The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1899-12-24
Critics OF Kipiing.

Critics OF Kipilng.
The achievement Of notoriety by an
assault upon fame is no new device.
There are, indeed, suspicious that It lies
near the genesis of literary criticism.
Every genius has to bear the pin pricks
Of the envious and the cumbrous hos
tile advances OF the meddlesome or the
merely stupid. Mr.. Kipling more than
most has invited challenge from wan
dering knight and troubadour, for as
rule he has written with little regard
to popularity. He has said the thing
that he had to say with a fine disre-
gard Of consequences. Sensibilities
have been outraged, the border Of the
proprieties srazed perilously. and ma
tional PRIDE, that most belligerent of
qualities, pressed closely to the wall.
1t Is small wonder that, with this care
less and conquerins progress through
the World of letters, he leaves behind
him something Of scowling ana uproar.
An American irresponsible OF the flu
gitive press gives us the note Of the
outspoken critics. He tells us that
Robert Buchanan has taken upon him.
self the chastisement of Kipling, and
himself contributes few fagots for o
more effectual bastinado. He classifies
Mr.. Kipling as creature of environ
ment. His characters are only the un-
lovable creatures that fill the circle of
army life in india. There Is the source
Of all his inspiration. and his mentor,
after blithely Diminishing his lyric and
religious poems as London Times edi-
torials versified," pronounces judgment
in these words: $50 besotted with the
intoxicants of this brutal environment
did the alert mind of Kipling grow that
he has been unable to depict q woman
who possesses generosity IL intelligent
or intelligence and dignity II free and
morally worthy. His children are
either victims or little devils. The per-
vading atmosphere of his work is de-
basing by insistence Of brutality"
OF course this is not criticism, and in
itself would no more warrant notice
than the obscene oath that q drunken
hoodlum might hurl at any passer from
the door of his dive. The writer Of It
evidently has read the "Stalky" stories
and some Of the plain Tales from the
Hills" assimilating their contents with
the coarse intelligence Of the loafer and
the mental attitude OF the prude. He
is not worthy game for anybody. But
his words do call attention to the real
strength of Kipling's best work, and
to the reasons for the remarkable hold
that 1t has gained on all the English
speaking and thinking world. 1t is a
work by no means fiawless, but still
one that entities its author to rank as
the greatest Of living writer's in the
English tongue.
Kipling and Stevenson, the two great
figures of recent literature, have this
in common; that they discard conven-
tionalities with fine disregard of con-
sequences, and look at man as he Is.
They see the coarseness as we'll as the
fineness, hear the imprecations as we'll
as the prayers, record the talk Of the
barrack room and the fo'castle as well
as the soft, silken whisperings Of my
lady's chamber. They understand
primitive man; and as very few OF us
have our unpleasant ancestors cast out
entirely by the evolutionary process,
we recognize the voice and we say,
this is true to life." 1t Is the funda-
mental passions, the simple motives,
the elemental forces OF human nature
that constitute the bulk of the raw
material. Through the web Of it runs
the golden thread of all that we might
and ought and hope to be. To have q
firm touch on keys filling SO great a
scale is genius; to draw forth all their
AIRY art.
One great achievement OF Mr.. Kip
ling has been to draw the line, with q
firm hand and true. between the place
of realism and idealism In literature,
over which eternal conflict RACES. One
writer gives us only romantic pictures
of human nature at its impossible best,
and we say that he is romantic. and
fout his work as untrue to life. Then
the crowd hastens for a little after him
who selects all that is coarse and vul-