March 2008____________KIPLING JOURNAL______________________1 2___________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________3 THE KIPLING SOCIETY Registered Charity No. 278885 PRESIDENT Sir George Engle, K.C.B., Q.C. PAST PRESIDENT Dr Michael G. Brock, C.B.E. VICE-PRESIDENTS Joseph R. Dunlap, D.L.S. Mrs Margaret Newsom Mrs L.A.F. Lewis Professor Thomas Pinney, Ph.D. Mrs Rosalind Kennedy Mrs Anne Shelford J.H. McGivering, R.D. J.W. Michael Smith David Alan Richards COUNCIL: ELECTED AND CO-OPTED MEMBERS Cdr Alastair Wilson (Chairman) Prof Leeonee Ormond Sharad Keskar (Deputy Chairman) Charles Allen Dr Mary Hamer Clive Bettington Ms Anne Harcombe COUNCIL: HONORARY OFFICE-BEARERS Lt-Colonel R.C. Ayers, O.B.E. (Membership Secretary) [his e-mail address is: roger295@ntlworld.com] Frank Noah (Treasurer) Jane Keskar (Secretary) [her address is: 6 Clifton Road, London W9 1SS; Tel & Fax 020 7286 0194; her e-mail address is: jane@keskar.fsworld.co.uk] Andrew Lycett (Meetings Secretary) Sir Derek Oulton, G.C.B., Q.C. (Legal Adviser) John Radcliffe (On Line Editor) [his e-mail address is: johnradcliffe@blueyonder.co.uk] John Walker (Librarian) Roy Slade (Publicity Officer) Robin Mitchell (Bateman's Liaison Officer) David Page, B.Sc. (Editor, Kipling Journal) [his e-mail address is: davpag@yahoo.co.uk] Independent Financial Examiner Professor G.M. Selim, M.Com., Ph.D., F.I.I.A. THE SOCIETY'S ADDRESS Postal: 6 Clifton Road, London W9 1SS; Fax: 020 7286 0194; Web-site: www.kipling.org.uk THE SOCIETY'S NORTH AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVE David Alan Richards, 18 Forest Lane, Scarsdale, New York, NY 10583, U.S.A. Tel: (212) 609-6817. Fax: (212) 593-4517. e-mail: drichards@mccarter.com THE RUDYARD KIPLING SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA David Watts, Box 421, Wyong, NSW 2259, Australia Tel: 02 43927180. Fax: 02 43511109. e-mail: dwatts@paciflclabels.com.au Website: www.kiplingsocietyaustralia.com 4___________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 SECRETARY'S ANNOUNCEMENTS SOME FORTHCOMING EVENTS Wednesday 9 April 2008, 5.30 for 6 p.m., in the Mountbatten Room, Royal Over-Seas League, Prof T. Pinney on "Where to Find Kipling: A User's Guide to North American Collections and Collectors". Wednesday 7 May 2008, 12.30 for 1 p.m., in the Hall of India and Pakistan, at the Royal Over-Seas League, the Society's Annual Luncheon. Guest Speaker: Rear-Admiral Guy Liardet, C.B., C.B.E. on "Personal Observations on Religion in Kipling's Asia". For details and advanced book- ing for tickets; see December flyer. Tuesday 17 June 2008, the National Trust will hold its "Kipling Day" at Bateman's. Wednesday 9 July 2008, 4.30 p.m., in the Mountbatten Room, Royal Over-Seas League, the Society's A.G.M. after which (5.30 for 6 p.m.) Lorraine Bowsher will give her talk on " 'Uncle Crom' and 'Uncle Rud' – Kipling and the Price family". Details to be announced later. Wednesday 10 September 2008, 5.30 for 6 p.m., in the Mountbatten Room, Royal Over-Seas League, Speaker to be announced. Wednesday 12 November 2008, 5.30 for 6 p.m., in the Mountbatten Room, Royal Over-Seas League, Prof T. Connell on "Kipling and Saki". March 2008 JANE KESKAR & ANDREW LYCETT The Kipling Journal is now made available to subscribers to the EBSCO Literary Database on the internet. Contributors are advised that this does not affect their individual copyright. THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly since 1927 by the Kipling Society (6 Clifton Road, London W9 1SS) and sent free to all members worldwide Volume 82 March 2008 Number 325 CONTENTS THE KIPLING SOCIETY: OFFICERS, ETC. 3 SECRETARY'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 4 EDITORIAL 6 & 49 OBITUARY: GEORGE H. WEBB, C.M.G., O.B.E. by Michael Smith 7-8 DECADENT OR HEARTY? KIPLING'S DILEMMA by Jad Adams 9-27 KIPLING IN CHINA by Li Xiuqing 28-32 THE USES OF RITUAL IN KIPLING'S MASONIC STORIES by John Coates 33-49 OF THOSE CALLED by Rudyard Kipling; Notes by The Editor 50-52 BOOK REVIEWS by The Editor KIPLING SAHIB by Charles Allen 53-54 O BELOVED KIDS ed. by Elliot L. Gilbert 55 BOOK NOTICES KIPLING'S DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES by Roberta Baldi 55 POLITICS AND A WE IN RUDYARD KIPLING'S FICTION by Peter Havholm 55 MEMBERSHIP NOTES & Subscription Rates by Roger Ayers 56 NEW MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY WANTED 57 THE NEW READER'S GUIDE: THEMES IN KIPLING by Peter Havholm 58-60 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 61-63 ABOUT THE KIPLING SOCIETY 64 Rudyard Kipling Copyright by The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Cover Image with Acknowledgements to Macmillan & Co Ltd All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the Kipling Society, London. 6___________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 EDITORIAL MEMBERSHIP STANDING ORDERS and Other Matters Please would members read the Membership Notes on p.56 of this issue as there are a number of points which may directly affect them. There is also a notice on p.57 asking for a volunteer to take over from Roger Ayers as Membership Secretary at the 2008 AGM. Starting with this issue, we will be printing current subscription rates on the back cover of the Journal. BOMBAY (MUMBAI) – A KIPLING MUSEUM The Times of India reported in October 2007 that India is to have its first museum celebrating Rudyard Kipling, the same information being repeated in December on the BBC website, as well as the London Sunday Telegraph, and the Melbourne (Australia) Age. The bungalow in the grounds of the Sir J.J. School of Art in which the Kiplings lived before their transfer to Lahore is to be refurbished with a special room devoted to Rudyard Kipling artefacts. At present there is no commit- ment to honour John Lockwood Kipling in the same way, despite his major contributions to the architectural development of Bombay. The long-awaited restoration work should have started in December 2007 and is expected to be finished by 2009. Given that the entire cam- pus is classified as a Grade II heritage structure, the facade of the bungalow cannot be altered. Members who saw the Gryff Rhys Jones TV production, "Kipling: A Remembrance Tale" in November 2006 will know the building to which the project refers. Charles Allen, in his new book Kipling Sahib, gives a detailed description of the Kipling's arrival in Bombay and their probable first home before they moved into the School of Art building. LAHORE OLD CITY I have also had news of another refurbishment project, this time in Lahore, Pakistan. The city administration and the provincial govern- ment of Punjab have teamed up with some international donors to initiate the old Walled City of Lahore sustainable development and restoration project. This will try to restore many historical sites and also to revitalize the inner city's economy and general living standards. The government has also been asked to add an historic/Raj Heritage tourism component – focusing on preserving some parts linked to Kipling – and Kim — in particular. The initial targets are the Lahore Fort and the Shalimar Gardens but it is not expected that work will begin until 2009. EDITORIAL continued on p.49. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL____________________7 OBITUARY GEORGE H. WEBB, C.M.G., O.B.E. (1929-2007) By MICHAEL SMITH With the passing of George, after a long struggle against declining health met with characteristic cheerful fortitude, the Society has lost, as have his many personal friends, an exceptionally talented and delight- ful companion. His contribution to the welfare of the Society, in harness with Norman Entract, cannot be underestimated, for when in 1980 he took on the Editorship of the Kipling Journal he gave it a new and most welcome dimension both in substance and in literary merit. For 20 years his editorial material provided insight into the background of the articles and their authors, and his own knowledge of the Kipling canon was awe-inspiring. It resulted in an era which saw an increase in circulation and a greater awareness of the merits of Kipling both as a writer and as a man of international significance. The Council of the Society benefited greatly from the quiet wisdom of his advice. At that time he was known as a member of the Diplomatic Service and as one with an involvement in the Business School of City University, but what was unknown was the extraordinary hidden career in which he had been engaged, as a senior officer in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6, under the cover of an ordinary diplomat. How appropri- ate it now seems that here was a Kim, at a much higher level, who participated in an updated version of 'The Great Game'. George was born in Kenya, the son of one in the Education Service. He grew with a love of the country of his birth and a fluency in Swahili, which would serve him admirably later in his life. Like Kipling, he returned to England for his schooling, and whilst at Malvern he delighted in long-distance running over that glorious hill spine. After National Service in the 14th/20th Hussars he went up to Cambridge, where, at King's College he read English Literature before transferring to Economics. It was at Cambridge that he met Josephine who was to become his wife. As a bachelor he returned to Kenya in 1954, and before long became the District Commissioner at Moyale, in the far north abreast of the Ethiopian border, with 'Jo' at his side. He moved around his district by horse, camel and Land Rover and guarded the welfare of the Boran people, whose dialect he mastered, and for which he compiled a dictionary. There Wilfred Thesiger would enjoy the 8___________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 Webb's hospitality as he emerged from Ethiopia, the start of a lifelong friendship and literary collaboration. In 1960 George was involved with the defence and internal security of a country recovering from the trauma of the Mau Mau years, and when independence was gained George was recruited to the SIS. His first posting was to Thailand to monitor communist influence which was strong throughout south-east Asia. He then served in Ghana where he countered Soviet and Eastern bloc diplomacy. Later postings took him to Teheran and Washington, before he returned to England as a Director reporting to the head of MI6 He had been appointed O.B.E. in 1974 and C.M.G. just before he left the Service. Retirement in 1985 took him to City University, which was to become the home of our own library. Another institution to ben- efit from George's leadership was the Travellers Club, of which he was Chairman between 1987 and 1991. His efforts almost certainly rescued the Club from extinction. In 1988, with his friend Sir Hugh Cortazzi, he edited Kipling's writings on Japan. George also initiated the creation of a new Readers' Guide to Kipling's works to update Harbord's massive work of the 1950s and '60s. His proposal in the autumn of 2001, for a new Guide to be pro- vided on the Internet, was warmly accepted by Council. In the months that followed he presided over a series of pleasant and stimulating meetings at which the form and content of the new Guide was deter- mined. Five years later the completion of the Project, based on his guidelines, is in sight. In 2005, George and Josephine Webb made a most generous gift to the Society's library of a very substantial collection of books and other material related to Kipling which had been collected by George over the years. Books, pamphlets and printed ephemera were obviously the main part of the gift, but also included a very substantial collection of printed material and a large box of Carrington papers containing letters from Elsie Bambridge and others. Other notable items included a miniature version of the familiar bronze plaque of Kipling and a very well preserved copy of The Times of 17 July 1897 in which "Recessional" first appeared. Since the onset of devastating illness he has been sadly missed, but his outstanding contribution to the life of the Society will be remem- bered for many years to come. We all extend our deepest sympathy to 'Jo' and to the family. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________9 DECADENT OR HEARTY? KIPLING'S DILEMMA By JAD ADAMS [Jad Adams gave this paper to members in London on 11 April 2007. He is the author of Kipling published by Haus books, and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of English, School of Advanced Study, University of London. An earlier version of this paper was given at a University of Oxford "Fin-de-Siècle" seminar on 12 October 2006. – Ed.] When Kipling settled in London in 1889 he had no obvious literary homeland. His family background with the Pre-Raphaelites and his exotic 'Indian Gothic' writing suited him for the decadents. His rela- tionship with the soldiers and administrators of the Empire, however, made him more a candidate for the hearties of the 'Henley Regatta' cel- ebrating empire as they dined. Kipling's working out of this dichotomy took place while he was writing the novel The Light that Failed in which he grappled with the fin de siècle themes of the artist in society, the New Woman, London life and, perhaps unconsciously, homoeroticism. This paper will use an analysis of The Light that Failed to look at Kipling's position in literary London, pointing up the similarities between the supposedly antagonistic literary movements, both of which relied for their raison d'etre on their relationship to the British Empire. I will first give some working definitions of what I mean by deca- dents and hearties. Secondly I will talk about Kipling in relation to the decadents and his work around 1890. Finally I will try to draw together the life and the work in discussing the artistically unsuccessful but bio- graphically fascinating novel The Light that Failed. The Hearties grouped around W.E. Henley, the editor of the National Observer, often meeting at Solferinos restaurant in Rupert Street. Their name accurately describes their demeanour: they were a masculine group with members including such imperialists as G.A.Henty and H. Rider Haggard. They were pragmatic, unselfcon- scious imperialists: the National Observer announced itself 'an imperial review' on its masthead. They were conservative in politics and women tended to be idealised, remote figures. It was, in short, a man's world. The Decadents are more difficult to define, except that they respected the ideas, if not the person of Oscar Wilde (some who could be defined as Decadents, notably Aubrey Beardsley, actively disliked 10__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 Wilde and went out of their way to avoid him). As a group (or a com- munity of interests) they met in the Cafe Royal or private homes: the home of Henry Harland, editor of the Yellow Book, at 144 Cromwell Road; the home of Aubrey and Mabel Beardsley and their mother at 114 Cambridge Street; and at Mabel Dearmer's 'lurid Mondays' at 9 Davenport Street. The men were feminine or feminised males if not actually homosexual, at home with the world of women – Wilde him- self edited Woman's World from 1887 to 1889. The women to be found in Decadent circles were 'modern', but supporting the various notions of female emancipation current in the 1890s was not a defining char- acteristic of Decadence, the point is that a New Women could move among the Decadents and not feel out of place. Artistically, the Hearties' work was a response to the working out of Britain's imperial mission, while the Decadents tended to look to France for artistic inspiration. For the Hearties art had a function in society, often a moral function, for the Decadents the motto was art for art's sake. To quote the famous preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, 'There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written, that is all.' In terms of artistic lineage, the Decadents grew from the aesthetes of the 1880s who developed from the mid-century Pre-Raphaelites. By background, Kipling was firmly in the Decadent camp: artists predom- inated in his family, there were no soldiers (unlike the Decadent Lionel Johnson who had three brothers serving in the colonies). His uncle was the great Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones and the young Kipling would spend school holidays with him. This was not merely a familial obligation, when he was able to make his own choices about where to live, Kipling took a house next door to Burne-Jones in Rottingdean. Another uncle was Edward Poynter, later Sir Edward Poynter RA. Kipling's study at school was decorated to give a Pre-Raphaelite effect with pictures, antiques and curios. One of Kipling's official biog- raphers, Charles Carrington says, 'He was a decadent. His friends, his teachers, were liberals, his tastes were "aesthetic", the writers he most admired were the fashionable pessimists.'1 His head teacher Cormell Price was a junior Pre-Raphaelite, and friend of the family, and it was probably this family connection that led to Kipling's being sent to the United Services College at Westward Ho! He was the school poet, not in any sense an athlete. One of his schoolboy verses "Ave Imperatrix", was imperialist in tone, but it was an imitation of a poem by Oscar Wilde of the same title. Wilde was always loyal to empire and Empress, he was still publicly celebrating Victoria's Jubilee in 1897 after he had served time at Her Majesty's pleasure. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________11 LITTLE SUN-BAKED BOOKS Kipling left school at sixteen and went to work as a reporter in India, rejoining his family there. In India the four of them were called The Family Square, of course a play on the British square, the supposedly impregnable battle formation. His father was a junior pre-Raphaelite, a ceramicist and museum curator. His mother was a poet as was his sister Trix Fleming who also had two novels published. SOLDIERS THREE: the (literally paper-back) first Indian Railway Library book to be published in Britain (Author's collection). Kipling was first to distinguish himself in writing stories about Indian life in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore and The Week's News in Allahabad; and Kipling's output of stories preceded his appearance in London. Plain Tales from the Hills had been published in England in January 1888 and the Indian Railway Library booklets were also circulated in paper covers, probably from plates sent directly from India as the British versions show the Indian price – one rupee — with the local price of a shilling added across the top. These had given Kipling a reputation among the literary set; Andrew Lang remarked: 'The books had the strangeness, the colour, the variety, the perfume of the East.' 2 12__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 Anjali Arondeker points out how boring and provincial India was thought to be before Kipling.3 Now the East was exotic, it had the flavour of strange delights beloved of the Decadents. Dixon Scott look- ing back on the period in the Bookman in 1912 writes of 'A delicious insolence of aesthetics' in Kipling's work 'The little sun-baked books from Allahabad seemed if anything more golden than the Yellow Book. The proof of the literary epicure was his palate for the Kipling liqueur. . . The youngster was bracketed with Beardsley, was bracketed with Max. Mr John Lane began to collect his first editions. Mr Richard Le Gallienne was told off to Bodley Head him.'4 The stories reveal an artist who knows his decadent city, such places as "The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows" where opium is smoked, people like the Hindu widow 'fairer than bar-gold in the mint ... an endless delight ... as ignorant as a bird'5. In a style that was to be called Indian Gothic undead natives met their imperial masters on equal terms in a pit for cholera victims6. Kipling described scenes such as that in the house of a magician: 'In the centre of the room, on the bare earth floor, stood a big, deep, brass basin, with a pale blue-green light floating in the centre like a night-light. Round that basin the man on the floor wriggled himself three times.'7 Such an image would not look out of place in the work of Aleister Crowley whose first book, White Stains, was published by the Decadents' publisher Leonard Smithers. This is an underground world of the east: of prostitution, opium, murder, inter-racial sex and the occult. Kipling had more in common with his London contemporaries than was obvious to his later critics who wanted to see him as a counter-point to effete aesthetes. Wilde famously 'feasted with panthers', the renters and blackmailers of London's sexual underworld just as, to the disgust of his colleagues at the club, Kipling used to trawl the night-life of the Old City of Lahore to gain his own detailed knowledge of opium dens and brothels. Kipling arrived in London at the end of 1889, he lived above a sausage and mash shop in Villiers Street, off the Strand, a few paces from Trafalgar Square. Gatti's music hall was opposite the sausage shop, it was such a part of his life that he mentions being able to just see on to the stage by looking through his window and a skylight of Gatti's. Kipling used to listen to the cab-men and the music hall girls shouting outside in the street and he sat for hours in Gatti's listening to the talk of soldiers which he wove into the verses of Barrack-Room Ballads. He must have rubbed shoulders with Arthur Symons, the lead- ing Decadent, music hall correspondent of the Star, who famously wrote in London Nights, his life is 'like a music hall.'8 March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________13 Kipling made a deal with Macmillan's to take his writing in return for a retainer and his stories and poems began to appear at regular inter- vals, including "The Courting of Dinah Shadd", "On Greenhow Hill" and "Without Benefit of Clergy", all of them tales of damaged or dis- torted love, and clearly part of Kipling's working out of the pain and confusion caused by his disastrous love life. W.E. Henley in the National Observer became the first to publish the colloquial soldier-speak poems of Barrack-Room Ballads, starting with "Danny Deever" in February 1890 when such vigorous verse was alien to Victorian sensibilities. In tone, form and subject matter it has strong similarities to Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" of the end of the decade: both are first person witness ballads about the execution of soldiers. Over this year, 1890, Kipling was to supply Henley with some of his most unforgettable verses which show deep sympathy for the com- mon soldier, but are also full of respect for native people: "Gunga Din" who was a better man, " 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy' " who broke a British square. Poems from this period are thought of as a tub-thumping Imperialism, in fact many are about loss and longing – and some are about sex, such as "Mandalay" of 1890. It contains the refrain On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! The poem was written to a waltz tune which is one reason for its high musicality; it became a music hall favourite. The events that led to a British soldier's being stationed in Burma, not hinted at in the poem, were that the Burmese King Thibaw confiscated the British Bombay- Burma company and the British therefore invaded Burma in 1885, deposed the King and occupied the country. The soldier thinks of a lost love: By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; He remembers how With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin my cheek We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. 14__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 This is a love poem then, not only for this Burmese girl but for the East itself Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst; By contrast England is colourless and restrained. The speaker hates England, its weather, its scenery, the narrow religiosity of its temper- ance campaigners, the limited horizons of his own class of people I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones, An' the blasted English drizzle wakes the fever in my bones; Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand, An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand? Beefy face and grubby 'and— Law! wot do they understand? I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land! With this rejection of England and Englishness for a better world in the East, one thinks of Tennyson's exactly opposite sentiments, in "Locksley Hall", 'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay;' here is a narrator who is disgusted at the thought of being 'mated with a squalid savage.' Tennyson's characters (one thinks also of the narra- tor of "Maud") are genuine imperialists, willing to sail abroad to die for their country. Kipling's soldier doesn't want to die for his country, he wants to get out of it and live with a lovely girl in the East. This cele- bration of miscegenation could easily be written by one of the Decadent circle: in Arthur Symons's London Nights or John Davidson's Fleet Street Eclogues, though Kipling is a better writer than both of those, and the leading Decadent Richard Le Gallienne spoke highly of it.9 I don't know of any of the Decadents who specifically repudiate the empire or wrote work as anti-imperialist as, say, the Hearty R.L.Stevenson's The Ebb Tide or The Beach of Falesa. The Decadents did not disparage the empire, they felt themselves to be the culmination of imperial ambition, a period of luxurious surfeit at the height of empire after which decline was inevitable: a recurring theme in Kipling's more thoughtful pieces. The classic ambiguous tale of empire is one that first saw the light in the Indian Railway Library series, The Man who would be King, a depiction of the bluff, trickery and ulti- mately self-destructive hubris of empire. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________15 Oscar Wilde was still, in 1890, a friend of Henley, and welcome at Henley's gatherings at his home at 1 Merton Place, Chiswick, but lit- erary life was increasingly polarised and as the nineties progressed, the Hearties or 'Henley's Regatta' came to be the literary coterie in which Kipling found company. Kipling had entered a very male group devoted to the depiction of real or idealised male experiences, in which women were remote figures of romance. The literary world of London seemed wide open to Kipling but he chose his friends carefully, gravitating towards the conservative and the established rather than the avant garde. He wrote a skit which included the lines, But I consort with long-haired things In velvet collar-rolls, Who talk about the Aims of Art, And "theories" and "goals," And moo and coo with women-folk About their blessed souls.10 Clearly Kipling had the contempt for theory of the self-made man, and the fondness of the Decadents for theories of aesthetics repelled him – as did their eliding the differences between the genders (being long-haired men who talk of their innermost selves with women). It is interesting to consider what Kipling's life would have been had he been to university as his cousin Stanley Baldwin did, instead of going to work at sixteen. He wrote ruefully of his cousin, 'I'd give something to be in the Sixth at Harrow as he is, with a university education to follow."11 Even Henley did not escape Kipling's scorn, he resisted Henley's referring to him as 'one of my young men' and said to Trix, 'Henley is a great man; he is also a cripple, but he is not going to come the bullying cripple over me'.12 There was a genuine affection between them, however, in a spirit of hearty camaraderie Kipling gave Henley a punch ball on which were written the names of all the people Henley disliked: Robertson Nicholl, W.T. Stead, Samuel Crockett, Richard Le Gallienne and others, 'and these gave zest to his morning exercise.'13 Henley himself was hardly an unequivocal Hearty. His work was sufficiently modern and French-influenced for Arthur Symons to include him in his essay The Decadent Movement in Literature but when it was written up as a book, the mood had changed and (after hav- ing been previously advertised under the earlier title) it was called The Symbolist Movement in Literature and Henley was omitted. Kipling's 'Animal that came out of the sea and ate up all the food' and Beardsley's ape from the Murder in the Rue Morgue of 1895. Kipling's 'The Crab that Played with the Sea' uses the same white on black technique as Beardsley's cat drawing for Poe's Tales of 1894. 18__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 Another direct contact with the Decadent world is that Kipling knew Beardsley who of course had been introduced to the London art world by Kipling's uncle Burne-Jones. He supported Beardsley, inter- vening when he was sacked as art editor of The Yellow Book in the wake of the Oscar Wilde scandal. 14 Kipling's own pen and ink pictures are suggestive of Beardsley, which is hardly surprising given the Pre-Raphaelite influences on them both, particularly of early Beardsley before he developed the flamboy- ant style of his maturity (if one can speak of the maturity of an artist who died at twenty-five). The only book Kipling illustrated himself were the Just So Stories of 1902, the pictures of which make an inter- esting comparison with Beardsley's. Kipling's pictures show both grotesques and isolated people or creatures, giving something of a clue to how he was feeling after the death of his daughter Josephine to whom he had told the stories which he had now written out and was illustrating. One can compare the execution of Kipling's "The Crab that Played with the Sea" with Beardsley's cat drawing for Poe's Tales of 1893; the character Parsee Pestonjee Bomonjee and Beardsley's pic- ture of his printer Joseph Pennell as a Notre Dame gargoyle; Beardsley's ape from the Murder in the Rue Morgue and Kipling's "Animal that came out of the sea and ate up all the food"; the compo- sition of Kipling's "The Man and his Little Girl-Daughter" with Beardsley's "Cambridge ABC" for an undergraduate magazine. Richard Le Gallienne, one of the chroniclers of the 1890s and a leading Decadent, who as noted above had been sent to 'Bodley Head' Kipling, did so in a critical work published to cash in on Kipling's fame. He called Kipling one of 'the true end-of-the-century decadents,' whose aim was 'to begin the twentieth century by throwing behind them all that the nineteenth century has so painfully won' by which he meant 'democracy, the woman-movement [and] the education of the masses.' 15 THE NOVEL THAT FAILED 'It is unnecessary to dwell on The Light that Failed,' writes Kipling's first official biographer, Lord Birkenhead.16 I disagree and have dwelt long on it. The emotional inspiration for the book was Kipling's love for Flo Garrard. The unobtainable beloved is very much an 1890s theme. Kipling's longing for Flo as an unobtainable love is not so different from the same sentiments in such Rhymers as Ernest Dowson with his adored "Missie"; W.B.Yeats for Maud Gonne and Arthur Symons for the dancer Lydia. This was not the courtly love of the Middle Ages where the object of devotion was unobtainable because she was already Kipling's character Parsee Pestonjee Bomonjee and Beardsley's picture of his printer Joseph Pennell as a Notre Dame gargoyle of 1893. 20__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 married or her social situation was such that marriage could not take place; in the case of Flo and the other 1890s women they were avail- able and could love the men who adored them, they simply didn't. To use the vernacular, the girls just didn't fancy them. Few English writers had become famous through writing short sto- ries and none had scaled great heights. Literary London was watching Kipling to see if he would produce a great novel, and Kipling himself had long been aware that he should be writing a long work to pull his talents together. Fortunately he was commissioned to write a novel by the agent for Lippincott's Magazine. Lippincott's showed exceptional dexterity in selecting new writers. The twelve issues of the 1890 magazine features Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story "The Sign of Four"; Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and, at the end of the year, the start of The Light that Failed. It was Henley's printing of a negative review of Dorian Gray that led to the split between him and Wilde, remarking that the book was suited for 'none but outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph boys.'17 Previously Wilde and he had been friends, this is the point at which camp followers have to take sides. The Light that Failed is by way of Kipling's working out of the issues involved in the struggle. Kipling laboured under the internal pressure of his professional need to produce a long work against a deadline, and under the emo- tional charge resulting from the way in which a book of some autobiographical complexity was being written while the story it reflected was being played out in his life. The spark that lit The Light that Failed was the reappearance in Kipling's life of Flo Garrard. Kipling and Trix had been boarded in England from a young age. This was not exceptional – Vyvyen Brendon's Children of the Raj of 2005 describes how most English children in India were sent away either to England or to boarding schools within India, so they did not acquire native manners as they grew up. Another boarder, after Kipling had left, was Flo, a friend of his sister. Kipling used to visit and fell in love with her when he was fourteen. He believed they were engaged when he left England for India in 1882. A year or so later she broke off the relationship. Kipling's sister wrote of Flo 'She refused him more than once – his love took a deal of killing – and I think she half accepted him, or he thought she did.' 18 As Kipling tells the story in the novel, on some lonely wandering in the London fog on the embankment of the Thames he met his love again. As he described it: There was no mistaking. The years had turned the child to a woman, but they had not altered the dark-grey eyes, the thin scarlet lips, or March 2008____________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________21 the firmly-modelled mouth and chin; and, that all should be as it was of old, she wore a closely fitting grey dress.19 This was almost certainly not how it happened that the two met again in January or early February 1890. We know he had begged his cousin Margaret Burne-Jones to enquire about Flo at the Slade School of Art, 'I want to know how she is and what she is doing. . . I want you as qui- etly and unobtrusively as possible to learn all you can about this girl. '20 Doubtless when he got back to England he made further enquiries about her current whereabouts and contrived to see her. In present day terms: he had been stalking her. In this account I will first say what actually happened to Kipling and then refer to the fictionalisation of the events in the novel where Kipling and Flo appear as Dick and Maisie. When Kipling met Flo again, both in their twenties, she had finished at the Slade School and was due to study further at the Académie Julian in Paris. In the novel the Flo character Maisie's half-hearted acceptance of Kipling (in the character of Dick) extends to permitting him to visit her on Sunday afternoons and seeking his advice on her work, and this us probably a reasonable representation of their actual relationship. Trix said Flo was 'naturally cold – her very face and magnolia-petal complexion showed that – and she wanted to live her own life and paint her very ineffective little pictures.' 