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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18045-8.txt b/18045-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..baa07a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/18045-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2603 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Rudyard Kipling, by John Palmer + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Rudyard Kipling + + +Author: John Palmer + + + +Release Date: March 24, 2006 [eBook #18045] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDYARD KIPLING*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 18045-h.htm or 18045-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/4/18045/18045-h/18045-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/4/18045/18045-h.zip) + + + + + +RUDYARD KIPLING + +by + +JOHN PALMER + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Rudyard Kipling] + + + + +New York +Henry Holt and Company +First Published in 1915 + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. INTRODUCTION + II. SIMLA + III. THE SAHIB + IV. NATIVE INDIA + V. SOLDIERS THREE + VI. THE DAY'S WORK + VII. THE FINER GRAIN + VIII. THE POEMS + BIBLIOGRAPHY + AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY + INDEX + + + + +I + +INTRODUCTION + +There is a tale of Mr Kipling which relates how Eustace Cleever, a +celebrated novelist, came to the rooms of a young subaltern and his +companions who were giving an account of themselves. Eustace Cleever +was a literary man, and was greatly impressed when he learned that one +of the company, who was under twenty-five and was called the Infant, +had killed people somewhere in Burma. He was suddenly caught by an +immense enthusiasm for the active life--the sort of enthusiasm which +sedentary authors feel. Eustace Cleever ended the night riotously with +youngsters who had helped to govern and extend the Empire; and he +returned from their company incoherently uttering a deep contempt for +art and letters. + +But Eustace Cleever was being observed by the First Person Singular of +Mr Kipling's tale. This receiver of confidences perceived what was +happening, and he has the last word of the story: + + +"Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator and colourman in +words, was blaspheming his own Art and would be sorry for this in the +morning." + + +We have here an important clue to Mr Kipling and his work. Mr Kipling +writes of the heroic life. He writes of men who do visible and +measurable things. His theme has usually to do with the world's work. +He writes of the locomotive and the engineer; of the mill-wheel and the +miller; of the bolts, bars and planks of a ship and the men who sail +it. He writes, in short, of any creature which has work to do and does +it well. Nevertheless we must not be misled into thinking that because +Mr Kipling glorifies all that is concrete, practical, visible and +active he is therefore any the less purely and utterly a literary man. +Mr Kipling seems sometimes to write as an engineer, sometimes as a +soldier. At times we would wager that he had spent all his life as a +Captain of Marines, or as a Keeper of Woods and Forests, or as a +Horse-Dealer. He gives his readers the impression that he has lived a +hundred lives, mastered many crafts, and led the life, not of one, but +of a dozen, active and practical men of affairs. He has created about +himself so complete an illusion of adventure and enterprise that it +seems almost the least important thing about him that he should also be +a writer of books. His readers, indeed, are apt to forget the most +important fact as to Mr Kipling--the fact that he is a man of letters. +He seems to belong rather to the company of young subalterns than to +the company of Eustace Cleever. + +Hence it is necessary to consider closely the moral of that excellent +tale. When Eustace Cleever blasphemed against his art, Mr Kipling +predicted he would be sorry for it. Mr Kipling recorded that +prediction because he had the best of reasons to know how Eustace +Cleever would feel upon the morning after his debauch of enthusiasm for +the heroic life. Let each man keep to his work, and know how good it +is to do that work as well as it can be done. Eustace Cleever's work +was to live the life of imagination and to handle English words--work +as difficult to do and normally as useful as the job of the Infant. +Though for one heady night Eustace Cleever yearned after a strange +career, Mr Kipling knew that he would return without misgiving to the +thing he was born to do. Mr Kipling, like Eustace Cleever, knows that +though nothing is more pleasant than to talk with young subalterns, yet +the born author remains always an author. He knows, too, that even the +deeds he admires in the men who make history are, for him, no more than +raw stuff to be taken in hand or rejected according to the author's +need. + +Mr Kipling, in short, is a man of letters, and we shall realise, before +we have done with him, that he is an extremely crafty and careful man +of letters. Tales which seem to come out of the barrack-yard, out of +the jungle or the deep sea, out of the dust and noise where men are +working and building and fighting, come really out of the study of an +expert craftsman using the tools of his craft with deliberate care. +This may seem an unnecessary warning. The intelligent reader will +protest that, since Mr Kipling writes books, it does not seem very +necessary to deduce that he is a man of letters. It is true that no +such warning would be necessary in the case of most writers of books. +It would be pure loss of time, for example, to begin a study of the +work of Mr Henry James by asserting that Mr Henry James was a man of +letters. But Mr Kipling is in rather a different case. The majority +of readers with whom one discusses Mr Kipling's works are sometimes far +astray, simply because they have not realised that Mr Kipling is as +utterly a man of letters as Mr Henry James, that he lives as completely +the life of fancy and meditation as William Blake or Francis Thompson. +Mr Kipling does not write tales out of the mere fullness of his life in +many continents and his talk with all kinds of men. He is not to be +understood as a man singular only in his experience, unloading +anecdotes from a crowded life, excelling in emphasis and reality by +virtue of things actually seen and done. On the contrary, Mr Kipling +writes tales because he is a writer. + +Mr Kipling has seen more of the scattered life of the world and been +more keenly interested in the work of the world than some of his +literary contemporaries. But this does not imply that he is any the +less devoted to the craft of letters. Indeed, we shall realise that he +is one of the craftiest authors who ever lived. He is more crafty than +Stevenson. He often lives by the word alone--the word picked and +polished. That he has successfully disguised this fact from many of +his admirers is only a further proof of his literary cunning. Mr +Kipling often uses words with great skill to create in his readers the +impression that words matter to him hardly at all. He will work as +hard as the careful sonneteer to give to his manner a tang of rawness +and crudity; and thereby his readers are willing to forget that he is a +literary man. They are content simply to listen to a man who has seen, +and possibly done, wonders in all parts of the world, neglecting to +observe that, if the world with its day's work belongs to Mr Kipling, +it belongs to him only by author's right--that is, by right of +imagination and right of style. + +It is true that Mr Kipling is lawless and contemptuous of literary +formality; and that whenever he talks of "Art," as in certain pages of +_The Light That Failed_, he tries to talk as though there were really +no such thing. But Mr Kipling's cheerful contempt of all that is +pedantic and magisterial in "Art" does not imply that he is innocent of +literary discipline. It is true that Mr Kipling is lawless in the +sense that all good work is more than a conscious adherence to formula. +It is not true in the sense that Mr Kipling is more lawless than +Tennyson or Walter Scott. Readers of Mr Kipling's stories must not be +misled by his buccaneering contempt for formal art. Mr Kipling's art +is as formal as the art of Wilde, or the art of Baudelaire, which he +helped to send out of fashion. + +A few preliminary words are necessary (1) as to the half-dozen dates +which bear upon Mr Kipling's authorship and (2) as to the arrangement +of his works here to be followed. + +Mr Kipling was born in 1865, the son of J. Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E. +His intimacy with India was determined at birth. He was educated at +the United Services College, Westward Ho, but was again in India in +1882, as assistant editor on _The Civil and Military Gazette_ and _The +Pioneer_. He remained on the staff of _The Pioneer_ for seven years, +and travelled over the five continents. By this time he had learned to +think of the world as a place rather more diversified than a walk from +Charing Cross to Whitehall would lead one to imagine; to see something +of men upon its frontiers, and to love England as men do who come back +to her from the ends of the earth. The whole of Mr Kipling's literary +biography is contained in the fact that Mr Kipling has been a great +traveller who is now inveterately at home. + +Perhaps we should also note that Mr Kipling was a literary prodigy. +_Plain Tales from the Hills_ appeared in 1887. Mr Kipling at +twenty-two had shown his quality and had already mapped out in little +his career. In _Plain Tales from the Hills_ there are hints for almost +everything that their author afterwards accomplished. As the book of a +young journalist whose name had not yet been whispered among the +publishers and critics of London it was a miracle. If Mr Kipling had +been able to improve on _Plain Tales from the Hills_ as much as +Shakespeare improved on _Love's Labour's Lost_, as much as Shelley +improved on _Queen Mab_, Robert Browning on _Pauline_, Byron on _Hours +of Idleness_, he would to-day be without a peer. Mr Granville Barker +is often cited as a classical modern example of precocity, but he was +twenty-four when he wrote _The Marrying of Anne Leete_. Mr Henry James +was twenty-eight before he had published a characteristic word. Mr +Thomas Hardy at twenty-five had only printed a short story, and he was +more than thirty when his first novel appeared. Mr Kipling came upon +the public in 1886 without a preliminary stutter. Mr Kipling at +twenty-two could write as craftily as Mr Kipling can write after nearly +thirty years' experience. We shall not be greatly concerned in these +pages to trace the progress of Mr Kipling's craft and wisdom. He was +always crafty and always wise. He had done some of his best work at +thirty. He recalls Hazlitt's curious saying that an improving author +is never a great author. Mr Kipling is not an improving author. There +has been a little moving up and down the scale of excellence; many +things hinted in the early volumes from _Plain Tales from the Hills_ to +_Many Inventions_ are developed more elaborately and surely in later +volumes; the old craft has come to be used with an ease that has in it +more of the insolence of a master than was possible in the author of +1887. But so far as literary finish is concerned, _Plain Tales from +the Hills_ leaves little to be acquired. Already Mr Kipling wields his +implement as deftly and firmly as many a skilled writer who was +learning his lesson before Mr Kipling was born. Few authors have so +surely scored their best in their earliest years. Authors are +considered young to-day at thirty. Mr Kipling at that age had already +written _The Jungle Book_. + +This does not, of course, imply that all Mr Kipling's stories are of +equal merit. On the contrary, we shall henceforth be mainly concerned +with looking for the inspired author under a mass of skilful +journalism. It is not a simple enterprise. Mr Kipling is so competent +an author that he is usually able to persuade his readers that his +heart is equally in all he writes. Moreover, Mr Kipling has fallen +among many prejudices, literary and political, which have caused his +least important work to be most discussed. For these reasons the +actual, as distinguished from the legendary, Mr Kipling is not easily +discovered. Mainly it is a work of excavation. + +Mr Kipling has been writing short stories for nearly thirty years. His +tales are too numerous for disparate discussion. It will be necessary +to take them in groups. One or two stories in each group will be taken +as typical of the rest. Thereby we shall avoid repetition and be able +to show some sort of plan to the maze of Mr Kipling's diversity of +subjects and manners. + + + + +II + +SIMLA + +Mr Kipling's Indian stories fall into three groups. There are (1) the +tales of Simla, (2) the Anglo-Indian tales, and (3) the tales of native +India. There is also _Kim_, which is more--much more--than a tale of +India. + +Mr Kipling's Indian stories necessarily tend to fill a disproportionate +amount of space. They are of less account than their number or the +attention they have received would seem to imply. Their discussion in +this and the two following chapters will be more of a political than a +literary discussion. Mr Kipling as journalist and very efficient +colourman in words has made much of India in his time. He has +perceived in India a subject susceptible of being profitably worked +upon. Here was a vast continent, the particular concern of the +English, where all kinds of interesting work was being done, where +stories grew too thickly for counting, and where there was, ready to +the teller's eye, a richness and diversity of setting which beggared +the most eager penmanship. Moreover, this continent was virtually +untouched in the popular literature of the day. Naturally Mr Kipling +made full use of his opportunity. He did not write of India because +India was essential to his genius, but because he was shrewd enough to +realise that nothing could better serve the purpose of a young author +than to exploit his first-hand acquisition of an inexhaustible store of +fresh and excellent material. India was annexed by Mr Kipling at +twenty-two for his own literary purposes. He was not born to interpret +India, nor does he throw his literary heart and soul into the business. +When, in the Indian stories, we meet with pages sincerely inspired we +discover that their inspiration has very little to do with India and a +great deal to do with Mr Kipling's impulse to celebrate the work of the +world, and even more to do with his impulse to escape the intellectual +casuistry of his generation in a region where life is simple and +intense. These aspects of his work will be more clearly revealed at a +later stage. For the moment we are considering the Indian tales simply +as tales of India; and from this point of view they obviously belong to +the journalist rather than to the author who has helped to make the +English short story respectable. Mr Kipling simply gets out of India +the maximum of literary effect as a teller of tales. India, for +example, is mysterious. Mr Kipling exploits her mystery competently +and coolly, making his points with the precision, clarity and force of +one to whom the enterprise begins and ends as an affair of technical +adequacy. The point is made with equal ability that India is not +without peril and difficulty ruled and administered by the sahibs; or +that India has a complicated history; or that India is thickly peopled. +Mr Kipling in his Indian tales makes the most of his talent for +observing things, always with a keen eye for their effective literary +employment. His Indian tales are descriptive journalism of a high +quality; and, being journalism, their matter and their doctrine have +hit hard the attention of their particular day. + +This reduces us to the necessity of considering not so much their form +and quality as the ideas and doctrines they contain--a barren task but +necessary in order to clear away many misconceptions with regard to Mr +Kipling's work. Regarded as literature, Mr Kipling's Indian tales are +mainly of note as preparing in him that enthusiasm for the work of the +world which, later, was to inspire his greatest pages; as finally +leading him in _Kim_ to a door whereby he was able to pass into the +region of pure fancy where alone he is supremely happy, and as +prompting in him the instinct to simplify which urged him into the +jungle and into the minds of children. But all this has very little to +do with India. So long as we are dealing with Mr Kipling's Indian +stories as in themselves finished and intrinsic studies of India, we +remain only in the suburbs of Mr Kipling's merit as an author. The +Simla tales are not more than a skilful employment of a literary +convention which Mr Kipling did not inherit. The Anglo-Indian and +native tales are the not less skilful work of a young newspaper man +breaking into a storehouse of new material. We are interested firstly +in Mr Kipling's craft as a technician, as one who makes the most of his +theme deliberately and self-consciously; and secondly in Mr Kipling's +point of view, in the impressions and ideas he has collected concerning +the country of which he writes. Until we arrive at _The Day's Work_ we +shall be mainly occupied in clearing the ground of impertinent +prejudices concerning Mr Kipling's temperament and politics. For +though the Indian and soldier tales are as literature not impregnable +to criticism, they can at any rate be rescued from those who have +annexed or repudiated them from motives which have little to do with +their literary value. + +We will begin with the Simla tales. + +Characteristically the author who began virtually at the end of his +career--proclaiming himself a finished virtuoso at the start--entered +into prose with a volume of tales, radiating from Simla, which betray +qualities that are usually associated with the later rather than with +the early work of an author. _Plain Tales from the Hills_ number more +Simla stories to the square page than any other volume of Mr Kipling. +Now Mr Kipling's Simla stories are the least important, but in some +ways the most significant of all the stories he wrote. They begin and +they end in sheer literary virtuosity. We feel in reading Mr Kipling's +studies of the social world at Simla that he had no intuitive call to +write them; that they are exercises in craft rather than genuine +inspirations. Mrs Hawksbee stands for nothing in Mr Kipling's +achievement save only for his power to create an illusion of reality +and enthusiasm by sheer finish of style. She is not a creation. She +is only the best possible example of the clever sleight-of-hand of an +accomplished artificer. She is in literary fiction cousin to the +witty, flirtatious ladies of the modern English theatre. Her +conversation is delightful, but it belongs to nobody. It does not even +belong to her author. Mrs Hawksbee talks as all well-dressed women +talk in the best books. She does it with a volubility and +resourcefulness which almost disguises the fact that she lives only by +hanging desperately to the end of her author's pen; but she cannot +deceive us always. Mr Kipling does not really believe in Mrs Hawksbee. +He has no real sympathy or knowledge of the social undercrust where the +tangle of three is a constant theme. The talk of Mrs Hawksbee and her +circle is derived. Its conduct is fashionable light comedy in an +Indian setting. + +Simla really does not deserve to be known outside the Indian Empire. +It is a comparatively cool place whither Indian soldier and civilians +send their wives in the hot weather and whither they retire themselves +under medical advice. It is not unlike any other warm and idle city of +rest where there is every kind of expensive amusement provided for a +migratory population. Mr Kipling has failed to make Simla interesting, +because Simla is Biarritz and Monte Carlo or any place which in fiction +is frequented by people who behave naughtily and enjoy themselves, and +in real life is frequented by the upper middle classes mechanically +passing the time. Mr Kipling's ingenious pretences regarding Simla are +amusing, but they cannot long conceal from his readers that these +tales, apart from literary exhibition, were really not worth the +telling. Mr Kipling pretends, of course, even at twenty-four, to know +of all that passes between women unlacing after a ball; but Mr +Kipling's pretended omniscience is part of his literary method, and he +does not quite carry it off in the Simla tales. He gives us not Simla +or any place under the sun, but a sparkling stage version of Simla--all +dancing and delight, a little intrigue, a touch of sentiment, patches +of excellent fun, and now and then a streak of Indian mystery. But Mr +Kipling's heart is not really in this business. His Simla tales will +not endure, and they have been given too much prominence in the popular +idea of his work. They are not plain tales, but tales very artfully +coloured. They fall far short of the standard to which Mr Kipling has +raised the English short story. Yet even here we may note the skill +with which the author has concealed his failure. Mrs Hawksbee may be +taken as a symbol of the distinction between the work of an inspired +author and the work of an author playing with his tools. Mr Kipling of +_The Jungle Books_ and _The Day's Work_ is an inspired author. Mr +Kipling of the Simla tales, on the other hand, is simply concerned to +show that he can work a conventional formula of the day as well as any +man; that he can redeem the formula with individual touches beyond the +reach of most; and can enliven it with impudent pretences which please +by virtue of their being utterly preposterous. Take, for example, the +pretence that Mrs Hawksbee is a charming woman. Mrs Hawksbee is really +nothing of the kind. She is an anthology of witty phrases. She is the +abstract perfection of what a clever head and a good heart is expected +to be in a fashionable comedy. But Mr Kipling desires her to be +accepted as a charming woman. His procedure, on a high and delicate +plane, is precisely the procedure to which we are accustomed on a low +and obvious plane in the majority of popular novels where the hero has +to be accepted for a man of brilliant genius. We have to take the +author's word for it. The author who tells us that his hero is a +genius usually requires us to believe it without further proof. He +does not show us a page of the hero's music or the hero's poetry, but +we must believe that it is very fine, even though the hero loves Pietro +Mascagni and worships Martin Tupper. Similarly Mr Kipling, presenting +us with Mrs Hawksbee, nowhere affords us direct evidence that she is a +charming woman. He assumes it, gets everyone else in the story to +assume it, and expects his readers to assume it--his cunning as a +writer being of so remarkable a quality that there are very few of the +Simla tales in which the reader is not prepared to assume it for the +sake of the story. + +Mrs Hawksbee is typical of the majority of Mr Kipling's studies in +social comedy. His success in this kind is remarkable, but it is +barren. Mr Kipling realised this himself quite early, for he quite +soon abandoned Simla. There are some sixteen stories in _Plain Tales +from the Hills_ into which the Simla motive is threaded. In the books +immediately following, published in 1888 and 1889, Simla is not wholly +abandoned, but the proportion of Simla stories is less. _The Phantom +Rickshaw_ (1889) is the last story which can fairly be brought within +the list, and this story can only be included by straining its point to +vanishing. Of all the groups of stories in _Plain Tales from the +Hills_ the Simla group, though it was largest, promised least for the +future. + + + + +III + +THE SAHIB + +There is another group of Indian tales, a group which deals with the +governance of India--with the men who are spent in the Imperial +Service. The peculiar charm and merit of these tales is best +considered as a special case of Mr Kipling's delight in the world's +work--a subject which claims a chapter to itself. But apart from this, +Mr Kipling's Anglo-Indian tales--his presentation of the work of the +Indian Empire, of the Anglo-Indian soldier and civilian--have an +unfortunate interest of their own. They are mainly responsible for a +misconception which has dogged Mr Kipling through all his career. This +misconception consists in regarding Mr Kipling as primarily an +Imperialist pamphleteer with a brief for the Services and a contempt +for the Progressive Parties. It is an error which has acted +mischievously upon all who share it--upon the reader who mechanically +regrets that Mr Kipling's work should be disfigured with fierce heresy; +upon the reader who chuckles with sectarian glee when the "much +talkers" are mocked and confounded; upon Mr Kipling himself who has +been encouraged to mistake an accident of his career as the essence of +his achievement and to regard himself as a sort of Imperial laureate. +The origin of this misconception is not obscure. Mr Kipling has +written intimate tales of the British Army: he is, therefore, a +"militarist." He has lived in India many years, and realised that men +who live in India, and administer India, and come into personal contact +with Hindus and Mohammedans, know more about India than Members of +Parliament who run through the Indian continent between sessions: he +is, therefore, a reviler of the free democratic institutions of Great +Britain. He has realised that Government departments in Whitehall are +not always thought to be very expeditious, well informed and devoted by +men who are often confronted with matters that cannot afford to wait +for a telegram: he is, therefore, a lover of the high hand and of +courses brutal and irregular. He has celebrated the toil and the +adventure of pioneers and of outposts: he is, therefore, one who +brandishes unseasonably the Imperial sword. + +The grain of truth in these deductions is heavily outweighed by the +massive absurdity of regarding them as in any sense essential. Mr +Kipling brings political prejudice into his work less than almost any +living contemporary. At a time when there was hardly an English novel +or an English play of consequence which was not also a political +pamphlet it was completely false to regard Mr Kipling as a pamphleteer. +When most of our English authors were talking from the platform, Mr +Kipling--with a few, too few, others--remained apart. He is suspect, +not because his Anglo-Indian tales or his army tales are political, but +because they record much that is true of the English Services, which +fails to square with much that once was popularly believed about them. +The real reason of Mr Kipling's false fame as a politician is, not that +he is an Imperial pamphleteer, but that, writing of the Army and the +Empire, he fails to be a pamphleteer on the other side. His +detachment, not his partiality, is at fault. + +Mr Kipling's detachment from the politics of his day explains virtually +everything that has offended his modern critics. Almost the first +thing to realise in discussing Mr Kipling's attitude to modern life is +that Mr Kipling has kept absolutely clear of the political and social +drift of the last thirty years. He has been conspicuously out of +everything. He has had nothing to say to any of the ideas or +influences which have formed his contemporaries. While others of his +literary generation were growing up amid intellectual movements, +democratic tendencies and advances of humanity, Mr Kipling was standing +between two civilisations in India which were hardly susceptible of +being reconciled till they had been reduced to very simple terms. The +instinct to simplify--to get down to something in nature that included +the East with the West, the First with the Twentieth century, was +naturally strong in one who was born between two nations; and it was an +instinct which drove Mr Kipling in the opposite direction from that in +which his contemporaries were moving. While Mr Kipling's generation +was learning to analyse, refine and interrogate, to become super-subtle +and incredulous, to exalt the particular and ignore the general, to +probe into the intricate and sensitive places of modern life, Mr +Kipling was looking at mankind in the mass, looking back to the +half-dozen realities which are the stuff of the poetry of every climate +and period--to love of country which is as old as the waters of +Babylon, to the faith of Achates, and the affliction of Job. While Mr +Kipling's contemporaries have been working towards minute studies of +individuals and groups, Mr Kipling has been content to catch the metal +of humanity at the flash point, to wait for the passionate moment which +reveals all mankind as of one kindred. "We be of one blood, ye and +I"--the phrase of the Jungle holds. + +To find here evidence of a bias merely political, of an attitude +reactionary and hostile to the progress o the world, is to deny sense +and meaning to the greatest literature of the world. Mr Kipling's +instinctive simplifying of life he shares with the immortals. It is, +as we shall see, the immortal part of him. To write of Mr Kipling as +though he celebrates the ape and the tiger; extols the Philistine and +the brute; calls always for more chops--"bloody ones with gristle"; +delights in the savagery of war, and ferociously despises all that +separates the Englishman of to-day from his painted ancestor--this is +the mistake of critics who cannot distinguish the cant of progress from +its reality. + +We shall be driven more particularly to consider Mr Kipling's atavism +in discussing his tales of the British Army. For the present we are +dealing only with India and the "Imperialism" which some of Mr +Kipling's critics have taken for an offensive proof of his political +prejudice. Mr Kipling's treatment of the Anglo-Indian, and of the +dealing of the Anglo-Indian with the Indian Empire, has nothing to do +with the Yellows and the Blues. The real motive of Mr Kipling's +attitude towards the men on the frontier, in places where deadly things +are encountered and there is work to be done, is no more a matter of +politics, "progressive" or "reactionary," than is his celebration of +the Maltese Cat or of .007. "The White Man's Burden" is the burden of +every creature in whom there lives the pride of unrewarded labour, of +endurance and courage. In India this pride has to be wholesomely +tempered with humility; for India is old and vast and incomprehensible, +to be handled with care, to be approached as a country which, though it +shows an inscrutably smiling face to the modern world, has the power +suddenly to baffle its modern rulers by opening to them glimpses of an +intricate and unassailable life which cannot be ruffled by Orders in +Council or disturbed by the weak ploughing of teachers from the West. +The task of the Anglo-Indian administrator is, indeed, the finest +opportunity for that heroic life to the celebration of which Mr Kipling +has devoted so many of his tales. This hero has a task which taxes all +his ability, which promises little riches and little fame, and is known +to be tolerably hopeless. It offers to him a supreme test of his +virtue--a test in which the hero is accountable only to his personal +will; whose best work is its own reward and comfort. + + +"Gentlemen come from England," writes Mr Kipling in one of his Indian +tales, "spend a few weeks in India, walk round this great sphinx of the +Plains, and write books upon its ways and its work, denouncing or +praising it as their ignorance prompts. Consequently all the world +knows how the Supreme Government conducts itself. But no one, not even +the Supreme Government, knows everything about the administration of +the Empire. Year by year England sends out fresh drafts for the first +fighting-line, which is officially called the Indian Civil Service. +These die, or kill themselves by overwork, or are worried to death, or +broken in health and hope, in order that the land may be protected from +death and sickness, famine and war, and may eventually become capable +of standing alone. It will never stand alone; but the idea is a pretty +one, and men are willing to die for it, and yearly the work of pushing +and coaxing and scolding and petting the country into good living goes +forward. If an advance be made, all credit is given to the native, +while the Englishmen stand back and wipe their foreheads. If a failure +occurs, the Englishmen step forward and accept the blame." + + +This passage declares the heroic spirit of Mr Kipling's Anglo-Indian +tales; and many readers will fail to understand how exactly this spirit +has been found vainglorious. + +There is a passage in Shakespeare where a king's envoy comes to claim +of a high-mettled and sweating warrior the fruits of victory. The +warrior grudges less surrendering the fruits of victory to the king +than he grudges surrendering his anger at being easily and prettily +addressed on the field of battle by a polite and dainty fellow who has +no idea how dearly the fruits of victory are purchased. Mr Kipling's +heroes are frail enough to feel some of this very natural indignation +when unbreathed politicians lecture them in the heat of their Indian +day. They come into touch with things simple and bitter. India has +searched out the value of many a Western shibboleth, destroyed many +doctrines, principles, ideas and theories. Phrases which look well in +a peroration look foolish when there is immediate work to be done, and +expediency begins to rule. The first lesson which the Indian civilian +learns, a lesson which is rarely omitted from any of Mr Kipling's +Indian stories, is that practical men are better for being ready to +take the world as they find it. The men who worship the Great God +Dungara, the God of Things as They Are, most terrible, One-eyed, +Bearing the Red Elephant Tusk--men who are set on saving their own +particular business--have no time for saving faces and phrases. They +have small respect for a principle. They have seen too many principles +break down under the particular instance. Hence there is in all Mr +Kipling's work a disrespect of things which are printed and made much +of in the contemporary British press; and this, again, has encouraged +the idea that he is "reactionary," contemptuous of the humanities, and +enemy of all the best poets and philosophers. + +It will perhaps be well to look a little closely at one or two of Mr +Kipling's Indian series. They will help us to realise how the charges +we are discussing have arisen and exactly how unreasonable they are. +The first of two excellent examples is the story of _Tods' Amendment_. +_Tods' Amendment_ is the story of a Bill brought in by the Supreme +Legislative Council of India. Tods was an English baby of six, and he +mixed on friendly terms with Indians in the bazaar and with members of +the Supreme Legislative Council. The Council was at this time devising +a new scheme of land tenure which aimed at "safeguarding the interests" +of a few hundred thousand cultivators of the Punjab. The Bill was +beautiful on paper; and the Legal Member, who knew Tods, was settling +the "minor details." The weak part of the business was that European +legislators, dealing with natives, are often puzzled to know which +details are the major and which the minor. Also the Native Member was +from Calcutta, and knew nothing about the Punjab. Nevertheless, the +Bill was known to be a beautiful Bill till Tods happened one evening to +be sitting on the knee of the Legal Member, and to hear him mention +_The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment_. Tods had heard the +bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when +there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the +Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only +one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was +altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause which so +clearly "safeguarded the interests of the tenant." It therefore came +about that the rough draft of the Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised +Enactment was put away in the Legal Member's private paper-box--"and, +opposite the twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed +by the Legal Member, are the words, 'Tods' Amendment.'" + +The moral of the tale is not obscure. A baby who runs in the bazaar is +better able to legislate for India than a Supreme Legislative Council. +India, in short, is a vast and uncertain land, whose ways are not +always learned in a lifetime by the men whose business it is. The +argument _a fortiori_--namely, that amiable and humane political +philosophers, well bred in the latest European theories of government, +are even less likely to be infallible--need not be pursued. + +Our second story is the story of Aurelian McGoggin. Aurelian McGoggin +had read too many books, and he had too many theories. He also had a +creed: "It was not much of a creed. It only proved that men had no +souls, and there was no God and no hereafter, and that you must worry +along somehow for the good of humanity." McGoggin had found it an +excellent creed for a Government office, and he brought it to India and +tried to teach it to all his friends. His friends had found that life +in India is not long enough to waste in proving that there is no one +particular at the head of affairs, and they objected. They also warned +McGoggin not to be too good for his work, and not to insist on doing it +better than it needed to be done, because people in India wanted all +their energy for bare life. But McGoggin would not be warned, and one +day, when he had steadily overworked and overtalked through the hot +season, he was suddenly interrupted at the club, in the middle of an +oration. The doctor called it _aphasia_; but McGoggin only knew that +he was struck sensationally dumb: "Something had wiped his lips of +speech as a mother wipes the milky lips of her child, and he was +afraid. For a moment he had lost his mind and memory--which was +preposterous and something for which his philosophy did not allow. +Henceforth he did not appear to know so much as he used to about things +Divine." + +McGoggin, in fact, was converted; for, as Mr Kipling explains, his +story is really a tract--a tract whose purpose is to convey that India +is able to cure the most resolute positivist of his positivism. Mr +Kipling's India is a land where science is mocked, and synthetic +philosophies perish, and mere talk is wiped from the lips. You do not +talk of Humanity in India, because in India "you really see +humanity--raw, brown, naked humanity--with nothing between it and the +blazing sky, and only the used-up, overhandled earth underfoot." Mr +Kipling's Indian administrators are practical and simple men, who obey +orders and accept the incredible because their position requires them +to administer India as though they were never at fault, whereas their +experience tells them that, if they are never to be at fault in India, +it is wise to be not too original and fatal to be too rigid. + +_Tods' Amendment_ and _The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin_ are printed +among _Plain Tales from the Hills_. They look forward to a whole +series of Anglo-Indian tales which present Mr Kipling's idea of the +English in India. Out of his later books we can illustrate a hundred +times his conviction that in India the simplest wisdom is the best. + +But there are two kinds of simplicity. The one kind is illustrated in +a tale from _The Day's Work_; it is the right kind of simplicity. In +no story of Mr Kipling is the devoted service and practical +resourcefulness of the good Civilian so movingly celebrated as in the +story of _William the Conqueror_. It is the story of a famine, and of +how it was met by the servants of the Indian Government. The +administration of famine relief would seem to be a simple thing when +the grain has come by rail and only waits to be distributed. But the +district served by the little group of English in _William the +Conqueror_ was a district which did not understand the food of the +North, and, if it could not get the rice which it knew, was ready to +starve within reach of bagsful of unfamiliar wheat or rye. The hero of +the tale is finally reduced to distributing the Government rations to +the goats, and keeping the starving babies alive with milk. It was a +simple idea, and the man to whom it occurred worked himself to death's +door, which was no more than another simple idea of what was due from +him to the district and to his superior officer. + +The wrong kind of simplicity is illustrated in a story from _Life's +Handicap_. It is called _The Head of the District_, and it has to do +with a simple idea which occurred to the Viceroy. A Deputy +Commissioner who understood the lawless Khusru Kheyel and had put into +them the fear of English law had died and a successor had to be +appointed. The man for the post was a certain Tallentire who had +worked with the late head of the district and knew the tribe with whom +he had to deal. But the Viceroy had a Principle. He wished to educate +the natives in self-government; and here was an opportunity--a vacant +post of responsibility and a native candidate to fill it. + + +"There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had +won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open +competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the +world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, +sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. He +had been to England and charmed many drawing-rooms there. His name, if +the Viceroy recollected aright, was Mr Grish Chunder Dé, M.A. In +short, did anybody see any objection to the appointment, always on +principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? The district in +South-Eastern Bengal might with advantage, he apprehended, pass over to +a younger civilian of Mr G. C. Dé's nationality (who had written a +remarkably clever pamphlet on the political value of sympathy in +administration); and Mr G. C. Dé could be transferred northward. As +regarded the mere question of race, Mr Grish Chunder Dé was more +English than the English, and yet possessed of that peculiar sympathy +and insight which the best among the best Service in the world could +only win to at the end of their service." + + +The principle was sound; but the consequences were such as usually +follow when ideas which are simple in one continent are applied in +another. Any man on the frontier could have told what would come of +asking the Khusru Kheyel to respect and obey Mr Grish Chunder Dé. It +was not a matter of religion or ability, but of history. The Khusru +Kheyel had had relations with the countrymen of their new Head for +generations and they were not relations of respect and obedience. How +there was riot and some rapid blood-letting on the border, and how the +new Head resigned his office before he had taken it over, is told as a +warning that there is a wrong kind of simplicity in dealing with India. +It is fatal to have invented simple and embracing phrases about a +country which holds more races than all Europe; has had a long and +private history of its own; has been more often conquered than Great +Britain; and has had every sort of experience except that of being +governed according to constitutional law. + +This chapter being mainly devoted to rescuing Mr Kipling from his +political admirers and censors, it may be well to conclude upon his +vision of the devoted civilian Scott, the hero of a tale already +quoted, the man who fed the Indian babies from a herd of goats fattened +on the food which the starving people of the Deccan distrusted and +refused. Scott appears in that story at sunset, delectable and humane, +sneezing in the dust of a hundred little feet, "a god in a halo of gold +dust, walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at his knee ran +small naked cupids." + +Clearly there is something wrong with the popular habit of regarding Mr +Kipling as essentially concerned with the carving of men to the "nasty +noise of beef-cutting on the block." His "god in a halo of gold dust" +seriously discourages any attempt to brand him with the mark of the +reverting carnivor. + + + + +IV + +NATIVE INDIA + +From Simla we have come down to the plains and the work of the English +in Imperial India. Thence we pass to India herself. Concerning native +India Mr Kipling's principle thesis--a thesis illustrated with point +and competency in many excellent tales--is that for the people of the +West there can be no such thing as the real India--only here and there +an understanding that wavers and frequently expires. Mr Kipling does +not insolently explain that India is thus and thus. He allows the +impression to grow upon us, as once it grew upon himself, that in India +all the settled ways of the West are insecure, that at any moment we +may be looking into the House of Suddhu. + + + "A stone's throw out on either hand + From that well-ordered road we tread, + And all the world is wild and strange: + Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite + Shall bear us company to-night, + For we have reached the Oldest Land + Wherein the Powers of Darkness range." + + +It is not for an Englishman to speak of the real India. Let him stand +with Mr Kipling between East and West, and allow each thing he sees to +add to his dark and intricate impression. India will then assume her +own uneasy and vast form, will press upon the nerves, and be declared +mysterious. + +There are a few pages in _Life's Handicap_ describing the City of +Lahore by night. There is great heat in these pages; there is distance +also, and the breathless air of streets where the formic swarming of +India, her callous fecundity, the tyranny of her skies, and her old +faith, prepare us for the House of Suddhu and the return of Imray: + + +"The roof-tops are crammed with men, women, and children; and the air +is full of undistinguishable noises. They are restless in the City of +Dreadful Night; and small wonder. The marvel is that they can even +breathe. If you gaze intently at the multitude you can see that they +are almost as uneasy as a daylight crowd; but the tumult is subdued. +Everywhere, in the strong light, you can watch sleepers turning to and +fro, shifting their beds and again resettling them. In the pit-like +courtyards of the houses there is the same movement. + +"The pitiless Moon shows it all. Shows, too, the plains outside the +city, and here and there a hand's-breadth of the Ravee without the +walls. Shows lastly, a splash of glittering silver on a house-top +almost directly below the mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to +throw a jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the falling +water strikes faintly on the ear. Two or three other men, in far-off +corners of the City of Dreadful Night, follow his example, and the +water flashes like heliographic signals. . . . Still the unrestful +noise continues, the sigh of a great city overwhelmed with the heat, +and of a people seeking in vain for rest. It is only the lower-class +women who sleep on the house-tops. What must the torment be in the +latticed zenanas, where a few lamps are still twinkling? There are +footfalls in the court below. It is the _Muezzin_--faithful minister; +but he ought to have been here an hour ago to tell the Faithful that +prayer is better than sleep--the sleep that will not come to the city. + +"The _Muezzin_ fumbles for a moment with the door of one of the Minars, +disappears awhile, and a bull-like roar--a magnificent bass +thunder--tells that he has reached the top of the Minar. They must +hear the cry to the banks of the shrunken Ravee itself! Even across +the courtyard it is almost overpowering. The cloud drifts by and shows +him outlined black against the sky, hands laid upon his ears, and broad +chest heaving with the play of his lungs--'Allah ho Akbar'; then a +pause while another _Muezzin_ somewhere in the direction of the Golden +Temple takes up the call--'Allah ho Akbar.' Again and again; four +times in all; and from the bedsteads a dozen men have risen up +already.