other phase of feeling which was awakened in Kipling by his love of country ; that is his historic sense. He saw England not just in his own time but backwards through the vista of the centuries. He delighted to pick on the characteristics of past periods : his dramatic imagination was stirred by contemplating the great figures of history. And not only those in England. His historical imagination stirs to life as he meditates on the career of Napoleon. Reader: "A St. Helena Lullaby" Narrator : Only a simple ballad in form ; but how it evokes all the tragedy and pageantry of the Napoleonic story ! Equally imaginative is his ballad about the ageing Queen Elizabeth, set to the tune of some dance of her period, its stately, lilting rhythms giving a ghostly strangeness to the tragic figure of which it tells. Reader; "The Looking Glass" Narrator: My last example of Kipling in this ballad strain is associated with no given historical event. It is just a love song connected with an English highway of a hundred or so years ago, rich with the associations of its period. Reader: "Brookland Road" Narrator: All these poems show either Kipling the lyrical or Kipling the dramatic poet. There is also Kipling the poet of reflection. Once again the root of his inspiration is his sentiment for his country, and even more his feeling for history. Once or twice his spirit rises above its immediate preoccupations to survey them in a more detached and universal point of view ; and one grander and less prejudiced than we might have thought. England and her greatness are the most precious things to him in the world. But he is faced with the fact that they must pass as all things human have passed, as Greece has passed and Rome. Nor does Kipling quarrel with the inevit- able. In terse, stately, noble verse he writes his epitaph on human history : Reader : "Cities and Thrones and Powers" Narrator: Was then Kipling ultimately a pessimist, who sees all human achieve- ment reduced in the end to dust by all- conquering time? In general one might think so. Yet there is one strange song of his, cast once again in ballad form, which seems to indicate a strain of Christian religious faith. This is so exceptional in his work that one hesitates to conclude from it that it represents his settled convictions— all the more because, like all his writ- ing, it is so impersonal in tone. But the feeling behind it is certainly genuine, and its expression haunting. Let me close with this—"Cold Iron." Reader; "Cold Iron" This concludes the extract from the script of two programmes of the verse of Rudyard Kipling, selected by Lord David Cecil. James Langham spoke the introduction written by Lord David Cecil, and the verse was read by Felix Felton, John Sharp, Richard George, Eric Phillips and Philip Wade, The programme was produced by Francis Dillon. 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." December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 9 Is Kipling Out of Date ? By "BONES" In the last issue of the Kipling Journal we included the essay written by the First Prize winner in this year's Kipling Essay Competition for the Martindell prise among boys at Victoria College, Jersey. We now publish the essay of the "runner-up," J. H. Boielle, aged 16, who is in the Science Lower VIth and intends to enter the profession of Pharmacy in due course.] NOWADAYS, while we are sitting peacefully perusing a book, and enjoying it to the full, a young sense- less profligate often comes to us and asks us the name of the author whose work we are so engrossed with. We reply "Rudyard Kipling," and the aforementioned enquirer replies with astonishment, "Rudyard Kipling? But he is an out-of-date children's author." This reply often fills us with con- tempt ; but at the same time, it makes us wonder whether this statement is really true, and whether Kipling's style has dated since his work was first published. With this doubt on our minds, we sit down to analyse his work, and try to pass judgment on our findings with an unprejudiced mind. In order to discover whether Kip- ling's work as a whole is out-of-date, we must consider his poetry and prose separately ; for poetry and prose are judged on entirely different fundamentals. HIS POETRY Let us start first then with his poetry. Kipling's poetry is not verbose, full of subtle metaphors, and con- ventional in all the arbitrary rules laid down by generation upon generation of poets, both good and bad. It is per- cussive, colloquial and slightly sordid. Instead of fanciful ballads of angels and gods, he wrote heart-rending stories of common-place people in common-place language. Nevertheless we find that the main underlying emotion is Romance. All poetry must contain some romance, but this is not so evident in Kipling as it is in other famous poets' works. But romance is there, however, contained in the thrilling adventures and poignant, emotional stories told by an