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Those too large to be entirely included in one expoeure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand comer, left to ripht end top to bottom, as many framee aa re., (ired. The following diagrams illustrate the method: 1 2 3 Lea cartea. pianchea. tableeux, etc.. peuvent Atre filmAs A des taux da rAduction diff Arents. Lorsque le document est trop grend pour Atre raproduit en un soul clichA. 11 est filmA A pertir do I'engle supArieur geuche. de geuclie A droite. et de iMut en bee. en prenent le nombre d'imeges nAcesseire. Lee diegrammea suivants illustrent le mAthode. 32X 1 2 3 4 8 6 COtiVRICt'^r ./l»9 ffy -.rrt A.ifS^fft.'JAi* OOOft CO, A Ken of Kipling EKINO A BIOGRAPHICAI. SKETCH OF RU D V ARli K T PIJ ^H, WITH A N API'Kt f ■ " • N \Ni) SOME AMELi. WILL M CLEMKNS AUTHOR ." "RANG TO. (:a»»ada :Mft«d li "■MMWaHMM It ^T ■V'*:.' A Ken of Kipling BRING A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF RUDYARD KIPLING, WITH AN APPRECIATION AND SOME ANECDOTES • . / • • .' •• .' •• By WILL M. CLEMENS AUTHOR OP 'Theodore Roosevelt, the American/' "The Life of Mark Twain," "The Depew Story Book," etc., etc. GEORGE N. MORANG & COMPANY, Limited TORONTO, CANADA P/f V^^<^- C.^ i A KEN OF KIPLING. and charm. She was one of three sis- ters noted for their intellect and cul- ture, all of whom married distinguished Englishmen and artists. One became the wife of Sir Edward Poynter, who succeeded Sir John Millais as president of the Royal Academy, while the other married Sir Edmund Burne-Jones. When Mr. Kipling and his young wife arrived in Bombay, they were as- signed to their government quarters on the Maidan. These quarters were on the sites of the ancient ramparts of the citadel of Bombay, which Sir Bartle Frere had ordered removed, and the Maidan was an open park stretching between the fort and the business por- tion of the city. In the course of time a son was born to the Kiplings. Their first meeting at Rudyard Lake must have been the pretty bit of sentiment of their lives, 12 KIPLING THE MAN. for when they named the son they took for him that of the little lake on the banks of which they first saw each oth- er. They called the boy " Ruddie " in a familiar way, and being a first child, the parents made a great pet of him, As a lad he had unusual aptitude for learning and scorned commonplace toys, but any sort of instructive puzzle or game that required thought and in- telligence appealed to him at once. Books were his great pleasure. In fact, he was quite beyond his years in intellect. He had a will of his own, as a boy, and at times asserted it in spite of the remonstrances of his par- ents. Rudyard at the age of twelve accom- panied his father to England, and thence to Paris, to visit the Exhibition, which was one of the chief delights of his boyhood. He enjoyed this first 13 \\ « •( A KEN OF KIPLING. ;, h t \ glimpse of European civilization more perhaps because of his father's compan- ionship. They were lovers always — this father and son — the ideal affection being bestowed upon each other. Mr. Kipling, since to manhood grown, has said with modesty of his father and mother: "All that I am, I owe to them." The elder Kipling, before his return to India, placed Rudyard in the United Service College "Westward Ho," in the parish of Northam, North Devon, an institution intended chiefly for the education of sons of Anglo-Indian civil and military officers. From his thir- teenth year to his eighteenth, this un- dersized, near-sighted lad was an in- different scholar, neither a prodigy nor a dullard. Not always at the head of his class, nor within reach of the top even, he succeeded, however, when he 14 KIPLING THE MAN. left the college in 1882, in taking away with him a well-earned first prize in English literature. For two years of his five at the college he was the editor of the United Service College Chronicle^ to which he contributed many a clever sketch or verse. He returned to India to his father's house at Lahore, early in 1883, and, journalism being his bent, he became sub-editor of the Civil and Military Gazette. In Lahore, which is some two or three days' travel from Bombay, a large building, embowered in siris and peepul trees, bears across its front the legend: "The Civil and Military Ga- zette Press." In the office of the Ga- zettCy the natives — Hindu, Mohamme- dan, and Sikh — labor side by side i^i setting up the type and working the machines. Eurasians and aomiciled British subjects supply the staff of 15 Wmm mmmSSSm \ ( A KEN OF KIPLING. i» W u 'I J "readers," while the imported Anglo- Indians fill the editorial chairs. In Kipling's day, the editorial staflE of the Gazette^ comprising two men, did the entire work of getting out the daily paper; and if one wants to know how Kipling worked as one of the two men who produced the Gazette daily, one has only to ask Mian Rukhn-ud-din, the Mohammedan foreman printer; Bahi Pertab Singh, the Sikh bookkeeper; Babu Hakim AH, the Moslem clerk ; or faithful HabibuUa, the willing cha- prassi, on whose head Kipling's office box came and went daily. They will tell how Kipling worked. Briefly, the daily work of Mr. Kipling on the Gazette was as follows: i. To prepare for press all the telegrams of the day; 2. To provide all the extracts and paragraphs; 3. To make headed articles out of official reports, etc. ; 16 U ?:■ -; V'- y\ \ KIPLING THE MAN. Anglo- ial stafiE len, did le daily )w how wo men ly, one din, the ■; Bahi keeper; erk; or g cha- s office ley will Kipling I. To anis of xtracts headed , etc. ; 4. To write such editorial notes as he might have time for; 5. To look gen- erally after all sports, outstation, and local intelligence ; 6. To read all proofs except the editorial matter. For a few hundreds of rupees a month, he did the work of at least two men. As an outside reporter he met with many strange adventures. Probably his most distasteful task was his mis- sion to interview a notorious fakir, about whom there was great religious excitement in the Punjab, as he was reported to have cut out his tongue in order that it might, with the help of the goddess Kali, grow again in six weeks, and thus prove the verity of the Hindu faith. Kipling never found the fakir, but through a hot Indian day he found himself misdirected from one unsavory slum of Amritsar to another, till he was sick to death of his quest. 2 17 A KEN OF KIPLING. It no doubt suited the fakir's scheme to be evasive when a sahib was looking for him, and on his return to Lahore it was a very dirty and travel-stained Kipling who tumbled into the editorial rooms of the Gazette. The Duke of Connaught, then mili- tary commander of the Northwestern district of India, was occasionally a visitor to the house of the Kiplings. When he met Rudyard he became greatly interested in him, and in the course of conversation remarked: "What are you going to do, Mr. Kip- ling, now that you are in India again? What would you like to do? " *' I would like, sir, to live with the army for a time, and go to the frontier to write up Tommy Atkins. " The duke considered the matter, and finally gave him carte blanche to go to any military station in his command, i8 I KIPLING THE MAN. and, if he wished, go to the frontier and live with officers or men, and if at any time he required an escort he could have one; and so Rudyard was thus given opportunity to make acquain- tance with Tommy Atkins. To the Civil and Military Gazette he contrib- uted many of his earlier poems and stories, and the paper, having many military men as patrons, was a proper enough receptacle for his departmental ditties and earlier tales of the Indian hills. This was the beginning, but the road from journalism to literature was indeed a rugged one. After fame had come to him, Mr. Kipling returned once on a flying visit to Lahore, and the early hours of the day of his arrival saw him, out of sheer love of the old work, sitting in the familiar office chair correcting the same old proofs on the same old yellow 19 n iwi iii i ■1 ^*4 -> ■ »!■ ■ WMiu w m^ Mi n W f fiw m ii n r tmtmfmmimmt % A KEN OF KIPLING. paper, with Mian Rukhn-ud-din, the Mohammedan foreman printer, flying round the press with green turban awry, informing all hands that " Kup- puleen Sahib" had returned. There also his old chief editor found him when he came to the office. A little volume of short sketches, entitled "The Christmas Quartet," written by members of the Kipling family, was published at Lahore in De- cember, 1885, at the humble price of two shillings, or one ^upee eight an- nas. There was no sale for the little book. Mr. D. P. Masson, then the managing proprietor of the Civil and Military Gazette^ of which Kipling was sub-editor, says he could have "pa- pered Lahore with unsold copies of the book." The market value of the Kip- ling "Quartet" to-day is upward of twelve pounds sterling. 20 KIPLING THE MAN. The following year, 1886, "Depart- mental Ditties" appeared, the verses having been previously published in the Civil and Military Gazette. The publication of the book was merely local, and found few readers beyond the British military posts in India. The same year he published, in cheap form for local circulation, " Plain Tales from the Hills," "Soldiers Three," "The Story of the Gadsbys," and "In Black and White." In many ways one of the most re- markable of these early works is the volume entitled " In Black and White," published by A. H. Wheeler & Co. , of Allahabad. The book is dedicated, in a tender and reverent preface, to Mr. Kipling's father. The elder Mr. Kip- ling illustrated the eight stories of " Black and White" in a series of about eighteen large drawings, intended for ai t ••Mr f^ai^f^il^iifttn^ttmmm mf «tm t i w if W ifaJninwni n * '•'J ' : A KEN OF KIPLING. some future edition de luxe of the book. These drawings are stories in themselves, and to one who knows the stories lovingly beforehand, there is a perfectly indescribable richness and suggestiveness about the illustrations of them. Here is the ne phis ultra of the sympathetic interpretation of one art by another. A novelist could not cherish his own work more tenderly than the father has cherished his son's conceptions, and the elder Mr. Kipling possesses technical graphic power of a quality to which Thackeray never laid claim. In a word, never before were great stories so illustrated as they are here. Only a native of India can quite fully appreciate the drawings or the stories, but the gems must be obvious to any beholder. When Mr. Kipling departed from In- dia in 1890 for London with his coUec- 22 KIPLING THE MAN. tion of stories — in whose possibilities he had himself infinite faith, although, so his friends said, the editors of the Indian newspapers in which he pub- lished a number of them thought but slightingly of them and begrudged them the space they filled — his first idea was to publish them in America. He went first to Hong-Kong with his manuscripts and copies of the queer little books he had published 'n Lahore and Allahabad, and thence to San Francisco. There he found neither publisher nor friend, nor would the newspapers of that city give him em- plojmient. Is it not natural then that some years later he should write of San Francisco as "a mad city — inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people, whose v/omen are of a remark- able beauty." So he 'made his way to New York, 23 i '^..t-.'^tii^iunsmm .»v- w 'r-'-^ *' '' L A KEN OF KIPLING. lii with a letter of introduction in his pocket to a prominent publishing house. By some curious affinity in lack of insight, this house thought no more of the stories than did the un- appreciative editors out in India. In fact, they not only refused to bring out Kipling's book, but they also, as he thought, treated him very cavalierly — in fact, snubbed him. These who know the publishers will be very slow to believe this, as the house in ques- tion is noted for its courtesy in all its dealings, and a highly sensitive author is not perhaps the best judge in his own case. Mr. Kipling, in his disgust, made no further attempt to dispose of his sto- ries on this side of the Atlantic, but sailed away for England. He tried his luck in London with better success, so far as finding a publisher is con- 24 a KIPLING THE MAN. cerned. His stories were brought out, but, strange as it may appear in view of their subsequent popularity, they failed. No reviewer seemed to be im- pressed by them — in fact, few if any reviewers paid any attention to them at all. They were piled up on the shelves of the bookseller, covered with dust, showing no prospect of resur- rection. Kipling had the magnificent faith of genius in the certainty of his triumph, but every possible trial of his faith was experienced. It looked as if the triumph would be postponed until after his death, when some student of obscure literature in the latter half of the twentieth century should, by chance, light on these forgotten vol- umes, and wonder at the stupidity of his ancestors in leaving them to die stillborn. Kipling had friends and rel- atives of wealth and position in Eng- 25 '■ 'i i I i . H I ; J ^1 i i : ■ t -:M U ifc ^ - 'r' "■ ' " ^'- ' ' * »-■■■" t ^■•»——*»»~«.»-^-»**<-* .«►•<,•.-♦-• fc«-»-»4^.-».i-.