--'I bear witness that there is no God by God.'" + + * * * * * * + +"Several weeks of darkness pass after this. For the Moon has gone out. +The very dogs are still, and I watch for the first light of the dawn +before making my way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. The +morning call is about to begin, and my nightwatch is over. 'Allah ho +Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!' The east grows grey, and presently saffron; +the dawn wind comes up as though the _Muezzin_ had summoned it; and, as +one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its bed and turns its +face towards the dawning day. . . . + +"'Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room?' What is it? +Something borne on men's shoulders comes by in the half-light, and I +stand back. A woman's corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a +bystander says, 'She died at midnight from the heat.'" + + +This passage may stand as a fair example of Mr Kipling's method of +dealing with India. It is an able piece of descriptive writing. It is +marked by a conscious and deliberate resolve that the "effect" shall be +made. It shows us the Indian city from a high distance, as it appeared +to an observer with a knack for vividly delivering his impressions. It +is in no sense an inspired wrestle with the reality of India; and in +that it is typical. Mr Kipling has never claimed to grasp or interpret +his Indian theme. He has stood away almost ostentatiously from the +material he was exploiting. + +It is indeed the chief merit of his Indian tales that he admits himself +to be no more, so far as India is concerned, than an adventurer making +the literary most of his adventure. He has at any rate the sensibility +to be conscious that often he is in the position of a tripper before +the Sphinx. His tales are thrilled with respect and a sense of India's +power. She it is who wipes the lips of Aurelian McGoggin, who flouts +the Greatest of All the Viceroys, humbles the Legal Member of the +Supreme Legislative Council, and drives the lonely white intruder to +illusion and death. She is indifferent to every conqueror. She feeds +her multitudes like a mother; and then suddenly her bounty dries and +there is famine and pestilence. Always she is a confronting Presence +dwarfing to one height masters and slaves. Mr Kipling has followed +this Presence as Browning's poet followed a more familiar quest: + + "Yet the day wears, + And door succeeds door; + I try the fresh fortune-- + Range the wide house from the wing to the centre. + Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter." + + +It is a lawful adventure, and for some it is an absolute duty, to +follow and challenge the Presence in word and deed. Englishmen who +live in her shadow have sometimes for their honour to grasp and defy +her; to assume that they are bound to question her authority. India +for all her unknown terror has to be wrestled with for the blessing +that England requires upon the labour of the English. Though the Gods +of India are sacred, the devils of India, filthy and lawless, must be +driven out. When India put the mark of the beast upon Fleete the +powers of darkness had of necessity to be brought to heel, and this +story may be read as a parable. The mark of the beast, wherever it may +appear, is the Imperial concern of the English in India. + +But a warning enters here. Mr Kipling, celebrating Imperial India, has +shown us the English at close war with the India of black magic and +secret murder, of cruelty and fear. But he has balanced the account. +There is another set of stories, showing us how the white man comes to +disaster, who, not content with his exact and simple duty, insolently +overleaps the breach between East and West--the breach which Mr Kipling +himself so scrupulously observes. There was Trajego: + +"He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the +second. He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will never +do so again." + + +His story is entitled _Beyond the Pale_, and is to be found among +_Plain Tales from the Hills_. There is also _The Man Who Would Be +King_. He, too, neglected the barriers. India may be ruled by the +resolute and challenged by the brave; but India may never be embraced. + +India, who strikes out of a brazen sky; who poisons with her infected +breath and is served to the death without reward; who physically cows +her people with dust and fever and heat, and is possessed with devils +who must be pacified; where successive civilisations have left their +bones upon the soil and a hundred religions have decayed, leaving the +old air heavy with exhalations--this India slowly takes shape in Mr +Kipling's native stories. Her physical immensity and pressure is felt +in stories like _The End of the Passage_ and _William the Conqueror_. +Her sleepless tyranny, which has made men intricate and incalculable, +driving them to subterranean ways of thought and fancy, rules in every +page of a tale like _The Return of Imray_. Imray was an amiable +Englishman who incautiously patted the head of his servant's child. +Bahadur Khan speaks of it thus to Strickland of the Police: + +"'Walking among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child who +was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died of the +fever, my child!' + +"'What said Imray Sahib?' + +"'He said he was a handsome child and patted him on the head; wherefore +my child died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he +had come, and was sleeping. Wherefore I dragged him up into the +roof-beams and made all fast behind him--the Heaven-born knows all +things. I am the servant of the Heaven-born. . . . Be it remembered +that the Sahib's shirts are correctly enumerated, and that there is an +extra piece of soap in his wash-basin. My child was bewitched and I +slew the wizard.'" + + +There is here just that blend of simplicity and incalculable darkness +found in all Mr Kipling's native tales. If the premises of life in +India are tortuous, conduct and reasoning are as naïvely innocent as a +problem in geometry. + +It follows that, when the devils are out of the story, no story +breathes more delightfully of Eden than a story of the East. The white +side of the black story of Imray Sahib is shown in _Kim_, and in all +the hints and small studies for _Kim_ that preceded Mr Kipling's best +of all Indian tales. + +But _Kim_ is something of a paradox. It is the best of all Indian +tales by virtue of qualities which have little to do with India. It is +an Indian book only upon its least important side. It is true that Kim +himself is upon one side the most cunning of Mr Kipling's studies of +the meeting of East and West; but that, for us, is not his final merit. +It is the final merit of Kim to be first cousin of Mowgli, the child of +the Jungle. His first claim to our delight in him is that he is the +quickest of young creatures, his senses sharp and clean, of a +conscience untroubled, of a spirit that rejoices in nimble work, of a +will in which loyalty and courage and the peace of self-confidence are +firmly rooted. In a word, he is Mowgli among men. + +Here, however, we approach _Kim_ merely as a tale of India--as a link +artfully used by Mr Kipling to connect and pass in review the whole +pageant of Imperial India as it is revealed to Western eyes--priests, +peasants, soldiers, civilians, people of the plains and hills, women of +the latticed palanquin and the bazaar, Hindu and Mohammedan, Afghan and +Bengali. The picture of the Grand Trunk Road in Kim is an almost +unsurpassed piece of descriptive writing. The diversity of the picture +dazzles and bewilders us at first. Then out of all this diversity +there gradually comes a conviction that fundamentally India is +unimaginably simple at heart in spite of her medley of religions and +conquests and races; that it is precisely this simplicity which baffles +the intruder. There is the simplicity of Bahadur Khan, whose child was +bewitched: _therefore_ he killed Imray Sahib and hid his body behind +the ceiling cloth. There is the simplicity of the hunter of Daoud +Shah, whose house was dishonoured: _therefore_ he killed his wife and +went upon the trail of her seducer. There is the simplicity of men who +starve and are burnt with the sun: _therefore_ they deprecate the wrath +of devils and put food in the beggar's bowl. There is, above all, the +simplicity of clean hunger, thirst, adventure, piety, friendliness and +love that threads the whole story of the Lama and his _Chela_. + +_Kim_ is one of the few really beautiful stories in modern literature. +The brain and fancy of thousands of readers to-day are richer and +sweeter by that tale of the Master and his Friend of All the World. We +would not leave him and his Wheel of Things, the River he sought in +simple faith, the trust he had in the charity of men, the message that +bade him seek release in Nirvana from the importunity of life quaintly +warring with instinctive gestures of delight and sympathy with all that +made life precious--we would not leave this exquisite story so soon, +were it not that it brings forward the imperishable side of Mr +Kipling's work to which we shall have shortly to return. _Kim_ bridges +the gap between the Indian stories and The _Jungle Book_, which means +that _Kim_ is all but the top of Mr Kipling's achievement. + + + + +V + +SOLDIERS THREE + +Mr Kipling's three soldiers--Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd--are a +literary tradition. They are the Horatii and the Curatii, the three +Musketeers; Og, Gog and Magog; Captains Fluellin, Macmorris and Jamy; +Bardolph, Pistol and Nym. That Kipling's soldiers three are a literary +tradition is significant of their quality and rank as part of their +author's achievement. They belong rather to the efficient literary +workman who wrote the Simla tales than to the inspired author of the +Jungle books. Though we have run from the House of Suddhu to the +barrack-yard, we have not yet lost sight of Mr Kipling, decorator and +colourman in words. We shall find him conspicuously at work upon +Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd. Where, at first, he seems most closely +to rub sleeves with the raw stuff of life we shall find him most aloof, +most deliberately an artificer. Mr Kipling has seemed to the +judicious, who have duly grieved, to be in his soldier tales throwing +all crafty scruples to the winds in order that he may the more joyfully +indulge a natural genius for ferocity. Mr Kipling's soldiers are +regarded as an instance of his love for low company, of his readiness +to sacrifice aesthetic beauty to vulgar truth. + +This is quite the wrong direction from which to approach Mr Kipling's +soldier tales. Mr Kipling's ferocity on paper is not to be explained +as the result of a natural delight in violence and blood. On the +contrary, it is distinctively a literary ferocity--the ferocity, not of +a man who has killed people, but of a man who sits down and +conscientiously tries to imagine what it is like to kill people. It is +essentially the same kind of ferocity in imaginative fiction as the +ferocity of Nietzsche in lyrical philosophy or of Malthus in +speculative politics. When Mr Kipling talks of men carved in battle to +the nasty noise of beef-cutting upon the block, or of men falling over +like the rattle of fire-irons in the fender and the grunt of a +pole-axed ox, or of a hot encounter between two combatants wherein one +of them after feeling for his opponent's eyes finds it necessary to +wipe his thumb on his trousers, or of gun wheels greasy from contact +with a late gunner--when Mr Kipling writes like this, we admit that his +pages are disagreeable. But let us be clear as to the reason. These +things are disagreeable, not because they are horrible fact, but +because they are deliberate fiction. We feel that these things have +been written, not from inspired impulse, but by taking careful thought. +Here, clearly, is a writer who writes of war, not because he is by +nature full of pugnacity, or necessarily loosed from hell to speak of +horrors, but because war is a good "subject" with opportunities for +effective treatment. + +It is incorrect to say that Mr Kipling naturally delights in savage +war. He has been accused of a positive gusto for knives and bayonets, +for redly dripping steel and spattered flesh. The gusto must be +confessed; but it is not a gusto for the subject. It is the skilled +craftsman's gusto for doing things thoroughly and effectively. Mr +Kipling cannot conceal his delight in his competency to make war as +nasty as Zola or Tolstoi have made it. But this has nothing to do with +a delight in war. Professors have gloried in blood and iron who would +probably faint away in the nice, clean operating theatre of a London +hospital. Philosophers who cannot run upstairs have preached the +survival of the physically fittest. The politest of Roman poets has +felicitously described how the two halves of a warrior's head fell to +right and left of his vertebral column. Mr Kipling's savagery is of +this excessively cultivated kind. It is not atavism or a sinister +resolution to stand in the way of progress and gentility. Mr Kipling's +warrior tales, in fact, allow us clearly to realise that Mr Kipling's +real inspiration and interest is far away from the battle-field and the +barrack. They are the kind of battle story which is usually written by +sedentary poets who live in the country and are fond of children. Only +they are the very best of their kind. + +Mr Kipling's study of the professional soldier is best observed in +Private Ortheris. Mulvaney is more popular, but Mulvaney in no sense +belongs to Mr Kipling. He is the stage Irishman of the old Adelphi and +the hero of many tales by Lever and Marryat. He is as purely a +convention of the days of Mr Kipling's youth as are Mrs Hawksbee and +the Simla ladies. His chief importance lies in the opportunities he +gives Mr Kipling for indulging his joyful gift for pure farce. +_Krishna Mulvaney_ and _My Lord the Elephant_ are farce of the first +quality, whose merit liberally covers the charge that their hero is of +no human importance. Ortheris is in rather a different case. He has +just that air of being authentic which is needed for an anecdote or +narrative. He is not a profound and original document in human nature. +There is no such document in any one of Mr Kipling's books. But he +stands well erect among the professional soldiers of literature. + +We will take one look at Private Ortheris at work: + + +"Ortheris suddenly rose to his knees, his rifle at his shoulder, and +peered across the valley in the clear afternoon light. His chin +cuddled the stock, and there was a twitching of the muscles of the +right cheek as he sighted; Private Stanley Ortheris was engaged on his +business. A speck of white crawled up the watercourse. + +"'See that beggar? . . . Got 'im.' + +"Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred down the hillside, +the deserter of the Aurangabadis pitched forward, rolled down a red +rock, and lay very still, with his face in a clump of blue gentians, +while a big raven flapped out of the pine wood to make investigation. + +"'That's a clean shot, little man,' said Mulvaney. + +"Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away. 'Happen there was +a lass tewed up wi' him, too,' said he. + +"Ortheris did not reply. He was staring across the valley, with the +smile of the artist who looks on the completed work." + + +This passage has been quoted against Mr Kipling as evidence of his +inhuman delight in the hunting of man. If we look at it closely we +shall find (1) an obvious delight in Ortheris as a professional expert +who knows his business, the same delight which we find in Mr +Hinchcliffe the engineer or in Dick Heldar the painter, and (2) the +extremely self-conscious and cold-blooded effort of a competent author +to write like a professional soldier, and (3) the intrusion of a born +sentimentalist in Learoyd's little touch of feeling at the close. + +The War Office book of infantry training contains some very curt and +calm directions for getting a "good point" in bayonet exercise. The +bayonet has to be correctly driven in, left in the enemy for a +reasonable time, and extracted with a minimum of effort to the +practitioner and a maximum of damage to the subject. Disabling the +enemy in war is a professional and technical matter, and Mr Kipling is +always able to be enthusiastic when things are beginning to be +technical. Whether it be sighting a deserter at seven hundred yards, +painting a charge of horse, writing what Dr Johnson would describe as +the "most poetical paragraph in the English language," or building a +bridge over the Ganges, Mr Kipling is ready to be interested so long as +the workman is competent, and the work of a highly skilled and special +nature. Naturally, therefore, Mr Kipling has succeeded in getting very +near to the professional view of soldiering. All Mr Kipling's soldiers +take their soldiering as men of business. This was what so terribly +astonished and interested Cleever when he met the Infant and heard that +after he had killed a man he had felt thirsty and "wanted a smoke too"; +and Cleever has been followed in his astonishment by many of Mr +Kipling's literary critics. + +The greatest study in literature of the professional soldier--though he +is infinitely more than that--is Shakespeare's Falstaff. It will be +remembered that Falstaff, after having led his men where they were +finely peppered, also suffered from thirst; and, being an old +campaigner, he was not unprovided. The fate of Falstaff upon the +British stage for many centuries--where he has actually been played, +not as a professional soldier, but as an incompetent poltroon!--seems +to indicate that no figure is more liable to be misunderstood than the +man whose business or duty it is to fight between meals. Even Mr +Kipling, in his anxiety to emphasise that a regular soldier, apart from +any personal and heroic qualities he may happen to possess, is to be +regarded as just a skilled practitioner whose work asks for courage and +resource, fails to take soldiering with the magnificent nonchalance of +Shakespeare's soldiers. Shakespeare takes the professional view for +granted. But Mr Kipling does not quite do that. There is a +continuously implicit protest in all Mr Kipling's soldier tales that a +soldier's killing is like an editor's leader-writing or a painter's +sketching from the nude--a protest which by its frequent over-emphasis +shows that Mr Kipling, not having Shakespeare's gift of intuition into +every kind of man, has not quite succeeded in identifying himself with +the soldier's point of view. It is always present in his mind as +something novel and surprising, needing insistence and emphasis. + +This is equally true of all Mr Kipling's essays in brutality. His +ferocity is as forced as his tenderness is natural. Violence and war +are clearly foreign to his unprompted imagination. Only it happens +that Mr Kipling has talked with soldiers; and, like Eustace Cleever, he +is prompted occasionally to spend a perversely riotous evening in their +company. The literary result is far from being contemptible; but it is +far from being as precious as the result of his unprompted intrusion +into the country of the Brushwood Boy, into Cold Lairs and the Council +Rock. + +The soldier tales rank not very far above the tales from Simla. Their +interest is mainly the interest of watching a skilled writer +consciously using all his skill to give an air of authenticity to +things not vitally realised. Mulvaney is pure convention, and +Ortheris, though he more individually belongs to Mr Kipling, is rather +an effort than a success. We have not yet got at the heart of Mr +Kipling's work. It yet remains to cross the barrier which divides some +of the best journalism of our time from literature which will outlive +its author. + + + + +VI + +THE DAY'S WORK + +When we come to _The Day's Work_ we are getting very near to Mr Kipling +at his best. We should notice at this point that in all the stories we +have so far surveyed the men have mattered less than the work they do. +The great majority of Mr Kipling's tales are a song in praise of good +work. Almost it seems as if, in the year 1897, their author had +himself realised the significance of this; for it was in that year he +published the volume entitled _The Day's Work_; and it was the best +volume, taking it from cover to cover, that had as yet appeared. + +The first and best story in _The Day's Work_ at once introduces the +theme which threads all the best work of Mr Kipling. _The +Bridge-Builders_ is the story of a Bridge and incidentally of the men +who built it. The crown has yet to be set upon a long agony of toil +and disappointment. The master builder of the Bridge has put the prime +of his energy and will into its building. Now it stands all but +complete, with the Ganges gathering in her upper reaches for a mighty +effort to throw off her strange fetters. The Bridge before the night +of the flood has passed away becomes the symbol of a wrestle between +the most ancient gods and the young will of man. Mr Kipling has put +the Bridge into the foreground of his picture, has made of it the +really sentient figure of the tale. Here definitely he writes the +first chapter of his book of steam and steel; and we begin to be aware +of an enthusiasm which is lacking in many of the highly finished proofs +which preceded it that Mr Kipling could write almost anything as well +as almost anybody else. In _The Day's Work_ he passes into a province +which he was insistently urged to occupy by right of inspiration. + +_The Day's Work_ brings us directly into touch with one of the most +distinctive features of Mr Kipling's method. He has never been able to +resist the lure of things technical. If he writes of a horse he must +write as though he had bred and sold horses all his life. If he writes +of a steam-engine he must write as though he had spent his life among +pistons and cylinders. He writes of ships and the sea, of fox-hunting, +of the punishing of Pathans, of drilling by companies and of +agriculture; and he writes as one from whom no craft could hide its +mysteries. This fascination of mere craft, this delight in the +technicalities and dialect of the world's work, is not a mannerism. It +is not a parade of omniscience or the madness of a note-book worm. It +is fundamental in Mr Kipling. It is wrong to think of _Between the +Devil and the Deep Sea_ or of _.007_ as the unfortunate rioting of an +amateur machinist. To those who object that Mr Kipling has spoiled +these stories with an absurd enthusiasm for bolts and bars it has at +once to be answered that but for this very enthusiasm for bolts and +bars, which the undiscerning have found so tedious, the great majority +of Mr Kipling's stories would never have been written at all. A +powerful turbine excites in Mr Kipling precisely the same quality of +emotion which a comely landscape excited in Wordsworth; and this +emotion is stamped upon all that he has written in this kind. There is +a passage in _Between the Devil and the Deep Sea_ which runs: + + +"What follows is worth consideration. The forward engine had no more +work to do. Its released piston-rod, therefore, drove up fiercely, +with nothing to check it, and started most of the nuts of the +cylinder-cover. It came down again, the full weight of the steam +behind it, and the foot of the disconnected connecting-rod, useless as +the leg of a man with a sprained ankle, flung out to the right and +struck the starboard, or right-hand, cast-iron supporting-column of the +forward engine, cracking it clean through about six inches above the +base, and wedging the upper portion outwards three inches towards the +ship's side. There the connecting-rod jammed. Meantime, the after +engine, being as yet unembarrassed, went on with its work, and in so +doing brought round at its next revolution the crank of the forward +engine, which smote the already jammed connecting-rod, bending it and +therewith the piston-rod cross-head--the big cross-piece that slides up +and down so smoothly." + + +This is the method of Homer as applied to the shield of Achilles, the +method of Milton in enumerating the superior fiends, the method of +Walter Scott confronted with a mountain pass, the method of the +sonneteer to his mistress' eyebrow. Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for these +broken engines would be intolerable if it were not obviously genuine. +Unless we shut our ears and admit no songs that sing of things as yet +unfamiliar to the poets of blue sky and violets dim as Cytherea's eyes, +we cannot possibly mistake the lyrical ecstasy of the above passage. +When Mr Kipling tells how a released piston-rod drove up fiercely and +started the nuts of the cylinder-cover, it is an incantation. His +machines are more alive than his men and women. It is more important +to know about the cast-iron supporting-column of Mr Kipling's forward +engine than to know that Maisie had long hair and grey eyes, or to know +what happened to any of the people whom it concerned. _.007_, which is +the story of a shining and ambitious young locomotive, is ten times +more vital--it calls for ten times more fellow-feeling--than the heart +affairs of Private Learoyd or the distresses of the Copleigh girls at +Simla. The pain that shoots through .007 when he first becomes +acquainted with a hot-box is a more human and recognisable bit of +consciousness than anything to be shared with the Head of the District +or the Man Who Was. The psychology of the Mill Wheel in _Below the +Mill Dam_ is quite obviously accurate. That Mill Wheel, unlike scores +of Mr Kipling's men and women, is a creature we have met, who refuses +to be forgotten. When he is dealing with men Mr Kipling celebrates not +so much mankind as the skill and competency of mankind as severely +applied to a given and necessary task. It follows that Mr Kipling's +men at their best are most excellent machines. It follows, again, that +when Mr Kipling drops the pretence that he is deeply concerned with man +as man, and begins to celebrate with all his might the machine as the +machine, we realise that his machine is the better man of the two. + +The inspiration which Mr Kipling first indulged to its full bent in +_The Day's Work_ lives on through all the ensuing books. It reaches a +climax in _With the Night Mail_, a post-dated vision of the air. It is +one of the most remarkable stories he has written--a story produced at +full pressure of the imagination which, but for its fatal prophesying, +would keep his memory green for generations. The detail with which the +theme is worked out is extravagant; but it is the extravagance of an +inspired lover. To quarrel with its technical exuberance on the ground +that Mr Kipling should have made it less like the vision of an engineer +is simply to miss almost the main impulse of Mr Kipling's progress. It +is true that unless we share Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for The Night Mail +as a beautiful machine, for the men who governed it as skilled +mechanicians, and for all the minutiae of the control and distribution +of traffic by air, we are not likely to be greatly held by the story. +But this is simply to say that unless we catch the passion of an author +we may as well shut the author's book. + +This does not imply that we must love machinery in order to love Mr +Kipling's enthusiasm for machinery. We have to share the author's +passion; but not necessarily to dote upon its object. It is not +essential to an admiration of Shakespeare's sonnets that the admirer +should have been a suitor of the Dark Lady. It matters hardly at all +what is the inspiration of an imaginative author. So long as he +succeeds in getting into a highly fervent condition, which prompts him +to write, with entire forgetfulness of himself and the reader, of +things whose beauty he was born to see, it is of little moment how he +happens to be kindled. We do not need to be suffering the pangs of +adolescent love, or even to know the story of Fanny Brawne, to hear the +immortal longing of John Keats sounding between all the lines of the +great Odes: + + "Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, + Though winning near the goal--yet do not grieve; + She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, + For ever wilt thou love and she be fair." + +We do not need to be the enemy of the Arminians to resolve the music of +Milton; and we may live all our lives in a city and yet know Wordsworth +for a great poet. Shelley does not suffer because philosophic anarchy +has gone out of fashion; and the poetry of the Hebrews lives for ever, +though its readers have never lived in the shadow of Sinai. These +mighty instances are here intended not to establish a comparison but to +establish a principle. The exact source of Mr Kipling's inspiration +matters not a straw. We simply know that his machinery is alive and +lovely in his eyes. He communicates his passion to his reader though +his readers are unable to distinguish between a piston-rod and a +cylinder-cover. + +_The Day's Work_ throws back a clear and searching light upon some of +the tales, Indian and political, which we have already passed in +review. As we look back upon these stories of men and women we +realise, in the light of _The Day's Work_, that machinery--the +machinery of Army and Empire--enters repeatedly as a leading motive. +Far from regarding Mr Kipling's passion for technical engineering as +something which gets in the way of his natural genius for telling human +tales, we are brought finally to realise that many of these human tales +are no more than an excuse for the indulging of a passion that +helplessly spins them. As literature _William the Conqueror_ and _The +Head of the District_ have less to do with the politics of India than +with the nuts and bolts of _The Ship That Found Herself_. The same +truth applies equally to a book which has been discussed beyond all +proportion to its rank among the stories of Mr Kipling. _The Light +That Failed_ is often read as the high and tragical love story of Dick +Heldar; but it is really nothing of the kind. It really belongs to +_The Day's Work_. As the love story of Dick Heldar it is of small +account. Mr Kipling thinks very little of it from that point of view. +He has even allowed it, upon that side, to be deprived of all its +significance in order to meet the needs of a popular actor. Mr Kipling +is not the man to sell his conscience. Therefore his admirers may +infer from the fact that he has sold Dick and Maisie to British and +American playgoers that Dick and Maisie are not regarded by their +author as of the first importance. We cannot think of Mr Kipling as +allowing one screw of the ship that found herself to be misplaced. But +he has cheerfully allowed his story of Dick and Maisie to be turned +with a few strokes of the pen into an effective curtain for a +negligible play. + +This does not mean that _The Light That Failed_ is not a characteristic +and a fine achievement. It means that its character and fineness have +nothing to do with Dick and Maisie or with any of that stuff of the +story which contrives to exist behind the footlights of Sir Johnston +Forbes Robertson's theatre. _The Light That Failed_ must not be read +as the love story of a painter who goes blind. It must be read, with +_.007_ and _The Maltese Cat_, as an enthusiastic account of the day's +work of a newspaper correspondent. The really vital passages of the +story have all to do with Mr Kipling's chosen text of work for work's +sake. Dick's work and not Dick himself is the hero of the play. The +only incident which really affects us is the scraping out of his last +picture. We do not bother in the least as to whether Maisie returns to +him or stays away; because we do not believe in the reality of Maisie +and we cannot imagine anything she may or may not do as affecting +anyone very seriously. Dick's wrestle with his picture is another +matter. He and his friends may talk a great deal of nonsense about +their work (nonsense which would strictly require us to condemn every +good page which Mr Kipling has written), but there is no doubt whatever +that the enthusiasm of men for men's work is the vital and moving +principle of _The Light That Failed_. The motive of the whole story is +the motive of _The Bridge-Builders_. The rest is merely accessory. + +_The Light That Failed_ is full of instruction for the close critic of +Mr Kipling. We discover in it three out of the many levels of +excellence in which he moves. First there is a cunning artificer +pretending to a knowledge and admiration which he does not really +possess--an artificer who tries to impose Maisie and the Red-Haired +Girl upon us in the same deceiving way as the way in which he tried to +impose upon us Mrs Hawksbee and the Copleigh girls. Second, there is a +clever writer of soldier stories, showing us some nasty fighting at +close range, with a far too elaborate pretence that he can take it all +for granted as a professional combatant. Finally there is an inspired +author celebrating the world's work--an author we have agreed to put in +a higher rank than those other literary experts who have quite +unjustifiably stolen his greener laurels. + + + + +VII + +THE FINER GRAIN + +It has been Mr Kipling's habit all through his career to peg out +literary claims for himself as evidence of his intention later on to +work them at a profit. Thus, writing _Plain Tales from the Hills_, he +includes one or two stories, such as _The Taking of Lungtungpen_ and +_The Three Musketeers_, which clearly look forward to _Soldiers Three_ +and all the later stories in that kind. Or, again, he looks forward in +_Tods' Amendment_ and _Wee Willie Winkie_ to the time when he will +write many stories, and, in a sense, whole books concerning children. +_Tods' Amendment_ promises _Baa Baa Black Sheep_, and _Just So +Stories_; it even promises _Stalky & Co._, which is simply the best +collection of boisterous boy farces ever written. Then, again, there +is _In the Rukh_, out of _Many Inventions_, which looks forward to the +_Jungle Book_. Finally, there is, in _The Day's Work_, clear evidence +of Mr Kipling's intention ultimately to abandon the hills and plains of +India and to take literary seisin of the country and chronicles of +England. + +The first undoubted evidence that Mr Kipling, who started with skilful +tales of India, was bound in the end to turn homewards for a deeper +inspiration is contained in a story from _The Day's Work_. _My Sunday +at Home_ is ostensibly broad farce, of the _Brugglesmith_ +variety--farce which might well call for a chapter to itself were it +not that broad farce is much the same whoever the writer may be. But +_My Sunday at Home_ is really less important as farce than as evidence +of Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for the stillness and ancientry of the +English wayside. The pages of this story distil and drip with peace. +Moreover, the story is neighboured with two others, all beckoning Mr +Kipling home to Burwash in Sussex. There is the Brushwood Boy, who +after work comes home and finds it good--good after his work is done. +There is also _An Error in the Fourth Dimension_ wherein Mr Kipling is +found playing affectionately with the idea that England is quite unlike +any other country. There is in England a fourth dimension which is +beyond the perception, say, of an American railway king, who after much +amazement and wrath concludes that the English are not a modern people +and thereafter returns to his own more reasonable land. + +Of the miscellaneous stories in which Mr Kipling surrenders utterly to +this later theme perhaps the most memorable is _An Habitation Enforced_ +from _Actions and Reactions_. Here we are in quite another plane of +authorship from that in which we have moved in the tales of India. +There is a wide difference between _The Return of Imray_--to take one +of the most skilful tales of India--and _An Habitation Enforced_. _The +Return of Imray_ betrays the conscious resolution of a clever man of +letters to make the most effective use of good material. But _An +Habitation Enforced_ is the spontaneous gesture of pure feeling. The +Indian stories are ingenious and well managed. Their point is made. +Their workmanship is excellent. Atmospheres and impressions are +cunningly arranged. But they very rarely succeed in carrying the +reader as the reader is carried upon this later tide. + +The feeling of _An Habitation Enforced_, as of all the English tales, +is that of the traveller returned. The value of Mr Kipling's traffics +and discoveries over the seven seas is less in the record he has made +of these adventures than in their having enabled him to return to +England with eyes sharpened by exile, with his senses alert for that +fourth dimension which does not exist for the stranger. _An Habitation +Enforced_ is inspired by the nostalgia of inveterate banishment. Some +part of its perfection--it is one of the few perfect short stories in +the English tongue--is due to the perfect agreement of its form with +the passion that informs its writing. It is the story of a homing +Englishwoman, and of her restoration to the absolute earth of her +forbears. In writing of this woman Mr Kipling has only had to recall +his own joyful adventure in picking up the threads of a life at once +familiar and mysterious, in meeting again the homely miracle of things +that never change. Finally England claims her utterly--her and her +children and her American husband. It was an American who bade Cloke, +man of the soil and acquired retainer of the family, bring down +larch-poles for a light bridge over the brook; but it was an Englishman +reclaimed who needs consented to Cloke's amendment: + + +"'But where the deuce are the larch-poles, Cloke? I told you to have +them down here ready.' + +"'We'll get 'em down _if_ you, say so,' Cloke answered, with a thrust +of the underlip they both knew. + +"'But I did say so. What on earth have you brought that timber-tug +here for? We aren't building a railway bridge. Why, in America, +half-a-dozen two-by-four bits would be ample.' + +"'I don't know nothin' about that,' said Cloke. 