apparently uninterested spectator. No-one can say that Kipling's poetry is not popular ; in fact he is the man who first made poetry popular to the common man. His poem "If" has achieved many successes, because it incorporates every quality that people like in other people. The "Barrack Room Ballads" are notable, if only because they brought the case of the common soldier before the eye of the general public for the first time. His poems do not seem to have declined much in popularity during recent years, this is because Kipling wrote for the ordinary person, and not for a few hyper-intellectual geniuses. R.K.'s PROSE Let us now consider his prose. It has often been criticised because it is replete with Indian words, such as "havildar." But we must remember that Kipling wrote for a generation of people who had been born in India, and who spoke various Indian dialects as fluently as they did English. His style varied from ultra-sophistication to naive children's stories, yet he had full command over every style he tried. His language was terse and appropriate in adventure stories, flow- ing and imaginative in descriptive passages. He has had many imitators, but none of them has yet managed to convey to the reader the joie-de-vivre, and seeming lack of effort contained in every work of his. His prose is more conventional than his poetry in style, but his themes are still just as unusual. He did not rely on bigamy, divorce and quarrels to form a foundation to his plots. In- stead of sentimentality and happy endings, he wrote true-to-life stories. His children's stories did not rely on witches and fairies, and actually started a liking for animal stories among the children that has endured till this day. In this way, Kipling established a niche for himself in the hall of fame. His work cannot be losing popularity because it is out-of-date, as Kipling set the standards by which contemporary authors are judged, 10 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 L'ENVOI Date of 1st Publication Appeared as L'Envoi to Collected Titles First Lines Notes 1 1882 Sundry Phansies Not collected Not known 2 1886 (a) Departmental Ditties 2nd Ed. (b) Inclusive Verse, 1919 L'Envoi (To whom it may concern) The smoke upon your altar dies 3 4 5 1888 *1888 Soldiers Three The Story of the Gadsbys A Dedication The Winners (The Moral) And they were stronger hands than mine What is the moral? Who rides may read There was a prose dedication to the volume 1890 Life's Handicap My new-cut Ashlar My new-cut ashlar takes the light Other titles-See Journal 20, page 121. (a) Twilight in the Abbey (b) The Prayer of the Mark Master Mason (c) The Workers' Prayer 6 1891 Barrack Room Ballads (some editions) The Long Trail There's a whisper down the field Five verses first published in Nov. 1891 in "Cape Illustrated Magazine" 7 1892 (a) Barrack Room Ballads (other editions) (b) The Seven Seas (1896) When Earth's Last Picture is painted When Earth's last picture is painted First printed in New York Sun on a Sunday in Aug. 1892 at the end of a letter now entitled "Half a Dozen Pictures." 8 1893 Many Inventions The Anchor Song Heh! Walk her round L'ENVOI This chart, sent in by Mr. R. E. Harbord, provides the answer to the question about the various poems by Rudyard Kipling which have borne the title " L'Envoi." They number eight in all. It is suggested that this chart covers the complete list. December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 11 On the Great Wall FROM AN ADDRESS TO MEMBERS OF THE AUCKLAND (N.Z. BRANCH OF THE KIPLING SOCIETY BY SIR STEPHEN ALLEN IN "Puck of Pook's Hill" there is a group of three short stories—"A Centurion of the Thirtieth," "On the Great Wall" and "The Winged Hats." I have taken the title of the second story for the heading to this paper. The two latter stories are a sequel to the first, and the three together are the narrative of Parnesius, a Roman Centurion, one of the defenders of Hadrian's wall in the later days of the fourth century, a period of decline in the Roman Empire. At first, I thought that the composi- tion of this paper would be an easy task, but closer study of the three stories seemed to show many points needing explanation. In order to settle my own doubts about some of these points, and to consult a truly authorita- tive source, I wrote to England to the Public Record Office, where an old friend of mine, Sir Hilary Jenkinson, is the Deputy Keeper, about certain matters. He in turn obtained further information from Mr. Eric Birley, of Durham University, a leading authority on the Wall ; and as a result I have been supplied with literature which gives me all the known facts regarding the Wall and the problems connected with it. I am much indebted to their help, without which this paper would have been inaccurate and incomplete, and in several places I shall quote from "The Handbook to the Roman Wall" and other matter supplied to me by them. THE BACKGROUND Before proceeding to the story itself, the background against which it is written must be sketched in, and I must give a brief outline of the Roman occupation of Britain. Before, and during, the period of the story, it appears that the tribes of Britons throughout England and most of the Lowlands of Scotland were of mainly similar race and language. The Picts inhabited Scotland north of the Tay. and Scots from the north of Ireland spread into Galloway. Gibbon, on the authority of early writers, states that the tribe of Attacotti, near what is now Glasgow, were cannibals, but I am not aware whether this is still the case. Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 B.C. and again in 54, but made no serious attempt at conquest. Nearly a hundred years later, the actual conquest was begun by the Emperor Claudius, and completed under Nero and Domitian as far as the isthmus connecting the Forth and the Clyde. Under the able administration of Agricola, military stations were estab- lished, and a network of roads was built to link all the important places. Britain thus became a Roman colony, within these limits, but Gibbon doubts whether the native inhabitants were ever completely absorbed into the life of the Empire. Towards the north of course their assimilation of its life and customs would be less complete than in the south of England. Hadrian became Emperor in A.D. 120. He was one of the ablest rulers of the Roman Empire. Instead of seeking military successes like his pre- decessor, his settled policy was to secure his boundaries, and even to withdraw from difficult positions where a better defensive frontier was avail- able. In A.D. 122 he visited Britain, and decided to retire from the Forth- Clyde line to a line between the Tyne and the Solway, from Wallsend to Bowness, and he caused a Wall to be built to cover this frontier. The work was carried out by his Legate in Britain, Aulus Platorius Nepos. Formerly, the erection of the wall was variously attributed to Hadrian and to Severus, and it is only in quite recent years that all doubt on this point has been removed. Under Hadrian's successor, an advance was made again to the Forth and Clyde, and the Wall of Antoninus built on this line, but it did not remain the boundary for long. In the troubles following the assassination of Com- modus, Clodius Albinus, Governor of Britain, was an aspirant for power, and he left the Walls undefended while using their garrisons to support his 12 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 claims. He was defeated in A.D. 197, but meanwhile, in the absence of defenders, the Barbarians from the north swooped down and did great damage to the Walls. Hadrian's Wall was repaired by the Emperor Severus, and in A.D. 209 that Emperor, in person, led an army against the Caledonians, and penetrated to the extreme north, but at the cost of heavy losses. Pacts made with the defeated tribes were not observed by them, and in A.D. 211 Severus prepared a further campaign in order to exterminate the northern tribes. The death of Severus at York prevented this laudable design from being completed. The reign of Severus produced last- ing results. The Wall was repaired, a new system of outposts was established, the routes to the north were held by strong garrisons, and relations with the Lowland tribes made increasingly friendly. THE PICTS In A.D. 207 Carausius revolted against the Empire, and assumed sovereignty of Britain. He was followed by Allectus, but in A.D. 296 Constantius restored the Province to Rome. It is in this period that we first hear of the Picts by name, those tribes whose incursions to the south were to continue for many centuries, the last being in 1745 under the weak and timorous Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, after which some measure of civilisation was imposed on them through the benevolent efforts of the Duke of Cumberland and General Wade, Incidentally this last invasion perhaps did more damage to the Wall than any other, because General Wade, at Newcastle, found no road across to Carlisle good enough to carry his artillery, and to make one destroyed many miles of the Wall at its eastern end. On the whole the Wall was quiet until the disaster of A.D. 367, under Valentinian and Valens, when the tribes from the north, with large assistance from overseas, overran a great part of England. Theodosius restored the situation in A.D. 369, and apparently added to the Empire the Lowland province of Valentia, so named in compliment to the Emperor Valentinian. In A.D. 383, Magnus Maximus, commanding in Britain, led his army in revolt against the Emperor Gratian, and drained the island of its protectors. At this point the history of the Wall, so far as inscriptions have been dis- covered, comes to an end. A garrison ceased to be necessary, because by this time the Lowland tribes were allies of the Romans, and a stable power. In A.D. 409 