Sez ‘e, “ I’m a poet — ’er Majesty’s poet — soldier an’ sailor, too! “
An’ ‘is poem began in Ispahan an’ ended in Kalamazoo,
It ‘ad Army in it, an’ Navy in it, an’ jungle sprinkled through,
For ‘e was a poet — ’er Majesty’s poet — soldier and sailor, too!
‘E’ll take you up to the Ar’tic zone, ‘e’ll
take you down to the Nile, ‘E’ll give you a barrack ballad in the
Tommy Atkins style, Or ‘e’ll sing you a Dipsy Chantey, as
the blooming bo’suns do, For ‘e is a poet — ’er Majesty’s poet — soldier an’ sailor, too.
An’ there isn’t no room for others, an’
there’s nothin’ left to do; ‘E ‘as sailed the main from the ‘Orn to Spain, e’ ‘as tramped the jungle through, An’ written up all there is to write — soldier an’ sailor, too!
There are manners an’ manners of
writin’, but ‘is is the proper way, An’ it ain’t so hard to be a bard if you’ll imitate Rudyard K.;
But sea an’ shore, an’ peace an’ war,
an’ everything else in view —
‘E ‘as gobbled the lot! — ’er Majesty’s
poet — soldier an’ sailor, too.
‘E’s not content with ‘is Indian ‘ome,
‘e’s looking for regions new,
In another year ‘e’ll ‘ave swept ‘em clear,
an’ what’ll the rest of us do?
‘E’s crowdin’ us out — ’er Majesty’s poet — soldier an’ sailor, too!
Some one said “ somewhere “ that to enjoy parody one must have an intense sense of the humorous and a humorous sense of the intense! Be that as it may, a knowledge of Kipling and a love of good and fair fun should always ensure a greeting for such lines as the foregoing. Kipling himself is, of course, an excellent parodist, and as his work in this class cannot be readily referred to — ”Echoes,” etc. — I quote here one of his shorter parodies of Browning, entitled :
THE JAM-POT.
The Jam-pot — tender thought!
I grabbed it — so did you.
“What wonder while we fought
Together that it flew In shivers? “ you retort.
You should have loosed your hold
One moment — checked your fist. But, as it was, too bold
You grappled and you missed. More plainly — you were sold.
“Well, neither of us shared
The dainty.” That your plea? “ Well, neither of us cared,”
I answer ...” Let me see. How have your trousers fared? “
LESS FAMILIAR HINDUSTANI WORDS AND PHRASES USEFUL FOR KIPLINGITES.
The Kiplingite who can proudly tell you that puttee means “ bandage,” khana means “dinner,” and that a chitt is a “note,” must indeed memorise a little more Hindustani to understand usefully words and phrases in some of the stories and sketches that were written about twenty years ago, mainly, if not entirely, for an Anglo-Indian audience. Thus :
Khubber=News. Burra=Great. Raj-mistri=Head mason. Bunnia=Village money-lender. Havildar= Sepoy non. com. officer or sergeant.
Bundobast=Affair, agreement, settlement, or arrangement. Mahajuns=Great persons, “ big pots,” money-lenders.
Punchayats=Village councils. Sirkar=The Government. Namak-Larami=Treason. Chaprassies=Messengers or footmen. Jehad=Holy war against infidels. Duftar=Office.
Chabutra=Terrace or platform attached to a house. Dharzee=Tailor. Nauker-log=Domestics. Izzat=Honour, credit, reputation, character. Popularly “ orders “ such as the heading of an official letter. Mehtar=Sweeper or menial servant of lowest order. Chamar=Leather worker. Jaldi karo=Make haste. Jaldi Jao=Go quickly. Jat=Caste. Ghat=Wharf. Nakhuda=Captain. Huzoor=Your Excellency. Salam=Good morning.
“THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES.” (From a Symposium in T.P.’s Weekly.)
