The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-01-17

with the progress of science and with each
new invention folks sighed, Romance fare
! wellP'
And all unseen
! Romance brought up the nine. fifteen.
His hand was on the lever laid,
! His oiican soothed the worrying cranks,
His whistle walked the snowbound grade,
His foghorn cut the reeking banks;
In dock and deep and mine and mill
| The boy-g god reckless labored STILL
ROBBED, crowned and throned, he wove his spell
When heart blood beat hearth-smoke curled
| With unconsde cred miracle,
! Hedged in a backward gazing world;
| Then taught his chosen bard 20 say:
'The king was with us-yesterdayw
Now, Kipling is not original in asserting
| this living power of romance to-day. Other
poets have assured us of the same, but l ven-
ture to think that Kipling is original in max
ing US feel it. He not only sees and feels this
| truth, but he makes his reader see and feel it
! also. Wordsworth asserted again and again
that in the simple facts OF humanity lay the
| poets realm, that in these were 10 be found
| the true domain OF romance. We may theo-
| reticany accept what ne says, but whether we
feel it TO be true as wildly after reading his
poems as after reading Kfplings depends
largely on individual tie mperament.
| For myself confess that nothing OF the
purely human strain in Wordsworth's has
| affected me painfully parts of Mean
drews' Hymn" For Wordsworth, despite his
own theories, move US more often by his poetic
diction than by his simple narrative OF COM
mon life-nsrrations which are often simple to
the point OF badness. For example, contrast
the sonnets and ode on Immortality and the
Lines on Tintern Abbey" with Luck Gray"
and 'Peter Bell.'
But Kipling carries US along with splendid
enthusiasm. He is vivid, vital and virile,"
to quote Mr. Mabie. He is resolved to
= Draw the thing as he see it for the God of
things they
A word may mean too much to one and too
little to another. Let US be sure that we under
stand what Kipling means by this romance he
| exslts so greatly. 1t is very far from being
the merely romantic sentimental of CON-
mon usage. l wonder if it is not akin to what
| Matthew Arnold expressed By the word cul-
ture, that diffusion of 'swee tneSs and light
| in the minds of men. 1t is the eternal truth,
call it by what name we viii, that underlies
all human happiness. II is the something
| which vitaliZes, which makes all life glow and
pulse with radiant beauty and significance
that "rare strange thing in the midst of the
commonplace" which is rare and strange only
! because so few have eyes 10 see. Mr.. Kipling
calls this the "true romance" and in one of
the most beautiful of his poems he says:
Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee
To gid his dross thereby,
And knowledge that he endHV1
| 4 child until be die.
Devil and brute Thou dost transmuta
/ To higher, lordlier show,
Who in sooth that lovely Truth
The careless angels know
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch thy garments hem:
Thy feet have JrOd Got,
may not follow them.
In "McAndrews' Hymn" we have the prac
teal illustration, which is always more char
acterIstic of Mr.. Kipling than the abstraction
McAndrews is the dour Scots engineer, a
stern Calvinist, ready to admit this world to
be 1.-THE shadow of a Dream"
And taught by time I take it so, excepting al
ways-Steam
Steam is to him the one visible symbol of all
power and mystery. Beyond repression is his
Contempt for the young Viscount who, after
being shown over the ship, asks:
mister McAndrews, don't you think steam
spols romance at sea?"
Damned ijjit" Romancel All the rom ance
of McAndrews life is steam.
Lord, send man like Robbie Burns to sing
/ the song o. steaml"
In the working of his engines, in the perfect
adjustment and faithfulness of each part, he
! sees
Interdependence absolute foreseen, ordained, de-
creed.
Now altogether hear thin lift their esson-theirs
and mine;
'Law, order, Duty an Restraint, Obedience,
Discipline"
But no one cares except myself that serve and
understand
Ny seven Thousand horsepower here Ell, Lord
They're grand-they're grand"
From 'McAndrews' Hymn to ''The Song OF
the Banjo" is far cry; yet the latter is a
gayer lighter treatment of the same theme. |
II prosaic steam is to those who fserve and
understand" SO full of this vital power of
romance so also is the gay little banjo the
companion of "the white man round the
world" The words go like the strulhming of
| the strings and make q Jingle in the blood
They stick in the memory and repeat them
selves again and again, and under all the
! jingle we feel the courage and the splendor
and the pathos of human endeavor
In the silence of the camp before the fight,
When it's good to make your will and say
your prayer
You can hear my rumpty-tumpty overnight
Explaining ten to one always fair.
But the word-the word is mine, when the order
moves the line
| And the ean-locked ranks go roaring down TO
die.
The imperialism of England Kipling feels
as part of this same romance, with her do
minion over the sea, her pride of blood
There is magnificent nationalism in the
"Song OF the English" The heart of every
| English-born must glow at the words 1t is
amazing TO remember that this man is not
poet laureate. Perhaps he considered too
young; perhaps he was born too far away
from home; perhaps he never thought OF
at all "These be trhing reasons, my mas
ters," yet surely for no weightier was Alfred
Austin chosen. Bombay is Kipling's native
| city and he was born in 1865, SO that he is
| still a surprisingly young man considering
! the work he has DONE He was educated as
| the word is used, at Westward Ho-named
| after Kingsley's novel. Whatever his school
| lie may have been one feels sure that his
real education was gained from men rather
| than books. He went into journalism, and
every one knows about the humb beginnings
! of his literary fame in the Anglo-Indian news
| paper He visited this country in 1889 and
! married an American girl. She was sister of
Walcott Balestier, young writer whose great
| promise an untimely death left unfulflled
| Kipling and Balestier elaborated on one
| story. and Balestier's "Benefts Forgot was
run ming in the Century at the time of his
death.
Mr.. Kipling has dedicated to his birthplace
! this latest volume. The title is significant of
the greatness OF the English dominion and is
| no doubt borrowed from those Persian mystics