'An' I've nothin' to +say against larch--_if_ you want to make a temp'ry job of it. I ain't +'ere to tell you what isn't so, sir; an' you can't say I ever come +creepin' up on you, or tryin' to lead you farther in than you set +out----' + +"A year ago George would have danced with impatience. Now he scraped a +little mud off his old gaiters with his spud, and waited. + +"'All I say is that you can put up larch and make a temp'ry job of it; +and by the time the young master's married it'll have to be done again. +Now, I've brought down a couple of as sweet six-by-eight oak timbers as +we've ever drawed. You put 'em in an' it's off your mind for good an' +all. T'other way--I don't say it ain't right, I'm only just sayin' +what I think--but t'other way, he'll no sooner be married than we'll +'ave it _all_ to do again. You've no call to regard my words, but you +can't get out of _that_.' + +"'No,' said George, after a pause; 'I've been realising that for some +time. Make it oak then; we can't get out of it.'" + + +This story is the real beginning of Puck--to whom Mr Kipling's latest +volumes are addressed. In _Puck of Pook's Hill_ Mr Kipling takes +seisin of England in all times--more particularly of that trodden nook +of England about Pevensey. This book is less a book of children and +fairies than an English chronicle. Dan and Una are the least living of +Mr Kipling's children--they are as shadowy as the little ghost who +dropped a kiss upon the palm of the visitor in the mansion of _They_. +The men, too, who come and go, are shadows. It is the land which +abides and is real. We hum continually a variation of Shakespeare's +song: + + "This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England." + + +_Puck of Pook's Hill_ is a final answer to those who think of the +Imperial idea as loose and vast, without roots in any dear, particular +soil. _Puck of Pool's Hill_ suggests in every page that England could +never for its lovers be too small. We would know intimately each place +where the Roman trod, where Weland came and went, where Saxon and +Norman lost themselves in a common league. + +From this England, fluttered with memories and the most ancient magic, +it is a natural step into the regions of pure fancy where Mr Kipling is +happiest of all. _The Children of the Zodiac_ and _The Brushwood Boy_ +are the earliest proofs that Mr Kipling flies most surely when he is +least impeded by a human or material document. We have here to make a +last protest against a too popular fallacy concerning the tales of Mr +Kipling. Mr Kipling's passion for the concrete, which is a passion of +all truly imaginative men, together with his keen delight in the work +of the world, has caused him to be falsely regarded as a note-book +realist of the modern type. He is assumed to be happiest when writing +from direct experience without refinement or transmutation. We cannot +trace this error to its source and expose the many fallacies it +contains without going deeper into aesthetics than is here necessary or +desirable. The simple fact that Mr Kipling's best stories are those in +which his fancy is most free is answer enough to those who put him +among the reporters of things as they are. It sufficiently excuses us +from the long and difficult inquiry as to whether Mr Kipling's account +of the people who live next door is accurate and minute, and allows us +to assume, without starting a controversy which only a heavy volume +could determine, that, if Mr Kipling had ever set out to describe the +people who live next door, he would have simplified them out of all +recognition. Mr Kipling has pretended, often with some success, that +his people are really to be met with in the Royal Navy or in the Indian +Civil Service. But let the reader consider for a moment whom they +remember best. Is it Mowgli or is it someone who is a C.I.E.? Is it +the Elephant Child, or is it Mr Grish Chunder Dé? When does Mr Kipling +more successfully convey to us the impression that his people are alive +and real? Is it when he is supposed to be drawing men from the life, +or is it when he has set free his imagination to call up the People of +the Hills or the folk in the Jungle? + +The grain of Mr Kipling's work is the finer, his vision is more +confident and clear, the further he gets from the world immediately +about him. Already we have seen how happily in India he left behind +his impression of the alert tourist, his experience of the mess-room +and bazaar, to enshrine in his fairy tale of _Kim_ the faith and +simplicity of two of the children of the world--each, the old and the +young, a child after his own fashion. _Kim_ is Mr Kipling's escape +from the India which is traversed by the railway and served by the +"Pioneer." It is the escape of Dan and Una into the Kingdom of Puck, +and the escape of Mowgli into the Jungle. It is the escape, finally, +of Mr Kipling's genius into the region where it most freely breathes. + +We have noted that Kim is one of the Indian doors by which we enter; +but there is a more open door in the first story of _The Second Jungle +Book_. It is the best of all Mr Kipling's stories, just as the _Jungle +Books_ are the best of all his books. It concerns the Indian, Purun +Bhagat. + +He was learned, supple, and deeply intimate in the affairs of the +world. He had shared the counsels of princes; he had been received +with honour in the clubs and societies of Europe. He was, to all +appearances, a polite blend of all the talents of East and West. Then +suddenly Purun Bhagat disappeared. All India understood; but of all +Western people only Mr Kipling was able to follow where he walked as a +holy man and a beggar into the hills. There he became St Francis of +the Hills, living in a little shrine with the friendly creatures of the +woods, venerated and cared for by a village on the hillside. + +All Mr Kipling's readers know how that story ends--how on a night of +disaster there came together as of one blood the saint and his people +and the wild creatures who had housed with him. It is quoted here as +showing how the old piety of India beckoned Mr Kipling into the jungle +as inevitably as the old loyalty of England beckoned him into a region +where on a summer day we can meet without surprise a Flint Man or a +Centurion of Rome. + +Always the bent of Mr Kipling, in his best work, is found to be away +from the world. To appreciate his finer quality we must pass with him +into the Rukh, or into the country beyond Policeman Day, into the +mansion of lost children, or into a region where it is but a step from +the Zodiac to fields under the plough. The tales of Mr Kipling which +will longest survive him are not the tales where he is competently +brutal and omniscient, but the tales where he instinctively flies from +the necessity of giving to his vision the likeness of the modern world. + +We may now realise more clearly the peril which lies in the popular +fallacy concerning Mr Kipling described in the first few pages of this +book. So far is Mr Kipling from being an author inspired and driven to +claim a share in the active life of the present, an author who unloads +upon us a store of memories and experience, that he is only able to do +his finest work as an unchecked and fantastic dreamer. The stories in +which he imposes upon his readers the illusion that he would never have +written books if he had stayed at home, that his stories are the +carelessly flung reminiscences of a full life--these stories are +themselves instances of the skill whereby a cunning author has been +able to conceal from his generation the deep difference between +artifice and inspiration. A crafty author will often employ his best +phrases to describe the thing he has never really seen with the eye of +genius. His manner will be most assured where his matter is the least +authentic. His points will be most effectively made where there is the +least necessity to make them. Mr Kipling, writing as a soldier, is +more a soldier than any soldier who ever lived. Thereby the discerning +reader will infer that Mr Kipling was not born to write as a soldier. +He will know that Mr Kipling is not profoundly and instinctively an +atavistic prophet, because his atavism is more atavistic than the +atavism of the first man who ever was born. He will also realise that +Mr Kipling writes so effectively about India because he ought to be +writing about England and Fairyland and the Jungle. He will realise, +in short, that Mr Kipling is an imaginative man of letters who has +wonderful visions when he stays at home, and who needs all his craft as +an expert literary artificer to persuade his readers that these visions +are not seriously impaired when he ventures abroad. + + + + +VIII + +THE POEMS + +Only the briefest epilogue is necessary concerning Mr Kipling's poetry. +We have concluded as to his prose stories that his best work is in the +pure fancy of _The Jungle Book_, and that we descend thence through his +English tales and his celebration of the work of the world to clever +stories of India and _Soldiers Three_. Upon each of these levels we +meet with verse in the same kind, concerning which it may at once be +said that at all times, except where the rule is proved by the +exception, Mr Kipling's verse is less urgently inspired than his prose. +The true motive which drives a poet into verse is the perception of a +quality in the thing he has to say which requires for its delivery the +beat and lift of a rhythm which crosses and penetrates the rhythm of +sense and logic. This is true even of the poetry which seems, at +first, to contradict it. Pope's _Essay on Man_, for example, which at +first seems no more than a neater prose than the prose of Addison, is +really not prose at all. In addition to the cool sense of what appears +to be no more than a pentametric arrangement of common-places there is +a rhythm which admirably conveys, independently of what is being +actually said, the gentle perambulating of the eighteenth-century +philosopher in the garden which Candide retired to cultivate in the +best of all possible worlds. In all poetry there must be a manifest +reason why prose would not have served the author's purpose equally +well. + +Can we say this of Mr Kipling's poetry? Is Mr Kipling's poetry the +result of an urgent need for a metrical utterance? + +A careful reading of Mr Kipling's verse, comparing it subject for +subject with his prose, soon convinces us that, far from being a more +direct passionate and living utterance than his prose, it is invariably +more wrought and careful and elaborate. It does not suggest the poet +driven into song. It suggests rather the skilful writer borrowing the +manner of a poet, playing, as it were, with the poet's tools, without +any urgent impulse to express himself in that particular way. He has +merely added to the number of rules to be successfully observed. Of +his technical success there is seldom any doubt at all. For a +craftsman who can use all the intricate resources of good prose +successfully to create an illusion that he is inspired in his least +abandoned moments, it is child's play to use the more obvious devices +of the metrician to similar effect. So far as mere formal excellence +is concerned, verse is a journeyman's matter as compared with prose; +and it is not at all astonishing to find that the formal part of poetry +troubles Mr Kipling not at all. But we must look beyond the formality +of verse to find a poet. Poetry flies higher than prose only when the +poet's feeling has driven him to sing what he cannot say. Mr Kipling +is a wonderful metrician; but that is not the question. The question +is, Where shall we find the most immediate union of the author's +feeling with the author's expression? And the answer to that will be, +Not in the author's poems. + +Take as an example the English motive: + + "See you our little mill that clacks, + So busy by the brook? + She has ground her corn and paid her tax + Ever since Domesday Book." + +Compare this well-wrought stanza with the prose tale _Below the Mill +Dam_, or with the passage it paraphrases in the story to which it +stands as motto: + +"The English are a bold people. His Saxons would laugh and jest with +Hugh, and Hugh with them, and--this was marvellous to me--if even the +meanest of them said such and such a thing was the Custom of the Manor, +then straightway would Hugh and such old men of the Manor as might be +near forsake everything else to debate the matter--I have seen them +stop the mill with the corn half ground--and if the custom or usage +were proven to be as it was said, why, that was the end of it, even +though it were flat against Hugh, his wish and command." + + +It may be said of the verse that, possibly, it is more carefully +considered than the prose, more deliberate and formally more excellent. +But it is certainly more remote from the passion it conveys. There is +more drive in a single fragment of_ An Habitation Enforced_ than in all +the songs of Puck. + +Similarly let us take another of Mr Kipling's themes--his delight in +the world's work. Think first of _The Bridge-Builders_ and of _William +the Conqueror_ and then turn to _The Bell Buoy_ (_Five Nations_) or +_The White Man's Burden_ (_Five Nations_). In each case--and we repeat +the result every time the experiment is made--we find that the author's +motive, which lives in his prose, tends in his verse to expire. In +_The White Man's Burden_ it expires outright, so that reading it, it is +difficult to realise that _William the Conqueror_ has had the power so +deeply to move us. + +This is true even where Mr Kipling's subject, which in prose has not +taken him to the top of his achievement, has in verse taken him as high +as in verse he is able to go. Mr Kipling's best verse is contained in +_Barrack Room Ballads_; but even these do not compare in merit with +_Soldiers Three_. _Barrack Room Ballads_ are the best of Mr Kipling's +poetry, because in these poems rhyme and beat are essential to their +inspiration. They are the exception which prove the rule that normally +Mr Kipling has no right to his metre. _Barrack Room Ballads_ are +robust and vivid songs of the camp, choruses which require no music to +enable them to serve the purpose of any gathering where the first idea +is that there should be a cheerful noise. Complete success in this +kind only required Mr Kipling to fill in the skeleton of a metre which +brings the right words at the right moment to the tip of the galloping +tongue, and this he has admirably done. + +Where in _Barrack Room Ballads_ Mr Kipling has attempted to do more +than fill up the feet of an irresponsible line, his verse only succeeds +in defining the weakness, in a corresponding kind, of his prose. We +have seen that one weakness of his soldier tales is their over emphasis +of the brutal aspect of war, natural in an author of sensitive +imagination attempting to identify himself with the soldier's point of +view. In the prose tales this exaggeration is only occasional. In +_Barrack Room Ballads_ it is more pronounced. + +We may take three stanzas of _Snarleyow_ as evidence that Mr Kipling's +_Barrack Room Ballads_, unlike the songs of Puck and the greater mass +of his verse, _really had to be metrical_; also as evidence that, in so +far as they attempt to be more than a galloping chorus in dialect they +are less admirable than the adventures of Ortheris and Mulvaney. The +Battery was charging into action and the Driver had just been saying +that a Battery was hard to pull up when it was taking the field: + + "'E 'adn't 'ardly spoke the word, before a droppin' shell + A little right the battery an' between the sections fell; + An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels, + There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels. + + "Then sez the Driver's Brother, an' 'is words was very plain, + 'For Gawd's own sake get over me, an' put me out o' pain.' + They saw 'is wounds was mortial, an' they judged that it was best, + So they took an' drove the limber straight across 'is back an' chest. + + "The Driver 'e give nothin' 'cept a little coughin' grunt, + But 'e swung 'is 'orses 'andsome when it came to 'Action Front!' + An' if one wheel was juicy, you may lay your Monday head + 'Twas juicier for the niggers when the case began to spread." + +The brutality in this incident is forced in idea and expression beyond +anything we find in _Soldiers Three_. It is this continuous _forcing_ +of idea and expression which persists in virtually all Mr Kipling's +verse except where the jingle is all that matters. We have only to +recall recitations from the platform or before the curtain of some of +Mr Kipling's popular poetry to realise, sometimes a little painfully, +that verse is for him not a threshold of the authentic Hall of Song, +but, too often, a door out of reality into the sentimental and +overwrought. + +Comparing the soldier tales and the soldier songs it is often possible, +however, to miss the author's flagging, because, as we have seen, the +soldier songs are the best songs, whereas the soldier tales are not the +best tales. The full extent of the inferiority of Mr Kipling's verse +to Mr Kipling's prose cannot, however, be missed if we compare the +finer grain of Mr Kipling's prose with the poems that deal with similar +themes. Read first _The Story of Ung_ (_The Seven Seas_) and +afterwards the tale of the Flint Man found upon the Downs by Dan and +Una (_Rewards and Fairies_). Or, to take an even more telling +instance, recall the most perfect of all Mr Kipling's tales _The +Miracle of Purun Bhagat_, and afterwards read the poem that is proudly +set at the head of it: + + "The night we felt the earth would move + We stole and plucked him by the hand, + Because we loved him with the love + That knows but cannot understand. + + "And when the roaring hillside broke, + And all our world fell down in rain, + We saved him, we the Little Folk; + But lo! he does not come again! + + "Mourn now, we saved him for the sake + Of such poor love as wild ones may. + Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake, + And his own kind drive us away!" + --_Dirge of the Langurs._ + +The poem is excellent cold craft, but leaves us precisely in the state +of mind in which it found us. The story which follows it is rooted in +the same idea; but, where the one is a literary exercise, the other is +a supreme feat of imagination. + +Here, with _The Miracle of Purun Bhagat_, the story itself and not the +dirge of the Langurs, we may conveniently leave the reputation of our +author. Critics of a future generation may need to apologise for +including within the limits of a brief monograph a specific chapter +upon Mr Kipling's verse. They will not need to apologise for its +brevity. + + + + +A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUDYARD KIPLING'S PRINCIPAL WRITINGS + +[Separate issues of single poems or stories have not generally been +included in this list. Dates of first publication of books are given; +new editions only when they involve revision of text, alteration of +format or transference to a different publisher.] + +Departmental Ditties and Other Verses (_Lahore: The Civil and Military +Gazette Press_). 1886. New editions (_London: Thacker_). 1888; 1890; +1898; (_Newnes_). 1899; (_Methuen_). 1904; 1908; 1913. + +Plain Tales from the Hills (_Thacker_). 1888. New editions +(_Macmillan_). 1890; 1899; 1907. + +Soldiers Three: A Collection of Stories (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). 1888. +New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +The Story of the Gadsbys: a Tale without a Plot (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). +N.D. [1888]. New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +In Black and White (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. [1888]. New edition +(_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +Under the Deodars (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. [1888]. New edition +(_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. +[1888]. New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +Wee Willie Winkie and other Child Stories (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. +[1888]. New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +Soldiers Three: The Story of the Gadsbys: In Black and White (_Sampson +Low_). 1890. New editions (_Macmillan_). 1895; 1899; 1907. + +Wee Willie Winkie: Under the Deodars: The Phantom Rickshaw (_Sampson +Low_). 1890. New editions (_Macmillan_). 1895; 1899; 1907. + +The City of Dreadful Night and Other Sketches (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). +1890. This edition was cancelled. + +The Smith Administration (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). 1891. This edition +was cancelled. + +The City of Dreadful Night and Other Places (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). +1891. English edition (_Sampson Low_). 1891. These were suppressed +as far as possible. + +Letters of Marque (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). 1891. This edition was +suppressed. + +The Light that Failed (_Macmillan_). 1891. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +Life's Handicap, being Stories of Mine Own People (_Macmillan_). N.D. +[1891]. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +Barrack Room Ballads and Other Verses (_Methuen_). 1892. New +editions, 1908; 1913. + +The Naulahka: a Story of West and East. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott +Balestier (_Heinemann_). 1892. New editions (_Macmillan_). 1901; +1908. + +Many Inventions (_Macmillan_). 1893. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +The Jungle Book (_Macmillan_). 1894:. New editions, 1899; 1903; 1907; +1908. + +The Second Jungle Book (_Macmillan_). 1895. New editions, 1899; 1908. + +The Seven Seas (_Methuen_). 1896. New editions, 1908; 1913. + +Soldier Tales (_A selection of stories from earlier volumes_) +(_Macmillan_). 1896. + +The Novels, Tales and Poems of Rudyard Kipling (_Edition de luxe_) +(_Macmillan_). 1897, etc. 27 volumes have so far been issued. + +"Captains Courageous." A Story of the Grand Banks (_Macmillan_). +1897. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +An Almanac of Twelve Sports for 1898. By William Nicholson. Words by +Rudyard Kipling (_Heinemann_). 1897. + +The Day's Work (_Macmillan_). 1898. New editions, 1899; 1908. + +A Fleet in Being: Notes of Two Trips with the Channel Squadron +(_Macmillan_). 1898. + +Stalky & Co. (_Macmillan_). 1899. New edition, 1908. + +From Sea to Sea (_Macmillan_). 2 volumes. 1900. New edition, 1908. +The volumes contain also Letters of Marque, The City of Dreadful Night +and The Smith Administration. + +The Science of Rebellion [Pamphlet] (_Vacher_). 1901. + +Kim (_Macmillan_). 1901. New edition, 1908. + +Just-So Stories, for Little Children (_Macmillan_). 1902. New +editions, 1903; 1908; 1913. + +The Five Nations (_Methuen_). 1903. New editions, 1908; 1913. + +Traffics and Discoveries (_Macmillan_). 1904. New edition, 1908. + +Puck of Pook's Hill (_Macmillan_). 1906. New edition, 1908. + +A Pocket Edition of Mr Kipling's Works was issued during 1907 and 1908, +the verse by Methuen & Co., the prose by Macmillan & Co. After 1908 +the works issued by Macmillan & Co. appear simultaneously in the +ordinary library edition, the pocket edition and the edition de luxe. + +Doctors: an Address delivered at the Middlesex Hospital (_Macmillan_). +1908. + +Actions and Reactions (_Macmillan_). 1909. + +The Dead King. [A Poem] (_Hodder & Stoughton_). 1910. + +Rewards and Fairies (_Macmillan_). 1910. + +A School History of England, By C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling +(_Clarendon Press_). 1911. + +The Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling (_Hodder & Stoughton_). 1912. +This edition does not contain the Departmental Ditties nor the Rhymes +for Nicholson's Almanac. + +Simples Contes des Collines (_Nelson_). 1912. + +The Bombay Edition of the Works in Verse and Prose of Rudyard Kipling. +23 volumes (_Macmillan_). 1913-1915. + +Songs from Books (_Macmillan_). 1913. + +The Service Edition of some of the works of Rudyard Kipling: Verse, 8 +volumes (_Methuen_); prose, 26 volumes (_Macmillan_). 1914-1915. + +The New Army in Training (_Macmillan_). 1915. + + + + +AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY + +[Some of Mr Kipling's earlier stories and poems, as well as certain +later poems that are non-copyright in America, have been issued in an +almost bewildering variety of arrangement and by many different +publishers. Full enumeration of these variants is not attempted in +this bibliography.] + +Plain Tales from the Hills (_Lovell_). N.D. [1890]. (_Macmillan_). +1890. + +The Story of the Gadsbys (_Lovell_). 1890. (_Munro_). 1890. + +The Courting of Dinah Shadd and Other Stories (_Harper_). 1890. + +Indian Tales (_Lovell_). 1890. + +The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales (_U.S. Book Co._). N.D. [1890]. +(_Rand, M'Nally & Co._). 1890. + +Soldiers Three and Other Stories (_Munro_). N.D. [1890]. + +American Notes, by Rudyard Kipling, and The Bottle Imp, by Robert Louis +Stevenson (_Ivers_). 1891. New edition (_Brown_). 1899. + +Mine Own People: with Introduction by Henry James (_Munro_). N.D. +[1891]. (_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +Under the Deodars (_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +The Story of the Gadsbys; Under the Deodars (_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories (_Rand_). 1891. + +The Light that Failed (_Rand_). 1891. (_Munro_). N.D. [1891]. +(_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +Life's Handicap, being Stories of Mine Own People (_Macmillan_). 1891. + +Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads (_Macmillan_). 1892. New edition, +1893. + +Barrack Room Ballads and Other Verses (_U. S. Book Co._). N.D. [1892]. + +The Naulahka: a Story of West and East. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott +Balestier. (_Rand_). 1892. New edition (_Macmillan_). 1895. + +Many Inventions (_Appleton_). 1893. + +The Jungle Book (_Century Co._). 1894. + +Prose Tales. New uniform edition. 6 volumes (_Macmillan_). 1895. + +Out of India: Things I saw and failed to see, in certain days and +nights at Jeypore and elsewhere (_Dillingham_). 1895. [Included in +From Sea to Sea, 1899, under the title, Letters of Marque.] + +The Second Jungle Book (_Century Co._). 1895. + +The Seven Seas (_Appleton_). 1896. + +Soldier Stories (_Macmillan_). 1896. + +The "Outward Bound" Edition of Rudyard Kipling's Works (_Scribner_). +1897, etc. + +"Captains Courageous." A Story of the Grand Banks (_Century Co._). +1897. + +An Almanac of Twelve Sports. By William Nicholson. Words by Rudyard +Kipling (_Russell_). 1897. + +Collectanea: Reprinted Verses (_Mansfield_). 1898. [Contains: The +Explanation, Mandalay, Recessional, The Rhyme of the Three Captains, +The Vampire.] + +The Day's Work (_Doubleday_). 1898. + +The City of Dreadful Night (_Grosset_). 1899. + +Letters of Marque (_Caldwell_). 1899. + +From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel (_Doubleday_). 1899. + +Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads +(_Doubleday_). 1899. [The first authorised American edition.] + +Stalky & Co. (_Doubleday_). 1899. + +Kim (_Doubleday_). 1901. + +Just-So Stories for Little Children (_Doubleday_). 1902. + +The Five Nations (_Doubleday_). 1903. + +Traffics and Discoveries (_Doubleday_). 1904. + +Puck of Pook's Hill (_Doubleday_). 1906. + +Collected Verse (_Doubleday_). 1907. + +Actions and Reactions (_Doubleday_). 1909. + +Abaft the Funnel (_Dodge_). 1909. + +Rewards and Fairies (_Doubleday_). 1910. + +Songs from Books (_Doubleday_). 1912. + +A School History of England. By C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling +(_Oxford University Press_). 1912. + +The Seven Seas Edition of the Works in Verse and Prose of Rudyard +Kipling (_Doubleday_). 23 volumes. 1913. + + + + + INDEX + + _Baa Baa Black Sheep_, 91 + Barker, Granville, 16 + _Barrack Room Ballads_, 110, 111 + _Bell Buoy, The_, 109 + _Below the Mill Dam_, 82, 108 + _Between the Devil and the Deep Sea_, 79, 80 + _Beyond the Pole_, 60 + Birth, 14 + _Bridge-Builders, The_, 77, 89, 109 + _Brugglesmith_, 92 + _Brushwood Boy, The_, 98 + Brutality, 113 + + _Candide_, 106 + _Children of the Zodiac, The_, 98 + "Civil and Military Gazette, The," 14 + Cleever, 7-10, 73 + Cloke, 95 + + _Day's Work, The_, 23, 46, 77, 86, 87, 92 + + _End of the Passage, The_, 60 + England, feeling for, 93, 97 + _Error in the Fourth Dimension, An_, 93 + + Falstaff, 74 + + _Habitation Enforced, An_, 93, 94, 109 + Hardy, Thomas, 16 + Hawksbee, Mrs, 24, 25, 28 + Hazlitt, 10 + _Head of the District, The_, 87 + + Imperialism, 97 + India, influence of, 38, 45 + Indian Stories--Classification, 19 + _In the Rukh_, 92 + + _Jungle Book, The_, 17, 65, 92 + _Just-So Stories_, 91 + + Keats, John, 85 + _Kim_, 19, 22, 62-64, 100, 101 + Kipling, J. Lockwood, 14 + _Krishna Mulvaney_, 70 + + Lahore, 53 + Learoyd, 66 + _Life's Handicap_, 47, 53 + _Light that Failed, The_, 13, 87, 88, 89 + + Machinery, 84, 86 + Maisie, 89 + _Maltese Cat, The_, 88 + Malthus, 67 + _Man Who Would be King, The_, 60 + _Many Inventions_, 17 + _Marrying of Anne Leete, The_, 16 + Metre, 107 + Milton, 85 + _Miracle of Purun Bhagat, The_, 114 + Mowgli, 100 + Mulvaney, 66, 70 + _My Lord the Elephant_, 70 + _My Sunday at Home_, 92 + + Nietzsche, 67 + + Ortheris, 66, 70 + + _Phantom Rickshaw, The_, 29 + "Pioneer, The," 14 + _Plain Tales from the Hills_, 15, 17, 24, 29, 46, 60 + Politics, 33 + Pope, 106 + _Puck of Pook's Hill_, 97, 98 + Purun Bhagat, 101 + + Realism, 98 + Red-Haired Girl, The, 89 + _Return of Imray, The_, 61, 93 + + _Second Jungle Book, The_, 101 + Shakespeare, 74 + Shelley, 85 + _Ship that Found Herself, The_, 87 + Simla, 24, 26 + Simplicity, 46, 47 + _Snarleyow_, 111 + _Soldiers Three_, 110 + _Stalky & Co._, 91 + Sussex, 92 + + _Taking of Lungtungpen, The_, 91 + Technical enthusiasm, 79 + _They_, 97 + _Three Musketeers, The_, 91 + _Tods' Amendment_, 41, 91 + Trajego, 59 + + Verse and Prose, 107, 111 + + War, 68 + _Wee Willie Winkie_, 91 + _White Man's Burden, The_, 109, 110 + _William the Conqueror_, 47, 60, 86, 109 + _With the Night Mail_, 83 + Wordsworth, 85 + + _.007_, 79, 82, 88 + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDYARD KIPLING*** + + +******* This file should be named 18045-8.txt or 18045-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/4/18045 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Rudyard Kipling</p> +<p>Author: John Palmer</p> +<p>Release Date: March 24, 2006 [eBook #18045]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDYARD KIPLING***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Al Haines</h3></center><br><br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Rudyard Kipling" BORDER="2" WIDTH="357" HEIGHT="522"> +<H4> +[Frontispiece: Rudyard Kipling] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +RUDYARD KIPLING +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +JOHN PALMER +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +NEW YORK +<BR><BR> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +First Published in 1915 +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">INTRODUCTION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">SIMLA</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">THE SAHIB</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">NATIVE INDIA</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">SOLDIERS THREE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">THE DAY'S WORK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">THE FINER GRAIN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">THE POEMS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">BIBLIOGRAPHY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">INDEX</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +INTRODUCTION +</H3> + + +<P> +There is a tale of Mr Kipling which relates how Eustace Cleever, a +celebrated novelist, came to the rooms of a young subaltern and his +companions who were giving an account of themselves. Eustace Cleever +was a literary man, and was greatly impressed when he learned that one +of the company, who was under twenty-five and was called the Infant, +had killed people somewhere in Burma. He was suddenly caught by an +immense enthusiasm for the active life—the sort of enthusiasm which +sedentary authors feel. Eustace Cleever ended the night riotously with +youngsters who had helped to govern and extend the Empire; and he +returned from their company incoherently uttering a deep contempt for +art and letters. +</P> + +<P> +But Eustace Cleever was being observed by the First Person Singular of +Mr Kipling's tale. This receiver of confidences perceived what was +happening, and he has the last word of the story: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator and colourman in +words, was blaspheming his own Art and would be sorry for this in the +morning." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +We have here an important clue to Mr Kipling and his work. Mr Kipling +writes of the heroic life. He writes of men who do visible and +measurable things. His theme has usually to do with the world's work. +He writes of the locomotive and the engineer; of the mill-wheel and the +miller; of the bolts, bars and planks of a ship and the men who sail +it. He writes, in short, of any creature which has work to do and does +it well. Nevertheless we must not be misled into thinking that because +Mr Kipling glorifies all that is concrete, practical, visible and +active he is therefore any the less purely and utterly a literary man. +Mr Kipling seems sometimes to write as an engineer, sometimes as a +soldier. At times we would wager that he had spent all his life as a +Captain of Marines, or as a Keeper of Woods and Forests, or as a +Horse-Dealer. He gives his readers the impression that he has lived a +hundred lives, mastered many crafts, and led the life, not of one, but +of a dozen, active and practical men of affairs. He has created about +himself so complete an illusion of adventure and enterprise that it +seems almost the least important thing about him that he should also be +a writer of books. His readers, indeed, are apt to forget the most +important fact as to Mr Kipling—the fact that he is a man of letters. +He seems to belong rather to the company of young subalterns than to +the company of Eustace Cleever. +</P> + +<P> +Hence it is necessary to consider closely the moral of that excellent +tale. When Eustace Cleever blasphemed against his art, Mr Kipling +predicted he would be sorry for it. Mr Kipling recorded that +prediction because he had the best of reasons to know how Eustace +Cleever would feel upon the morning after his debauch of enthusiasm for +the heroic life. Let each man keep to his work, and know how good it +is to do that work as well as it can be done. Eustace Cleever's work +was to live the life of imagination and to handle English words—work +as difficult to do and normally as useful as the job of the Infant. +Though for one heady night Eustace Cleever yearned after a strange +career, Mr Kipling knew that he would return without misgiving to the +thing he was born to do. Mr Kipling, like Eustace Cleever, knows that +though nothing is more pleasant than to talk with young subalterns, yet +the born author remains always an author. He knows, too, that even the +deeds he admires in the men who make history are, for him, no more than +raw stuff to be taken in hand or rejected according to the author's +need. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Kipling, in short, is a man of letters, and we shall realise, before +we have done with him, that he is an extremely crafty and careful man +of letters. Tales which seem to come out of the barrack-yard, out of +the jungle or the deep sea, out of the dust and noise where men are +working and building and fighting, come really out of the study of an +expert craftsman using the tools of his craft with deliberate care. +This may seem an unnecessary warning. The intelligent reader will +protest that, since Mr Kipling writes books, it does not seem very +necessary to deduce that he is a man of letters. It is true that no +such warning would be necessary in the case of most writers of books. +It would be pure loss of time, for example, to begin a study of the +work of Mr Henry James by asserting that Mr Henry James was a man of +letters. But Mr Kipling is in rather a different case. The majority +of readers with whom one discusses Mr Kipling's works are sometimes far +astray, simply because they have not realised that Mr Kipling is as +utterly a man of letters as Mr Henry James, that he lives as completely +the life of fancy and meditation as William Blake or Francis Thompson. +Mr Kipling does not write tales out of the mere fullness of his life in +many continents and his talk with all kinds of men. He is not to be +understood as a man singular only in his experience, unloading +anecdotes from a crowded life, excelling in emphasis and reality by +virtue of things actually seen and done. On the contrary, Mr Kipling +writes tales because he is a writer. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Kipling has seen more of the scattered life of the world and been +more keenly interested in the work of the world than some of his +literary contemporaries. But this does not imply that he is any the +less devoted to the craft of letters. Indeed, we shall realise that he +is one of the craftiest authors who ever lived. He is more crafty than +Stevenson. He often lives by the word alone—the word picked and +polished. That he has successfully disguised this fact from many of +his admirers is only a further proof of his literary cunning. Mr +Kipling often uses words with great skill to create in his readers the +impression that words matter to him hardly at all. He will work as +hard as the careful sonneteer to give to his manner a tang of rawness +and crudity; and thereby his readers are willing to forget that he is a +literary man. They are content simply to listen to a man who has seen, +and possibly done, wonders in all parts of the world, neglecting to +observe that, if the world with its day's work belongs to Mr Kipling, +it belongs to him only by author's right—that is, by right of +imagination and right of style. +</P> + +<P> +It is true that Mr Kipling is lawless and contemptuous of literary +formality; and that whenever he talks of "Art," as in certain pages of +<I>The Light That Failed</I>, he tries to talk as though there were really +no such thing. But Mr Kipling's cheerful contempt of all that is +pedantic and magisterial in "Art" does not imply that he is innocent of +literary discipline. It is true that Mr Kipling is lawless in the +sense that all good work is more than a conscious adherence to formula. +It is not true in the sense that Mr Kipling is more lawless than +Tennyson or Walter Scott. Readers of Mr Kipling's stories must not be +misled by his buccaneering contempt for formal art. Mr Kipling's art +is as formal as the art of Wilde, or the art of Baudelaire, which he +helped to send out of fashion. +</P> + +<P> +A few preliminary words are necessary (1) as to the half-dozen dates +which bear upon Mr Kipling's authorship and (2) as to the arrangement +of his works here to be followed. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Kipling was born in 1865, the son of J. Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E. +His intimacy with India was determined at birth. He was educated at +the United Services College, Westward Ho, but was again in India in +1882, as assistant editor on <I>The Civil and Military Gazette</I> and <I>The +Pioneer</I>. He remained on the staff of <I>The Pioneer</I> for seven years, +and travelled over the five continents. By this time he had learned to +think of the world as a place rather more diversified than a walk from +Charing Cross to Whitehall would lead one to imagine; to see something +of men upon its frontiers, and to love England as men do who come back +to her from the ends of the earth. The whole of Mr Kipling's literary +biography is contained in the fact that Mr Kipling has been a great +traveller who is now inveterately at home. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps we should also note that Mr Kipling was a literary prodigy. +<I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I> appeared in 1887. Mr Kipling at +twenty-two had shown his quality and had already mapped out in little +his career. In <I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I> there are hints for almost +everything that their author afterwards accomplished. As the book of a +young journalist whose name had not yet been whispered among the +publishers and critics of London it was a miracle. If Mr Kipling had +been able to improve on <I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I> as much as +Shakespeare improved on <I>Love's Labour's Lost</I>, as much as Shelley +improved on <I>Queen Mab</I>, Robert Browning on <I>Pauline</I>, Byron on <I>Hours +of Idleness</I>, he would to-day be without a peer. Mr Granville Barker +is often cited as a classical modern example of precocity, but he was +twenty-four when he wrote <I>The Marrying of Anne Leete</I>. Mr Henry James +was twenty-eight before he had published a characteristic word. Mr +Thomas Hardy at twenty-five had only printed a short story, and he was +more than thirty when his first novel appeared. Mr Kipling came upon +the public in 1886 without a preliminary stutter. Mr Kipling at +twenty-two could write as craftily as Mr Kipling can write after nearly +thirty years' experience. We shall not be greatly concerned in these +pages to trace the progress of Mr Kipling's craft and wisdom. He was +always crafty and always wise. He had done some of his best work at +thirty. He recalls Hazlitt's curious saying that an improving author +is never a great author. Mr Kipling is not an improving author. There +has been a little moving up and down the scale of excellence; many +things hinted in the early volumes from <I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I> to +<I>Many Inventions</I> are developed more elaborately and surely in later +volumes; the old craft has come to be used with an ease that has in it +more of the insolence of a master than was possible in the author of +1887. But so far as literary finish is concerned, <I>Plain Tales from +the Hills</I> leaves little to be acquired. Already Mr Kipling wields his +implement as deftly and firmly as many a skilled writer who was +learning his lesson before Mr Kipling was born. Few authors have so +surely scored their best in their earliest years. Authors are +considered young to-day at thirty. Mr Kipling at that age had already +written <I>The Jungle Book</I>. +</P> + +<P> +This does not, of course, imply that all Mr Kipling's stories are of +equal merit. On the contrary, we shall henceforth be mainly concerned +with looking for the inspired author under a mass of skilful +journalism. It is not a simple enterprise. Mr Kipling is so competent +an author that he is usually able to persuade his readers that his +heart is equally in all he writes. Moreover, Mr Kipling has fallen +among many prejudices, literary and political, which have caused his +least important work to be most discussed. For these reasons the +actual, as distinguished from the legendary, Mr Kipling is not easily +discovered. Mainly it is a work of excavation. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Kipling has been writing short stories for nearly thirty years. His +tales are too numerous for disparate discussion. It will be necessary +to take them in groups. One or two stories in each group will be taken +as typical of the rest. Thereby we shall avoid repetition and be able +to show some sort of plan to the maze of Mr Kipling's diversity of +subjects and manners. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SIMLA +</H3> + + +<P> +Mr Kipling's Indian stories fall into three groups. There are (1) the +tales of Simla, (2) the Anglo-Indian tales, and (3) the tales of native +India. There is also <I>Kim</I>, which is more—much more—than a tale of +India. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Kipling's Indian stories necessarily tend to fill a disproportionate +amount of space. They are of less account than their number or the +attention they have received would seem to imply. Their discussion in +this and the two following chapters will be more of a political than a +literary discussion. Mr Kipling as journalist and very efficient +colourman in words has made much of India in his time. He has +perceived in India a subject susceptible of being profitably worked +upon. Here was a vast continent, the particular concern of the +English, where all kinds of interesting work was being done, where +stories grew too thickly for counting, and where there was, ready to +the teller's eye, a richness and diversity of setting which beggared +the most eager penmanship. Moreover, this continent was virtually +untouched in the popular literature of the day. Naturally Mr Kipling +made full use of his opportunity. He did not write of India because +India was essential to his genius, but because he was shrewd enough to +realise that nothing could better serve the purpose of a young author +than to exploit his first-hand acquisition of an inexhaustible store of +fresh and excellent material. India was annexed by Mr Kipling at +twenty-two for his own literary purposes. He was not born to interpret +India, nor does he throw his literary heart and soul into the business. +When, in the Indian stories, we meet with pages sincerely inspired we +discover that their inspiration has very little to do with India and a +great deal to do with Mr Kipling's impulse to celebrate the work of the +world, and even more to do with his impulse to escape the intellectual +casuistry of his generation in a region where life is simple and +intense. These aspects of his work will be more clearly revealed at a +later stage. For the moment we are considering the Indian tales simply +as tales of India; and from this point of view they obviously belong to +the journalist rather than to the author who has helped to make the +English short story respectable. Mr Kipling simply gets out of India +the maximum of literary effect as a teller of tales. India, for +example, is mysterious. Mr Kipling exploits her mystery competently +and coolly, making his points with the precision, clarity and force of +one to whom the enterprise begins and ends as an affair of technical +adequacy. The point is made with equal ability that India is not +without peril and difficulty ruled and administered by the sahibs; or +that India has a complicated history; or that India is thickly peopled. +Mr Kipling in his Indian tales makes the most of his talent for +observing things, always with a keen eye for their effective literary +employment. His Indian tales are descriptive journalism of a high +quality; and, being journalism, their matter and their doctrine have +hit hard the attention of their particular day. +</P> + +<P> +This reduces us to the necessity of considering not so much their form +and quality as the ideas and doctrines they contain—a barren task but +necessary in order to clear away many misconceptions with regard to Mr +Kipling's work. Regarded as literature, Mr Kipling's Indian tales are +mainly of note as preparing in him that enthusiasm for the work of the +world which, later, was to inspire his greatest pages; as finally +leading him in <I>Kim</I> to a door whereby he was able to pass into the +region of pure fancy where alone he is supremely happy, and as +prompting in him the instinct to simplify which urged him into the +jungle and into the minds of children. But all this has very little to +do with India. So long as we are dealing with Mr Kipling's Indian +stories as in themselves finished and intrinsic studies of India, we +remain only in the suburbs of Mr Kipling's merit as an author. The +Simla tales are not more than a skilful employment of a literary +convention which Mr Kipling did not inherit. The Anglo-Indian and +native tales are the not less skilful work of a young newspaper man +breaking into a storehouse of new material. We are interested firstly +in Mr Kipling's craft as a technician, as one who makes the most of his +theme deliberately and self-consciously; and secondly in Mr Kipling's +point of view, in the impressions and ideas he has collected concerning +the country of which he writes. Until we arrive at <I>The Day's Work</I> we +shall be mainly occupied in clearing the ground of impertinent +prejudices concerning Mr Kipling's temperament and politics. For +though the Indian and soldier tales are as literature not impregnable +to criticism, they can at any rate be rescued from those who have +annexed or repudiated them from motives which have little to do with +their literary value. +</P> + +<P> +We will begin with the Simla tales. +</P> + +<P> +Characteristically the author who began virtually at the end of his +career—proclaiming himself a finished virtuoso at the start—entered +into prose with a volume of tales, radiating from Simla, which betray +qualities that are usually associated with the later rather than with +the early work of an author. <I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I> number more +Simla stories to the square page than any other volume of Mr Kipling. +Now Mr Kipling's Simla stories are the least important, but in some +ways the most significant of all the stories he wrote. They begin and +they end in sheer literary virtuosity. We feel in reading Mr Kipling's +studies of the social world at Simla that he had no intuitive call to +write them; that they are exercises in craft rather than genuine +inspirations. Mrs Hawksbee stands for nothing in Mr Kipling's +achievement save only for his power to create an illusion of reality +and enthusiasm by sheer finish of style. She is not a creation. She +is only the best possible example of the clever sleight-of-hand of an +accomplished artificer. She is in literary fiction cousin to the +witty, flirtatious ladies of the modern English theatre. Her +conversation is delightful, but it belongs to nobody. It does not even +belong to her author. Mrs Hawksbee talks as all well-dressed women +talk in the best books. She does it with a volubility and +resourcefulness which almost disguises the fact that she lives only by +hanging desperately to the end of her author's pen; but she cannot +deceive us always. Mr Kipling does not really believe in Mrs Hawksbee. +He has no real sympathy or knowledge of the social undercrust where the +tangle of three is a constant theme. The talk of Mrs Hawksbee and her +circle is derived. Its conduct is fashionable light comedy in an +Indian setting. +</P> + +<P> +Simla really does not deserve to be known outside the Indian Empire. +It is a comparatively cool place whither Indian soldier and civilians +send their wives in the hot weather and whither they retire themselves +under medical advice. It is not unlike any other warm and idle city of +rest where there is every kind of expensive amusement provided for a +migratory population. Mr Kipling has failed to make Simla interesting, +because Simla is Biarritz and Monte Carlo or any place which in fiction +is frequented by people who behave naughtily and enjoy themselves, and +in real life is frequented by the upper middle classes mechanically +passing the time. Mr Kipling's ingenious pretences regarding Simla are +amusing, but they cannot long conceal from his readers that these +tales, apart from literary exhibition, were really not worth the +telling. Mr Kipling pretends, of course, even at twenty-four, to know +of all that passes between women unlacing after a ball; but Mr +Kipling's pretended omniscience is part of his literary method, and he +does not quite carry it off in the Simla tales. He gives us not Simla +or any place under the sun, but a sparkling stage version of Simla—all +dancing and delight, a little intrigue, a touch of sentiment, patches +of excellent fun, and now and then a streak of Indian mystery. But Mr +Kipling's heart is not really in this business. His Simla tales will +not endure, and they have been given too much prominence in the popular +idea of his work. They are not plain tales, but tales very artfully +coloured. They fall far short of the standard to which Mr Kipling has +raised the English short story. Yet even here we may note the skill +with which the author has concealed his failure. Mrs Hawksbee may be +taken as a symbol of the distinction between the work of an inspired +author and the work of an author playing with his tools. Mr Kipling of +<I>The Jungle Books</I> and <I>The Day's Work</I> is an inspired author. Mr +Kipling of the Simla tales, on the other hand, is simply concerned to +show that he can work a conventional formula of the day as well as any +man; that he can redeem the formula with individual touches beyond the +reach of most; and can enliven it with impudent pretences which please +by virtue of their being utterly preposterous. Take, for example, the +pretence that Mrs Hawksbee is a charming woman. Mrs Hawksbee is really +nothing of the kind. She is an anthology of witty phrases. She is the +abstract perfection of what a clever head and a good heart is expected +to be in a fashionable comedy. But Mr Kipling desires her to be +accepted as a charming woman. His procedure, on a high and delicate +plane, is precisely the procedure to which we are accustomed on a low +and obvious plane in the majority of popular novels where the hero has +to be accepted for a man of brilliant genius. We have to take the +author's word for it. The author who tells us that his hero is a +genius usually requires us to believe it without further proof. He +does not show us a page of the hero's music or the hero's poetry, but +we must believe that it is very fine, even though the hero loves Pietro +Mascagni and worships Martin Tupper. Similarly Mr Kipling, presenting +us with Mrs Hawksbee, nowhere affords us direct evidence that she is a +charming woman. He assumes it, gets everyone else in the story to +assume it, and expects his readers to assume it—his cunning as a +writer being of so remarkable a quality that there are very few of the +Simla tales in which the reader is not prepared to assume it for the +sake of the story. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Hawksbee is typical of the majority of Mr Kipling's studies in +social comedy. His success in this kind is remarkable, but it is +barren. Mr Kipling realised this himself quite early, for he quite +soon abandoned Simla. There are some sixteen stories in <I>Plain Tales +from the Hills</I> into which the Simla motive is threaded. In the books +immediately following, published in 1888 and 1889, Simla is not wholly +abandoned, but the proportion of Simla stories is less. <I>The Phantom +Rickshaw</I> (1889) is the last story which can fairly be brought within +the list, and this story can only be included by straining its point to +vanishing. Of all the groups of stories in <I>Plain Tales from the +Hills</I> the Simla group, though it was largest, promised least for the +future. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE SAHIB +</H3> + + +<P> +There is another group of Indian tales, a group which deals with the +governance of India—with the men who are spent in the Imperial +Service. The peculiar charm and merit of these tales is best +considered as a special case of Mr Kipling's delight in the world's +work—a subject which claims a chapter to itself. But apart from this, +Mr Kipling's Anglo-Indian tales—his presentation of the work of the +Indian Empire, of the Anglo-Indian soldier and civilian—have an +unfortunate interest of their own. They are mainly responsible for a +misconception which has dogged Mr Kipling through all his career. This +misconception consists in regarding Mr Kipling as primarily an +Imperialist pamphleteer with a brief for the Services and a contempt +for the Progressive Parties. It is an error which has acted +mischievously upon all who share it—upon the reader who mechanically +regrets that Mr Kipling's work should be disfigured with fierce heresy; +upon the reader who chuckles with sectarian glee when the "much +talkers" are mocked and confounded; upon Mr Kipling himself who has +been encouraged to mistake an accident of his career as the essence of +his achievement and to regard himself as a sort of Imperial laureate. +The origin of this misconception is not obscure. Mr Kipling has +written intimate tales of the British Army: he is, therefore, a +"militarist." He has lived in India many years, and realised that men +who live in India, and administer India, and come into personal contact +with Hindus and Mohammedans, know more about India than Members of +Parliament who run through the Indian continent between sessions: he +is, therefore, a reviler of the free democratic institutions of Great +Britain. He has realised that Government departments in Whitehall are +not always thought to be very expeditious, well informed and devoted by +men who are often confronted with matters that cannot afford to wait +for a telegram: he is, therefore, a lover of the high hand and of +courses brutal and irregular. He has celebrated the toil and the +adventure of pioneers and of outposts: he is, therefore, one who +brandishes unseasonably the Imperial sword. +</P> + +<P> +The grain of truth in these deductions is heavily outweighed by the +massive absurdity of regarding them as in any sense essential. Mr +Kipling brings political prejudice into his work less than almost any +living contemporary. At a time when there was hardly an English novel +or an English play of consequence which was not also a political +pamphlet it was completely false to regard Mr Kipling as a pamphleteer. +When most of our English authors were talking from the platform, Mr +Kipling—with a few, too few, others—remained apart. He is suspect, +not because his Anglo-Indian tales or his army tales are political, but +because they record much that is true of the English Services, which +fails to square with much that once was popularly believed about them. +The real reason of Mr Kipling's false fame as a politician is, not that +he is an Imperial pamphleteer, but that, writing of the Army and the +Empire, he fails to be a pamphleteer on the other side. His +detachment, not his partiality, is at fault. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Kipling's detachment from the politics of his day explains virtually +everything that has offended his modern critics. Almost the first +thing to realise in discussing Mr Kipling's attitude to modern life is +that Mr Kipling has kept absolutely clear of the political and social +drift of the last thirty years. He has been conspicuously out of +everything. He has had nothing to say to any of the ideas or +influences which have formed his contemporaries. While others of his +literary generation were growing up amid intellectual movements, +democratic tendencies and advances of humanity, Mr Kipling was standing +between two civilisations in India which were hardly susceptible of +being reconciled till they had been reduced to very simple terms. The +instinct to simplify—to get down to something in nature that included +the East with the West, the First with the Twentieth century, was +naturally strong in one who was born between two nations; and it was an +instinct which drove Mr Kipling in the opposite direction from that in +which his contemporaries were moving. While Mr Kipling's generation +was learning to analyse, refine and interrogate, to become super-subtle +and incredulous, to exalt the particular and ignore the general, to +probe into the intricate and sensitive places of modern life, Mr +Kipling was looking at mankind in the mass, looking back to the +half-dozen realities which are the stuff of the poetry of every climate +and period—to love of country which is as old as the waters of +Babylon, to the faith of Achates, and the affliction of Job. While Mr +Kipling's contemporaries have been working towards minute studies of +individuals and groups, Mr Kipling has been content to catch the metal +of humanity at the flash point, to wait for the passionate moment which +reveals all mankind as of one kindred. "We be of one blood, ye and +I"—the phrase of the Jungle holds. +</P> + +<P> +To find here evidence of a bias merely political, of an attitude +reactionary and hostile to the progress o the world, is to deny sense +and meaning to the greatest literature of the world. Mr Kipling's +instinctive simplifying of life he shares with the immortals. It is, +as we shall see, the immortal part of him. To write of Mr Kipling as +though he celebrates the ape and the tiger; extols the Philistine and +the brute; calls always for more chops—"bloody ones with gristle"; +delights in the savagery of war, and ferociously despises all that +separates the Englishman of to-day from his painted ancestor—this is +the mistake of critics who cannot distinguish the cant of progress from +its reality. +</P> + +<P> +We shall be driven more particularly to consider Mr Kipling's atavism +in discussing his tales of the British Army. For the present we are +dealing only with India and the "Imperialism" which some of Mr +Kipling's critics have taken for an offensive proof of his political +prejudice. Mr Kipling's treatment of the Anglo-Indian, and of the +dealing of the Anglo-Indian with the Indian Empire, has nothing to do +with the Yellows and the Blues. The real motive of Mr Kipling's +attitude towards the men on the frontier, in places where deadly things +are encountered and there is work to be done, is no more a matter of +politics, "progressive" or "reactionary," than is his celebration of +the Maltese Cat or of .007. "The White Man's Burden" is the burden of +every creature in whom there lives the pride of unrewarded labour, of +endurance and courage. In India this pride has to be wholesomely +tempered with humility; for India is old and vast and incomprehensible, +to be handled with care, to be approached as a country which, though it +shows an inscrutably smiling face to the modern world, has the power +suddenly to baffle its modern rulers by opening to them glimpses of an +intricate and unassailable life which cannot be ruffled by Orders in +Council or disturbed by the weak ploughing of teachers from the West. +The task of the Anglo-Indian administrator is, indeed, the finest +opportunity for that heroic life to the celebration of which Mr Kipling +has devoted so many of his tales. This hero has a task which taxes all +his ability, which promises little riches and little fame, and is known +to be tolerably hopeless. It offers to him a supreme test of his +virtue—a test in which the hero is accountable only to his personal +will; whose best work is its own reward and comfort. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P> +"Gentlemen come from England," writes Mr Kipling in one of his Indian +tales, "spend a few weeks in India, walk round this great sphinx of the +Plains, and write books upon its ways and its work, denouncing or +praising it as their ignorance prompts. Consequently all the world +knows how the Supreme Government conducts itself. But no one, not even +the Supreme Government, knows everything about the administration of +the Empire. Year by year England sends out fresh drafts for the first +fighting-line, which is officially called the Indian Civil Service. +These die, or kill themselves by overwork, or are worried to death, or +broken in health and hope, in order that the land may be protected from +death and sickness, famine and war, and may eventually become capable +of standing alone. It will never stand alone; but the idea is a pretty +one, and men are willing to die for it, and yearly the work of pushing +and coaxing and scolding and petting the country into good living goes +forward. If an advance be made, all credit is given to the native, +while the Englishmen stand back and wipe their foreheads. If a failure +occurs, the Englishmen step forward and accept the blame." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P> +This passage declares the heroic spirit of Mr Kipling's Anglo-Indian +tales; and many readers will fail to understand how exactly this spirit +has been found vainglorious. +</P> + +<P> +There is a passage in Shakespeare where a king's envoy comes to claim +of a high-mettled and sweating warrior the fruits of victory. The +warrior grudges less surrendering the fruits of victory to the king +than he grudges surrendering his anger at being easily and prettily +addressed on the field of battle by a polite and dainty fellow who has +no idea how dearly the fruits of victory are purchased. Mr Kipling's +heroes are frail enough to feel some of this very natural indignation +when unbreathed politicians lecture them in the heat of their Indian +day. They come into touch with things simple and bitter. India has +searched out the value of many a Western shibboleth, destroyed many +doctrines, principles, ideas and theories. Phrases which look well in +a peroration look foolish when there is immediate work to be done, and +expediency begins to rule. The first lesson which the Indian civilian +learns, a lesson which is rarely omitted from any of Mr Kipling's +Indian stories, is that practical men are better for being ready to +take the world as they find it. The men who worship the Great God +Dungara, the God of Things as They Are, most terrible, One-eyed, +Bearing the Red Elephant Tusk—men who are set on saving their own +particular business—have no time for saving faces and phrases. They +have small respect for a principle. They have seen too many principles +break down under the particular instance. Hence there is in all Mr +Kipling's work a disrespect of things which are printed and made much +of in the contemporary British press; and this, again, has encouraged +the idea that he is "reactionary," contemptuous of the humanities, and +enemy of all the best poets and philosophers. +</P> + +<P> +It will perhaps be well to look a little closely at one or two of Mr +Kipling's Indian series. They will help us to realise how the charges +we are discussing have arisen and exactly how unreasonable they are. +The first of two excellent examples is the story of <I>Tods' Amendment</I>. +<I>Tods' Amendment</I> is the story of a Bill brought in by the Supreme +Legislative Council of India. Tods was an English baby of six, and he +mixed on friendly terms with Indians in the bazaar and with members of +the Supreme Legislative Council. The Council was at this time devising +a new scheme of land tenure which aimed at "safeguarding the interests" +of a few hundred thousand cultivators of the Punjab. The Bill was +beautiful on paper; and the Legal Member, who knew Tods, was settling +the "minor details." The weak part of the business was that European +legislators, dealing with natives, are often puzzled to know which +details are the major and which the minor. Also the Native Member was +from Calcutta, and knew nothing about the Punjab. Nevertheless, the +Bill was known to be a beautiful Bill till Tods happened one evening to +be sitting on the knee of the Legal Member, and to hear him mention +<I>The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment</I>. Tods had heard the +bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when +there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the +Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only +one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was +altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause which so +clearly "safeguarded the interests of the tenant." It therefore came +about that the rough draft of the Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised +Enactment was put away in the Legal Member's private paper-box—"and, +opposite the twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed +by the Legal Member, are the words, 'Tods' Amendment.'" +</P> + +<P> +The moral of the tale is not obscure. A baby who runs in the bazaar is +better able to legislate for India than a Supreme Legislative Council. +India, in short, is a vast and uncertain land, whose ways are not +always learned in a lifetime by the men whose business it is. The +argument <I>a fortiori</I>—namely, that amiable and humane political +philosophers, well bred in the latest European theories of government, +are even less likely to be infallible—need not be pursued. +</P> + +<P> +Our second story is the story of Aurelian McGoggin. Aurelian McGoggin +had read too many books, and he had too many theories. He also had a +creed: "It was not much of a creed. It only proved that men had no +souls, and there was no God and no hereafter, and that you must worry +along somehow for the good of humanity." McGoggin had found it an +excellent creed for a Government office, and he brought it to India and +tried to teach it to all his friends. His friends had found that life +in India is not long enough to waste in proving that there is no one +particular at the head of affairs, and they objected. They also warned +McGoggin not to be too good for his work, and not to insist on doing it +better than it needed to be done, because people in India wanted all +their energy for bare life. But McGoggin would not be warned, and one +day, when he had steadily overworked and overtalked through the hot +season, he was suddenly interrupted at the club, in the middle of an +oration. The doctor called it <I>aphasia</I>; but McGoggin only knew that +he was struck sensationally dumb: "Something had wiped his lips of +speech as a mother wipes the milky lips of her child, and he was +afraid. For a moment he had lost his mind and memory—which was +preposterous and something for which his philosophy did not allow. +Henceforth he did not appear to know so much as he used to about things +Divine." +</P> + +<P> +McGoggin, in fact, was converted; for, as Mr Kipling explains, his +story is really a tract—a tract whose purpose is to convey that India +is able to cure the most resolute positivist of his positivism. Mr +Kipling's India is a land where science is mocked, and synthetic +philosophies perish, and mere talk is wiped from the lips. You do not +talk of Humanity in India, because in India "you really see +humanity—raw, brown, naked humanity—with nothing between it and the +blazing sky, and only the used-up, overhandled earth underfoot." Mr +Kipling's Indian administrators are practical and simple men, who obey +orders and accept the incredible because their position requires them +to administer India as though they were never at fault, whereas their +experience tells them that, if they are never to be at fault in India, +it is wise to be not too original and fatal to be too rigid. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Tods' Amendment</I> and <I>The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin</I> are printed +among <I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I>. They look forward to a whole +series of Anglo-Indian tales which present Mr Kipling's idea of the +English in India. Out of his later books we can illustrate a hundred +times his conviction that in India the simplest wisdom is the best. +</P> + +<P> +But there are two kinds of simplicity. The one kind is illustrated in +a tale from <I>The Day's Work</I>; it is the right kind of simplicity. In +no story of Mr Kipling is the devoted service and practical +resourcefulness of the good Civilian so movingly celebrated as in the +story of <I>William the Conqueror</I>. It is the story of a famine, and of +how it was met by the servants of the Indian Government. The +administration of famine relief would seem to be a simple thing when +the grain has come by rail and only waits to be distributed. But the +district served by the little group of English in <I>William the +Conqueror</I> was a district which did not understand the food of the +North, and, if it could not get the rice which it knew, was ready to +starve within reach of bagsful of unfamiliar wheat or rye. The hero of +the tale is finally reduced to distributing the Government rations to +the goats, and keeping the starving babies alive with milk. It was a +simple idea, and the man to whom it occurred worked himself to death's +door, which was no more than another simple idea of what was due from +him to the district and to his superior officer. +</P> + +<P> +The wrong kind of simplicity is illustrated in a story from <I>Life's +Handicap</I>. It is called <I>The Head of the District</I>, and it has to do +with a simple idea which occurred to the Viceroy. A Deputy +Commissioner who understood the lawless Khusru Kheyel and had put into +them the fear of English law had died and a successor had to be +appointed. The man for the post was a certain Tallentire who had +worked with the late head of the district and knew the tribe with whom +he had to deal. But the Viceroy had a Principle. He wished to educate +the natives in self-government; and here was an opportunity—a vacant +post of responsibility and a native candidate to fill it. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had +won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open +competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the +world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, +sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. He +had been to England and charmed many drawing-rooms there. His name, if +the Viceroy recollected aright, was Mr Grish Chunder Dé, M.A. In +short, did anybody see any objection to the appointment, always on +principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? The district in +South-Eastern Bengal might with advantage, he apprehended, pass over to +a younger civilian of Mr G. C. Dé's nationality (who had written a +remarkably clever pamphlet on the political value of sympathy in +administration); and Mr G. C. Dé could be transferred northward. As +regarded the mere question of race, Mr Grish Chunder Dé was more +English than the English, and yet possessed of that peculiar sympathy +and insight which the best among the best Service in the world could +only win to at the end of their service." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The principle was sound; but the consequences were such as usually +follow when ideas which are simple in one continent are applied in +another. Any man on the frontier could have told what would come of +asking the Khusru Kheyel to respect and obey Mr Grish Chunder Dé. It +was not a matter of religion or ability, but of history. The Khusru +Kheyel had had relations with the countrymen of their new Head for +generations and they were not relations of respect and obedience. How +there was riot and some rapid blood-letting on the border, and how the +new Head resigned his office before he had taken it over, is told as a +warning that there is a wrong kind of simplicity in dealing with India. +It is fatal to have invented simple and embracing phrases about a +country which holds more races than all Europe; has had a long and +private history of its own; has been more often conquered than Great +Britain; and has had every sort of experience except that of being +governed according to constitutional law. +</P> + +<P> +This chapter being mainly devoted to rescuing Mr Kipling from his +political admirers and censors, it may be well to conclude upon his +vision of the devoted civilian Scott, the hero of a tale already +quoted, the man who fed the Indian babies from a herd of goats fattened +on the food which the starving people of the Deccan distrusted and +refused. Scott appears in that story at sunset, delectable and humane, +sneezing in the dust of a hundred little feet, "a god in a halo of gold +dust, walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at his knee ran +small naked cupids." +</P> + +<P> +Clearly there is something wrong with the popular habit of regarding Mr +Kipling as essentially concerned with the carving of men to the "nasty +noise of beef-cutting on the block." His "god in a halo of gold dust" +seriously discourages any attempt to brand him with the mark of the +reverting carnivor. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NATIVE INDIA +</H3> + +<P> +From Simla we have come down to the plains and the work of the English +in Imperial India. Thence we pass to India herself. Concerning native +India Mr Kipling's principle thesis—a thesis illustrated with point +and competency in many excellent tales—is that for the people of the +West there can be no such thing as the real India—only here and there +an understanding that wavers and frequently expires. Mr Kipling does +not insolently explain that India is thus and thus. He allows the +impression to grow upon us, as once it grew upon himself, that in India +all the settled ways of the West are insecure, that at any moment we +may be looking into the House of Suddhu. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "A stone's throw out on either hand<BR> + From that well-ordered road we tread,<BR> + And all the world is wild and strange:<BR> +Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite<BR> +Shall bear us company to-night,<BR> +For we have reached the Oldest Land<BR> + Wherein the Powers of Darkness range." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It is not for an Englishman to speak of the real India. Let him stand +with Mr Kipling between East and West, and allow each thing he sees to +add to his dark and intricate impression. India will then assume her +own uneasy and vast form, will press upon the nerves, and be declared +mysterious. +</P> + +<P> +There are a few pages in <I>Life's Handicap</I> describing the City of +Lahore by night. There is great heat in these pages; there is distance +also, and the breathless air of streets where the formic swarming of +India, her callous fecundity, the tyranny of her skies, and her old +faith, prepare us for the House of Suddhu and the return of Imray: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"The roof-tops are crammed with men, women, and children; and the air +is full of undistinguishable noises. They are restless in the City of +Dreadful Night; and small wonder. The marvel is that they can even +breathe. If you gaze intently at the multitude you can see that they +are almost as uneasy as a daylight crowd; but the tumult is subdued. +Everywhere, in the strong light, you can watch sleepers turning to and +fro, shifting their beds and again resettling them. In the pit-like +courtyards of the houses there is the same movement. +</P> + +<P> +"The pitiless Moon shows it all. Shows, too, the plains outside the +city, and here and there a hand's-breadth of the Ravee without the +walls. Shows lastly, a splash of glittering silver on a house-top +almost directly below the mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to +throw a jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the falling +water strikes faintly on the ear. Two or three other men, in far-off +corners of the City of Dreadful Night, follow his example, and the +water flashes like heliographic signals.… Still the unrestful +noise continues, the sigh of a great city overwhelmed with the heat, +and of a people seeking in vain for rest. It is only the lower-class +women who sleep on the house-tops. What must the torment be in the +latticed zenanas, where a few lamps are still twinkling? There are +footfalls in the court below. It is the <I>Muezzin</I>—faithful minister; +but he ought to have been here an hour ago to tell the Faithful that +prayer is better than sleep—the sleep that will not come to the city. +</P> + +<P> +"The <I>Muezzin</I> fumbles for a moment with the door of one of the Minars, +disappears awhile, and a bull-like roar—a magnificent bass +thunder—tells that he has reached the top of the Minar. They must +hear the cry to the banks of the shrunken Ravee itself! Even across +the courtyard it is almost overpowering. The cloud drifts by and shows +him outlined black against the sky, hands laid upon his ears, and broad +chest heaving with the play of his lungs—'Allah ho Akbar'; then a +pause while another <I>Muezzin</I> somewhere in the direction of the Golden +Temple takes up the call—'Allah ho Akbar.' Again and again; four +times in all; and from the bedsteads a dozen men have risen up +already.—'I bear witness that there is no God by God.'" +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +"Several weeks of darkness pass after this. For the Moon has gone out. +The very dogs are still, and I watch for the first light of the dawn +before making my way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. The +morning call is about to begin, and my nightwatch is over. 'Allah ho +Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!' The east grows grey, and presently saffron; +the dawn wind comes up as though the <I>Muezzin</I> had summoned it; and, as +one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its bed and turns its +face towards the dawning day.… +</P> + +<P> +"'Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room?' What is it? +Something borne on men's shoulders comes by in the half-light, and I +stand back. A woman's corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a +bystander says, 'She died at midnight from the heat.'" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This passage may stand as a fair example of Mr Kipling's method of +dealing with India. It is an able piece of descriptive writing. It is +marked by a conscious and deliberate resolve that the "effect" shall be +made. It shows us the Indian city from a high distance, as it appeared +to an observer with a knack for vividly delivering his impressions. It +is in no sense an inspired wrestle with the reality of India; and in +that it is typical. Mr Kipling has never claimed to grasp or interpret +his Indian theme. He has stood away almost ostentatiously from the +material he was exploiting. +</P> + +<P> +It is indeed the chief merit of his Indian tales that he admits himself +to be no more, so far as India is concerned, than an adventurer making +the literary most of his adventure. He has at any rate the sensibility +to be conscious that often he is in the position of a tripper before +the Sphinx. His tales are thrilled with respect and a sense of India's +power. She it is who wipes the lips of Aurelian McGoggin, who flouts +the Greatest of All the Viceroys, humbles the Legal Member of the +Supreme Legislative Council, and drives the lonely white intruder to +illusion and death. She is indifferent to every conqueror. She feeds +her multitudes like a mother; and then suddenly her bounty dries and +there is famine and pestilence. Always she is a confronting Presence +dwarfing to one height masters and slaves. Mr Kipling has followed +this Presence as Browning's poet followed a more familiar quest: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Yet the day wears,<BR> +And door succeeds door;<BR> +I try the fresh fortune—<BR> +Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.<BR> +Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It is a lawful adventure, and for some it is an absolute duty, to +follow and challenge the Presence in word and deed. Englishmen who +live in her shadow have sometimes for their honour to grasp and defy +her; to assume that they are bound to question her authority. India +for all her unknown terror has to be wrestled with for the blessing +that England requires upon the labour of the English. Though the Gods +of India are sacred, the devils of India, filthy and lawless, must be +driven out. When India put the mark of the beast upon Fleete the +powers of darkness had of necessity to be brought to heel, and this +story may be read as a parable. The mark of the beast, wherever it may +appear, is the Imperial concern of the English in India. +</P> + +<P> +But a warning enters here. Mr Kipling, celebrating Imperial India, has +shown us the English at close war with the India of black magic and +secret murder, of cruelty and fear. But he has balanced the account. +There is another set of stories, showing us how the white man comes to +disaster, who, not content with his exact and simple duty, insolently +overleaps the breach between East and West—the breach which Mr Kipling +himself so scrupulously observes. There was Trajego: +</P> + +<P> +"He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the +second. He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will never +do so again." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +His story is entitled <I>Beyond the Pale</I>, and is to be found among +<I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I>. There is also <I>The Man Who Would Be +King</I>. He, too, neglected the barriers. India may be ruled by the +resolute and challenged by the brave; but India may never be embraced. +</P> + +<P> +India, who strikes out of a brazen sky; who poisons with her infected +breath and is served to the death without reward; who physically cows +her people with dust and fever and heat, and is possessed with devils +who must be pacified; where successive civilisations have left their +bones upon the soil and a hundred religions have decayed, leaving the +old air heavy with exhalations—this India slowly takes shape in Mr +Kipling's native stories. Her physical immensity and pressure is felt +in stories like <I>The End of the Passage</I> and <I>William the Conqueror</I>. +Her sleepless tyranny, which has made men intricate and incalculable, +driving them to subterranean ways of thought and fancy, rules in every +page of a tale like <I>The Return of Imray</I>. Imray was an amiable +Englishman who incautiously patted the head of his servant's child. +Bahadur Khan speaks of it thus to Strickland of the Police: +</P> + +<P> +"'Walking among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child who +was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died of the +fever, my child!' +</P> + +<P> +"'What said Imray Sahib?' +</P> + +<P> +"'He said he was a handsome child and patted him on the head; wherefore +my child died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he +had come, and was sleeping. Wherefore I dragged him up into the +roof-beams and made all fast behind him—the Heaven-born knows all +things. I am the servant of the Heaven-born.… Be it remembered +that the Sahib's shirts are correctly enumerated, and that there is an +extra piece of soap in his wash-basin. My child was bewitched and I +slew the wizard.'" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +There is here just that blend of simplicity and incalculable darkness +found in all Mr Kipling's native tales. If the premises of life in +India are tortuous, conduct and reasoning are as naïvely innocent as a +problem in geometry. +</P> + +<P> +It follows that, when the devils are out of the story, no story +breathes more delightfully of Eden than a story of the East. The white +side of the black story of Imray Sahib is shown in <I>Kim</I>, and in all +the hints and small studies for <I>Kim</I> that preceded Mr Kipling's best +of all Indian tales. +</P> + +<P> +But <I>Kim</I> is something of a paradox. It is the best of all Indian +tales by virtue of qualities which have little to do with India. It is +an Indian book only upon its least important side. It is true that Kim +himself is upon one side the most cunning of Mr Kipling's studies of +the meeting of East and West; but that, for us, is not his final merit. +It is the final merit of Kim to be first cousin of Mowgli, the child of +the Jungle. His first claim to our delight in him is that he is the +quickest of young creatures, his senses sharp and clean, of a +conscience untroubled, of a spirit that rejoices in nimble work, of a +will in which loyalty and courage and the peace of self-confidence are +firmly rooted. In a word, he is Mowgli among men. +</P> + +<P> +Here, however, we approach <I>Kim</I> merely as a tale of India—as a link +artfully used by Mr Kipling to connect and pass in review the whole +pageant of Imperial India as it is revealed to Western eyes—priests, +peasants, soldiers, civilians, people of the plains and hills, women of +the latticed palanquin and the bazaar, Hindu and Mohammedan, Afghan and +Bengali. The picture of the Grand Trunk Road in Kim is an almost +unsurpassed piece of descriptive writing. The diversity of the picture +dazzles and bewilders us at first. Then out of all this diversity +there gradually comes a conviction that fundamentally India is +unimaginably simple at heart in spite of her medley of religions and +conquests and races; that it is precisely this simplicity which baffles +the intruder. There is the simplicity of Bahadur Khan, whose child was +bewitched: <I>therefore</I> he killed Imray Sahib and hid his body behind +the ceiling cloth. There is the simplicity of the hunter of Daoud +Shah, whose house was dishonoured: <I>therefore</I> he killed his wife and +went upon the trail of her seducer. There is the simplicity of men who +starve and are burnt with the sun: <I>therefore</I> they deprecate the wrath +of devils and put food in the beggar's bowl. There is, above all, the +simplicity of clean hunger, thirst, adventure, piety, friendliness and +love that threads the whole story of the Lama and his <I>Chela</I>. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Kim</I> is one of the few really beautiful stories in modern literature. +The brain and fancy of thousands of readers to-day are richer and +sweeter by that tale of the Master and his Friend of All the World. We +would not leave him and his Wheel of Things, the River he sought in +simple faith, the trust he had in the charity of men, the message that +bade him seek release in Nirvana from the importunity of life quaintly +warring with instinctive gestures of delight and sympathy with all that +made life precious—we would not leave this exquisite story so soon, +were it not that it brings forward the imperishable side of Mr +Kipling's work to which we shall have shortly to return. <I>Kim</I> bridges +the gap between the Indian stories and The <I>Jungle Book</I>, which means +that <I>Kim</I> is all but the top of Mr Kipling's achievement. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SOLDIERS THREE +</H3> + + +<P> +Mr Kipling's three soldiers—Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd—are a +literary tradition. They are the Horatii and the Curatii, the three +Musketeers; Og, Gog and Magog; Captains Fluellin, Macmorris and Jamy; +Bardolph, Pistol and Nym. That Kipling's soldiers three are a literary +tradition is significant of their quality and rank as part of their +author's achievement. They belong rather to the efficient literary +workman who wrote the Simla tales than to the inspired author of the +Jungle books. Though we have run from the House of Suddhu to the +barrack-yard, we have not yet lost sight of Mr Kipling, decorator and +colourman in words. We shall find him conspicuously at work upon +Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd. Where, at first, he seems most closely +to rub sleeves with the raw stuff of life we shall find him most aloof, +most deliberately an artificer. Mr Kipling has seemed to the +judicious, who have duly grieved, to be in his soldier tales throwing +all crafty scruples to the winds in order that he may the more joyfully +indulge a natural genius for ferocity. Mr Kipling's soldiers are +regarded as an instance of his love for low company, of his readiness +to sacrifice aesthetic beauty to vulgar truth. +</P> + +<P> +This is quite the wrong direction from which to approach Mr Kipling's +soldier tales. Mr Kipling's ferocity on paper is not to be explained +as the result of a natural delight in violence and blood. On the +contrary, it is distinctively a literary ferocity—the ferocity, not of +a man who has killed people, but of a man who sits down and +conscientiously tries to imagine what it is like to kill people. It is +essentially the same kind of ferocity in imaginative fiction as the +ferocity of Nietzsche in lyrical philosophy or of Malthus in +speculative politics. When Mr Kipling talks of men carved in battle to +the nasty noise of beef-cutting upon the block, or of men falling over +like the rattle of fire-irons in the fender and the grunt of a +pole-axed ox, or of a hot encounter between two combatants wherein one +of them after feeling for his opponent's eyes finds it necessary to +wipe his thumb on his trousers, or of gun wheels greasy from contact +with a late gunner—when Mr Kipling writes like this, we admit that his +pages are disagreeable. But let us be clear as to the reason. These +things are disagreeable, not because they are horrible fact, but +because they are deliberate fiction. We feel that these things have +been written, not from inspired impulse, but by taking careful thought. +Here, clearly, is a writer who writes of war, not because he is by +nature full of pugnacity, or necessarily loosed from hell to speak of +horrors, but because war is a good "subject" with opportunities for +effective treatment. +</P> + +<P> +It is incorrect to say that Mr Kipling naturally delights in savage +war. He has been accused of a positive gusto for knives and bayonets, +for redly dripping steel and spattered flesh. The gusto must be +confessed; but it is not a gusto for the subject. It is the skilled +craftsman's gusto for doing things thoroughly and effectively. Mr +Kipling cannot conceal his delight in his competency to make war as +nasty as Zola or Tolstoi have made it. But this has nothing to do with +a delight in war. Professors have gloried in blood and iron who would +probably faint away in the nice, clean operating theatre of a London +hospital. Philosophers who cannot run upstairs have preached the +survival of the physically fittest. The politest of Roman poets has +felicitously described how the two halves of a warrior's head fell to +right and left of his vertebral column. Mr Kipling's savagery is of +this excessively cultivated kind. It is not atavism or a sinister +resolution to stand in the way of progress and gentility. Mr Kipling's +warrior tales, in fact, allow us clearly to realise that Mr Kipling's +real inspiration and interest is far away from the battle-field and the +barrack. They are the kind of battle story which is usually written by +sedentary poets who live in the country and are fond of children. Only +they are the very best of their kind. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Kipling's study of the professional soldier is best observed in +Private Ortheris. Mulvaney is more popular, but Mulvaney in no sense +belongs to Mr Kipling. He is the stage Irishman of the old Adelphi and +the hero of many tales by Lever and Marryat. He is as purely a +convention of the days of Mr Kipling's youth as are Mrs Hawksbee and +the Simla ladies. His chief importance lies in the opportunities he +gives Mr Kipling for indulging his joyful gift for pure farce. +<I>Krishna Mulvaney</I> and <I>My Lord the Elephant</I> are farce of the first +quality, whose merit liberally covers the charge that their hero is of +no human importance. Ortheris is in rather a different case. He has +just that air of being authentic which is needed for an anecdote or +narrative. He is not a profound and original document in human nature. +There is no such document in any one of Mr Kipling's books. But he +stands well erect among the professional soldiers of literature. +</P> + +<P> +We will take one look at Private Ortheris at work: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Ortheris suddenly rose to his knees, his rifle at his shoulder, and +peered across the valley in the clear afternoon light. His chin +cuddled the stock, and there was a twitching of the muscles of the +right cheek as he sighted; Private Stanley Ortheris was engaged on his +business. A speck of white crawled up the watercourse. +</P> + +<P> +"'See that beggar?… Got 'im.' +</P> + +<P> +"Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred down the hillside, +the deserter of the Aurangabadis pitched forward, rolled down a red +rock, and lay very still, with his face in a clump of blue gentians, +while a big raven flapped out of the pine wood to make investigation. +</P> + +<P> +"'That's a clean shot, little man,' said Mulvaney. +</P> + +<P> +"Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away. 'Happen there was +a lass tewed up wi' him, too,' said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Ortheris did not reply. He was staring across the valley, with the +smile of the artist who looks on the completed work." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This passage has been quoted against Mr Kipling as evidence of his +inhuman delight in the hunting of man. If we look at it closely we +shall find (1) an obvious delight in Ortheris as a professional expert +who knows his business, the same delight which we find in Mr +Hinchcliffe the engineer or in Dick Heldar the painter, and (2) the +extremely self-conscious and cold-blooded effort of a competent author +to write like a professional soldier, and (3) the intrusion of a born +sentimentalist in Learoyd's little touch of feeling at the close. +</P> + +<P> +The War Office book of infantry training contains some very curt and +calm directions for getting a "good point" in bayonet exercise. The +bayonet has to be correctly driven in, left in the enemy for a +reasonable time, and extracted with a minimum of effort to the +practitioner and a maximum of damage to the subject. Disabling the +enemy in war is a professional and technical matter, and Mr Kipling is +always able to be enthusiastic when things are beginning to be +technical. Whether it be sighting a deserter at seven hundred yards, +painting a charge of horse, writing what Dr Johnson would describe as +the "most poetical paragraph in the English language," or building a +bridge over the Ganges, Mr Kipling is ready to be interested so long as +the workman is competent, and the work of a highly skilled and special +nature. Naturally, therefore, Mr Kipling has succeeded in getting very +near to the professional view of soldiering. All Mr Kipling's soldiers +take their soldiering as men of business. This was what so terribly +astonished and interested Cleever when he met the Infant and heard that +after he had killed a man he had felt thirsty and "wanted a smoke too"; +and Cleever has been followed in his astonishment by many of Mr +Kipling's literary critics. +</P> + +<P> +The greatest study in literature of the professional soldier—though he +is infinitely more than that—is Shakespeare's Falstaff. It will be +remembered that Falstaff, after having led his men where they were +finely peppered, also suffered from thirst; and, being an old +campaigner, he was not unprovided. The fate of Falstaff upon the +British stage for many centuries—where he has actually been played, +not as a professional soldier, but as an incompetent poltroon!—seems +to indicate that no figure is more liable to be misunderstood than the +man whose business or duty it is to fight between meals. Even Mr +Kipling, in his anxiety to emphasise that a regular soldier, apart from +any personal and heroic qualities he may happen to possess, is to be +regarded as just a skilled practitioner whose work asks for courage and +resource, fails to take soldiering with the magnificent nonchalance of +Shakespeare's soldiers. Shakespeare takes the professional view for +granted. But Mr Kipling does not quite do that. There is a +continuously implicit protest in all Mr Kipling's soldier tales that a +soldier's killing is like an editor's leader-writing or a painter's +sketching from the nude—a protest which by its frequent over-emphasis +shows that Mr Kipling, not having Shakespeare's gift of intuition into +every kind of man, has not quite succeeded in identifying himself with +the soldier's point of view. It is always present in his mind as +something novel and surprising, needing insistence and emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +This is equally true of all Mr Kipling's essays in brutality. His +ferocity is as forced as his tenderness is natural. Violence and war +are clearly foreign to his unprompted imagination. Only it happens +that Mr Kipling has talked with soldiers; and, like Eustace Cleever, he +is prompted occasionally to spend a perversely riotous evening in their +company. The literary result is far from being contemptible; but it is +far from being as precious as the result of his unprompted intrusion +into the country of the Brushwood Boy, into Cold Lairs and the Council +Rock. +</P> + +<P> +The soldier tales rank not very far above the tales from Simla. Their +interest is mainly the interest of watching a skilled writer +consciously using all his skill to give an air of authenticity to +things not vitally realised. Mulvaney is pure convention, and +Ortheris, though he more individually belongs to Mr Kipling, is rather +an effort than a success. We have not yet got at the heart of Mr +Kipling's work. It yet remains to cross the barrier which divides some +of the best journalism of our time from literature which will outlive +its author. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DAY'S WORK +</H3> + + +<P> +When we come to <I>The Day's Work</I> we are getting very near to Mr Kipling +at his best. We should notice at this point that in all the stories we +have so far surveyed the men have mattered less than the work they do. +The great majority of Mr Kipling's tales are a song in praise of good +work. Almost it seems as if, in the year 1897, their author had +himself realised the significance of this; for it was in that year he +published the volume entitled <I>The Day's Work</I>; and it was the best +volume, taking it from cover to cover, that had as yet appeared. +</P> + +<P> +The first and best story in <I>The Day's Work</I> at once introduces the +theme which threads all the best work of Mr Kipling. <I>The +Bridge-Builders</I> is the story of a Bridge and incidentally of the men +who built it. The crown has yet to be set upon a long agony of toil +and disappointment. The master builder of the Bridge has put the prime +of his energy and will into its building. Now it stands all but +complete, with the Ganges gathering in her upper reaches for a mighty +effort to throw off her strange fetters. The Bridge before the night +of the flood has passed away becomes the symbol of a wrestle between +the most ancient gods and the young will of man. Mr Kipling has put +the Bridge into the foreground of his picture, has made of it the +really sentient figure of the tale. Here definitely he writes the +first chapter of his book of steam and steel; and we begin to be aware +of an enthusiasm which is lacking in many of the highly finished proofs +which preceded it that Mr Kipling could write almost anything as well +as almost anybody else. In <I>The Day's Work</I> he passes into a province +which he was insistently urged to occupy by right of inspiration. +</P> + +<P> +<I>The Day's Work</I> brings us directly into touch with one of the most +distinctive features of Mr Kipling's method. He has never been able to +resist the lure of things technical. If he writes of a horse he must +write as though he had bred and sold horses all his life. If he writes +of a steam-engine he must write as though he had spent his life among +pistons and cylinders. He writes of ships and the sea, of fox-hunting, +of the punishing of Pathans, of drilling by companies and of +agriculture; and he writes as one from whom no craft could hide its +mysteries. This fascination of mere craft, this delight in the +technicalities and dialect of the world's work, is not a mannerism. It +is not a parade of omniscience or the madness of a note-book worm. It +is fundamental in Mr Kipling. It is wrong to think of <I>Between the +Devil and the Deep Sea</I> or of <I>.007</I> as the unfortunate rioting of an +amateur machinist. To those who object that Mr Kipling has spoiled +these stories with an absurd enthusiasm for bolts and bars it has at +once to be answered that but for this very enthusiasm for bolts and +bars, which the undiscerning have found so tedious, the great majority +of Mr Kipling's stories would never have been written at all. A +powerful turbine excites in Mr Kipling precisely the same quality of +emotion which a comely landscape excited in Wordsworth; and this +emotion is stamped upon all that he has written in this kind. There is +a passage in <I>Between the Devil and the Deep Sea</I> which runs: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"What follows is worth consideration. The forward engine had no more +work to do. Its released piston-rod, therefore, drove up fiercely, +with nothing to check it, and started most of the nuts of the +cylinder-cover. It came down again, the full weight of the steam +behind it, and the foot of the disconnected connecting-rod, useless as +the leg of a man with a sprained ankle, flung out to the right and +struck the starboard, or right-hand, cast-iron supporting-column of the +forward engine, cracking it clean through about six inches above the +base, and wedging the upper portion outwards three inches towards the +ship's side. There the connecting-rod jammed. Meantime, the after +engine, being as yet unembarrassed, went on with its work, and in so +doing brought round at its next revolution the crank of the forward +engine, which smote the already jammed connecting-rod, bending it and +therewith the piston-rod cross-head—the big cross-piece that slides up +and down so smoothly." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This is the method of Homer as applied to the shield of Achilles, the +method of Milton in enumerating the superior fiends, the method of +Walter Scott confronted with a mountain pass, the method of the +sonneteer to his mistress' eyebrow. Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for these +broken engines would be intolerable if it were not obviously genuine. +Unless we shut our ears and admit no songs that sing of things as yet +unfamiliar to the poets of blue sky and violets dim as Cytherea's eyes, +we cannot possibly mistake the lyrical ecstasy of the above passage. +When Mr Kipling tells how a released piston-rod drove up fiercely and +started the nuts of the cylinder-cover, it is an incantation. His +machines are more alive than his men and women. It is more important +to know about the cast-iron supporting-column of Mr Kipling's forward +engine than to know that Maisie had long hair and grey eyes, or to know +what happened to any of the people whom it concerned. <I>.007</I>, which is +the story of a shining and ambitious young locomotive, is ten times +more vital—it calls for ten times more fellow-feeling—than the heart +affairs of Private Learoyd or the distresses of the Copleigh girls at +Simla. The pain that shoots through .007 when he first becomes +acquainted with a hot-box is a more human and recognisable bit of +consciousness than anything to be shared with the Head of the District +or the Man Who Was. The psychology of the Mill Wheel in <I>Below the +Mill Dam</I> is quite obviously accurate. That Mill Wheel, unlike scores +of Mr Kipling's men and women, is a creature we have met, who refuses +to be forgotten. When he is dealing with men Mr Kipling celebrates not +so much mankind as the skill and competency of mankind as severely +applied to a given and necessary task. It follows that Mr Kipling's +men at their best are most excellent machines. It follows, again, that +when Mr Kipling drops the pretence that he is deeply concerned with man +as man, and begins to celebrate with all his might the machine as the +machine, we realise that his machine is the better man of the two. +</P> + +<P> +The inspiration which Mr Kipling first indulged to its full bent in +<I>The Day's Work</I> lives on through all the ensuing books. It reaches a +climax in <I>With the Night Mail</I>, a post-dated vision of the air. It is +one of the most remarkable stories he has written—a story produced at +full pressure of the imagination which, but for its fatal prophesying, +would keep his memory green for generations. The detail with which the +theme is worked out is extravagant; but it is the extravagance of an +inspired lover. To quarrel with its technical exuberance on the ground +that Mr Kipling should have made it less like the vision of an engineer +is simply to miss almost the main impulse of Mr Kipling's progress. It +is true that unless we share Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for The Night Mail +as a beautiful machine, for the men who governed it as skilled +mechanicians, and for all the minutiae of the control and distribution +of traffic by air, we are not likely to be greatly held by the story. +But this is simply to say that unless we catch the passion of an author +we may as well shut the author's book. +</P> + +<P> +This does not imply that we must love machinery in order to love Mr +Kipling's enthusiasm for machinery. We have to share the author's +passion; but not necessarily to dote upon its object. It is not +essential to an admiration of Shakespeare's sonnets that the admirer +should have been a suitor of the Dark Lady. It matters hardly at all +what is the inspiration of an imaginative author. So long as he +succeeds in getting into a highly fervent condition, which prompts him +to write, with entire forgetfulness of himself and the reader, of +things whose beauty he was born to see, it is of little moment how he +happens to be kindled. We do not need to be suffering the pangs of +adolescent love, or even to know the story of Fanny Brawne, to hear the +immortal longing of John Keats sounding between all the lines of the +great Odes: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,<BR> +Though winning near the goal—yet do not grieve;<BR> +She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,<BR> +For ever wilt thou love and she be fair." +</P> + +<P> +We do not need to be the enemy of the Arminians to resolve the music of +Milton; and we may live all our lives in a city and yet know Wordsworth +for a great poet. Shelley does not suffer because philosophic anarchy +has gone out of fashion; and the poetry of the Hebrews lives for ever, +though its readers have never lived in the shadow of Sinai. These +mighty instances are here intended not to establish a comparison but to +establish a principle. The exact source of Mr Kipling's inspiration +matters not a straw. We simply know that his machinery is alive and +lovely in his eyes. He communicates his passion to his reader though +his readers are unable to distinguish between a piston-rod and a +cylinder-cover. +</P> + +<P> +<I>The Day's Work</I> throws back a clear and searching light upon some of +the tales, Indian and political, which we have already passed in +review. As we look back upon these stories of men and women we +realise, in the light of <I>The Day's Work</I>, that machinery—the +machinery of Army and Empire—enters repeatedly as a leading motive. +Far from regarding Mr Kipling's passion for technical engineering as +something which gets in the way of his natural genius for telling human +tales, we are brought finally to realise that many of these human tales +are no more than an excuse for the indulging of a passion that +helplessly spins them. As literature <I>William the Conqueror</I> and <I>The +Head of the District</I> have less to do with the politics of India than +with the nuts and bolts of <I>The Ship That Found Herself</I>. The same +truth applies equally to a book which has been discussed beyond all +proportion to its rank among the stories of Mr Kipling. <I>The Light +That Failed</I> is often read as the high and tragical love story of Dick +Heldar; but it is really nothing of the kind. It really belongs to +<I>The Day's Work</I>. As the love story of Dick Heldar it is of small +account. Mr Kipling thinks very little of it from that point of view. +He has even allowed it, upon that side, to be deprived of all its +significance in order to meet the needs of a popular actor. Mr Kipling +is not the man to sell his conscience. Therefore his admirers may +infer from the fact that he has sold Dick and Maisie to British and +American playgoers that Dick and Maisie are not regarded by their +author as of the first importance. We cannot think of Mr Kipling as +allowing one screw of the ship that found herself to be misplaced. But +he has cheerfully allowed his story of Dick and Maisie to be turned +with a few strokes of the pen into an effective curtain for a +negligible play. +</P> + +<P> +This does not mean that <I>The Light That Failed</I> is not a characteristic +and a fine achievement. It means that its character and fineness have +nothing to do with Dick and Maisie or with any of that stuff of the +story which contrives to exist behind the footlights of Sir Johnston +Forbes Robertson's theatre. <I>The Light That Failed</I> must not be read +as the love story of a painter who goes blind. It must be read, with +<I>.007</I> and <I>The Maltese Cat</I>, as an enthusiastic account of the day's +work of a newspaper correspondent. The really vital passages of the +story have all to do with Mr Kipling's chosen text of work for work's +sake. Dick's work and not Dick himself is the hero of the play. The +only incident which really affects us is the scraping out of his last +picture. We do not bother in the least as to whether Maisie returns to +him or stays away; because we do not believe in the reality of Maisie +and we cannot imagine anything she may or may not do as affecting +anyone very seriously. Dick's wrestle with his picture is another +matter. He and his friends may talk a great deal of nonsense about +their work (nonsense which would strictly require us to condemn every +good page which Mr Kipling has written), but there is no doubt whatever +that the enthusiasm of men for men's work is the vital and moving +principle of <I>The Light That Failed</I>. The motive of the whole story is +the motive of <I>The Bridge-Builders</I>. The rest is merely accessory. +</P> + +<P> +<I>The Light That Failed</I> is full of instruction for the close critic of +Mr Kipling. We discover in it three out of the many levels of +excellence in which he moves. First there is a cunning artificer +pretending to a knowledge and admiration which he does not really +possess—an artificer who tries to impose Maisie and the Red-Haired +Girl upon us in the same deceiving way as the way in which he tried to +impose upon us Mrs Hawksbee and the Copleigh girls. Second, there is a +clever writer of soldier stories, showing us some nasty fighting at +close range, with a far too elaborate pretence that he can take it all +for granted as a professional combatant. Finally there is an inspired +author celebrating the world's work—an author we have agreed to put in +a higher rank than those other literary experts who have quite +unjustifiably stolen his greener laurels. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FINER GRAIN +</H3> + + +<P> +It has been Mr Kipling's habit all through his career to peg out +literary claims for himself as evidence of his intention later on to +work them at a profit. Thus, writing <I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I>, he +includes one or two stories, such as <I>The Taking of Lungtungpen</I> and +<I>The Three Musketeers</I>, which clearly look forward to <I>Soldiers Three</I> +and all the later stories in that kind. Or, again, he looks forward in +<I>Tods' Amendment</I> and <I>Wee Willie Winkie</I> to the time when he will +write many stories, and, in a sense, whole books concerning children. +<I>Tods' Amendment</I> promises <I>Baa Baa Black Sheep</I>, and <I>Just So +Stories</I>; it even promises <I>Stalky & Co.</I>, which is simply the best +collection of boisterous boy farces ever written. Then, again, there +is <I>In the Rukh</I>, out of <I>Many Inventions</I>, which looks forward to the +<I>Jungle Book</I>. Finally, there is, in <I>The Day's Work</I>, clear evidence +of Mr Kipling's intention ultimately to abandon the hills and plains of +India and to take literary seisin of the country and chronicles of +England. +</P> + +<P> +The first undoubted evidence that Mr Kipling, who started with skilful +tales of India, was bound in the end to turn homewards for a deeper +inspiration is contained in a story from <I>The Day's Work</I>. <I>My Sunday +at Home</I> is ostensibly broad farce, of the <I>Brugglesmith</I> +variety—farce which might well call for a chapter to itself were it +not that broad farce is much the same whoever the writer may be. But +<I>My Sunday at Home</I> is really less important as farce than as evidence +of Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for the stillness and ancientry of the +English wayside. The pages of this story distil and drip with peace. +Moreover, the story is neighboured with two others, all beckoning Mr +Kipling home to Burwash in Sussex. There is the Brushwood Boy, who +after work comes home and finds it good—good after his work is done. +There is also <I>An Error in the Fourth Dimension</I> wherein Mr Kipling is +found playing affectionately with the idea that England is quite unlike +any other country. There is in England a fourth dimension which is +beyond the perception, say, of an American railway king, who after much +amazement and wrath concludes that the English are not a modern people +and thereafter returns to his own more reasonable land. +</P> + +<P> +Of the miscellaneous stories in which Mr Kipling surrenders utterly to +this later theme perhaps the most memorable is <I>An Habitation Enforced</I> +from <I>Actions and Reactions</I>. Here we are in quite another plane of +authorship from that in which we have moved in the tales of India. +There is a wide difference between <I>The Return of Imray</I>—to take one +of the most skilful tales of India—and <I>An Habitation Enforced</I>. <I>The +Return of Imray</I> betrays the conscious resolution of a clever man of +letters to make the most effective use of good material. But <I>An +Habitation Enforced</I> is the spontaneous gesture of pure feeling. The +Indian stories are ingenious and well managed. Their point is made. +Their workmanship is excellent. Atmospheres and impressions are +cunningly arranged. But they very rarely succeed in carrying the +reader as the reader is carried upon this later tide. +</P> + +<P> +The feeling of <I>An Habitation Enforced</I>, as of all the English tales, +is that of the traveller returned. The value of Mr Kipling's traffics +and discoveries over the seven seas is less in the record he has made +of these adventures than in their having enabled him to return to +England with eyes sharpened by exile, with his senses alert for that +fourth dimension which does not exist for the stranger. <I>An Habitation +Enforced</I> is inspired by the nostalgia of inveterate banishment. Some +part of its perfection—it is one of the few perfect short stories in +the English tongue—is due to the perfect agreement of its form with +the passion that informs its writing. It is the story of a homing +Englishwoman, and of her restoration to the absolute earth of her +forbears. In writing of this woman Mr Kipling has only had to recall +his own joyful adventure in picking up the threads of a life at once +familiar and mysterious, in meeting again the homely miracle of things +that never change. Finally England claims her utterly—her and her +children and her American husband. It was an American who bade Cloke, +man of the soil and acquired retainer of the family, bring down +larch-poles for a light bridge over the brook; but it was an Englishman +reclaimed who needs consented to Cloke's amendment: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"'But where the deuce are the larch-poles, Cloke? I told you to have +them down here ready.' +</P> + +<P> +"'We'll get 'em down <I>if</I> you, say so,' Cloke answered, with a thrust +of the underlip they both knew. +</P> + +<P> +"'But I did say so. What on earth have you brought that timber-tug +here for? We aren't building a railway bridge. Why, in America, +half-a-dozen two-by-four bits would be ample.' +</P> + +<P> +"'I don't know nothin' about that,' said Cloke. 'An' I've nothin' to +say against larch—<I>if</I> you want to make a temp'ry job of it. I ain't +'ere to tell you what isn't so, sir; an' you can't say I ever come +creepin' up on you, or tryin' to lead you farther in than you set +out——' +</P> + +<P> +"A year ago George would have danced with impatience. Now he scraped a +little mud off his old gaiters with his spud, and waited. +</P> + +<P> +"'All I say is that you can put up larch and make a temp'ry job of it; +and by the time the young master's married it'll have to be done again. +Now, I've brought down a couple of as sweet six-by-eight oak timbers as +we've ever drawed. You put 'em in an' it's off your mind for good an' +all. T'other way—I don't say it ain't right, I'm only just sayin' +what I think—but t'other way, he'll no sooner be married than we'll +'ave it <I>all</I> to do again. You've no call to regard my words, but you +can't get out of <I>that</I>.' +</P> + +<P> +"'No,' said George, after a pause; 'I've been realising that for some +time. Make it oak then; we can't get out of it.'" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This story is the real beginning of Puck—to whom Mr Kipling's latest +volumes are addressed. In <I>Puck of Pook's Hill</I> Mr Kipling takes +seisin of England in all times—more particularly of that trodden nook +of England about Pevensey. This book is less a book of children and +fairies than an English chronicle. Dan and Una are the least living of +Mr Kipling's children—they are as shadowy as the little ghost who +dropped a kiss upon the palm of the visitor in the mansion of <I>They</I>. +The men, too, who come and go, are shadows. It is the land which +abides and is real. We hum continually a variation of Shakespeare's +song: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +<I>Puck of Pook's Hill</I> is a final answer to those who think of the +Imperial idea as loose and vast, without roots in any dear, particular +soil. <I>Puck of Pool's Hill</I> suggests in every page that England could +never for its lovers be too small. We would know intimately each place +where the Roman trod, where Weland came and went, where Saxon and +Norman lost themselves in a common league. +</P> + +<P> +From this England, fluttered with memories and the most ancient magic, +it is a natural step into the regions of pure fancy where Mr Kipling is +happiest of all. <I>The Children of the Zodiac</I> and <I>The Brushwood Boy</I> +are the earliest proofs that Mr Kipling flies most surely when he is +least impeded by a human or material document. We have here to make a +last protest against a too popular fallacy concerning the tales of Mr +Kipling. Mr Kipling's passion for the concrete, which is a passion of +all truly imaginative men, together with his keen delight in the work +of the world, has caused him to be falsely regarded as a note-book +realist of the modern type. He is assumed to be happiest when writing +from direct experience without refinement or transmutation. We cannot +trace this error to its source and expose the many fallacies it +contains without going deeper into aesthetics than is here necessary or +desirable. The simple fact that Mr Kipling's best stories are those in +which his fancy is most free is answer enough to those who put him +among the reporters of things as they are. It sufficiently excuses us +from the long and difficult inquiry as to whether Mr Kipling's account +of the people who live next door is accurate and minute, and allows us +to assume, without starting a controversy which only a heavy volume +could determine, that, if Mr Kipling had ever set out to describe the +people who live next door, he would have simplified them out of all +recognition. Mr Kipling has pretended, often with some success, that +his people are really to be met with in the Royal Navy or in the Indian +Civil Service. But let the reader consider for a moment whom they +remember best. Is it Mowgli or is it someone who is a C.I.E.? Is it +the Elephant Child, or is it Mr Grish Chunder Dé? When does Mr Kipling +more successfully convey to us the impression that his people are alive +and real? Is it when he is supposed to be drawing men from the life, +or is it when he has set free his imagination to call up the People of +the Hills or the folk in the Jungle? +</P> + +<P> +The grain of Mr Kipling's work is the finer, his vision is more +confident and clear, the further he gets from the world immediately +about him. Already we have seen how happily in India he left behind +his impression of the alert tourist, his experience of the mess-room +and bazaar, to enshrine in his fairy tale of <I>Kim</I> the faith and +simplicity of two of the children of the world—each, the old and the +young, a child after his own fashion. <I>Kim</I> is Mr Kipling's escape +from the India which is traversed by the railway and served by the +"Pioneer." It is the escape of Dan and Una into the Kingdom of Puck, +and the escape of Mowgli into the Jungle. It is the escape, finally, +of Mr Kipling's genius into the region where it most freely breathes. +</P> + +<P> +We have noted that Kim is one of the Indian doors by which we enter; +but there is a more open door in the first story of <I>The Second Jungle +Book</I>. It is the best of all Mr Kipling's stories, just as the <I>Jungle +Books</I> are the best of all his books. It concerns the Indian, Purun +Bhagat. +</P> + +<P> +He was learned, supple, and deeply intimate in the affairs of the +world. He had shared the counsels of princes; he had been received +with honour in the clubs and societies of Europe. He was, to all +appearances, a polite blend of all the talents of East and West. Then +suddenly Purun Bhagat disappeared. All India understood; but of all +Western people only Mr Kipling was able to follow where he walked as a +holy man and a beggar into the hills. There he became St Francis of +the Hills, living in a little shrine with the friendly creatures of the +woods, venerated and cared for by a village on the hillside. +</P> + +<P> +All Mr Kipling's readers know how that story ends—how on a night of +disaster there came together as of one blood the saint and his people +and the wild creatures who had housed with him. It is quoted here as +showing how the old piety of India beckoned Mr Kipling into the jungle +as inevitably as the old loyalty of England beckoned him into a region +where on a summer day we can meet without surprise a Flint Man or a +Centurion of Rome. +</P> + +<P> +Always the bent of Mr Kipling, in his best work, is found to be away +from the world. To appreciate his finer quality we must pass with him +into the Rukh, or into the country beyond Policeman Day, into the +mansion of lost children, or into a region where it is but a step from +the Zodiac to fields under the plough. The tales of Mr Kipling which +will longest survive him are not the tales where he is competently +brutal and omniscient, but the tales where he instinctively flies from +the necessity of giving to his vision the likeness of the modern world. +</P> + +<P> +We may now realise more clearly the peril which lies in the popular +fallacy concerning Mr Kipling described in the first few pages of this +book. So far is Mr Kipling from being an author inspired and driven to +claim a share in the active life of the present, an author who unloads +upon us a store of memories and experience, that he is only able to do +his finest work as an unchecked and fantastic dreamer. The stories in +which he imposes upon his readers the illusion that he would never have +written books if he had stayed at home, that his stories are the +carelessly flung reminiscences of a full life—these stories are +themselves instances of the skill whereby a cunning author has been +able to conceal from his generation the deep difference between +artifice and inspiration. A crafty author will often employ his best +phrases to describe the thing he has never really seen with the eye of +genius. His manner will be most assured where his matter is the least +authentic. His points will be most effectively made where there is the +least necessity to make them. Mr Kipling, writing as a soldier, is +more a soldier than any soldier who ever lived. Thereby the discerning +reader will infer that Mr Kipling was not born to write as a soldier. +He will know that Mr Kipling is not profoundly and instinctively an +atavistic prophet, because his atavism is more atavistic than the +atavism of the first man who ever was born. He will also realise that +Mr Kipling writes so effectively about India because he ought to be +writing about England and Fairyland and the Jungle. He will realise, +in short, that Mr Kipling is an imaginative man of letters who has +wonderful visions when he stays at home, and who needs all his craft as +an expert literary artificer to persuade his readers that these visions +are not seriously impaired when he ventures abroad. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE POEMS +</H3> + + +<P> +Only the briefest epilogue is necessary concerning Mr Kipling's poetry. +We have concluded as to his prose stories that his best work is in the +pure fancy of <I>The Jungle Book</I>, and that we descend thence through his +English tales and his celebration of the work of the world to clever +stories of India and <I>Soldiers Three</I>. Upon each of these levels we +meet with verse in the same kind, concerning which it may at once be +said that at all times, except where the rule is proved by the +exception, Mr Kipling's verse is less urgently inspired than his prose. +The true motive which drives a poet into verse is the perception of a +quality in the thing he has to say which requires for its delivery the +beat and lift of a rhythm which crosses and penetrates the rhythm of +sense and logic. This is true even of the poetry which seems, at +first, to contradict it. Pope's <I>Essay on Man</I>, for example, which at +first seems no more than a neater prose than the prose of Addison, is +really not prose at all. In addition to the cool sense of what appears +to be no more than a pentametric arrangement of common-places there is +a rhythm which admirably conveys, independently of what is being +actually said, the gentle perambulating of the eighteenth-century +philosopher in the garden which Candide retired to cultivate in the +best of all possible worlds. In all poetry there must be a manifest +reason why prose would not have served the author's purpose equally +well. +</P> + +<P> +Can we say this of Mr Kipling's poetry? Is Mr Kipling's poetry the +result of an urgent need for a metrical utterance? +</P> + +<P> +A careful reading of Mr Kipling's verse, comparing it subject for +subject with his prose, soon convinces us that, far from being a more +direct passionate and living utterance than his prose, it is invariably +more wrought and careful and elaborate. It does not suggest the poet +driven into song. It suggests rather the skilful writer borrowing the +manner of a poet, playing, as it were, with the poet's tools, without +any urgent impulse to express himself in that particular way. He has +merely added to the number of rules to be successfully observed. Of +his technical success there is seldom any doubt at all. For a +craftsman who can use all the intricate resources of good prose +successfully to create an illusion that he is inspired in his least +abandoned moments, it is child's play to use the more obvious devices +of the metrician to similar effect. So far as mere formal excellence +is concerned, verse is a journeyman's matter as compared with prose; +and it is not at all astonishing to find that the formal part of poetry +troubles Mr Kipling not at all. But we must look beyond the formality +of verse to find a poet. Poetry flies higher than prose only when the +poet's feeling has driven him to sing what he cannot say. Mr Kipling +is a wonderful metrician; but that is not the question. The question +is, Where shall we find the most immediate union of the author's +feeling with the author's expression? And the answer to that will be, +Not in the author's poems. +</P> + +<P> +Take as an example the English motive: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"See you our little mill that clacks,<BR> + So busy by the brook?<BR> +She has ground her corn and paid her tax<BR> + Ever since Domesday Book." +</P> + +<P> +Compare this well-wrought stanza with the prose tale <I>Below the Mill +Dam</I>, or with the passage it paraphrases in the story to which it +stands as motto: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"The English are a bold people. His Saxons would laugh and jest with +Hugh, and Hugh with them, and—this was marvellous to me—if even the +meanest of them said such and such a thing was the Custom of the Manor, +then straightway would Hugh and such old men of the Manor as might be +near forsake everything else to debate the matter—I have seen them +stop the mill with the corn half ground—and if the custom or usage +were proven to be as it was said, why, that was the end of it, even +though it were flat against Hugh, his wish and command." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It may be said of the verse that, possibly, it is more carefully +considered than the prose, more deliberate and formally more excellent. +But it is certainly more remote from the passion it conveys. There is +more drive in a single fragment of<I> An Habitation Enforced</I> than in all +the songs of Puck. +</P> + +<P> +Similarly let us take another of Mr Kipling's themes—his delight in +the world's work. Think first of <I>The Bridge-Builders</I> and of <I>William +the Conqueror</I> and then turn to <I>The Bell Buoy</I> (<I>Five Nations</I>) or +<I>The White Man's Burden</I> (<I>Five Nations</I>). In each case—and we repeat +the result every time the experiment is made—we find that the author's +motive, which lives in his prose, tends in his verse to expire. In +<I>The White Man's Burden</I> it expires outright, so that reading it, it is +difficult to realise that <I>William the Conqueror</I> has had the power so +deeply to move us. +</P> + +<P> +This is true even where Mr Kipling's subject, which in prose has not +taken him to the top of his achievement, has in verse taken him as high +as in verse he is able to go. Mr Kipling's best verse is contained in +<I>Barrack Room Ballads</I>; but even these do not compare in merit with +<I>Soldiers Three</I>. <I>Barrack Room Ballads</I> are the best of Mr Kipling's +poetry, because in these poems rhyme and beat are essential to their +inspiration. They are the exception which prove the rule that normally +Mr Kipling has no right to his metre. <I>Barrack Room Ballads</I> are +robust and vivid songs of the camp, choruses which require no music to +enable them to serve the purpose of any gathering where the first idea +is that there should be a cheerful noise. Complete success in this +kind only required Mr Kipling to fill in the skeleton of a metre which +brings the right words at the right moment to the tip of the galloping +tongue, and this he has admirably done. +</P> + +<P> +Where in <I>Barrack Room Ballads</I> Mr Kipling has attempted to do more +than fill up the feet of an irresponsible line, his verse only succeeds +in defining the weakness, in a corresponding kind, of his prose. We +have seen that one weakness of his soldier tales is their over emphasis +of the brutal aspect of war, natural in an author of sensitive +imagination attempting to identify himself with the soldier's point of +view. In the prose tales this exaggeration is only occasional. In +<I>Barrack Room Ballads</I> it is more pronounced. +</P> + +<P> +We may take three stanzas of <I>Snarleyow</I> as evidence that Mr Kipling's +<I>Barrack Room Ballads</I>, unlike the songs of Puck and the greater mass +of his verse, <I>really had to be metrical</I>; also as evidence that, in so +far as they attempt to be more than a galloping chorus in dialect they +are less admirable than the adventures of Ortheris and Mulvaney. The +Battery was charging into action and the Driver had just been saying +that a Battery was hard to pull up when it was taking the field: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'E 'adn't 'ardly spoke the word, before a droppin' shell<BR> +A little right the battery an' between the sections fell;<BR> +An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels,<BR> +There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Then sez the Driver's Brother, an' 'is words was very plain,<BR> +'For Gawd's own sake get over me, an' put me out o' pain.'<BR> +They saw 'is wounds was mortial, an' they judged that it was best,<BR> +So they took an' drove the limber straight across 'is back an' chest. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The Driver 'e give nothin' 'cept a little coughin' grunt,<BR> +But 'e swung 'is 'orses 'andsome when it came to 'Action Front!'<BR> +An' if one wheel was juicy, you may lay your Monday head<BR> +'Twas juicier for the niggers when the case began to spread." +</P> + +<P> +The brutality in this incident is forced in idea and expression beyond +anything we find in <I>Soldiers Three</I>. It is this continuous <I>forcing</I> +of idea and expression which persists in virtually all Mr Kipling's +verse except where the jingle is all that matters. We have only to +recall recitations from the platform or before the curtain of some of +Mr Kipling's popular poetry to realise, sometimes a little painfully, +that verse is for him not a threshold of the authentic Hall of Song, +but, too often, a door out of reality into the sentimental and +overwrought. +</P> + +<P> +Comparing the soldier tales and the soldier songs it is often possible, +however, to miss the author's flagging, because, as we have seen, the +soldier songs are the best songs, whereas the soldier tales are not the +best tales. The full extent of the inferiority of Mr Kipling's verse +to Mr Kipling's prose cannot, however, be missed if we compare the +finer grain of Mr Kipling's prose with the poems that deal with similar +themes. Read first <I>The Story of Ung</I> (<I>The Seven Seas</I>) and +afterwards the tale of the Flint Man found upon the Downs by Dan and +Una (<I>Rewards and Fairies</I>). Or, to take an even more telling +instance, recall the most perfect of all Mr Kipling's tales <I>The +Miracle of Purun Bhagat</I>, and afterwards read the poem that is proudly +set at the head of it: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The night we felt the earth would move<BR> + We stole and plucked him by the hand,<BR> +Because we loved him with the love<BR> + That knows but cannot understand.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"And when the roaring hillside broke,<BR> + And all our world fell down in rain,<BR> +We saved him, we the Little Folk;<BR> + But lo! he does not come again!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Mourn now, we saved him for the sake<BR> + Of such poor love as wild ones may.<BR> +Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake,<BR> + And his own kind drive us away!"<BR> + —<I>Dirge of the Langurs.