*»-« _,^^ A KEN OF KIPLING. land; but he was too proud to make himself known to them in the role of unsuccessful author, when he had planned to visit them as a conquering hero. They knew nothing of his being in London — and, if they thought any- thing about him at all, supposed he was in India or wandering ab'^ut in some remote comer of the world. Kipling's stock of money had given out. His lodgings and board were of the most economical. It looked as if he intended to gain his living by some less agreeable occupation than story- writing. One evening, Edmund Yates sat down to dinner at his club, wondering what would make a good stirring arti- cle for his paper — the London World. He asked a friend at an adjoining table if he did not know of something that was going on. Replied the friend : 26 I KIPLING THE MAN. "Why on earth don't you print an interview with Rudyard Kipling? " "Who in thunder is Rudyard Kip- ling? " asked Yates. The friend, who was acquainted with India and with Kipling's career there, explained that he was a brilliant young man, who knew India as few men knew it, for he had a remarkable faculty of observation; that he had just come home, bringing with him a volume of stories which he had published; that he must have with him, also, a large stock of interesting memorabilia ; that Kipling was the coming man in story- telling ; that it would be greatly to the credit of Yates' paper to anticipate the public in discovering him; that he would at any rate have much to say that was fresh and interesting. The suggestions thus made quite forcibly struck Mr. Yates, and he de- 27 i : i . — » Kiiain*— ■ u ^ . -*■ " .': V » ** ' A KEN OF KIPLING. tailed one of his reporters immediately to interview Kipling. The reporter had some difficulty in finding Kipling, for his lodgings' were obscure and his disgusted publishers had not kept close track of his address. But found he was at last, and when found he had all the hauteur of confident genius when most prosperous, in being, on the whole, rather unwilling to submit to the advertisement of an interview. The reporter prevailed upon him to do the favor, and so the interview ap- peared, some two columns, in a much- read paper. It created no little talk. Among others who read it with interest was the book reviewer of the London Times. He remembered in an indis- tinct way that Kipling's stories had come to his desk, and that he had let them lie there. He hunted them up, and, in the light of what he now knew 88 \. sr KIPLING THE MAN. about the man, was greatly impressed by them. He gave them a half-column review or more, and that with a great many Englishmen was enough. To find Kipling indorsed in the Times im- mediately set them to work reading them. The stories no longer lay, dust- covered, on the publisher's shelves. The stock on hand was not sufficient to meet the sudden demand, and the young man from India was at once a much-discussed author. Fame came with the reappearance of " Departmental Ditties " and " Barrack- Room Ballads. " In these virile poems, as a reviewer said : " The seamy heroes sang of the life they lived with all their dramatic virtues as well as their dra- matic sins. The rugged strength of the handling and the brilliance of the color were recognized." His acquaintance with Mr. Wolcott 39 < 1 ■iV %'i 1 '■ i;?^ * A KEN OF KIPLING. Balestier, and his collaboration with that promiping young American in the writing of "The Naulahka," brought him to America again in 1891. The Balestiers lived on a farm in Vermont near Brattle boro, and Mr. Kipling, evi- dently taken with America and Ameri- can ways, fell in love with Mr. Ba- lestier's sister, Carolyn. They were married in All Souls' Church, Portland Place, London, on January 18, 1892, returning to Brattleboro soon after. When this "Avatar of Vishnuland," as some one has called him, built for himself an American home on the mountain slopes near Brattleboro, he was already a known figure in the world's literature. Making his home first in a rented cottage near the site of the house he built, he completed there his " Many Inventions " and wrote some of the poems of " The Seven Seas." 30 1 I :'Mt"?^^vS^.r^ 3i < ■X c X y. 7. ^i\ ^\ \ >>. U I KIPLiNG THE MAN. The Kipling house, near Brattleboro, is a long, low building, with projecting roof that has just the suggestion of a thatch. A wide veranda extends along one entire end of the house. A long hall divides the house in the middle, there being eleven rooms on either side of the hall. The house looks not unlike an Indian bungalow. It is built on a hillside overlooking the Connecticut river, and the only entrance is in the rear. At every approach to the house is to be found the sign, " No trespass- ing on these grounds." The death of young Balestier, whose light went out far too soon, was a per- sonal loss to Mr. Kipling — a loss that he felt keenly for some years. There was genuine love and appreciation, as well as much of future greatness, in the touching verses written to his friend and co-worker, " Who had done 31 /! ii I ' r^ A KEN OF KIPLING. his work, and held his peace, and had no fear to die." While abroad in 1897, he visited South Africa, on pleasure bent, to see new peoples and new scenes. Upon his arrival at the Cape he was greeted with a set of verses after his own man- ner of making. These lines were from the pen of one of his own Mulvaneys, a private soldier of the name of Wal- lace. Here are three stanzas from the verses as they appeared in the Cape Times : "You 'ave met us in the tropics, you 'ave met us in the snows ; But mostly in the Punjab an' the 'Ills. You 'ave seen us in Mauritius, where the naughty cyclone blows. You 'ave met us underneath a sun that kills. An' we grills! An' I ask you, do we fill the bloomin' bills? "But you're <7«r particular author, you're our patron an ' our friend, 32 KIPLING THE MAN. "You're the poet of the cuss-word an' the swear, You're the poet of the people, where the red-mapped lands extend, You're the poet of the jungle an' the lair, An' compare, To the ever-speaking voice of everywhere t • • • • • "There are poets what can please you with their primrose vi'let lays. There are poets wot can drive a man to drink ; But it takes a ' pukka ' poet, in a Patriotic Craze, To make a chortlin' nation squirm an' shrink, Gasp an' blink : An' 'oedless, thoughtless people stop and think ! " While in South Africa, Mr. Kipling was interviewed by a journalist at Buluwayo. " Then you're going home to tell the public all about us in ' Plain Tales from the Veldt '? " asked the journalist. "No, no; nothing of the kind," an- swered Mr. Kipling; " so don't you run 3 :ii I I I lit ■ A KEN OF KIPLING. away with the idea! Mine is only a flying visit. I'm not up here for work, and am fairly at sea in these paits. Besides, the town will have grown out of all knowledge in another twelve months. " " So on the whole you've been favor- ably impressed, Mr. Kipling? " " Impressed ! I have never been so impressed with any community in the whole world." The interviewer thus wrote of him in the Cape Times : " He takes his work hard. He is tremendously in earnest about it ; anxious to give of his best; often dissatisfied with his best. He is quite comically dissatisfied with success; quite tragically haunted by the fear that this or that piece of work, felt intensely by himself in writing and applauded even by high and mighty critics, is in reality cheap and shoddy 34 KIPLING THE MAN. in execution, and will be cast in dam- ages before the higher court of pros- perity." Mr. Kipling's well-known story "007" is reminiscent of an experience of his at the Cape, where one of his pleasures was riding on engines. He got a permit to ride on the locomotives of the Cape Government railways, and made use of it. An engineer on one of the roads re- ported that he was not up to schedule time because he carried ** one of those literary swells," who had insisted on running the engine. " He really does know something about it," declared one of the road superintendents. And in this knowing something about everything he writes lies his great success. During his residence in 1898 in Eng- land, Mr. Kipling occupied a house at 35 m m m A KEN OF KIPLING. 1 1 Rottingdean, a quiet little Sussex vil- lage near the sea. It is called the Elms, from its surroundings of beauti- ful elm and ilex trees. In this quiet retreat he led the ideal life of the Eng- lish gentleman, varying his routine of work and reading by a ride of three hours every morning in the quiet Eng- lish lanes and byways, and walking four or five hours later in the day. In February, 1899, Mr. Kipling, ac- companied by his family, returned to the United States for a month's holi- day. He was met in New York har- bor by a most unexpected and compli- mentary reception. As his ship, the Majestic, ice-coated and laboring in the rough sea, neared thz land, Mr. Kip- ling leaned over the starboard rail, watching intently three men in oil- skins in a cockle-shell of a boat. They were the pilots coming aboard to take 36 KIPLING THE MAN. the huge vessel into port. When the little boat veered off, the men rested on their oars. One of them looked up and saw Kipling. Taking off his oil- skin hat, he shouted, in a voice heard above the tempest : " By sport of Winter weather We're watty, strained and scarred, From the kentledge on the kelson To the slings upon the yard, The ocean's had her will of us To carry all -way. •* Then he added: "Hurrah for Mul- vaney and the boys of Lungtungpen ! " Mr. Kipling stood for a moment mo- tionless in astonishment. Then he took off his cap and waved it to the pi- lot. He realized that even pilots have books aboard their boats, and many hours to while away at sea. As the Majestic entered New York bay, Mr. Kipling met hii, favorite ene- my — the newspaper reporter. He met 37 r ' A KEN OF KIPLING. a dozen of him, each clamoring for an interview. He denied them all, and said nothing save a characteristic bit, thus : " Every effort of art is an effort to be sincere. There is no surer guide, I am sure, than the determination to tell the truth that one feels. " The newspaper men left, singing softly, says the New York Mail and Express: We've met with many men from over ieas, An' some of 'em was shy an' some was not. The Frenchman and the German and Chinese, But Kipling was the hardest of the lot. Some of 'em talked in English an' the rest Would talk from early winter to the fall, But the Mowgli-man we found the greatest pest. For the bloomin' sod 'e wouldn't talk at all. Still, 'ere's to you, Rudyard Xipling', you es- cape our anger's ban, You're a cold, concentered Briton, but a first- class writin' man. Although you need to thaw a bit, to you wo must be fair. You are the master- writer, though you didn't treat uc , quare. 38 I KIPLING THE MAN. I to 'E 'asn't got no paper of his own. An' so with us 'e doesn't sympathize, Yet we can certify the skill 'e's shown In 'andlin' literary merchandise. If 'e'd only start 'is Fuzzy-Wuzzy gush, And cast loose 'is Anglo-Hindu talkin' gear. An 'appy day with Rudyard on the rush Would last an 'ealthy journalist a year. Then 'ere'sto you, Rudyard Kipling, an' ye 're welcome to the town, You are a prince of writing-men. although you turn us down. We give you your certificate an' if you want it signed. We'll come an' 'ave a chin with you when you are more inclined. Mr. Kipling shuns publicity and observation. As a literary lion he seldom ventures from his lair, and declines always to be lionized. In Eng- land he has lived in retirement, pro- tected himself against interruption of labor, avoided social distractions, and seldom is seen in London. When his presence has been secured as a drawing card for a luncheon or a dinner, he has 39 i - I I! 1 i"' I •H It,';- { A KEN OF KIPLING. come late and gone early, and has seemed indifferent to the interest taken in him. Reserve and seclusiveness are his characteristic traits. Versatility is the one marvel of the man and his work. As Shakespeare knew the science of expression and possessed a wondrous mastery over mere words, so Mr. Kipling knows men, animals, and inanimate things. Nothing seems ever to escape his far- seeing, deep-searching eyes — and even then he looks through glasses. Some writer has truly said : " He is a man who sees more with the same number of eyes, hears more with the ordinary complement of ears, than any Anglo- Saxon mortal has ever seen or heard or been able to express before. " He is the one writer of English at the present moment who satisfies quite fully the two great classes of readers 40 I KIPLING THE MAN. — the multitude, on the one hand, who read to be amused; and the cultured minority, who read for art's sake. Devoted to his home life, domestic in tastes, simple in his habits, regular and systematic in his work, Mr. Kipling is a quiet, industrious, unobtrusive man, deeply in earnest. In his movements he is quick and lively, and, perhaps, somewhat nervous; and has a thor- oughly southern temperament. Dis- trustful as he is about himself, he is without bounds in his recognition of others. Sir Edward Russell has de- scribed him as a " practical, spruce, ath- letic, well-groomed, little figure — mak- ing a splendid living — not an Amos or an Isaiah." I i'ii \ li 41 1 II. ; HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. When Mr. Kipling first emerged from his native jungles and threw his new bright light on the civilization of England and America, the Puritans or literature were momentarily shocked. This young man from far away Lahore was neither Christian nor Oriental, nor again Occidental. His was not the po- lite literature of the drawing-room, nor the sEStheticism of the studio; rather he reeked of the army canteen, he gave Letters an odor of horse and stable; there was too much of beer and too much of barracks and bar-room in his verse and in his prose. The old bookworms, the