Morning journal and courier., 1890-06-20
Rudyard Kiplinx.

Helen Bartlett Bridgmans London Letter to the
 Brooklyn Record Union
 Imagine a man born in Bombay, of pa rents in whose veins runs the blood of more than one people, born and passing the first five 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 re- turning of his own free will to the tropical country which gave him birth, and for seven long years doing the hardest kind of jour. nalistic work working from dawn to eve, year in and year out, with the thermometer frequently away up in the hundreds, no sub- stitute even of the poorest possible in ter ritory where journalists are not to be ob- taiued on short notice for either love or mon. ey, with fever looking him grimly In the eye, cholera slsying those nearest and dearest to him, and in his own heart always that tu- mutt of aspiration and despair which Is ever the lot of the highly gifted--the only genuine consolation lying in the hard labor which later on was destined to bear ripe fruit, but which at the moment in that deadly climate strained the vitality to its last possible limit. Imagine man who has led this kind of life. having but little society for nearly de- cade beyond the rough and ready representa-. tives of the army and the natives, with
 
 rowed and made merry, watched and broken bread, until they are to him as brothers-im. agins all this, and see If you cannot under- stand why it is that at this moment the wri- tings of Rudyard Kipling are astonishing two worlds. Without previous knowledge of the soil whence has sprung all these marvel. ous blossoms of human intellect, 1t is quite natural that the first question should be whether this precocity but presages an ultimate 6asco, or work stronger than any that this century has yet known. Lionized ! as g young man can be only in society which constantly craves a new sensation for its dulled appetite, courted with persistent cy which must prove more Aattering than wholesome at the age ot twenty-four, it will startled the world this year only to fall by | the way in the end.
 But may the gods be kind and avert such | catastrophel and, indeed, as I contempla- | ted the modest menage near the Thames, l with the desk and chair and the pen, which evidently saw long and daily service, felt that after all genius would rise superior to society. A charming little study that is with the green of Victoria embankment di- rectly beneath the windows, the glistening waters of the ship burdened river but Q stone's throw away, and such coxlness and cheer within. Walls hung with army pic. lures reproduced by Detaille, dozen well used pipes of varying sorts and sizes occu pying case just above a most inviting sleepy hollow chair, couch covered with . tiger skin, which even in death is not free from menace and alarm, great black cat. thoroughly alive and happy and much petted by her fond master; the little tea table, from which an aseetic repast is snatched when inspiration comes thick and fast-ah, 1t was all very fascinating And the lord oi this little realm, how shall describe him it is so natural to describe woman, so diff. l 6cult to reproduce the personality of a man | woman lends herself with ease to any kind of portraiture, while it always seems to me that man instinctively rebels against it. Yet would could convey to you some i'm. pression of that email, 1.-the, graceful figure of countenancs which even at the age oi twsnty-four is beginning to tell the tale of persistent and severe labor, and climate which must eat the very heart out of 6 man, a chin cleft In twain, but strong and promi. nent, telling of many a battle fought and | conquered, and many @ battle yet to come nostrils which expand with every emotion like those of blooded horses quivering fol the race; complexion pale from study and also from the great heat borne unremittingly for 80 many years, and fine gray eyes, whose widely dilating pupils behind the constantly worn eyeglasses fill one with vague alarm, as of some misfortune lying In waite fol their future sight.