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P> +The poem is excellent cold craft, but leaves us precisely in the state +of mind in which it found us. The story which follows it is rooted in +the same idea; but, where the one is a literary exercise, the other is +a supreme feat of imagination. +</P> + +<P> +Here, with <I>The Miracle of Purun Bhagat</I>, the story itself and not the +dirge of the Langurs, we may conveniently leave the reputation of our +author. Critics of a future generation may need to apologise for +including within the limits of a brief monograph a specific chapter +upon Mr Kipling's verse. They will not need to apologise for its +brevity. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUDYARD KIPLING'S <BR> +PRINCIPAL WRITINGS +</H3> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +[Separate issues of single poems or stories have not generally been +included in this list. Dates of first publication of books are given; +new editions only when they involve revision of text, alteration of +format or transference to a different publisher.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Departmental Ditties and Other Verses (<I>Lahore: The Civil and Military +Gazette Press</I>). 1886. New editions (<I>London: Thacker</I>). 1888; 1890; +1898; (<I>Newnes</I>). 1899; (<I>Methuen</I>). 1904; 1908; 1913. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Plain Tales from the Hills (<I>Thacker</I>). 1888. New editions +(<I>Macmillan</I>). 1890; 1899; 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Soldiers Three: A Collection of Stories (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). 1888. +New edition (<I>London: Sampson Low</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Story of the Gadsbys: a Tale without a Plot (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). +N.D. [1888]. New edition (<I>London: Sampson Low</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +In Black and White (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). N.D. [1888]. New edition +(<I>London: Sampson Low</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Under the Deodars (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). N.D. [1888]. New edition +(<I>London: Sampson Low</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). N.D. +[1888]. New edition (<I>London: Sampson Low</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Wee Willie Winkie and other Child Stories (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). N.D. +[1888]. New edition (<I>London: Sampson Low</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Soldiers Three: The Story of the Gadsbys: In Black and White (<I>Sampson +Low</I>). 1890. New editions (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1895; 1899; 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Wee Willie Winkie: Under the Deodars: The Phantom Rickshaw (<I>Sampson +Low</I>). 1890. New editions (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1895; 1899; 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The City of Dreadful Night and Other Sketches (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). +1890. This edition was cancelled. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Smith Administration (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). 1891. This edition +was cancelled. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The City of Dreadful Night and Other Places (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). +1891. English edition (<I>Sampson Low</I>). 1891. These were suppressed +as far as possible. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Letters of Marque (<I>Allahabad: Wheeler</I>). 1891. This edition was +suppressed. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Light that Failed (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1891. New editions, 1899; 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Life's Handicap, being Stories of Mine Own People (<I>Macmillan</I>). N.D. +[1891]. New editions, 1899; 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Barrack Room Ballads and Other Verses (<I>Methuen</I>). 1892. New +editions, 1908; 1913. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Naulahka: a Story of West and East. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott +Balestier (<I>Heinemann</I>). 1892. New editions (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1901; +1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Many Inventions (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1893. New editions, 1899; 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Jungle Book (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1894:. New editions, 1899; 1903; 1907; +1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Second Jungle Book (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1895. New editions, 1899; 1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Seven Seas (<I>Methuen</I>). 1896. New editions, 1908; 1913. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Soldier Tales (<I>A selection of stories from earlier volumes</I>) +(<I>Macmillan</I>). 1896. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Novels, Tales and Poems of Rudyard Kipling (<I>Edition de luxe</I>) +(<I>Macmillan</I>). 1897, etc. 27 volumes have so far been issued. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"Captains Courageous." A Story of the Grand Banks (<I>Macmillan</I>). +1897. New editions, 1899; 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +An Almanac of Twelve Sports for 1898. By William Nicholson. Words by +Rudyard Kipling (<I>Heinemann</I>). 1897. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Day's Work (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1898. New editions, 1899; 1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +A Fleet in Being: Notes of Two Trips with the Channel Squadron +(<I>Macmillan</I>). 1898. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Stalky & Co. (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1899. New edition, 1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +From Sea to Sea (<I>Macmillan</I>). 2 volumes. 1900. New edition, 1908. +The volumes contain also Letters of Marque, The City of Dreadful Night +and The Smith Administration. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Science of Rebellion [Pamphlet] (<I>Vacher</I>). 1901. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Kim (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1901. New edition, 1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Just-So Stories, for Little Children (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1902. New +editions, 1903; 1908; 1913. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Five Nations (<I>Methuen</I>). 1903. New editions, 1908; 1913. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Traffics and Discoveries (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1904. New edition, 1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Puck of Pook's Hill (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1906. New edition, 1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +A Pocket Edition of Mr Kipling's Works was issued during 1907 and 1908, +the verse by Methuen & Co., the prose by Macmillan & Co. After 1908 +the works issued by Macmillan & Co. appear simultaneously in the +ordinary library edition, the pocket edition and the edition de luxe. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Doctors: an Address delivered at the Middlesex Hospital (<I>Macmillan</I>). +1908. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Actions and Reactions (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1909. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Dead King. [A Poem] (<I>Hodder & Stoughton</I>). 1910. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Rewards and Fairies (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1910. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +A School History of England, By C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling +(<I>Clarendon Press</I>). 1911. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling (<I>Hodder & Stoughton</I>). 1912. +This edition does not contain the Departmental Ditties nor the Rhymes +for Nicholson's Almanac. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Simples Contes des Collines (<I>Nelson</I>). 1912. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Bombay Edition of the Works in Verse and Prose of Rudyard Kipling. +23 volumes (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1913-1915. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Songs from Books (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1913. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Service Edition of some of the works of Rudyard Kipling: Verse, 8 +volumes (<I>Methuen</I>); prose, 26 volumes (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1914-1915. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The New Army in Training (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1915. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY +</H3> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +[Some of Mr Kipling's earlier stories and poems, as well as certain +later poems that are non-copyright in America, have been issued in an +almost bewildering variety of arrangement and by many different +publishers. Full enumeration of these variants is not attempted in +this bibliography.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Plain Tales from the Hills (<I>Lovell</I>). N.D. [1890]. (<I>Macmillan</I>). +1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Story of the Gadsbys (<I>Lovell</I>). 1890. (<I>Munro</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Courting of Dinah Shadd and Other Stories (<I>Harper</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Indian Tales (<I>Lovell</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales (<I>U.S. Book Co.</I>). N.D. [1890]. +(<I>Rand, M'Nally & Co.</I>). 1890. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Soldiers Three and Other Stories (<I>Munro</I>). N.D. [1890]. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +American Notes, by Rudyard Kipling, and The Bottle Imp, by Robert Louis +Stevenson (<I>Ivers</I>). 1891. New edition (<I>Brown</I>). 1899. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Mine Own People: with Introduction by Henry James (<I>Munro</I>). N.D. +[1891]. (<I>U.S. Book Co.</I>). 1891. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Under the Deodars (<I>U.S. Book Co.</I>). 1891. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Story of the Gadsbys; Under the Deodars (<I>U.S. Book Co.</I>). 1891. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories (<I>Rand</I>). 1891. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Light that Failed (<I>Rand</I>). 1891. (<I>Munro</I>). N.D. [1891]. +(<I>U.S. Book Co.</I>). 1891. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Life's Handicap, being Stories of Mine Own People (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1891. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1892. New edition, +1893. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Barrack Room Ballads and Other Verses (<I>U. S. Book Co.</I>). N.D. [1892]. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Naulahka: a Story of West and East. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott +Balestier. (<I>Rand</I>). 1892. New edition (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1895. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Many Inventions (<I>Appleton</I>). 1893. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Jungle Book (<I>Century Co.</I>). 1894. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Prose Tales. New uniform edition. 6 volumes (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1895. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Out of India: Things I saw and failed to see, in certain days and +nights at Jeypore and elsewhere (<I>Dillingham</I>). 1895. [Included in +From Sea to Sea, 1899, under the title, Letters of Marque.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Second Jungle Book (<I>Century Co.</I>). 1895. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Seven Seas (<I>Appleton</I>). 1896. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Soldier Stories (<I>Macmillan</I>). 1896. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The "Outward Bound" Edition of Rudyard Kipling's Works (<I>Scribner</I>). +1897, etc. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"Captains Courageous." A Story of the Grand Banks (<I>Century Co.</I>). +1897. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +An Almanac of Twelve Sports. By William Nicholson. Words by Rudyard +Kipling (<I>Russell</I>). 1897. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Collectanea: Reprinted Verses (<I>Mansfield</I>). 1898. [Contains: The +Explanation, Mandalay, Recessional, The Rhyme of the Three Captains, +The Vampire.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Day's Work (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1898. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The City of Dreadful Night (<I>Grosset</I>). 1899. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Letters of Marque (<I>Caldwell</I>). 1899. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1899. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads +(<I>Doubleday</I>). 1899. [The first authorised American edition.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Stalky & Co. (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1899. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Kim (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1901. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Just-So Stories for Little Children (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1902. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Five Nations (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1903. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Traffics and Discoveries (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1904. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Puck of Pook's Hill (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1906. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Collected Verse (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1907. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Actions and Reactions (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1909. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Abaft the Funnel (<I>Dodge</I>). 1909. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Rewards and Fairies (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1910. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Songs from Books (<I>Doubleday</I>). 1912. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +A School History of England. By C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling +(<I>Oxford University Press</I>). 1912. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Seven Seas Edition of the Works in Verse and Prose of Rudyard +Kipling (<I>Doubleday</I>). 23 volumes. 1913. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +INDEX +</H3> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Baa Baa Black Sheep</I>, 91<BR> +Barker, Granville, 16<BR> +<I>Barrack Room Ballads</I>, 110, 111<BR> +<I>Bell Buoy, The</I>, 109<BR> +<I>Below the Mill Dam</I>, 82, 108<BR> +<I>Between the Devil and the Deep Sea</I>, 79, 80<BR> +<I>Beyond the Pole</I>, 60<BR> +Birth, 14<BR> +<I>Bridge-Builders, The</I>, 77, 89, 109<BR> +<I>Brugglesmith</I>, 92<BR> +<I>Brushwood Boy, The</I>, 98<BR> +Brutality, 113<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Candide</I>, 106<BR> +<I>Children of the Zodiac, The</I>, 98<BR> +"Civil and Military Gazette, The," 14<BR> +Cleever, 7-10, 73<BR> +Cloke, 95<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Day's Work, The</I>, 23, 46, 77, 86, 87, 92<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>End of the Passage, The</I>, 60<BR> +England, feeling for, 93, 97<BR> +<I>Error in the Fourth Dimension, An</I>, 93<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Falstaff, 74<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Habitation Enforced, An</I>, 93, 94, 109<BR> +Hardy, Thomas, 16<BR> +Hawksbee, Mrs, 24, 25, 28<BR> +Hazlitt, 10<BR> +<I>Head of the District, The</I>, 87<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Imperialism, 97<BR> +India, influence of, 38, 45<BR> +Indian Stories—Classification, 19<BR> +<I>In the Rukh</I>, 92<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Jungle Book, The</I>, 17, 65, 92<BR> +<I>Just-So Stories</I>, 91<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Keats, John, 85<BR> +<I>Kim</I>, 19, 22, 62-64, 100, 101<BR> +Kipling, J. Lockwood, 14<BR> +<I>Krishna Mulvaney</I>, 70<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Lahore, 53<BR> +Learoyd, 66<BR> +<I>Life's Handicap</I>, 47, 53<BR> +<I>Light that Failed, The</I>, 13, 87, 88, 89<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Machinery, 84, 86<BR> +Maisie, 89<BR> +<I>Maltese Cat, The</I>, 88<BR> +Malthus, 67<BR> +<I>Man Who Would be King, The</I>, 60<BR> +<I>Many Inventions</I>, 17<BR> +<I>Marrying of Anne Leete, The</I>, 16<BR> +Metre, 107<BR> +Milton, 85<BR> +<I>Miracle of Purun Bhagat, The</I>, 114<BR> +Mowgli, 100<BR> +Mulvaney, 66, 70<BR> +<I>My Lord the Elephant</I>, 70<BR> +<I>My Sunday at Home</I>, 92<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Nietzsche, 67<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Ortheris, 66, 70<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Phantom Rickshaw, The</I>, 29<BR> +"Pioneer, The," 14<BR> +<I>Plain Tales from the Hills</I>, 15, 17, 24, 29, 46, 60<BR> +Politics, 33<BR> +Pope, 106<BR> +<I>Puck of Pook's Hill</I>, 97, 98<BR> +Purun Bhagat, 101<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Realism, 98<BR> +Red-Haired Girl, The, 89<BR> +<I>Return of Imray, The</I>, 61, 93<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Second Jungle Book, The</I>, 101<BR> +Shakespeare, 74<BR> +Shelley, 85<BR> +<I>Ship that Found Herself, The</I>, 87<BR> +Simla, 24, 26<BR> +Simplicity, 46, 47<BR> +<I>Snarleyow</I>, 111<BR> +<I>Soldiers Three</I>, 110<BR> +<I>Stalky & Co.</I>, 91<BR> +Sussex, 92<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Taking of Lungtungpen, The</I>, 91<BR> +Technical enthusiasm, 79<BR> +<I>They</I>, 97<BR> +<I>Three Musketeers, The</I>, 91<BR> +<I>Tods' Amendment</I>, 41, 91<BR> +Trajego, 59<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Verse and Prose, 107, 111<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +War, 68<BR> +<I>Wee Willie Winkie</I>, 91<BR> +<I>White Man's Burden, The</I>, 109, 110<BR> +<I>William the Conqueror</I>, 47, 60, 86, 109<BR> +<I>With the Night Mail</I>, 83<BR> +Wordsworth, 85<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>.007</I>, 79, 82, 88<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> +<hr class="full" noshade> + +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDYARD KIPLING***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 18045-h.txt or 18045-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/4/18045">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/4/18045</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Rudyard Kipling + + +Author: John Palmer + + + +Release Date: March 24, 2006 [eBook #18045] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDYARD KIPLING*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 18045-h.htm or 18045-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/4/18045/18045-h/18045-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/4/18045/18045-h.zip) + + + + + +RUDYARD KIPLING + +by + +JOHN PALMER + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Rudyard Kipling] + + + + +New York +Henry Holt and Company +First Published in 1915 + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. INTRODUCTION + II. SIMLA + III. THE SAHIB + IV. NATIVE INDIA + V. SOLDIERS THREE + VI. THE DAY'S WORK + VII. THE FINER GRAIN + VIII. THE POEMS + BIBLIOGRAPHY + AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY + INDEX + + + + +I + +INTRODUCTION + +There is a tale of Mr Kipling which relates how Eustace Cleever, a +celebrated novelist, came to the rooms of a young subaltern and his +companions who were giving an account of themselves. Eustace Cleever +was a literary man, and was greatly impressed when he learned that one +of the company, who was under twenty-five and was called the Infant, +had killed people somewhere in Burma. He was suddenly caught by an +immense enthusiasm for the active life--the sort of enthusiasm which +sedentary authors feel. Eustace Cleever ended the night riotously with +youngsters who had helped to govern and extend the Empire; and he +returned from their company incoherently uttering a deep contempt for +art and letters. + +But Eustace Cleever was being observed by the First Person Singular of +Mr Kipling's tale. This receiver of confidences perceived what was +happening, and he has the last word of the story: + + +"Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator and colourman in +words, was blaspheming his own Art and would be sorry for this in the +morning." + + +We have here an important clue to Mr Kipling and his work. Mr Kipling +writes of the heroic life. He writes of men who do visible and +measurable things. His theme has usually to do with the world's work. +He writes of the locomotive and the engineer; of the mill-wheel and the +miller; of the bolts, bars and planks of a ship and the men who sail +it. He writes, in short, of any creature which has work to do and does +it well. Nevertheless we must not be misled into thinking that because +Mr Kipling glorifies all that is concrete, practical, visible and +active he is therefore any the less purely and utterly a literary man. +Mr Kipling seems sometimes to write as an engineer, sometimes as a +soldier. At times we would wager that he had spent all his life as a +Captain of Marines, or as a Keeper of Woods and Forests, or as a +Horse-Dealer. He gives his readers the impression that he has lived a +hundred lives, mastered many crafts, and led the life, not of one, but +of a dozen, active and practical men of affairs. He has created about +himself so complete an illusion of adventure and enterprise that it +seems almost the least important thing about him that he should also be +a writer of books. His readers, indeed, are apt to forget the most +important fact as to Mr Kipling--the fact that he is a man of letters. +He seems to belong rather to the company of young subalterns than to +the company of Eustace Cleever. + +Hence it is necessary to consider closely the moral of that excellent +tale. When Eustace Cleever blasphemed against his art, Mr Kipling +predicted he would be sorry for it. Mr Kipling recorded that +prediction because he had the best of reasons to know how Eustace +Cleever would feel upon the morning after his debauch of enthusiasm for +the heroic life. Let each man keep to his work, and know how good it +is to do that work as well as it can be done. Eustace Cleever's work +was to live the life of imagination and to handle English words--work +as difficult to do and normally as useful as the job of the Infant. +Though for one heady night Eustace Cleever yearned after a strange +career, Mr Kipling knew that he would return without misgiving to the +thing he was born to do. Mr Kipling, like Eustace Cleever, knows that +though nothing is more pleasant than to talk with young subalterns, yet +the born author remains always an author. He knows, too, that even the +deeds he admires in the men who make history are, for him, no more than +raw stuff to be taken in hand or rejected according to the author's +need. + +Mr Kipling, in short, is a man of letters, and we shall realise, before +we have done with him, that he is an extremely crafty and careful man +of letters. Tales which seem to come out of the barrack-yard, out of +the jungle or the deep sea, out of the dust and noise where men are +working and building and fighting, come really out of the study of an +expert craftsman using the tools of his craft with deliberate care. +This may seem an unnecessary warning. The intelligent reader will +protest that, since Mr Kipling writes books, it does not seem very +necessary to deduce that he is a man of letters. It is true that no +such warning would be necessary in the case of most writers of books. +It would be pure loss of time, for example, to begin a study of the +work of Mr Henry James by asserting that Mr Henry James was a man of +letters. But Mr Kipling is in rather a different case. The majority +of readers with whom one discusses Mr Kipling's works are sometimes far +astray, simply because they have not realised that Mr Kipling is as +utterly a man of letters as Mr Henry James, that he lives as completely +the life of fancy and meditation as William Blake or Francis Thompson. +Mr Kipling does not write tales out of the mere fullness of his life in +many continents and his talk with all kinds of men. He is not to be +understood as a man singular only in his experience, unloading +anecdotes from a crowded life, excelling in emphasis and reality by +virtue of things actually seen and done. On the contrary, Mr Kipling +writes tales because he is a writer. + +Mr Kipling has seen more of the scattered life of the world and been +more keenly interested in the work of the world than some of his +literary contemporaries. But this does not imply that he is any the +less devoted to the craft of letters. Indeed, we shall realise that he +is one of the craftiest authors who ever lived. He is more crafty than +Stevenson. He often lives by the word alone--the word picked and +polished. That he has successfully disguised this fact from many of +his admirers is only a further proof of his literary cunning. Mr +Kipling often uses words with great skill to create in his readers the +impression that words matter to him hardly at all. He will work as +hard as the careful sonneteer to give to his manner a tang of rawness +and crudity; and thereby his readers are willing to forget that he is a +literary man. They are content simply to listen to a man who has seen, +and possibly done, wonders in all parts of the world, neglecting to +observe that, if the world with its day's work belongs to Mr Kipling, +it belongs to him only by author's right--that is, by right of +imagination and right of style. + +It is true that Mr Kipling is lawless and contemptuous of literary +formality; and that whenever he talks of "Art," as in certain pages of +_The Light That Failed_, he tries to talk as though there were really +no such thing. But Mr Kipling's cheerful contempt of all that is +pedantic and magisterial in "Art" does not imply that he is innocent of +literary discipline. It is true that Mr Kipling is lawless in the +sense that all good work is more than a conscious adherence to formula. +It is not true in the sense that Mr Kipling is more lawless than +Tennyson or Walter Scott. Readers of Mr Kipling's stories must not be +misled by his buccaneering contempt for formal art. Mr Kipling's art +is as formal as the art of Wilde, or the art of Baudelaire, which he +helped to send out of fashion. + +A few preliminary words are necessary (1) as to the half-dozen dates +which bear upon Mr Kipling's authorship and (2) as to the arrangement +of his works here to be followed. + +Mr Kipling was born in 1865, the son of J. Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E. +His intimacy with India was determined at birth. He was educated at +the United Services College, Westward Ho, but was again in India in +1882, as assistant editor on _The Civil and Military Gazette_ and _The +Pioneer_. He remained on the staff of _The Pioneer_ for seven years, +and travelled over the five continents. By this time he had learned to +think of the world as a place rather more diversified than a walk from +Charing Cross to Whitehall would lead one to imagine; to see something +of men upon its frontiers, and to love England as men do who come back +to her from the ends of the earth. The whole of Mr Kipling's literary +biography is contained in the fact that Mr Kipling has been a great +traveller who is now inveterately at home. + +Perhaps we should also note that Mr Kipling was a literary prodigy. +_Plain Tales from the Hills_ appeared in 1887. Mr Kipling at +twenty-two had shown his quality and had already mapped out in little +his career. In _Plain Tales from the Hills_ there are hints for almost +everything that their author afterwards accomplished. As the book of a +young journalist whose name had not yet been whispered among the +publishers and critics of London it was a miracle. If Mr Kipling had +been able to improve on _Plain Tales from the Hills_ as much as +Shakespeare improved on _Love's Labour's Lost_, as much as Shelley +improved on _Queen Mab_, Robert Browning on _Pauline_, Byron on _Hours +of Idleness_, he would to-day be without a peer. Mr Granville Barker +is often cited as a classical modern example of precocity, but he was +twenty-four when he wrote _The Marrying of Anne Leete_. Mr Henry James +was twenty-eight before he had published a characteristic word. Mr +Thomas Hardy at twenty-five had only printed a short story, and he was +more than thirty when his first novel appeared. Mr Kipling came upon +the public in 1886 without a preliminary stutter. Mr Kipling at +twenty-two could write as craftily as Mr Kipling can write after nearly +thirty years' experience. We shall not be greatly concerned in these +pages to trace the progress of Mr Kipling's craft and wisdom. He was +always crafty and always wise. He had done some of his best work at +thirty. He recalls Hazlitt's curious saying that an improving author +is never a great author. Mr Kipling is not an improving author. There +has been a little moving up and down the scale of excellence; many +things hinted in the early volumes from _Plain Tales from the Hills_ to +_Many Inventions_ are developed more elaborately and surely in later +volumes; the old craft has come to be used with an ease that has in it +more of the insolence of a master than was possible in the author of +1887. But so far as literary finish is concerned, _Plain Tales from +the Hills_ leaves little to be acquired. Already Mr Kipling wields his +implement as deftly and firmly as many a skilled writer who was +learning his lesson before Mr Kipling was born. Few authors have so +surely scored their best in their earliest years. Authors are +considered young to-day at thirty. Mr Kipling at that age had already +written _The Jungle Book_. + +This does not, of course, imply that all Mr Kipling's stories are of +equal merit. On the contrary, we shall henceforth be mainly concerned +with looking for the inspired author under a mass of skilful +journalism. It is not a simple enterprise. Mr Kipling is so competent +an author that he is usually able to persuade his readers that his +heart is equally in all he writes. Moreover, Mr Kipling has fallen +among many prejudices, literary and political, which have caused his +least important work to be most discussed. For these reasons the +actual, as distinguished from the legendary, Mr Kipling is not easily +discovered. Mainly it is a work of excavation. + +Mr Kipling has been writing short stories for nearly thirty years. His +tales are too numerous for disparate discussion. It will be necessary +to take them in groups. One or two stories in each group will be taken +as typical of the rest. Thereby we shall avoid repetition and be able +to show some sort of plan to the maze of Mr Kipling's diversity of +subjects and manners. + + + + +II + +SIMLA + +Mr Kipling's Indian stories fall into three groups. There are (1) the +tales of Simla, (2) the Anglo-Indian tales, and (3) the tales of native +India. There is also _Kim_, which is more--much more--than a tale of +India. + +Mr Kipling's Indian stories necessarily tend to fill a disproportionate +amount of space. They are of less account than their number or the +attention they have received would seem to imply. Their discussion in +this and the two following chapters will be more of a political than a +literary discussion. Mr Kipling as journalist and very efficient +colourman in words has made much of India in his time. He has +perceived in India a subject susceptible of being profitably worked +upon. Here was a vast continent, the particular concern of the +English, where all kinds of interesting work was being done, where +stories grew too thickly for counting, and where there was, ready to +the teller's eye, a richness and diversity of setting which beggared +the most eager penmanship. Moreover, this continent was virtually +untouched in the popular literature of the day. Naturally Mr Kipling +made full use of his opportunity. He did not write of India because +India was essential to his genius, but because he was shrewd enough to +realise that nothing could better serve the purpose of a young author +than to exploit his first-hand acquisition of an inexhaustible store of +fresh and excellent material. India was annexed by Mr Kipling at +twenty-two for his own literary purposes. He was not born to interpret +India, nor does he throw his literary heart and soul into the business. +When, in the Indian stories, we meet with pages sincerely inspired we +discover that their inspiration has very little to do with India and a +great deal to do with Mr Kipling's impulse to celebrate the work of the +world, and even more to do with his impulse to escape the intellectual +casuistry of his generation in a region where life is simple and +intense. These aspects of his work will be more clearly revealed at a +later stage. For the moment we are considering the Indian tales simply +as tales of India; and from this point of view they obviously belong to +the journalist rather than to the author who has helped to make the +English short story respectable. Mr Kipling simply gets out of India +the maximum of literary effect as a teller of tales. India, for +example, is mysterious. Mr Kipling exploits her mystery competently +and coolly, making his points with the precision, clarity and force of +one to whom the enterprise begins and ends as an affair of technical +adequacy. The point is made with equal ability that India is not +without peril and difficulty ruled and administered by the sahibs; or +that India has a complicated history; or that India is thickly peopled. +Mr Kipling in his Indian tales makes the most of his talent for +observing things, always with a keen eye for their effective literary +employment. His Indian tales are descriptive journalism of a high +quality; and, being journalism, their matter and their doctrine have +hit hard the attention of their particular day. + +This reduces us to the necessity of considering not so much their form +and quality as the ideas and doctrines they contain--a barren task but +necessary in order to clear away many misconceptions with regard to Mr +Kipling's work. Regarded as literature, Mr Kipling's Indian tales are +mainly of note as preparing in him that enthusiasm for the work of the +world which, later, was to inspire his greatest pages; as finally +leading him in _Kim_ to a door whereby he was able to pass into the +region of pure fancy where alone he is supremely happy, and as +prompting in him the instinct to simplify which urged him into the +jungle and into the minds of children. But all this has very little to +do with India. So long as we are dealing with Mr Kipling's Indian +stories as in themselves finished and intrinsic studies of India, we +remain only in the suburbs of Mr Kipling's merit as an author. The +Simla tales are not more than a skilful employment of a literary +convention which Mr Kipling did not inherit. The Anglo-Indian and +native tales are the not less skilful work of a young newspaper man +breaking into a storehouse of new material. We are interested firstly +in Mr Kipling's craft as a technician, as one who makes the most of his +theme deliberately and self-consciously; and secondly in Mr Kipling's +point of view, in the impressions and ideas he has collected concerning +the country of which he writes. Until we arrive at _The Day's Work_ we +shall be mainly occupied in clearing the ground of impertinent +prejudices concerning Mr Kipling's temperament and politics. For +though the Indian and soldier tales are as literature not impregnable +to criticism, they can at any rate be rescued from those who have +annexed or repudiated them from motives which have little to do with +their literary value. + +We will begin with the Simla tales. + +Characteristically the author who began virtually at the end of his +career--proclaiming himself a finished virtuoso at the start--entered +into prose with a volume of tales, radiating from Simla, which betray +qualities that are usually associated with the later rather than with +the early work of an author. _Plain Tales from the Hills_ number more +Simla stories to the square page than any other volume of Mr Kipling. +Now Mr Kipling's Simla stories are the least important, but in some +ways the most significant of all the stories he wrote. They begin and +they end in sheer literary virtuosity. We feel in reading Mr Kipling's +studies of the social world at Simla that he had no intuitive call to +write them; that they are exercises in craft rather than genuine +inspirations. Mrs Hawksbee stands for nothing in Mr Kipling's +achievement save only for his power to create an illusion of reality +and enthusiasm by sheer finish of style. She is not a creation. She +is only the best possible example of the clever sleight-of-hand of an +accomplished artificer. She is in literary fiction cousin to the +witty, flirtatious ladies of the modern English theatre. Her +conversation is delightful, but it belongs to nobody. It does not even +belong to her author. Mrs Hawksbee talks as all well-dressed women +talk in the best books. She does it with a volubility and +resourcefulness which almost disguises the fact that she lives only by +hanging desperately to the end of her author's pen; but she cannot +deceive us always. Mr Kipling does not really believe in Mrs Hawksbee. +He has no real sympathy or knowledge of the social undercrust where the +tangle of three is a constant theme. The talk of Mrs Hawksbee and her +circle is derived. Its conduct is fashionable light comedy in an +Indian setting. + +Simla really does not deserve to be known outside the Indian Empire. +It is a comparatively cool place whither Indian soldier and civilians +send their wives in the hot weather and whither they retire themselves +under medical advice. It is not unlike any other warm and idle city of +rest where there is every kind of expensive amusement provided for a +migratory population. Mr Kipling has failed to make Simla interesting, +because Simla is Biarritz and Monte Carlo or any place which in fiction +is frequented by people who behave naughtily and enjoy themselves, and +in real life is frequented by the upper middle classes mechanically +passing the time. Mr Kipling's ingenious pretences regarding Simla are +amusing, but they cannot long conceal from his readers that these +tales, apart from literary exhibition, were really not worth the +telling. Mr Kipling pretends, of course, even at twenty-four, to know +of all that passes between women unlacing after a ball; but Mr +Kipling's pretended omniscience is part of his literary method, and he +does not quite carry it off in the Simla tales. He gives us not Simla +or any place under the sun, but a sparkling stage version of Simla--all +dancing and delight, a little intrigue, a touch of sentiment, patches +of excellent fun, and now and then a streak of Indian mystery. But Mr +Kipling's heart is not really in this business. His Simla tales will +not endure, and they have been given too much prominence in the popular +idea of his work. They are not plain tales, but tales very artfully +coloured. They fall far short of the standard to which Mr Kipling has +raised the English short story. Yet even here we may note the skill +with which the author has concealed his failure. Mrs Hawksbee may be +taken as a symbol of the distinction between the work of an inspired +author and the work of an author playing with his tools. Mr Kipling of +_The Jungle Books_ and _The Day's Work_ is an inspired author. Mr +Kipling of the Simla tales, on the other hand, is simply concerned to +show that he can work a conventional formula of the day as well as any +man; that he can redeem the formula with individual touches beyond the +reach of most; and can enliven it with impudent pretences which please +by virtue of their being utterly preposterous. Take, for example, the +pretence that Mrs Hawksbee is a charming woman. Mrs Hawksbee is really +nothing of the kind. She is an anthology of witty phrases. She is the +abstract perfection of what a clever head and a good heart is expected +to be in a fashionable comedy. But Mr Kipling desires her to be +accepted as a charming woman. His procedure, on a high and delicate +plane, is precisely the procedure to which we are accustomed on a low +and obvious plane in the majority of popular novels where the hero has +to be accepted for a man of brilliant genius. We have to take the +author's word for it. The author who tells us that his hero is a +genius usually requires us to believe it without further proof. He +does not show us a page of the hero's music or the hero's poetry, but +we must believe that it is very fine, even though the hero loves Pietro +Mascagni and worships Martin Tupper. Similarly Mr Kipling, presenting +us with Mrs Hawksbee, nowhere affords us direct evidence that she is a +charming woman. He assumes it, gets everyone else in the story to +assume it, and expects his readers to assume it--his cunning as a +writer being of so remarkable a quality that there are very few of the +Simla tales in which the reader is not prepared to assume it for the +sake of the story. + +Mrs Hawksbee is typical of the majority of Mr Kipling's studies in +social comedy. His success in this kind is remarkable, but it is +barren. Mr Kipling realised this himself quite early, for he quite +soon abandoned Simla. There are some sixteen stories in _Plain Tales +from the Hills_ into which the Simla motive is threaded. In the books +immediately following, published in 1888 and 1889, Simla is not wholly +abandoned, but the proportion of Simla stories is less. _The Phantom +Rickshaw_ (1889) is the last story which can fairly be brought within +the list, and this story can only be included by straining its point to +vanishing. Of all the groups of stories in _Plain Tales from the +Hills_ the Simla group, though it was largest, promised least for the +future. + + + + +III + +THE SAHIB + +There is another group of Indian tales, a group which deals with the +governance of India--with the men who are spent in the Imperial +Service. The peculiar charm and merit of these tales is best +considered as a special case of Mr Kipling's delight in the world's +work--a subject which claims a chapter to itself. But apart from this, +Mr Kipling's Anglo-Indian tales--his presentation of the work of the +Indian Empire, of the Anglo-Indian soldier and civilian--have an +unfortunate interest of their own. They are mainly responsible for a +misconception which has dogged Mr Kipling through all his career. This +misconception consists in regarding Mr Kipling as primarily an +Imperialist pamphleteer with a brief for the Services and a contempt +for the Progressive Parties. It is an error which has acted +mischievously upon all who share it--upon the reader who mechanically +regrets that Mr Kipling's work should be disfigured with fierce heresy; +upon the reader who chuckles with sectarian glee when the "much +talkers" are mocked and confounded; upon Mr Kipling himself who has +been encouraged to mistake an accident of his career as the essence of +his achievement and to regard himself as a sort of Imperial laureate. +The origin of this misconception is not obscure. Mr Kipling has +written intimate tales of the British Army: he is, therefore, a +"militarist." He has lived in India many years, and realised that men +who live in India, and administer India, and come into personal contact +with Hindus and Mohammedans, know more about India than Members of +Parliament who run through the Indian continent between sessions: he +is, therefore, a reviler of the free democratic institutions of Great +Britain. He has realised that Government departments in Whitehall are +not always thought to be very expeditious, well informed and devoted by +men who are often confronted with matters that cannot afford to wait +for a telegram: he is, therefore, a lover of the high hand and of +courses brutal and irregular. He has celebrated the toil and the +adventure of pioneers and of outposts: he is, therefore, one who +brandishes unseasonably the Imperial sword. + +The grain of truth in these deductions is heavily outweighed by the +massive absurdity of regarding them as in any sense essential. Mr +Kipling brings political prejudice into his work less than almost any +living contemporary. At a time when there was hardly an English novel +or an English play of consequence which was not also a political +pamphlet it was completely false to regard Mr Kipling as a pamphleteer. +When most of our English authors were talking from the platform, Mr +Kipling--with a few, too