September 1998 KIPLING JOURNAL 1 2 KIPLING JOURNAL September 1998 September 1998 KIPLING JOURNAL 3 THE KIPLING SOCIETY PRESIDENT Dr M.G. Brock, C.B.E. VICE-PRESIDENTS The Lord Annan, O.B.E. J.H. McGivering, R.D. Joseph R. Dunlap, D.L.S. Philip Mason, C.I.E., O.B.E., D.Litt. Norman Entract Mrs Margaret Newsom Professor Enamul Karim, M.A., Ph.D. Professor Thomas Pinney, Ph.D. Mrs Rosalind Kennedy Mrs Anne Shelford Mrs L.A.F. Lewis COUNCIL: ELECTED AND CO-OPTED MEMBERS G.C.G. Philo, C.M.G., M.C. (Chairman) P.G.S. Hall Sir George Engle, K.C.B., Q.C. Dr Sandra Kemp (Deputy Chairman) Dr J.D. Lewins Norman Entract Andrew Lycett K.M.L. Frazer Mrs E. Stamers-Smith Dr Linda Hall COUNCIL: HONORARY OFFICIAL MEMBERS R.A. Bissolotti, F.C.A., Sir Derek Oulton, G.C.B., Q.C., Treasurer. Legal Adviser. Peter Merry, Mrs B.G. Schreiber, Meetings Secretary. Librarian. Michael Smith, Secretary [home tel. & fax (01273) 303719]. Lt-Colonel R.C. Ayers, O.B.E., Membership Secretary. G.H. Webb, C.M.G., O.B.E., Editor of the Journal. THE SOCIETY'S POSTAL ADDRESS Kipling Society, 2 Brownleaf Road, Brighton BN2 6LB, England. (Our E-mail address is: kipling@fastmedia.demon.co.uk) Honorary Auditor: Professor G.M. Selim, M.Com., Ph.D., F.I.I.A. AUSTRALIAN BRANCH President: Mr L.F.I. Hawkins Vice-Presidents: Mrs Mary Barton & Mrs Rosalind Kennedy Treasurer: Miss Judith Granowski Secretary: Mrs Rosalind Kennedy, Bliss Cottage, P.O. Box 321, Beechworth, Victoria, Australia 3747 September 1998 KIPLING JOURNAL 5 SECRETARY'S ANNOUNCEMENTS SOME FORTHCOMING EVENTS: SEE ALSO THE 'SOCIETY NOTICES' ON PAGE 37 Wednesday 16 September, from 5 p.m. at the Society's Library at City University, a special meeting. Full details were notified at pages 5 and 54 in the Kipling Journal of June 1998. Wednesday 11 November at 5.30 for 6 p.m. at the Royal Over-Seas League, Park Place, off St James's Street, London SW1, David McAveeney – author of Kipling in Gloucester: The Writing of 'Captains Courageous' (1996) – on "Kipling and Gloucester, Massachusetts". Please note the following dates set for meetings in 1999, though we cannot yet confirm who the speakers will be. Wednesday 10 February and Wednesday 14 April, at 5.30 for 6 p.m. at the Royal Over-Seas League, standard evening meetings. Wednesday 5 May at 12.30 for 1 p.m., at the Royal Over- Seas League, the Society's Annual Luncheon. Wednesday 14 July at 4 p.m. at the Royal Over-Seas League, the Society's Annual General Meeting, followed by tea, and a speaker. We hope also to arrange a meeting at Bateman's in June. September 1998 michael smith 6 KIPLING JOURNAL September 1998 'IDIOTS!' SHE SAID, AND ONCE MORE, 'IDIOTS!' (See page 8.) THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly since 1927 by the Kipling Society (2 Brownleaf Road, Brighton, Sussex BN2 6LB, England) and sent free to all members worldwide Volume 72 SEPTEMBER 1998 Number 287 CONTENTS THE KIPLING SOCIETY: OFFICERS ETC 4 SECRETARY'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 5 Illustration: 'Idiots!' she said 6 EDITORIAL 9-11 ANNUAL LUNCHEON, 1998 including the Address by Sir George Engle 12-22 MRS HAUKSBEE RIDES AGAIN, Part I by John Whitehead 23-33 ON INDEXING THE JOURNAL by John Morgan 34-36 society notices from the Secretary 37 membership NEWS including the AGM 38-42 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Source of "Toomai of the Elephants" (Mr J. Whitehead); Mulvaney's Regiment (Mr M. Spargo); The Game of Empire (Mr S. Wade); The Curse of Art (Professor T. Pinney); P.G. Wodehouse on Kipling (Mr H.M. Nimkhedkar); 'Ian Hay' and Kipling (Mr K.M.L. Frazer); From Cockbilling to Judson (Commander A.J. W. Wilson) 43-54 POINTS FROM other LETTERS: Sir Elton John (Mr G.L. Wallace); The late Frank Sinatra (Mr S. Wade); "The Appeal" answered (Dr E.C. Hayes) 55-58 [see over] THE SOCIETY'S LIBRARY 58 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. AN EXPLANATORY NOTE 59 THE KIPLING SOCIETY: AN EXPLANATORY NOTE 60 All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the Kipling Society, London. A NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATION AT PAGE 6 This is a drawing by Reginald Cleaver, accompanying "The Puzzler" (1906), a story collected in Actions and Reactions (1909), collected again with this illustration in Humorous Tales from Rudyard Kipling (Macmillan, 1931). The picture shows the climax of the story. There has been a farcical misadventure with an Italian organ-grinder's monkey in an empty house: it started with an inconclusive experiment to see if the monkey could climb on a Monkey Puzzler tree in the garden, and ended with a noisy rampage through the house. The lady on the left is the incoming tenant, who, chancing to arrive at the height of the disturbance, is vexed to find the property overrun by eccentric strangers who have no right to be there. The central figure is an eminent judge, Lord Lundie, who is embarrassed to be found "with a stump-leg barrel-organ strapped to his shoulder". Behind him is a distinguished engineer, Sir Christopher Tomling, who "cherished a bleeding thumb". Also behind, though rather obscurely depicted, is the monkey, rendered "almost crazy" and tearing at its master's hair. Three other participants in the drama – though not in the picture – are the narrator, who is a plausible representation of Kipling; a Royal Academician called James Loman; and a Canadian statesman with the curious name Penfentenyou, whose nimble thinking redeems the awkward confrontation depicted here and pacifies the angry lady. "The Puzzler" is narrated on two levels. Underlying the comical encounter with the monkey is a serious theme of imperial politics and Anglo-Canadian relations. Penfentenyou has an ambitious scheme, not described but referred to as his "Great Idea". At the start of the story he has been mortified by the unresponsiveness of the British Government to his Idea. Lord Lundie is mentioned as potentially supportive, and Penfentenyou is persuaded to call on him at his country house. The narrator accordingly takes him by car to Lundie's village, where the wholly fortuitous episode with the monkey brings the Canadian into contact with Lundie. This is propitious; the useful part played by Penfentenyou, and the hilarious nature of the incident, have the effect of winning Lundie's firm support for the political proposal. The story ends with the Great Idea gaining formal acceptance in London, indeed "going through... in fine and far- reaching shape". September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL___________________9 EDITORIAL KIPLING AND 'HOOLIGANISM' According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word 'hooligan' was coined by the Daily News in the summer of 1898, just a hundred years ago, and derives from the surname of an Irish family who were notable ruffians in the East End of London. It was, and remains, a strongly condemnatory term; one with which we conveniently categorise those whose propensity to violent and unprovoked misbehaviour earns our disapproval. For example, it is a label to attach to the disorderly minority of British holiday-makers in the Balearics, whose occasional drunken rampages make such an unedifying spectacle; also to the riotously- inclined element among football crowds – especially among active supporters of the England national team. Though Britain assuredly has no monopoly of hooliganism, these tiresome England fans are a sociological phenomenon. To some extent they act in concert. To judge from anecdotal evidence they include, incongruously, a few educated people in their generally mindless ranks. At matches, they boldly take on the massive police presence that is usually deployed to contain them. And though their bravado is partly alcohol-induced, they display a physical energy and a defiant commitment worthy of a better cause. Television of course captures their excesses. Whereupon the wider English public, viewing the sorry scene, feel disgust, yet tend tacitly to acknowledge that ironic point – the want of a better cause. There is a feeling that given leadership and discipline, such as soldiers accept in the Army, something better might be made of those yobs, our pathetic fellow-countrymen, whose perverted motivation and riotous conduct are so unbecoming. This line of thought is not new. The Duke of Wellington, referring to the British troops who under his generalship had been brought to a pitch of near-invincible professionalism in the Peninsula, declared that they had initially been "the scum of the earth", and had "only enlisted for drink". Another sagacious commentator, Dr Johnson, observed that "Good and evil will grow up in the world together; and they who complain, in peace, of the insolence of the populace, must remember that their insolence in peace is bravery in war." There need not be much doubt as to what Kipling would have thought of the insolent hooliganism of present-day Britain. Insofar as it is displayed abroad, he would have deplored it as a national disgrace; and in any case would have agreed with those who favour the restoration of 10__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 compulsory military service as a cure for indiscipline. (For a blueprint, see "The Army of a Dream", in Traffics and Discoveries.) More striking is the fact that Kipling himself was in his day powerfully accused of incitement to hooliganism. The most specific charges were brought by Robert Buchanan (1841-1901) in an article, "The Voice of the Hooligan", in the Contemporary Review of December 1899. Buchanan, a poet and novelist of no lasting note, attacked Kipling in ferocious terms for his "brutality... unredeemed by a touch of human tenderness" in Barrack-Room Ballads and The Seven Seas. Those two volumes of verse, "so contemptible in spirit and so barbarous in execution", contained "no glimpse... of sober and self- respecting human beings – only a wild carnival of drunken, bragging, boasting Hooligans in red coats and seamen's jackets, shrieking to the sound of the banjo and applauding the English flag". He had similar objections to Kipling's prose, and he picked on the recently published Stalky & Co. for its deplorable trio of "young hooligans", who "join in no honest play or manly sports, they lounge about, they drink, they smoke, they curse and swear, not like boys at all, but like hideous little men." In Buchanan's view, Kipling was the "spoiled child of an utterly brutalised public", and a lamentably influential member of the "Hooligan school" of writing, devoid of any redeeming sensibility. Although this opinion was soon eloquently refuted by another writer, Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), who in the January 1900 Contemporary Review wrote in praise of Kipling's originality and realism, firmly rebutting the 'hooligan' slur, Buchanan's was not a lone view. It was endorsed by the poet and essayist Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) in his book, Rudyard Kipling: A Criticism (Bodley Head, 1900). Le Gallienne did not, I think, use the term "hooligan" but he took Kipling to task with the utmost severity for elevating his soldier characters and glorifying war. All Le Gallienne could find to say about the magnificent story, "On Greenhow Hill" [Life's Handicap] was that Ortheris was a murderer; indeed, every soldier was "a criminal with a gun licence". Obviously Le Gallienne, a fastidious liberal with passionate objections to things military, would not find much in common with Kipling. At least, not yet. (Actually, as the years passed he changed his mind, and in an important article in Munsey 's Magazine of November 1919 he wrote about Kipling in very laudatory terms.) In 1900 he saw Kipling as worse than a personal hooligan: he was a dangerous inspiration to hooliganism on the part of his many admirers. Le Gallienne's book ends thus:- As a writer Mr. Kipling is a delight; as an influence he is a danger. Of course, the clock of Time is not to be set back by gifts ten times September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________11 as great as Mr. Kipling's. The great world movement will still go on, moving surely, if slowly, and with occasional relapses, in the direction which it has always taken, from brute force to spiritual enlargement. But there are influences that speed it along and others that retard. It is to be regretted that Mr. Kipling's influence should be one of those that retard. A century on, we may well be sceptical about the inevitability of a "great world movement" towards "spiritual enlargement". Some things seem to get better, others decidedly worse. And although Kipling's imperialism is out of date, few of us would see him as having provided an effectual political obstacle to the liberalism of his day. Even Le Gallienne, in 1900, concedes that Kipling's work nobly enforces those old-fashioned virtues of man which, it is to be hoped, will never go out of fashion – to do one's duty, to live stoically, to live cleanly, to live cheerfully... Kipling was a literary artist, who would have agreed with Dr Johnson's dictum that the function of literature is to teach people either to enjoy life or to endure it: he was not a party-political force. As to whether, in the light of poems such as "Et Dona Ferentes" and "Cells", he can fairly be accused of favouring hooligan behaviour, I will welcome views from readers, and will touch on the subject in our next issue. JOHN KIPLING I have received an advance copy of a new book, My Boy Jack? by Tonie and Valmai Holt (Leo Cooper, 1998, xx + 234 pages, illustrations, £19.95), which recounts authoritatively the sad but enthralling story of young John Kipling, his death in action in 1915, and the search for his body, with its dramatic culmination in 1992. A fuller note will be in our December issue. MAILBASE DISCUSSION LIST The Society's Secretary tells me (in expansion of his notice on page 37) that one of our members, Professor W.J. Cram, has kindly set up an operational mailbase for any fellow members who wish to take advantage of the facility by adding their e-mail addresses to it. For more information, contact him at his e-mail address (w.j.cram@ncl.ac.uk). No cost will be involved. 12.__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 ANNUAL LUNCHEON, 1998 The Kipling Society's Annual Luncheon, on 6 May 1998, was once again very successfully held at the Royal Over-Seas League, London. The Guest of Honour was Sir George Engle, who was accompanied by Lady Engle. The occasion was, as always, much enjoyed by members and guests. The attendance, of some 80, included the following:- Mr M.R. Aidin; Mr P.M. Armstrong; Mrs L.A. Ayers; Lt-Col R.C. Ayers; Mr N.W. Biggs; Mr R.A. Bissolotti; Mr B.J. Bolt; Mrs G.J. Bolt; Mrs E.H. Brock; Dr M.C Brock; Professor P.W. Campbell; Mrs B. Caseley Dickson; Field-Marshal Sir John Chapple; Lady Chapple; Mr B. Coffey; Canon A.A. Coldwells; Mr R.J.W. Craig; Sir Ian Critchett; Lady Critchett; Mrs CM. Croly; Miss E. Deacon; Mrs CM. Debenham Taylor; Mr J. Debenham Taylor; Mr I. Edwardes; Mr M. Egan; Sir George Engle; Lady Engle; Mr N. Entract; Mr R.R. Feilden; Ms C. Forest; Mrs Monica Furlong; Mrs B.J. Galyer; Dr F.M. Hall; Dr L.M. Hall; Mr P.G.S. Hall; Mrs V. Hall; Mr T.B. Hastie; Major T. Holt; Mrs V. Holt; Mr Philip Howard; Mr J.M. Huntington-Whiteley; Mr D.G.S. Jameson; Mr S. Keskar; Mrs S. Keskar; Mrs C.A. Key; Mr W.H.B. Key; Dr J.D. Lewins; Mrs J.M. Lewins; Lt-Col C.H.T. MacFetridge; Mrs D. McGuirk; Mr J. McGuirk; Mrs E. Mawer; Mrs M. Merry; Mr P. Merry; Mrs H.M. Mills; Mr M.J. Moynihan; Sir Derek Oulton; Mrs R. Passmore; Mr G.C.G. Philo; Mr G.F.C. Plowden; Brigadier R.B.C. Plowden; Mrs R.P. Plowden; Mrs I. Raphael; Mr A. Reynolds; Mrs B.C Schreiber; Mr J.F. Slater; Mrs A.J. Smith; Mr J.W.M. Smith; Professor S.M. Sperry; Mrs S. Sperry; Miss S. Steel; Mrs FM. Wade; Mr S. Wade; Mr G.L. Wallace; Mrs J. Webb; Dr D.G. Wilson; Mr M.G.C. Wilson; Major A.J. Young. Apologies had been received from:- Colonel & Mrs J.R. Archer-Burton; Mr & Mrs S.J. Clayton; Professor W.J. Cram; Sir Geoffrey Ellerton; Mr B. Garai; Mr & Mrs P.H.T. Lewis; Mr J.H. McGivering; Mrs M. Moynihan; Mr R. O'Hagan; Dr Gillian Sheehan; Mr G.H. Webb. A NOTE ON THE GUEST OF HONOUR Sir George Engle, k.c.b., q.c., is a member of the Society's Council and an occasional contributor of very interesting items to the Journal. He was educated at Charterhouse and, after commissioned service with the Royal Artillery, at Christ Church, Oxford, where he attained a first in 'Greats'. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn, and went on to a distinguished career as a lawyer, specialising as a legal draftsman after joining the Parliamentary Counsel Office in 1957. In the 1960s he played a leading part in drafting the constitution of independent Nigeria. He retired in 1986 as First Parliamentary Counsel, and President of the Commonwealth Association of Parliamentary Counsel. He has many literary interests, and contributed, by invitation, to the 1985 revised edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________13 GRACE, BY CANON ALAN COLDWELLS "This year, Grace is in two parts. First, a sentence from one of Kipling's last letters, referring to God: He who puts us into this life does not abandon His work for any reason or default at the end of it. And secondly, two short verses from the Prelude to Departmental Ditties, reflecting on his sharing in the food and the lives of those about whom he has written: I have eaten your bread and salt, I have drunk your water and wine, The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives ye led were mine. I have written the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise – but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth." THE CHAIRMAN, ON THE STATE OF THE SOCIETY Later, when the coffee had been served, the Chairman, Mr Gordon Philo, prefaced his introduction of the main speaker with a brief review of the state of the Society, and instanced evidence of its continuing vitality. Under its editor, the Kipling Journal maintained its high standard [general applause]. Assistance was given by various officers to members of the public requesting information, and to the media, and in various projects. In addition to the Library, there was now a web site which attracted many queries and added considerably to the work of the Secretary in replying. It had been hoped that this would also result in the recruitment of new members, but it had produced only one so far. The site would be expensive to continue. Another important development was the Index to the Kipling Journal, which had been prepared by Mr John Morgan and his wife, in their own time and with their own equipment. The period March 1980 to June 1997 was already completed, and copies were available; 1960 to 1979 would be covered shortly; and the period from the first number in 1927 to 1959 was in preparation. This was a most valuable tool, both 14__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 for members and for academics with access to the Journal. Another initiative was the preparation of information folders, designed to interest teachers and schoolchildren in Kipling and his work. There was a downside to this activity, which involved expense. In particular, the Journal, which was our 'flagship', continued to cost more to print and distribute than the income generated – despite various economies that were being made, and despite the generous support of our printers in holding down production costs, and of individual members in voluntary contributions. There were also some indications of a decrease in membership numbers, though it was too soon to give exact figures. Given these problems, it might be necessary to raise the subscription rate next year, though the Council was for obvious reasons reluctant to do so. It would be extremely helpful if we could increase our numbers: members were asked to do what they could, to help to find new members. TEXT OF SIR GEORGE ENGLE'S ADDRESS, "TWO SIDELIGHTS ON 'IF –"' I have always been fascinated by anagrams; so, when I was very flatteringly invited to be your Guest of Honour, I tried to find an anagram of those three words – and at the very first attempt found that, suitably rearranged, the same letters make 'Fun Hour Stooge'. Well, I can't promise you a bag of laughs in what I have to say; but you need have no fear that this stooge is going to take an hour to say it. One more preliminary word of reassurance. I shall not attempt to imitate the rustic accent of an ignorant old mid-nineteenth-century middle-American farmer. I tried to do so with the help of a tape- recorder; but the result was so horrible that I decided to spare you and myself the experience. At the end of April 1888, Kipling was sent back from Allahabad to Lahore for a month, to act as Editor of the Civil and Military Gazette during the absence on leave of its Editor, Kay Robinson – a tough assignment. In a letter dated 8 May to his friend and regular correspondent Mrs Edmonia Hill, Kipling wrote: This editor doesn't bite. He is gummed into an office chair from eight in the morning till six at night and has to work after dinner – September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________15 in all a full twelve hours a day solid going with nothing in the wide world to show for it except a stodgy and indigestible paper, which most people throw down with the genial remark:- "Oh! Nothing in the C & M. – as usual." I ain't mad as I may have remarked before but do you know Will Carleton's bitterly true lines: "Is your son a small unbound edition of Moses and Solomon both? Can he compass his spirit with meekness, and strangle a natural oath? Can he courteously talk to an equal, or browbeat an ignorant dunce, Can he keep things in apple pie order and do half a dozen at once? Does he know when to stir up his virtue? Can he put a check rein on his pride, Can he carry a gentleman's manners inside a rhinocerous hide? Can he know all and do all and be all, with cheerfulness courage and vim? If so, then, perhaps, we'll be making an editor outen of him." As you know, they've made an "editor outen of me" for the last week, and I am ruefully contemplating Carleton's ideal by the light of my many shortcomings.1 The quoted lines come from "The Editor's Guests", a very Kiplingesque poem published fifteen years earlier, in Farm Ballads (1873), the first of its author's six volumes of verse. Will Carleton ( 1845-1912) was an American. He was born on a farm in the Mid-West, graduated at the age of 24, went into journalism, and became the editor of two provincial newspapers. His first popular success as a versifier was a long poem, "Betsy and I Are Out", based on a divorce case he was reporting; and his best-known poem is "Over the Hill to the Poor House". Farm Ballads sold 40,000 copies within eighteen months of publication. Carleton was one of the first U.S. poets to give public (and very profitable) readings of his poems; and the Dictionary of American Biography says of him: "He voiced without undue sentimentality the humour and pathos in the experiences of the common people." "The Editor's Guests" begins with a description of the Editor in his sanctum, gazing with distaste at the litter of documents spread out on his dusty old table. These are amusingly described, and the Editor then ponders on the different sorts of people – some trying to be helpful, others definitely not – with whom he has to deal. At this point his sanctum is invaded by an old farmer who has brought his undersized youngest son Jim to see if, as he puts it, the Editor "couldn't make an editor outen of him". The old man describes the occupations of his ten other sons, mostly on the farm (though one is an inventor, and another a medical student), and comes to the point with: 16__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 "The rest of the boys all are growin', 'cept this little runt, which is Jim, And I thought that perhaps I'd be makin' an editor outen o' him." After explaining that Jim has proved useless at a variety of unskilled jobs at home and around the farm, and that the only big thing about him is his huge appetite, he goes on to give his reasons – based on total ignorance – for bringing the boy along. "It ain't much to get up a paper – it wouldn't take long for to learn; He could feed the machine, I'm thinkin', with a good strapping fellow to turn. And things that was once hard in doin', is easy enough now to do; Just keep your eye on your machinery, and crack your arrangements right through. I used for to wonder at readin', and where it was got up, and how; But 'tis most of it made by machinery – I can see it all plain enough now. And poetry, too, is constructed by machines o' different designs, Each one with a gauge and a chopper to see to the length of the lines. An' since the whole trade has growed easy, 'twould be easy enough, I've a whim, If you was agreed, to be makin' an editor outen of Jim." This provokes the outburst by the Editor, which Kipling quotes in his letter. Kipling's "If –", so strikingly similar to Carleton's lines in structure and sentiment, though not in metre or rhyme-scheme, was written some time during the six months following the visit to Bateman's in October 1909 of Dr Jameson (of the Jameson Raid). It first appeared in Rewards and Fairies (1910), where it follows "Brother Square-Toes", a tale in which George Washington is overheard deciding whether he should side with France against England, or make peace with England even if it has to be on England's terms. But in Something of Myself Kipling says that the poem was drawn from Jameson's character, and "contained counsels of perfection most easy to give" – a comment which is equally applicable to "Carleton's ideal" of an editor. If one compares the eight lines of "The Editor's Guests", as written out for Mrs Hill, with the printed text, it is apparent that Kipling was quoting from memory, since there are no fewer than seven verbal discrepancies – for instance, "when to stir up his virtue", instead of Carleton's "how to September 1998 KIPLING JOURNAL__________________17 spur up his virtue"; and "inside" instead of "within" a rhinoceros' (sic) hide. Furthermore, in the letter Kipling omitted two of the six couplets that make up the editor's reply in the original. These read: "Can he leave all his wrongs to the future, and carry his heart in his cheek? Can he do an hour's work in a minute, and live on a sixpence a week?" and "Can he press all the springs of knowledge, with quick and reliable touch, And be sure that he knows how much to know, and knows how to not know too much?" We have here, surely, precursors of Kipling's "Or being hated, don't give way to hating"; and "fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run"; and "don't look too good, nor talk too wise"; and "If all men count with you, but none too much". Sir Maurice Bowra pointed out, years ago, to Charles Carrington – who agreed – that both the theme and the rhythm of "If –" are to some extent derived from the "Epilogue" to Browning's Asolando (1889)2, of which the material stanza reads: One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. I do not want to labour the similarities between "If-" and Carleton's lines; but Carleton seems to me to be more demonstrably a precursor than Browning; and it seems altogether likely that Carleton's lines, which had chimed so closely with Kipling's experience on the CMG in 1888, and which at one time he had known by heart, would have lodged in his mind, consciously or not, to re-emerge – transformed, generalised and made his own – twenty-one years later. In the Introduction to his generally excellent edition of Rewards and Fairies (Penguin Classics, 1987) Roger Lewis says of "If —": 18__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 But the poem is avowedly based on a romantic rebel [Dr Jameson], and the lessons of "If –", if followed exactly, would be an ordinance for personal power for the Head Wolf, not the Pack; it would make for a community slyness, as was eventually decoded in Lindsay Anderson's film "If –" in 1968. A public school was treated as an allegory of hypocrisy and fear. The masters were perverts, the pupils delinquents. School slang was the mandatory speech of belonging... Out of this pattern of deliberate regression breaks Mick, played by Malcolm McDowell... who bayonets and machine-guns the worthies gathering for Speech Day.3 And again, in his notes on the poem Lewis says: The book, superintended by a knave [Puck], though the Pook Hill Puck is a reformed knave, arrives in "If-" at a homily on knavery; instruction in supreme cocksureness.4 I find Lewis's comments a surprising characterisation of a poem which, nine years later, in the BBC's annual ballot to discover listeners' favourite poems, received the largest number of votes – twice the number cast for its nearest rival – and was duly declared to be, for 1996, "The Nation's Favourite Poem".5 On the other hand, I have a great regard for Lindsay Anderson, and would not lightly dismiss a deliberate criticism by him of Kipling's "counsels of perfection". Is Lewis right in claiming that, in his identically-named film,6 Anderson "decoded" Kipling's "If –" as a recipe for personal power and a homily on knavery? Recent accounts of how the film got its name suggest not. In 1960, David Sherwin and John Howlett, who had been friends at Tonbridge School and were up at Oxford with the ambition of going to Hollywood and making films together, decided that they would have to write from experience, and that the only experience they had was "that Nazi camp – Tonbridge – our schooldays! And it's never been done. Not the real truth. The torture! The keen types!"7 Together they produced a script for a film with the title Crusaders which, seven years later and after many re-writes, was about to be shot by Lindsay Anderson. Sherwin's account of what happened next is as follows8: 17 August 1967 Lindsay's old school, Cheltenham College, have given us permission to shoot in their buildings. But we daren't show them September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________19 the Crusaders script, so I'm typing a cod script for the headmaster. I can't think of a title for this false version, so I ask Daphne Hunter, Albert [Finney]'s secretary, if she can think of something really old-fashioned and corny. "You mean like Kipling's If.."? "Daphne! That's the title for the film! You're brilliant! How does it go?" "If you can keep your head while all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, You'll be a man, my son," says Daphne. And so Crusaders becomes If.., thanks to Daphne Hunter and the great Kipling. In April 1997, David Sherwin and the actor Malcolm McDowell (who played the lead in the film) were interviewed at the Film Theatre in London on the subject of Working with Lindsay Anderson. I went along and, when questions were invited, asked them why they had chosen the title If... McDowell replied that there had been a "desperate" search for a title; that Daphne Hunter had suggested If... in reference to Kipling; and that "Lindsay liked it for its irony." It is clear from these accounts that neither the scriptwriters nor Lindsay Anderson had any thoughts of Kipling up to the time when shooting began in August 1967; and that there is really no justification for regarding the film as a deliberate attempt to "decode" the lessons which the poem inculcates. A further pointer to this conclusion is the fact that, according to the film critic of The Times, David Robinson, writing in 1968 some months before the film's December premiθre: "If..." then seemed to be only a provisional title (derived from Kipling); and from time to time Anderson would discuss alternatives. Crusaders (which was the first title)? Come the Revolution (which Anderson himself preferred)? Or perhaps Stand Up! Stand Up!?9 The rules of statutory interpretation allow what are known as "contemporary expositions" of the meaning of a statute to be used to throw light on its true meaning; and it is, I think, permissible for this purpose to look at how the film was received when it was first shown in 1968. This, as it happened – though the timing was quite fortuitous10 – was the year of the student riots in Paris which produced such a wealth of revolutionary graffiti, including (at Nanterre) the very Andersonian "violez votre alma mater".11 Out of some twenty reviews of the film which appeared in the British, 20__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September I998 American and French press in 1968 or early 1969, at least fifteen make no allusion whatever to Kipling's "If –" – the penny evidently having failed to drop (as indeed it failed at the time for me and for a number of people I have enquired of recently). Dilys Powell wrote perceptively: "If..." is not just about an imaginary public school. It is about the rigid ideas and