the Roman legions were with- drawn from Britain, which became independent of the Empire. Hadrian's Wall was a marvellous structure, and one of the greatest monuments of Roman skill, patience and endurance. It ran for a distance of 80 Roman miles from Wallsend on the Tyne, the ancient Segedunum, to Bowness on the Solway; and even in ruin it is impressive. Originally the Wall was 15 feet high, so far as we can now ascertain, with a parapet and merlons on the north side some six feet high, making an effective height of over 20 feet. The portion known as the Broad Wall, running from New- castle for twenty miles west, was nine feet wide, and the rest of it was for the most part eight feet, with some portion of an intermediate gauge. On the north side of the wall, at a distance usually of 20 feet from it, was the ditch, of an average width of 27 feet and a depth of nine feet. "MILECASTLES" On the line of the Wall, there were 18 forts, irregularly spaced in advantageous positions. Each fort was of from three to five acres in extent, designed to contain a garrison of 500 horsemen or of 1000 infantry, Each fort was built with due regard to a copious supply of water, and outside its actual precincts was built an extensive bath house. Along the Wall, every Roman mile, there was a "mile- castle," not built to one standard pattern, but measuring approximately 50 feet by 60 feet. It furnished accommodation for perhaps 50 men. Between each pair cf milecastles were two turrets, spaced at regular inter- vals, and some 14 feet square internally. They were intended mainly for obser- vation and signalling. They had an upper story, above the level of the Wall, reached by a ladder which could be drawn up. The Wall itself follows the best line for observation and December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 13 defence, but was not intended for merely passive defence, and each fort and milecastle is well supplied with gateways to the north, to enable the troops they contained to emerge and deploy for attack at short notice. To the south of the Wall, at a dis- tance of from 30 yards to half a mile, is the Vallum, an earthwork consisting of a ditch 20 feet wide and ten feet deep, with two mounds formed by the excavated earth, each set 30 feet back from the ditch. Each mound was 20 feet wide. The Vallum runs in straight lines, in well known Roman fashion. Its original purpose was to shut off a space on the south side of the Wall, and so create a zone for purely military purposes. The figures given above are sufficient to show the vast extent of the works, but this is not all. The necessary roads had to be built. The Stanegate, run- ning from Corbridge to Carlisle, was the first means of communication from east to west. It probably dates from the time of Agricola, and is in parts some distance from the Wall. This inconvenience caused a new military road to be built, following a line between the Wall and Vallum, and though this space was at first kept clear of civilians, as time went on villages were allowed to grow up beside the forts, accommodating veterans and camp followers, and the restrictions on this space were removed. From the time of Hadrian onwards, there were three legions stationed in Britain, the Second Augusta at Caerleon-on-Usk, the Sixth Victrix at York, and the Twentieth Valeria Victrix at Chester. Inscriptions record their work on the Wall, the actual mason's work being done by them. In building the Wall, each century of a legion was responsible for a length of about 45 yards. When the Wall was completed, it was not manned by the legions, which returned to their sta- tions, and the garrison troops were comprised of auxiliary forces, who were in every way inferior to the legionaries. In each fort was stationed either a cohort of infantry, or an ala of cavalry, the ala being commanded by a Prefect and the cohort by a Tribune. If help was needed in an emergency, the Sixth legion at York was near enough to the scene to be called on, and could move either along the road to Corbridge or that to Carlisle as occasion required. Before the time of our story, however, the strength of a legion had fallen from 6000 to only 1000 men, and its structure was much changed. (To be concluded) From "The Story of a Surgeon" THE following reaches us from Mr. Basil M. Bazley: From "The Story of a Surgeon."