classic col- 42 n&: HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. lege mummies, and the prim old maid- ens who wrote sonnets and went about the land organizing Browning clubs, declared Mr. Kipling's only aim was to write something that would "take" with the English people, and he would not last. " His characterization was never excellent, often mediocre, and sometimes abominable." "The tone" of his work " offended. " It "testified to the chaos of an undisciplined soul," and thus on, to the end of the weekly reviews. In a remarkably short while Mr. Kipling was not only universally read, but became a "fad," and the crit- ics, alarmed unconsciously perhaps, at- tempted to ridicule rather than to be harsh; and I cannot refrain from re- peating the plaint of the Cambridge parodist, who longed in desperation for — 43 ■n • i 2 ■; ' '' * A KEN OF KIPLING. t I "That far distant shore Where there stands a muzzled stripling Mute beside a muzzled bore, Where the Rudyards cease from Kipling, And the Haggards Ride no more. " As is usual, after ridicule came rec- ognition, and the critics accepted him as a man of letters, and all too reluc- tantly bade him " sit down " and make himself at home among- them. When they read his prose work, they were at first bewildered; they read him twice, and marvelled; thrice, and they admired. When they were told how a " tattered, rotten punkah of white- washed calico puddles the hot air and whines dolefully at each stroke," they were at once choked and stifled and were oppressed by a hundred or more degrees of Bombay heat ; or when they read how " the last puff of the day wind brings from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood smoke, hot cakes, 44 i \i HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones," they at once sniffed the true atmosphere of the Himalaya val- leys; and when "the witchery of the dawn turns the gray river-reaches to purple, gold, and opal," they felt as though "the lumbering dhoni crept across the splendors of a new heaven." The world soon knew them, each and every one — Mulvaney and Dormer, and other privates in the ranks, Dinah Shadd, and Lieutenant Brazenose, George Porgie, Wee Willie Winkie, Bobby Wick, and the troop of Indians, Ala Yar, Jiwun Singh, Morrowbie Jukes, Imray Sahib, little Muhamid Din, and all the others. Geographies and encyclopaedias and dusty old tomes from the British Museum were sought for new notes on Simla, Lahore, Calcutta, Bombay, 45 ■ i i J I) f n A KEN OF KIPLING. Chubari, Benares, Irriwaddy, Lung- tungpen, and more of them a score. Yet even in the midst of their admi- ration, when they read of Gunga Din, •'the finest man I ever knew," they were shocked once again to find him ; , "Squattin' on the coals. Givin* drink to poor damned souls." and the British big-wigs surely must have thrown a few fits when they read : *' ' The Government should teach us to pull the triggers with our toes,' said Suket Singh grimly to the moon. That was the last public observation of Sepoy Suket Singh." Mr. Kipling was compelled to go out into the world and find his audience. Once he found it, he was forced to edu- cate his audience by brute force; and then the literary epicures placed him, well labelled, among the olives, and he 46 J .Ml he HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. became "an acquired taste." To-day the supply does not equal the demand. In the preface to " Life's Handicap," Mr. Kipling relates the advice he re- ceived from Gobind, a holy man in the Chubari: "God kas made very many heads, but there is only one heart in all the world among your people or my people. They are children in the mat- ter of tales. . . . Tell them first of those things that thou hast seen, then what thou hast heard, and, since they be children, tell them of battles and kings, horses, devils, elephants, and angels; but omit not to tell them of love and such like." A vast deal of the material for his early work was gathered during Lpare hours, while he was engaged in jour- nalism in India, and the result justifies the statement of a friend, that Kip- ling's memory is " so marvellous that 47 . i i : A KFH OF KIPLING. i if I'. I, , i'i ^ s a character or a phrase or situation or idea, appealing to him, is forever after in his possession, ready on tap for lit- erary exploitation." He says himself that his tales were collected " from all places and all sorts of people — from priests in the Chubati, from Ala Yar the carver, Jiwun Singh the carpenter, nameless men in steamers and trains round the world, women spinning out- side their cottages in the twilight, offi- cers and gentlemen now dead and bur- ied, and a few — but these are the best — my father gave me." There is much in method. Mr. Kip- ling declares, for each story he permits to reach the public eye, six other sto- ries are thrown bravely and resolutely into his waste-basket. ** It is not what you write," he says, "but when"; and he declares that "all thought is abor- tive speech," and that "we write in 48 or ,er iit- ;elf all om HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. letters of the alphabet, but, psychologi- cally regarded, every printed page is a picture book; every word, concrete or abstract, is a picture. The picture it- self may never come to the reader's consciousness, but deep dov/n below in the unconscious realms the picture works and influences us." Englished and Americanized, the barrack-room balladist and the Hindu tale spinner soon developed his dor- mant powers, and displayed his quick and ready handling of New York and London scenes and incidents. Chica- go became as familiar to his pen as Al- lahabad. The Vermont horse yielded as readily to his word of command as the mowgli. The American being of a race of a variegated and commingled ancestry, his language is therefore not a lan- guage at all — rather is what Mr. Kip- 4 49 V'f \ tj ( '. I ■ mmm ta*"'*! ' ii">ff«iiM>ii gyiwf ■ 1 ; A KEN OF KIPLING. j i- if '^ \ n ling says it is, and he is quite right when he declares : " The American has no language. He is dialect, slang, provincialism, accent, and so forth. " " Mr. Kipling can now speak in many different dialects," says a captious crit- ic; "he can imitate any one from a Hindu to a New England farmer; more than that, he can actually differ- entiate between the various patois of the same country. He will confront you almost simultaneously with the Kansas farmer, the Kentucky horse- dealer, the Bowery street arab, and the cottager from Vermont. There are five or six distinct voices, and you can tell at once what each is meant to represent, even though you see only Rudyard Kipling all the time." Away up among the pine-trees of Maine, there lives a critic — even unto Maine a critic shall be given — and he SO I t \ c s t I HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. Speaks in no stinted words of praise when he says of Kipling's later work: " What impresses one is the wonderful prodigality of his genius, his world- wide sympathy, and his tireless imagi- nation. To the ordinary story writer, who strikes here and there a keynote of human nature, and occasionally stumbles into a neatly turned phrase, Mr. Kipling shines as a god to a pigmy. There seems to be no end to his appre- ciation of the human animal, and, in- deed, to his sympathy with the inani- mate object, in whose depravity most of us have unflinchingly believed." Mr. Charles Townsend Copeland, a professor at Harvard University, un- dertook once to wreck the Kipling idol and pulverize beneath his classical heel what the world desired most to wor- ship. But even Mr. Copeland was just enough to say of the man he sought to SI i I HH l | l |li »l»«« . r iii»ii»l^ ' Miirwl*! A KEN OF KIPLING. ' I destroy: "Kipling can write not only poetry, but prose in any dialect and language, putting speech into the mouths of horses, engines, and the ani- mals of the jungle. Language is a thing over which he has every control. " "Genius is rare," says a reviewer in a public print. " Genius combined with versatility and sympathy is more rare still. Think for a moment of what this man has written. Note the difference in idea, local color^ and treatment of theme, between * The Light that Failed ' and ' Captains Courageous. ' Is it not a wide-ranged, sweeping tal- ent that can produce ' Barrack-Room Ballads,' 'Soldiers Three,' and the ' Recessional ' ? Is it not a wonderful- ly sympathetic touch that he puts into his stories of child life, such as * Wee Willie Winkie ' ? Then this marvel- lous man turns completely round and 52 HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. writes the ' Jungle Stories ' and ' The Story of the Gadsbys ' ; and before one is done wondering if his talent has no end, he comes out with his * Slaves of the Lamp ' and * The Day's Work. ' " A critic who carefully analyzed the stories contained in the volume " The Day's Work," comes to this conclusion: "Mr. Kipling stands so far incompar- able as the master of romance ; he has found for us the latest view of rail and screw, bolt and valve. He gave us es- cape from an atmosphere which was growing perhaps oppressively rich for the natural man; he took us out of doors, into the souse of the sea spray, within sound of the piston's tramp." " No living writer," writes an admir- er, " can equal the power Kipling pos- sesses to present types from widely di- verse but contemporaneous civilization with such striking artistic effect; his S3 11 ; ; i '■^A I I li > \m am ii'iir rtrti ki mr-i m ■, j^m ttm'm »*t i^-,» .ii i c . i A KEN OF KIPLING. perception of the real nature of each is profound and accurate. His prepon- derant characteristic is his incisive manner of getting at the very heart of things, and then his picturesque power of making the reader see clearly just what he himself sees. His wonderful imagination and originality is empha- sized by a style that is stately and cheerful, and a precision of diction that always seems to choose the right word." The intelligent usage of technical terms in the literary sense has become a second nature with him, and this characteristic utilization of words and phrases, popular heretofore only with the artisaa and the laborer, has added a charm to his writings, which is becom- ing better understood by the great mass of readers. In his book, "A Fleet in Being," he confines his sketches of character to the marine 54 HIS WORK IN PROSE AND VERSE. and the stoker on board a man-of-war, and these pen pictures to the eyes of the landsman are delightfully refreshing. Mr. Kipling stands to-day the one writer of English who is proof against criticism — in the sense of the criticism doing injury to his reputation. His followers are legion, and they resent even to bitterness any attempt to belit- tle his creations. He has shown him- self a master of verse and a master of prose. He could perhaps be a master dramatist, and the world has marvelled that he has never undertaken a play. However, Mr. Kipling is a man of sense and forethought, and it is not un- likely that he sees in playwriting the great and dangerous risk of failure. And why should he take us before the footlights ? The public satisfaction would be only temporary, and soon would we be calling: 55 (B 1 ' ! ^ ^W*"-^''*''* ''^ %'> .^ .4m-V< **«»>-#uM<«A-4»'«<.<4.««'% %r^\«'-4U'.tt^.-^4jk « -JIUk> ,S^ W"^"^ ' * ft I f k . j^'"^ ~ :'^^. ' t'.-*;"^ M \^ A KEN OF KIPLING. '• Come you back to Mandalay . Where the old flotilla lay ; Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay ? On the road to Mandalay. Where the fly in' fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the bay." 56 4\ -t »..,«*. . it .^jkj», it-ji . . V.-' •*••*• ' V f .^^ V -* I*' A KEN OF KIPLING. seemed to respond and agree with Mr. Kipling that " we are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men." The verses made the English people realize that a religion of humanity was hemi^ preached rather than a religion of philosophy. The Kipling poem first to attract the attention of all classes was undoubtedly "The Vampire." It was written in 1897, to accompany a picture by Philip Bume- Jones, the English artist. P^'i- ture and poem are called '* The Vam- pire." The poem was printed in the London Dai/y Mail, in April, 1897, as follows: Thk Vampire. A Tool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I !) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care), But the fool he called her his lady fair (Even as you and I !) 58 I. mmt m »«>fcfArtia.«r ■; krt r in' V *!■**■ V-^ ^»..*..«r*^ »-• 1 v.t. t .««)k.<*tfv<| * •■ -Jtf^fV ■*»*'*- *i-'. A KEN OF KIPLING. His famous contribution to the poe- try of the Queen's jubilee appeared in the Times of London originally, and has since been reprinted in every form and manner of the art typographic. However well " The Recessional " may be known, I am compelled, if only by a sense of duty, to reprint the verse? here, lest we forget : t( { Recessional. God of our fathers, known of all — Lord of our far-flung battle-line— Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine — Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget ! The tumult and the shouting dies— The captains and the kings depart. Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget— lest we forget ! Far-called our navies melt away — On dune and headland sinks the fire- 60 hi' POEMS FOR A PURPOSE. Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre ! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget— lest we forget ! If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe- Such boasting as the Gentiles use Or lesser breeds without the Law — Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget ! For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard — All valiant dust that builds on dust. And guarding calls not Thee to guard— For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord ! Amkn. I'fi Mr. Kipling thus describes how he came to write "The Recessional": "That poem gave me more trouble than anything I ever wrote. I had promised the Times a poem on the Ju- bilee, and when it became due I had written nothing that had satisfied me. The Times began to want that poem 6z r (I T J t. '^ A KEN OF KIPLING. badly, and sent letter after letter asking for it. I made many more attempts, but no further progress. Finally the Times began sending telegrams. So I shut myself in a room with the deter- mination to stay there until I had writ- ten a Jubilee poem. Sitting down with all my previous attempts before me, I searched through those dozens of sketches, till at last I found just one line I liked. That was * Lest we forget. ' Round these words ' The Recessional ' was written." Of the Jubilee ode, " Lest We For- get," no less a critic than Sir Edward Russell has said : " I remember how it seized me when it appeared; how it startled all the world ; how it was just what was wanted — just the cogent, lyrical, rhythmical appeal to con- cience called for by a certain almost debauch of national sentiment, quite 62 w ii, M ><« m m\u ft\ POEMS FOR A PURPOSE. excusable, but become very flatu- lent." Mr. James Lane Allen asserts that " The Recessional " is " probably Kip- ling's noblest and most enduring poetic achievement," and then follows an analysis of the poet's work: "It is virile — nothing that he ever wrote is more so ; yet is refined — as little else that he has ever written is. It is strong, but it is equally delicate. It is massive as a whole; it is in every line just as graceful. It is large enough to com- pass the scope of the British empire; it creates this immensity by the use of a few small details. It may be instant- ly understood and felt by all men in its obvicasness ; yet it is so rare that he alone of all the millions of Englishmen could even think of writing it. The new, vast prayer of it rises from the ancient sacrifice of a contrite heart. " 63 > *9 I I 1 " 'I i r t I f ■ A KEN OF KIPLING. The world saw in " The Recessional " the fearless <^:; session of a sober, ce- vout thought. It came as a loud voice crying from out of a multitude of voices, heard and recognized above the babble of Fleet Street, in a time of great national rejoicing among the English people. For absolute fearlessness, vividness, and force, his next poetical production, the allegorical poem, "The Truce of the Bear,*' is beyond anything in our language. The poem at once gave expression to what had haunted many minds after the appearance of the Czar's proclamation in behalf of universal disarmament. The motto is: "There is no truce with Adam-zad — the bear that walks like a man. " Mr, Kipling does not hesitate to show his distrust of the motive which inspired that now 64 ;; ,1 iAX4tM^jiQKjr>«<* V POEMS FOR A PURPOSE. I" famous document, and the result is per- c- haps his most important achievement in ce poetry. To cite from the Czar's proc- of lamation: le "It is the supreme duty, therefore, of at the present moment, of all states to le put some limit to these increasing ar- maments, and to find a means of avert- .s, ing the calamities which threaten the n, whole world. Impressed by this feel- of ing, his majesty, the emperor," etc. ur Mr. Kipling tells in his own wonder- ful way the story of the hunter who Dn forbore to kill the great bear. Matun, ds an old blind beggar, is in the habit of •'s following the " careless white men" as >al they come back at night through the re Muttianee Pass from their day's shoot- ar ing, showing them his horribly disfig- ^S ured face, and telling his story. It is of the story of a bear hunt. The bear, )W Adam-zad, a prodigy of strength and , f- ■ 5 6s I '5 : ^.5 ^k A KEN OF KIPLING. cunning, had been plundering Matun's goat-pens. Matun started out after him with an old flintlock musket, and finally overtook him — "all weary in flight." Adam-zad reared up, bear- fashion. He looked almost human. He put his paws together, as if in sup- plication. Matun was moved. His heart was " touched with pity for the monstrous, pleading thing." He didn't fire. Adam-zad tottered nearer and nearer. Suddenly, with one blow of his steel-shod paw, he blinded the hesitating, compassionate Matun for life. Thfin, grunting and chuckling, he shuffled off to his den. Matun urges the careless white men to avenge him of his enemy. He adds a counsel and a warning. One would think, upon reading " The Truce of the Bear," that the sentiment expressed therein was but an old-timo 66 POEMS FOR A PURPOSE. in's prose Kipling comment, set to the mod- fter ern form of poesy. In his earlier days, md in his short story of " The Man Who in Was," he wi^te: "Let it be distinctly ;ar- understood that the Russian is a de- an. lightful person till he tucks in his shirt. " up- "As long ago as that," comments a His writer in the New York Post, " he was the full of the idea of the Russians coming He down through the Khyber Pass, and of irer the ' terrible spree ' there would be !ow when the British met them. They the were splendid fellows, those Ru-^sians, for so long as it was only a qiiestion of ng, fighting them like so many nomad Tar- tun tars; but when they set up for civil- ige ized Europeans, they became simply isel disgusting hypocrites. It is because the Czar has not only tucked in his own ^he shirt, but asked the nations each to ent tuck in its own, that he loses all his mo charm for Mr. Kipling. " 1 67 I A'l ■ '«1 •■^v .41 'M I 6; % f A KEN OF KIPLING. A Chicago bookish-man protested, and said it was absurd to find an alle- gorical meaning in " The Truce of the Bear." "Any bear hunter," wrote the Chicago philosopher, " could tell of the feeling of pity experienced when a bear about to be shot assumes t^at pleading attitude and expression, little less than human, by raising upon its hind legs with unlifted paws, and tot- tering unsteadily toward its foe." A scholarly person of Denver there- upon took occasion to declare " that the feeling that permeates a hunter's breast when a bear rises upon its hind paws and advances toward him is ii^t one of pity, but an irresistible desire to close the interview and hit only the high places in the landscape in retiring from the scene." "The White Man's Burden," a still later poem for a purpose, was written 68 POEMS FOR A PURPOSE. for the American, as " The Recession- al" was written for the ETiglishman. The title of these politicr.l verses was undoubtedly called forth by the expan- sion policy of the United States, forced upon the Government through the somewhat unexpected results of the Spanish- American war. Mr. Kipling's lines: *• Your new-caught sullen peoples Half devil and h&lf child." are supposedly descriptive of the Fili- pinos. The poet evidently seeks to re- mind the American people of a duty to be pcrfoiTned, hence admonition and advice. He may speak as one with authority in directing the. American, for no one in the United States knows the character Asiatic quite so well as Rudyard Kipling. In a sense, Mr. Kipling in this poem has outczared the Czar. The greatest 69 M3 A KEN OF KIPLING. K I'-' W of the Russians advocated the disarma- ment of the nations as a means of pro- moting universal peace. Mr. Kipling believes it is th' grav luty incumbent on the white mti* ; ^rry his civiliza- tion to the remote ; 'i^±zs and distant regions of the earth. The world, once civilized, would no longer war, there being no more wild races of men to conquer and control, no vast areas of land to seize and hold under an excuse of civilizing. Mr. Kipling declares with no uncertain voice that the "burden of the white man " is to civilize the world, develop its neglected resources, and build up waste places. The white men of so great and so advanced a nation as the United States cannot shirk their share of the world's burden. In truth, the "American Recessional" is a poem written for a purpose. 70 ' IV. ^t' KIPLING'S RELIGION. The publication of " The Recession- al " gave the religious element of the English-speaking people a new and clearer view of Mr. Kipling, both as a man and as a poet. When the world read his immortal lines: •*God of our fathers, known of all- Lord of our far-flung battle -line — * • t • • •* Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget," the words of a prayer at once became impressed upon the mind. To Ameri- cans, the lines recalled those sacred words of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell : V •All t if ^ 41 A KEN OF KIPLING. "Almighty God, eternal source Of every arm we dare to wield, Be thine the thanks, as Thine the force, On reeling deck or stricken field." The churchman read again his Psalms, and the words of David of old burned upon the memory of the right- eous : "Oh God, thou God of my salvation . . , Hear, O my people, and I will speak . . . Mine enemies . . . slay them not, lest my people forget. . . , O. Lord of Hosts, ray King and my God." The strong, manly touch of piety and reverence in Mr. Kipling*s later verse gives us In a way the well- remembered devoutness of Luther and of Milton, and at least the sincer- ity of Wordsworth, Browning, and Tennyson. In his earlier work, particularly in the ** Soldiers Three," Mr. Kipling, with the same sense of piety, wrote in his introduction : 7* KIPLING'S RELIGION. "I lift the cloth that cloaks the clay. And, wearied, at Thy feet I lay My wares ere I go forth to sell. The long bazar will praise— but Thou— Heart of my heart, have I done well ? " and three years later, in " Life's Handi- cap," this prayerful tone appeared: •• By my own work before the night, Great Overseer, I make my prayer. If there be good in that I wrought. Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine : Where I have failed to meet Thy thought, I know, through Thee, the blame is mine." There is more of a personal, abstract view of religion in Mr. Kipling's verse than an old, established faith, bound by ritual and tradition. Mr. Kipling's re- ligion is the religion of to-day — the re- ligion of Charles Dickens, of a broad and expansive humanity. "His reli- gion," says an essayist in the New Worlds " is not only human, but almost exclusively masculine. It does not be- 73 if '3 ■ 1 i 1 I 't- A KEN OF KIPLING. long to saints, neither does it belong to women, but to unchastened, faulty men — to Dick Heldar, McAndrews, Sir Anthony Gloster, and Mulvaney. Mas- culine they are to the core, like primi- tive heroes, with the wander-t'ever in their blood, the venture-light in their eyes, in their ears the roar of breakers and of big guns, in their nostrils the odors of the mossy Himalaya forests and the spices of Mandalay to lure them out from comforts and shelter. The religion of such men is short and swiftly told. A simple religion, as simple as that of the primitive heroes — of Ulysses, of Sidney, and stout Sir Richard Grenville. Two words would hold it all — courage and toil : courage, the merry daring that laughs the world to scorn; toil, the quenchless effort to make the world obey. They who forged this faith surely took counsel of :i KIPLING'S RELIGION. the world's prophets — of Joshua and St. Paul : of Joshua for the first of it, ' Be not afraid, neither be ye dis- mayed ' ; and St. Paul for the second, ' Endure hardness like a good soldier. ' ' Do your work and fear nothing ' — this is the gospel Mr. Kipling has ever preached, and he has preached it con- sistently." His hymns are those of the bold and unlearned warrior — not the hymns of the cloistered student. In his poetic prayers to the God of All there is " no argument, no formal and ordered reli- gion of the head, but a religion of the heart and viscera — out of the bowels of men in great conflict and great con- quest, with the sweat and blood of grim primal struggle on their faces, and the words of inevitable need and dire hon- esty on their lips. " The same religion of humanity may 75 ( I t A KEN OF KIPLING. ' .'» il be found in Kipling's prose work, as well as in his hymns and poems. Only for the reason of the devout aspect of " The Recessional " were we reminded of his vein of religious fe« iling. In his " Drums of the Fore and Aft," there is much of this Christian humanity of the age in which we live, as when our au- thor says: " God has arranged that a clean-run youth of the British middle classes shall, in the matter of backbone, brains, cti.?d bowels, surpass all oth^r youths. " The religion of the Kipling heroes — of his Mulvaneys, Gadsbys, and Strick- lands — is that of human endeavor, of man's bravery, and man's daring. His heroes are not handicapped with long rules of prayer and repentance, of per- sonal responsibility to God, the atone- ment, forgiveness of injuries, and the 76 -, 1 1 1 KIPLING'S RELIGION. duty of showing mercy. They have already the teachings of the Spirit in- born, the rudiments of creed a part of their daily work and rations. "This religion," says Mr. W. B. Parker, "needs no interpretation. They who hold it are not men of speech. Words of their faith are far from their lips, as often the path of their faith is far from their feet; but at sea or ashore, they blazon the unspoken creed in unmis- takable deeds. Sometimes it is in a revel of reckless adventure that makes a boy's blood tingle. Then at mid- night, and naked, they swim rivers and take towns; they go into battle like devils possessed of devils; they put out in leaky hulks to * euchre God Al- mighty's storm and bluff the eternal oca. ' Sometimes it is in a soberer mood. Then they show their devotion to duty, as Bobliy Wicks does in * Only 77 1 1 !