the authoritarian society which Mr Anderson and his collaborators see rooted in a public school.12 And the film critic of the Birmingham Evening Mail, Arthur Steele, in what strikes me as just about the only comment that got the Kipling link right, wrote: This movie, while taking a swipe at the English public school system, is also concerned with the whole fabric of power and promotion and authority as we created it in Kipling's day – and its persistence today.13 Penelope Houston made the point that behind the film there lingers the anarchic vision of Jean Vigo's Zιro de Conduite (made in 1933), and called it "Vigo translated to the world of Kipling"14 – by which I think she meant not the world of Kipling's "If –" but that of Stalky & Co. – who admittedly never went as far as to use guns and bayonets, but who in the story "The Moral Reformers" behave in a horribly Mick-like way by inflicting a series of excruciating schoolboy tortures on two helplessly trussed-up seventeen-year-old bullies. It was really only Gavin Millar, writing in Sight and Sound15, who took the title's reference to Kipling's "If –" at all seriously. He pointed out that, like Kipling, Anderson was born in India; but that, for him, "the legend of service with honour is a giant lie, since it is a life inevitably corrupted by the system of government it upholds." Millar then tries to make a connection between the film and the poem by quoting Anderson's description of its hero, Mick, as "someone who arrives at his own beliefs, and who stands up for them, even against the world". "But then," says Millar, "there must be many a colonial administrator, honourable men, long gone, who would have recognised themselves in that description." And he concedes that Kipling would not recognise Mick as an Englishman at all. What Millar seeks to show is that the self- reliant revolutionary Mick embodies the true spirit of the poem, in the same way that "many a colonial administrator" did in Kipling's day. Personally I find this attempt strained and unconvincing – the more so in the light of the last-minute change of the title from Crusaders, and Anderson's continuing uncertainty as to which among several titles to September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________21 choose. I conclude, therefore, that the true history of the making of the film, and of how the title was arrived at, does not support Roger Lewis's claim that Kipling's "If –" was in some way "decoded" by Lindsay Anderson in his film of the same name. To end with, I would like to remind you of Charles Carrington's prophecy on the subject of "If –", which he first made in 1955 in his great biography of Kipling, and which he reaffirmed in his address as Guest of Honour at our Annual Luncheon in 197516: Some day, when the sneers of the silly-clever, who suppose that what has become a truism is no longer true, have died away, these verses will renew their influence; and it will be noticed that their fluid rhythm and intricate rhyme-scheme make them a technical masterpiece. It has taken forty years for that prophecy to be fulfilled; but I think we are there! So I give you – unconditionally, with no Ifs or Buts – the toast. Ladies and Gentlemen: The Unfading Genius of Rudyard Kipling. VOTE OF THANKS BY DR MICHAEL BROCK, THE SOCIETY'S PRESIDENT All of us would like to thank Sir George for producing this riveting piece of Kipling scholarship for our delight. Will Carleton and his Farm Ballads are entirely new to me. Let us welcome them as the main inspiration for the most popular of all the poems written in the century now ending. We must not disparage Sir Maurice Bowra's remark about "If –" and the "Epilogue" to Browning's Asolando: it comes from an Oxford worthy and was accepted by Charles Carrington; but it pales when put beside what we have just heard. We will all have personal and idiosyncratic thoughts which increase our gratitude and admiration for this remarkable talk. Here are two of mine. First, I regard editors as being, by and large, a fine and under- valued tribe. I refer not only to the press – whether at Will Carleton's end or in the grander purlieus where Mr Philip Howard dwells – but also to those who, like our own admirable editor, are saddled with putting together journals or books. Secondly, I cannot help rejoicing to see the spotlight falling a little less on Dr Jameson. Anyone is entitled to 'make one heap of all his winnings', and to 'risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss'; but in the Raid Jameson was putting more than his own winnings at risk. The fact that his escapade was indefensible does not detract from a great poem; but the discovery of a 22__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 source of inspiration other than 'the Doctor' is very welcome. So I am sure that I do not exaggerate in saying that we are all deeply grateful for Sir George's words – and the better for them too. NOTES TO SIR GEORGE ENGLE'S ADDRESS 1. This letter was published at pp 166-9 in volume 1 of The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, ed. Thomas Pinney (University of Iowa Press, 1990). Kipling's quotation from the poem was somewhat inaccurate. The passage reads correctly as follows: "Is your son a small unbound edition of Moses and Solomon both? Can he compass his spirit with meekness, and strangle a natural oath? Can he leave all his wrongs to the future, and carry his heart in his cheek? Can he do an hour's work in a minute, and live on a sixpence a week? Can he courteously talk to an equal, and browbeat an impudent dunce? Can he keep things in apple-pie order, and do half a dozen at once? Can he press all the springs of knowledge, with quick and reliable touch. And be sure that he knows how much to know, and knows how to not know too much? Does he know how to spur up his virtue, and put a check-rein on his pride? Can he carry a gentleman's manners within a rhinoceros' hide? Can he know all, and do all, and be all, with cheerfulness, courage and vim? If so, we perhaps can be makin' an editor 'outen of him'." 2. Charles Carrington, Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work (Macmillan, 1955), p 382 n.; see also Carrington's "If you can bring fresh eyes to read these verses" in Kipling Journal, December 1982, pp 21-2. 3. At p 41. 4. At p 279. 5. See Kipling Journal, December 1995, p 55. 6. Punctuation apart, that is. The poem's title is "If-", the film's "If...". 7. David Sherwin, Going Mad in Hollywood (Penguin Books, 1997), p 2. 8. Ibid., p 18. 9. Sight and Sound, Summer 1968, p 130. 10. David Robinson, The Times, 1 September 1994. 11. Les murs ont la parole (Tchou, Paris, 1968), p 142. 12. Sunday Times, 22 December 1968. 13. 24 March 1969. 14. Saturday Review, 15 February 1969. 15. Winter 1968, p 42. 16. Carrington, op. cit., p 382; and p 22 of the article referred to in Note 2. September 1998________KIPLING JOURNAL____________________23 MRS HAUKSBEE RIDES AGAIN PART I by JOHN WHITEHEAD [Mr John Whitehead is a member of the Kipling Society and an occasional contributor to the Journal (there is a letter from him in the present issue). In 1997 he compiled and published an excellent new annotated edition of Barrack-Room Ballads, a thoroughly valuable and scholarly achievement. Since then, he has been at work on the Simla short stories which feature Mrs Hauksbee – one of Kipling's most vividly memorable characters – and has brought to fruition a scheme of collating all those stories in a new edition with notes and glossary and an introduction The resultant book, to be published on 1 October 1998, is advertised on page 33, and I warmly commend it. Mr Whitehead has written a long and detailed introduction for the book, and I am glad to say he is allowing the Journal to publish this introduction as a self-standing item, in two parts – the first half here and now, in our September 1998 issue, and the second half in December. I believe that our readers will find it very interesting, and will agree with me that this focus on Mrs Hauksbee is well worth while and vindicates Mr Whitehead's central idea which is that "Kipling had in mind a series of episodes featuring the same cast and adding up to a... coherent saga... that needs to be read as a continuous narrative." Here, then, is the first part of Mr Whitehead's introductory text. – Ed] Simla was – indeed, is – 7,000 feet up and really chilly. At Snowdon, the C.-in-C.'s house built by Kitchener, we actually found wood fires burning in the grates, a richly exotic sight for Middle Easterners. That evening after dinner, Wavell took my name for crass ignorance, because I failed to respond to a reference he made to Mrs Hauksbee; I had never heard of the woman... And the following evening he made me accompany him on a climb up Jakko Hill, where the monkeys still swarmed as they did in his days as a subaltern. Bernard Fergusson Wavell: Portrait of a Soldier (1961) Kipling introduced Mrs Hauksbee to his readers just before his twenty- first birthday, in a 'turnover' in the 17 November 1886 issue of the Lahore newspaper the Civil and Military Gazette on which he was serving his apprenticeship as a journalist. A 'turnover' consisted of a feature between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length filling a column of 24__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 print on the middle spread, continuing over the page for a further half- column. Five more sketches in which she was a main or subsidiary character followed between November 1886 and March 1887. Early in 1888 he joined the staff of the Allahabad newspaper the Pioneer, and as editor of its supplement, the Week's News, was allowed greater elbow- room for his fiction, contributing each week a story of between 3,000 and 5,000 words, among them – between March and May 1888 – three more about Mrs Hauksbee. Not until a year or so after Kipling's return to England after his six years in India did his tenth and final tribute to her appear, with illustrations, in the Christmas 1890 number of the Illustrated London News. Only then beginning to become known in England as a promising writer, he had already achieved literary notoriety in India. The best of his Civil and Military Gazette sketches (with a few new ones) had been published in book form in 1888 by Thacker, Spink & Co. of Calcutta as Plain Tales from the Hills, under which title they were later to be published in England. His Pioneer stories had been issued in India the same year, in six booklets inaugurating a paperback series called the 'Indian Railway Library'; most of these were later published in England in two collections, Soldiers Three and Wee Willie Winkie; but "A Supplementary Chapter" and also "Mrs Hauksbee Sits Out" have only been reprinted in book form in England in the scarce Sussex Edition of Kipling's works (1937- 39) and therefore have not been generally available for a century. Perhaps the oddest decision ever taken by a Viceroy of India responsible for the welfare of some two hundred and fifty million inhabitants of the sub-continent was to remove the whole paraphernalia of government – drawing in its wake the Commander-in-Chief of the army and his not inconsiderable staff – to a remote Himalayan village for seven months of the year when the hot weather made life in the plains uncomfortable. During the reigns of several Viceroys Simla was connected to the mainland only by a single precipitously winding cart track sixty miles long, with Solon its half-way house, then negotiable only by horse-riders, horse-drawn vehicles – carriages for the privileged, a tonga-service for the rest – and coolie transport of one kind or another. (A railway link with the plains was not opened until 1904.) The accommodation that awaited the Viceroy Lord Elgin and his successors and their entourage at the end of their journey was an inadequate hunting-lodge called Peterhoff, described by one of them as "a sort of pigsty". That is, until 1888 when the then Viceroy Lord Dufferin took possession of a substantial palace called Viceregal Lodge September 1998________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________25 he had caused to be built on Observatory Hill, an eminence overlooking to the east what had developed into a flourishing resort. The amenities that had by then come into being for the benefit of the civil and military officers and their dependants stationed in Simla had attracted many soldiers and Civilians on leave from the plains hoping to secure some desirable appointment – for the Viceroy was the fountainhead of patronage – and also others, in particular grass-widows whose husbands would not allow them to remain "grilling in the plains" during the summer and who came "up the hill" to enjoy the festivities of the Simla season amid its spectacular mountain scenery. It had by then become a big town; a sort of minor English watering-place. North and east of the town rise the snow ranges, seeming in the crystal air to be close at hand, in fact fifty or more miles away. To the west the old Tonga Road leads to Jutogh a few miles away; to the south down the Cart Road rises the peak of Tara Devi with its two temples sacred to the goddess Kali. The town itself straggles over a number of spurs of the lower Himalayas at an elevation of 7,000 feet above sea level, the principal spur extending for ten miles between Summer Hill, Observatory Hill, Boileauganj and Prospect Hill to the west and Jakko Hill a thousand feet higher to the east, famous for its shrine to Hanuman the monkey-god and the troop of monkeys that lived, and still live, in its vicinity looked after by the fakir in charge. High on Jakko stands Rothney Castle whence Madame Blavatsky once spread her gospel of Theosophy, and round its skirts runs a road that includes the level stretch on the east side known as 'the Ladies' Mile'. Northwards from this hill projects a spur that came to be known as Elysium in compliment to the Hon. the Misses Eden, sisters of the then Viceroy Lord Auckland (1836-42) who lived in a house on its slopes; ladies rivalled only by Mrs James who had dazzled Simla with her beauty until she eloped to Europe in 1840 to begin her career as the courtesan Lola Montez. Southwards from Jakko another spur connects with the suburb of Chhota (or Little) Simla. Towards the western end of the main ridge on the north side a road leads downhill a thousand feet to an artificial terrace, the popular playground of Annandale encircled by a racecourse within and around which were polo and cricket grounds, tennis courts, as well as gardens, orchards, and coniferous woodland ideal for garden-parties and picnics. The whole area is heavily wooded, and there are innumerable watercourses. Landslides are not uncommon. Linking the western and eastern extremities of the ridge runs the Mall, the town's principal street. From below Viceregal Lodge on its eminence to the west it passed Peterhoff, various government and military offices, the Chaura Maidan, Gorton Castle and other official 26______________________KIPLING JOURNAL_________September 1998 and commercial buildings. Further along its length were the Grand Hotel, the Post and Telegraph office, law courts, banks and, on a bare ridge, the Town Hall which housed, besides the municipal offices, a ballroom and supper-room, the Freemasons' Lodge, the Library and reading-room and (after 1887) the new Gaiety Theatre. Below the Grand was another temple to the goddess Kali with its seven metal gongs whose clanging used to vie with the boom of the midday gun until the latter was moved elsewhere. Near where Christchurch stands on Church Ridge above the Mall's eastern end the road forks, the northern branch passing through the Lakkar Bazaar where furniture and other examples of native woodwork could be bought, and leading to Elysium Hill. The southern fork skirted the Combermere Bridge that spanned a deep ravine on the side of Jakko and passed by the Bandstand making for Chhota Simla and beyond. At this eastern end of the Mall where the Tonga Office provided necessary transport lay Simla's principal shopping and social centre. There was a cluster of European shops: Ranken's the civil and military tailors; Phelps's dressmaking, hosiery and millinery establishment; Hamilton's the jewellers and watchmakers; as well as chemists, barbers and perfumers, saddlers, wine-merchants, printers, photographers and others. Here also was the parade known as 'Scandal Point' because people used