21 This is certainly the impression Maisie gives to Dick in the novel, for she shows considerable self-knowledge, when she thinks of herself as being selfish because she is using Dick's skills while she is unable to give him the love he craves in return. Dick is completely unable to conceive 'that Maisie should refuse sooner or later to love him, since he loved her.' 22 Kipling visited Flo at her house in London where she was living with Mabel Price, three years older than her and the daugh- ter of an Oxford Mathematics don. Mabel had studied at the Slade and later in London before going to the Académie Julian with Flo. Flo's indifference to him and her resistance to the display of his abilities, probed a deep wound of loneliness and rejection in Kipling. His parents had abandoned him in the House of Desolation with no jus- tification that was comprehensible to him; now he could not make the girl he loved, love him back. Kipling, irresistibly drawn back to past failures, tried again. As he wrote: That the Dog returns to his vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the fire;23 22______________________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________March 2008 Again, Trix remarked that she did not think that Flo 'did anything to kill his love; she was simply not attracted by anything he had to offer.'24 Flo was not even particularly interested in the written word – Trix said even her letter writing was poor. Kipling could be one of the best writers in the world, destined to be the first Englishman to win the Nobel Prize, but if his beloved was not moved by literature, that counted for little. Kipling visited Flo in Paris from 24-28 May 1890, where she was living with Mabel Price in the Avenue de Jena. Little is known about this time except that they went to the countryside to sketch and to pic- nic with friends. Kipling must have manoeuvred the time to allow him some private moments of conversation with Flo for he was never to see her again, and clearly something had transpired between them that ended the relationship and sent Kipling off in the heat of furious creativity. If she had not found it before, Flo had by now definitely discovered her sexual orientation. It is not known whether she told Kipling she was a lesbian; or he worked it out for himself on seeing her intimacy with Mabel; or perhaps never did understand explicitly, except that she rejected his advances and gave him no hope for the future. Soon after his return he wrote, The Light that Failed with a theme drawn from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh but with strongly biographical elements. The book begins with Maisie and Dick, recognisably Kipling and Flo, on a seashore playing with a revolver. They are children com- panions in bondage boarding in a place familiar as the one where Kipling, his sister and Flo lived. The game on the beach ends in Maisie accidentally discharging the revolver near Dick's face, an event which is probably the ultimate cause of his later blindness (though other causes are given when it is diagnosed). In the same place, Maisie is talking about her imminent departure from the boarding house and Dick declares his feelings for her and coaxes a kiss for the first time. Dick is then seen as a young man in the Sudan campaign, in the camaraderie of masculine company. He is a war artist, demonstrating the possibility of being both creative and a man of action and full of 'the austere love that springs up between men who have tugged the same oar together'.25 The slaughter of Gordon and the loss of the Sudan to what were considered savages was a burning political issue which was to continue through most of the decade: Kitchener was not ordered to begin the reconquest of the Sudan, a key element of Kipling's plot, until 1896, six years after the first publication of The Light that Failed, March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL__________________23 though expeditionary skirmishes on the Sudanese border continued throughout. Dick goes to London where his pictures are attracting attention, and he suffers on a diet of sausage and mash. He meets Maisie in the fog on the Embankment and against his will, 'every pulse of Dick's body throbbed furiously and his palate dried in his mouth'.26 He walks beside her and they have a desultory conversation. She has also become an artist, studying in London and France. Kipling made them both artists so as to bridge in his characters some of the distance between himself and Flo, who had so little in common artistically. Dick sees her again and takes her to a print shop where people are admiring his work in the window and the fiercely ambitious Maisie envies his fame. Maisie's is a tale of 'patient toil backed by savage pride' where she struggles on with no success. He declares love but she is dedicated to her work and wants only his advice. In The Light that Failed Maisie is living with a 'red haired girl' who is not named and whose relationship with Maisie is indistinct except that she has power over her and seems to despise Dick. She is furious, for example, when Maisie permits Dick a chaste kiss when the two women go off together to France. While Maisie is out of the picture with the red-haired girl a messy sub-plot takes over: Dick's friend (really the other love interest) Torpenhow becomes entangled with a prostitute, Bessie, who he helps when he finds her collapsed with hunger. Dick earns her enmity by sending Torpenhow away when she is about to move in with him – sug- gesting that male friendship is more important than sex with women. Dick finds he is losing his sight and he uses Bessie as a model for his last great picture, of Melancholia, the subject Maisie said she was going off to France to paint. Under the pretext of cleaning up, Bessie destroys the masterpiece. Dick has gone blind and Torpenhow, out of pity for his disabled friend, does not enlighten him. In a scene of male intimacy, Torpenhow thrust out a large and hairy paw from the long chair. Dick clutched it tightly, and in half an hour had fallen asleep. Torpenhow withdrew his hand and, stooping over Dick, kissed him lightly on the forehead, as men do sometimes kiss a wounded com- rade in the hour of death, to ease his departure.27 Torpenhow goes to France and brings Maisie to Dick but after seeing him blindly displaying his ruined picture she runs out. Maisie is last seen alone in her house in London, ashamed of herself for her treatment 24____________________KIPLING JOURNAL____________March 2008 of Dick but unable to change; neither a great painter nor a great lover and therefore a failure both as an artist and a woman. Torpenhow and others go off to join in the reconquest of the Sudan, leaving Dick alone in his rooms. While out walking with his landlord, Dick encounters Bessie and she returns to his rooms and soon tells him that she ruined his picture. He determines on a last great ges- ture. He travels to Egypt and reacquaints himself with the terrain and the army, being shot dead at last as he reaches his beloved friend Torpenhow. The strain of creation under such emotional burdens as Kipling faced saw him overload the plot with implausibilities which show Kipling shrinking in the face of what he had created. He is simply unable to face Maisie's (and therefore Flo's) lesbian relationship, and therefore has the red-haired girl confessing love for Dick. Mabel Price made a point of telling Kipling's official biographer that no such thing had happened, so clearly did she see herself in the picture of the red- haired girl. Kipling wants the love between men to be noble, pure and untainted by sex with women so the reader is expected to believe Torpenhow would rather leave the country at Dick's bidding than have sex with a willing girl. Finally, there is no way such a noble man as Dick would appear on the battlefield in an enfeebled state which would endanger his comrades by obliging them to care for him. On the other hand, the figure of the heroic, but wounded imperial- ist riding literally blindly into another desert adventure where he will certainly die is one which could only have been created by Kipling, the great poet of empire. Dick's life and fatal last ride is also a metaphor for the failing gallantry of nineteenth century man confronting the new woman which makes it a richer and more interesting story than many contemporaries realised. The man-loving and misogynistic nature of the book was not lost on contemporary writers. Max Beerbohm slyly remarks that with its ado- ration of military men, if we knew only this work of Kipling's, we should assure it was the pen-name of a woman writer, 'strange that these heroes with their self-conscious blurting of oaths and slang, their cheap cynicism about the female sex, were not fondly created out of the inner consciousness of a female novelist.' 28 Kipling had wrought his experiences into art: his terror of blind- ness (a genuine and realistic fear for him given his history of poor sight); but it is also an age-old symbol of sexual impotence: masturba- tion will make you blind and the evil eye will make you impotent; when Oedipus commits a sexual transgression he does not cut off the offending member but puts out his eyes. Dick's blindness is therefore March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL__________________25 a symbol both of his loss of creative power as a visual artist and the sur- render of the male force to female will. The light is the light of his eyes but also the light of female love which is betrayed when Flo and Maisie take up a man's instruments: the smoking gun and the smoking cigarette are both masculine symbols which a woman can hold but in Kipling's ideal world, should not. Tobacco is taken as a symbol of male bonding: 'Have you any tobacco'? being an effective password to male intimacy. Dick goes whistling to his chambers with a strong yearning for some man-talk and tobacco after his first experience of an entire day spent in the society of a woman.29 Maisie is recognisably a type who recurs in English novels of the 1890s. Her obvious precursor was in Kipling's friend Rider Haggard's adventure She (1887). Kipling's work was to be followed by many oth- ers but notably by Du Maurier's Trilby (1894, which incidentally features Kipling's uncle Edward Poynter as one of its bohemian char- acters), Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did (1895), and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (1895), all with the same maddening, self- directed desirable yet distant modern woman. Flo Garrard continued to live with women and paint pictures, and on the flyleaf of her copy of the book, she wrote If you happen to read this singular, if somewhat murky little story you are very likely to rather wonder if real people could be quite so stupid and objectionable as this crowd. . . Of course its difficult to see oneself as others see you, still m'thinks there's something somewhat distorted about it all; and that the story does not run its entire length on lines quite parallel with Truth.30 She signed herself Maisie. She died a moderately successful artist of 73, having had exhibitions in London and Paris. The pressure of this doomed relationship combined with his routine of work and his intense loneliness to send Kipling into a nervous break- down. While Kipling was publishing The Light that Failed in different editions he was having a close relationship with Wolcott Balestier, with whom he wrote The Naulahka, a working out of the relationship of the New Woman with a heroic man which ends with surrender in the man's favour. Balestier died suddenly, and Kipling pretty much immediately proposed to his sister Carrie, they were married shortly after and settled in the U.S.A. 26__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 His novel is the only lengthy clue to what was happening to Kipling: the way Dick was feeling like a limp-wristed Decadent but acting like a muscular Hearty is a biographical pointer to the dichotomy Kipling was experiencing in London in the 1890s. Gail Ching-Laing Low remarks in White Skins/Black Masks of how 'this feminised decadent world of death, pain, hedonism, sensual plea- sure and sexual revelry is rejected for the alternative healthier and cleaner, military world of male camaraderie.'31 Yet the world of male camaraderie cannot fully displace the woman's world, the heterosexual world, of decadence. The Light that Failed describes Kipling's unresolved feelings for women and unre- solvable feelings for men – they are unresolvable because the corollary is homosexuality which is unacceptable; love between men must remain pure from the taint of sex. It is in this book that Kipling unequivocally aligns himself as an artist with the Hearty and the imperial adventure – but it is an artist who is emasculated and whose art is damaged who goes out to fight. NOTES 1. Carrington, Charles, Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work, (London: Macmillan 1955) p.74. 2. Andrew Laing, from Essays in Little (1891) reprinted in Green, Robert Lancelyn (ed.) Kipling: The Critical Heritage, (London: Routledge 1971) p.73. 3. Arondeker, Anjali, "Lingering Pleasures, Perverted Texts: Colonial Desire in Kipling's Anglo-India". In Imperial Desire: Dissident Sexuality in Colonial Literature, ( Minneapolis Minn: University of Minnesota Press 2003). 4. Dixon Scott in the Bookman Vol. LUI, pp. 143-6. Reprinted in Green, op.cit. p.310. 5. Rudyard Kipling, "Beyond the Pale", Plain Tales from the Hills, (London: Macmillan 1890). 6. Rudyard Kipling, "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes", Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories, (London: Macmillan 1895). 7. Rudyard Kipling, "The House of Suddhoo", Plain Tales from the Hills, (London: Macmillan 1890). 8. Arthur Symons, London Nights, (London: Bodley Head 1895) from "Prologue: In the Stall". 9. Richard Le Gallienne, Rudyard Kipling: A Criticism, (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head 1900) pp.31-2, 162. 10. Rudyard Kipling, "In Partibus", Civil and Military Gazette, 23 December 1889. 11. Thomas Pinney (ed.), The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, Vol. 1 (London: Palgrave Macmillan 1990) p.80. 12. Lord Birkenhead, Rudyard Kipling, (London: Weidenfeld 1978) p.109. 13. Kennedy Williamson, W.E. Henley: A Memoir, (London: Harold Shaylor 1930) p.276. 14. Matthew Sturgis, Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography, (London: Harper Collins 1998) p.239. 15. Richard Le Gallienne, op. cit. pp.158, 161. March 2008______________KIPLING JOURNAL________________________27 16. Lord Birkenhead, op.cit. p. 124. On the previous page he refers to it as 'The only rot- ten apple in [Kipling's] teeming orchard'. 17. Anonymous review in Scots Observer, 5 July 1890. 18. Trix Fleming, Kipling Papers, Kipling Archive, University of Sussex 32/32. 19. Rudyard Kipling, The Light that Failed, (London: Macmillan 1891). Hereafter: TLTF. 20. Thomas Pinney, op.cit. p.111. 21. ibid. 22. TLTF pp.70. 23. Rudyard Kipling, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919). 24. ibid. 25. TLTF p.74. 26. TLTF p.57. 27. TLTF p.191. 28. Quoted in Carrington, op.cit. p.217 29. TLTF p.121. 30. Harry Rickets, The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling, (London: Chatto and Windus 1999) p.167. 31. Gail Ching-Laing Low, White Skins/Black Masks: Representation and Colonialism, (London: Routledge 1996) p.170. 28____________________KIPLING JOURNAL____________March 2008 KIPLING IN CHINA By LI XIUQING [Ms Li Xiuqing is working towards obtaining her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the Comparative Literature Institute of Beijing Language and Culture University. She obtained her B.A. in English at Qufu Normal University (Qufu is Confucius' birthplace), Shandong province, and her M.A. in Linguistics at Shandong University. She has chosen Kipling as her research subject, because of his unique place in English literature and the unsatisfactory study of him in China. – Ed.] As a writer whose writing career thrived mainly from the end of 19th century to the beginning of 20th century, Kipling's relationship with China is of great interest and can give some illuminating insight into the historical context in which China interacts with the West. China was then a country of great tumult and chaos. The Qing government was corrupted and unable to protect its people from the invasion of the Western powers. The Intellectual's confidence in the tradition of Chinese culture and literature was significantly reduced, not to mention the popular slogan 'Mr. Democracy, Mr. Science' which adamantly encouraged to follow the steps of the West in democracy and science. Hence the strong trend of seeking Western enlightenment to save the Chinese people from lagging behind. As to literature, the Chinese have a long history of fine works to boast of and do not take the productions of foreign lands seriously. A long history of civilization confined the Chinese people to its own lim- its and avowed itself the centre of the world, and leaves no space to search other lands for enrichment. But great changes in the world situa- tion and the declining of its influence forced this old civilization to think things anew and take on new ideas. Lin Shu (1852-1924) was a well- known translator of foreign literature under whose influence many famous writers and scholars claimed to grow up, such as Lu Xun and Qian Zhongshu. He translated (in collaboration with others for he did- n't know foreign languages) numerous western novels, such as those of Dickens, Scott, Dumas (junior and senior), totalling up to more than 400. But Kipling's name is non-existent on his list. Because of the then political and international context China was in, the most important and voluminous translations at that time belonged to the field of thought and politics, for example Thomas H. Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, etc. were put in a very high position. Kipling in his high fame was well-received in America, Germany, France, especially in France. But in China, people seemed to heed nothing about him. Kipling was first recognized as a drummer-beater March 2008____________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________29 for imperialism. Many of his works, including poems, short stories, prose fictions, sing songs for imperialism and its expansion. While the publication of J. A. Hobson's Imperialism: A Study in 1902 made 'imperialism' a term of abuse in international vocabulary, in a Chinese context it conveys much heavier and derogatory meaning for it threat- ened the existence of a people, and was a question of life and death. Due to the corruption and incompetence of the late Qing government, China failed again and again in the warring encounters with the West (and other strong powers in the East, especially Japan). The defeat in the war with Japan in 1894 opened people's eyes to the urgent and dan- gerous situation the whole country was in. The Allied Force of eight European countries invaded China in 1911 and brought great loss and destruction. From the end of the 19th century to the first part of twen- tieth century, China experienced a series of foreign invasions and defeats which caused humiliation and dissatisfaction among the people. Reconsideration of the value of tradition and culture in the circle of the intellectuals was put on the agenda. Nationalism came to the fore and centre of the political and social life. Imperialist Japan was the first foe that the Chinese people had to face and fight. So as an imperialist writer, Kipling couldn't gain any place and attention in such a strong imperialism-hatred background. People's reaction would be: "Oh, imperialist writer? Go to hell!" The Sino-Japan war (1937-1945) was followed by civil war (1945-1949) between the Communist Party and Kuomintang. During this period, the introduction of foreign literature was very little. Since the founding of People's Republic of China (1949), emphasis was put on popularizing the socialist construction until the Culture Revolution (1966-1976) during which period serious literature was almost nil. The open-door policy since 1978 gave a forceful stimulus to the revival and development of literature. In the field of foreign literature, numerous classics were translated into Chinese and the study and research was carried further and deeper. A lot of canonical works and classical writ- ers in English were studied with great enthusiasm and interest. With the introduction of the theory of post-colonialism into a Chinese context, attention turned to many colonial and post-colonial writers, among whom Kipling was a very unique one for his somewhat peculiar posi- tion in colonial writing and the controversial criticism he had. The following are the papers on Kipling and his works in recent years: 1. "The Law of Jungle, Identity Crisis and the Fuse of East and West: On Kipling's The Jungle Books", Chen Bing, Review of Foreign Literature, 2003. 