Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1297 page)

It is a mere question of individual taste; but, for my own part, had I to make a small selection from Mr. Kipling’s tales, I would include more of his studies in Black than in White, and many of his excursions beyond the probable and natural.  It is difficult to have one special favourite in this kind; but perhaps the story of the two English adventurers among the freemasons of unknown Kafiristan (in the “Phantom Rickshaw”) would take a very high place.  The gas-heated air of the Indian newspaper office is so real, and into it comes a wanderer who has seen new faces of death, and who carries with him a head that has worn a royal crown.  The contrasts are of brutal force; the legend is among the best of such strange fancies.  Then there is, in the same volume, “The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes,” the most dreadful nightmare of the most awful Bunker in the realms of fancy.  This is a very early work; if nothing else of Mr. Kipling’s existed, his memory might live by it, as does the memory of the American Irishman by the “Diamond Lens.”  The sham magic of “In the House of Suddhu” is as terrible as true necromancy could be, and I have a
faiblesse
for the “Bisara of Pooree.”  “The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows” is a realistic version of “The English Opium Eater,” and more powerful by dint of less rhetoric.  As for the sketches of native life — for example, “On the City Wall” — to English readers they are no less than revelations.  They testify, more even than the military stories, to the author’s swift and certain vision, his certainty in his effects.  In brief, Mr. Kipling has conquered worlds, of which, as it were, we knew not the existence.

His faults are so conspicuous, so much on the surface, that they hardly need to be named.  They are curiously visible to some readers who are blind to his merits.  There is a false air of hardness (quite in contradiction to the sentiment in his tales of childish life); there is a knowing air; there are mannerisms, such as “But that is another story”; there is a display of slang; there is the too obtrusive knocking of the nail on the head.  Everybody can mark these errors; a few cannot overcome their antipathy, and so lose a great deal of pleasure.

It is impossible to guess how Mr. Kipling will fare if he ventures on one of the usual novels, of the orthodox length.  Few men have succeeded both in the
conte
and the novel.  Mr. Bret Harte is limited to the
conte
; M. Guy de Maupassant is probably at his best in it.  Scott wrote but three or four short tales, and only one of these is a masterpiece.  Poe never attempted a novel.  Hawthorne is almost alone in his command of both kinds.  We can live only in the hope that Mr. Kipling, so skilled in so many species of the
conte
, so vigorous in so many kinds of verse, will also be triumphant in the novel: though it seems unlikely that its scene can be in England, and though it is certain that a writer who so cuts to the quick will not be happy with the novel’s almost inevitable “padding.”  Mr. Kipling’s longest effort, “The Light which Failed,” can, perhaps, hardly be considered a test or touchstone of his powers as a novelist.  The central interest is not powerful enough; the characters are not so sympathetic, as are the interest and the characters of his short pieces.  Many of these persons we have met so often that they are not mere passing acquaintances, but already find in us the loyalty due to old friends.

THE LESS FAMILIAR KIPLING AND KIPLINGANA by G. F. Monkshood

This literary appreciation of Kipling’s lesser known works was first published in 1917.

To P. B. Belton and W. Mawby, Thanking them, with gratitude, for their friendship.

G.

London, 1917.

CONTENTS

PART I.

THE LESS FAMILIAR KIPLING

PART II. SOME LESS FAMILIAR KIPLINGANA.

EPIGRAPH.

EPIGRAPH TO PART I.

How much I love this writer’s manly style!

By such men led, our Press had ever been

The public conscience of our noble isle,

Severe and quick to feel a civic sin,

To raise the people and chastise the times

With such a heat as lives in great creative rhymes.

From a Suppressed Poem, 1852, by Lord Tennyson.

PART I.

THE LESS FAMILIAR KIPLING

“
And so like most young poets, in a flush

Of individual life I poured myself Along the veins of others.”

— R. K.

Of the making of books about Rudyard Kipling there will be no end — until the Kalpas end. Why should there be — is any apology necessary for one more very little book upon the greatest living English author? . . . Certainly no apology is needed, the Kiplingite will say. But perhaps other readers may desire to be presented with an explanation justifying the bringing forth of yet another book of Kiplingana.

Unquestionably. Well, as my title hints, I proposed to build a little book dealing with some of the less familiar but still interesting or entrancing phases of my subject’s life and work. As the author of the first book upon Rudyard Kipling — in 1899 — I hope that this new little adventure in literature will be welcomed by all lovers of Kipling.

The story of the early efforts of Rudyard Kipling, circa 1888, his descent upon London and instant capture of that stony-hearted and critical city has the wonder of an Arabian tale and, fitly enough, it could end, with his really world-wide repute in 1898 and the words :

“And Scherazade ceased her permitted say, for she perceived the dawn of day.”