to meet there to exchange gossip. Near the Combermere Bridge was the town's most popular rendez-vous, Peliti's, a restaurant and confectioners modelled on a continental cafι, well known for its coffee and cherry-brandy and the facilities it provided for assignations. In one of his 'Departmental Ditties' Kipling makes the Bandar (monkey) pride himself that, among his other virtues, I follow no man's carriage, and no, never in my life Have I flirted at Peliti's with another Bandar's wife. Beyond Chhota Simla the road begins to curl round Jakko, leaving the Cemetery on its left and passing on its right one of the place's landmarks, Benmore, where until 1885 were held concerts, including the Monday Pops, dances, Lodge Meetings and public gatherings. Also in the neighbourhood were hospitals, schools, an orphanage and, further east, the Convent. At the main road's easternmost point lies the village of Sanjouli with its reservoir and, beyond the bazaar, a tunnel 560 feet in length blasted out of naked rock, through which travellers to Mashobra have to pass. It was here in 1904 that the Commander-in- Chief, General Kitchener, returning to his house Snowdon one evening, fell off his horse and lay for long with a broken leg because the local people were afraid to go to the assistance of so august a personage. For September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________27 it should be remembered that the residents of Simla included, besides its seasonal European population, many thousand Indians of various races who ministered to their every need. Nor should Simla be thought of as an isolated pocket of civilization in a waste of empty hills, for on all sides wherever human habitation was possible were villages of the hill people who also played a part in the lives of the expatriates. There were excursions to the village of Mashobra amid noble pine-woods some six miles away where holiday houses had been built, including The Retreat, much favoured by the Commander-in-Chief General Roberts (Kipling's 'Bobs') as a refuge from exhausting official and social functions of Simla. In a small cup- shaped valley below the Mashobra bazaar was held annually in May the Sipi fair to which the hill people flocked in their brightest costumes to chaffer over stalls of sweetmeats and gewgaws, to watch dancers performing to the throbbing of tom-toms, to gamble, and generally to enjoy the swings and roundabouts and other attractions, watched by holidaying Europeans from Simla. Six miles beyond Mashobra on another spur lay Naldera in its grove of deodars, often visited by the Viceroys, and further away still, fifty miles from Simla, Kotgarh, another pleasant retreat. As the publishing history of the Hauksbee stories indicates, they were written specifically for an Anglo-Indian (in the old sense) readership, readers familiar with the topographical and social environment in which they are set. Most of the place-names that have just been mentioned occur in one or other of the stories, and unless the present- day reader understands something of their significance he will miss a great deal that the stories have to offer. Likewise, since Mrs Hauksbee herself represents a special category of female well known to their original readers but now belonging to the past, it may be helpful, before drawing attention to certain aspects of the stories themselves, to attempt a brief portrait of one of Kipling's most fascinating heroines. In the first of the stories she was already 'of a certain age', thirty-nine years old in the second, so she was rather younger than that in the first and somewhere in her forties in the last. Her Christian name was Lucy, possibly short for Lucinda, once abbreviated to Loo. She was fond of her absentee husband, a Civilian (apparently in the Military Department) who is kept off-stage throughout the series; and although they had no children, she preserved a strong maternal instinct. Worldly- wise, she was nevertheless emotional and gave way to tears in moments of stress. Her twice quoting from Burns's "Lord, send us a 28__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 gude conceit o' oursel'" provides slight evidence that she came from Scotland. The only extended description of her appearance is given in the first story, when Kipling's notion of her was still hazy: "a little, brown, thin, almost skinny woman, with big, rolling, violet-blue eyes". Elsewhere it is disclosed that she had good shoulders, a "masculine little chin", and that her front teeth were her own; which her hair may not have been, though that deduction depends on her light-hearted remark to her dearest friend Mrs Mallowe that her parting was gauze; but either way she sometimes wore a fringe. The only gesture attributed to her that provides an insight into her character was her custom, when in riding habit and considering her next ploy, of passing the lash of her whip between her lips. For she was an experienced horsewoman, keeping two horses of her own. Other pastimes of hers included taking part in amateur theatricals, singing (at home) to her own piano accompaniment, dancing, dining out, taking tiffin at Peliti's, walking, picnics and, especially, talking frivol and scandal. She also usually had under her wing one or more unattached males, both civil and military, young and not so young, who required her guidance on their path to success in the ruthlessly competitive world in which ambitious expatriates contended in India. The one condition she insisted on was that their relationship remain platonic; there was to be no flirtation. As to her character, opinions of her varied widely. Her by-name was The Stormy Petrel, and she was known variously as the most dangerous, and the nicest, woman in Simla: "clever, witty, brilliant and sparkling beyond most of her kind, but possessed of many devils of malice and mischievousness", possessed also of "the wisdom of the Serpent, the logical coherence of the Man, the fearlessness of the Child, and the triple intuition of the Woman". Mrs Mallowe more bluntly remarked that there was usually somebody's scalp drying at her wigwam door. From which it may be inferred that, although not infallible, Mrs Hauksbee was nobody's fool. For one thing, she was well-educated, a frequenter of the Library and possessing a good knowledge of the Bible and of European literature ranging from Shakespeare to Pope, W.S. Gilbert to Gibbon, Goethe to George Eliot. Her conversation was liberally sprinkled with tags and allusions, often slightly misremembered or adapted to suit the context of the moment. More than raillery may lie behind Mrs Mallowe's taunt that she would one day become a Roman Catholic and exchange her half-a-dozen attachιs in red — a reference to the uniforms of the subalterns often to be seen in her wake – for one in black. She was at the same time intensely feminine, with a special interest in clothes, both of other women and her own; a subject which deserves a short digression. September 1998 KIPLING JOURNAL__________________29 Her interest in dress, and undress, was obviously shared by the young Kipling, and the stories reveal a surprising knowledge of their intricacies. Of a ball-gown made for Mrs Bremmil by Phelps's the Simla dressmakers he used the technical words gored, hemmed, herring-boned, tucked and rucked (he meant ruched), adding "(or whatever the terms are)". When Mrs Hauksbee and Mrs Mallowe discussed chiffons he suggestively explained that the word was "French for Mysteries". As well as describing the mauve-and-white striped 'cloud' Mrs Hauksbee wore round her shoulders, her "black cashmere tea-gown opening over cream front", and her 'Black Death' fancy dress – "a curious arrangement of barred velvet, black domino and flame-coloured satin puffery coming up to the neck and the wrists" – he also gives the reader intimate glimpses of her stays. Naturally Mrs Hauksbee deplored Mrs Delville's slovenly appearance, noting with contempt that she allowed her 'supplement' to slip under her left arm; though in the end The Dowd proved the better woman. May Holt when dressed for the Volunteer ball wore a gown with a slate bodice that laced up the back and smoke-coloured tulle skirt, and steel-worked little dancing shoes. On that occasion Mrs Hauksbee's attire was more complicated: "black lace dinner dress, blood-red poinsettia at shoulder and girdle to secure single brace of black lace [sic]", with silver shoes and a silver-handled black fan. The ballroom at the Town Hall, at first chilly, could become uncomfortably hot when a dance was in progress. Mrs Hauksbee's bosom friend Mrs Mallowe – Polly – was also married to a Civilian who makes no personal appearance in the stories. She lived in a house called The Foundry overlooking the Mall, which Mrs Hauksbee – who had earlier lived in the Elysium Hotel on the Auckland estate – later shared with her. Soft-spoken, slow-gestured and quiet- eyed, at times Sphinx-like, she was, unlike Mrs Hauksbee, an easygoing person who thought the best of everybody, though she could be roused to passionate action if sufficiently provoked. She was fond of sleep and chocolates and her fox-terrier Tim, whom she tended to spoil. Her and Mrs Hauksbee's bitterest rival was Mrs Reiver, a hard, stupid, selfish woman, wicked in a businesslike way, about whom there was nothing good except her dress: in fact "bad from her hair, which started life on a Brittany girl's head, to her boot-heels which were two and three-eighth inches high". There was one other legendary lady, rather older than Mrs Hauksbee, who had become an institution in Simla, known only by her first name, which was Kitty, and her nickname, which was Venus Annodomini, a pun on one of Aphrodite's many titles, 30__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 Anadyomene, meaning foam-born because she had emerged from the sea. Of her it was said that, although "one could admire and respect Mrs Hauksbee, despise and avoid Mrs Reiver, one was forced to adore the Venus Annodomini". Under that title she has a story [in Plain Tales from the Hills] to herself. The ten sketches and stories in which these ladies are the leading characters comprise together a fragmented novel. That this was vaguely in Kipling's mind is suggested by the fact that they are knitted together by means of cross-references either referring back to episodes already described or forward to incidents still to come. In the first of the sketches, "Three – and an Extra" [Plain Tales], in which Mrs Hauksbee is uncharacteristically outmanoeuvred by a wife whose husband she had temporarily appropriated, it is said that she could be nice to her own sex; as was to be demonstrated in the second sketch, "The Rescue of Pluffles" [Plain Tales]. Her role in the latter is described as "the education of Pluffles", which anticipates the title and subject of the first of the substantive stories, "The Education of Otis Yeere" [Wee Willie Winkie]. When introducing Mrs Reiver, the undeserving heroine of "In Error" [Plain Tales], the narrator nudges the reader with the query, "perhaps you will remember her?", referring to "Pluffles" in which she had been upstaged by Mrs Hauksbee. In the last of the six sketches, "Kidnapped" [Plain Tales], the narrator recapitulates the themes of three of the previous ones: "Do you remember Mrs Hauksbee – the most wonderful woman in India? She saved Pluffles from Mrs Reiver, won Tarrion his appointment to the Foreign Office, and was defeated in open field by Mrs Cusack- Bremmil." Mrs Hauksbee's rueful admission in "Otis Yeere" that there had been one case when adoration had ceased, and the impression she had made on her admirer had lasted for a mere four months, refers to Tom Bremmil's rejection of her to return to his wife in the first sketch. Near the end of the sparkling dialogue with which "Otis Yeere" opens there is a line of asterisks, the lacuna being later filled by the penultimate story, "A Supplementary Chapter" [Abaft the Funnel], which describes the unforeseen consequence of the revenge Mrs Hauksbee took on her friend for having laughed at the wrong time, as told in "a certain tale called 'The Education of Otis Yeere'". In that tale Mrs Hauksbee remarks to Otis, "I knew there were women-dowdies in Bengal", an anticipation of the heroine of "A Second-Rate Woman" [Wee Willie Winkie]. In Mrs Mallowe's story occurs the first mention of the Hawley Boy, a character the narrator promises to introduce to the reader one day, "if all goes well"; as in fact he does in both "A Second- Rate Woman" and, more extensively, the last of the series, "Mrs Hauksbee Sits Out" [collected in the Outward Bound, Sussex and September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________31 Burwash Editions]. In "A Second-Rate Woman" it is said that "these things befell two seasons after the matter of Otis Yeere, which has already been recorded", and besides introducing the Hawley Boy it provides the first reference to May Holt who was to play the ingιnue in the final story. These instances of the interrelation of the stories suggest that Kipling had in mind a series of episodes featuring the same cast and adding up to a continuous and coherent saga, a patchwork with a consistent pattern that needs to be read as a continuous narrative. The period of the first sketch is the Viceroyalty of Lord Lytton (1875- 80), who was still roughing it at Peterhoff, at a time when the roads of Simla were so primitive and narrow that they could carry nothing larger than rickshaw traffic. Most people had to go on foot or on horseback or be carried in jampans or dandies, the former being something like a curtained four-post bedstead carried by four coolies, the latter a piece of loose carpet fixed by iron rings to a single pole resting fore and aft on the shoulders of coolies. It was in Lytton's day that a programme of road improvement was inaugurated, so that by the time of the second sketch, "The Rescue of Pluffles", rickshaws could carry passengers the length of the Mall and along 'the Ladies' Mile' behind Jakko. Properly called 'jinricksha' and originating in Japan, these are small two- wheeled vehicles pulled by a man on foot. "Consequences" [Plain Tales] muddles the chronology of the series, because the events it recounts are said to have taken place "a long time ago, before Lord Dufferin or Ripon", the latter having reigned from 1880 to 1884, the former from 1884 to 1888; which seems to relegate the tale once more to Lord Lytton's time. "The Education of Otis Yeere" at last provides a firm date, 1884, for Mrs Mallowe's dealings with the "Platonic Paragon" in "A Supplementary Chapter". "Otis" must therefore be dated at least a season later and "A Second-Rate Woman" two seasons after that, say 1887, towards the end of Lord Dufferin's reign (1884- 88). The Viceroy who plays a leading role in the last story, "Mrs Hauksbee Sits Out", although not positively identifiable, is probably intended to be Dufferin, a friend of the Kipling family. It is against this conjectural chronology that the stories should be read. When first presented to the reader Mrs Hauksbee, said to be already rather faded and jaded (although she enjoyed the best of health), is a somewhat unsympathetic character, whose routing by the wife she had temporarily displaced is scarcely to be regretted. The death of the Bremmils' baby – all too frequent an occurrence in disease-ridden India – and her mother's prostration provides the 32__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 occasion for her husband Tom's appropriation by Mrs Hauksbee. Brought by this to her right mind, Mrs Bremmil chooses a dance given by Lord and Lady Lytton at Peterhoff as the field of battle to win back her husband. All the stories contain period or local detail not to be readily found elsewhere, in this one the nostalgic custom at a dance for the band to strike up 'The Roast Beef of Old England' to announce that supper is being served. 