30__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 2. "The Contradiction of Colonialism: A Study of Kipling's Early Indian Fiction", Chen Bing, Foreign Languages Study, 2005 / 4. 3. "On the Indian Short Stories of Kipling", Wen Meihui, New Starting Points for Surpassing tradition, 1995, Beijing: China Social Sciences Publishing House. 4. "Puzzle of Identity: a Reading of Kipling's short story 'On the City Wall ", Zheng Yun, Foreign Literature Study, 2005 / 5, pp. 103-108. 5. "Kipling: Indian writing in Colonial Literature",Yin Xinan, South-Asia Study Quarterly, 2005 / 4. 6. "Kipling and India's linkage and the 'absence of history' in his writing", Yin Xinan, South-Asia Study Quarterly, 2004 / 2, pp.70-76. 7. "Kipling and British short story", Chen Bing, Shandong Foreign Languages Teaching, 2006 / 2, pp.71-75. 8. "To see from a British writer—On Kipling's Indian short stories", Guo Guikun, China Books Review, 2003 /11, pp.49—51. 9. "Mind and Taste: Style of classical children's book—Kipling's The Jungle Books", Sun Zhijun, China Books Review, 2004 / 5, pp.62-63. 10. "Multi-perspective study of The Jungle Books", Chen Bing, Wu Zonghui, Foreign Languages Study, 2003, No.5. 11. "Kim: Colonialist Propaganda or East-West Reconciliation", Chen Bing, Foreign Literature, 2005 / 2. 12. "On Jiang Ruoshui's essay: Sound of Empire—From Kipling to Wen Yiduo", Shi Yishi-Jiangnan University Journal (Arts & Humanities edition), 2004 / 2, pp.39-5, 63. 13. "Different worlds, different Wilds—on Quiquern and The Call of the Wild", Chen Bing, Tianjin Foreign Languages College Journal, 2003 / 5, pp.65-70. 14. "A reading of Kim: its social realist factor", Guo Xiaojing, Hubei Education College Journal, 2006 / 6, pp.16-18. Several observations can be made from the above list. First, all the papers concentrate on Kipling's Indian writing, of which Kim and The Jungle Books occupy a major position. Of 14 papers, four papers are about The Jungle Books (1, 9, 10, 13); two (11,14) are about Kim; one (4) is a reading of "On the City Wall" whose background was also set in India and which was regarded as a political allegory of Kipling. The rest are general surveys or interpretations of Kipling's early Indian short stories. Second, the questions discussed in these papers are mainly about Kipling's imperialist ideology, his attitude towards the relations between East and West, and his expression of identity. All March 2008____________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________31 these are hot issues both in the international and national forum of lit- erature and culture. Kipling's Indian writings are used as a very good vehicle to take part in the present discussion of popular and urgent top- ics in literary theory. Third, all the essays are short, brief introductions or interpretations of certain aspects of Kipling's Indian writings which are not more than 5,000 Chinese characters. All the other works of Kipling, such as his later writings set in England, and his verses are not even touched upon. Fourth, most of the papers are written since 2000, except the one by Wen Meihui which was in 1995. This may show that only in the 21st century does Kipling come to literature researchers' attention and rouse their interest. It is almost the same case in the field of translation of Kipling's works. The Jungle Books are the most popular one among translators. There are many different versions and slightly changed titles: Stories of the Wolf Boy—Mowgli, trans. by Pu Long, China Wenlian Publishing Company, 1991; Animal Stories of Kipling, ed. & trans. by Wen Meihui, Shanghai Arts Press, 1994; Kipling's Short Stories, trans. by Wen Meihui, 2004; Tiger! Tiger!, Lijiang Press, 1988; The White Seal, trans. by Wen Meihui & Ren Jisheng, People's Literature Press, 2005; The Wolf-Cub, trans. by Liu Guobin, Jinghua Press, 2006; The Jungle Adventures, edit. & trans. by Han Yahong, 2005; The Jungle Stories, trans. by Xinjing, China Books Press, 2007. Apart from this, Just So Stories is also a publishers' favorite, which has various versions. Other translations include: Something of Myself, trans. by Ding Caiyun, Jiangsu Educational Press, 2006; From Sea to Sea, trans. by Chen Yuli & Zha Zhenke, Lujiang Press, 2006; Kim, trans. by Huang Ruorong, Zhou Heng, Liaoning Educational Press, 1998; 'Captains Courageous', trans. by Hu Chunlan & Hou Mingyou, People's Literature Press, 1999. It can be seen from the preceding list that The Jungle Books are favoured by most translators and publishing houses. What come next are his masterpiece Kim and some of his early Indian short stories. As his name comes to be known to more and more readers, it can be expected that more of his writing will be translated into Chinese. The repeated translation and publication of The Jungle Books is telling of their popularity among young readers. The exotic, fascinating forest and the clever, magic Mowgli intoxicate young Chinese readers who find such a way of life is impossible to think of in modern society and lavish their rich imaginations on this fantastic reveries. In the present publishing circle, children's literature is a big cake which everyone wants to have a bite. Therefore consciously or uncon- sciously many of Kipling's writings are regarded as children literature to gain more readers and more money. In the preface to the translated 32__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 version of 'Captains Courageous', the editor explains as thus: 'Now in China, the one-child policy makes the child become an untameable despot, a little emperor/empress at home. Many parents spoil their chil- dren and don't know how to properly educate them. This book 'Captains Courageous', written by famous English writer Kipling, tells how a spoiled rich American boy learns to be a useful person and lead a meaningful life after experiencing many hardships on English fishing boat [sic]. Parents and children alike would surely learn a lot from this and hopefully parents would take a proper way of treating their one- child', (p.l 'Captains Courageous', trans. by Hu Chunlan & Hou Mingyou, People's Literature Press, 1999). Researchers of Kipling in China focus on his ideas of East and West, which could be assumed to be influenced by the culture orienta- tion in the field of arts and humanities globally. Kipling as a predecessor who gave his thoughts to the question of East and West in his works naturally arouses scholars' and researchers' interest. So he is dug up and is read and analysed and criticized by Chinese scholars who expect to find some illuminating light to show the intermingling rela- tions between history and literature, to see more clearly the present puzzling and in some sense confusing literary and cultural theories. But it is fair to say that Kipling study in China just takes a first step, and there is a long way to go for Kipling students and admirers and even refuters to have an all-round and relatively comprehensive understand- ing of him. This branch of study is only a baby just learning to walk comparing with Western counterparts. As to his fate in publishing world, the market plays a crucial role. But we can hope that the fur- thering of Kipling study may very well change or even decide his reception to some significant degree in the publishing world. The fate of Kipling in China reflects both the characteristics of Kipling as a writer in a particular historical moment and the realities and complexities of Chinese society, and furthermore the uncontrol- lable changes and developments when a writer 'travels' to a foreign land. There remains a lot to do in the field of Kipling study. Chinese researchers can enter into this field through many different perspec- tives, which may be conducive to a profounder understanding of literary theory and literary phenomena at home and abroad. Eventually it will enrich our understanding of the nature of literature and of human life generally. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________33 THE USES OF RITUAL IN KIPLING'S MASONIC STORIES By JOHN COATES [John Coates ( MA Cambridge, Ph.D Exeter ), is a Lecturer Emeritus of the Department of English, Hull University. He has published books on G.K. Chesterton, Elizabeth Bowen, Romantic prose and a study of Kipling, The Day's Work: Kipling and the Idea of Sacrifice (1997). The numbers in parentheses which you will find in the text of this paper are page numbers in Debits and Credits (see note 6). – Ed.] The stories Kipling set among the Freemasons have not, generally, appealed to critics. It is not difficult to see reasons for such relative lack of esteem. In the eyes of the public, Freemasonry, like any small secre- tive group, may look inward-turned and self-involved. It may be unfair, but it is not unthinkable, to see its satisfactions as those of a schoolboy gang's passwords and secret codes. However much fiction set within such a coterie may interest its members, most readers (it is suggested) will find it exclusive and irritating. For C.S. Lewis, the "hardly forgiv- able Janeites" in which "something so simple and ordinary as an enjoyment of Jane Austen's novels is turned into the pretext for one more secret society" offers an extreme example of Kipling's greatest weakness, a slavery to some Inner Ring and an "unwearied knowing- ness".1 Philip Mason agrees. "The Janeites" "illustrates Kipling's passion for belonging to a group from which others have been excluded." The story moves from the secret society of a Masonic Lodge, through the exclusive fellowship of men who have lived through the war, to a third inner lodge "of which the passwords are taken from the works of Jane Austen".2 For another critic, " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' ", the second of the two stories, this paper will discuss, is "not really a story" but a description of a Masonic Lodge, preoccupied with the "beneficent and healing power of ritual". The effect is repetitive and tedious: "The words ritual and ritualist are repeated eleven times".3 Even another commentator, who recognises that the Masonic stories are concerned with healing as much or more than with the appeal of the Inner Ring, feels that they "betray an uncer- tainty of tone". "Unaccustomed to the visitation of the sick" 4 (that is, out of his emotional depth) in his efforts to find remedies for suffering, Kipling fails to explore the subject thoroughly enough or to settle his own attitude towards it. Perhaps Kipling has been the victim of his own stylistic virtuosity. Especially in his later stories, he conveys essential information in brief loaded phrases which leave readers to infer psychological subtleties 34__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 other writers might have taken pages to extrapolate. Dropped in the course of the narrative, such hints and suggestions mean that our impressions are being continually modified. We are invited into a close, participatory relationship with the text and rewarded for the work of teasing out its meaning by a fuller understanding than would have been conveyed by simply being told what to think. However, such economy in the writing requires an alertness in the reader that it is not always pos- sible to sustain. The nuances may be missed and the story lose some of its deserved effect. Were there world enough and time, many of Kipling's later fictions would repay an almost linear commentary. As a preliminary to exploring " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " (published December, 1918) it is worth noting the poem " 'Banquet Night' " with which Kipling prefaced the story when it appeared in Debits and Credits (1926). Kipling structures " 'Banquet Night' " around a series of contrasts. During the building of the Temple in Jerusalem (the seminal event in the myth of Masonic origins and, there- fore, lending authority to the poem's claims) King Solomon sends messages to two men, both called Hiram. The first is the wealthy and powerful King of Tyre who has sent Solomon the cedars of Lebanon for the Temple (I Kings 5). The second is Solomon's own architect who, in Masonic legend, was supposed to have been killed because he would not reveal Masonic mysteries: "His self-sacrifice in defence of the secret stood at the heart of Masonic morality".5 There is an obvious contrast between the great ruler's ease and serenity (suggested by the soft consonants of "Felling and floating our beautiful trees"6 and the busy, hot labours of the "Excellent Master of forge and mine"). King Hiram's benign diplomacy and mutually profitable commercial deal- ings with Solomon are equally remote from the heroic, sacrificial death of Hiram the architect. These are not the poem's only contrasts. Brethren who are invited to the Banquet wear "Garments from Bozrah or morning-dress". The Lord's red garments in Isaiah 63 are a promise of the day of vengeance and redemption, "morning-dress", of course, is the tail-coat still worn on formal occasions in the 1920's. Those invited to the banquet, then, belong to differing social ranks, but (perhaps more importantly) embody emotional and moral states so remote from each other as to have, apparently, no common ground. " 'Banquet Night' " specifies what can draw such disparate human temperaments and types of experience together. Central to Masonic myth, the wisdom of Solomon involves a knowledge of the hierarchy and qualities of things. Kipling's borrowed Biblical phrase ("Hyssop and Cedar" recalls the Old Testament praise of Solomon for speaking learnedly of trees from the cedar to the hyssop (I Kings 4:33)). However, this understanding of the rank things (and people) occupy and the distinctive uses to which March 2008_____________KIPLING JOURNAL______________________35 they can be put needs to be supplemented by another kind of under- standing. Kipling's mention of "the Bramble, the Fig and the Thorn" recalls Jotham's parable of the trees (Judges 9:7-20). This contrasts to the "olive" and the "vine", images of worthwhile human beings, con- tent to be useful in themselves, with the "bramble", symbolising the base and creeping people who want power over others. " 'Banquet Night' " refuses to make such judgements, even on what may seem use- less and repellent. Things and people are not equal but that is no reason to "black a man's face" because "he is not what he hasn't been born" (55). Such an acceptance of the worth and qualities of individuals, even within a hierarchy of value, is based upon two facts of human experi- ence, fellowship in work and fellowship in suffering. The brothers in ' 'Banquet Night' " are "fellow craftsmen no more no less". They do not commit themselves to sacrificing personal privacy and social posi- tion. Hence, "no more". "No less", because they recognise, and respect in each other, the standing particular skills and knowledge impart. More significantly, they are bound together by the suffering which work necessarily involves: "No one is safe from the dog-whip's reach" (56). In the quarries, the forge or the mountains of Lebanon, wherever there is human action or labour there is pain. This cannot be altered but "once in so often" it may be forgotten in a temporary equality of companionship and sympathy. " 'Banquet Night' " points in the story which follows, to concerns beyond slavery to some Inner Ring or some notion of curing suffering merely by following a ritual. The opening of" 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " describes the first stages of the narrator's acquaintance with Burges of the Faith and Works Lodge. The initial encounter amounts to no more than a few words about the right kind of canary to buy in a pet shop. Their next brief contact is a chance meeting ("months later" (57)) on a railway platform. Burges is going off on a fishing trip with his Angling Club. Such moments offer a glimpse of Burges' and the narrator's earlier lives and of the relatively carefree pre-war world. There is a suggestion that the first "Freemasonry" to which Burges and the narrator belong is that of parenthood. The narrator is (it seems) buying a canary for a child who is more likely than most adults to be disappointed if its colour fades. Burges is warning him as one father to another. Human sympathy precedes the Masonic handshake the men exchange (57) at their third meeting and clearly takes precedence over membership of the Inner Ring. This third meeting underlines the effect the war has had on both men. The shopkeeper Burges' hair was "whiter than it had been, and the eyes were sunk a little" (58). It is the understatement here which is moving. Burges, we are to feel, is not naturally a tragic figure, yet 36__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 tragic suffering has come upon him. More than openly expressed emo- tion, Burges' mild little exclamations ("Well! Well!") at one man (the narrator) "in all these millions" turning up "when there's so many who don't turn up at all" (58) conveys his desolation. He remarks that since losing his son in the war, he has given up the interest he shared with the narrator ("I've sold all my birds") and his comment that "there's not much left for middle-aged people just at present" includes himself and the man he is addressing in a common situation. Both, we may infer, have lost children. What strikes us here is how gentle and unobtrusive are Burges' approaches to a possible fellow sufferer. Critics' complaint that " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " is not really a story can only be sus- tained by ignoring subtle changes in the narrator's consciousness as he reacts to Burges. The narrator is not an impersonal or anonymous fig- ure giving a purely factual account. He is part of the action of the story and is being affected by what he records. While we should not, of course, assume a straightforward identification of the narrator with Kipling, he does possess some of Kipling's characteristics, such as an interest in Masonry and an insensitivity to music7 (72). Perhaps it would not be going too far, then, to assume that Burges would be aware of the narrator's (possible) bereavement as a matter of public knowledge. In characteristically pregnant phrases, Kipling hints at the relation- ship that is to develop between the narrator and Burges. The latter's "Well! Well! And now we must locate your trouble" (58) implies something more than an "erring" pipe. Burges deals with the pipe as "skilfully as a surgeon", at the same time replying to a soldier who enters and speaks in an undertone. An emotional undercurrent here connects a caring for broken objects and people (including, perhaps, the narrator) with a peculiar kind of reticent sensitivity and "a proce- dure, a ritual in all things". The sensitivity which precedes and sustains the concern with ritual from the start of " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " gives ritual in the story connotations it need not, and often does not, possess. After Burges invites him to call again, the narrator's reaction is interesting. He leaves the shop "with the rarest of all feelings on me— the sensation which is only youth's right—that I might have made a friend" (58-59). Such a remark locates the speaker in something more than a generalised sadness of later life. His condition seems to be one of numbness, of losing touch with others, consistent with the bereave- ment hinted at. As he leaves the shop, he is "accosted by a wounded man" (59) and we are tempted to associate one kind of wound with another. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________37 The process of the narrator's induction into the Lodge is slow and cautious. "It was not until my third visit" (59), he says, that he discov- ers how wealthy Burges is. Only when, later, he views the "amazing collection of pipes" in the parlour does he have the "privilege" of mak- ing Mrs Burges' acquaintance (60). The narrator has to ask the name of the Lodge which Burges does not volunteer (61). One has the sense of a situation in which the pace cannot be forced and of someone being handled in a gentle circumspect manner. It is in such a context that we are best to understand the curious, antiquated "fittings and appoint- ments" (59) of the tobacconist's trade which Burges takes time to show his visitor. The snuff-jars with their "names of forgotten mixtures in gold leaf (59), the "German-silver-mounted scales", "reeded cigar- cabinets" and other curios in the shop connect one who sees them to past customs and pleasures. Interesting in themselves, the objects recall vanished worlds, remote from the wartime suffering and horror of the present and from the narrator's condition which, we suspect, is bleak and wounded. Given this surmise, it is easier to understand why Burges shows his acquaintance what are, in effect, rare art objects such as the "large Bristol jar" which "hasn't any duplicate to my knowledge" (59) or the "absolutely unique" (60) Dollin's ware. These offer an image of what human life has been and might be again. Indirect and unobtrusive, these little visits to Burges' curio collection might be one way (and not the least effective) of soothing a ravaged mind. Burges has judged his new friend accurately. For the narrator, the antiquated rarities he sees are "things to covet" (59). They excite his interest and, perhaps, for a while, coax him out of his numbness. At this point in the story, Kipling juxtaposes the narrator's view of interesting relics of the tobacco trade, which he would like to describe in greater detail ("I would this were a tale for virtuosi" (60)) with interrup- tions by inarticulate soldiers who "disturb our happy little committee" with their requests for admission to the Lodge. At first sight, there may not seem much connection between Burges showing the narrator the quaint "fittings and appointments" of his shop and the almost desperate men who call there. What links the two is Burges' determination to help the unhappy: "Well! Well! We must do what we can these days" (61). His wife supplies a brief but reliable testimony to his motives. As he punctiliously changes his silver spectacles for "gold pince-nez" (61) before presiding at the Masonic ceremony, she says "You dear thing!" as she hands him his "locked and initialled apron-case" (62). Readers of " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " are bound to be struck by apparent contradictions in Burges' attitude to ritual. He repeatedly declares that exact performance of ritual is essential ("I abhor slovenly Ritual anywhere" (61)). Ritual is a "natural necessity" 38__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 to which mankind fly "the more things are upset". At the same time, he accepts that many of the soldiers from the trenches who call on him will be "very rusty" (61) in their knowledge of Masonic procedures and points out to the narrator, whom he asks to examine them, that "it's the Spirit, not the Letter, that giveth life" (61-62). Why is the narrator chosen for this role, and what has fitted him for it? Burges' sense of his new friend's suffering offers a probable answer to this question. We are reminded of the narrator's vulnerability as he makes his way to the Lodge through a "humiliating" (62) darkness in which Burges "piloted" him. The murmured apologies ("You mustn't expect" (62)), which precede his entry into a richly furnished room, have more to do with Burges' solicitude for him than with what he is to discover there. What the narrator is to find when "assisting at the examinations" (61) is one reason for asking him to undertake this duty. Burges has chosen to bring him into contact with these suffering men since one way of opening the well-springs of a heart numbed by grief is to perceive the depth of pain in other lives. Before the narrator encounters the soldier-applicants, Burges cautions him: "Don't be sur- prised. They come in all shapes" (64). The warning is apt. A Scot with "only six teeth and half a lower lip" is followed by a New Zealander "one-armed and that in a sling" (64). Finally, the narrator encounters deprivation so extreme that erases the victim's memory and almost mind itself: "My last man nearly broke me down altogether. Everything seemed to have gone from him" (64). What is broken down here may be the barrier his own grief has interposed between the narrator and life. He is forced, in engaging with suffering perhaps worse than his own, to realise the universality of grief in war and to draw upon emo- tional resources which had almost atrophied. Possibly something like this was what Burges had intended. The contrast between Burges' "ritualism" and the sensitivity which prompts him to set aside regulations may be resolved by seeing his reli- gious attitude as a whole. The satisfactions of ritual are not, in themselves, hard to understand. One may agree with an earlier com- mentator on religion that "ritual tends by means of appropriate sounds and gestures to provoke the repetition of a given religious attitude"8 or with a more recent writer that "many of the people who attend religious services in our own society are not interested in theology, want noth- ing too exotic and dislike the idea of change"9. Instead, they love the rituals which give them a sense of identity and an assurance that things will continue as they have done. Liturgies handed down through the generations are comforting in their impersonality. Instead of impromptu or muddled expressions of private emotion, elevated lan- guage and time-honoured gestures gather up and express all one feels. March 2008_____________KIPLING JOURNAL______________________39 It is soothing to repeat what has been said by so many in such varied situations. The crucial point is that such a natural, plausible and expected view of ritual is not the one taken in Kipling's story. " 'In the Interests of the Brethren'" offers a picture of the Lodge and its ceremonies of which the keynote is improvisation rather than tradition. The Lodge furnish- ings have been chosen and paid for by individual members. The "senior partner of Lemming and Orton" (62) has provided the Masonic prints. Brother Anstruther ("our contractor" (63)) supplied the Carrara marble, cut-price, for the Lodge Room and Burges himself "picked up" a pair of Wardens' Chairs in Stepney. The gavel of "ancient yellow ivory" which "belonged to a Military Lodge" existing in the Gold Coast, and dating from 1794, is another of his finds. The booths for the examina- tion of Brothers prior to admission are redundant confessional boxes "picked up for a song near Oswestry" (64). The former garage has been turned into a Lodge where "every detail was perfect in particular kind and general design" (63) not by careful adherence to a particular pat- tern but by individual choices based on initiative and knowledge. The Masonic ceremonies of the Lodge involve a similar degree of enterprise from those who participate in them. The Brothers create afresh, or find for themselves, the rituals they practise. Where there is "some diversity of Ritual" (68), Burges asks for information about the disputed detail, prompting contributions until "another and another joined in from different quarters of the Lodge (and the world)" (68). Although a Lodge of Instruction is "mainly a parade-ground for ritual" (66) Burges' approach is the reverse of authoritarian. Instead of visitors being obliged to conform to some set order of rites, he "asked them to vote what ceremony should be rendered for their instruction" (66). Although the usual organist is playing "first-class Bach" (65) he is replaced, at the prompting of one of the "regular Brethren" (66) by one of the visitors, a Captain of Territorials who "had 'had a brawl' with a bomb, which had bent him in two directions" (65) but who was an enthusiastic "piano thumper of sorts" (66). Burges asks the Visiting Brothers if they will undertake the duties of Lodge Officers. They protest "bashfully that they were too rusty" (66) but he replies this is all the more reason that they should perform. When the ceremony is rehearsed the visitors "had to work entirely by themselves" (67) before, at their own demand, being shown a correct version. One might argue that Kipling's treatment of ritual in " 'In the Interests of the Brethren'" has its roots in Masonic perceptions. It seems cognate with the view that "the Masonic secret has no independent exis- tence; it is reconstituted anew in each Masonic meeting", that the "temple is rebuilt each time by those taking part" and that "brotherhood 40__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 is spirituality".10 Yet, the story presents attitudes which are shown as being against the grain of current Masonic practice. Something, it is suggested, is wrong not merely with Freemasonry but with current reli- gious attitudes and behaviour in general. The Doctor, one of the Regular Brethren, mutters "Can't we give Religion a rest for a bit? ... It hasn't done so—" (77). He is about to add "so well lately" or something of the kind, when he breaks off and apologises. Burges is franker, remarking that "Grand Lodge may have thrown away its chance in the war almost as much as the Church has" (79). The disputes within Masonry about its nature and purposes, upon which " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " touches are not about eso- teric matters devoid of interest to those outside an exclusive group. Rather, Kipling's story raises questions akin to those which have trou- bled most religions at most times but which appeared in an acute form in the Churches' response to the First World War. There has been a constantly recurring dispute, in most religious contexts, between those who emphasise ritual, mythic enactments, legends and the aesthetic appeal of art and groups who wish to restore what they see as the spiritual or intellectual core of a faith. What, for one party, awakens imagination, comforts and consoles believers or confirms their faith, in the eyes of its opponents is a distracting accre- tion, damaging the integrity of the creed. In Kipling's story, the "big-boned Clergyman" (73) voices the latter view, condemning a Masonic process in the phrase sixteenth century Protestants used to describe the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, "a fond thing vainly invented" (73). Instead, the Clergyman "laid down that Masonry should be regarded as an 'intellectual abstraction' " (73). Disputes like this one, about the nature of religious faith and prac- tice, are naturally more acute during or after events like those of 1914-1918. (The religious effects of the First World War such as the steep decline in Church attendance, or the vogue for Spiritualism, which Kipling condemned in "En-Dor", are matters of common knowl- edge). In such a climate, it is natural to ask how religion may best function and reach out to those in states of acute suffering. One answer might be to restate doctrine in a clear dogmatic and intellectually rig- orous manner. Alternatively religion might try to bring its moral teachings up to date, renovating them after shattering events and remoulding its doctrines in response to the needs of a changed society. ' 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " rejects both possibilities in favour of a third, the remaking of ritual and brotherhood. The "big-boned Clergyman's" view that "the idea should be enough without the trap- pings" (74) is repudiated by an "Officer of Engineers" who tells him how he and his fellows, in the hideous conditions of a dug-out, "took a March 2008____________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________41_ lot of trouble to make our regalia out of camouflage stuff (74). They found consolation in that, rather than in abstract ideas. More signifi- cantly, the Clergyman's belief that Masonry is an intellectual abstraction runs counter to his own instinctive solicitude and care for an exhausted soldier "fresh from the leave-train" (75). His kindness to this man releases qualities in his own nature which contradict (or per- haps underlie) traits we see elsewhere, as when he is "bristling" (77) or "down your throat" (79) at fancied slights to the Church. The brother- hood of the Lodge provides the Clergyman with a source of meaning his intellectual and doctrinal schemes do not offer. At the same time, " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " denies the view that the war has produced the need for new moral teachings. Old, simple and generally accepted ethical values are all that are needed. They certainly have not been rendered irrelevant in a changed climate. "What more in Hell do you want", (67) one Brother asks, than the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man? The "old copybook- headings", the generally accepted rules of ethical life "persist". Masonry's moral approach is not original but it does not need to be: "Platitudes or no platitudes, it squares with what everybody knows ought to be done" (69). ' 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " offers a distinctive and defen- sible view of religious experience. It may be set in a Masonic Lodge but the story's perceptions are meant to apply to religion and society as a whole. This is the clear meaning of Burges' exhortation to "think what could have been done by Masonry through Masonry for all the world" (79). An interpretation of religion as something bound up with and developing from help, healing and mutual support rather than from abstract doctrines and new moral explorations is plausible enough in itself. Kipling's presentation of it lends it added conviction. From different backgrounds, and in some cases (such as the "big-boned Clergyman" and the "dark, sour-looking Yeoman" "laying down the law" (69)) not at first sight particularly likeable, the soldiers of " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' ' are drawn into a Brotherhood cemented by rituals they themselves create, or, at least, rediscover. Through this relationship, they are able to find help, comfort and reli- gious meaning after unprecedented horror. In the cases on which the story touches, including probably that of the narrator, the sensitivity this help involves is on a very different level from the exclusiveness and self-congratulation of some Inner Ring. (Interestingly at one point in the story, Kipling suggests a view of Masonry radically different from the cabal some have perceived. The "carefully decorated ante-room hung round with Masonic prints" (62) which the narrator sees before the Lodge Meeting offers some 42__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 suggestive evidence. The "big Desaguliers there that nearly went to Iowa" (63) is a picture of John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683-1744), the "driving force behind the editing and publishing of the Constitutions"11 of 1723. These moved English Freemasonry from a sectarian Jacobite allegiance to a role as an instrument of social union and "the means of conciliating true friendships among Persons that must have remained at perpetual Distance"12. Another of the pictures in the ante-room, Hogarth's "disreputable 'Night' " (62) recalls the painter's own role13 in the struggles which brought about this change of ideology. "Night" shows a Jacobite Mason, making his way home, drunk and noisy, from a party to celebrate Charles II's restoration and having the contents of a chamber-pot emptied on his head). "The Janeites", which appeared in the Story-Teller Magazine