The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-11
KIPLING AND THE PROFESSOR.
The story Writer Submits to a Five
Hour Interview.
New York Evening Sun.

New York Evening Sun.
Mr.. Rudyard Kipling has always gone on
ihe theory that the personality of the artist
Is his own business. His work is there 10
be criticised, examined liked or disliked
but the privacy of the individual must be
respected. In this respect he has been as
CONSISTENT as the Italian Duse, who holds
tnat when the curtain goes down on her
play she becomes private person. to be left
severely alone Germany, however. has dis
covered Mr.. Kipling. In the person Of Or.
hellner, typical professor of the Father
lana, the lion was bearded in his den. Per-
maps 1t was sense of the persistent deter
minatlon OF such a person which led Mr..
klpllng TO accord him fiVe-hour talk i'm
ms Workroom. AT any rate, the thing was
done And so we have the poet story-Writer
analyzed and dissected in the approved leu
tonic fashion. The inevitable deductions are
draWn, ana probably nobody is more amused
oy the result than the victim himself. To
certain extent Or. kellner's report has tho
charm of an obituary published before the
death of the subject
DR.. Kellner having remarked that he was
az work on literary history of England.
Mr.. Kfpling said: IF I had your book to
write [ would attempt in a final chapter
to discover the path which may lead from
the present chaotic condition of our ltera-
ture and that of the twentieth century. 7
would call the chapter Between Two
Epochs.' / feel that we are between ebb
ana Hood. 1t Is now just what sailors call
Slack tide. We are waiting for the great
personality which will unite all the minor
tendencies Of the time and collect all the
partial and petty forces into one power
~
sion to the new time" This leads the doctor
to ask: rs that man still to come or is
he already herei' Could there be any strong
or proof of the serious way in which this
critic takes Kipling himself? He could not
have gone further If he had boluly said that
here was a man who would be, perhaps.
the best embodiment Of the period, so far
as the writers Of English Of to-day were
concerned. In other words, DR.. Keilner sug-
gests something which St. Beuve said was
the most difficult of all for a contemporary
to do, i. e.. realize who would be considered
by after generations as the typical figures
of any age. True NoltaiTe was so accepted.
but Moliere was not. And the number Of
cases in which contemporaries were wrong
in this matter would make a long list, in
deed.
Two things are notable in Kipling's talk,
the stress he lays on form and the impOr-
lance which he apparently attaches to his
poetry as distinguished from his prose. As
for the first, DIR. Kellner quotes him as say
ing that 'all thought is abortiVe speech"
This can hardly be justified scientifically.
Sir Henry Maine held that you cannot think
in the higher sense unless you have the
words to think in. And taking this author
ity, Mr.. Kipling appears to put the cart be-
fore the horse. But that is a detail. As
for Mr.. Kiplng's poetry. there can be no
doubt that there IS a great contrast between
his early verse, which was mainly humOr-
GUS and the dignity of The RecessiOnal'
and the vivid and grotesque power Of 1T he
Vampire" In the matter of his prose. II
may be possible, after all, that posterity
will prefer the rough vigor Of his less aTtful
early tales to his more elaborate later work.