'Home' was seldom absent for long from the expatriates' thoughts. The position is reversed in "The Rescue of Pluffles" in which Mrs Hauksbee salvages a callow subaltern with more money than sense, whose fiancιe was due to arrive soon from England, from subjection to the imperious Mrs Reiver. "He had as much judgment as he had seat or hands", and Mrs Hauksbee had the wit to treat him well and to hold him "on the snaffle". Little by little, very softly and pleasantly, she began to take the conceit out of Pluffles, as they take the ribs out of an umbrella before re-covering it. (Thus early in his apprenticeship Kipling mastered the art of coining metaphors both apt and striking.) All this Mrs Hauksbee did for the sake of the fiancιe she had never met, and her reward was to see Pluffles resign his commission and return to England with his bride, to take up farming. It was by a stroke of sheer luck, in the guise of a red-coated orderly who misdelivered an official letter, that she was able, in "Consequences", to give a leg up – equestrian metaphors are contagious – to Tarrion, a more worldly-wise subaltern belonging to a regiment stationed in some forsaken part of Central India, who was in search of a good, sound appointment, preferably in the Intelligence Branch or the Foreign Office. The story gave Kipling scope for displaying his insider knowledge of how viceregal government was conducted and also of some byways of Indian life; for example how Native Princes were given to "kidnapping women or filling offenders [anally] with red pepper, and eccentricities of that kind". And again he shows mastery of the telling metaphor as when – in tacit allusion to the prevalence of diarrhoea and dysentery in India – the subaltern is said to have dropped into the ears of a senior government official the special information Mrs Hauksbee had passed on to him, "one by one as a man drops chlorodyne into a glass". Tarrion got his appointment. In these youthful sketches the reader can watch the process by which Kipling slowly felt his way step by step towards an understanding of his talent. The flashes of brilliance which would be developed into a September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________33 steady flame in his later work are here intermittent, and already he shows a disconcerting tendency to lapse into bad taste. The tale he tells in the last of the Civil and Military Gazette sketches, "Kidnapped", for example, is nasty, brutish and short, and describes the method – suggested by Mrs Hauksbee – by which a promising Civilian was prevented from ruining his career by marrying a Eurasian girl. Kipling's mockery of the girl – "Well, she was a very sweet girl and very pious, but for many reasons she was 'impossible'" – and of her family on account of their mixed blood is as hard to forgive as the school-bully method devised to prevent the marriage. There are indeed passages one would be sorry to be without – Never – no, – never as long as a tonga buckets down the Solon dip, or the couples go a-riding at the back of Summer Hill, will there be such a genius as Mrs Hauksbee. Then there came from the compound the soft 'pad-pad' of camels – 'thieves' camels', the Bikaneer breed that don't bubble and howl when they sit down or get up. but altogether the tale leaves a coppery taste in the mouth. ? [To be continued] 34__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 ON INDEXING THE JOURNAL by JOHN MORGAN [The Kipling Society, and all who read or consult the Kipling Journal, owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr John Morgan, and to his wife Marian, for undertaking the formidable labour of comprehensively indexing the Journal. They have been making rapid progress, and their sole reward is our profound appreciation for a valuable task well carried out. Here is a short article written by Mr Morgan (in May 1998 but too late for inclusion in our June issue), in which he gives us some idea of what is involved. – Ed.] In the spring of 1997, in reply to my enquiry about joining the Kipling Society, I received an enthusiastic letter from the Secretary. His enthusiasm was only tempered by the statement: "One of our great lacks is a really comprehensive index to the Journal." I don't know whether he lured every new membership enquiry with the same bait; but this fish was netted. At the outset, some experiments were carried out on the then current Journals: layouts, type sizes, capitalisations, source listings, primary headings – these and other factors quickly needed rationalisation if any published index was going to be both readable and useful. It was soon evident to me that I was dipping my foot into a very deep lake; my knowledge of the Kipling canon was exceedingly limited – after all, I joined to learn more – and here I was presented with experience, glowing passion and often a fanaticism of analysis that made me wonder whether I was asking for trouble. However, Mike Smith's enthusiasm was undimmed and, step by step, an index started to develop. At this point it might be as well briefly to present my credentials. I retired from the library profession some thirteen years ago – you can work out that I am no spring chicken – and I felt that my experience in indexing music and hi-fi journals over some thirteen years was a reasonable background: Sound Verdict was published by the London Borough of Camden and sold world-wide. In an earlier manifestation, I had served in India and Burma as the Intelligence Officer of the 2nd Battalion, Welch Regiment. I confess, however, that journeying through Allahabad (en route Calcutta-Fyzabad) was the nearest contact I ever made – physical or mental – with Kipling. So there I was: shockingly ignorant about a great literary figure, but open-minded and interested enough to investigate further than Plain Tales from the Hills. That's all I intended... But indexing has its own magnetism, and the challenge of correlating like with like, linking September 1998 KIPLING JOURNAL______________________35 correspondence with original article, relating spacing, punctuation and filing order, deciding field lengths, adding descriptions for some titles, avoiding K – and R – K – whenever possible as filing headings – all these and many other factors began to take over. In part, these issues were solved automatically by a computer program – once I had absorbed what the program was actually going to do! – but this manipulation of data requires a substantial amount of 'fingers-on-keyboard'. 'F-on-k' sometimes produces a less than accurate statement of what was intended, and proof-reading has become an essential part of the procedures, Marian, my wife, volunteered (I think) her services for what is essentially a chore but an integral part of the whole operation; each copy of the Journal is, of course, indexed and proof-read separately, and she is now more than critical when I am less than accurate. Whatever errors are left are substantially fewer than they would have been without her invaluable assistance. For practical reasons, the indexing is organised backwards. I started with the then current Journal (No 281), and since I had nowhere to go other than in reverse order at a rate of about four Journals a week, the practice remained. I have noticed somewhat wryly the occasional request over the years for someone to 'have a go' at preparing an index; and my admiration goes out to those members who did produce, manually, annual and other cumulative listings. Nos 1-228 (March 1927 to December 1983) were compiled in August 1984, and it must have been a marathon task without an automatic filing facility. John Shearman's article in March 1981 (page 46) pays tribute to Lisa Lewis for her sterling indexing work, and to this I add my own. However, he makes the pertinent point that "it is not ideal, because it is rather large, and because it only indexes the Journal period-by-period or year-by- year..." Management of the on-going process is not easy. Cumulation of the Index into one sequence is clearly desirable but, with currently 285 copies involved, some compromise is necessary. The Secretary has agreed with my suggestion that publication should be as follows: Volume 1 Nos 1-92 1927-1949 1940s completed Volume 2 Nos 93-132 1950-1969 Complete Volume 3a Nos 133-284 1970-1997 Complete Volume 3b Nos 285-292 1998-1999 In progress, 'as and when' Volume 3 will be fully cumulated early in 2000. Other cumulations will depend on the state of my equipment – both personal and technical – in a couple of years' time. 36__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 It may be fairly obvious that I think the process is worth the undertaking. The Index is not an end in itself, but exposes the Journal's contents non-chronologically, so that thoughts and ideas written over many years about Kipling's texts and all related subject-matter are collected together. The inclusion of dates is in itself revealing – discussions on the very future of the Society occur over every decade – and is, at times, amusing: one reads that "a final summing-up" was being offered for "Mrs. Bathurst" (Traffics and Discoveries) in September 1964 – we should all be so lucky! Many other points of interest have arisen. All the following are notated as indicated somewhere in the Index: "M'Andrew" or "McAndrew" – on whose authority? [126/23 and 082/09] The sequel to Kim – who wrote it, and what was its title? [243/35] What was the next line of Kipling's limerick, "There was a small boy of Quebec..."? [210/03] Who wrote – and on whose authority – the lines: "East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet", and "What do they know of England who only England know?"? [085/07] Whose Uncle Ruddy was remembered in ten nearly consecutive Journals? [232-243] When did the Sussex Edition sell for £220 – and how many years later for £370? [135/05 and 148/06] Where can you read "Ford o' Kabul River" with the aid of a sketch- map? [233/62] In which poem did the title Rewards and Fairies originate? And what did "Una" (i.e. Elsie Bambridge) say "Rewards" meant? [134/04] I hope that readers' interest will have been aroused enough to want to buy the Index, and to further their knowledge of Kiplingiana by acquiring back copies of the Journal. The Secretary will, I know, be delighted to respond to all enquiries about price and availability. September 1998 KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________37_ SOCIETY NOTICES FROM THE SECRETARY [See also the Announcements on page 5.] PLEAS ANSWERED I was heartened by the prompt response to my plea (June 1998, page 36) for members to offer their services towards the attainment of a computerised and more efficient system for our membership and subscription records; and also towards the improvement of our 'public relations' posture and capacity to attract new members. A number of generous souls answered that appeal, and I am grateful. As you will see from the account, at pages 38-42 in this issue, of the Society's A.G.M. in July 1998, Lt-Colonel Roger Ayers has now been elected to a new post as Membership Secretary. At the same time Dr Linda Hall was elected to the Council where she will have responsibility for our Publicity and Education brief. In addition, we are taking steps to improve our electronic capability: see page 4 for our new E-mail address, and also see the note at the foot of page 11. OUR NORTH AMERICAN MEMBERSHIP The omission of our 'North American Secretariat' from the list of officers on page 4 calls for explanation. Professor Karim has kindly coordinated the distribution of the Journal to a number of members in the U.S.A. and Canada for several years. We are most grateful to him for his efforts on our behalf. However, the Charity Commissioners in Britain, who regulate the manner in which educational charities such as our Society conduct their business, have made it clear that we should maintain a single comprehensive membership register – whereas some of our members in North America have not hitherto been known to us here in 'headquarters'. Accordingly Council have decided that our affairs should be regularised; and given the imminent prospect of computerising our membership records, it was felt expedient to centralise the management on this side of the Atlantic. Members in North America will shortly hear from us about the new method of handling subscription payments. We also hope that a certain member in New York may be willing to serve in a liaison capacity. If so, full details will be published in December 1998. 38__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 MEMBERSHIP NEWS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 1998 The 71st Annual General Meeting of the Kipling Society, with Mr Gordon Philo, the Chairman of Council, in the chair, was held on 15 July 1998 at the Royal Over-Seas League, London. It was well attended by members and their guests. The following, who were unable to attend, had sent their apologies: Mr J. Comyn; Mrs Monica Furlong; Mr B. Garai; Dr Linda Hall; Mr Andrew Lycett; Mr J.H. McGivering; Mr Peter Merry; Mrs Margaret Newsom; Mr Richard O'Hagan; Brigadier R.B.C. Plowden; Mr J. Radcliffe; Mr W.H. Rowntree; Dr Gillian Sheehan; Mrs Eileen Stamers-Smith; Mr G.H. Webb. A full record was kept by the Secretary (who also holds a copy of the Society's formal Annual Report to the Charity Commission for the calendar year 1997). The following is an outline of salient features of the Annual General Meeting. The Chairman (Mr Gordon Philo) opened the meeting and welcomed those present. He said the Society was soundly based, was fulfilling in various ways its obligatory functions as an educational Charity, and was providing its members with a real service. The Minutes of the last A.G.M. (summarised at pages 28-31 of the Kipling Journal of September 1997) were by general consent taken as read, and were duly signed. The Secretary (Mr Michael Smith) reported that membership of the Society had increased since the last A.G.M. There had been 45 new members recruited, a number which exceeded the losses by resignation or death. He also reported various initiatives made during the past year. One was with Kipling's birthplace in Bombay (now Mumbai); the Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art had been presented with a plaque to commemorate its Kipling connection. Another much appreciated contact was with the H.M.S. Kipling Survivors' Association, who had been given a replica of their original medallion which had gone down with the ship in the eastern Mediterranean. Another development, from which all readers of the Kipling Journal stood to benefit greatly, was the indexing of the Journal, generously and efficiently undertaken by a member, Mr John Morgan, and his wife. They had made rapid progress, and the completion of their task, the indexing of the entire run of the Journal since 1927, was likely in a matter of months. (As a token of the Society's gratitude, John and Marian Morgan were now presented by the Chairman with a copy of the plaque.) Continuing his report, Mr Smith spoke of the great variety of requests for help or advice that came continually via the post, the Internet, fax or e-mail; he was grateful for the help received from various members, particularly Mrs Lewis, Mr Webb and Mr McGivering, in dealing with these requests. He also defined the serious problem which September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________39 had arisen over the subscriptions payable by North American members of the Society; and outlined the action being taken to solve it. One consequential and overdue step which he hoped it would soon be possible to take was to put on to computer a comprehensive membership list, including of course those in North America. This would be a priority task for Lt-Colonel Roger Ayers, who had most kindly offered his services (subject to election) as Membership Secretary. Mr Smith said that in electronic terms the Society was moving forward. Professor John Cram of Newcastle University had initiated an e-mail discussion site for members who wished to take advantage of it. Another member, Mr John Radcliffe, had offered to take over the organisation of our world wide web site – which would considerably extend its capacity. All in all, he felt that the Kipling Society could look forward with confidence to the advent of the Millennium. The Treasurer (Mr R. Bissolotti, F.C.A.) reported in detail on the Financial Statement for the year ending 31 December 1997, and explained some apparent anomalies. (The Financial Statement, which has been audited, is reproduced at pages 40-41.) Members expressed appreciation for his meticulous presentation. The Librarian (Mrs Schreiber) described the improved shelving capacity for the Society's recently re-located Library, now on the 8th floor at City University. She was especially appreciative of the support that the Society constantly received from the University Librarian, Mr John McGuirk and his