and Hearst's International Magazine (May, 1924) before being republished in Debits and Credits explores further the theme of the creation of rit- ual as the vehicle of life-changing interaction and mutual support, which " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " had initiated. Understanding of the stories is enhanced by reading them together. Critics have mis- understood "The Janeites" because they have emphasised the notion of a secret society of First World War Soldiers who admire Jane Austen at the expense of what Kipling tells us, in delicate and unobtrusive detail, about the individual characters of these soldiers and the effect they have on each other. When Humberstall, the only surviving Janeite, recalls his dead comrades it is not as an exclusive society with its secret codes, but as a " 'appy little Group" he "wouldn't 'a changed with any other" (165), people with whom he was happier "than ever before or since" (166). Rather than the excitements of the Inner Ring, "The Janeites" explores the nature, cementing and effect of these bonds. It examines, too, the relation of literature to living, of fiction to daily experience. The poem prefixed to the story in Debits and Credits, "The Survival" raises questions about this latter subject which "The Janeites" attempts to answer. What is it about art, even when it con- cerns itself with the seemingly mundane or trivial, which has the power to outlast great events on the stage of history, surviving in later mem- ory when victories and defeats, the fall of dynasties and the world-wide calamities of war fade into obscurity? Kipling puts the question into the mouth of the Roman poet Horace, in a pastiche of the non-existent "Ode 22, BK.V". This instance of the Horace persona, which Kipling uses elsewhere is an interesting one. Here, the Horatian imitation (or evocation) proposes an analogy between Horace's attitude at the end of the Roman civil wars and Kipling's after 1918. (It is, of course, an analogy which claims a serenity which the tragic Kipling of the 1920's March 2008_____________KIPLING JOURNAL______________________43_ did not possess). "Securely, after days unnumbered" (145) implies cer- tainty gained by contemplating a great range of history but also the knowledge arrived at after sufferings so severe they seem like eternity. The wars that have ended have been "earth-constricting" in the sense of making the world smaller but also in almost choking away its life. Experience like this produces a new view of art. What was written to endorse great rulers and ambitious ideologies has perished along with those it flattered: Kings mourn that promised praise Their cheating bards foretold. (145) History has reversed the order of priorities. World-shaking events, even "deeds out-shining stars", acts of heroism and nobility, yield place in our thoughts and memories to what may seem marginal. The musicality and soft consonants of the verse beginning "yet furthest times receive" suggests the refreshing beauty of what touches us with a pleasure renewed from age to age, though its subjects seem only the debris of life. Examples from Horace's own verse such as "a chosen myrtle-wreath" (Odes, I, 38), a "harlot's altered eyes" (Odes, I, 25?) or "the surge of storm-bound trees" (Odes, I, 9) sustain the claim that, out of such trifles Horace has created what would outlast bronze (Odes, III, 30). Kipling's poem ends by asking by what strange divine law an art like Horace's, and perhaps Jane Austen's, should outlast empires and gods. To this question "The Janeites" offers at least a partial answer. The story is set in the "autumn of '20" (147), about two years later than " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " and there are signals from the outset, of a connection between the two fictions. Knowledge and reader expectation can (and should) be transferred from the earlier to the later story. The Lodge of Instruction has "already been described" (147) so that we know that its "weekly clean-up", together with "light refresh- ment" and the meeting of companions, is therapeutic, a mending of spirits broken by wartime experience. We learn from "The Janeites", too, how the projects launched in the earlier story worked out. The narrator of" 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " has been placed in the network of solicitude Burges set up. The "beautiful bits of old Georgian silver-work" the narrator is given to clean have been "human- ised by generations of elbow-grease" (147). The word "humanised", oddly chosen if what is meant is merely "shiny" or "polished", is apt here since it suggests a relation between the task and the humane care and love aroused in performing it. To tend a loved object creates, or at least enhances, a capacity for love. 44____________________KIPLING JOURNAL____________March 2008 It is significant that the reader first encounters Humberstall, sur- vivor and chronicler of the Janeites, in a context of care and support. He is being looked after, following his breakdown, by Anthony who, we learn at the end of the story (174) is to marry his sister. It is Anthony who draws the story of the Janeites from Humberstall ("Take it easy, an' go on with what you was tellin' me" (149)) as part of an attempt to encourage his withdrawn friend back into contact with others. When Humberstall later loses the thread of his story, Anthony covers his con- fusion by launching into a "sprightly tale" (150) of a skid and collision he had in his taxi. This narrative frame offers a clue to the emotional context of "The Janeites" which the story itself confirms. Care, solici- tude and mutual help are essential to its meaning. The portrait of Humberstall is one of Kipling's masterpieces of economy and suggestion, leaving the reader to assemble a whole psy- chological and social profile from a few brief, but significant, pieces of information. The "enormous, flat-faced man" (148) whose great, mus- cular body shows him as one of the "old Mark '14 Royal Garrison Artillery" (149) has the "eyes of a bewildered retriever". Exceptional physical strength has not protected him from perplexity and mental pain. Indeed, he seems more embarrassed by than proud of his strength. He carefully avoids any physical response to the sarcasms of Macklin, his tutor in the Janeite secrets, because he might kill the man, without meaning to ("If I'd pushed 'im, I'd ha' slew 'im" (157)). Humberstall's comment that "mother's often told me I didn't know my strength" (151) suggests (what other information confirms) the way in which this giant has been emotionally impaired. Invalided out of the army, after being caught in an explosion, he rejoins, in spite of being discharged by "the Board" (149). The reason is significant: "I 'adn't the nerve to stay at 'ome—not with mother chuckin' 'erself round all three rooms like a rabbit every time the Gothas tried to get Victoria; an' sister writin' me aunts four pages about it next day" (149). With a mother and sister who would do any- thing to please him (174), Humberstall is in a situation he finds emotionally claustrophobic. The fact that he has, in Anthony's words, "no more touched liquor than 'e 'as women since 'e was born" (173) might, in another context, merely represent Humberstall's individual choice. Here, it confirms the picture of a man who has been denied per- sonal space, the opportunity to follow the path of his own experience or to make his own mistakes. Humberstall cannot even stay for tea with his Lodge Brothers "because he had promised his mother to come home for it and she would most probably be waiting for him now at the Lodge door" (173). While this might reflect her anxiety over the "quiet fits" (173) to which her son is prone, we have not been shown a man March 2008_____________KIPLING JOURNAL______________________45 so incapacitated that he cannot make his own way home. In any case, why cannot she come for him after the Lodge tea? Taken together, these various hints suggest a "good boy" whose over-loving mother and sister have stifled his personality. Although it is natural to emphasise that the Janeites are formed as a response to a particular and hideous wartime situation, it is worth not- ing that each of those involved brings his own psychological past to the ritual they make together. It is made by the interaction of their differ- ent needs. Macklin, who teaches Humberstall the Janeite rituals, is as damaged as his student. In a society more aware of social distinctions than our own, he has lost caste and the accent he tries (not always suc- cessfully) to conceal irritates his fellow private soldiers. At that time, Macklin would, of course, have been natural "officer material". Humberstall remarks that initially that he hadn't anything against Macklin "excep' he'd been a toff by birth" (149). The Battery Sergeant Major who tries to get Macklin and Humberstall into trouble "couldn't ever stand Macklin's toff's way o' puttin' things" (161). We are not told whether Macklin's drinking is the cause or the consequence of his loss of social position. Instead, the story offers information about the effects on him of different stages of alcohol consumption and the lengths to which he will go to sustain his habit. Early on, he is simply unpleasant ("Mere bein' drunk on'y made a common 'ound of 'im" (149)) but when hopelessly intoxicated ("bosko absoluto") he is no longer able to camouflage his social origins and "it all came out" (149). His first relation to Humberstall is that of a sponger, seeing an oppor- tunity, in the latter's wish to learn the secret of Jane Austen, to get money for drink. The lessons cost Humberstall a pound ("one Bradbury" (155)) in instalments of five shillings for the lower and a further pound, as a lump sum, for the higher Janeite Degrees. Given the value of money at the time, Macklin's fees are not particularly cheap. Humberstall's reason for paying to learn about Jane Austen goes to the heart of "The Janeites". Reading some critical accounts of Kipling's story, one has the feeling of the elephant in the drawing room, the fact that everyone can, surely, see but nobody wishes to acknowledge. Humberstall's interest in Jane Austen is aroused when he notices the changed attitude Major Hammick and Captain Mosse dis- play to a Lieutenant who has joined the Battery. When they realise he is a fellow Austen enthusiast, they switch immediately from distant coldness ("Neither 'Ammick nor Mosse wasted words on 'im at Mess" (152)) to warm handshakes and passing the port. The impression this makes on Humberstall is confirmed by a second incident. When Macklin, hopelessly drunk, hears the officers disputing whether Jane Austen was "fruitful" (153), he interrupts with the claim that he is 46______________________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________March 2008 "moderately well-informed" on the matter and that her "lawful issue" was Henry James. Challenged on this, he proves his point in a brilliant quarter-of-an hour lecture, before passing out. The officers' only response to his behaviour is to order him to be put to bed, since he is clearly "sufferin' from shell-shock" (154). Some readings of "The Janeites" concentrate on the figure of Jane Austen while ignoring the way in which cultural references generally operate in social exchange. Without denying the frequent possibility of a disinterested love for the arts, there is no doubt that culture does oper- ate as a code, a system of shared allusions, aiding mutual recognition and conferring identity and status. While we may (if we choose) regret this it would be perverse to deny what everyone's experience must confirm. What Humberstall sees, with idiosyncratic features and in the extreme conditions of war, is only what anyone may detect, in a diluted form, throughout daily life. The ability to recognise references, cap quotations and understand jokes based upon shared reading- experiences rescues individuals from anonymity and, however informally, makes them part of a community or "tribe". From the two incidents mentioned, Humberstall recognises that to be a 'Janeite' is to acquire a "Password" (155) whose effect is enhanced status and better treatment. Even though he may shortly die in battle, these would be worth having. However, although his and Macklin's initial impulses, as student and teacher, may be self- interested, Kipling shows that the making of the ritual has its own dynamic and unexpected effect. The drunk and declasse Macklin was, in his own words, "some sort o' schoolmaster once" (161) and finds the challenge of giving one-to-one tuition in the works of Jane Austen to a completely unliterary and not very well educated fellow soldier a stimulating challenge: "He'd make my mind resume work or break 'imself (161). His role as a teacher draws him back into relationships with others and away from his solitary, compulsive binges. Like that of the Faith and Works Lodge, the bond, based on enthusiasm for Jane Austen, which links the men of the Battery is formed from the needs of different temperaments. For Hammick and Mosse, Jane Austen's novels, like the "high standard o' livin' in Mess" (155) and the port they drink is an affirmation of gentlemanly standards in the face of squalor and death. For "Gander", the new Lieutenant, liking Jane Austen marks him out as different from his pre- vious fellow officers who talked of nothing but the latest musical comedy (153). Macklin's knowledge of Austen, which he can still deploy, is what remains of the life he lost or ruined. Jane Austen, in Humberstall's eyes, represents vague but potent impulses towards "belonging", being inside the world of the educated and better treated. March 2008_____________KIPLING JOURNAL______________________47 Growing from these disparate materials, the ritual, briefly, creates its own life. The change in Humberstall's consciousness is one of the story's central themes. His "naive" reading of Jane Austen's novels, under Macklin's direction, is strikingly and refreshingly different from that of academic literary critics writing around the time of "The Janeites". Critics contemporary with the story might well themselves have been called Janeites and would not have disowned the title. Claudia Johnson reminds us14 of the extravagant language common in the "insiders' society of scholar gentlemen at play". Jane Austen was "dear", "divine" and "matchless" for her "little company (fit though few)" of admirers. Kipling's story stands at an odd angle to this cult. In civilian life, Hammick and Mosse were hard-bitten, professional men rather than sentimental litterateurs or gushing academics. Major Hammick has gained experience of the world as "a high-up divorce court lawyer" and Captain Mosse acquired his understanding of life as a leading investigator for Mosse's Private Detective Agency, specialising in gathering details of marital infidelity, ("the errin' parties—in hotels an' so on" (152)). They read Jane Austen with worldly, if not cynical eyes ("She was the only woman I ever 'eard 'em say a good word for" (152)) and as an adjunct to their conversations about seamier aspects of domestic life ("matrimonial relations" (152)). When Humberstall is introduced to the Austen novels, he cannot place them in any category of the little reading he has done. They are not "adventurous, nor smutty, nor what you'd call even interestin' " (157). Their close observation of social life puzzles him: " 'er charac- ters was no use. They was only just like people you run across any day" (159). Reading, if one undertook it at all, was for him something whose purpose was to escape from, rather than investigate human behaviour. Humberstall finds his way into the novels by noticing resemblances between people he has encountered and Jane Austen's more repellent characters, such as Mr Collins, Lady Catherine de Bourgh and General Tilney. For him, the novels do not offer gentle comedy or period charm but a recognisable world of folly, snobbery and cruelty. Austen's inex- orable gaze disturbs Humberstall, touching a dormant nerve of moral awareness. As a man, he finds the presentation of General Tilney's male egotism and self-delusion unsettling: "Some'ow Jane put it down all so naked it made you ashamed" (160). He soon gathers what a later generation of Austen commentators perceived, and made much of, the role of money in the novels and their hard economic realism: "They're all on the make, in a quiet way, in Jane" (159). Unlike the sentimental- ity of contemporary critics, the Austen of Kipling's Janeites is tough and keen-eyed. The answer the story proposes to the problem raised in 48__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 the preliminary poem, "The Survival" is found here. Jane Austen's art survives the record of "great" events because of a rare truthfulness which can engage the most unlikely reader. "The Janeites" offers an interesting further development of the sub- ject " 'In the Interests of the Brethren' " had broached; the effect of a ritual made together and the personal interactions such a creation pro- duces. Most obviously, the Janeites forge a comradely bond which helps them to bear hardship and suffering even unto death. (One of the story's most vivid passages describes the nightmare that ends the Janeites in the overwhelming of the Battery during the German advance of March, 1918). The sharing of this enthusiasm for her nov- els is one answer to the question of Jane Austen's "fruitfulness". Leaving Henry James aside, she clearly did not "die barren" if her work could help men bear a situation of terminal tragedy. However, it is the change in Humberstall's consciousness which forms the main thread of Kipling's story and the chief evidence of Jane Austen's "progeny". He, himself, is aware of the effect of becoming a Janeite. His tuition by that "pore little Macklin man" (172) brought him into a fellowship of the best and closest kind ("There never was a 'ap- pier push" (172)). At the same time, he gains the advantage (which for Kipling, if not for some critics, it would be humbug to deny) of entry into the club of the cultivated, the freemasonry of those who can enjoy literary jokes. His escape from a charge of writing an obscene word on the gear-casings by the (truthful) plea that it was the misspelled name of Lady Catherine de Bourgh (162-163) represents a move up the social scale, from foul-mouthed soldier to amused, educated man. More significantly, it was his likening of a fussy nurse to Miss Bates that drew the Matron's attention to him, during the chaotic evacuation of wounded from the front. His knowledge of Jane Austen, as he knows, was responsible for "gettin' [him] on to the 'ospital train" (172) and, probably, saving his life. The last glimpse of Jane Austen's "fruitfulness" is more subtle, but equally real. We are shown a final picture of Humberstall enjoying the novels for their own sake, during intervals in his work: "I read all her six books now for pleasure 'tween times in the shop" (173). They recall his close bond with the comrades he has lost ("It brings it all back— down to the smell of the glue-paint on the screens" (173)) but the books also provide personal space for him, in a home his mother dominates, and an (at least temporary) escape from the hair-dressing shop behind Ebury Street (148) in which her money has set him up (159). His final comment refers both to his past perils and his current constricted life: "You take it from me, Brethren, there's no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place" (173). March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________49 NOTES 1. C.S.Lewis, "Kipling's World" (1958 repr. Kipling and the Critics, ed. Elliot L.Gilbert, London: Peter Owen, 1965), pp.116-117. 