The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-30
KIPLING AND HIS WORK
AN INDIANA MANS TRIBUTE TO THE
STORIES HE TELLS I'm PROSE.
He Finds Them Entertaining and
Pleasing, and Inclines to the Opin-
ion that They VIII Live.

Mr. E. F. TTbbott recently read before
the Century Club paper on Rudyard Kip
| ling. the essential parts of which are here
presented. Mr.. Tibbott began by saying
| that it is a question whether authors
personality should enter much in discuss
sion of his work-at least until he has
completed it. 1t is also a question whether
the prose and poetry of a writer can be
properly treated under one head. There
| fore, Kipling's personal characteristics
shall be left unprejudiced, by this paper,
to his biographer and his verse to another
pen. Born in 1861 in the cosmopolitan city
of Bombay
Between the palms and the sea,
| Where the world-end steamers wait"
Kiplings life has been spent in many cities
| of many countries When, in 1889, he and
! his work left India together and introduced
themselves to the world at large, his recep-
! ton by the critics was not altogether flat
tering. Some said he was noisy-and per-
haps he was-and that there was too much
beer and barracks and high-jinks general
| ly. He was a fad ''whim of effete Phil
istinism, conscious of the dry-rot of con-
! ventionality, casting about for cure" His
only aim was to find something that would
take" with the English people. and he
would not last. His characterization was
never excellent, often mediocre and some
| times abominable." "The tone" of his
work offended" 1t testified to the chaos
Of an undiscipIined SOUL" 1t left "a bad
| taste in the mouth, etc.
But these expressions were generally the
outbursts of the housewives Of a veneered
civilization afraid that some boy might
rudely crack the varnish and expose the
rotten wood underneath. The great ma
jority of critics, and readers as well, recog-
nized in him a writer of fiction who was
| also a man of letters" Not without faults,
| occasionally generalizng where ne should
discriminate: sometimes inclined to be
| cynical, but never morbid; sometimes dig
| ging up dry bones from ancient graves, he
| is in the main, fresh and wholesome. Con-
scious of his own powers-perhaps proud
| of them-he is inclined to dogmatic state
ment. Using constantly the pronoun IL"
| the Ego is neevr offensive. Speaking from
| the vantage ground of things learned, he
| is clear forceful and accurate; never hesi-
! tating, often abrupt, though never harsh or
| grating and often exhibiting a wonder
| fully light and delicate touch. Looking, as
| if by intuition, through the eyes of many
men, his pages contain many and varied
impressions. Seeing clearly, his representa-
| tons are never hazy or indistinct. Indeed,
| TIC has DeGIl dccuSGQ OI uSlIlS u Ilellldl
kodak in description He undoubtedly
| brings to our vision every feature of the
scenes he depicts. but we are conscious of
more We feel we hear, the very smells
| fill our nostrls.
! When q 'tattered, rotten punkah of white
| washed calico puddles the hot air and
| whines dolefully at each stroke" we see it
| and hear it, and we are oppressed by the
| 100 degrees of heat. When "the last puff
| Of the day wind brings from the unseen
! villages the scent of damp wood smoke, hot
! cakes dripping underground, and rotting
/ Dinecones," we are conscious of "the true
smell of the Himalayas" When 1.-The witch
| cry of the dawn turns the gray river-reach-
| es to purple. gold and OPAL" we feel "as
! though the numbering Ghoni crept across the
splendors of a new heaven" and this inn
| preston is not lessened when the usually
| stolid Private Dormer awakes and exclaims,
well - dam my eyes! This ere is like
bloomn gallantry show
| FELICITY OF EXPRESSION.
Few writer's have so remarkable a faculty
for telling so much in so few words. The
| cobra said, II spoke to them in the dark,
and they were STILL" The alligator said,
of the man whose boat ran aground, "He
eaped over to push off. His empty boat
went on" " The government should teach
us to pull the triggers with our toes said
Suket Singh grimly to the moon. That was
the last public observation of Sepoy Suket
! Singh"
With this marvellous felicity and faculty
| of expression, he combines a keen percep-
! ton Of the motives that move men; and it
| is this human quality of his work that most
| attracts. Whether the subject be the Vice
roy of India reviewing his $4,000 troops, or
and william the Conqueror;" whether it
! be Holden and his head Ameera, or black
| Michele and Miss Vezzis, or "Balkri" Scott
| and William the Conduerer;" whether 1t
| be Mulvaney and his pals, or Mowgli and
| his gray brothers; whether it be Harvey
Cheyne, millionaire. or Disko Troop, captain
| of the Were Here Kipling discovers and
brings to light some relationship that ex-
| tends to the whole human family This
| breadth of view and largeness of sympathy
| finds expression in his response to our own
| poet Riley, who had sent him copy of
| ''Chid World"
''Your trail lies to the westward,
| Mine back to mine own place.
There is water between our lodges
l have not seen your face
But have read your verses,
| And / can guess the rest,
For in the hearts of children
| There is east or west"
| In the beginning Kipling confined himself
| strictly to India: but later on he showed
| that he could take good stone from other
| quarries. The Seven Seas" wash the
shores of every land, and bear precious
freight from many ports, The Light that
| Failed" takes the reader from London to
/ Africa and back again. In Captains Cour
ageous" the son of a millionaire American
| is instructed in the art of fishing for cod
! on the grand banks off the Massachusetts
/ coast. "Badalia Herodsfoot" is woman of
the slums of London. Brugglesmith, Nc
| Phee and other characters give us a view
| Of the Thames and of London streets. Fen
! wick, the lighthouse keeper of st. Cecilia
| under-the-Cliff, tells how Dowse went mad
| and disturbed the traffic as it. passed
| through Flores strait on its way to Aus
| tralia. "a Matter of Fact'-a too astound-
ing sea-serpent yarn for newspaper publica-
tion-became fiction, because truth is
naked lady, and if by accident she is drawn
up from the bottom Of the sea it behooves
a gentleman either to give her a print pet
| ticoat or to turn his face to the wall and
vow he did not see." 1.-THE Finest Story IN
| the World" was never told, it is true, but
! the attempt was made in London, and the
| Chief Actor should have been a weak-wit
ted bank clerk, afflicted with strange but
too intermittent remembrance of previous
!