A lady correspondent who had been reading Monkshood’s monograph on Mr. Kipling was startled by his statement : “ I have never met a woman who was a Kiplingite, and I should not have believed it if I had. The writings of Rudyard Kipling do not appeal to women.” This is a strongly worded statement, and by the time Mr. Monkshood has read this page I think he will be prepared to modify it.
The Two Sides.
First of all, I will quote a letter from a lady admirer of Mr. Kipling who recognises the two sides of this question. This lady writes :
“I myself am an ardent Kiplingite, and for some years have made it a rule to ask the women I meet whether they read and like Kipling. I find almost invariably that they dislike both his prose and verse. I have only met two, out of the many I have asked, who read Kipling with enjoyment. May this be due to the feminine dislike to having ‘ things as they are’ brought before them? Personally, Kipling appeals to me so strongly that I find it difficult to sympathise with those who do not appreciate his work.”
It is not a little curious how, in letter after letter, the women admirers of Mr. Kipling’s works, who attempt to upset Mr. Monkshood’s case, admit between the lines that he really has a case. “ Kipling is not a woman’s writer,” says one correspondent, “ but that does not prevent many women from admiring his works intensely.” True reading, she says, is “ absolutely sexless,” a proposition which I find it hard to understand. Surely a woman can only read as a woman. It would be nearer the mark to say that true writing is sexless, in the sense that it appeals equally to the whole heart of humanity, men and women alike. This correspondent makes the further observation : “To any student of human nature, man or woman, Kipling’s works must be a treasure-house of information — except when he touches on women.” From this curious limitation the writer proceeds :
“Mr. Kipling’s vehemence is perhaps shocking to the gentle type of woman who is built for quiet home-life; but to the many women who know their limitations, and have no wish to overstep them, yet feeling an intellectual glory in the wider activities of masculinity, Kipling is a source of true delight. There is no better tonic after a long day than a dip into * Many Inventions’ or 4 The Day’s Work.’ Of the Kipling of 1 The Brush-Wood Boy’ and the ‘Just-so Stories’ there is no need to speak, since every woman, however gentle, must appreciate their tender fancies.”
Here the writer rather pleads for than asserts Mr. Kipling’s appeal to women, singling out two of his writings which she thinks every woman must appreciate — for what? For their “tender fancies.” One cannot altogether overlook the significance of the exceptions.
Another correspondent acknowledges that the majority of her feminine acquaintances are not. Kiplingites, and offers certain explanations, though unmoved by them herself :
“One friend of mine told me she did not like Kipling because his style was so spasmodic and disconnected, and he left so much to the reader’s imagination that it was very difficult sometimes to discover his meaning. I think that this, together with his rather frequent lack of refinement, constitutes the main reason of women’s antipathy towards his writings.”
Exceptional women read Mr. Kipling.
Taking these letters all in all, I am inclined to assent to the proposition of the lady who writes : “I think it takes a woman with certain powers of mind and brain to appreciate Mr. Kipling properly: his style is so strong and powerful, his expressions so terse and to the point.”
W. M. G. writes :
“Mr. Kipling’s poetry, without exception, has impressed me deeply, and nearly all his stories, even those written, as your correspondent says, ‘ for men only,’ have afforded me great interest and enjoyment. I have never been able, however, to admire the Jungle Books and the “Just-so Stories.’”
M. J. S. writes :
“Cannot a woman revel in genius as much as the 4 mere man’? And Kipling understands women as few male writers have ever done. What other man would have ventured on such feminine details as ‘ So, between tears, kisses, menthol, and packing, the afternoon wore away’? Surely this appeals to all
women, for, as Kipling himself observes :
“The Colonel’s lady And Judy O’Grady Are sisters Under their skins.”
E. A. H. writes :
“What most women like in a man is, I think, virility, and this quality Kipling possesses in no ordinary degree. This is the chief charm in his writing, a strong masculine view of life. Even when one is not in complete sympathy with his subject, his mode of treating it invariably attracts.”