— By Sir John Bland Sutton, Bt. Methuen, 1930. Preamble—By Rudyard Kipling. The Story of a Hospital In which it is to be hoped shall be found—a reasonable proporcion—of most historicall matters touching the practice of Our mysteries as it has been used at Middlesex since the beginning. As well also friendly and faithfull Record of the Chirugeons, Physitians, Apothecaries and the like— that dealt in 'em—together with their mere adjuvants, mistrants, dressers and even the poor porters and door- keepers (that Justice may be rendered to all)—livelily pourtrayed in their speech—dealings and habits—either by remembrance, tradition or the sure report of present aged witnesses : not omitting some accompt and perpective of the body material of Our Middlesex — which is to say the buildings Thereof—Those changes and betterments necessary obliterations of all kinds wherein by the Illuminati may be paralleled, through the plain Allegorie of Brick and Mortar, that unsatiate and upward path of progress of Medicine which, like Time devoureth her own children and, no more than terrible Youth itself, rests content with old men nor old stuff. The whole got together, pieced out, and here displayed—with as much Love as Labour by :— John Bland-Sutton—Knight and Chirugeon in his work and heart of Middlesex. R. Kipling. [Note : All the esses in the above are printed in the old way, like " f" without serif.] 14 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 The Dictionary of National Biography ON R.K. A Note by an Original Member NOW that Kipling is in the Dictionary of National Biography (Volume 1930-40) we, as a society, ought to express our thanks to Mr. G. M. Young for giving us so much in such small but very precious space, and for clearing up many points about which there had been inaccurate specu- lation : for instance the offer to Kipling of the Laureateship in 1895, and the three occasions on which he asked to be allowed to decline the Order of Merit and his reason. Can we, any of us, agree fully with this "official" dictum on our author? First let us see if there are any clerical errors. I have found one only. Was it a Yokohama bank that failed in 1892 when Mr. and Mrs. Kipling were on their honeymoon in that Japanese city? It was a notice on the door of the Yokohama branch of Kipling's bank that gave him the news, but was it not the New Oriental Banking Corporation, a bank with British registration and head office at 40 Threadneedle Street, London E.C. ? A MATTER OF OPINION Now we come to debatable state- ments— "He had finished his best volume of stories, Many Inventions (1893)" Surely, it must be a matter of opinion which is Kipling's best volume of stories. We in the Society can come to no sort of agreement on it and this is rather a pontifical ruling. I have kept records from correspondence in the Journal over the past 23 years, which show that many students prefer the later stories, and judging by the nominated "favourite" stories, par- ticularly those given since Limits and Renewals (1932) was published, that volume is quite as likely to be thought to be the "best" volume of short stories. Although, of course, my figures cannot prove that, they are a useful pointer, and they have considerable bearing on the next important matter about which I most sincerely disagree with the author of the article. That is, his opinion given in this quotation : "It is against this background of wretchedness and bodily distress that the work of his last 20 years must be viewed .... his style more abrupt. From allusive he became obscure, from obscure at times unintelligible." To which stories in Debits and Credits (1926) and Limits and Renewals (1932) can the word unintelligible possibly be applied ? Yet these two books contain most of the stories referred to, and if we add the following seven stories, only col- lected so far in the Sussex edition, we have all these short stories, and yet cannot find an unintelligible one— The Pleasure Cruise (1933) A Sea Dog (1934) Proofs of Holy Writ (1934) Teem : A Treasure Hunter (1936) A Displaie of New Heraldrie (1937) Quo Fata Vocant (1937) Two Forwards (1937) Surely Mr. Young cannot be referring to Kipling's speeches or to his verse. Another controversial quotation— "After forty ... he was . . . ready to take arms for ... or against democracy" Can anyone point to anything he wrote or spoke to justify this? I think not, although of course he was a good Conservative. Mr. Editor, it is quite impossible for many members of the Society who would like to study the D.N.B. article for themselves to acquire the volume, or even have access to it. Would it be possible for you to publish in the Kipling Journal the complete entry on Kipling? There are nine columns and it would take about six pages of the Journal : that is too much for one number I expect but it would be a great boon to have it even in three portions. Is it permissible to copy it? Original Member. [We thank this correspondent for his suggestion, and will make enquiries. —Ed.] December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 15 Letter Bag Correspondents are asked to keep letters for publication as short as possible KIPLING'S "ORIGINS" Sir George MacMunn writes :—- YOU know how very much Kipling's "origins" appeal to me. Amongst the ballads, there is one that I think is among his best claims to be a poet as well as a ballad writer, namely "The Answer" published in 1892 be- ginning : "A Rose in tatters on the garden path, Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath," The