■ Jl: I t-:h H A KEN OF KIPLING. a Subaltern, ' and as Hummil does at * The end of the passage. * Boy and man, you will remember, both die ; the one nursing an unamiable private in a fever-camp; the other, solitary in his own unhealthy post, which he keeps to save a comrade from exposure. All this in silence, for these men are mess- mates of toil and death. Their religion is one of action, and yet, because they have lived close comrades to death and felt their own helplessmtess, they have learned to believe — to believe as their fathers did — in God and heaven and hell." r. 78 V. ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. Seldom one tells a joke on one's self; not so, however, with Mr. Kipling, who relates an amusing story at his own expense. During his stay at Wiltshire one summer, he met little Dorothy Drew, Mr. Gladstone's granddaughter, and being very fond of children, took her in the grounds and told her sto. ies. After a time, Mrs. Drew, fearing that Mr. Kipling must be tired of the child, called her 3.ad said: "Now, Dorothy, I hope you have not been wearying Mr. Kipling." "Oh, not a bit, mother," replied the small celebrity; "but he has been wearying me. " 79 /.; •I '■ ft; I A KEN OF KIPLING. Mr. Kipling wrote this reply to James Whitcomb Riley, who had sent him a copy of " Child World " : "Your trail lies to the westward, Mine back to mine own place. There it. water between our lodges — I have net seen your face ; But I have read your verses, And I can guess the rest, For in the hearts of children There is no east or west. " * An English author visited the nur- sery of a friend's house in Brighton, to see the children. The sound of his step on the stairs was hailed with a shriek of delight, and the children tumbled over each other in theti eager- ness to meet him. Thea they stu|>ped short in dismay. "What's the mat- ter? " he asked. " We fought it was Mr. Kipling," said the youngest, with tears in her voice. It appeared that 80 ii ' I u ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. Mr. Kipling was in the habit of telling them stories, and they couldn't appre- ciate any one else's visits. Mr. Kipling is very sympathetic with childhood, and is often to be found romping with his own children. * Miss Julia Marlowe, the actress, lived one summer a neighbor to Mr. Eipling in Vermont. At the holiday j'e.A-Son he presented her, as a Christmas :^if t, one of his books, with this inscrip- tion on the fly-leaf: ** Whc.^ skies are gray instead of blue, Y/ith clouds that come to dishearten; When things go wrong as they sometimes do In life's little kindergarten. I beg you, my child, don't weep and wail, Aad don't— don't take to tippling ; But cheer your soul with a little tale By Neighbor Rudyard Kipling." « * At a small party in England one evening, a young lady sang one of his 6 8i A KEN OF KIPLING. " Barrack- Room Ballads," and in the heat of her emotion she stepped away from the piano and alighted on his foot. She blushed and stammered an apol- ogy. "Oh, don't apologize," he whis- pered ; " the com was four toes off ! " '?! I I Mr. Kipling sent Capt. Robley D. Evans, of the warship lowa^ a set of his works, and with them these verses: " Zogbaum draws with a pencil, And I do things with a pen, But you sit up in a conning- tower. Bossing eight hundred men. "Zogbaum takes care of his business. And I take care of mine, But you take care of ten thousand tons, Sky-hooting through the brine. "Zogbaum c:^n handle his shadows. And I can handle my style. But you can handle a ten-inch gun To carry seven mile, 82 I ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. "To him that hath shall be given, And that's why these bocI<:s are sent To the man who has lived more stories Than Zogbaum or I could invent." Zogbaum, I may be permitted to explain, is an artist-author, beloved by the navy. * ♦ Now must we spoil a Kipling story. The fable, ere ruin came, ran thus: Once upon a time, the father, John Lockwood Kipling, and his son, then a boy, were on a voyage, and the voy- age proved too m.uch for the father. While he was sick in his cabin, an offi- cer appeared and cried: " Your son, Mr. Kipling, has climbed out on the foreyard, and if he lets go he'll be drowned ; we cannot save him. " "Oh, is that all?" replied Mr. Kip- ling, turning his back on the officer; "he won't let go." 83 A KEN OF KIPLING. A gentleman has been unkind enough to ask the elder Kipling whether this story was true. Mr. Kipling replied: " The only time that I made a voy- .' ;e with Rudyard was when he was twelve years of age, and that only be- tween Dover and Calais, going to the Paris Exhibition. I'm never sick at sea, and on the steamer on which we crossed I do not suppose there was a bowsprit or whatever they call it. I'm very sorry to spoil the little story, but it never happened. " * A Nfcvr York gentleman, who for a summer lived near neighbor to Mr. Kipling in Vermont, tells this story : " I was walking down the main street of Brattleboro one day, and saw Kipling coming toward me. He was dressed in a bicycle suit, and came swinging 84 ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. along at an easy gait. Just ahead of me there was a little Chinese laundry, and the Chinaman was standing in the doorway. When Kipling reached him, he addressed the Chinaman in Chinese and began a rattling conversation with him in that language. The Chinaman gave a gasp of surprise, but answered him, and in a few minutes Kipling had him smiling from ear to ear, and both of them were jabbering away in Chi- nese. I understood afterward that every time Kipling came to town, he stopped for a chat with the Chinaman. The Celestial would never tell the won- dering neighbors what Kipling talked about, and when he was asked only replied: "Him welly fine man. Him welly gleat man. " * Mr. Kipling is not ungracious. When asked by the editor of T/ie Can- 85 MtMUB rmm iM'Miniii' I I 1 A KEN OF KIPLING. tab^ a journal published by undergrad- uates of Cambridge, to contribute something to its pages, he returned this genial reply : "The Elms, Rottingdean, near Brighton, "September 17th, 1898. " To the Editor of The Cantab: " There was once a writer who wrote : •* * Dear Sir : In reply to your note Of yesterday's date, I am sorry to state It's no good at the prices you quote. "* RuDYARD Kipling. Thereupon the editor consulted with his colleagues, and the result was a let- ter desiring to know what were Mr. Kipling's terms, and concluding thus: " So long as we have any garments left in our wardrobes and an obliging avun- cular relative, we are prepared to make any sacrifices to obtain some of your spirited lines." The author hastened to depreciate 86 ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. such a sacrifice and introduced the fol- lowing reply, with a humorous sketch of his unknown correspondents : "September 29th, 1898. "Dear Sir: Heaven forbid that the staff of Tlie Cantab should go about pawning their raiment in a public-spir- ited attempt to secure a contribution from my pen! The fact is that I can't do things to order with any satisfaction to myself or the buyer; otherwise, would have sent you something. " Sincerely, "RuDVARD Kipling." Not yet satisfied, the young colle- gians begged for a photograph, and had for an answer this : " As to photos of myself, I have not one by me at present, but when I find one I will send it ; but not for publica- tion, because my beauty is such that it fades like a flower if you expose it. " Very sincerely, *' RuDYARD Kipling." 87 '•4>**#|^-fr<*> ^»Vtek^«>40»««1Vb^ »wia><^*'V 4M- If W<.[| % «**1)E^(U#J IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 1.1 11.25 2.5 2.2 la&12.8 ■50 "^~ Z tiS. 12.0 u I Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WBT MAIN STRUT WnSTIR,N.Y. 14SM (716) •73-4503 4r ^ A KEN OF KIPLING. f Mr. Kipling tells this story of his father: "Kipling, Sr., went to pay a visit to an Indian rajah, who was about to bring home a queen. The elder Kipling had been engaged in the deco- rations of the palace, and its owner showed him the gifts of stuffs and per- fumes he had procured for his coming spouse. The rajah also sent for his jewel caskets, and asked Mr. Kipling to assist him in selecting the gems to be included in the marriage gifts. They were of extraordinary size and value, such gems as are seldom seen except in the East, and to the artist the selection was a pleasure. Finally he lifted a wonderful diamond, one of the choicest gems in the collection, and said : * You should send this. No wo- man could resist it. ' The rajah looked up, caught it, and held it jealously to his breast. Then, slowly replacing it •■ ti^M / j*:T. v^v.'iA kVi i\f A ;^. vt * ". i Vi ; '* ; *,• .:fc/#.'>.v "j"* :xu> '^*'***'* ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. in the casket, answered: * Nay, such gems be not for women. "* * * * Mr. Kipling, one night in a concert hall, saw two young men ply two girls with liquor until they were drunk. They then led them, staggering, down a dark street. " Then," he says, " I be- came a Prohibitionist. Better it is that a man should go without his beer in public places, and content himself with swearing at the narrow-mindedness of the majority; better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively at back doors, than to bring temptation to the lips of young fools such as the four I had seen. I understand now why the preachers rage against drink. I have said : * There is no harm in it, taken moderately ' ; and yet my own demand for beer helped directly to send 4: f. 1 *l«l^ .-***» ♦*. (.ifrfVCW-*--*-**-.' t\^, »-■* I A KEN OF KIPLING. these two girls reeling down the dark street to — God alone knows what end. If liquor is worth drinking, it is worth taking a little trouble *o come at — such trouble as a man will undergo to com- pass his own desires. It is not good that we should let it lie before the eyes of children, and I have been a fool in writing to the contrary." * ♦ At the time he wrote "The Last Chanty " some one asked him how he pronounced it. "Well," he replied, " the really elegant and well-bred peo- ple pronounce it * Chanty, ' but those who know what they are talking about call it 'Shanty.'" * * When in New York, Mr. Kipling fre- quents the University Club. Being of a rather retiring sort, personally, it was a long time before he came to be well 90 .-»^ T Jt.'^J^ ^ «» .■> t'Vxtt ,",»-»l'^«i.A'*wt»-* , ■ 'l '•11 ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. known to the majority of the club's habitues, and two of the members made his acquaintance one day in a rather odd way. The two friends went into the club restaurant, choosing a table next to one occupied by a quiet- looking man who was devouring a chop and drinking a glass of ale all by himself. One of Kipling's books had just come out, and the friends fell to discussing it with vigor. Before long they were estimating all the Kipling writings in the frankest and most ingen- uous fashion. Being healthy-minded men and of good literary tastes, they both thought well of his productions on the whole, and said so plainly; yet they each had found a few flies in the amber, and they naturally talked about them. Some of the defects which they had noticed seemed to the speakers to be really serious, and one of them said 91 A KEN OF KIPLING. somebody ought to draw Kipling's at- tention to them. At just about that time the stranger at the adjoining table faced about, got up from hi^ seat, and walked over to the critics. "I hope you'll pardon me," he said, smiling widely upon them, " but I have been obliged to listen to your conversa- tion for quite a long while, and I've become so much interested in it that I'd like to join in. Besides, my name happens to be Rudyard Kipling, and it isn't fair for me to sit still and listen without making myself known. But possibly I'll be able to explain some things to you, and I'm sure I shall de- rive a good deal of benefit from your talk." And the three of them derived much benefit. * An American who was in company 92 ^r^vi^ iMfc«i m H .«»■■■< ig's at- >ut that ng table eat, and he said, 1 1 have onversa- ind I've L it that ny name g, and it ad listen n. But lin some shall de- om your derived company RTh.!. f^AULAKHA dHATTl.EaO/20 Vermont -J^:z6, tn 1 1( •I AN ORH.INAI. DRAWINO UY RITDYARI) KIIM.ING. ^ i !» ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. with Mr. Kipling in a ramble about London tells this story : " One afternoon we went together to the Zoo, and, while strolling about, our ears were assailed by the most melancholy sound I have ever heard — a complaining, fretting, lamenting sound proceeding from the elephant house. " * What's the matter in there? ' asked Mr. Kipling of the keeper. '* * A sick elephant, sir ; he cries all the time; we don't know what to do with him, ' was the answer. " Mr. Kipling hurried away from me in the direction of the lament, which was growing louder and more painful. I followed, and saw him go up close to the cage, where stood an elephant with sadly drooped ears and trunk. He was crying actual tears at the same time that he mourned his lot most audibly. 93 4 1.' 