staff. She also gave details of the meeting scheduled to be held at the Library on 16 September: (full information on this was published at pages 5 and 54 of the June 1998 issue of the Journal). City University was generously providing the refreshments before Professor Connell's talk. The Meetings Secretary (Mr Peter Merry), in a report read for him by the Secretary, referred to the quality of recent meetings, and the good attendance that they had attracted. He mentioned that there was a prospect of holding a meeting at Bateman's in 1999. He added that he was always very ready to receive suggestions about future speakers. The Editor of the Journal (Mr G.H. Webb), also in a written report read by the Secretary, said he continued to have a good supply of publishable material: however, he was always very ready to receive more, as the quality of the Journal was largely dependent on a copious flow coming in from readers. He was grateful to members, both for the material they contributed and for their very heartening approval of the finished product. As to himself, he was now in his nineteenth year as Editor, but if the meeting wished to re-elect him he was willing to carry on. As many members were aware, he had Parkinson's Disease, which was beginning to be slightly disabling. He was shortly to acquire a more sophisticated word processor with a capacity for 'voice recognition', which should be useful if he came to have difficulty with a keyboard. The new equipment would be for his general use, so would not be a charge to the Society. The next item was a proposal relating to subscriptions. The Treasurer had already explained the reasons for placing the following motion before the meeting:- [continued on page 42] 40__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September I998 KIPLING SOCIETY YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 1997 INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________41 KIPLING SOCIETY YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 1997 BALANCE SHEET 42__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 [continued from page 39] "Notwithstanding Rule IV in the present Constitution it is hereby proposed that subscription changes are vested in your Council, which will report such changes to the membership in the issue of the Kipling Journal next after such changes have been approved." After discussion, it was put to the vote, and carried almost unanimously. (There were 33 votes for the motion, and none against, with one abstention.) Election and re-election of Officers. See page 4 of this issue of the Journal for the up-dated tabulation of the Society's Officers (including the new appointment of a Membership Secretary, Lt-Colonel R.C. Ayers). These were duly appointed or re- appointed in uncontested elections at this A.G.M., as was the Honorary Auditor, Professor Selim, whose willingness to continue was noted with deep appreciation. Ordinary Members of Council. Mrs Monica Furlong was now retiring at the conclusion of her term of three years. The following were elected to Council:- Mr Norman Entract; Dr Linda Hall; and Dr J.D. Lewins. Tea followed the meeting; and after that came a presentation, "My Friend Rudyard", by Richard Leech, who is a member of the Society and an accomplished actor. It was in effect a rιsumι of Kipling's life, illustrated with moving passages of his prose and verse, which were reinforced by subtle gestures of hand and eye. His delightful recitation of "The Elephant's Child" was particularly noteworthy. NEW MEMBERS A very warm welcome to the following, listed to mid-August 1998: Mr R.E. Ayrton (London); Captain A.H. Barton, O.B.E., R.N. (retd) (Limavady, Co. Derry); Mr M.F. Brallsford (Haywards Heath, Sussex); Dr C. Cory (Bowdon, Cheshire); Major M.J. Drummond-Brady (Ashford, Kent); Mr D.M. Fellows (Shrewsbury, Shropshire); Mr G.S. Fleming (Salisbury, Wiltshire); Dr L.M. Hall (Carmarthen, Dyfed); Mr R.G. Harrison (Harwich, Essex); Mrs D. Jones (Rome); Mr J.G.N. King (Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire); Mrs M.E. Lowry (Witney, Oxfordshire), Mrs P. Pinchen (Rottingdean, Sussex); Miss H. Pinchen (London); Mr C.N. Priestley (Camberley, Surrey); Mr A.L. Sharpies (Nachod-Babi, Czech Republic); Mr P.J.B.M. Smee (Kew, Greater London); Mr R.G.S. Toison (Oxford); Miss J. Urquhart (London); Mr H. Waterson (Encino, California, U.S.A.); as well as three new members for the Australian Branch, Mrs E. Fielden, Mr I. Taylor and Mrs D. Wright. September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________43 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [I am glad to receive letters intended for publication. However, since more are received than can in practice be printed, I must be selective, and reserve – unless expressly told otherwise – the usual right to shorten a letter. In some cases it may be possible for the text, and/or enclosures, to be summarised under "Points from Other Letters". My address is given on the penultimate page of this issue. – Ed.] SOURCE OF "TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS" From Mr J. Whitehead, The Coach House, Munslow, nr Craven Arms, Shropshire SY7 9ET Dear Sir, In my biography Thangliena: the life of T.H. Lewin (1839-1916), the pioneer administrator among the hill tribes on India's north-east frontier, I described how, on a journey he made in 1872 to demarcate the India-Burma border, he had several times come across clearings trampled smooth by wild elephants. I am grateful to Mr B.E. Smythies, of the Kipling Society, for drawing to my attention the following passage in chapter IX of John Lockwood Kipling's Beast and Man in India (1891): Colonel Lewin tells me of a belief in the Chittagong Hill tracts, that wild elephants assemble together to dance! Further, that once he came with his men on a large cleared place in the forest, the floor beaten hard and smooth like that of a native hut. "This," said the men in perfect good faith, "is an elephant nautch-khana" – ballroom. It will have pleased Lewin to know that this legend, passed on by Kipling senior to his son, inspired one of the latter's best-loved stories, "Toomai of the Elephants" in The Jungle Book. Yours faithfully JOHN WHITEHEAD [Lockwood Kipling continued: "It is a common remark that stout people are often light dancers, and sometimes most eligible partners. The elephant, in spite of his bulk, is both on land and water a very buoyant person, quick on his feet and, in his deliberate way, as clever a kicker as a mule, which is saying a great deal. There is therefore no reason why he should not dance..." – Ed.] 44__________________KIPLING JOURNAL September 1998 MULVANEY'S REGIMENT From Mr M. Spargo, 1 Burns Close, Childwall, Liverpool L16 3GQ Dear Editor, I was interested to read Mr K.M.L. Frazer's letter about Mulvaney's regiment (March 1998, pages 49-50). What particularly attracted my attention were Mr Frazer's observations relating to the 'Tyneside Tailtwisters', Kipling's none-too-veiled soubriquet for the Second Battalion of the 5th (Northumberland Fusiliers), his "first and best beloved Battalion" (chapter III of Something of Myself). A study of Kipling's writings reveals further evidence for the 'Tyneside Tailtwisters' and the unit's factual 'original'. Moreover, Kipling's association with the Northumberland Fusiliers helps to locate an additional imperial formation he encountered in Lahore. Scattered through Kipling's Indian prose are various passing references to the 5th / Tyneside Tailtwisters. The earliest detectable note centres on the 5th during Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebrations in "The Jubilee in Lahore" (Civil and Military Gazette, 18 February 1887). The piece is available in Professor Pinney's excellent Kipling's India: Uncollected Sketches 1884-88 (London, Macmillan, 1986). An aside on the Tyneside Tailtwisters appears in Letter XV in the "Letters of Marque" series (Pioneer, 10 February 1888). Here, in describing Ajmir as the nodal point of India's money-lenders, Kipling's 'Englishman' persona speculates how "the necessitous circumstances of Lieutenant McRannamack, of the Tyneside Tailtwisters, quartered on the Frontier, are thoroughly known and discussed a thousand miles south of the cantonment where [he] goes to his money-lender." (From Sea to Sea, London, Macmillan, 1900, volume I, page 149) Given the 'delicate' nature of the observation, it is readily apparent that the 'Englishman' is engaging in some humorous, if pointed, banter on the transparency of Governmental power. Furthermore, there is a blatant punning element on the presumably fictitious subaltern's name and the parallel 'running amok' of his finances. The barracks of the 'Tailtwisters' (sic), located in the fictitious Helanthami cantonment, is the setting for the still uncollected sketch, "Bread Upon the Waters" (CMG, 14 March 1888 – not to be confused with the similarly titled piece appearing in the Christmas 1896 issue of the Graphic, collected in The Day's Work, 1898). Stylistically and thematically, the sketch is allied to the companion "What it Comes To", noted by Mr Frazer: both feature conversations and dialogue interchanges between various rankers discussing contemporary military issues and the relative merits of various subalterns. September 1998________KIPLING JOURNAL____________________45 Kipling's enduring connection with the 5th is evident when considering the sketch, '"Quo Fata Vocant'", published in the regimental magazine, St. George's Gazette of 5 November 1902, and contained in the Sussex Edition, volume XXX, Uncollected Prose 2 (London, Macmillan, 1938, pages 253-266), and in the Burwash Edition, volume XXIII, Uncollected Prose (New York, Doubleday, Doran, 1941, pages 581-593). On examination, the regimental motto is adopted by Kipling as an emblematic conceit firming his memoirs through the 'calling' of the Fates to both the 5th and himself. The principal focus of the reminiscences is on the subalterns, along with passing notes on the social life of Lahore, and the later Fates of Kipling's onetime companions. In fact the piece wistfully concludes with a speculated 'reunion', in which Kipling deliberates how "I shall take my seat, of course, between Colonels and Majors by virtue of my seniority; but I shall endear myself to the subalterns." Not surprisingly, when the proximity of '"Quo Fata Vocant'" to the Boer War (1899-1902) is taken into account, the piece carries over Kipling's acute sensations of disappointment and bewilderment engendered by the conflict. Looking over the period, Kipling notes how "the Fates called with a vengeance – called the Fifth to Stormberg, and me to Cape Town." Kipling juxtaposes the past against the present fighting, as a tactic to underscore this form of 'calling'. One of the earliest recollections is of a Mess Night with his host – "a frivolous person" – and "a new and shy subaltern". This memory assumes a baleful quality as Kipling continues: "I recall the new-joined boy's pink-and-white face turned to my host's; there was no shadow of Stormberg or Sanna's Post to darken either." The action at Sanna's Post is later taken up to reveal the fate of 'The Boy', another subaltern from the Indian period. The rankers are presented in a largely peripheral fashion. Professor Pinney, for example, quotes a selection of overheard ranker discussions of the regimental subalterns from '"Quo Fata Vocant'" during the 1887 Jubilee celebrations: this provides both a contrast and a parallel to a related scenario in "The Jubilee at Lahore" (Pinney, ed., op. cit., page 194). Similar instances, with corresponding officers' nicknames, can be located in "Bread Upon the Waters" and "What it Comes To". Kipling additionally notes how the battalion commander at Lahore/Mian Mir had a son who was a contemporary scholar at Westward Ho! The fact is supported by a similar remark in John Fraser's Sixty Years in Uniform (London, Stanley Paul, 1939, pages 139-40), where his meeting Kipling is detailed. Later, Fraser identifies the officer as a Lieutenant Hill (op. cit., page 144). 46__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 Kipling's initial introduction to the battalion's rankers, as he remembers in '"Quo Fata Vocant'", was "not precisely through regular channels". Here, on the St. George's Day celebrations, and at "a certain corner outside the Lawrence Hall Gate", Kipling met a "be-wreathed and fragrant Fusilier" who was "(for good reason) bundled into an ekka just in time to save his being seen by an officer driving to polo". This meeting with a "fragrant" – for which read "drunken" – Fusilier matches a similar incident noted in a letter of Kipling to John Fraser in 1921, in which a prowling sergeant is substituted for an officer. An extract from the letter is contained in Lord Birkenhead's Rudyard Kipling (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, page 71); Fraser, though noting his correspondence with Kipling, unfortunately fails to present any direct source material (op. cit., page 146). One significant fact appearing in '"Quo Fata Vocant'" is Kipling's knowledge of another imperial unit in Lahore, which has escaped the attention of previous commentators. At the opening of the sketch, Kipling returns to his meeting with the 5th, the 'Old Regiment', at Lahore, "after the 8th, who were relieved by the 30th, had been badly hit by cholera and fever". Kipling's statement is corroborated by a cross-reference to the service record of the second battalion of the 8th, King's Liverpool Regiment, as detailed in the Historical Record of the King's Liverpool Regiment (R. Cannon, A. Cunningham-Robertson et al., 3rd edn, Enniskillen, William Trimble, 1905). The service outline is contained in the introductory chronology and, in more expanded form, in later sections. The Historical Record places the unit at 'Mean Meer' (sic) cantonment from 29 November 1880 up to its departure for Ranikhet on 10 January 1883, being replaced by the 1st East Lancashires [30th Regiment] (pages xxxv, xxxvii). On 24 July 1881, F Company is reported as being sent to garrison Fort Lahore, replacing a detachment from the 63rd, (page 313). The battalion did indeed suffer heavily from cholera, with large numbers of its rankers and administrative staff being isolated at the nearby cholera camps of Bekiwall and Chunga Munga, (page 312). Interestingly, there is mention of a correspondent from the CMG reporting on the action of the unit at the forcing of the Peiwar Kotal on 2 December 1878, during the Second Afghan War. It is difficult to evaluate Kipling's true familiarity with the regiment. As he only went to Lahore in late 1882, and the battalion departed in early January 1883, there is only a short period during which he might have become acquainted with it. It is possible – though this is speculation – that the 8th might be the regiment with which Kipling dined shortly after his return 'Home' (and cf. Something of Myself, page 55). However, the Mess of the 30th (East Lancashires) provides September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________47 an equally likely candidate, as offered by Charles Carrington (Rudyard Kipling, 3rd edn., London, Macmillan, 1978, page 146). There is a possibility that the outbreak of cholera suffered by the 8th might have influenced "The Daughter of the Regiment" (CMG, 11 May 1887; collected in Plain Tales from the Hills). Again, this is just one among a number of potential sources for the story. Equally, while the files of the CMG contained references to the involvement of the unit in the Second Afghan War – a campaign featured in certain of the 'Soldiers Three' tales – it is similarly tendentious to see this as evidence of a direct influence upon Kipling. Yours faithfully MARK SPARGO THE GAME OF EMPIRE From Mr S. Wade, 37 Davis Road, Acton, London W3 7SE Dear Sir, I own eleven books by the science fiction writer Poul Anderson (five times winner of the Hugo Award, and three times winner of the Nebula Award), going back to 1960; but, finding his 1994 The Game of Empire in our local library, I was surprised to read in the introduction: The book also, in a very small way, does homage to Rudyard Kipling. I hope that the first and the final sentences, especially, will raise a few smiles. The first and final sentences are as follows: She sat on the tower of St. Barbara, kicking her heels from the parapet, and looked across immensity. He crossed his hands on his forelegs and