We will now attempt to recapture some of the glow of that early and less-known period of the great writer’s life and work. An early witness, whose testimony is of the deepest interest, is one “ Septimus,” who has written upon Rudyard Kipling’s English debut. The little article appeared in a magazine called Indian Ink, belonging to Thacker & Company, the famous Anglo- Indian publishers. “Septimus” says:

“The star of Rudyard Kipling first rose in England in 1888. He was well- known in India before then. But one might be giant enough in India to span in one stretch from Cape Comorin to Peshawar, and yet be entirely unknown and unheard of in England. . . .

“If Kipling had not been endowed with extraordinary talent his books would never have made their way. India attracts very little notice or interest, and it is a tribute to his genius that he was able to dish up the dry bones of Indian life in a form so palatable that he gained admittance to the portals of the Temple of Fame.

“It happened I was learning my business as a publisher in the London office of the firm of W. Thacker & Co., then situated at 87, Newgate Street, London. Everybody in India knows Thacker, Spink & Co., but not so many know of the London house. The publishing manager was an old gentleman named Heaton. I think he was self-made and self-educated. His knowledge was encyclopaedic, and he had that indispensable gift for a bookseller or a publisher, an imagination. He possessed a knowledge of English literature I have seldom seen excelled.

“One day the Calcutta firm wrote to us saying they were publishing a new book by a new author and its title was 4 Plain Tales from the Hills.’ The letter added : ‘ We shall be glad if you will do your best with this book. We are sending a thousand copies to you. It should prove as popular as “ Lays of Ind.” ‘ Now * Lays of Ind’ was our ‘big smoke at that time, and this astonishing pronouncement excited a good deal of curiosity.

“An advance copy arrived shortly after. A curious thin book with a design on the cover purporting to represent the Hills. . . .

“In the light of my report Heaton read the book and quickly recognised the new writer’s ability, and we set off to conquer England. But the bookselling trade was sceptical. When a new book is published a representative from the publisher goes to all the leading wholesale and retail booksellers and takes orders. This is called subscribing, and the traders sign on a sheet of paper the numbers they are prepared to take. On the top of the sheet is the title of the book and the name of the author with the wholesale terms.

“I think the subscription sheet of * Plain Tales from the Hills ‘ would fetch a good deal of money at an auction if it existed to-day, which is improbable. If I  remember correctly it numbered sixteen copies, and it had been displayed in Paternoster Row from end to end and thence through London north, south, east, and west through three weary days. I was the unfortunate person who took it round and never did eloquence produce a more barren result. In vain did I read choice bits of Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd. The trade listened not to the voice of the charmer.

“Then we sent out copies to the press. And we tried personal influence with Editors whom we knew. The Sunday Times was the first to review it. But I believe the reviewer only skimmed it, as the review was conventional and worthless. The first real recognition came from the Saturday Review, which devoted nearly a column to it. This created a demand from the libraries and other papers followed suit. One paper, I forget which, I think it was The Globe, said the book was badly titled and should have  been called ‘The Other Man and Other Stories,1 not that ‘ The Other Man ‘ was the best story but it was a taking title! Of course one thousand copies melted like snow in summer — and no more copies were available for a long time. There was an insistent demand, but not enough copies were in circulation to allow a widespread knowledge of the new author.

‘‘Then we published ‘Departmental Ditties.’ We published it in most attractive fashion and launched it on the world full of buoyant hope. But, alas! again the trade would have none of it.

“But the public wanted it and there was soon a brisk demand.

“That was the last I ever had to do with Rudyard Kipling as a publisher. But it marked my apprentice days with an experience given to few. And it laid the foundation of a very valued friendship which has always been one of my most cherished memories.’’

I went to see him one day and found him in the throes of composition. The room was knee-deep in manuscript. He called out to me when I entered that he was just finishing and I was to sit down and keep quiet. I did sit down and gathered up the manuscript; which I read. It was the “ Record of Badalia Herodsfoot.” I liked it, though I thought it a little out of his line. I remember we talked over the story and went and dined at the “ Solferino” in Rupert Street. I don’t fancy the place exists now. Then the summer holidays came on, and I did not see him for several weeks. When I did see him I criticised a story he had written for Lloyd’s News, “ The Mark of the Beast “ it was. My criticism was that the readers of Lloyd’s would not understand the story. “ Why not,” I said, “ give them ‘ The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot.’ “ “ Good idea,” he replied, “but where is it?” Well, we hunted high and low. We pulled out the contents of drawers; we searched the rooms through and through. Kipling sat back in blank despair. The manuscript had been stolen! At length we found it on the top of an immense book-case and covered with London dust. We had only- looked there in comic despair! Its location was rapidly transferred to the editorial office of the Detroit Free Pressy and it appeared in their Christmas Number, where it was the sensation of the moment and set people talking more than ever of the new literary star.