7i> i *-i It I u\ If (i! I A KEN OP KIPLING. In another moment Mr. Kipling was right up at the bars, and I heard him speak to the sick beast in a language that may have been elephantese, but certainly was not English. Instantly the whining stopped, the ears were lifted, the monster turned his sleepy, little, suffering eyes upon his visitor, and put out his trunk. Mr. Kipling began to caress it, still speaking in the same soothing tone, and in words unin- telligible to me at least. " After a few minutes the beast be- gan to answer in a much lower tone of voice, and evidently recounted his woes. Possibly elephants, when * en- joying poor health,' like to confide their S3rmptoms to sympathizing^ listen- ers as much as do some human inva- lids. Certain it was that Mr. Kipling and that elephant carried on a conver- sation, with the result that the ele- 94 ♦ i! M ' ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. phant found his spirits much cheered and improved. The whine went out of his voice, he forgot that he was much to be pitied, he began to exchange ex- periences with his friend, and he was quite unconscious, as was Mr. Kipling, of the amused and interested crowd col- lecting about the cage. At last, with a start, Mr. Kipling found himself and his elephant the observed of all observ- ers, and beat a hasty retreat, leaving behind him a very different creature from the one he had found. " ' Doesn't that beat everything you ever saw? ' ejaculated a compatriot of mine, as the elephant trumpeted a loud and cheerful good-by to the back of his vanishing suitor; and I agreed with him that it did. " ' What language were you talking to that elephant? ' I asked when I over- took my friend. 95 ' \'. m n 'I' 1 I ./ 1 1 i: ifi in ! '. : :■ I i 1 A KEN OP KIPLING. " * Language? What do you mean? * he answered with a laugh. "*Are you a Mowgli?' I persisted; * and can you talk to all those beasts in their own tongues? ' but he only smiled in reply." ^ ^ Mr. Dooley, the American humorist, has this to say of Mr. Kipling: "What I like about Kipling is that his pomes is r-right off th* bat, like me con-versa- tions with you, me boy. He's a min- yitman, a r-ready pote that sleeps like th* dhriver iv truck 9, with his poetic pants in his boots beside his bed an' him r-ready to jump out an' slide down th' pole th' minyit th' alarm sounds. " « * Certain persons sending out a penny magazine called the The School Bud- get^ intended for the enlightenment of Horsmonden School in Kent, asked 96 I!) . ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. Rudyard Kipling to write something for them, the rate to be paid him being as. per one thousand words. The edi- tors quoted Kipling's lines: "The song I sing for the good red gold The same I sing for the white money ; But the best I sing for the clout o' meal That simple people give me. " If he did not write for them at the rate of 2S. per one thousand words, the publishers said they would score him in their very next issue. Mr. Kipling evidently was alarmed, for he sent them the following : " Easter Monday, 1898. " To the Editors School Budget: " Gentlemen : I am in receipt of your letter of no date, together with a copy of The School Budget , February 14; and you seem to be in possession of all the cheek that is in the least likely to do you any good in this world or the next. And, furthermore, you have !; ,1 : ilv 'Si n; i !i / A KEN OF KIPLING. omitted to specify where your journal is printed and in what county of Eng- land Horsmonden is situated. "But, on the other hand, and not- withstanding, I very much approve of your * Hints on Schoolboy Etiquette,' and have taken the liberty of sending you a few more, as following : " I. If you have any doubts about a quantity, cough. In three cases out of five this will save you being asked to * say it again. ' "a. The two most useful boys in a form are (a) the master's favorite, pro tem. (d) his pet aversion. With a little judicious management (a) can keep him talking through the first half of the construe, and (d) can take up the running for the rest of the time. N. B. — A syndicate should arrange to do {d's) imposts in return for this ser- vice. "3. A confirmed guesser is worth his weight in gold on a Monday morn- ing. "4. Never shirk a master out of 98 i !'■ ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. mmal Eng- not- ove of uette,' ending bout a out of ked to Ts in a Lvorite, With a a) can rst half ake up e time, mge to lis ser- worth r mom- out of bounds. Pass him with an abstracted eye, and at the same time pull out a letter and study it earnestly. He may think it is a commission or some one else. "5. When pursued by the native farmer always take to the nearest plow- land. Men stick in furrows that boys can run over. "6. If it is necessary to take other people's apples, do it on a Sunday. You can then put them inside your topper, which is better than trying to button them into a tight * Eton. ' "You will find this advice worth enormous sums of money, but I shall be obliged with a check or postal order for 6d. at your earliest convenience, if the contribution should be found to fill more than one page. " Faithfully yours, "RuDYARD Kipling." * When Mr. Kipling was once asked where he obtained the material for his 99 I ilJ fl I H |ii li 1 j j ^ i ■ * t f A KEN OF KIPLING. wonderful story of the "White Seal," in one of the "Jungle Books," he an- swered : " I have seen it all with my own eyes. " ^ ^ * Everywhere he goes his friends be- seech him to write Mulvaney tales. Recently some one again questioned him on the reason of Mulvaney 's silence, and he answered whimsi- cally: "Terrance hasn't reported for duty in months. Drunk again, I sup- pose." ^ ^ ♦ In a published interview, Mr. James Whitcomb Riley, the poet of the peo- ple, said of Kipling : " A lot of fellows, who know of Kip- ing's early history, think that he just did it — that he just happened. But that fellow was hustling around news- paper offices from the time he was thir- ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. teen years old. Bom and brought up among a strange people, with queer customs, he was for years gathering material for his work. " He has the greatest curiosity of any man I ever knew ; everything interests him. In fact, he is a regular literary blotting-pad, soaking up everything on the face of the earth. Who before Kipling ever gave us animal talk? * .^sop's Fables ' were kindergarten talk compared with his. Think of a man only thirty-two years old who has given to the world eleven volumes of prose and verse! He has only just started. "Another thing: read him from be- ginning to end, study him, become as familiar with his work as you will — every new bit from him displays some trait, some line of thought that is new. That man is great." xox I ( ' y I fi \ Id A KEN OF KIPLING. Mr. Kipling's phrasing is picturesque in the extreme. Meeting a friend once, after a long separation, he said : " Good heaven ! How much water has flowed under the bridges since we two met ! " In Rottingdean, England, where Mr. Kipling- lives, there is a hotel, the White Horse by name, kept by an old gentleman named Welfare. Mr. Kip- ling frequently passed his evenings with this Welfare, and together they smoked and discussed politics. Wel- fare was a strong Radical, and Mr. Kipling an advanced imperialist. One can imagine, therefore, that these were spirited meetings. Finally Mr. Wel- fare fell ill. Mr. Kipling called just as usual, and he would sit by the bedside and talk. As before, they bolted poli- tics and talked crosswise and flung loa n ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. lesque once, Good lowed kt!" their lances. It was the practice of the doctor to call quite late and take his patient's temperature, and he always wondered to find him, in what should have been the quietest hour of the day, heated and perturbed. This went on for several days — the doctor wonder- ing, Mr. Kipling arguing, and Mr. Welfare igniting — until the maids let out the secret of the nightly discussion. Then the surgeon came to the writer's house. "Mr. Kipling," said he, "you must call no more at the White Horse. " "Why not?" said Kipling. "Because," said the doctor, "you are killing the landlord. On Monday when you had gone his temperature increased seven degrees, Tuesday it increased eight, and last night when I called it had gone up nine. At this rate you'll bum the house down. " 103 A KEN OF KIPLING. M '/ Mr. Kipling sold a book to a London publisher at a price that netted the author one shilling a word. The pub- lication of this fact came under the notice of a Fleet Street humorist, who, " for the fun of the thing," wrote to the author, saying that, as wisdom seems to be quoted at retail prices, he himself would like one word, for which he en- closed a shilling postal order. The re- ply came in due course. Mr. Kipling had kept the shilling postal order, and politely returned the one significant word "Thanks!" written on a large sheet of writing paper. Writing from Chicago, in his younger days, Mr. Kipling said: " I have struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago. Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages." 104 ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. >ndon the 3 pub- r the who, to the seems Limself he en- ^he re- Cipling er, and lificant large ounger 1 city — ag seen see it es. (* Here is Mr. Kipling's delightful com- ment upon the daughters of Uncle Sam: " Sweet and comely are the maidens of Devonshire ; delicate and of gracious seeming those who live in the pleas- ant places of London ; fascinating, for all their demureness, the damsels of France, clinging closely to their moth- ers, with large eyes wondering at the wicked world; excellent in her own place and to those who understand her is the Anglo-Indian * spin ' in her sec- ond season; but the girls of America are above and beyond them all. They are clever, they can talk — yea, it is said that they think. Certainly they have an r ppearance of so doing which is delightfully deceptive." ••* When Mrs. Kipling presented her husband with a son, the first male heir 105 I I ' i I I il.* »■■-' A KEN OF KIPLING. of the Kipling house, the event was lUed of enough ^-f^^^^- the press to announce the tact ^y tele graph in the newspapers. The new LLng San Francisco, .nsptredalocal poet to pen these hnes: KIPLING-ON-PARADB. ..Whatisth.bab,cr,taglorr»iaKipUng. ..or^T^i* it. J- .-W with it.- th. ..„SururtfMand...y.-th.M«n». .«'^^:Xn't;iththei,.by,i->th..-dro«n-. T::"Twin not sleep at -1, which malces the poet f««" ^ .i, £.ce is •E's nothin- but 'w slippers on A^"?'^1w"uan- t,ot.h.b.byunttlmo«i»'. ..Oh. what was it t.atonoe I wroter groaned Kipling said : ^ ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. t was ce by y tele- news a local Kiplins- , it," the id?" said e Mamma bedroom's all, which -'is face is tilmornin'. »?" groaned • Then Mrs. " 'Twas ' Please to walk in front sir, ' and Rud- yard, I'm afraid That the 'trouble' which you mentioned has the baby's sleep delayed." 'E is walkin' with the baby, which is cryin' more and more ; "There's worser thinf** than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnporo." Now it's "special train for Atkins" as 'e strides across the floor— Oh, the baby'll go to sleep to-morrow momin*. "It's cot is right- 'and cot to mine," said Kipling-on- Parade. "Oh, baby will not sleep, I know," the Mamma Kipling said. "I've walked this floor a thousand times," said Kipling-on-Parade. "Alas! that baby suffers so.'" the Mamma Kipling said. Now, barrack days are in 'is mind, in spite o' baby's yell; An' though 'is " 'eels are blistered" an' they "feels to 'urtlike 'ell," 'E "drops some tallow " in 'is socks, an' that does "make 'em well." An' so 'e keeps a-marchin' on 'til momin*. "Fix up some paregoric, dear," said Kipling- on- Parade. 