The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-09-28
EUDYARD KIPL1NG.

1t is only few weeks since attention was
drawn in The CALL to the advent of q new
literary star, Rulyard Kipliug. This was
Young man OF 26, from British India,
who lad been connected " tn Indian news
papers as reporter and contributor. His
first stories attracted attention by the nov
city of the scenes they depicted. No one
has ever drawn pictures OF real Life IN the
great peninsula where $4,000 Englishmen
rule 80, coo intelligent natives. Mr.
kipling carried his readers into the canton
ments and the bungalows, and showed us
The c0nquering Angio-SaXon by the side
of the duSky race which does his
bidding Bat pretty soon il was discovered
that there was something more than new
city in his tales that he was born racon-
teur, with spirit, yerYe, wit, a keen eye for
the ludicrous, and sharp discefnment of
contrasts. People bryan to read him who
did not care about British India, and row
it is safe to say that no one is more widely
read in England or IN this country than
this newly discovered boy.
His sudden rise has naturally suggested
comparisons between him and another
writer who flashed across the literary sky
n this city Some thirty years ago-Bret
Harte. Bat except that both painted
scenes that were new to novel readers, and
painted them in vivid colors, there is little
similarity between them. Bret Harte is,
above ali things, poet. He sees men and
things with a poets eye. &c cannot paint
a town pump without touching it with
poetic halo. His earlier stories, which he
has never surpassed. if he has ever equaled
them, are all poems; some of them rising
at times to lyric splendor, now melting
INTO pathos, now bubbling into sly humor.
Kipling, on the contrary, is eminently pro-
sale. He describes the garrison scenes III
which lie delights with mathematical accur-
acy. The soldiers talk just as they do talk
in real life; there is no attempt to idealZe
them; their uniforms would pass inspection
by the sharp, st adjutant there is not the
slightest effort to gid their dreary barricks
or their dusty roads with a dash of fancy.
Whatever Of humor or pathos his stories
contain belonged to his personages where
they moved and lived and had their being.
He draws them as he saw them, and adds
nothing of his own to the picture.
Again, Harte wfs, and is still, to some
extent, a painstaking, conscientious artist
lis sentences are almost painfully elaborate.
1t is impossible to alter word without mar
ring the effect. Each phrase was evidently
studied out, altered aud Temi deied before 1t
was given TO the printer, SO that some OF his
stories are models of composition, rs they
are delightful reading. kiplipg, on the con-
trary, is slap-dash writer He gives free
rein to his pen, which flies over the paper as
his thoughts and "reminiscences fly through
his mind. What he thus loses in finish ana
elegance he gains in vigor. lie reaoer Is
hurried from scene to scene, each Oh WHICH
is so broadly limned that its picture Is
stamped ON the mind the kaleidoscope re-
wolves so quickly that the eye cannot eaten
eoob detail but is absorbed In the general
effect.
The nrosaic character of Kipling' sketches
IF neonle and places is the more remarkable
nc ha has shown that, when he chooses, he
oan write excellent verse. Some Of his short
poems which have been reprinted In our pa
pers reveal the true poetic instinct. The ode
-ior it rises to the level Of an ode-on the
Survivors of the SIX Hundred" is a compo-
sition of which Tennyson would not have
been ashamed. What fate has yet in re-
serve for this gifted youth he is yet too
young for the world to discern. He has be-
come famous at an age when Bret Harte did
not dream that his destiny was to write
poems and stories. As a rule, a writer of fic-
ton cannot claim to have attained the first
rank in letters until he has published sue
cessful novel. Poe was an exception to the
rule and so, probably, is Bret Harte. Still,
Kipling's promise is so bright that it is not
unfair TO hope that he may some day take
place in the glorious list which has become
short since the death of Dickens and Thack-
cray and Eliot and Reade.