few, others--remained apart. He is suspect, +not because his Anglo-Indian tales or his army tales are political, but +because they record much that is true of the English Services, which +fails to square with much that once was popularly believed about them. +The real reason of Mr Kipling's false fame as a politician is, not that +he is an Imperial pamphleteer, but that, writing of the Army and the +Empire, he fails to be a pamphleteer on the other side. His +detachment, not his partiality, is at fault. + +Mr Kipling's detachment from the politics of his day explains virtually +everything that has offended his modern critics. Almost the first +thing to realise in discussing Mr Kipling's attitude to modern life is +that Mr Kipling has kept absolutely clear of the political and social +drift of the last thirty years. He has been conspicuously out of +everything. He has had nothing to say to any of the ideas or +influences which have formed his contemporaries. While others of his +literary generation were growing up amid intellectual movements, +democratic tendencies and advances of humanity, Mr Kipling was standing +between two civilisations in India which were hardly susceptible of +being reconciled till they had been reduced to very simple terms. The +instinct to simplify--to get down to something in nature that included +the East with the West, the First with the Twentieth century, was +naturally strong in one who was born between two nations; and it was an +instinct which drove Mr Kipling in the opposite direction from that in +which his contemporaries were moving. While Mr Kipling's generation +was learning to analyse, refine and interrogate, to become super-subtle +and incredulous, to exalt the particular and ignore the general, to +probe into the intricate and sensitive places of modern life, Mr +Kipling was looking at mankind in the mass, looking back to the +half-dozen realities which are the stuff of the poetry of every climate +and period--to love of country which is as old as the waters of +Babylon, to the faith of Achates, and the affliction of Job. While Mr +Kipling's contemporaries have been working towards minute studies of +individuals and groups, Mr Kipling has been content to catch the metal +of humanity at the flash point, to wait for the passionate moment which +reveals all mankind as of one kindred. "We be of one blood, ye and +I"--the phrase of the Jungle holds. + +To find here evidence of a bias merely political, of an attitude +reactionary and hostile to the progress o the world, is to deny sense +and meaning to the greatest literature of the world. Mr Kipling's +instinctive simplifying of life he shares with the immortals. It is, +as we shall see, the immortal part of him. To write of Mr Kipling as +though he celebrates the ape and the tiger; extols the Philistine and +the brute; calls always for more chops--"bloody ones with gristle"; +delights in the savagery of war, and ferociously despises all that +separates the Englishman of to-day from his painted ancestor--this is +the mistake of critics who cannot distinguish the cant of progress from +its reality. + +We shall be driven more particularly to consider Mr Kipling's atavism +in discussing his tales of the British Army. For the present we are +dealing only with India and the "Imperialism" which some of Mr +Kipling's critics have taken for an offensive proof of his political +prejudice. Mr Kipling's treatment of the Anglo-Indian, and of the +dealing of the Anglo-Indian with the Indian Empire, has nothing to do +with the Yellows and the Blues. The real motive of Mr Kipling's +attitude towards the men on the frontier, in places where deadly things +are encountered and there is work to be done, is no more a matter of +politics, "progressive" or "reactionary," than is his celebration of +the Maltese Cat or of .007. "The White Man's Burden" is the burden of +every creature in whom there lives the pride of unrewarded labour, of +endurance and courage. In India this pride has to be wholesomely +tempered with humility; for India is old and vast and incomprehensible, +to be handled with care, to be approached as a country which, though it +shows an inscrutably smiling face to the modern world, has the power +suddenly to baffle its modern rulers by opening to them glimpses of an +intricate and unassailable life which cannot be ruffled by Orders in +Council or disturbed by the weak ploughing of teachers from the West. +The task of the Anglo-Indian administrator is, indeed, the finest +opportunity for that heroic life to the celebration of which Mr Kipling +has devoted so many of his tales. This hero has a task which taxes all +his ability, which promises little riches and little fame, and is known +to be tolerably hopeless. It offers to him a supreme test of his +virtue--a test in which the hero is accountable only to his personal +will; whose best work is its own reward and comfort. + + +"Gentlemen come from England," writes Mr Kipling in one of his Indian +tales, "spend a few weeks in India, walk round this great sphinx of the +Plains, and write books upon its ways and its work, denouncing or +praising it as their ignorance prompts. Consequently all the world +knows how the Supreme Government conducts itself. But no one, not even +the Supreme Government, knows everything about the administration of +the Empire. Year by year England sends out fresh drafts for the first +fighting-line, which is officially called the Indian Civil Service. +These die, or kill themselves by overwork, or are worried to death, or +broken in health and hope, in order that the land may be protected from +death and sickness, famine and war, and may eventually become capable +of standing alone. It will never stand alone; but the idea is a pretty +one, and men are willing to die for it, and yearly the work of pushing +and coaxing and scolding and petting the country into good living goes +forward. If an advance be made, all credit is given to the native, +while the Englishmen stand back and wipe their foreheads. If a failure +occurs, the Englishmen step forward and accept the blame." + + +This passage declares the heroic spirit of Mr Kipling's Anglo-Indian +tales; and many readers will fail to understand how exactly this spirit +has been found vainglorious. + +There is a passage in Shakespeare where a king's envoy comes to claim +of a high-mettled and sweating warrior the fruits of victory. The +warrior grudges less surrendering the fruits of victory to the king +than he grudges surrendering his anger at being easily and prettily +addressed on the field of battle by a polite and dainty fellow who has +no idea how dearly the fruits of victory are purchased. Mr Kipling's +heroes are frail enough to feel some of this very natural indignation +when unbreathed politicians lecture them in the heat of their Indian +day. They come into touch with things simple and bitter. India has +searched out the value of many a Western shibboleth, destroyed many +doctrines, principles, ideas and theories. Phrases which look well in +a peroration look foolish when there is immediate work to be done, and +expediency begins to rule. The first lesson which the Indian civilian +learns, a lesson which is rarely omitted from any of Mr Kipling's +Indian stories, is that practical men are better for being ready to +take the world as they find it. The men who worship the Great God +Dungara, the God of Things as They Are, most terrible, One-eyed, +Bearing the Red Elephant Tusk--men who are set on saving their own +particular business--have no time for saving faces and phrases. They +have small respect for a principle. They have seen too many principles +break down under the particular instance. Hence there is in all Mr +Kipling's work a disrespect of things which are printed and made much +of in the contemporary British press; and this, again, has encouraged +the idea that he is "reactionary," contemptuous of the humanities, and +enemy of all the best poets and philosophers. + +It will perhaps be well to look a little closely at one or two of Mr +Kipling's Indian series. They will help us to realise how the charges +we are discussing have arisen and exactly how unreasonable they are. +The first of two excellent examples is the story of _Tods' Amendment_. +_Tods' Amendment_ is the story of a Bill brought in by the Supreme +Legislative Council of India. Tods was an English baby of six, and he +mixed on friendly terms with Indians in the bazaar and with members of +the Supreme Legislative Council. The Council was at this time devising +a new scheme of land tenure which aimed at "safeguarding the interests" +of a few hundred thousand cultivators of the Punjab. The Bill was +beautiful on paper; and the Legal Member, who knew Tods, was settling +the "minor details." The weak part of the business was that European +legislators, dealing with natives, are often puzzled to know which +details are the major and which the minor. Also the Native Member was +from Calcutta, and knew nothing about the Punjab. Nevertheless, the +Bill was known to be a beautiful Bill till Tods happened one evening to +be sitting on the knee of the Legal Member, and to hear him mention +_The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment_. Tods had heard the +bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when +there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the +Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only +one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was +altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause which so +clearly "safeguarded the interests of the tenant." It therefore came +about that the rough draft of the Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised +Enactment was put away in the Legal Member's private paper-box--"and, +opposite the twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed +by the Legal Member, are the words, 'Tods' Amendment.'" + +The moral of the tale is not obscure. A baby who runs in the bazaar is +better able to legislate for India than a Supreme Legislative Council. +India, in short, is a vast and uncertain land, whose ways are not +always learned in a lifetime by the men whose business it is. The +argument _a fortiori_--namely, that amiable and humane political +philosophers, well bred in the latest European theories of government, +are even less likely to be infallible--need not be pursued. + +Our second story is the story of Aurelian McGoggin. Aurelian McGoggin +had read too many books, and he had too many theories. He also had a +creed: "It was not much of a creed. It only proved that men had no +souls, and there was no God and no hereafter, and that you must worry +along somehow for the good of humanity." McGoggin had found it an +excellent creed for a Government office, and he brought it to India and +tried to teach it to all his friends. His friends had found that life +in India is not long enough to waste in proving that there is no one +particular at the head of affairs, and they objected. They also warned +McGoggin not to be too good for his work, and not to insist on doing it +better than it needed to be done, because people in India wanted all +their energy for bare life. But McGoggin would not be warned, and one +day, when he had steadily overworked and overtalked through the hot +season, he was suddenly interrupted at the club, in the middle of an +oration. The doctor called it _aphasia_; but McGoggin only knew that +he was struck sensationally dumb: "Something had wiped his lips of +speech as a mother wipes the milky lips of her child, and he was +afraid. For a moment he had lost his mind and memory--which was +preposterous and something for which his philosophy did not allow. +Henceforth he did not appear to know so much as he used to about things +Divine." + +McGoggin, in fact, was converted; for, as Mr Kipling explains, his +story is really a tract--a tract whose purpose is to convey that India +is able to cure the most resolute positivist of his positivism. Mr +Kipling's India is a land where science is mocked, and synthetic +philosophies perish, and mere talk is wiped from the lips. You do not +talk of Humanity in India, because in India "you really see +humanity--raw, brown, naked humanity--with nothing between it and the +blazing sky, and only the used-up, overhandled earth underfoot." Mr +Kipling's Indian administrators are practical and simple men, who obey +orders and accept the incredible because their position requires them +to administer India as though they were never at fault, whereas their +experience tells them that, if they are never to be at fault in India, +it is wise to be not too original and fatal to be too rigid. + +_Tods' Amendment_ and _The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin_ are printed +among _Plain Tales from the Hills_. They look forward to a whole +series of Anglo-Indian tales which present Mr Kipling's idea of the +English in India. Out of his later books we can illustrate a hundred +times his conviction that in India the simplest wisdom is the best. + +But there are two kinds of simplicity. The one kind is illustrated in +a tale from _The Day's Work_; it is the right kind of simplicity. In +no story of Mr Kipling is the devoted service and practical +resourcefulness of the good Civilian so movingly celebrated as in the +story of _William the Conqueror_. It is the story of a famine, and of +how it was met by the servants of the Indian Government. The +administration of famine relief would seem to be a simple thing when +the grain has come by rail and only waits to be distributed. But the +district served by the little group of English in _William the +Conqueror_ was a district which did not understand the food of the +North, and, if it could not get the rice which it knew, was ready to +starve within reach of bagsful of unfamiliar wheat or rye. The hero of +the tale is finally reduced to distributing the Government rations to +the goats, and keeping the starving babies alive with milk. It was a +simple idea, and the man to whom it occurred worked himself to death's +door, which was no more than another simple idea of what was due from +him to the district and to his superior officer. + +The wrong kind of simplicity is illustrated in a story from _Life's +Handicap_. It is called _The Head of the District_, and it has to do +with a simple idea which occurred to the Viceroy. A Deputy +Commissioner who understood the lawless Khusru Kheyel and had put into +them the fear of English law had died and a successor had to be +appointed. The man for the post was a certain Tallentire who had +worked with the late head of the district and knew the tribe with whom +he had to deal. But the Viceroy had a Principle. He wished to educate +the natives in self-government; and here was an opportunity--a vacant +post of responsibility and a native candidate to fill it. + + +"There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had +won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open +competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the +world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, +sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. He +had been to England and charmed many drawing-rooms there. His name, if +the Viceroy recollected aright, was Mr Grish Chunder De, M.A. In +short, did anybody see any objection to the appointment, always on +principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? The district in +South-Eastern Bengal might with advantage, he apprehended, pass over to +a younger civilian of Mr G. C. De's nationality (who had written a +remarkably clever pamphlet on the political value of sympathy in +administration); and Mr G. C. De could be transferred northward. As +regarded the mere question of race, Mr Grish Chunder De was more +English than the English, and yet possessed of that peculiar sympathy +and insight which the best among the best Service in the world could +only win to at the end of their service." + + +The principle was sound; but the consequences were such as usually +follow when ideas which are simple in one continent are applied in +another. Any man on the frontier could have told what would come of +asking the Khusru Kheyel to respect and obey Mr Grish Chunder De. It +was not a matter of religion or ability, but of history. The Khusru +Kheyel had had relations with the countrymen of their new Head for +generations and they were not relations of respect and obedience. How +there was riot and some rapid blood-letting on the border, and how the +new Head resigned his office before he had taken it over, is told as a +warning that there is a wrong kind of simplicity in dealing with India. +It is fatal to have invented simple and embracing phrases about a +country which holds more races than all Europe; has had a long and +private history of its own; has been more often conquered than Great +Britain; and has had every sort of experience except that of being +governed according to constitutional law. + +This chapter being mainly devoted to rescuing Mr Kipling from his +political admirers and censors, it may be well to conclude upon his +vision of the devoted civilian Scott, the hero of a tale already +quoted, the man who fed the Indian babies from a herd of goats fattened +on the food which the starving people of the Deccan distrusted and +refused. Scott appears in that story at sunset, delectable and humane, +sneezing in the dust of a hundred little feet, "a god in a halo of gold +dust, walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at his knee ran +small naked cupids." + +Clearly there is something wrong with the popular habit of regarding Mr +Kipling as essentially concerned with the carving of men to the "nasty +noise of beef-cutting on the block." His "god in a halo of gold dust" +seriously discourages any attempt to brand him with the mark of the +reverting carnivor. + + + + +IV + +NATIVE INDIA + +From Simla we have come down to the plains and the work of the English +in Imperial India. Thence we pass to India herself. Concerning native +India Mr Kipling's principle thesis--a thesis illustrated with point +and competency in many excellent tales--is that for the people of the +West there can be no such thing as the real India--only here and there +an understanding that wavers and frequently expires. Mr Kipling does +not insolently explain that India is thus and thus. He allows the +impression to grow upon us, as once it grew upon himself, that in India +all the settled ways of the West are insecure, that at any moment we +may be looking into the House of Suddhu. + + + "A stone's throw out on either hand + From that well-ordered road we tread, + And all the world is wild and strange: + Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite + Shall bear us company to-night, + For we have reached the Oldest Land + Wherein the Powers of Darkness range." + + +It is not for an Englishman to speak of the real India. Let him stand +with Mr Kipling between East and West, and allow each thing he sees to +add to his dark and intricate impression. India will then assume her +own uneasy and vast form, will press upon the nerves, and be declared +mysterious. + +There are a few pages in _Life's Handicap_ describing the City of +Lahore by night. There is great heat in these pages; there is distance +also, and the breathless air of streets where the formic swarming of +India, her callous fecundity, the tyranny of her skies, and her old +faith, prepare us for the House of Suddhu and the return of Imray: + + +"The roof-tops are crammed with men, women, and children; and the air +is full of undistinguishable noises. They are restless in the City of +Dreadful Night; and small wonder. The marvel is that they can even +breathe. If you gaze intently at the multitude you can see that they +are almost as uneasy as a daylight crowd; but the tumult is subdued. +Everywhere, in the strong light, you can watch sleepers turning to and +fro, shifting their beds and again resettling them. In the pit-like +courtyards of the houses there is the same movement. + +"The pitiless Moon shows it all. Shows, too, the plains outside the +city, and here and there a hand's-breadth of the Ravee without the +walls. Shows lastly, a splash of glittering silver on a house-top +almost directly below the mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to +throw a jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the falling +water strikes faintly on the ear. Two or three other men, in far-off +corners of the City of Dreadful Night, follow his example, and the +water flashes like heliographic signals. . . . Still the unrestful +noise continues, the sigh of a great city overwhelmed with the heat, +and of a people seeking in vain for rest. It is only the lower-class +women who sleep on the house-tops. What must the torment be in the +latticed zenanas, where a few lamps are still twinkling? There are +footfalls in the court below. It is the _Muezzin_--faithful minister; +but he ought to have been here an hour ago to tell the Faithful that +prayer is better than sleep--the sleep that will not come to the city. + +"The _Muezzin_ fumbles for a moment with the door of one of the Minars, +disappears awhile, and a bull-like roar--a magnificent bass +thunder--tells that he has reached the top of the Minar. They must +hear the cry to the banks of the shrunken Ravee itself! Even across +the courtyard it is almost overpowering. The cloud drifts by and shows +him outlined black against the sky, hands laid upon his ears, and broad +chest heaving with the play of his lungs--'Allah ho Akbar'; then a +pause while another _Muezzin_ somewhere in the direction of the Golden +Temple takes up the call--'Allah ho Akbar.' Again and again; four +times in all; and from the bedsteads a dozen men have risen up +already.--'I bear witness that there is no God by God.'" + + * * * * * * + +"Several weeks of darkness pass after this. For the Moon has gone out. +The very dogs are still, and I watch for the first light of the dawn +before making my way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. The +morning call is about to begin, and my nightwatch is over. 'Allah ho +Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!' The east grows grey, and presently saffron; +the dawn wind comes up as though the _Muezzin_ had summoned it; and, as +one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its bed and turns its +face towards the dawning day. . . . + +"'Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room?' What is it? +Something borne on men's shoulders comes by in the half-light, and I +stand back. A woman's corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a +bystander says, 'She died at midnight from the heat.'" + + +This passage may stand as a fair example of Mr Kipling's method of +dealing with India. It is an able piece of descriptive writing. It is +marked by a conscious and deliberate resolve that the "effect" shall be +made. It shows us the Indian city from a high distance, as it appeared +to an observer with a knack for vividly delivering his impressions. It +is in no sense an inspired wrestle with the reality of India; and in +that it is typical. Mr Kipling has never claimed to grasp or interpret +his Indian theme. He has stood away almost ostentatiously from the +material he was exploiting. + +It is indeed the chief merit of his Indian tales that he admits himself +to be no more, so far as India is concerned, than an adventurer making +the literary most of his adventure. He has at any rate the sensibility +to be conscious that often he is in the position of a tripper before +the Sphinx. His tales are thrilled with respect and a sense of India's +power. She it is who wipes the lips of Aurelian McGoggin, who flouts +the Greatest of All the Viceroys, humbles the Legal Member of the +Supreme Legislative Council, and drives the lonely white intruder to +illusion and death. She is indifferent to every conqueror. She feeds +her multitudes like a mother; and then suddenly her bounty dries and +there is famine and pestilence. Always she is a confronting Presence +dwarfing to one height masters and slaves. Mr Kipling has followed +this Presence as Browning's poet followed a more familiar quest: + + "Yet the day wears, + And door succeeds door; + I try the fresh fortune-- + Range the wide house from the wing to the centre. + Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter." + + +It is a lawful adventure, and for some it is an absolute duty, to +follow and challenge the Presence in word and deed. Englishmen who +live in her shadow have sometimes for their honour to grasp and defy +her; to assume that they are bound to question her authority. India +for all her unknown terror has to be wrestled with for the blessing +that England requires upon the labour of the English. Though the Gods +of India are sacred, the devils of India, filthy and lawless, must be +driven out. When India put the mark of the beast upon Fleete the +powers of darkness had of necessity to be brought to heel, and this +story may be read as a parable. The mark of the beast, wherever it may +appear, is the Imperial concern of the English in India. + +But a warning enters here. Mr Kipling, celebrating Imperial India, has +shown us the English at close war with the India of black magic and +secret murder, of cruelty and fear. But he has balanced the account. +There is another set of stories, showing us how the white man comes to +disaster, who, not content with his exact and simple duty, insolently +overleaps the breach between East and West--the breach which Mr Kipling +himself so scrupulously observes. There was Trajego: + +"He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the +second. He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will never +do so again." + + +His story is entitled _Beyond the Pale_, and is to be found among +_Plain Tales from the Hills_. There is also _The Man Who Would Be +King_. He, too, neglected the barriers. India may be ruled by the +resolute and challenged by the brave; but India may never be embraced. + +India, who strikes out of a brazen sky; who poisons with her infected +breath and is served to the death without reward; who physically cows +her people with dust and fever and heat, and is possessed with devils +who must be pacified; where successive civilisations have left their +bones upon the soil and a hundred religions have decayed, leaving the +old air heavy with exhalations--this India slowly takes shape in Mr +Kipling's native stories. Her physical immensity and pressure is felt +in stories like _The End of the Passage_ and _William the Conqueror_. +Her sleepless tyranny, which has made men intricate and incalculable, +driving them to subterranean ways of thought and fancy, rules in every +page of a tale like _The Return of Imray_. Imray was an amiable +Englishman who incautiously patted the head of his servant's child. +Bahadur Khan speaks of it thus to Strickland of the Police: + +"'Walking among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child who +was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died of the +fever, my child!' + +"'What said Imray Sahib?' + +"'He said he was a handsome child and patted him on the head; wherefore +my child died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he +had come, and was sleeping. Wherefore I dragged him up into the +roof-beams and made all fast behind him--the Heaven-born knows all +things. I am the servant of the Heaven-born. . . . Be it remembered +that the Sahib's shirts are correctly enumerated, and that there is an +extra piece of soap in his wash-basin. My child was bewitched and I +slew the wizard.'" + + +There is here just that blend of simplicity and incalculable darkness +found in all Mr Kipling's native tales. If the premises of life in +India are tortuous, conduct and reasoning are as naively innocent as a +problem in geometry. + +It follows that, when the devils are out of the story, no story +breathes more delightfully of Eden than a story of the East. The white +side of the black story of Imray Sahib is shown in _Kim_, and in all +the hints and small studies for _Kim_ that preceded Mr Kipling's best +of all Indian tales. + +But _Kim_ is something of a paradox. It is the best of all Indian +tales by virtue of qualities which have little to do with India. It is +an Indian book only upon its least important side. It is true that Kim +himself is upon one side the most cunning of Mr Kipling's studies of +the meeting of East and West; but that, for us, is not his final merit. +It is the final merit of Kim to be first cousin of Mowgli, the child of +the Jungle. His first claim to our delight in him is that he is the +quickest of young creatures, his senses sharp and clean, of a +conscience untroubled, of a spirit that rejoices in nimble work, of a +will in which loyalty and courage and the peace of self-confidence are +firmly rooted. In a word, he is Mowgli among men. + +Here, however, we approach _Kim_ merely as a tale of India--as a link +artfully used by Mr Kipling to connect and pass in review the whole +pageant of Imperial India as it is revealed to Western eyes--priests, +peasants, soldiers, civilians, people of the plains and hills, women of +the latticed palanquin and the bazaar, Hindu and Mohammedan, Afghan and +Bengali. The picture of the Grand Trunk Road in Kim is an almost +unsurpassed piece of descriptive writing. The diversity of the picture +dazzles and bewilders us at first. Then out of all this diversity +there gradually comes a conviction that fundamentally India is +unimaginably simple at heart in spite of her medley of religions and +conquests and races; that it is precisely this simplicity which baffles +the intruder. There is the simplicity of Bahadur Khan, whose child was +bewitched: _therefore_ he killed Imray Sahib and hid his body behind +the ceiling cloth. There is the simplicity of the hunter of Daoud +Shah, whose house was dishonoured: _therefore_ he killed his wife and +went upon the trail of her seducer. There is the simplicity of men who +starve and are burnt with the sun: _therefore_ they deprecate the wrath +of devils and put food in the beggar's bowl. There is, above all, the +simplicity of clean hunger, thirst, adventure, piety, friendliness and +love that threads the whole story of the Lama and his _Chela_. + +_Kim_ is one of the few really beautiful stories in modern literature. +The brain and fancy of thousands of readers to-day are richer and +sweeter by that tale of the Master and his Friend of All the World. We +would not leave him and his Wheel of Things, the River he sought in +simple faith, the trust he had in the charity of men, the message that +bade him seek release in Nirvana from the importunity of life quaintly +warring with instinctive gestures of delight and sympathy with all that +made life precious--we would not leave this exquisite story so soon, +were it not that it brings forward the imperishable side of Mr +Kipling's work to which we shall have shortly to return. _Kim_ bridges +the gap between the Indian stories and The _Jungle Book_, which means +that _Kim_ is all but the top of Mr Kipling's achievement. + + + + +V + +SOLDIERS THREE + +Mr Kipling's three soldiers--Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd--are a +literary tradition. They are the Horatii and the Curatii, the three +Musketeers; Og, Gog and Magog; Captains Fluellin, Macmorris and Jamy; +Bardolph, Pistol and Nym. That Kipling's soldiers three are a literary +tradition is significant of their quality and rank as part of their +author's achievement. They belong rather to the efficient literary +workman who wrote the Simla tales than to the inspired author of the +Jungle books. Though we have run from the House of Suddhu to the +barrack-yard, we have not yet lost sight of Mr Kipling, decorator and +colourman in words. We shall find him conspicuously at work upon +Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd. Where, at first, he seems most closely +to rub sleeves with the raw stuff of life we shall find him most aloof, +most deliberately an artificer. Mr Kipling has seemed to the +judicious, who have duly grieved, to be in his soldier tales throwing +all crafty scruples to the winds in order that he may the more joyfully +indulge a natural genius for ferocity. Mr Kipling's soldiers are +regarded as an instance of his love for low company, of his readiness +to sacrifice aesthetic beauty to vulgar truth. + +This is quite the wrong direction from which to approach Mr Kipling's +soldier tales. Mr Kipling's ferocity on paper is not to be explained +as the result of a natural delight in violence and blood. On the +contrary, it is distinctively a literary ferocity--the ferocity, not of +a man who has killed people, but of a man who sits down and +conscientiously tries to imagine what it is like to kill people. It is +essentially the same kind of ferocity in imaginative fiction as the +ferocity of Nietzsche in lyrical philosophy or of Malthus in +speculative politics. When Mr Kipling talks of men carved in battle to +the nasty noise of beef-cutting upon the block, or of men falling over +like the rattle of fire-irons in the fender and the grunt of a +pole-axed ox, or of a hot encounter between two combatants wherein one +of them after feeling for his opponent's eyes finds it necessary to +wipe his thumb on his trousers, or of gun wheels greasy from contact +with a late gunner--when Mr Kipling writes like this, we admit that his +pages are disagreeable. But let us be clear as to the reason. These +things are disagreeable, not because they are horrible fact, but +because they are deliberate fiction. We feel that these things have +been written, not from inspired impulse, but by taking careful thought. +Here, clearly, is a writer who writes of war, not because he is by +nature full of pugnacity, or necessarily loosed from hell to speak of +horrors, but because war is a good "subject" with opportunities for +effective treatment. + +It is incorrect to say that Mr Kipling naturally delights in savage +war. He has been accused of a positive gusto for knives and bayonets, +for redly dripping steel and spattered flesh. The gusto must be +confessed; but it is not a gusto for the subject. It is the skilled +craftsman's gusto for doing things thoroughly and effectively. Mr +Kipling cannot conceal his delight in his competency to make war as +nasty as Zola or Tolstoi have made it. But this has nothing to do with +a delight in war. Professors have gloried in blood and iron who would +probably faint away in the nice, clean operating theatre of a London +hospital. Philosophers who cannot run upstairs have preached the +survival of the physically fittest. The politest of Roman poets has +felicitously described how the two halves of a warrior's head fell to +right and left of his vertebral column. Mr Kipling's savagery is of +this excessively cultivated kind. It is not atavism or a sinister +resolution to stand in the way of progress and gentility. Mr Kipling's +warrior tales, in fact, allow us clearly to realise that Mr Kipling's +real inspiration and interest is far away from the battle-field and the +barrack. They are the kind of battle story which is usually written by +sedentary poets who live in the country and are fond of children. Only +they are the very best of their kind. + +Mr Kipling's study of the professional soldier is best observed in +Private Ortheris. Mulvaney is more popular, but Mulvaney in no sense +belongs to Mr Kipling. He is the stage Irishman of the old Adelphi and +the hero of many tales by Lever and Marryat. He is as purely a +convention of the days of Mr Kipling's youth as are Mrs Hawksbee and +the Simla ladies. His chief importance lies in the opportunities he +gives Mr Kipling for indulging his joyful gift for pure farce. +_Krishna Mulvaney_ and _My Lord the Elephant_ are farce of the first +quality, whose merit liberally covers the charge that their hero is of +no human importance. Ortheris is in rather a different case. He has +just that air of being authentic which is needed for an anecdote or +narrative. He is not a profound and original document in human nature. +There is no such document in any one of Mr Kipling's books. But he +stands well erect among the professional soldiers of literature. + +We will take one look at Private Ortheris at work: + + +"Ortheris suddenly rose to his knees, his rifle at his shoulder, and +peered across the valley in the clear afternoon light. His chin +cuddled the stock, and there was a twitching of the muscles of the +right cheek as he sighted; Private Stanley Ortheris was engaged on his +business. A speck of white crawled up the watercourse. + +"'See that beggar? . . . Got 'im.' + +"Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred down the hillside, +the deserter of the Aurangabadis pitched forward, rolled down a red +rock, and lay very still, with his face in a clump of blue gentians, +while a big raven flapped out of the pine wood to make investigation. + +"'That's a clean shot, little man,' said Mulvaney. + +"Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away. 'Happen there was +a lass tewed up wi' him, too,' said he. + +"Ortheris did not reply. He was staring across the valley, with the +smile of the artist who looks on the completed work." + + +This passage has been quoted against Mr Kipling as evidence of his +inhuman delight in the hunting of man. If we look at it closely we +shall find (1) an obvious delight in Ortheris as a professional expert +who knows his business, the same delight which we find in Mr +Hinchcliffe the engineer or in Dick Heldar the painter, and (2) the +extremely self-conscious and cold-blooded effort of a competent author +to write like a professional soldier, and (3) the intrusion of a born +sentimentalist in Learoyd's little touch of feeling at the close. + +The War Office book of infantry training contains some very curt and +calm directions for getting a "good point" in bayonet exercise. The +bayonet has to be correctly driven in, left in the enemy for a +reasonable time, and extracted with a minimum of effort to the +practitioner and a maximum of damage to the subject. Disabling the +enemy in war is a professional and technical matter, and Mr Kipling is +always able to be enthusiastic when things are beginning to be +technical. Whether it be sighting a deserter at seven hundred yards, +painting a charge of horse, writing what Dr Johnson would describe as +the "most poetical paragraph in the English language," or building a +bridge over the Ganges, Mr Kipling is ready to be interested so long as +the workman is competent, and the work of a highly skilled and special +nature. Naturally, therefore, Mr Kipling has succeeded in getting very +near to the professional view of soldiering. All Mr Kipling's soldiers +take their soldiering as men of business. This was what so terribly +astonished and interested Cleever when he met the Infant and heard that +after he had killed a man he had felt thirsty and "wanted a smoke too"; +and Cleever has been followed in his astonishment by many of Mr +Kipling's literary critics. + +The greatest study in literature of the professional soldier--though he +is infinitely more than that--is Shakespeare's Falstaff. It will be +remembered that Falstaff, after having led his men where they were +finely peppered, also suffered from thirst; and, being an old +campaigner, he was not unprovided. The fate of Falstaff upon the +British stage for many centuries--where he has actually been played, +not as a professional soldier, but as an incompetent poltroon!--seems +to indicate that no figure is more liable to be misunderstood than the +man whose business or duty it is to fight between meals. Even Mr +Kipling, in his anxiety to emphasise that a regular soldier, apart from +any personal and heroic qualities he may happen to possess, is to be +regarded as just a skilled practitioner whose work asks for courage and +resource, fails to take soldiering with the magnificent nonchalance of +Shakespeare's soldiers. Shakespeare takes the professional view for +granted. But Mr Kipling does not quite do that. There is a +continuously implicit protest in all Mr Kipling's soldier tales that a +soldier's killing is like an editor's leader-writing or a painter's +sketching from the nude--a protest which by its frequent over-emphasis +shows that Mr Kipling, not having Shakespeare's gift of intuition into +every kind of man, has not quite succeeded in identifying himself with +the soldier's point of view. It is always present in his mind as +something novel and surprising, needing insistence and emphasis. + +This is equally true of all Mr Kipling's essays in brutality. His +ferocity is as forced as his tenderness is natural. Violence and war +are clearly foreign to his unprompted imagination. Only it happens +that Mr Kipling has talked with soldiers; and, like Eustace Cleever, he +is prompted occasionally to spend a perversely riotous evening in their +company. The literary result is far from being contemptible; but it is +far from being as precious as the result of his unprompted intrusion +into the country of the Brushwood Boy, into Cold Lairs and the Council +Rock. + +The soldier tales rank not very far above the tales from Simla. Their +interest is mainly the interest of watching a skilled writer +consciously using all his skill to give an air of authenticity to +things not vitally realised. Mulvaney is pure convention, and +Ortheris, though he more individually belongs to Mr Kipling, is rather +an effort than a success. We have not yet got at the heart of Mr +Kipling's work. It yet remains to cross the barrier which divides some +of the best journalism of our time from literature which will outlive +its author. + + + + +VI + +THE DAY'S WORK + +When we come to _The Day's Work_ we are getting very near to Mr Kipling +at his best. We should notice at this point that in all the stories we +have so far surveyed the men have mattered less than the work they do. +The great majority of Mr Kipling's tales are a song in praise of good +work. Almost it seems as if, in the year 1897, their author had +himself realised the significance of this; for it was in that year he +published the volume entitled _The Day's Work_; and it was the best +volume, taking it from cover to cover, that had as yet appeared. + +The first and best story in _The Day's Work_ at once introduces the +theme which threads all the best work of Mr Kipling. _The +Bridge-Builders_ is the story of a Bridge and incidentally of the men +who built it. The crown has yet to be set upon a long agony of toil +and disappointment. The master builder of the Bridge has put the prime +of his energy and will into its building. Now it stands all but +complete, with the Ganges gathering in her upper reaches for a mighty +effort to throw off her strange fetters. The Bridge before the night +of the flood has passed away becomes the symbol of a wrestle between +the most ancient gods and the young will of man. Mr Kipling has put +the Bridge into the foreground of his picture, has made of it the +really sentient figure of the tale. Here definitely he writes the +first chapter of his book of steam and steel; and we begin to be aware +of an enthusiasm which is lacking in many of the highly finished proofs +which preceded it that Mr Kipling could write almost anything as well +as almost anybody else. In _The Day's Work_ he passes into a province +which he was insistently urged to occupy by right of inspiration. + +_The Day's Work_ brings us directly into touch with one of the most +distinctive features of Mr Kipling's method. He has never been able to +resist the lure of things technical. If he writes of a horse he must +write as though he had bred and sold horses all his life. If he writes +of a steam-engine he must write as though he had spent his life among +pistons and cylinders. He writes of ships and the sea, of fox-hunting, +of the punishing of Pathans, of drilling by companies and of +agriculture; and he writes as one from whom no craft could hide its +mysteries. This fascination of mere craft, this delight in the +technicalities and dialect of the world's work, is not a mannerism. It +is not a parade of omniscience or the madness of a note-book worm. It +is fundamental in Mr Kipling. It is wrong to think of _Between the +Devil and the Deep Sea_ or of _.007_ as the unfortunate rioting of an +amateur machinist. To those who object that Mr Kipling has spoiled +these stories with an absurd enthusiasm for bolts and bars it has at +once to be answered that but for this very enthusiasm for bolts and +bars, which the undiscerning have found so tedious, the great majority +of Mr Kipling's stories would never have been written at all. A +powerful turbine excites in Mr Kipling precisely the same quality of +emotion which a comely landscape excited in Wordsworth; and this +emotion is stamped upon all that he has written in this kind. There is +a passage in _Between the Devil and the Deep Sea_ which runs: + + +"What follows is worth consideration. The forward engine had no more +work to do. Its released piston-rod, therefore, drove up fiercely, +with nothing to check it, and started most of the nuts of the +cylinder-cover. It came down again, the full weight of the steam +behind it, and the foot of the disconnected connecting-rod, useless as +the leg of a man with a sprained ankle, flung out to the right and +struck the starboard, or right-hand, cast-iron supporting-column of the +forward engine, cracking it clean through about six inches above the +base, and wedging the upper portion outwards three inches towards the +ship's side. There the connecting-rod jammed. Meantime, the after +engine, being as yet unembarrassed, went on with its work, and in so +doing brought round at its next revolution the crank of the forward +engine, which smote the already jammed connecting-rod, bending it and +therewith the piston-rod cross-head--the big cross-piece that slides up +and down so smoothly." + + +This is the method of Homer as applied to the shield of Achilles, the +method of Milton in enumerating the superior fiends, the method of +Walter Scott confronted with a mountain pass, the method of the +sonneteer to his mistress' eyebrow. Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for these +broken engines would be intolerable if it were not obviously genuine. +Unless we shut our ears and admit no songs that sing of things as yet +unfamiliar to the poets of blue sky and violets dim as Cytherea's eyes, +we cannot possibly mistake the lyrical ecstasy of the above passage. +When Mr Kipling tells how a released piston-rod drove up fiercely and +started the nuts of the cylinder-cover, it is an incantation. His +machines are more alive than his men and women. It is more important +to know about the cast-iron supporting-column of Mr Kipling's forward +engine than to know that Maisie had long hair and grey eyes, or to know +what happened to any of the people whom it concerned. _.007_, which is +the story of a shining and ambitious young locomotive, is ten times +more vital--it calls for ten times more fellow-feeling--than the heart +affairs of Private Learoyd or the distresses of the Copleigh girls at +Simla. The pain that shoots through .007 when he first becomes +acquainted with a hot-box is a more human and recognisable bit of +consciousness than anything to be shared with the Head of the District +or the Man Who Was. The psychology of the Mill Wheel in _Below the +Mill Dam_ is quite obviously accurate. That Mill Wheel, unlike scores +of Mr Kipling's men and women, is a creature we have met, who refuses +to be forgotten. When he is dealing with men Mr Kipling celebrates not +so much mankind as the skill and competency of mankind as severely +applied to a given and necessary task. It follows that Mr Kipling's +men at their best are most excellent machines. It follows, again, that +when Mr Kipling drops the pretence that he is deeply concerned with man +as man, and begins to celebrate with all his might the machine as the +machine, we realise that his machine is the better man of the two. + +The inspiration which Mr Kipling first indulged to its full bent in +_The Day's Work_ lives on through all the ensuing books. It reaches a +climax in _With the Night Mail_, a post-dated vision of the air. It is +one of the most remarkable stories he has written--a story produced at +full pressure of the imagination which, but for its fatal prophesying, +would keep his memory green for generations. The detail with which the +theme is worked out is extravagant; but it is the extravagance of an +inspired lover. To quarrel with its technical exuberance on the ground +that Mr Kipling should have made it less like the vision of an engineer +is simply to miss almost the main impulse of Mr Kipling's progress. It +is true that unless we share Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for The Night Mail +as a beautiful machine, for the men who governed it as skilled +mechanicians, and for all the minutiae of the control and distribution +of traffic by air, we are not likely to be greatly held by the story. +But this is simply to say that unless we catch the passion of an author +we may as well shut the author's book. + +This does not imply that we must love machinery in order to love Mr +Kipling's enthusiasm for machinery. We have to share the author's +passion; but not necessarily to dote upon its object. It is not +essential to an admiration of Shakespeare's sonnets that the admirer +should have been a suitor of the Dark Lady. It matters hardly at all +what is the inspiration of an imaginative author. So long as he +succeeds in getting into a highly fervent condition, which prompts him +to write, with entire forgetfulness of himself and the reader, of +things whose beauty he was born to see, it is of little moment how he +happens to be kindled. We do not need to be suffering the pangs of +adolescent love, or even to know the story of Fanny Brawne, to hear the +immortal longing of John Keats sounding between all the lines of the +great Odes: + + "Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, + Though winning near the goal--yet do not grieve; + She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, + For ever wilt thou love and she be fair." + +We do not need to be the enemy of the Arminians to resolve the music of +Milton; and we may live all our lives in a city and yet know Wordsworth +for a great poet. Shelley does not suffer because philosophic anarchy +has gone out of fashion; and the poetry of the Hebrews lives for ever, +though its readers have never lived in the shadow of Sinai. These +mighty instances are here intended not to establish a comparison but to +establish a principle. The exact source of Mr Kipling's inspiration +matters not a straw. We simply know that his machinery is alive and +lovely in his eyes. He communicates his passion to his reader though +his readers are unable to distinguish between a piston-rod and a +cylinder-cover. + +_The Day's Work_ throws back a clear and searching light upon some of +the tales, Indian and political, which we have already passed in +review. As we look back upon these stories of men and women we +realise, in the light of _The Day's Work_, that machinery--the +machinery of Army and Empire--enters repeatedly as a leading motive. +Far from regarding Mr Kipling's passion for technical engineering as +something which gets in the way of his natural genius for telling human +tales, we are brought finally to realise that many of these human tales +are no more than an excuse for the indulging of a passion that +helplessly spins them. As literature _William the Conqueror_ and _The +Head of the District_ have less to do with the politics of India than +with the nuts and bolts of _The Ship That Found Herself_. The same +truth applies equally to a book which has been discussed beyond all +proportion to its rank among the stories of Mr Kipling. _The Light +That Failed_ is often read as the high and tragical love story of Dick +Heldar; but it is really nothing of the kind. It really belongs to +_The Day's Work_. As the love story of Dick Heldar it is of small +account. Mr Kipling thinks very little of it from that point of view. +He has even allowed it, upon that side, to be deprived of all its +significance in order to meet the needs of a popular actor. Mr Kipling +is not the man to sell his conscience. Therefore his admirers may +infer from the fact that he has sold Dick and Maisie to British and +American playgoers that Dick and Maisie are not regarded by their +author as of the first importance. We cannot think of Mr Kipling as +allowing one screw of the ship that found herself to be misplaced. But +he has cheerfully allowed his story of Dick and Maisie to be turned +with a few strokes of the pen into an effective curtain for a +negligible play. + +This does not mean that _The Light That Failed_ is not a characteristic +and a fine achievement. It means that its character and fineness have +nothing to do with Dick and Maisie or with any of that stuff of the +story which contrives to exist behind the footlights of Sir Johnston +Forbes Robertson's theatre. _The Light That Failed_ must not be read +as the love story of a painter who goes blind. It must be read, with +_.007_ and _The Maltese Cat_, as an enthusiastic account of the day's +work of a newspaper correspondent. The really vital passages of the +story have all to do with Mr Kipling's chosen text of work for work's +sake. Dick's work and not Dick himself is the hero of the play. The +only incident which really affects us is the scraping out of his last +picture. We do not bother in the least as to whether Maisie returns to +him or stays away; because we do not believe in the reality of Maisie +and we cannot imagine anything she may or may not do as affecting +anyone very seriously. Dick's wrestle with his picture is another +matter. He and his friends may talk a great deal of nonsense about +their work (nonsense which would strictly require us to condemn every +good page which Mr Kipling has written), but there is no doubt whatever +that the enthusiasm of men for men's work is the vital and moving +principle of _The Light That Failed_. The motive of the whole story is +the motive of _The Bridge-Builders_. The rest is merely accessory. + +_The Light That Failed_ is full of instruction for the close critic of +Mr Kipling. We discover in it three out of the many levels of +excellence in which he moves. First there is a cunning artificer +pretending to a knowledge and admiration which he does not really +possess--an artificer who tries to impose Maisie and the Red-Haired +Girl upon us in the same deceiving way as the way in which he tried to +impose upon us Mrs Hawksbee and the Copleigh girls. Second, there is a +clever writer of soldier stories, showing us some nasty fighting at +close range, with a far too elaborate pretence that he can take it all +for granted as a professional combatant. Finally there is an inspired +author celebrating the world's work--an author we have agreed to put in +a higher rank than those other literary experts who have quite +unjustifiably stolen his greener laurels. + + + + +VII + +THE FINER GRAIN + +It has been Mr Kipling's habit all through his career to peg out +literary claims for himself as evidence of his intention later on to +work them at a profit. Thus, writing _Plain Tales from the Hills_, he +includes one or two stories, such as _The Taking of Lungtungpen_ and +_The Three Musketeers_, which clearly look forward to _Soldiers Three_ +and all the later stories in that kind. Or, again, he looks forward in +_Tods' Amendment_ and _Wee Willie Winkie_ to the time when he will +write many stories, and, in a sense, whole books concerning children. +_Tods' Amendment_ promises _Baa Baa Black Sheep_, and _Just So +Stories_; it even promises _Stalky & Co._, which is simply the best +collection of boisterous boy farces ever written. Then, again, there +is _In the Rukh_, out of _Many Inventions_, which looks forward to the +_Jungle Book_. Finally, there is, in _The Day's Work_, clear evidence +of Mr Kipling's intention ultimately to abandon the hills and plains of +India and to take literary seisin of the country and chronicles of +England. + +The first undoubted evidence that Mr Kipling, who started with skilful +tales of India, was bound in the end to turn homewards for a deeper +inspiration is contained in a story from _The Day's Work_. _My Sunday +at Home_ is ostensibly broad farce, of the _Brugglesmith_ +variety--farce which might well call for a chapter to itself were it +not that broad farce is much the same whoever the writer may be. But +_My Sunday at Home_ is really less important as farce than as evidence +of Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for the stillness and ancientry of the +English wayside. The pages of this story distil and drip with peace. +Moreover, the story is neighboured with two others, all beckoning Mr +Kipling home to Burwash in Sussex. There is the Brushwood Boy, who +after work comes home and finds it good--good after his work is done. +There is also _An Error in the Fourth Dimension_ wherein Mr Kipling is +found playing affectionately with the idea that England is quite unlike +any other country. There is in England a fourth dimension which is +beyond the perception, say, of an American railway king, who after much +amazement and wrath concludes that the English are not a modern people +and thereafter returns to his own more reasonable land. + +Of the miscellaneous stories in which Mr Kipling surrenders utterly to +this later theme perhaps the most memorable is _An Habitation Enforced_ +from _Actions and Reactions_. Here we are in quite another plane of +authorship from that in which we have moved in the tales of India. +There is a wide difference between _The Return of Imray_--to take one +of the most skilful tales of India--and _An Habitation Enforced_. _The +Return of Imray_ betrays the conscious resolution of a clever man of +letters to make the most effective use of good material. But _An +Habitation Enforced_ is the spontaneous gesture of pure feeling. The +Indian stories are ingenious and well managed. Their point is made. +Their workmanship is excellent. Atmospheres and impressions are +cunningly arranged. But they very rarely succeed in carrying the +reader as the reader is carried upon this later tide. + +The feeling of _An Habitation Enforced_, as of all the English tales, +is that of the traveller returned. The value of Mr Kipling's traffics +and discoveries over the seven seas is less in the record he has made +of these adventures than in their having enabled him to return to +England with eyes sharpened by exile, with his senses alert for that +fourth dimension which does not exist for the stranger. _An Habitation +Enforced_ is inspired by the nostalgia of inveterate banishment. Some +part of its perfection--it is one of the few perfect short stories in +the English tongue--is due to the perfect agreement of its form with +the passion that informs its writing. It is the story of a homing +Englishwoman, and of her restoration to the absolute earth of her +forbears. In writing of this woman Mr Kipling has only had to recall +his own joyful adventure in picking up the threads of a life at once +familiar and mysterious, in meeting again the homely miracle of things +that never change. Finally England claims her utterly--her and her +children and her American husband. It was an American who bade Cloke, +man of the soil and acquired retainer of the family, bring down +larch-poles for a light bridge over the brook; but it was an Englishman +reclaimed who needs consented to Cloke's amendment: + + +"'But where the deuce are the larch-poles, Cloke? I told you to have +them down here ready.' + +"'We'll get 'em down _if_ you, say so,' Cloke answered, with a thrust +of the underlip they both knew. + +"'But I did say so. What on earth have you brought that timber-tug +here for? We aren't building a railway bridge. Why, in America, +half-a-dozen two-by-four bits would be ample.' + +"'I don't know nothin' about that,' said Cloke. 'An' I've nothin' to +say against larch--_if_ you want to make a temp'ry job of it. I ain't +'ere to tell you what isn't so, sir; an' you can't say I ever come +creepin' up on you, or tryin' to lead you farther in than you set +out----' + +"A year ago George would have danced with impatience. Now he scraped a +little mud off his old gaiters with his spud, and waited. + +"'All I say is that you can put up larch and make a temp'ry job of it; +and by the time the young master's married it'll have to be done again. +Now, I've brought down a couple of as sweet six-by-eight oak timbers as +we've ever drawed. You put 'em in an' it's off your mind for good an' +all. T'other way--I don't say it ain't right, I'm only just sayin' +what I think--but t'other way, he'll no sooner be married than we'll +'ave it _all_ to do again. You've no call to regard my words, but you +can't get out of _that_.' + +"'No,' said George, after a pause; 'I've been realising that for some +time. Make it oak then; we can't get out of it.'" + + +This story is the real beginning of Puck--to whom Mr Kipling's latest +volumes are addressed. In _Puck of Pook's Hill_ Mr Kipling takes +seisin of England in all times--more particularly of that trodden nook +of England about Pevensey. This book is less a book of children and +fairies than an English chronicle. Dan and Una are the least living of +Mr Kipling's children--they are as shadowy as the little ghost who +dropped a kiss upon the palm of the visitor in the mansion of _They_. +The men, too, who come and go, are shadows. It is the land which +abides and is real. We hum continually a variation of Shakespeare's +song: + + "This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." + + +_Puck of Pook's Hill_ is a final answer to those who think of the +Imperial idea as loose and vast, without roots in any dear, particular +soil. _Puck of Pool's Hill_ suggests in every page that England could +never for its lovers be too small. We would know intimately each place +where the Roman trod, where Weland came and went, where Saxon and +Norman lost themselves in a common league. + +From this England, fluttered with memories and the most ancient magic, +it is a natural step into the regions of pure fancy where Mr Kipling is +happiest of all. _The Children of the Zodiac_ and _The Brushwood Boy_ +are the earliest proofs that Mr Kipling flies most surely when he is +least impeded by a human or material document. We have here to make a +last protest against a too popular fallacy concerning the tales of Mr +Kipling. Mr Kipling's passion for the concrete, which is a passion of +all truly imaginative men, together with his keen delight in the work +of the world, has caused him to be falsely regarded as a note-book +realist of the modern type. He is assumed to be happiest when writing +from direct experience without refinement or transmutation. We cannot +trace this error to its source and expose the many fallacies it +contains without going deeper into aesthetics than is here necessary or +desirable. The simple fact that Mr Kipling's best stories are those in +which his fancy is most free is answer enough to those who put him +among the reporters of things as they are. It sufficiently excuses us +from the long and difficult inquiry as to whether Mr Kipling's account +of the people who live next door is accurate and minute, and allows us +to assume, without starting a controversy which only a heavy volume +could determine, that, if Mr Kipling had ever set out to describe the +people who live next door, he would have simplified them out of all +recognition. Mr Kipling has pretended, often with some success, that +his people are really to be met with in the Royal Navy or in the Indian +Civil Service. But let the reader consider for a moment whom they +remember best. Is it Mowgli or is it someone who is a C.I.E.? Is it +the Elephant Child, or is it Mr Grish Chunder De? When does Mr Kipling +more successfully convey to us the impression that his people are alive +and real? Is it when he is supposed to be drawing men from the life, +or is it when he has set free his imagination to call up the People of +the Hills or the folk in the Jungle? + +The grain of Mr Kipling's work is the finer, his vision is more +confident and clear, the further he gets from the world immediately +about him. Already we have seen how happily in India he left behind +his impression of the alert tourist, his experience of the mess-room +and bazaar, to enshrine in his fairy tale of _Kim_ the faith and +simplicity of two of the children of the world--each, the old and the +young, a child after his own fashion. _Kim_ is Mr Kipling's escape +from the India which is traversed by the railway and served by the +"Pioneer." It is the escape of Dan and Una into the Kingdom of Puck, +and the escape of Mowgli into the Jungle. It is the escape, finally, +of Mr Kipling's genius into the region where it most freely breathes. + +We have noted that Kim is one of the Indian doors by which we enter; +but there is a more open door in the first story of _The Second Jungle +Book_. It is the best of all Mr Kipling's stories, just as the _Jungle +Books_ are the best of all his books. It concerns the Indian, Purun +Bhagat. + +He was learned, supple, and deeply intimate in the affairs of the +world. He had shared the counsels of princes; he had been received +with honour in the clubs and societies of Europe. He was, to all +appearances, a polite blend of all the talents of East and West. Then +suddenly Purun Bhagat disappeared. All India understood; but of all +Western people only Mr Kipling was able to follow where he walked as a +holy man and a beggar into the hills. There he became St Francis of +the Hills, living in a little shrine with the friendly creatures of the +woods, venerated and cared for by a village on the hillside. + +All Mr Kipling's readers know how that story ends--how on a night of +disaster there came together as of one blood the saint and his people +and the wild creatures who had housed with him. It is quoted here as +showing how the old piety of India beckoned Mr Kipling into the jungle +as inevitably as the old loyalty of England beckoned him into a region +where on a summer day we can meet without surprise a Flint Man or a +Centurion of Rome. + +Always the bent of Mr Kipling, in his best work, is found to be away +from the world. To appreciate his finer quality we must pass with him +into the Rukh, or into the country beyond Policeman Day, into the +mansion of lost children, or into a region where it is but a step from +the Zodiac to fields under the plough. The tales of Mr Kipling which +will longest survive him are not the tales where he is competently +brutal and omniscient, but the tales where he instinctively flies from +the necessity of giving to his vision the likeness of the modern world. + +We may now realise more clearly the peril which lies in the popular +fallacy concerning Mr Kipling described in the first few pages of this +book. So far is Mr Kipling from being an author inspired and driven to +claim a share in the active life of the present, an author who unloads +upon us a store of memories and experience, that he is only able to do +his finest work as an unchecked and fantastic dreamer. The stories in +which he imposes upon his readers the illusion that he would never have +written books if he had stayed at home, that his stories are the +carelessly flung reminiscences of a full life--these stories are +themselves instances of the skill whereby a cunning author has been +able to conceal from his generation the deep difference between +artifice and inspiration. A crafty author will often employ his best +phrases to describe the thing he has never really seen with the eye of +genius. His manner will be most assured where his matter is the least +authentic. His points will be most effectively made where there is the +least necessity to make them. Mr Kipling, writing as a soldier, is +more a soldier than any soldier who ever lived. Thereby the discerning +reader will infer that Mr Kipling was not born to write as a soldier. +He will know that Mr Kipling is not profoundly and instinctively an +atavistic prophet, because his atavism is more atavistic than the +atavism of the first man who ever was born. He will also realise that +Mr Kipling writes so effectively about India because he ought to be +writing about England and Fairyland and the Jungle. He will realise, +in short, that Mr Kipling is an imaginative man of letters who has +wonderful visions when he stays at home, and who needs all his craft as +an expert literary artificer to persuade his readers that these visions +are not seriously impaired when he ventures abroad. + + + + +VIII + +THE POEMS + +Only the briefest epilogue is necessary concerning Mr Kipling's poetry. +We have concluded as to his prose stories that his best work is in the +pure fancy of _The Jungle Book_, and that we descend thence through his +English tales and his celebration of the work of the world to clever +stories of India and _Soldiers Three_. Upon each of these levels we +meet with verse in the same kind, concerning which it may at once be +said that at all times, except where the rule is proved by the +exception, Mr Kipling's verse is less urgently inspired than his prose. +The true motive which drives a poet into verse is the perception of a +quality in the thing he has to say which requires for its delivery the +beat and lift of a rhythm which crosses and penetrates the rhythm of +sense and logic. This is true even of the poetry which seems, at +first, to contradict it. Pope's _Essay on Man_, for example, which at +first seems no more than a neater prose than the prose of Addison, is +really not prose at all. In addition to the cool sense of what appears +to be no more than a pentametric arrangement of common-places there is +a rhythm which admirably conveys, independently of what is being +actually said, the gentle perambulating of the eighteenth-century +philosopher in the garden which Candide retired to cultivate in the +best of all possible worlds. In all poetry there must be a manifest +reason why prose would not have served the author's purpose equally +well. + +Can we say this of Mr Kipling's poetry? Is Mr Kipling's poetry the +result of an urgent need for a metrical utterance? + +A careful reading of Mr Kipling's verse, comparing it subject for +subject with his prose, soon convinces us that, far from being a more +direct passionate and living utterance than his prose, it is invariably +more wrought and careful and elaborate. It does not suggest the poet +driven into song. It suggests rather the skilful writer borrowing the +manner of a poet, playing, as it were, with the poet's tools, without +any urgent impulse to express himself in that particular way. He has +merely added to the number of rules to be successfully observed. Of +his technical success there is seldom any doubt at all. For a +craftsman who can use all the intricate resources of good prose +successfully to create an illusion that he is inspired in his least +abandoned moments, it is child's play to use the more obvious devices +of the metrician to similar effect. So far as mere formal excellence +is concerned, verse is a journeyman's matter as compared with prose; +and it is not at all astonishing to find that the formal part of poetry +troubles Mr Kipling not at all. But we must look beyond the formality +of verse to find a poet. Poetry flies higher than prose only when the +poet's feeling has driven him to sing what he cannot say. Mr Kipling +is a wonderful metrician; but that is not the question. The question +is, Where shall we find the most immediate union of the author's +feeling with the author's expression? And the answer to that will be, +Not in the author's poems. + +Take as an example the English motive: + + "See you our little mill that clacks, + So busy by the brook? + She has ground her corn and paid her tax + Ever since Domesday Book." + +Compare this well-wrought stanza with the prose tale _Below the Mill +Dam_, or with the passage it paraphrases in the story to which it +stands as motto: + +"The English are a bold people. His Saxons would laugh and jest with +Hugh, and Hugh with them, and--this was marvellous to me--if even the +meanest of them said such and such a thing was the Custom of the Manor, +then straightway would Hugh and such old men of the Manor as might be +near forsake everything else to debate the matter--I have seen them +stop the mill with the corn half ground--and if the custom or usage +were proven to be as it was said, why, that was the end of it, even +though it were flat against Hugh, his wish and command." + + +It may be said of the verse that, possibly, it is more carefully +considered than the prose, more deliberate and formally more excellent. +But it is certainly more remote from the passion it conveys. There is +more drive in a single fragment of_ An Habitation Enforced_ than in all +the songs of Puck. + +Similarly let us take another of Mr Kipling's themes--his delight in +the world's work. Think first of _The Bridge-Builders_ and of _William +the Conqueror_ and then turn to _The Bell Buoy_ (_Five Nations_) or +_The White Man's Burden_ (_Five Nations_). In each case--and we repeat +the result every time the experiment is made--we find that the author's +motive, which lives in his prose, tends in his verse to expire. In +_The White Man's Burden_ it expires outright, so that reading it, it is +difficult to realise that _William the Conqueror_ has had the power so +deeply to move us. + +This is true even where Mr Kipling's subject, which in prose has not +taken him to the top of his achievement, has in verse taken him as high +as in verse he is able to go. Mr Kipling's best verse is contained in +_Barrack Room Ballads_; but even these do not compare in merit with +_Soldiers Three_. _Barrack Room Ballads_ are the best of Mr Kipling's +poetry, because in these poems rhyme and beat are essential to their +inspiration. They are the exception which prove the rule that normally +Mr Kipling has no right to his metre. _Barrack Room Ballads_ are +robust and vivid songs of the camp, choruses which require no music to +enable them to serve the purpose of any gathering where the first idea +is that there should be a cheerful noise. Complete success in this +kind only required Mr Kipling to fill in the skeleton of a metre which +brings the right words at the right moment to the tip of the galloping +tongue, and this he has admirably done. + +Where in _Barrack Room Ballads_ Mr Kipling has attempted to do more +than fill up the feet of an irresponsible line, his verse only succeeds +in defining the weakness, in a corresponding kind, of his prose. We +have seen that one weakness of his soldier tales is their over emphasis +of the brutal aspect of war, natural in an author of sensitive +imagination attempting to identify himself with the soldier's point of +view. In the prose tales this exaggeration is only occasional. In +_Barrack Room Ballads_ it is more pronounced. + +We may take three stanzas of _Snarleyow_ as evidence that Mr Kipling's +_Barrack Room Ballads_, unlike the songs of Puck and the greater mass +of his verse, _really had to be metrical_; also as evidence that, in so +far as they attempt to be more than a galloping chorus in dialect they +are less admirable than the adventures of Ortheris and Mulvaney. The +Battery was charging into action and the Driver had just been saying +that a Battery was hard to pull up when it was taking the field: + + "'E 'adn't 'ardly spoke the word, before a droppin' shell + A little right the battery an' between the sections fell; + An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels, + There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels. + + "Then sez the Driver's Brother, an' 'is words was very plain, + 'For Gawd's own sake get over me, an' put me out o' pain.' + They saw 'is wounds was mortial, an' they judged that it was best, + So they took an' drove the limber straight across 'is back an' chest. + + "The Driver 'e give nothin' 'cept a little coughin' grunt, + But 'e swung 'is 'orses 'andsome when it came to 'Action Front!' + An' if one wheel was juicy, you may lay your Monday head + 'Twas juicier for the niggers when the case began to spread." + +The brutality in this incident is forced in idea and expression beyond +anything we find in _Soldiers Three_. It is this continuous _forcing_ +of idea and expression which persists in virtually all Mr Kipling's +verse except where the jingle is all that matters. We have only to +recall recitations from the platform or before the curtain of some of +Mr Kipling's popular poetry to realise, sometimes a little painfully, +that verse is for him not a threshold of the authentic Hall of Song, +but, too often, a door out of reality into the sentimental and +overwrought. + +Comparing the soldier tales and the soldier songs it is often possible, +however, to miss the author's flagging, because, as we have seen, the +soldier songs are the best songs, whereas the soldier tales are not the +best tales. The full extent of the inferiority of Mr Kipling's verse +to Mr Kipling's prose cannot, however, be missed if we compare the +finer grain of Mr Kipling's prose with the poems that deal with similar +themes. Read first _The Story of Ung_ (_The Seven Seas_) and +afterwards the tale of the Flint Man found upon the Downs by Dan and +Una (_Rewards and Fairies_). Or, to take an even more telling +instance, recall the most perfect of all Mr Kipling's tales _The +Miracle of Purun Bhagat_, and afterwards read the poem that is proudly +set at the head of it: + + "The night we felt the earth would move + We stole and plucked him by the hand, + Because we loved him with the love + That knows but cannot understand. + + "And when the roaring hillside broke, + And all our world fell down in rain, + We saved him, we the Little Folk; + But lo! he does not come again! + + "Mourn now, we saved him for the sake + Of such poor love as wild ones may. + Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake, + And his own kind drive us away!" + --_Dirge of the Langurs._ + +The poem is excellent cold craft, but leaves us precisely in the state +of mind in which it found us. The story which follows it is rooted in +the same idea; but, where the one is a literary exercise, the other is +a supreme feat of imagination. + +Here, with _The Miracle of Purun Bhagat_, the story itself and not the +dirge of the Langurs, we may conveniently leave the reputation of our +author. Critics of a future generation may need to apologise for +including within the limits of a brief monograph a specific chapter +upon Mr Kipling's verse. They will not need to apologise for its +brevity. + + + + +A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUDYARD KIPLING'S PRINCIPAL WRITINGS + +[Separate issues of single poems or stories have not generally been +included in this list. Dates of first publication of books are given; +new editions only when they involve revision of text, alteration of +format or transference to a different publisher.] + +Departmental Ditties and Other Verses (_Lahore: The Civil and Military +Gazette Press_). 1886. New editions (_London: Thacker_). 1888; 1890; +1898; (_Newnes_). 1899; (_Methuen_). 1904; 1908; 1913. + +Plain Tales from the Hills (_Thacker_). 1888. New editions +(_Macmillan_). 1890; 1899; 1907. + +Soldiers Three: A Collection of Stories (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). 1888. +New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +The Story of the Gadsbys: a Tale without a Plot (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). +N.D. [1888]. New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +In Black and White (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. [1888]. New edition +(_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +Under the Deodars (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. [1888]. New edition +(_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. +[1888]. New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +Wee Willie Winkie and other Child Stories (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). N.D. +[1888]. New edition (_London: Sampson Low_). 1890. + +Soldiers Three: The Story of the Gadsbys: In Black and White (_Sampson +Low_). 1890. New editions (_Macmillan_). 1895; 1899; 1907. + +Wee Willie Winkie: Under the Deodars: The Phantom Rickshaw (_Sampson +Low_). 1890. New editions (_Macmillan_). 1895; 1899; 1907. + +The City of Dreadful Night and Other Sketches (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). +1890. This edition was cancelled. + +The Smith Administration (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). 1891. This edition +was cancelled. + +The City of Dreadful Night and Other Places (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). +1891. English edition (_Sampson Low_). 1891. These were suppressed +as far as possible. + +Letters of Marque (_Allahabad: Wheeler_). 1891. This edition was +suppressed. + +The Light that Failed (_Macmillan_). 1891. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +Life's Handicap, being Stories of Mine Own People (_Macmillan_). N.D. +[1891]. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +Barrack Room Ballads and Other Verses (_Methuen_). 1892. New +editions, 1908; 1913. + +The Naulahka: a Story of West and East. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott +Balestier (_Heinemann_). 1892. New editions (_Macmillan_). 1901; +1908. + +Many Inventions (_Macmillan_). 1893. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +The Jungle Book (_Macmillan_). 1894:. New editions, 1899; 1903; 1907; +1908. + +The Second Jungle Book (_Macmillan_). 1895. New editions, 1899; 1908. + +The Seven Seas (_Methuen_). 1896. New editions, 1908; 1913. + +Soldier Tales (_A selection of stories from earlier volumes_) +(_Macmillan_). 1896. + +The Novels, Tales and Poems of Rudyard Kipling (_Edition de luxe_) +(_Macmillan_). 1897, etc. 27 volumes have so far been issued. + +"Captains Courageous." A Story of the Grand Banks (_Macmillan_). +1897. New editions, 1899; 1907. + +An Almanac of Twelve Sports for 1898. By William Nicholson. Words by +Rudyard Kipling (_Heinemann_). 1897. + +The Day's Work (_Macmillan_). 1898. New editions, 1899; 1908. + +A Fleet in Being: Notes of Two Trips with the Channel Squadron +(_Macmillan_). 1898. + +Stalky & Co. (_Macmillan_). 1899. New edition, 1908. + +From Sea to Sea (_Macmillan_). 2 volumes. 1900. New edition, 1908. +The volumes contain also Letters of Marque, The City of Dreadful Night +and The Smith Administration. + +The Science of Rebellion [Pamphlet] (_Vacher_). 1901. + +Kim (_Macmillan_). 1901. New edition, 1908. + +Just-So Stories, for Little Children (_Macmillan_). 1902. New +editions, 1903; 1908; 1913. + +The Five Nations (_Methuen_). 1903. New editions, 1908; 1913. + +Traffics and Discoveries (_Macmillan_). 1904. New edition, 1908. + +Puck of Pook's Hill (_Macmillan_). 1906. New edition, 1908. + +A Pocket Edition of Mr Kipling's Works was issued during 1907 and 1908, +the verse by Methuen & Co., the prose by Macmillan & Co. After 1908 +the works issued by Macmillan & Co. appear simultaneously in the +ordinary library edition, the pocket edition and the edition de luxe. + +Doctors: an Address delivered at the Middlesex Hospital (_Macmillan_). +1908. + +Actions and Reactions (_Macmillan_). 1909. + +The Dead King. [A Poem] (_Hodder & Stoughton_). 1910. + +Rewards and Fairies (_Macmillan_). 1910. + +A School History of England, By C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling +(_Clarendon Press_). 1911. + +The Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling (_Hodder & Stoughton_). 1912. +This edition does not contain the Departmental Ditties nor the Rhymes +for Nicholson's Almanac. + +Simples Contes des Collines (_Nelson_). 1912. + +The Bombay Edition of the Works in Verse and Prose of Rudyard Kipling. +23 volumes (_Macmillan_). 1913-1915. + +Songs from Books (_Macmillan_). 1913. + +The Service Edition of some of the works of Rudyard Kipling: Verse, 8 +volumes (_Methuen_); prose, 26 volumes (_Macmillan_). 1914-1915. + +The New Army in Training (_Macmillan_). 1915. + + + + +AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY + +[Some of Mr Kipling's earlier stories and poems, as well as certain +later poems that are non-copyright in America, have been issued in an +almost bewildering variety of arrangement and by many different +publishers. Full enumeration of these variants is not attempted in +this bibliography.] + +Plain Tales from the Hills (_Lovell_). N.D. [1890]. (_Macmillan_). +1890. + +The Story of the Gadsbys (_Lovell_). 1890. (_Munro_). 1890. + +The Courting of Dinah Shadd and Other Stories (_Harper_). 1890. + +Indian Tales (_Lovell_). 1890. + +The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales (_U.S. Book Co._). N.D. [1890]. +(_Rand, M'Nally & Co._). 1890. + +Soldiers Three and Other Stories (_Munro_). N.D. [1890]. + +American Notes, by Rudyard Kipling, and The Bottle Imp, by Robert Louis +Stevenson (_Ivers_). 1891. New edition (_Brown_). 1899. + +Mine Own People: with Introduction by Henry James (_Munro_). N.D. +[1891]. (_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +Under the Deodars (_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +The Story of the Gadsbys; Under the Deodars (_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories (_Rand_). 1891. + +The Light that Failed (_Rand_). 1891. (_Munro_). N.D. [1891]. +(_U.S. Book Co._). 1891. + +Life's Handicap, being Stories of Mine Own People (_Macmillan_). 1891. + +Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads (_Macmillan_). 1892. New edition, +1893. + +Barrack Room Ballads and Other Verses (_U. S. Book Co._). N.D. [1892]. + +The Naulahka: a Story of West and East. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott +Balestier. (_Rand_). 1892. New edition (_Macmillan_). 1895. + +Many Inventions (_Appleton_). 1893. + +The Jungle Book (_Century Co._). 1894. + +Prose Tales. New uniform edition. 6 volumes (_Macmillan_). 1895. + +Out of India: Things I saw and failed to see, in certain days and +nights at Jeypore and elsewhere (_Dillingham_). 1895. [Included in +From Sea to Sea, 1899, under the title, Letters of Marque.] + +The Second Jungle Book (_Century Co._). 1895. + +The Seven Seas (_Appleton_). 1896. + +Soldier Stories (_Macmillan_). 1896. + +The "Outward Bound" Edition of Rudyard Kipling's Works (_Scribner_). +1897, etc. + +"Captains Courageous." A Story of the Grand Banks (_Century Co._). +1897. + +An Almanac of Twelve Sports. By William Nicholson. Words by Rudyard +Kipling (_Russell_). 1897. + +Collectanea: Reprinted Verses (_Mansfield_). 1898. [Contains: The +Explanation, Mandalay, Recessional, The Rhyme of the Three Captains, +The Vampire.] + +The Day's Work (_Doubleday_). 1898. + +The City of Dreadful Night (_Grosset_). 1899. + +Letters of Marque (_Caldwell_). 1899. + +From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel (_Doubleday_). 1899. + +Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads +(_Doubleday_). 1899. [The first authorised American edition.] + +Stalky & Co. (_Doubleday_). 1899. + +Kim (_Doubleday_). 1901. + +Just-So Stories for Little Children (_Doubleday_). 1902. + +The Five Nations (_Doubleday_). 1903. + +Traffics and Discoveries (_Doubleday_). 1904. + +Puck of Pook's Hill (_Doubleday_). 1906. + +Collected Verse (_Doubleday_). 1907. + +Actions and Reactions (_Doubleday_). 1909. + +Abaft the Funnel (_Dodge_). 1909. + +Rewards and Fairies (_Doubleday_). 1910. + +Songs from Books (_Doubleday_). 1912. + +A School History of England. By C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling +(_Oxford University Press_). 1912. + +The Seven Seas Edition of the Works in Verse and Prose of Rudyard +Kipling (_Doubleday_). 23 volumes. 1913. + + + + + INDEX + + _Baa Baa Black Sheep_, 91 + Barker, Granville, 16 + _Barrack Room Ballads_, 110, 111 + _Bell Buoy, The_, 109 + _Below the Mill Dam_, 82, 108 + _Between the Devil and the Deep Sea_, 79, 80 + _Beyond the Pole_, 60 + Birth, 14 + _Bridge-Builders, The_, 77, 89, 109 + _Brugglesmith_, 92 + _Brushwood Boy, The_, 98 + Brutality, 113 + + _Candide_, 106 + _Children of the Zodiac, The_, 98 + "Civil and Military Gazette, The," 14 + Cleever, 7-10, 73 + Cloke, 95 + + _Day's Work, The_, 23, 46, 77, 86, 87, 92 + + _End of the Passage, The_, 60 + England, feeling for, 93, 97 + _Error in the Fourth Dimension, An_, 93 + + Falstaff, 74 + + _Habitation Enforced, An_, 93, 94, 109 + Hardy, Thomas, 16 + Hawksbee, Mrs, 24, 25, 28 + Hazlitt, 10 + _Head of the District, The_, 87 + + Imperialism, 97 + India, influence of, 38, 45 + Indian Stories--Classification, 19 + _In the Rukh_, 92 + + _Jungle Book, The_, 17, 65, 92 + _Just-So Stories_, 91 + + Keats, John, 85 + _Kim_, 19, 22, 62-64, 100, 101 + Kipling, J. Lockwood, 14 + _Krishna Mulvaney_, 70 + + Lahore, 53 + Learoyd, 66 + _Life's Handicap_, 47, 53 + _Light that Failed, The_, 13, 87, 88, 89 + + Machinery, 84, 86 + Maisie, 89 + _Maltese Cat, The_, 88 + Malthus, 67 + _Man Who Would be King, The_, 60 + _Many Inventions_, 17 + _Marrying of Anne Leete, The_, 16 + Metre, 107 + Milton, 85 + _Miracle of Purun Bhagat, The_, 114 + Mowgli, 100 + Mulvaney, 66, 70 + _My Lord the Elephant_, 70 + _My Sunday at Home_, 92 + + Nietzsche, 67 + + Ortheris, 66, 70 + + _Phantom Rickshaw, The_, 29 + "Pioneer, The," 14 + _Plain Tales from the Hills_, 15, 17, 24, 29, 46, 60 + Politics, 33 + Pope, 106 + _Puck of Pook's Hill_, 97, 98 + Purun Bhagat, 101 + + Realism, 98 + Red-Haired Girl, The, 89 + _Return of Imray, The_, 61, 93 + + _Second Jungle Book, The_, 101 + Shakespeare, 74 + Shelley, 85 + _Ship that Found Herself, The_, 87 + Simla, 24, 26 + Simplicity, 46, 47 + _Snarleyow_, 111 + _Soldiers Three_, 110 + _Stalky & Co._, 91 + Sussex, 92 + + _Taking of Lungtungpen, The_, 91 + Technical enthusiasm, 79 + _They_, 97 + _Three Musketeers, The_, 91 + _Tods' Amendment_, 41, 91 + Trajego, 59 + + Verse and Prose, 107, 111 + + War, 68 + _Wee Willie Winkie_, 91 + _White Man's Burden, The_, 109, 110 + _William the Conqueror_, 47, 60, 86, 109 + _With the Night Mail_, 83 + Wordsworth, 85 + + _.007_, 79, 82, 88 + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDYARD KIPLING*** + + +******* This file should be named 18045.txt or 18045.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/4/18045 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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