107 'I* I A KEN OF KIPLING. "We used it all two days ago." tha Mamma Kipling said. "Then peppermint or catnip tea, " said Kipling- on-Parade. "We're out of both— do walk some more," the Mamma Kipling said. An' now the sun is rising, for at last has come the day. An' 'ittle baby, gone to sleep, is smilin', as to say: 'Oh, thank you, Mister Atkins, for this bloomin' night o' play, An' now I'm only sorry that it's momin'.'" '■1 h 1 i 'i I i\ ni ■ 1 08 imma )ling- l,*the It has this in'.'" VI. KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. In 1890, in the month of August, when Rudyard Kipling arrived in New York a poor, struggling, young jour- nalist, he secured a commission from a metropolitan newspaper to interview Mark Twain at his home in Elmira. Thither Mr. Kipling journeyed, and afterward, in the printed account of his visit, he described the temptation which had beset him to steal the great humorist's corncob pipe as a relic. It was a delicate touch of homage, coming from the man who has done more than any other to carry on the traditions established by the American writer, 109 A KEN OP KIPLING. i, ni If It I /I I and in so doing in a large measure to supersede him. How quickly came the good fortune of the British Indian and the misfor- tunes of the American. The appear- ance of " Departmental Ditties " and ** Barrack-Room Ballads " soon marked the beginning of a new sledge-hammer pen in literature. British India moved rapidly to the fore, and to-day Mr. Rudyard Kipling is the ideal mas- culine writer, and his is the pipe that is coveted by boys and elemental men. As a tribute to the journalistic labors of Mr. Kipling, as a compliment to Mark Twain, and to the credit of the New York Herald^ I append hereto the story of Mr. Kipling's interview with Mark Twain, as it originally appeared in The Herald over Mr. Kipling's sig- nature, on August 17th, 1890. no e to KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK TWAIN. You are a contemptible lot out there, over yonder. Some of you are Com- missioners, and some Lieutenant-Gov- ernors, and some have the V. C. , and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the Viceroy ; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and smoked a cigar — no, two cigars — with him, and talked with him for more than two hours! Understand clearly that I do not despise you; indeed, I don't. I am only very sorry for you all, from the Viceroy downward. To soothe your envy and to prove that I still regard you as my equals, I will tell you all about it. They said in Buffalo that he was in Hartford, Conn. ; and again they said perchance he is gone upon a journey to Portland, Me. ; and a big, fat drummer vowed that he knew the great man inti- mately, and that Mark was spending the summer in Europe — which infor- XII I'i ' ': ^1 ; I f\ i u! \' t A KEN OF KIPLING. mation so upset me that I embarked upon the wrong train, and was incon- tinently turned out by the conductor three-quarters of a mile from the sta- tion, amid the wilderness of railway tracks. Have you ever, encumbered with great coat and valise, tried to dodge diversely-minded locomotives when the sun was shining in your eyes? But I forgot that you have not seen Mark Twain, you people of no account ! Saved from the jaws of the cow- catcher, I wandered devious, a stranger met. " Elmira is the place. Elmira in the State of New York — this State, not two hundred miles away"; and he added, perfectly unnecessarily, " Slide, Kelly, slide." I slid on the West Shore line, I slid tUl midnight, and they dumped me down at the door of a frowzy hotel in Elmira. Yes, they knew all about "that man Clemens," but reckoned he was not in town ; had gone East some- where. I had better possess my soul KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. in patience till the morrow, and then dig up the " man Clemens' " brother-in- law, who was interested in coal. The idea of chasing half a dozen relatives in addition to Mark Twain up and down a city of thirty thousand inhabitants kept me awake. Morning revealed Elmira, whose streets were desolated by railway tracks, and whose suburbs were given up to the manufac- ture of door sashes and window frames. It was surrounded by pleasant, fat, little hills, trimmed with timber and topped with cultivation. The Che- mung River flowed generally up and down the town, and had just finished flooding a few of the main streets. The hotel man and the telephone man assured me that the much-desired brother-in-law was out of town, and no one seemed to know where " the man Clemens" abode. Later on I discov- ered that he had not summered in that place for more than nineteen seasons, and so was comparatively a new ar- rival. 8 113 ' .^'-m.wjji%.% > » , *ii !i ' ij ''»' : ^ in. i w i L ' .i ' Hi.!j. ' »i t iwi... '^ ." « > mi ¥ .f >' pi^f t i* i« > i _ Mfi m ill i j «* ^ %> I iiilM i«iii y * :U li\ |t»^ m f i F^ I'l A KEN OF KIPLING. A friendly policeman volunteered the news that he had seen Twain or some one very like him driving a buggy on the previous day. This gave me a de- lightful sense of nearness to the great author. Fancy living in a town where you could see the author of ** Tom Saw- yer," or " some one very like him," jolt- ing over the pavements in a buggy ! "He lives out yonder at East Hill," sdd the policeman ; " three miles from here." Then the chase began — in a hired hack, up an awful hill, where sunflow- ers blossomed by the roadside, and crops waved, and Harper's Magazine cows stood in eligible and commanding attitudes knee deep in clover, all ready to be transferred to photogravure. The great man must have been perse- cuted by outsiders aforetime, and fled up the hill for refuge. Presently the driver stopped at a miserable, little, white wood shanty, and demanded " Mister Clemens. " " I know he's a big bug and all that," 114 [red the It some Iggy on 16 a de- le great where |m Saw- i," jolt- t Hill," es from a hired sunflow- de, and iagazine manding ill ready gravure. n perse- and fled ed at a shanty, IS." ill that," KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. he explained, " but yon can never tell what sort of notions those sort of men take it into their heads to live in, any- ways. " There rose up a young lady who was sketching thistle tops and golden rod, amid a plentiful supply of both, and set the pilgrimage on the right path. "It's a pretty Gothic house on the left-hand side a little way farther on. " "Gothic h ," said the driver. " Very few of the city hacks take this drive, specially if they knew they are coming out here," and he glared at me savagely. It was a very pretty house, anything but Gothic, clothed with ivy, standing in a very big compound, and fronted by a veranda full of all sorts of chairs and hammocks for lying in all sorts of posi- tions. The roof of the veranda was a trellis-work of creepers, and the sun peeped through and moved on the shin- ing boards below. Decidedly this remote place was an ideal one for working in, if a man "5 ■ ■"liftlH i | i l ^ «ta » i.. '*! L 'l ■■ ■ ■■«» -M.HH. i JHi- ' Hm>.. W » Wj -.' W ... ! "WH«-f ' L ' .,., ' ■*! »*-(• ijt n-rBmi rt» ^' I i I iifc I ^m-^y* *'^ I i -.ii 4i k f |i' ; > A KEN OF KIPLING. could work amongf these soft airs and the murmur of the long-eared crops just across the stone wall. Appeared suddenly a lady used to dealing with rampageous outsiders. " Mr. Clemens has just walked down- town. He is at his brother-in-law's houce, " Then he was within shouting dis- tance, after all, and the chase had not been in vain. With speed I fled, and the driver, skidding the wheel and swearing audibly, arrived at the bottom of that hill without accidents. It was in the pause that followed between ringing the brother-in-law's bell and getting an answer that it occurred to me for the first time Mark Twain might possibly have other engage- ments than the entertainment of es- caped lunatics from India, be they ever so full of admiration. And in another man's house — anyhow, what had I come to do or say? Suppose the draw- ing-room should b-"! full of people, a levee of crowned heads; suppose a ii6 lii ') ' KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. Irs and baby were sick anywhere, how was I to I crops explain I only wanted to shake hands 1 with him? Ised to Then things happened somewhat in Isiders. this order. A big, darkened drawing- 1 down- room ; a huge chair ; a man with eyes, In -law's a mane of grizzled hair, a brown mous- 1 tache covering a mouth as delicate as a ig dis- woman's, a strong, square hand shak- lad not ing mine, and the slowest, calmest. ed, and levellest voice in all the world saying : el and " Well, you think you owe me some- bottom thing, and you've come to tell me so. It was That's what I call squaring a debt between handsomely." )ell and "Piff!" from a cob pipe (I always nrred to said that a Missouri meerschaum was . Twain the best smoking in the world), and, engage- behold! Mark Twain had curled him- t of es- self up in the big armchair, and I was ley ever smoking reverently, as befits one in the another presence of his superior. had I The thing that struck me first was le draw- that he was an elderly man ; yet, after eople, a a minute's thought, I perceived that it ppose a was otherwise, and in five minutes, the 117 . '■I . ■ ff l iiiON ir ui ..,■ «» . ' « ni » i ii .{ ' . i ". ' ^ -? '' JJ. < i| i Wi *y**''"'t'*JW L * W: ' , ** . ' ! '* J: ' !'. ' .! * _. ^ Ir 7 A KEN OF KIPL!NG. eyes looking at me, I saw that the gray hair was an accident of the most trivial kind. He was quite young. I was shaking his hand. I was smoking his cigar, and I was hearing him talk — this man I had learned to love and admire fourteen thousand miles away. Reading his books, I had striven to get an idea of his personality, and all my preconceived notions were wrong and beneath the reality. Blessed is the man who finds no disillusion when he is brought face to face with a re- vered writer. That was a moment to be remembered ; the land of a twelve- pound salmon was nothing to it. I had hooked Mark Twain, and he was treating me as though under certain circumstances I might be an equal. About this time I became aware that he was discussing the copyright ques- tion. Here, so far as I remember, is what he said. Attend to the words of the oracle through this unworthy me- dium transmitted. You will never be able to imagine the long, slow surge of ii8 0, M gray trivial was ig his -this Idmire en to nd all wrong ;sed is 1 when I a re- nent to twelve- it. I he was certain ual. are that t ques- nber, is iTords of thy me- ever be iurge of KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. the drawl, and the deadly gravity of the countenance, any more than the quaint pucker of the body, one foot thrown over the arm of the chair, the yellow pipe clinched in one corner of the mouth, and the right hand casually caressing the square chin : ''Copyright. Some men have mor- als, and some men have — other things. I presume a publisher is a man. He is not bom. He is created — by circum- stances. Some publishers have morals. Mine have. They pay me for the Eng- lish productions of my books. When you hear men talking of Bret Harte's works and other works and my books being pirated, ask them to be sure of their facts. I think they'll find the books are paid for. It was ever thus. "I remember an unprincipled and formidable publisher. Perhaps he's dead now. He used to take my short stories — I can't call it steal or pirate them. It was beyond these things al- together. He took my stories one at a time and made a book of it. If I wrote "9 . "•.. t* * «*- t»I.J-»l V II» rtm i fu ^ t i »ill« !«.- » i>ii«fi^mm<*Mkmmi»mim i >\ m im wwi m » .. » * i .j < ». . ■>«..-»»>»>- ■' 'I f\ If 1; r. 1;;^ I/' A KEN OF KIPLING. an essay on dentistry or theology or any little thing of that kind — just an essay that long (he indicated half an inch on his finger), any sort of essay — that publisher would amend and im- prove my essay. "He would get another man to write some more to it or cut it about exactly as his needs required. Then he would publish a book called * Dentistry by Mark Twain,' that little essay and some other things not mine added. Theology would make another book, and so on. I do not consider that fair. It's an insult. But he's dead now, I think. T didn't kill him. " There is a great deal of nonsense talked about international copyright. The proper way to treat a copyright is to make it exactly like real estate in every way. " It will settle itself under these con- ditions. If Congrf.ss were to bring in a law that a man's life was not to ex- tend over a hundred and sixty years, somebody would laugh. It wouldn't 120 .- u«-»ii-*A..»ii---i-. • * »<. t«w fc . w us»**4.tJi*^w>u »-t^ .♦'^ '-'■'♦■'*'*'VJi*_y-*'^ tj^ tiii ' iti a.i»-t ■t.«.>i.> ^ *.-..»v.» i L U. «k >»^» SAm^^^^ 'M-^ A 'Jk JkA iu Jv* «-i « MI *>-^W.* «">■». <^>' ■♦»♦-' I' 11 , 1 ■ 1 I , 'I I' 1^ ■> A KEN OF KIPLING. "Every now and -gfJXoXle that ^of °* ^;f a' „..ents against in- gress takes its argu ^ ^eady ntthe'e^-^ate view of the case heire one of *e senator. ^^^^^,. « He said: Suppose » , --'-f^^NliSn-Iwmever Uvr^et^"---^'""^ it. What then? 't the """ '* ,t thTman-s heirs and world ''g^^^^^'^n^der your theory.' assigns working under y ^^^^^ nsaid: 'Vouthink^an^^^^^^^j^^ are as big f°°l«^!^~ j^l sense. The world has uo commercial ^^^.^ ^ ScSY^^i-ret^t^e IXr" t:r^^ -- oU issuing side by side. ' ^ gcotfs « Take the case of bit vv^^^ novels," he continued, turning H U KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. to Irive ICon- It in- ready Jrong. case writ- 11 eve r issu'oie ect the irs and ory.' e world all the ,e. The an't be I prices. Kpensive i issuing sr Scott's g to me. "When the copyright notes protected them, I bought editions as expensive as I could afford, because I liked them. At the same time the same firm were selling editions that a cat might buy. They had their real estate, and not be- ing fools, recognized that one portion of the plot could be worked as a gold mine, another as a vegetable garden, and another as a marble quarry. Do you see?" What I saw with the greatest clear- ness was Mark Twain being forced to fight for the simple proposition that a man has as much right in the work of his brains (think of the heresy of it ! ) as in the labor of his hands. When the old lion roars, the young whelps growl. I growled assentingly, and the talk ran on from books in general to his own in particular. Growing bold, and feeling that I had a few hundred thousand folk at my back, I demanded whether Tom Sawyer married Judge Thatcher's daughter and whether we were ever 123 A KEN OF KIPLING. .!'