Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1897-11-26
A FREEHAND DRAWING
OF Kipling's Literary Work.

who holds the chair of English literature
in that institution. The lecture was one
of series given by him on Nineteenth
Century Novelists:"
"Kipling was born in 1865 in Bombay.
India. We forget how young he really is.
He is only 30 now, and is by all odds the
youngest man alive with anything like his
reputation. He was educated in England
and then returned to India in 1881, where
he Dec1me reporter and correspondent of
English papers. His training was in the
newspaper office. lie wrote little sauibs
of verse and jingles and passed them
around among his friends, and they were
sung to the banjo around many campfires
by the English soldiers. Then it occurred
to him to make the verses pay him, so he
set them up by hand and bound them into
the form of government report and sold
them, sending out return postal cards to
his friends. 1t was Kipling's first work,
and it started him. Some few years ago
he married the sister of Wolcott Balestier,
the famous but unfortunate novelist, and
moved to Brattleboro, Vt, where he lived
until quite recently. If it had not been
for that maniac of brother-in-law of his,
who threatened him with death often for
some fancied wrong Kiping would still be
| ii'ihS thtic' ms IL 10, llt Is dOTOdu again.
"Kipling has been a fad, popular hero.
To appreciate the newness of his work we
must remember that Departmental Dit
ties appeared in 1883 as well as Plain
| Tales from the Hills The Phantom Rick
shaw in 80, and others in quick succession
| to Captains Courageous in 1897. We
cannot rightly estimate him yet, he is so
much of fad. But the fad is working off,
signs of it are seen on every side, and he
| is getting down to bottom rock, where his
only hope of success will be his own worth
and work, which is good. The Recess
sionaP has given Kipling a new basis to
| work on.
| There are two reasons why Kipling had
such sudden and astonishing vogue. In
the first place, he had the good fortune to
hit upon an entirely new field that of mill
tary life in India, and at a time when
everybody was thinking about India, and
when interest was awakened in it. He is
a sectional writer, like Bret Harte, and |
do not think Bret Harte's influence on
kipling can be overestimated. He it was
who first inspired Kipling, though Kiplng
outstripped his master quickly. But Harte
made the same material out of his mining
experience as Kipling did of his soldering
in India, though Bret Harte's later work
is not so good as his early stories.
But can we rely on Kipling's pictures of
Anglo-Indian life? 1t always seemed to
me, without knowing anything about it
that we cannot, because the keynote of
Kiplings work is exaggeration. The cap
ital charge against him by an editorial
writer in the Calcutta Times is that he has
traduced, cariCatured and libeled Anglo
Indian life, which is very possible.
s.. L Ill.
larity is his virilty, his strength. The
world is full of literary experience. Every
one nowadays can handle a pen and turn
out exquisite lines and tales, but writers
and producers of originality are very scarce
and Kipling is one of them. Kipling is
coarse, as lnearly all great geniuses have
been. Dean Swift is one of the greatest
writer's in our history, and yet he is very
coarse. Coarseness sometimes is the ex-
crescence of virility, just as effeminacy is
the excrescence of delicacy. Compare
Kipling with Richard lie Gallienne and see
the difference.
"But Kipling is the last man to whom
we can award praise Unfortunately. He
is awfully uneven and full of errors. When
he is dull he is perfectly horrible. | never
read anything so dull as are some of his
pages. He is a barbarian, slowly coming
up to civilized standards. He has little If
any taste, and he shows no proper balance
in his work. He is lacking in art. His
tragedy often becomes melodrama, his
comedy buffoonery, his Characterization,
caricature. His style is utterly bad. He
strives for effect and to say smart things,
and sometimes he says them, but often he
is ludicrous. 1t would not do for young
writer to copy him. 1t would wreck his
future.
"And Kipling is not well read. His
books impress me as those of a man who
reads little and has studied less. He does
not understand sentence construction, to
use rhetorical term. But he is a master
aud supreme in his knowledge of words. |
Here he is king of writer's. 1t is the one |
great reason for his effectiveness. He al |
ways knows just the word to use-the !
power of the specific word. He is far |
greater success in the short story than in |
the novel, He cannot draw character, as |
a novel demands. Perhaps he has not the |
patience, perhaps he cannot do it. Null |
vaney is the only living creature in his |
pages. He is an addition to literature.
"Kipling delights in drunkenness. We
laugh at drunkenness nowadays, as the
laughed at insanity, and Kip
ling uses it as trump card, all the time
l hope civilization will advance beyond
the point where we may laugh at drunken
ness, but we have not reached it yet. An
extensive fondness for profanity is seen in
his work. Profanity rightly used is very
effective in strong talking, especially when
it comes from the mouth of an otherwise
silent and non talkative man. But as
Kipling uses it, and smears it all over his
pages, it becomes bOresome in the extreme.
Smells also occupy large part of his at
-ention; take the Strange ride as an ex-
ample. Beastly details never escape him.
His treatment of women is horrible, pagan,
lncivilized and above all his occasional
,ynicsm strikes us as very bad. A woman
reading some of Kipling's tales seems as
much out of place as she would in the Of
ice of cheap hotel, with the stale tobac-
20, oaths and bad air.
"But Kipling has the sure eye of mas
er for the salient points in a character or
'cene, and he has good sense of proper
ion. Herein he differs from Henry James,
Who considers mans pulling out of his
handkerchief as of as much importance as
hat he cut somebody's throat, In pictorial
imagination Kipling is nearly supreme. ,
The Phantom Ricnshaw' shows this, as
loes THE Man Who Would ,be King I
That last is truly wonderful story. A I
oncensus of opinion from a dozen literary I
nen, critics and scholars in England, gave |
The Man Who Would be King first 7
lace among all of Kiplings short tales.
n the Jungle Book he again shows his