The Windham County reformer. (Battleboro, Vt.) 1876-1897, 1896-07-03
MORE OF KIPLING.
How He studies for HIS Local COlOr-A
Photographic Mind-PrOcesses Noted
by His Old Employer In India.

l
How He studies for HIS Local Color.
| Photographic Mind-PrOcesses Note
by His Old Employer In India.
(E. Kay Robinson in McClure's Mag
azine for July.)
| While possessing marvellous fac
ulty for assimilating local color will
out apparent effort, Kipling neglected
no chance and spared no labor in &C
curing experience that might serve
literary purpose. OF the various race
of India, whom the ordinary English
man jumps together as natives, Kip
ling knew the quaintest details re
specting habits, language. and dis
tinctive ways of thought. | remember
we'll one go-limbcd Pathan, indescri
baby filthy, but with magnificent
mien and features Mahbub Ali,
think, was his name-w who regarded
Kipling as a man apart from another
''Sahibs' after each Of his wander
ings across the UNEMPLOYED fringes "i
Afghanistan, where his restless 'spiri
of adventure led him, Mahbub Ali al
ways used TO turn W travel stained,
dirtier and more majestic than evel
for confidential coloquy with "Kup
peelen Sahib," his "friend - and
more than fancy that to Mahbub Ali,
Kipling owed the wonderful local colol
which he was able to put into the
story of 1.-The Man who Would be
King"
And Mahbub Ali, peace to his ashes
was only one link in the strange chain
Of associations that Kipling riveted
round himself in India. No half note
in the wide gamu Of native ideas and
custom was unfamiliar to him just as
he had left no phase Of white life in
India unexplored. He knew the un
dercurrent Of the soldiers thoughts,
IN the whitewashed barracks ON the
sunburnt plain OF Milan Mir, better
than sergeant or chaplain. No father
confessor penetrated more deeply into
the thoughts of fair but frail human.
ity than Kipling. when the frivolous
society of Anglo India formed the OBJ
ject Of his inquiries THE railway
folk" that queer colony of white, half
white and three quarters black, which
remains an uncaredfor and discredit
able excrescence upon British rule in
India, seemed to have unburdened
their souls TO kipling Of all their
grievances, their poor pride, and their
hopes. Some of the best OF Kipings
work is drawn from the lives of these
people although to the ordinary An
glo. Indian, whose social caste restric-
lions are almost more memorable than
those of the Hindu whom he affects to
despise on that account, they are as a
sealed book. Sometimes, taking a high
er fight Kipling has made Viceroys
and Commanders in Chief, Members
of Council and Secretaries to Gov
erDment his theme. and the ashes OF
light that has thrown upon the inner
workings of the machinery of govern
ment in India have been recognized
as too truly coloIed TO he intuitive or
aught but the light Of knowledge re-
flected from the actual facts. No
writer, for instance, could have excited,
as kipling did. Lord Dunerins curIos-
ity as to how the inmost councils Of the
state had thus been photographed,
without having somehow or other
caught glimpse Of things as they
were for at least one moment. 1t is
this which is the strongest attribute
Of Kiplings mind that it photographs
as il were, every detail Of passing
scenes that can have any future util
ity for literary fefert nee or alusion.
He was able. however he might be
engaged, to make mental excursions of
various kinds while still pursuing the
even tenor Of the business in hand.
In sporting matters, for instance,
suppose nothing is more difficult than
Tor man who is no sportsman-in the
: xclusive sense Of the men who car
~ the scent Of the stables and the
,awdust of the ring with them wher.
,ver they go-to speak to these in
heir own language, along their own
ines of thought or novelist who
writes good sporting stories. it is
considered praise TO say that none but
a real sportsman could have written it.
But Kipling was no sportsman and
and horseman: yet his sporting verse
always took the sporting world in In
lila twbere sport takes precedence Of
lmost every other form OF human ac
iyity) by storm.