<■ vt lii I!' S.'lM going to hear of Tom Sawyer as a man. "I haven't decided," quoth Mark Twain, gettinjj up, filling his pipe, and walking up and down the room in his slippers. " I have a notion of writing the sequel to ' Tom Sawyer ' in two ways. In one I would make him rise to great honor and go to Congress, and in the other I should hang him. Then the friends and enemies of the book could take their choice." Here I lost my reverence completely, and protested against any theory of the sort, because, to me at least, Tom Sawyer was real. "Oh, he is real," said Mark Twain. " He's all the boy !hat I have known or recollect; but tha. vould be a good way of ending the book " ; then, turn- ing round, "because, when you come to think of it, neither religion, train- ing, nor education avails anything against the force of circumstances that drive a man. Suppose we took the next four and twenty years of Tom 124 [as a [ark and in his •king two rise s, and Then book KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. Sawyer's life, and gave a little joggle to the circumstances that controlled him. He would logically and accord- ing to the joggle turn out a rip or an angel." " Do you believe that, then? " ** I think so. Isn't it what you call kismet?" "Yes; but don't give him two jog- gles and show the result, because he isn't your property any more. He be- longs to us. " Thereat he laughed — a large, whole- some laugh — and this began a disserta- tion on the rights of a man to do what he liked with his own creations, which bei.ig a matter of purely professional interest, I will mercifully omit. Returning to the big chair, he, speaking of truth and the like in liter- ature, said that an autobiography was the one work in which a man, against his own will and in spite of his utmost striving to the contrary, revealed him- self in his true light to the world. "A good deal of your life on the 125 • i| ■ i ^ if f:i ' !^ A KEN OF KIPLING. Mississippi ^s autobiographical, isn't it? " I asked. " As near as it can be — when a man is writing to a book and about himself. But in genuine autobiography, I be- lieve it is impossible for a man to tell the truth about himself or to avoid impressing- the reader with the truth about himself. " I made an experiment once. I got a friend of mine — a man painfully giv- en to speak the truth on all occasions — a man who wouldn't dream of telling a lie — and I made him write his autobi- ography for his own amiisement and mine. He did it. The manuscript would have made an octavo volume, but — good, honest man that he was — in every single detail of his life that I knew about he turned out, on paper, a formidable liar. He could not help himself. " It is not in human nature to write the truth about itself. None the less the reader gets a general impression from an autobiography whether the 126 >#>■ <»i N gt iMMfc ^ KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. I isn't man iself. II be- lo tell I avoid truth man is a fraud or a good man. The reader can't give his reasons any more than a man can explain why a woman struck him as being lovely when he doesn't remember her hair, eyes, teeth, or figure. And the impression that the reader gets is a correct one. " " Do you ever intend writing an au- tobiography? " "If I do, it will be as other men have done — with the most earnest de- sire to make myself out to be the bet- ter man in every little business that has been to my discredit ; and I shall fail, like the others, to make the readers believe anything except the truth. " This naturally led to a discussion on conscience. Then said Mark Twain, and his words are mighty and to be re- membered: " Your conscience is a nuisance. A conscience is like a child. If you pet it and play with it and let it have everything that it wants, it becomes spoiled and intrudes on all your amusements and most of your griefs. 127 If! ' . •<.■!•• -- '1 .: "h i , ^f! u I r i f ',1 'I 1 \\ ■ s r 5, 1 • i A KEN OF KIPLING. Treat your conscience as you would treat anything else. When it is rebel- lious, spank it — be severe with it, ar- gne with it, prevent it from, coming to play with you at all hours, and you will secure a good conscience; that is to say, a properly trained one. A spoiled one simply destroys all the pleasure in life. I think I have leauced mine to order. At least, I haven't heard from it for some time. Perhaps I have killed it from over-severity. It's wrong to kill a child, but, in spite of all I have said, a conscience differs from a child in many ways. Perhaps it's best when it's dead." Here he told me a little — such things as a man may tell a stranger — of his early life and upbringing, and in what manner he had been influenced for good by the example of his parents. He spoke always through his eyes, a light under the heavy eyebrows ; anon crossing the room with a step as light as a girl's, to show me some book or other ; then resuming his walk up and 128 ti tm - m i mnumn nm »>mf ii m iii<>*mr i»i[rwii>nil«l|i HWiir-»>.«i . I me to know what I think of the last book that every one is reading." " And how did the latest persecution affect you?" " Robert? " said he interrogatively. I *^odded. "I read it, of course, for the work- manship. That made me think I had neglected novels too long — that there might be a good many books as grace- ful in style somewhere on the shelves; so I began a course of novel reading. I have dropped it now; it did not amuse me. But as regards Robert, the effect on me was exactly as though a singer of street ballads were to hear excellent music from a church organ. I didn't stop to ask whether the music was legitimate or necessary. I lis- tened, and I liked what I heard. I am speaking of the grace and beauty of the style." How is one to behave when one differs altogether with a great man? My business was to be still and to lis- ten. Yet Mark — Mark Twain, a man 130 last :ution fely. work- I had there grace- helves ; ading. lid not )ert, the lough a to hear 1 organ, le music I lis- 1. I am eauty of hen one at man? id to lis- 1, a man KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. who knew men — " big Injun, heap big Injun, dam mighty heap big Injun " — master of tears and mirth, skilled in wisdom of the true inwardness of things — was bowing his head to the labored truck of the schools where men act in obedience to the books they read and keep their consciences in spirits of homemade wine. He said the style was graceful; therefore it must be graceful. But perhaps he was making fun of me. In either case I would lay my hand upon my mouth. "You see," he went on, "every man has his private opinion about a book. But that is my private opinion. If I had lived in the beginning of things, I should have looked around the town- ship to see what popular opinion thought of the murder of Abel before I openly condemned Cain. I should have had my private opinion, of course, but I shouldn't have expressed it until I had felt the way. You have my private opinion about that book. I don't know what my public ones 131 A KE>1 OF KIPUNG. are exactly. They won't upset the '"He'recurled htoseU into the chair and talked of other things. "I spend nine months ot ^n y atHartU. ^^-^^XeofS much work during ^^ people come m and -U^ J y.„ .j.^ au hours about ev J^^^^ ^ ^^^^^ rpaUs°oMntUptions. Itl^egan this way. ,^ gee no one ..A man came and wo but Mr. Clemens. He w ^^_ for P*>°tog;-TveTsetiom -e salon Ion pictures. 1 very pictures in my ^ooks- ^^^ "After that man another m , refused to see any one b^M.^^^^_ ens, came to °>ake "e ^^.^ iugton about somettang. ^^ I saw a third n>^°' ^fj^^^ grown tired this time it wasnoon.Ihadg^^_^^^„^^ ''^'buU^ fifth man was the only one K I KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. Ithe lair of the crowd with a card of his own. He sent up his card. * Ben Koontz, Hannibal, Mo. ' I was raised in Han- nibal. Ben was an old schoolmate of mine. Consequently I threw the house wide open and rushed with both hands out at a big, fat, heavy man, who was not the Ben I had ever known — nor anything like him. " ' But is it you, Ben? ' I said. • You've altered in the last thousand years. ' "The fat man said: 'Well. I'm not Koontz exactly, but I met him down in Missouri, and he told me to be sure and call on you, and he gave me his card, and' — here he acted the little scene for my benefit — * if you can wait a minute till I can get out the circulars — I'm not Koontz exactly, but I'm travelling with the fullest line of rods you ever saw. * •• "And what happened?" I asked breathlessly. " I shut th door. He was not Ben Koontz — exactly — not my old school- 133 A KEN OF KIPLING. fellow, but I had shaken him by both hands in love, and ... I had been bearded by a lightning-rod man in my own house. "As I was saying, I do very little work in Hartford. I come here for three months every year, and I work four or five hours a day in a study down the garden of that little house on the hill. Of course, I do not object to two or three interruptions. When a man is in the full swing of his work these little things do not affect him. Eight or ten or twenty interruptions retard composition." I was burning to ask him all manner of impertinent questions, as to which of his works he himself preferred, and so forth; but, standing in awe of his eyes, I dared not. He spoke on, and I listened grovelling. It was a question of mental equip- ment that was on the carpet, and I am still wondering whether he meant what he said. " Personally I never care for fiction 13 r :l KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. or Story books. What I like to read about are facts and statistics of any kind If they are only facts about the raising- of radishes, they interest me. Just now, for instance, before you came in " — he pointed to an encyclo- paedia on the shelves — " I was reading an article about ' Mathematics. ' Per- fectly pure mathematics. '* My own knowledge of mathematics stops at ' twelve times twelve, ' but I enjoyed that article immensely. I didn't understand a word of it; but facts, or what a man believes to be facts, are always delightful. That mathematical fellow believed in his facts. So do I. Get your facts first, and " — the voice dies away to an almost inaudible drone — *' then you can distort 'em as much as you please." Bearing this precious advice in my bosom, I left, the great man assuring me with gentle kindness that I had not interrupted him in the least. Once outside the door, I yearned to go back and ask some questions — it was easy 135 J! f ' .>vv i A KEN OF KIPLING. enough to think of them now — but his time was his own, though his books belonged to me. I should have ample time to look back to that meeting across the graves of the days. But it was sad to think of the things he had not spoken about. In San Francisco the men of The Call told me many legends of Mark's apprenticeship in their paper five and twenty years ago; how he was a re- porter delightfully incapable of report- ing according to the needs of the day. He preferred, so they said, to coil himself into a heap and meditate until the last minute. Then he would pro- duce copy bearing no sort of relation- ship to his legitimate work — copy that made the editor swear horribly, and the readers of The Call ask for more. I should like to have heard Mark's version of that and some stories of his joyous and variegated past. He has been journeyman printer (in those days he wandered from the banks of the Missouri even to Philadelphia), pi- 136 KIPLING AND MARK TWAIN. his looks lot cub and full-blown pilot, soldier of the South (that was for three weeks only), private secretary to a Lieuten- ant-Governor of Nevada (that dis- pleased him), miner, editor, special correspondent in the Sandwich Islands, and the Lord only knows what else. If so experienced a man could by any means be made drunk, it would be a glorious thing to fill him up with com- posite liquors, and, in the language of his own country, "let him retrospect." But these eyes will never see that orgy fit for tho gods. RuDYARD Kipling. !• if 137 n r 1) 1^ I' )i VII THE KIPLING BOOKS. Following is a reference list of the books written by Rudyard Kipling: I. QUARTETTE. CHRISTMAS ANNUAL. 8vo, pp. 125. Lahore. 1885. H. ON HER MAJESTY'S SERVICE ONLY. DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES. Oblong 8vo. Lahore. 1886. III. PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS, lamo. pp.283. Calcutta and London. 1888. IV. SOLDIERS THREE. i2mo, pp. 97. Allaha- bad. 1888. l'4\ m THE KIPLING BOOKS. 1 2 mo. V. THE STORY OK THE GADSBYS. i2mo, pp. lOO. Allahabad. N. D. (1888.) VT. IN BLACK AND WHITE, tamo, pp. xo6, Allahabad. N. D. (1888.) VII. UNDER THE DEODARS. i2mo, pp. io6 Allahabad. N. D. (1888.) VIII. THE PHANTOM 'RICKSH UV AND OTHER TALES. i3mo, pp. 104. Allahabad. N. D. (1888.) IX. WEE WILLIE WINKIE AND OTHER STORIES. i2mo, pp. 96. Allahabad. N. D. (1888.) X. THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD AND OTHER STORIES. l2mo, pp. 182. New York. l8go. XL DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES AND OTHER VERSES. i2mo, pp. 121. Calcutta, Lon- don and Bombay. iSgi. 139 i M i ^ (I >! / A KEN OF KIPLING. XII. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT. l2mo, pp. g6. Allahabad. N. D. (1891.) XIII. LIFE'S HANDICAP. STORIES OF MINE OWN PEOPLE. i2mo, pp. 351. London aad New York. 1891. XIV. LETTERS OF MARQUE. 8vo, pp. 154. Allahabad. 1891. XV. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS AND OTHER VERSES. i2mo, pp. 208. London. 1892. XVI. THE NAULAHKA. A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. i2mo, pp. 276. London and New York. 1892. XVII. BALLADS AND BARRACK-ROOM BAL- LADS. Z2mo, pp. 207. New York and Lon- don. 1892. XVIII. MANY INVENTIONS. i2mo, pp. 365. Lon- don and New York. 1893. X40 THE KIPLING BOOKS. XIX. THE JUNGLE BOOK. i2mo. pp. 212. Lon- don and New York. 1894. XX. THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK. i2mo, pp. 238, London and New York. 1895. XXI. THE SEVEN SEAS. i2mo, London and New York. 1896. XXII. SLAVES OF THE LAMP. i2mo. London and New York. 1897. XXIII. CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS. i2mo, pp. 387. New York and London. ^897. XXIV. THE DAY'S WORK. i2mo. New York and London. 1898. XXV. A FLEET IN BEING. London. 1899. XXVI. STALKY & COMPANY. i2mo. London and New York. 1899. 141 r i » • • . . ■• •