Rose, it will be remembered, had snapped and fallen off without any wind or cause. "And the Rose answered : ' In that evil hour A voice said ' Father, wherefore falls the flower? For lo, the very gossamers are still.' And a voice answered, ' Son, by Allah's Will ! '" A very beautiful and moving poem ! But Kipling, the voracious browser in libraries and the searcher of countrysides, must have seen the following—an epitaph, authorship un- known, in Buddock Churchyard and elsewhere :— "Who gathered this flower?" The Gardener answered, and his fellow servant held his peace." A beautiful epitaph and a beautiful poem. Kipling was said to have been prompted to write the poem on seeing the vast monument to the beautiful Rose Aylmer, who died in Calcutta as a young girl a century and a half ago. (Lt.-Gen.) Sir George MacMunn,. Sackville College, E. Grinstead. "PEARLS OF PRICE" Being interested in the Short Story, I recently bought a book on the subject entitled "The Modern Short Story" by H. E. Bates, the author of a number of books. After dealing, very reasonably, with the lack of good short story writers in England up to the '90s, he arrives at last at Kipling. "Now," thought I, "he must change his tone, although he may well criticise as well as praise." I got a nasty shock. I've seldom read anything with more disgust than I did that chapter on Kipling. You'd hardly believe the prejudice that oozes from it—the care- ful selection of only those items un- favourable to the victim (who is no longer here to defend himself), which is maybe why he's attacked. Here are a few pearls of price : (a) "Kipling, like Hitler, chose the swastika for an emblem." No men- tion that he abandoned it when he realised what it was being made to stand for. (b) "Kipling is the voice of a dying hierarchy, which for all its cruelty, violence and stupid complacency and reaction, he seeks to perpetuate." Might one guess the author's politics ? (c) "As a child Kipling suffered great cruelty . . . the inversion of that cruelty finds expression again and again throughout Kipling's work ..." Yet people who have studied him far more deeply say that there is no sign that this is so. (d) "He must remain a profound disappointment to those who, hearing of his immense renown as a writer, expect to find in him any trace of fine quality. The notion that Kip- ling was a great writer is a myth." (My italics. Not "in my opinion" it's a myth ; oh dear no—"it is a myth—I, the all-knowing, say so." (e) "On the one side stand the classes and societies who still rever- ence his creed of Empire, dead though it has long been, and quote him • with scriptural solemnity in times of crisis and war ; on the other hand stand the heretics, among whom I am inevitably numbered, to whom no single syllable of Kipling has ever given a moment's pleasure." Behind such intense exaggeration as "no single syllable" some queer feeling of ill-will must surely lie. Well, these are just a few bits, but there are plenty more. "Imperialism," 16 THE KIPLING JOURNAL December, 1950 cruelty and class distinction are the only cries throughout. What I feel about it is, that if Kipling had died thirty years earlier this might pass unchallenged, though it would still be unfair; but I ask you, Sir, how can it possibly be reconciled with stories like "They" or "The Gardener"? I knew he had critics, but certainly not that he had any who were so full of hate that they could attack a dead man like this. (Lt.-Col.) A. E. Bagwell Purefoy, 80 Riddlesdown Road, Purley, Surrey. RESEARCH? In the July "Kipling Journal" there is a record of one of R.K.'s last letters, dated December 21st, 1935. I have one—typewritten, it is true, but by himself, for no secretary could possibly make as many errors as there are in ,my letter !—and the date is Christmas Day, '35. Also, in reply to Col Tapp's letter about Kipling, the Church of England in Canada (official name) has its own Hymn Book and both Lest We Forget and Land of our Birth are included in it. To his question re other of R.K.'s verses being suitable, I say most emphatically yes. There is Non Nobis, Domine, which we need to pray more in this day and age than ever before, and I would like to see both Eddi's Service and A Carol used at the Christmas season. Then why not have An Astrologer's Song as a hymn—it certainly renders all the glory to God which is all that is re- quired in a hymn. How about all members doing a bit of research here? Maud Barclay, Hon. Secretary, The Kipling Society, 506 Niagara Street, Victoria, B.C., Canada. KIPLING AND CRICKET Why do those who revile Kipling never read the context of his remarks? When he wrote his now well-known phrases, "the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals," he was attacking over- emphasis on all sports and games which led to the neglect of military or other service training. He also men- tioned other forms of sport—his critics never allude to this : "Will the rabbit war with your foe- men—the red deer horn them for hire? Your kept cock-pheasant keep you? —he is master of many a shire." Nor did he attack sport only : "Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back from your shore? Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more?" Yet what a wonderful prophecy is contained in this poem, The Islanders : "But ye say, ' It will mar our com- fort.' Ye say, ' It will minish our trade.' Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid? For the low, red glare to south- ward when the raided coast- towns burn? (Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.) We had painful experience of the truth of his warnings in both world wars. Basil M. Bazley, 11 Castelnau Mansions, London, S.W.13. HYMN BOOKS Colonel Tapps' letter, "Hymn Books," Kipling Journal, July, 1950, reminded me that when in Clifton, Glos., in 1918 I went to evening service at a church variously described as "Unitarian" or "Independent" which included in its hymnal "My New Cut Ashlar." As an engineer, I was also interested in the reference, on pages 8-9 of the same issue, to a book on Telford by Sir Alec Gibb. I have not seen it and any particulars, publisher, etc., would be welcome. R. M. Harvey, 34 Murphy Street, Elsternwick, Melbourne, S.4. THE SETTING No "Mrs. Bathurst" commentator, critic, or elucidator seems to have considered the parallel story "Love o' Women" with its startling similarities to the later story. Larry Tighe was a gentleman ranker and a married man. Mulvaney thinks him "mad as a coot." He sees his face, and asks to be told his trouble. Larry says "The liquor will not bite December, 1950 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 17 any more. I can't get drunk." Larry Tighe dies. "Diamonds and Pearls" commits suicide. Vickery was "a superior man," and was, or had been, married. Pyecroft thinks him "a dumb lunatic." He sees his face "white and crumply," and asks to be told his trouble. Vickery says "Come and have a drink, it may amuse you, but it's no sort of earthly use to me." Vickery dies. Mrs. Bathurst .... ? I strongly suspect that Kipling had once known such an actual character, and that the impression made recurred at times. Both stories are based on sexual morals, or lack of them. Larry Tighe would welcome death in action. Vickery says the chance of being killed by Pyecroft would be "almost a temptation." Larry dies as a result of sexual excesses, but sexual disease is hinted at. Was the conveyance of this to Mrs. B. the great wrong confessed by Vickery to his captain? Mulvaney and Pyecroft each confess to promiscuity. Despite the story's formlessness—the "Boy Niven" humor- ous episode is an extraneous, and, for Kipling, an overlong, way of intro- ducing Vickery—it creates a strong atmosphere of inevitable tragedy, as does "Love o' Women." This, in each case, was aimed at, and undoubtedly accomplished. The events leading to each climax remain, as they were meant to remain, a mystery. "The rest is silence." This fixes the stories in one's memory much more effectively than if all were told, each "i" dotted, each "t" crossed. Can it be doubted that "Mrs. Bathurst" is the South African setting to the Indian "Love o' Women" ? T. E. Elwell, Regent House, Ramsey, Isle of Man. R.K. AND S. AMERICA It may not be generally known that Kipling has a great following in South America. I heard a curious instance of this recently. A friend of mine is director of a company with large interests in one of the South American Republics. This company was engaged on important land negotiations with the Government concerned and found it advisable to employ a subject of that State as a confidential agent. In due course out of the blue and without previous arrangement a cable arrived from this gentleman with the words—"The pedigree of the white stallion has been fully established." This mystified the other members of the Board, but my friend, an ardent Kiplingite, was able to inform them that it meant the negotiations had been successful. W. K. M. LangleY, St. Leonard's-on-Sea. INFORMATION WANTED CAN any of your readers tell me where to find the following quo- tation : "Don't try to run a special paper—rely on the newspapers. Avoid any but a minimum of statistics in your publicity." Also, has anyone ever heard of "The Olympic Hymn" by Kipling? J.S.I. McGregor, 72 Meade Street, George, Cape Province, South Africa. New Members THE following new members of the Kipling Society have recently been enrolled : — London : Dr. A. P. Thurston, M.B.E. Mr. J. Murray Grammer. Mr. C. E. W. Price. Associate Members : London : Miss S. Alderson. Miss R. Carter. Miss J. Chudleigh. Miss A. Head. Miss H. Jenkins. Miss S. Russell. Miss J. Bostock. Canada : Mrs L. R. Edwards. U.S.A. : Mr. C. L. Ames. Colonel W. A. Brewer. Dr. W. L. Carter. Mr. E. L. Kilbourne. Mr. H. A. McNaughton. Bermuda : Mrs. N. Wainwright.