T. K. writes :
“I confidently contradict the assertion that no woman is a Kiplingite. His works appeal to healthily-minded women precisely because his men characters are true, honest, and manly, with no mawkishness or sentimentality about them; and to me, personally, one great attraction of his writing is the absence of ‘ the eternally feminine element,’ though, when he likes, Kipling can draw an attractive woman, e.g. William the Conqueror, in ‘ The Day’s Work.’”
Civita writes :
“Kipling’s female characters are rather irritating, because, like many another clever man, when he talks about women he is talking of what he does not understand, but his loyal English gentlemen, who would scorn a dirty action, yet are in no way ‘superior persons’ his very human Tommies whose only faults are generous ones, the whole spirit of vigour and freshness, of large tolerance for human frailties, of simple matter-of-fact devotion to duty, which pervades his works, backed by the glamour which he can throw over commonplaces, appeals very largely to a woman’s imagination, even if her heart be not thereby reached.”
Apparently, then, Mr. Kipling is not essentially a woman’s. writer; he does not, in fact, appeal very strongly to the mass of his reading countrywomen. The many women who do appreciate him do so because their minds are more than ordinarily strong and flexible, and they have the ability to travel beyond themselves into the world and thoughts of the virile, fighting, empire-building man. Such women are increasing in numbers every year.
WHY WOMEN LOVE KIPLING.
(An answer to W. J. Clarke.)
It is our weakness that we love the strong,
Your strong man is our hero; right or wrong
We love the truth to probe the heart of things,
And stoop to Hell or rise to Heav’n; our wings
May be discarded or assumed at will;
Howe’er we err we love a hero still.
We love your Kipling, being not all so blind
But we can see some virtue in your kind;
We hold him fitly king among the kings,
Who, fearless, can lay bare the truth of things;
Who, being a man, writes manly, and of men
And women, too, with clean, unsullied pen;
Nor even stoops to varnish o’er a stain,
Nor gloats o’er darkness and disease and pain,
But plunges in the thickest of the strife,
And paints us wrestling on the field of life;
And rides above the sordid and the base,
Breast-forward, with the sunlight on his face;
And nerves us in our weakness to be strong;
And bids his fellows rise “ to right the wrong.” . . .
From him we learn the basest and the best,
To cleave to what is pure and hate the rest.
He shows us Nature’s loveliest and her worst
And walks by day and calls the dark accurst. . . .
For this we love him; in our hearts shall
n live
All he has ever giv’n us and shall give.
A Woman and a Kiplingite.
From “The Literary World.”
THE CURIOUS BOOK OF LEEB- LUNDBERG
(Or, How To Be a Kipling.)
What is, undoubtedly, the most curious among the serious attempts to estimate the value of Kipling and track the secrets of his style to their source or eyrie, is a book upon the “ word-formation “ in Kipling by a Doctor in Philosophy named Leeb-Lundberg. It is an amazing book and, though I do not mean the words derisively, an amusing book also. Its author’s own description of the book is that it is “a stylistic-philological study,” but that need not scare away anyone who has the time and desire to read it. Perhaps it is almost needless to say that Leeb-Lundberg does not discover the secret of Kipling’s style at all, for the simple and sufficient reason that it cannot be discovered, or else round dozens and
square squadrons of writing men would have annexed and used it most strenuously and shamelessly as far back as 1888! Leeb-Lundberg tries hard to catch and pin down for you the aletricious butterfly of style, but it perpetually slips away like a willis in a dark wood. Ever it evades, and we pursue, and, in the end, in spite of the toiling Doctor’s Onomatopes, Parasynthetics, Substantives, and Derivatives, we are all of us as far off from finding out Kipling’s uncanny witchery with words as the children were in attempting to find the Blue Bird. But there are pleasing and appreciative criticisms in Leeb-Lundberg. A few of these are subjoined :
“At the present day there is certainly nobody that would deny that in the world’s literature Kipling stands as the master of ‘The Short Story.’ It is natural that his merits in the development of this literary form should be due to the fact that he, more than anyone before him, possesses the temperament and the style that suit his purpose.
