The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-06-20
RUDYARD KIPLING.

Imagine man born in Bombay, of parents
in whose veins runs the blood of more than
one people, born and passing the first i've
years of his life in that strange. warm land;
then taken back to the parental roof-tree in
old England that he might know something
of the sweet childhood and healthy boyhood
peculiar to this sheltered island; and again
at the age of sixteen returning Of his own
free will to the tropical country which gave
him birth, and for seven long years doing
tho hardest kind Of journalistic work
working from dawn to eve, year in and year
up in the hundreds, no substitute even of
the poorest possible in territory wher .
journalists are not to be obtained on
short notice for either love or money, with
fever looking him grimly in the eye, cholera
staying those nearest and dearest to him,
and in his own heart always that tumult of
aspiration and despair which is ever the lot
ISOLATION lying in the hard labor which later
on was destined to bear ripe fruit, but
which at tho moment in that deadly climate
strained the vitality to its last possible
limit. Imagine q man who has lead this
kind of life, having but little society for
ready representatives Of the army and the
natives, with whom he has slumbered and
fought, sorrowed and made merry, watched
and broken bread, until they are to
him az brothers imagine all this, and see
# you cannot understand why it is that at
yard Kipline are astonishing two worlds.
Without previous knowledge of the soil
whence has sprung all these marvellous
blossoms Of q human intellect, it is quite
natural that the first question should be
whether this precocity but presages an ulti-
m 0rv unrI1 v1ryor l, oy,vy nj
this century has yet known. Lionized as a
young man can only be in a society which
constantly Graves new sensation for its
dulled appetite, courted with persistency
which must prove more dattering than
not be at ali surprising if Mr.. Kipling has
startled the world this year only to fall by
the way in the end.
would I could convey to you some i'm
preston of that small, 1.-the, graceful fig
ure; of countenance, which, even at the
age of twenty-four, is beginning to tell the
tale of persistent and severe labor, and a
climate which must eat the very heart out
of man, a chin cleft in twain, but strong
and prominent, telling of many battle
and conquered, and many battle yet to
emotion like those of blooded horses quiv-
ering for the race; complexion pale from
study and also from the great heat borne
unremittingly for SO many years, and fine
gray eyes. whose widely dilating pupils be-
hind the constantly-worn eye glasses fill
one with wage alarm, as Of some misfor-
tune lying in wait for their future sight.
Mr.. Kipling's sketches of native Indian
life are the result of conscientious labor.
His information has been obtained at first
hand in the very heart of native cities, in
dens no Europeans ever penetrated before,
and, with happy knack of making people
talk for his entertainment, his researches
have ceen facilitated by perfect mastery
OF Hindoostanee as taught in books. and
in India bazars as ''chotee bolee,' words of
which "women's TALK is very free trans
lation. Perhaps Mr.. Kipling's greatest
temptation lies in his dramatic taste. His
keen insight into human nature seizes
at once its most salient points, and
it Is usually the worst of these
that lend themselves most readily to
realistic treatment. What will naturally
be most appreciated by the public in Eng
land are those stories the majority of which
have appeared under the title of Soldiers
they never wander by one hairs breadth
from the facts as they are. No one hith-
to has attempted to treat Tommy Atkins az
q separate human entity, instead of the
SOOth or 9O0th component part of a whole,
and the freshness Of the characters of Null
vaney, Learoyd and Ortheris are of course
the more acceptable from their novelty.
Mulvaney is the man after Mr.. Kiplings
own heart, with whom he has, intense, un-
Dor, but a delight, and the big soldier,
great in all matters of discipline, comes out
in full accoutrements from the storehouse
OF his creators mind, living and natural, at
first call, sometimes even unbidden.-Lon-
don Letter.