smiled, as a being may who is winning salvation for himself and his beloved. In The Game of Empire, published by Severn House Publishers of 9- 15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey SM1 1DF, Kim is a girl; Mahbub Ali is a non-human Tigery with an orange-black-white pelt; and the Lama is a Wodenite (a centauroid dragon, four and a half metres long). Interestingly, the Lama is much the closest to the original. Yours sincerely SHAMUS WADE 48__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September I998 THE CURSE OF ART From Professor T. Pinney, 228 W. Harrison St, Claremont, California CA 91711, U.S.A. Dear Sir, I can answer that query about the Curse of Art (December 1997, page 56), if no one else has by this time. [It was only partially answered in our June 1998 issue, at page 51. – Ed.] Carrington quotes the statement as the epigraph to his biography of Kipling, without giving any source. It may be found in a letter from Kipling to Sir Herbert Baker, dated 8 June [1907?], the manuscript of which is now in the Library at Rhodes House, Oxford. In the original it reads thus:- "The curse of all art sir is that the devotee or disciple is always more certain than the priest." I do not now remember whether this letter, or the relevant part of it, appears in Baker's Architecture and Personalities (London, 1944): the book contains excerpts from a number of Kipling's letters, but without dating them, and sometimes confusing parts of different letters. If it is in the book, then Carrington probably found it there. But perhaps he saw the letter at Rhodes House. I have always found it a somewhat enigmatic choice, as the text on which the biography depends. Sincerely TOM PINNEY [Our thanks to Professor Pinney; also to another American member, Mr David Gunther, who solved the problem and telephoned us with the solution.] P.C WODEHOUSE ON KIPLING From Mr H.M. Nimkhedkar, 29 Deotale Layout, nr Lake Ambazari, Nagpur (M.S.) 440 010, India Dear Sir, Apropos of Miss H.M. Webb's letter (March 1998, page 56) about Wodehouse's references to Kipling, may I point out that Yours, Plum (edited by Frances Donaldson) is not the only place where such references can be found. It was preceded by a similar book, Performing Flea (published in 1953 by Herbert Jenkins, and edited by Plum's friend William Townend) in which many references to Kipling occur. Three of them are included in the Donaldson book. I cite below the references in Performing Flea. September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________49 1. The letter of 28 September 1928 (also in Yours, Plum). This is about "Mrs. Bathurst". The only difference is that whereas in Yours, Plum the passage begins "I say, laddie," in Performing Flea it begins "Listen, Bill..." In his editorial footnote to this, Townend wonders about the riddles in the story, and comments: "I often think I should like to insert a notice in 'The Times' personal column, asking if some clever person would clear up the mystery of Mrs Bathurst before it is too late." 2. In a letter dated 20 January 1936, Wodehouse says: "Doesn't Kipling's death give you a sort of stunned feeling? He seems to leave such a gap. I didn't feel the same about Doyle or Bennett or Galsworthy. I suppose it is because he is so associated with one's boyhood. It has made me feel older all of a sudden." Townend's footnote adds: "What Plum had said in his letter about the death of Rudyard Kipling found an echo in my heart. Ever since our schooldays Kipling had stood for something stable and permanent in our lives. Plum and he corresponded quite often, having met at the Beefsteak Club of which both were members. Plum told me once, more or less in jest, that if he were to predecease me he would leave me Kipling's letters, but added that I should find that Kipling invariably spelt his name 'Woodhouse'. This puzzled me until I reflected that he was remembering the name he had used in two of his stories, or in one story, at least." [This was "The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat" (A Diversity of Creatures). – Ed.] 3. The letter to Townend of 29 April 1946, about Kipling's views (expressed in his autobiography) on the importance of cutting. Also in Yours, Plum. 4. The letter to Townend of 27 August 1946. This is also in Yours, Plum; but there is some difference between the two texts, in the passage beginning, "It's odd, this hostility to Kipling." In Performing Flea, that passage goes on: "How the intelligentsia do seem to loathe the poor blighter, and how we of the 'canaille' revel in his stuff. One thing I do think is pretty unjust – when they tick him off for not having spotted the future of India Movement and all that sort of thing. I mean, considering that he left India for ever at the age of about twenty-two." 5. In a letter dated 1 November 1946, Wodehouse again remembered Kipling's dictum about cutting. 6. The most interesting letter is one of 13 December 1949, in which Wodehouse wrote about the famous Saturday Evening Post and its legendary boss, George Horace Lorimer. He then quoted from Mary Roberts Rinehart's My Story: "I once saw him [Lorimer] turn down some stories by Rudyard Kipling, with the brief comment, 'Not good enough." 50__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 There are several more references to Kipling in Wodehouse's other books. For example, in Bring on the Girls (which he wrote with Guy Bolton), he tells about the Dramatists' Club in London, of which Kipling was a founder-member, and from whose membership Bernard Shaw had to resign because his stuff praising the Germans had infuriated a good many people, Kipling particularly. And then there is the funny bit about Carrington's biography of Kipling, in the foreword to Over Seventy, which was Wodehouse's "autobiography with digressions". Actually, Wodehouse was much indebted to Kipling. As a Wodehouse devotee and a Kipling-admirer, I've always wondered about the exact extent of Kipling's influence on Wodehouse. That there was such an influence is obvious. Wodehouse had a quotation-mania, and used to quote from various sources. Many of Kipling's immortal lines, such as: "The toad beneath the harrow", and "A woman is only a woman", and "The female of the species", often find a place in one or other of the many Wodehouse books. I will give one small example of Kipling's influence. It relates to his funny short story, '"Brugglesmith"' (1891), collected in Many Inventions (1893). I find distant echoes of this tale in Wodehouse's novel, Sam, the Sudden (1925). The episode in which the hero, Sam, meets his sozzled friend Braddock late at night and journeys with him through the long London streets to the fictional suburb of Valley Fields, is reminiscent of the narrator's similar experience with Brugglesmith. There could be many more such instances; Wodehouse was surely influenced by Kipling, even though, interestingly, Frances Donaldson does not say so in her authorised biography, P.G. Wodehouse (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982). In that book there are numerous references to Kipling, of which at least three are important:- [a] Kipling thought Wodehouse's "Lord Emsworth and His Girl Friend" one of the best humorous short stories in the English language. (Page 33) [b] Differences and similarities between the childhood experiences of the two writers: separation from parents. (Pages 43-5) [c] The unusualness of the Wodehouse school stories in their period, because they were free from moralising – which is interesting in view of his known addiction to Kipling. (Pages 67-9) Despite this "known addiction", Frances Donaldson does not list Kipling among those who may have influenced Wodehouse: she simply states (on page 35) that Wodehouse did read Kipling all his life. I leave it to your scholarly readers to say something about this. Lastly, I would be grateful for answers to several questions. Which Kipling stories were rejected by Lorimer, and what was Kipling's September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________51 reaction to the rejection? Has the Kipling Journal published in the past any comments on the Wodehouse/Kipling connection? What was the Dramatists' Club, and what were the details of Shaw's resignation from it? Where did the Kipling comment on Wodehouse's "Lord Emsworth" appear? Was Wodehouse ever in touch with our Society? And is there a Wodehouse Society? Yours sincerely HARSHAWARDHAN M. NIMKHEDKAR [I hope there will be some helpful responses to Mr Nimkhedkar's queries. – Ed.] 'IAN HAY' AND KIPLING From Mr K.M.L. Frazer, 3 Roseacres, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire Dear Sir, Are we being unfair to Ian Hay (Major-General John Hay Beith, 1876-1952)? The reference is to Mr F.A. Underwood's letter (March 1998, page 47), quoting the founder of the Kipling Society (Mr J.H.C. Brooking) who in an article in the October 1939 Journal had described the failure in 1923 to launch the Society, and had stated that after a preliminary meeting in March of that year "it was agreed" that Ian Hay would "take the reins" as a temporary Chairman, but that "nothing resulted from this" – the inference being that Ian Hay had accepted a firm commitment but thereafter had failed to give the matter the attention it deserved. In his talk of 16 October 1928 on the founding of the Society (recorded in the Journal of January 1929), Brooking gives a slightly different slant on that meeting of March 1923. He tells us he had picked a preliminary committee of six prominent people; but only he and Ian Hay and 'Stalky' Dunsterville were there. Dunsterville stated that he was going abroad almost immediately. Brooking said the whole of his time for the rest of 1923 was needed to move his firm from the north to the south of England. "It was clearly up to" Ian Hay, who "left us with the impression he would deal with the matter". An "impression" of 1928 had become firm fact by 1939! Ian Hay was a great admirer of Kipling. Early in 1914 he wrote that "Mr Kipling does not touch any subject which he does not adorn." This was in "Some School Stones", an essay published with other generally humorous articles under the title The Lighter Side of School Life. On school stories he concludes, "Tom Brown is a Classic, and probably 52__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 Stalky too. They are built of material which is imperishable, because it is quarried from the bed-rock of human nature." Of Hay as a schoolmaster, the Dunelmian reports in its obituary (December 1952) that "his study was a refuge for small boys whom he would regale with Kipling readings and chocolate creams!" Hay made frequent use of Kipling in his writing. In chapter XIII of A Knight on Wheels (1915, 44th edition 1944), the popular novelist Mablethorpe, introducing the car engineer hero to Kipling's books, describes those red and blue volumes as "the works of the man whom I regard as the head of our profession". And in 1924, with other popular writers of his day (named at page 330 of Angus Wilson's Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling), Hay proposed Kipling for membership of the Beefsteak Club. Yours sincerely KEN FRAZER FROM COCKBILLING TO JUDSON From Commander A. J. W. Wilson, R.N. (Retd), Jolyon, Salthill Road, Fishbourne, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 3PY Dear Sir, Professor Connell's letter on "cockbilling the yards" (June 1998, page 41) set my mind to work. I had not previously noticed the use of "cockbill" as a verb, knowing it only in its adjectival form, "a- cockbill". If using a verb to describe the state of the yards of a ship being at anything other than a right-angle to the mast, I would have said they had been "scandalised". So I consulted various nautical dictionaries. The earliest was one dated 1750, in which neither word appeared; nor did they in one dated 1780. The net result was a draw: an American dictionary (Hammersly's Encyclopaedia, 1881) gave the use as a verb, while Nuttall's English Dictionary, 1926, said it was a noun. Both said that the word indicated mourning. Other dictionaries gave its primary use as describing the state of the anchor, when it was ready for letting go. Where did Kipling pick up the usage? Professor Connell may be right in suggesting Peter Simple. We know Kipling was au fait with Marryat's book, because he quotes from it in "The Propagation of Knowledge" (Debits and Credits); but I wonder if it is not more likely that he picked up the use while at the Cape in September 1891. In chapter IV of Something of Myself he says: "The Navy Club there September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________53 [at Simon's Town] and the tales of the junior officers delighted me beyond words. There I witnessed one of the most comprehensive 'rags' I had ever seen. It rose out of a polite suggestion to a newly-appointed Lieutenant-Commander that the fore-topmast of his tiny gunboat 'wanted staying forward.'" I feel sure (for Naval officers' conversation today may differ in technical details, but I doubt if its nature does) that the rag in Simon's Town included derogatory comments about the general appearance of the "tiny gunboat" and all aspects of her rig; also that Kipling extracted every ounce of information that he could. This information he put to good use in his first Naval story, "Judson and the Empire" (Many Inventions); in it, the conversation in the Naval Club is very similar in tone to what the real rag must have been, although the word "cockbill" does not appear. Carrington identifies the original of Judson as Lieutenant De Horsey of HMS Gryper, so I looked up De Horsey in the 1891 Navy Lists, and there he is in the September 1891 List, one of HMS Raleigh's Lieutenants, having been on the station since March 1888 (Raleigh was the flagship on the station). The Griper (not Gryper) was indeed a 'flat-iron' gunboat, stationed at the Cape, but at the time was not, apparently, commissioned: at all events, she had no officers appointed in the Navy List. I feel sure that the events described in "Judson" had taken place a year or two previously, and that Griper had been commissioned specially for the mission described, taking one of the flagship's officers to command her (a heaven-sent opportunity for a young officer to make his mark, and similar to my experience 65 years later, in the Gulf at the time of Suez). Griper was exactly as Kipling described her – there is an illustration of her in the first (1898) edition of Jane's Fighting Ships — except that, according to another source, her gun was a ten-inch muzzle-loading 'rifle', not a four-inch. Also, it would have been her (one-and-only) topmast which needed "staying forward", not her fore-topmast (by which Kipling implies more than one mast). The picture shows Griper with one mast only; so, as has been remarked many times, Kipling's memory was playing slight tricks when he wrote Something of Myself. "Judson" comes to a close with a visit by "the Martin Frobisher, the flagship, a great war-boat when she was new, in the days when men built for sail as well as steam." This is a thinly disguised Raleigh, which had been built in 1873, specifically for the job of being a flagship on the distant stations where coal supplies were few and far between. The concluding paragraph says, "And if there be no truth... in my tale... you will not find in harbour at Simon's Town today a flat- bottomed, twin screw gunboat... wearing in open defiance of the rules of the Service a gold line on her gray paint." Certainly Griper was there when Many Inventions was published – though at this distance of time 54__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 one cannot be sure of the gold line! There are one or two other points of interest in the telling of "Judson" and in the memories in Something of Myself. In the latter, chapter IV, Kipling talks of "a Navy Captain going to a new Command at Simon's Town". He too is identified by Carrington, as Captain Bayly. In fact he was Commander E.H. Bayly, and he took command of HMS Mohawk on 4 August 1891. The use of the title 'Captain' as a form of address for an officer of inferior rank, but in command of a ship, was still usual then. Mohawk appears in "Judson" as Mongoose, "a real white-painted ram- bow gunboat with quick-firing guns". (There is a picture of Mohawk in Jane's for 1904, looking for all the world like an Edwardian steam yacht, with guns.) Mohawk's station