“Kipling’s power of setting off what is essential to a character or a situation is great and undisputed. By a couple of bold strokes — a few brief sentences packed with suggestive words — he knows how to present to the reader a picture of the most intricate situation conceivable, the vividness of which often reminds us of the best achievements of impressionist painters.”
“As pointed out before, Kipling’s popularity as a writer is universal, and not confined to the English public only. It need hardly be said that his universality is not due to such qualities as made the everlasting fame of a Shakespeare, a Goethe, or an Ibsen. The secret of Kipling’s world-wide popularity is, no doubt, hidden in the fact that he, to an epoch of over-civilised passiveness, has preached the simple and age-old gospel of action.”
“For the following survey of Kipling’s development as an author I accept, on the whole, the division into three periods made by Knowles, and based upon the author’s different treatment of character. It hardly needs pointing out that any limitation of these periods by dates is quite out of the question. The periods are :
(1) Satirical Treatment of Character.
(2) Sympathetic Treatment of Character (3) Spiritual Treatment of Character.”
“It appears that Kipling’s real sympathies are not for the educated classes of society, but centre in individuals of a more primitive stage of culture. Whenever he writes about the Indian native or the private of the British army his accents are really true and moving. So in some of the stories in ‘ In Black and White,’ and above all in ‘ Soldiers Three ‘; and if we examine the stories in 1 Plain Tales,’ one of Kipling’s earliest prose works, it will strike us that the only one revealing real tenderness of heart is ‘ The Story of Muhammed Din,’ the hero of which is a native baby.”
“In the ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ of 1892 a sympathetic view of men has gained the complete ascendency over the poet’s juvenile-satirical vein. The years spent in the struggling heart of gigantic London cannot have failed to impress him with the fact that man is in many respects grimly dependent on certain established conditions, and consequently more worthy of sympathy than scornful laughter.”
“If there is one feature that particularly characterises Kipling as a man, it is his passionate love of action. So it does not astonish one that in almost all his writings there is a certain tendency always one and the same. Kipling is, and has been for many years, the preacher of Anglo-Saxon Imperialism. But he is far from being a jingo. His sound and virile judgment shows him the right way, and so, for the most part, he appears as a reformer. But whenever he gives us a picture of the common Englishman, loyally ‘ standing by the day’s work,’ he does not fail to inspire us with a strong belief in the mission of
the Anglo- Saxon race.”
Kipling’s interest is so exclusively centred in “ the activities of men and women” that he transfers it to the description of nature. Thus he speaks of “ the seawater’s choking and chuckling,” of “ the kiss of the rain,” of “ the drinking earth,” etc. So the narrative gets a vividness and clearness that sometimes grows almost dazzling. It is also by means of this metaphorising way of observing and thinking that Kipling has accomplished something that is very rarely undertaken — a poetical treatment of modern machinery and industrialism.
Knowles’s remark that “ Kipling has the gift of the inevitable word” is indeed very much to the point. But, after all, the capacity of choosing the right word for the right moment proves — in many cases — to be nothing but a manifestation of metaphorism. So when it is said of Kaa, the huge python, that “ he seemed to pour himself along the ground,” of Mulvaney, when he returned from his “ Incarnation,” that he “ disappeared to the waist in a wave of joyous dogs,” or of the sun that he is “ driving broad golden spokes through the lower branches of the mango trees,” the reader really sees the thing as concretely as if he had it for the moment before his eyes. So Kipling always aims at concreteness, and Knowles is right in saying that “ his aversion to the indefinite and abstract amounts almost to horror.”
If we consider Kipling’s great sympathies with the “ lower orders” and his intimate intercourse with such different types as British soldiers, fashionable Anglo-Indian society, children of British officials, and natives, London bank-clerks, Gloucester fishermen, Cali- fornian millionaires, New York journalists, and Devonshire schoolboys — we need not wonder that his own language should bear marks of the cants of almost every social stratum of the Anglo-Saxon world. For Kipling makes a point of speaking to every individual in his own caste-speech.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 986