2. Philip Mason, Kipling: The Glass, the Shadow and the Fire, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975), p.280. 3. C.A.Bodelsen, Aspects of Kipling's Art, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964), p.110. 4. J.I.M.Stewart, Rudyard Kipling, (London: Victor Gollancz, 1966), p.170. 5. J.M.Roberts, The Mythology of the Secret Societies, (1972 repr. St Albans: Paladin, 1974), p.113. 6. Rudyard Kipling, Debits and Credits, (London: Macmillan, 1926), p.55. Subsequent references to Debits and Credits in parenthesis are to this edition. 7. Andrew Lycett, Rudyard Kipling, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999), p.330 and David Gilmour, The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling, (London: John Murray, 2002), pp.5—6. 8. Evelyn Underhill, Worship (1936 repr. New York: Harper, 1957), pp.32-33. 9. Karen Armstrong, A History of God (1993 repr. London: Vintage, 1999), p.109. 10. Andre Nataf, Les maitres de l'occultism, (1988 trans. John Davidson, The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Occult, Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1996), pp.33-34. 11. Roberts, p.40. 12. Roberts, p.38. 13. Jenny Uglow, Hogarth, (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), pp. 108-111. 14. Claudia L.Johnson, 'Austen Cults and Cultures', The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, (ed Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p.214. EDITORIAL continued from p.6. A SUPPLEMENTARY ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL A few weeks after receiving this March issue of the Journal, you can expect to receive a Supplementary issue. This will contain a list of all the papers presented at the University of Canterbury last September together with the edited text of eight of them. Naturally we would have preferred to publish all of the papers, but the cost of such an enterprise was deemed to be too high (equivalent to at least five normal Journals), particularly as the papers are being incorporated into our website. 50__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 OF THOSE CALLED By RUDYARD KIPLING [Civil and Military Gazette, 13 July 1889] We were wallowing through the China Seas in a dense fog, the horn blowing every two minutes for the benefit of the fishery craft that crowded the waterways. From the bridge the fo'c'sle was invisible; from the hand-wheel at the stern the captain's cabin. The fog held pos- session of everything—the pearly white fog. Once or twice when it tried to lift, we saw a glimpse of the oily sea, the flitting vision of a junk's sail spread in the vain hope of catching the breeze, or the buoys of a line of nets. Somewhere close to us lay the land, but it might have been the Kurile Islands for aught we knew. Very early in the morning there passed us, not a cable's-length away, but as unseen as the spirits of the dead, a steamer of the same line as ours. She howled melodiously in answer to our bellowing, and passed on. 'Suppose she had hit us,' said a man from Saigon. 'Then we should have gone down,' answered the chief officer sweetly.' 'Beastly thing to go down in a fog,' said a young gentleman who was travelling for plea- sure. 'Chokes a man both ways, y' know.' We were comfortably gathered in the smoking-room, the weather being too cold to venture on the deck. Conversation naturally turned upon accidents of fog, the horn tooting significantly in the pauses between the tales. I heard of the wreck of the Eric, the cutting down of the Strathnairn within half a mile of harbour, and the carrying away of the bow plates of the Sigismund outside Sandy Hook. 'It is astonishing,' said the man from Saigon, 'how many true sto- ries are put down as sea yarns. It makes a man almost shrink from telling an anecdote.' 'Oh, please don't shrink on our account,' said the smoking-room with one voice. 'It's not my own story,' said the man from Saigon. 'A fellow on a Massageries boat told it me. He had been third officer of a sort on a Geordie tramp—one of those lumbering, dish-bottomed coal-barges where the machinery is tied up with a string and the plates are rivetted with putty. The way he told his tale was this. The tramp had been creeping along some sea or other with a chart ten years old and the haziest sort of chronometers when she got into a fog—just such a fog as we have now.' Here the smoking-room turned round as one man, and looked through the windows. 'In the man's own words, "just when the fog was thickest, the engines broke down. They had been doing this for some weeks, and we March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________51 were too weary to care. I went forward of the bridge, and leaned over the side, wondering where I should ever get something that I could call a ship, and whether the old hulk would fall to pieces as she lay. The fog was as thick as any London one, but as white as steam. While they were tinkering at the engines below, I heard a voice in the fog about twenty yards from the ship's side, calling out, 'Can you climb on board if we throw you a rope?' That startled me, because I fancied we were going to be run down the next minute by a ship engaged in rescuing a man overboard. I shouted for the engine-room whistle; and it whistled about five minutes, but never the sound of a ship could we hear. The ship's boy came forward with some biscuit for me. As he put it into my hand, I heard the voice in the fog, crying out about throwing us a rope. This time it was the boy that yelled, 'Ship on us!' and off went the whistle again, while the men in the engine-room—it generally took the ship's crew to repair the Hespa 's engines—tumbled upon deck to know what we were doing. I told them about the hail, and we listened in the smother of the fog for the sound of a screw. We listened for ten min- utes, then we blew the whistle for another ten. Then the crew began to call the ship's boy a fool, meaning that the third mate was no better. When they were going down below, I heard the hail the third time, so did the ship's boy. 'There you are,' I said, 'it is not twenty yards from us.' The engineer sings out, T heard it too! Are you all asleep?' Then the crew began to swear at the engineer; and what with discussion, argument, and a little swearing,—for there is not much discipline on board a tramp,—we raised such a row that our skipper came aft to enquire. I, the engineer, and the ship's boy stuck to our tale. 'Voices or no voices,' said the captain, 'you'd better patch the old engines up, and see if you've got enough steam to whistle with. I've a notion that we've got into rather too crowded ways.' ' "The engineer stayed on deck while the men went down below. The skipper hadn't got back to the chart-room before I saw thirty feet of bowsprit hanging over the break of the fo'c'sle. Thirty feet of bow- sprit, sir, doesn't belong to anything that sails the seas except a sailing-ship or a man-of-war. I speculated quite a long time, with my hands on the bulwarks, as to whether our friend was soft wood or steel plated. It would not have made much difference to us, anyway; but I felt there was more honour in being rammed, you know. Then I knew all about it. It was a ram. We opened out. I am not exaggerating—we opened out, sir, like a cardboard box. The other ship cut us two-thirds through, a little behind the break of the fo'c'sle. Our decks split up lengthways. The mizzen-mast bounded out of its place, and we heeled over. Then the other ship blew a fog-horn. I remember thinking, as I took water from the port bulwark, that this was rather ostentatious after 52____________________KIPLING JOURNAL____________March 2008 she had done all the mischief. After that, I was a mile and a half under sea, trying to go to sleep as hard as I could. Some one caught hold of my hair, and waked me up. I was hanging to what was left of one of our boats under the lee of a large English ironclad. There were two men with me; the three of us began to yell. A man on the ship sings out, 'Can you climb on board if we throw you a rope?' They weren't going to let down a fine new man-of-war's boat to pick up three half-drowned rats. We accepted the invitation. We climbed—I, the engineer, and the ship's boy. About half an hour later the fog cleared entirely; except for the half of the boat away in the offing, there was neither stick nor string on the sea to show that the Hespa had been cut down." 'And what do you think of that now?' said the man from Saigon. NOTES By THE EDITOR This story first appeared in the Civil and Military Gazette of 13 July 1889. It was collected in Turn-overs Vol.VII, 1889 with the title "Abaft the Funnel—No.VI." It then appeared in the New York 1895 edition of Soldiers Three but not in the English edition. In fact it was not collected in England until it appeared in the Sussex Edition. The text used here has been taken from the Doubleday, Page & Company reprint of Soldiers Three of 1916, and I am very grateful to John Morgan for giving it to me. It is one of the stories that was published by the CMG after Kipling had left India on 9 March 1889 to seek his fortune in London. It would almost certainly have been written whilst he was also writing his "Letters" for the Pioneer that were later collected in From Sea to Sea. In order of appearance it falls after "A Menagerie Aboard" and "The Wreck of the Visigoth" but before "It!", all of which have a shipboard theme and could have been based on incidents or tales that he heard whilst sailing from Calcutta to Japan. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________53 BOOK REVIEWS KIPLING SAHIB: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling 1865-1900 by Charles Allen, published by Little, Brown Book Group, November 2007 (ISBN: 978-0-316- 72655-9, Hardback, £20.00), xxii+426 pages including Maps, Notes, Glossary, Select Bibliography and Index plus illustrations Review by THE EDITOR As well as being a great-grandson of George Allen, one of the three proprietors of the Pioneer and the Civil and Military Gazette, Charles Allen's childhood followed the same path as that of other Anglo- Indians (in its original meaning) including being sent away from his parents to England for education, but at least he differed from the two young Kiplings in that he went to live with his grandparents. The sub-title of this book discloses the real emphasis – that it is India and its effect on Kipling and his family which takes priority. As Mr Allen writes in his preface, the 'notion of writing a biography of Kipling in India and India in Kipling entered my head' and it is this that gives it a completely different "feel" to earlier biographies. Kipling's stories are used as a resource to determine his attitudes to the complex mix of ethnicities and religions that existed in India rather than being the subject of literary criticism. The history and description of Bombay as it was in 1865 to 1866 when Lockwood and Alice Kipling first arrived, and the conditions in which they lived and worked makes an excellent start to the exposition of the family's life in India. This leads into their search for additional income by attempts at journalism once Lockwood's first three-year contract ended. These did not come to fruition until 1870 when Lockwood visited Allahabad and the Pioneer offices, and there he met George Allen and the Rev Julian Robinson who was the editor at that time. The examples of amateur writings drawn from the assorted Anglo-Indian newspapers which were being published in the second half of the nineteenth century illumine the literary environment in which the Kiplings eventually thrived. The explanation of the Kiplings relatively lowly social status, being neither "Civil" nor "Military", and their efforts over the years which eventually led to their acceptance into the Viceroy's set is made very clear. The book is liberally illustrated with Lockwood's drawings of Indian life, only some of which are already familiar from Beast and Man in India. Mr Allen is good at contrasting the different lives experienced by the Kiplings when the children were in England with those of the 54__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 parents in India. But it is the next chapters covering the return to India and the 'Seven Years Hard' which are particularly gripping. He has teased out the tensions that existed within the 'Family Square', show- ing that there was a degree of censorship exercised by the parents over at least some of Rudyard's output, and which Rudyard went to some lengths to evade, initially when he was left on his own in Lahore dur- ing the hot season, by staying with the Walkers in Simla, and later by lodging with the Hills in Allahabad. It was also during his "escapes" from the 'Family Square' that he explored the Lahore nights and par- ticipated in some of its nightlife. Mr Allen is very good at pointing out the way in which Kipling col- lected material from his experiences of Indian life, and then used the same incidents both in journalistic articles and as the basis for his fiction. With his obvious personal interest in his family's former publishing business, Mr Allen sets out its history very clearly with much detail, despite the loss of most of the family papers by shipwreck and in the 1940 London Blitz. For example he mentions that the Pioneer had a London office in the Strand, very close to Kipling's rooms in Villiers Street, and that this could have been another reason for his decision to live in this particular location. There is one statement made with which I disagree – that by 1900 and the completion of Kim, 'his extraordinary powers of imagination were already on the wane' and that 'the seams he had mined so thor- oughly for the best of his writing were all but exhausted'. However, this does not really matter since Mr Allen effectively finishes his work at 1900, dealing with the last half of Kipling's life in a fifteen page "Envoi". There are the occasional readings which owe a little too much to modern sensibilities rather than those that were current in Victoria's days, and one or two mistakes but nothing critical. The sources which have been used are extensive, and include pre- vious biographies (Birkenhead, Carrington, Flanders, Lycett), the Letters edited by Prof Pinney, the Baldwin papers, Fond Memories (the unpublished memoire by Edith Plowden), the Kipling papers (Rudyard, Lockwood and 'Trix'), the Kipling Journal, the CMG, and many, many more. No matter how well one knows Kipling's life and work, I am sure that you will find yet more to interest you in this study of the man who was truly an Anglo-Indian. To quote one line from the end of Charles Allen's "Introduction" which sums up Kipling Sahib: However Kipling may have wished to be remembered, this is Ruddy humanised: his complications are the man; they are, to a great extent, what makes him a writer of genius. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________55 O BELOVED KIDS: Rudyard Kipling's Letters to his Children, ed. Elliot L. Gilbert, published by Max Press, October 2007 (ISBN: 978-1-904435-80-8, Hardback, £9.99), iv+220 pages, including 8 plates. No Index. This book is a re-issue of that first published in 1983 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, reviewed in Journal No.233, (March 1985, pp.67-69) by George Webb, our then Editor. He began by writing: This is an enchanting and an important book—reasonably priced, beautifully produced, packed with new and interesting information, suffused with the atmosphere and assumptions of a vanished age. Here are depicted, in the bold unequivocal colours befitting narra- tive to children, the routine of Bateman's and country life, the coming and going of visitors, as well as vivid incidents of travel abroad—glimpses of a whaling station in Canada, of a snowbound train in Italy, of sunbaked antiquities in Egypt, of fancy dress friv- olities in Switzerland—enlivened with the spirited drawings of this most devoted and most unusual of fathers. His review will stand for this new version inasmuch as it contains the same material, exhibits the same defects, and has added a few of its own minor irritations, the most noticeable of which is that the margins have been trimmed down to only 1 cm at the sides and 0.5 cm at the top – regrettably, it can no longer be described as 'beautifully produced'. Nevertheless, the publication is to be welcomed in that it makes a resource available that could otherwise only be found in second-hand bookshops. BOOK NOTICES Two books by members of the Society have recently been published, but were not available for review at the time of writing (end-December 2007). There is little doubt that they will be interesting since both authors have contributed to the New Readers' Guide, Dottoressa Baldi on Departmental Ditties and Prof Havholm on Many Inventions. Peter Havholm is also a member of the Project Group. Their books are: KIPLING'S "DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES": A closer look by Roberta Baldi, pub- lished by ISU Università Cattolica, Milan, (ISBN: 8883114884, €16), 292 pages. POLITICS AND AWE IN RUDYARD KIPLING'S FICTION by Peter Havholm, pub- lished by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, January 2008 (ISBN: 0754661644, hardback, $99.95 / £55), 204 pages. The flyer enclosed with this issue of the Journal offers the book for £37.50 in the U.K. 56__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 MEMBERSHIP NOTES NEW MEMBERS Mr I.K. Campbell (London, SE22) Mrs Valerie Given (Horton, Northamptonshire) Mr Simon Hard (Barbican, London, EC2) Ms Tatjana Kragh (Ada, Oklahoma, U.S.A.) SqnLdr R. Leviseur (St Mawes, Cornwall) Rear Admiral Guy Liardet, C.B., C.B.E., B.A. (Meonstoke, Hampshire) Mr Fraser May, B.A. (Wadestown, Wellington, New Zealand) N.S. Mayhew Esq. (Hinchley Wood, Surrey) Mrs Maureen Mole, B.A. (Ellesmere, Shropshire) Mr James Nicola (London, SW1) Dr Jonathan Park, Ph.D. (Norwich, Vermont, U.S.A.) Mr John Seriot (6856 Sogndal, Norway) Mr D.R. Tudor (Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Along with the introduction of the new rates of membership subscrip- tion from 1 January 2008, we have also introduced a subscription information panel which will be on the back cover of every issue of the Kipling Journal, starting with this one. This panel shows the various rates of subscription, including the equivalent rates in Euros or US dol- lars where appropriate. The same information is given on the reverse of the Journal address carrier sheet when renewal is due but as these may go astray before the final date for payment, members may find the information in the panel of value. With the increase in subscription, new UK Standing Order man- dates have been or will be sent to all who pay in this way. I am very grateful to the large number of members who have completed and returned these forms so promptly. I would greatly appreciate it if any member who has not returned the new mandate would do so without delay, in order to avoid the need for individual reminders. NEW MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY WANTED By the AGM in July this year I will have been Membership Secretary for 10 years. I have had enormous satisfaction in doing this job and great pleasure from my correspondence with members in all parts of the world. However, I do have other interests, including writing for the New Readers' Guide, in which I am well behind schedule. An outline of the job is given on the opposite page. Roger Ayers, Hon. Membership Secretary March 2008____________KIPLING JOURNAL____________________57 NEW MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY WANTED Roger Ayers, who has been our Honorary Membership Secretary for almost 10 years, is not standing for re-election at the 2008 AGM in July, so we are looking, with some urgency, for a volunteer to take over from him, ideally in April and early May but by the latest after the issue of the June 2008 Kipling Journal. The Membership Secretary is ex officio a Member of Council and is responsible for: 1. Maintaining the records of 500+ individual and 100+ institutional members. 2. Receiving, recording and responding to new applications for mem- bership, and terminations of membership. (10 to 15 of each a quarter) 3. Producing 600+ members' address labels 4 times a year for the printer for the Kipling Journal. 4. Receiving, recording and banking individual subscriptions.(About 30 a quarter) 5. Sending out individual renewal reminders when necessary. (About 10 a quarter) 6. Sending out annual invoices to agents and institutions.(About 15) 7. Keeping the Council informed on membership states and matters. Attendance at Council meetings is desirable but not always essential. Familiarity with use of a PC and printer is essential, prior knowledge of working with databases or spreadsheets is highly desirable. The record system is well established and could be passed on either as an MS Works database or as an Excel (.xls) spreadsheet. All routine let- ters are held as MS Word documents. All expenditure on telephone, postage, stationery and associated materials is refunded by the Society. Any member who is interested in taking on this vital and rewarding role for the Society should contact Roger Ayers at 295 Castle Road, Salisbury, SP1 3SB or by e-mail at roger295@ntlworld.com. 58__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 THE NEW READERS' GUIDE THEMES IN KIPLING By PETER HAVHOLM The serious Kipling reader can be frustrated by the number of Kipling's stories that recent literary critics have not read. In the academic world, it seems too often, Kim, a selection of the most popular Indian Railway Library stories, some Plain Tales, and a sprinkling of the poems have sufficed to inform claims about his work. I know of no published discussion of the 1915 "Mary Postgate", for example, that mentions its 1888 sibling, "Dray Wara Yow Dee", where another character – an Afghan horse dealer mad with jealousy rather than an English spinster mad with motherly grief – finds sexual plea- sure in retributive murder. The result is much talk about Kipling's hatred of the Germans but very little about the 81 other stories he wrote that turn importantly on revenge, all but about half a dozen written before "Mary Postgate". In fact, while it is comic rather than tragic, "Pig" of 1887 follows the pattern of "Mary Postgate" precisely. In both stories, the successful revenger uses special capabilities (Nafferton's knowledge of bureaucracy's affection for the literal; Mary's womanly lack of scruple), and the victim of revenge learns – at the height of his suffering who hurts him vengefully and precisely why. No discussion of "Mary Postgate", therefore, can be adequate unless it considers Kipling's life-long dream of perfect vengeance as shown by 82 stories, from "His Wedded Wife" to "The Tie". Now that the Kipling Society's new Themes Database is available in the Readers' Guide section (http://www.kipling.org.uk/bookmart fra.htm), observations of the kind I make in that paragraph will be much easier to ground on adequate evidence. I take my number 82 from that resource, for example. On the Themes page cited above, searching on "retribution" among the list of available themes yields a list of 82 titles, each connected to its treatment in the New Readers' Guide when one is available. Moreover, a quick survey of other topics popularly associated with Kipling suggests that his engagement with revenge was comparatively deep as well as life-long: Empire 85 Retribution 82 Army 77 the Sea 40 Stress 36 English Country Life 23 March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL__________________59 Listing the story "Pig," under the theme of "retribution" is a judg- ment call, of course. Since Nafferton embroils his enemy Pinecoffin in endless niggling correspondence about Government's support of pig farming in India, one might have listed it under "animals" or "politics" or "stress" or "British in India", for example. The judgement calls in this case were made by a group of Society members1 who met period- ically to work their way through all of Kipling's collected stories. We began with a list of themes, but the list was both expanded and refined as we encountered the stories, one by one. Readers of this jour- nal will understand when I remark upon the pleasure I took in this series of discussions, and I can report that it was a rare occasion when much of a story had to be read out. While I am not sure that anyone round the table had ever actually read through the Outward Bound or Sussex Edition from first volume to last, everyone knew all of the stories. Even so, as the Society's introductory note on the database has it, "In our discussions about this system we have frequently struck issues which are not easy to resolve, and have concluded with the hope that readers will come back to us with comments and refinements. Please send any com- ments to the NRG Project Group via johnradcliffe@blueyonder.co.uk." The group that created the database considers the present version a work- in-progress and would welcome discussion. In the mean time, however, the database is an important resource for any reader interested in tracing Kipling's fictional treatments of a variety of subjects, from "Duty" to "Snakes", or in his use of settings from "Heaven or Hell" to "Russia", or in his stories that refer to (without necessarily thematizing) topics from "Army" to "Shakespeare". While there was never an extended theoretical discussion of the meaning of "theme", our primary working definition was in my view an adaptation of Aristotle's definition of "thought" as an element of tragedy: "thought exists in whatever [characters] say when demon- strating something or declaring some consideration". In our conversations, "theme" was a "consideration" engaged more than in passing. In "Pig", for example, Nafferton uses his political knowledge to wound his enemy, the civil servant Pinecoffin, with correspondence about pigs. But political knowledge, the Indian bureaucracy, and pig farming are all marshalled to accomplish the story's central action and therefore central "consideration": retribution. In addition to themes in this sense, the database covers repeating characters like Mrs. Hauksbee and the settings and topics mentioned above. I would encourage readers to visit the web page and explore our work with their own curiosities in mind. And if you know anyone who plans to write about some aspect of Kipling or his work, please recom- mend this new resource. One can very quickly get from it a good sense 60__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 both of the range of Kipling's interests and of the sometimes surprising extent of his attention to them. VERSE2 At the time of writing (mid-December 2007) It was readily apparent, even before the verse section of the Project was started, that the num- ber of overall topics and the themes within them which had been used for the fiction would have to be expanded. We have added "Verse References" to cater for linked prose, acknowledgements or attribu- tions, and Dedications. "Verse Forms" provide a fruitful area for discussion, particularly as Kipling did not just use the classical forms but "mixed and matched" or devised forms that were unique to him at that time. "Song" has pro- vided an excellent catch-all for many of them. A start has been made on Departmental Ditties and on the Barrack- Room Ballads the latter requiring yet another topic, "Service Life". This lets us identify different themes in the poems, for example, those concerned with the treatment of soldiers ("Tommy"), of their drunken- ness, ("Cells") or of their comradeship ("Ford o' Kabul River"). With almost 2,100 poems listed in John Walker's verse database, it can be appreciated that this will not be completed in the short term. The plan is to work first through the five collections, then the remainder of the Definitive Edition, and then Rutherford's Early Verse. How and when we tackle the uncollected items has not yet been discussed. NON-FICTION It is intended eventually to cover material from such collections as From Sea to Sea, Letters of Travel, Sea Warfare, etc. but so far very little consideration has been given to the themes that will be found in these works. THEMES PROJECT GROUP MEMBERS 1. Fiction: General Editor John Radcliffe, Verse Editor John Walker, Project Group David Page, John Slater, Alastair Wilson, Peter Havholm. 2. Verse: General Editor John Radcliffe, Verse Editor John Walker, Project Group David Page, John Slater, Alastair Wilson, Peter Havholm, Mary Hamer, Leonee Ormond, Roger Ayers. March 2008___________KIPLING JOURNAL___________________61 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT From: Mr Michael Aidin, The Old Rectory, Wiggonholt, Pulborough RH20 2EL Dear Sir, In my article "Rudyard Kipling and the Commemoration of the Dead of the Great War" (Kipling Journal, December 2007) I wrote that I had failed to trace a letter of condolence from Rudyard Kipling to Theodore Roosevelt when Quentin Roosevelt was shot down in 1918. At the recent Kipling Conference in Canterbury, Debra Wynn of the Library of Congress said that a letter written by Rudyard to Theodore Roosevelt had been found among the Roosevelt family papers of Theodore's son Kermit. This is why I failed to find it when I read the Theodore Roosevelt papers at the Library of Congress. A transcription of the letter follows. Yours faithfully MICHAEL AIDIN [With Grateful Acknowledgement to the Collections of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, U.S.A. Copyright © 2008 by The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.] BATEMAN'S BURWASH SUSSEX July, 18. 1918. Dear Roosevelt I can't yet make out from the papers whether Quentin is dead or down & in German hands. If the latter his chances are better than they could have been in the old days before the Hun saw the end coming. He has recast his scale of values and we hear now that in some cases he treats his prisoners decently. They would look on Quentin of course as an asset. But either way the boy has done his work honourably and cleanly and you have your right to pride and thankfulness. I won't take up your time with any more. No words are any use but we all send you our love and deep sympathy. Ever sincerely Rudyard Kipling. Reproduced from the Collections of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 62__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 March 2008____________KIPLING JOURNAL_____________________63 MY BOY JACK – TELEVISION PRODUCTION From: Mrs Josephine Leeper, Rothney, 19 Beaconsfield Road, Claygate, Surrey KT10 OPN Dear Sir I have seen both the play and the television film of My Boy Jack and enjoyed them immensely, but one thing puzzles me. Why did both ver- sions show the Tommies going over the top at the Battle of Loos wearing regimental caps instead of 'tin hats'? Surely by September 1915 tin hats were regulation Army issue. Could anyone enlighten me as to the day they were made regulation equipment? Of course both versions, especially the film, were full of minor inaccuracies, one being the sight of Kipling driving his own car. He always had a chauffeur and would certainly have employed him to drive to Windsor Castle instead of bursting in on King George V to announce that he had broken his own record from Bateman's. However, Kipling himself, in "They", portrays himself as driving alone from 'the other side of the county' and, I am sure, would have forgiven the artistic licence of showing him as a speed fiend. Yours sincerely JOSEPHINE LEEPER [A caption on the Imperial War Museum website to a picture of a helmet reads: The original and very distinctive steel helmet adopted by Great Britain was designed and patented in 1915 by an inventor called Brodie. After many experiments, Brodie came to the conclusion that a relatively simple form of helmet would offer reason- able protection, be serviceable and cheap to produce in large numbers. In comparison with both the French Adrian pattern helmet (1915) and the German M1916, the British helmet proved light, robust, simple to make and, for its time, was highly effective. The first helmets were produced at the Sheffield steel works of Sir Robert Hadfield who had pointed out the many virtues of a high percentage (12%) manganese steel. This alloy, rolled in sheets of 20 gauge or .036 inch, would resist pistol bullets of 230 grains jacketed with cupro-nickel, travelling at the rate of 600 feet per second. Such a bullet caused a deep dent in the helmet but did not penetrate. Moreover, if at higher velocity the projectile passed through the plate, no shattering or splintering occurred. The helmet made its first appearance in any numbers at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. It is therefore most unlikely that 'tin hats' would have been available at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. –Ed.] 64__________________KIPLING JOURNAL___________March 2008 ABOUT THE KIPLING SOCIETY The Kipling Society is for anyone interested in the prose and verse, and the life and times, of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). It is one of the most active and enduring literary societies in Britain and, as the only one which focuses on Kipling and his place in English Literature, attracts a world-wide membership. (Details from the Society's web-site and membership forms from the Membership Secretary, Kipling Society, 295 Castle Road, Salisbury, Wilts SP1 3SB. The forms quote the minimum annual subscription rates. Some members con- tribute a little more.) The Society is a Registered Charity and a voluntary, non-profit- making organisation. Its activities, which are controlled by a Council and run by the Secretary and honorary officials, include: • maintaining a specialised Library in City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V OHB, • answering enquiries from the public (schools, publishers, writers and the media), and providing speakers on request, • arranging a regular programme of lectures, and a formal Annual Luncheon with a Guest Speaker, • running the web-site at www.kipling.org.uk for members of the Society and anyone else around the world with an interest in the life and work of Rudyard Kipling, • and publishing the Kipling Journal, every quarter. The Journal of the Society aims to entertain and inform. It is sent to subscribing paying members all over the world free of charge. This includes libraries, English Faculties, and 'Journal – only' members. Since 1927, the Journal has published important items by Kipling, not readily found elsewhere, valuable historical information, and literary comment by authorities in their field. By not being wholly academic, the Journal is representative of Kipling, whose own diverse interests and versatile talent covered a wide range of literary writing – letters, travel, prose and verse. For the serious scholar of Kipling, who cannot afford to overlook the Journal, a comprehensive index of the entire run since 1927 is available online to members or in our Library. Apply to: The Librarian, Kipling Society, 72 Millbank, Headcorn, Ashford, Kent TN27 9RG, England or email to jwawalker@gmail.com The Editor of the Kipling Journal publishes membership news, Society events, and the texts of talks given by invited speakers. In addi- tion, he is happy to receive letters and articles from readers. These may be edited and publication is not guaranteed. Letters of crisp comment, under 1000 words, and articles between 1000 – 4000 are especially wel- come. Write to: The Editor, Kipling Journal, 32 Merton Road, Harrow HA2 OAB, England or email to davpag@yahoo.co.uk