Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-09-15
RUDYARD'S RlDICULE,
A Letter Writer who Knows all about it

II Was the "StOre Clerk" the MiIkman,
the Butchers BOY, and the Detestable
Reporters who Upset his First Impress
sions.
The Boston Transcript of last Saturday
printed Brattleboro letter from Especial
correspondent" in which it is told how it
happened that Rudyard Kipling "settled
down" on the hillside three miles above
the village, in "Vermont bungalow
long and narrow and two stories high and
how 1t happened, also, that, when he first
came here, he said sharp and naughty
things about Vermont country folk in
general, and Brattleboro country-folk in
particular:
Almost Immediately on his arrival in
Vermont, Mr.. Kipling's letters to an Eng
fish newspaper began, quite contrary to
his wish or expectation, to be copied into
Boston and Springfield papers. In these
the brilliant author of "Plain tales from
the hills" allowed himself to speak of
''Main street, Vermont" in disrespectful
If amusing sort of way. He gave his own
first impressions-not intended for Nelc
English ears. He felt instinctively that
there was little poetry or beauty or charm
in the hard, earnest, solemn, material life
of the Vermont town. He saw, too, the
unlovely side of the rural life, as well.
The gaunt farmers; the "hopeless" farm
ers' wives-he realized that the perfect
beauty of nature around them had in some
strange way been obscured to them; that
''seeing, they saw not, hearing, they did
not understand" The glory of the sky
and hills was not part and parcel of their
daily existence. The town life, with its
! re rioli lie
imitation of the larger cities, its electric
lights, seemed hideous to him. 1t must be
remembered too, that Mr.. Kiplng is with
out humor-of the ready sort-while he
may have capacity for the humor of the
grotesque. Very likely he often ran up
against remarks made by the town folk
which astonished and mystifed him.
Then, too, the reporters tormented him,
and would interview him, whether or no,
and penetrated into his little cottage where
he lived until his new house was complete.
He slammed the door in their faces. ellis
house was his castle" They in return
wrote him up, or down. as would better
express it, in the Boston papers. The inn
preston got abroad that he was of ugly
disposition, that he despised America and
| the Americans, and that his literary sue
cess had turned his head. 1t may be that
his first impressions of America warranted
the belief that the public in general were
in no way willing to give him a moment of
privacy. He was interviewed and written up
on railway trains, invaded in his hotel
rooms, his manner of eating drinking and
sleeping all described. At all events he
gave out definitely and once for all, so that
it was clearly understood, that he wished
not to be called upon nor to call. That he
cared to meet no one. That, like the
'poor cove" in the Dismal Swamp, all he
wanted was to be left entirely alone.
And Rudyard Kipling has been left
alone. In the pleasant social life of Brat
tleboro, charming and engaging society
of cultivated people, he is never asked to
minge The birthplace and former home
of Mary Wilkins, and from which she
wrote her first fascinating stories, knows
him not socially. 1t has ceased to be es
pecally interested about him. He has
made a false step in a curious lack of dis
elimination. He has misjudged "Main
street" by reason of his hastily formed
opinion, based on few farmer-like ''stOre
clerks" the milkman, the butchers boy,
with whom he came in contact. He can
not believe that a well-read, cultivated,
highly educated class lives and domi-
mates the picturesque and beautiful New
England town, as it dominates every New
England town. A class that has been we'll
to-do for half a century is travelled, col
lege-bred and cultivated to a degree not
known to any other part of the great
United States outside of New England.
A class which claims Eugene and Roswell
Field, Mrs. w. ID. Howells, Mary wilkins,
Robert Hardie, Larkin Meade and many
others. Perhaps Mr.. Kipling will, in time,
see the error of his ways, and grow like
Thackeray, who loved his Americans, and
less like Dickens-Kipling' beau ideal
who despised them.
An afternoon with him is a delight
But most undoubtedly he is no ordinary
man. He is voluble, fanciful a man of
genius. His range is wide If he will not
study Americans-if he fears to lose his
''fresh eye'' for midland he tells us that
he has a hundred new stories unwritten of
that marvellous land-he is from first to
last genius. He makes the mistakes of
genius.
At present he is lover of our country
not of its people. In time, as he mel
lows with age, and the first flush of a sue
cessful youth is past, he will doubtless
come to love our people as WELL He is
our own close kinsman. There is much of
the "untrammeled' American in Rudyard
Kipling.