was "Cape of Good Hope and West Africa", so perhaps Kipling was lucky in never taking up Bayly's invitation of a cruise: West Africa was still the "White Man's Grave". And in the passage in Something of Myself about the Naval Club in 1891, Kipling speaks of the little gunboat's captain as "a newly- appointed Lieutenant-Commander", but at that time there was no such rank: it was only introduced in 1914, though Lieutenants in command were sometimes known as 'Lieutenant and Commander', and signed themselves as 'Lieutenant-in-Command'. De Horsey was a Lieutenant of five years' seniority. (A Lieutenant Commander, when he appeared in 1914, would be a Lieutenant of more than eight years' seniority.) In the story, Judson is "only a junior Navigating Lieutenant under eight years' standing". This was clearly another bit of thin camouflage: at that date, Navigating Officers (successors to the old Masters) were not military officers; Kipling's readers in the Navy would have understood the point. In fact, Judson / De Horsey eventually became a Rear Admiral, with a Pension for Wounds, according to the Navy List. There is little doubt in my mind that the events in "Judson and the Empire" actually occurred, though the story got embellished in the telling. And Kipling did some rudimentary camouflage: the reference to Keate ("Torpedo Lieutenant of the big Vortigern", who "despised small things" and had recently "managed to bungle the slinging-in of a small torpedo boat" – which suffered damage) is such. At that time there was no other 'big' ship on the station. The squadron consisted of Raleigh and about ten small sloops, like the Mohawk / Mongoose, ships which, as Admiral 'Jackie' Fisher would later say, "could neither fight nor run" – though they kept the Pax Britannica for many years. And there was only one qualified Torpedo Officer on the station, Lieutenant C.E. Madden of the Raleigh, who went on to become an Admiral of the Fleet: even Admirals have been known to make errors when young! Yours sincerely ALASTAIR WILSON September 1998_______KIPLING JOURNAL__________________55 POINTS FROM OTHER LETTERS SIR ELTON JOHN From Mr G.L. Wallace, 9 Hathaway Close, Luton, Bedfordshire LU4 OHU Mr Wallace has sent us a cutting from page 20 of the Daily Telegraph of 16 May 1998. It is a short item headed "Mr Kipling does make exceedingly good tunes", and it reads as follows: Sir Elton John is to write songs to accompany Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. Sir Elton's film company, Rocket Pictures, has struck a deal with Walt Disney feature animation, and the Kipling tales are their first joint project. The film will use new computer technology to produce a live- action effect, and strands from all the stories will be woven into a single narrative. THE LATE FRANK SINATRA From Mr Shamus Wade, 37 Davis Road, Acton, London W3 7SE Mr Wade draws our attention to the following extracts from an article about the late Frank Sinatra, written by Mark Steyn and headed "No more comebacks", in the Sunday Telegraph of 17 May 1998. In the Fifties, Sinatra moved on to invent the album, approaching it like a song-cycle, a dramatic journey... Recording The Road to Mandalay, he turned Rudyard Kipling into a finger-snappy swinger anxious to be back east of Suez where "a cat can raise a thirst''. There was a 32-inch gong in the arrangement, which the percussionist Frank Flynn walloped on the line "And the dawn comes up like thunder..." after which Sinatra wrapped up the chorus. But he had problems with the ending, so he told Flynn: "Next time round really hit that mother." Flynn beat the gong, Sinatra picked up his hat, threw his coat over his shoulder and left the studio. The band fell around laughing and it took them about ten minutes to realise Frank had actually gone home. He knew that anything after the gong would be an anti-climax. The Kipling estate, in their infinite wisdom, had the record banned throughout the Commonwealth. 56__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 THE LATE PROFESSOR ANDREW RUTHERFORD From Mr G.C.G. Philo, 10 Abercorn Close, London NW8 9XS On 11 May 1998 Mr Gordon Philo, Chairman of our Council, attended the Church of Christ the King, at Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London, for a Service of Thanksgiving for the life and work of Professor Andrew Rutherford (who had died on 13 January – see the obituary at pages 9-10 of our March issue). He has sent us the Order of Service, from which the second Reading is reproduced below as it relates directly to Kipling – and is indeed an eloquent exposition of an important aspect of his philosophy. It is taken from Rutherford's The Literature of War (1978, 2nd edition 1989): For Kipling's awareness of the mutability inherent in a wider time- scale does not lead him to a nihilistic denial of significance to human endeavour. In "The White Man's Burden" he foresees that the only reward for imperial effort will be "The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard", and that in the long run "Sloth and heathen Folly" will "bring all your hope to nought". Yet this does not detract in the slightest from the immediate duty, as he sees it, of self-sacrifice and labour: the work must be undertaken for the good that can be done now, even if it ultimately comes to ruin. Similarly, Findlayson's achievement in "The Bridge-Builders" is dwarfed by the temporal perspectives in which it is placed: when many centuries have passed it will seem like the shifting of a little dirt; yet when the vision ends the bridge still stands against the flood, and we rejoice in the great qualities that went to its creation. Kipling's sombre secular vision of change and decay saves him on such occasions from any tendency to brash progressive optimism, but it does not lead him to despair. The dark background serves rather as a foil to his conception of human greatness, as he shows men like Parnesius doing their duty regardless of encroaching mutability and death. Their achievements are none the less because they must ultimately perish: this is simply the condition of life on earth, and Kipling recognises the existence of no other. Yet that condition can be transcended, not through religion but through art, for the celebration of such men by the artist-creator is itself a triumph – the only possible triumph – over Time the destroyer. September 1998________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________57_ "THE APPEAL" ANSWERED From Dr Edward C. Hayes II, 4125A Mt. Alifan Place, San Diego, CA 92111, U.S.A. Dr Hayes has just joined the Society, and has marked the occasion by sending us some verses he has composed "in honor of Rudyard Kipling, a long-time hero". They are intended as a response to Kipling's valedictory poem, "The Appeal", and they include allusions to, or quotations from, some fourteen of Kipling's other poems. Our enlightened literati have interred the Kipling name But the talk-show host this morning quoted "Tommy" just the same! And so many strive to "keep their heads" through "sixty seconds run" One might pardonably think that Mr Kipling fairly won! O the deep sea cables murmur, and brave Tommy forms his square, The wind's white-hot from Libya, you can feel it from your chair – The parrots talk in pepper trees, the palm trees all bow down, And a low moon over Africa says, softly, This way home! And the thunder rolls from China On our long way home! He conceived in living colour: Jobson's Amen, Tomlinson – And just when we stopped reading him we should have just begun; For again it's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and What's to fear? And tomorrow, when it's fight or die, we'll hail our English seer! Now the deep sea cables whisper from the silent ocean floor, And the bell-buoy cries out "Danger!" to the sailors nearing shore, But the world's forgot its Lesson, writ in blood and dimmed by time, And has exiled all its Captains who could write or rule the line – And the barons, still, at Runnymede, Who taught King John to sign. In these Latter days of Art we've suffered long the shriek and moan Of the blank-verse, blank-brain Artistes who still bow to brass and stone, Who are mystified by metaphor, and put to rout by rhyme – And whose thoughts are as uplifting as a shot of turpentine! Still the deep sea cables murmur; Tommy makes his deathless charge; The bell-buoy clangs its warning from the sea-mist at the marge; The copybook is roaring, like the baron in the hall, And it's steel, cold steel, lads, that rules or ruins all. Lord God of our fathers – Grant Thy mercy on us all! We have suffered the sweet agonies of Amherst, quite the rage, And survived the thirsting passage on the Mariner's salt page; 58__________________KIPLING JOURNAL_______September 1998 We have swelled with Sidney's heroes, and Macaulay's victory shout – But which of these said plainly what the Copybook's about? Now the deep sea cables flicker and the thin red line lives on In glory everlasting through the poems that are songs, And ringing down the ages comes th' applause of humankind For the Master of the pages, who has stood the test of time – Oonts, oonts, floppin ' oonts, 'E's stood the test o ' time! THE SOCIETY'S LIBRARY The Society's Research Library contains some 1300 items – books by Kipling, books and articles relating to his life and works, collections of press cuttings, photographs, relevant memorabilia, and a complete run of the Kipling Journal. It is located at City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V OHB, where, by kind permission, it is housed in the University Library. Members of the University's Graduate Centre for Journalism are allowed access to it. So, of course, are members of the Kipling Society, if they obtain a Reader's Ticket from the Honorary Librarian, Mrs Trixie Schreiber, at 16 High Green, Norwich NR1 4AP [tel. 01603 701630, or (at her London address) 0171 708 0647], who is glad to answer enquiries about the Library by post or telephone. If Mrs Schreiber is away, enquiries should be channelled through the Society's Secretary – see page 4 for the address and telephone number. Members are aware (at least, they were informed very fully on pages 5 and 54 of the June 1998 Journal) of the special event scheduled for the evening of 16 September at the Library, to celebrate its recent expansion and re-location on the 8th floor at City University. Our December 1998 issue will contain a report on this event, including the highly topical talk by Professor Connell, one of our members, on "The future of the Book in the age of telecommunication". Note by Editor. Our next issue will also include a list of recent acquisitions. Meanwhile, members may be amused to hear of the U.K. edition of an American crime novel of 1979 which I have received and am passing to the Librarian. It is Lawrence Block's The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (paperback, 207 pages, No Exit Press, Harpenden, Herts). This fast-moving story, set in New York, vividly describes a quest for a lost Kipling MS, leading to burglary and murder. Block is an accomplished writer, and as a piece of spoof literary detection it is entertaining stuff. THE KIPLING JOURNAL AN EXPLANATORY NOTE The Kipling Journal, house magazine of the Kipling Society, is sent quarterly to all our currently subscribing members. Its contributions to learning since 1927 have earned it a high reputation. It has published many important items by Kipling not readily found elsewhere, and a vast quantity of valuable historical, literary and bibliographical commentary, in various shapes, by authorities in their field. In the academic study of Kipling, no serious scholar overlooks the Journals wealth of data. (The entire run since 1927 is now being comprehensively indexed.) Scores of libraries and English Faculties, in a dozen countries, receive the Journal as corporate members of the Society. However, though scholarly in general tendency, it is not an austerely academic production. It aims to entertain as well as to inform. This is both necessary and easy. Necessary because our membership is as representative of the ordinary reader as of the university researcher. Easy because there exists an inexhaustible reservoir of engrossing material – thanks to the great volume and variety of Kipling's writings; the scope of his travels, acquaintance and correspondence; the diversity of his interests and influence; the scale of the events he witnessed; the exceptional fame he attracted in his lifetime; and the international attention he continues to attract. The Editor is glad to receive, from members and non-members alike, articles or letters bearing on the life and works of Kipling. The range of potential interest is wide, from erudite correspondence and scholarly criticism to such miscellanea as justify attention, e.g. reports of new books or films; press cuttings; sales catalogues; unfamiliar photographs; fresh light on people or places that Kipling wrote about; and of course unpublished letters by Kipling himself, particularly ones of any biographical or bibliographical significance. Authors of prospective articles should know that length may be crucial: the volume of material coming in steadily exceeds the space available. A page holds under 500 words, so articles of 5000 words, often requiring preface, notes and illustrations, may be hard to accommodate quickly. Even short pieces often have to wait. Naturally, as with other literary societies, contributors are not paid; their reward is the appearance of their work in a periodical of repute. The Secretary of the Society arranges distribution of the Journal, and holds an attractive stock of back numbers for sale. However, items submitted for publication should be addressed to The Editor, Kipling Journal, Weavers, Danes Hill, Woking, Surrey GU22 7HQ, England. THE KIPLING SOCIETY AN EXPLANATORY NOTE The Kipling Society exists for anyone interested in the prose and verse, and the life and times, of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). When founded in 1927 by J.H.C. Brooking and a few enthusiasts, it met with vehement and predictable disapproval from Kipling himself; but it quickly gained, and thereafter retained, a substantial membership. It remains today one of the most active and enduring of the many literary and historical societies in Britain. Moreover, being the only one in the world that focuses specifically on Kipling and his place in English literature, it also attracts members from many other countries, who all receive the quarterly Kipling Journal (subject of a descriptive note on the previous page). As an essentially non-profit-making literary organisation, run on a voluntary basis to provide a service to the public as well as to its members, the Kipling Society is a Registered Charity (No. 278885) in Britain. Its overall activities are controlled by its Council, though routine management is in the hands of the Secretary and the other honorary officials. There is a large membership in North America; and an active branch in Melbourne, Australia. For fuller particulars of its organisation, and a list of impending meetings, see pages 4 and 5 of this issue. The Society's main London activities fall into four categories. First, maintaining a specialised Library which scholars may consult, and which is located in City University, London; second, answering enquiries from the public (e.g. schools, publishers, writers and the media), and providing speakers on request; third, arranging a regular programme of lectures, usually but not exclusively in London, and a formal Annual Luncheon with a distinguished Guest Speaker; fourth, publishing the Kipling Journal. Kipling, phenomenally popular in his day, appeals still to a wide range of 'common readers' attracted by his remarkable prose and verse style, his singular ability to evoke atmosphere, and his skill in narrative. These unacademic readers, as well as professional scholars of English literature, find much to interest them in the Society and its Journal. New members are made welcome. Particulars of membership are obtained by writing to the Secretary, Kipling Society, 2 Brownleaf Road, Brighton, Sussex BN2 6LB, England. (The Secretary's Internet web specification is: http://www.kipling.org.uk) The annual subscription rate is £20 – both for individual and for corporate members, whether in Britain or abroad. This remains the 'minimum' rate: some members very helpfully contribute more.