The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-12-16
KipIing ForsakesIt
His Ideal Home
Up in Vermont.


Brattleboro, Vt, Dec, 15.-"To De great
is to be misunderstood" So said one
who in his time was a lion in the literary
arena even as eminent as the great Rud-
yard is this day, but whose name is now
as If the waves of the ocean had passed
over it and it were not.
A short six years ago there came to
this beautiful village among the Vermont
hills man whose temperament demanded
peace and exclusion man whose fame
had become a burden to him and whose
spirit thirsted for communion with the
lofty, immutable mountains and sur
cease from the chatter Of his kind. Now
he has set a price-S90, Coon his hearth
stone
Nature was gentle to him. He found
her in the very grandest Of her moods
and in the quiet but awful gorgeousness
of her most beautiful apparel She sym
pathized with him, and her sympathy
won his love, an easy conquest The
sombre, sober, soothing touch Of her
! hand carressed him; the glOries Of her
spring time responded to his love for the
essence of resplendency; the full burst Of
her summer habiliments was to him as
wine is to the heart Of the strong man;
the strong dignity Of her display in the
waning year made his soul yearn for the
fullness of grand accord.
| So came Kipling.
| And now he goes, or, rather, comes
| not again, for from across the sea blunt
orders have been received to sell his
! American home to the highest bidder
the home wherein, as goes his own say,
he can do more and better work than any
where else on the broad earth; the home
round which cling the tenderest memories
of young fathers first proud and hap
BY hours; the home of wife who has
proved the best of helpmeets and TO
whose devotion the great author un-
! doubtedly owes his life; the home where
his dead daughter first saw the gentle
sunlight; the home wherein he penned
the sentences of the famous Captains
/ Courageous and the popular Jungle
Book" and wherein the lines of THE
Seven Seas" took living shape in his liv-
ing brain; the home where the affection
| and sympathy of one brother-in-law
made happy and profitable comradeship
in work and in play, and where the IN
dying enmity of another made life
thing to weary the flesh no less than
the spirit
Far from the maddening crowd
That was his idea, but he found that
they whose words made the world ring
and ring again assign to themselves a
task we'll nigh impossible when they elect
to escape the populace. He had spoken
to the people without their asking. and
the people wanted to know him.
He belonged to them they said: he said
he belonged to himself
That made two opinions-the opinions
Of the people, and the American people at
that. and the opinion Of an Individual.
And when the opinion of the American
people is antagonistically set to the
opinion Of one man. master of his craft
or not, love does not find the way.
The people did not love Rudyard-par-
ticularly the people Of Brattleboro. Did
he care for that? Why should he? His
audience was the world, not merely a
speck Of it in the New England hills.
transcendently beautiful though that
atom might be. He had not come to
Brattleboro to cultivate the friendship
of organ makers, or farmers, OF board
ing house keepers, or butchers, or bakers,
He came to be alone, and to be silent
Or, if he spoke he wanted speech only
with the hills, the trees and the ripping
brooks, except when he sopke out pro-
fessionalIy to the world.
The man among his fellows You ask
one Brattleboro man If he ever met the
poet militant OF the British empire He
will say that he met him. and that he
was always very pleasant" What was
he doing those times? Oh. he might be
in town to see after the repairs to his |
dog cart OF something on the estate. and (
he might ask the citizen if he had seen /
SO-and-So. You ask another. a real es- /
tate dealer this time. and he tells you /
that the author Of 1.-THE Seven Seas" was (
a courteous individual enough TO him. He /
had spoken to him more than once the /
matter being some bushes inquiry, and /
''he was all right" Then he adds as
an afterthOught, that he supposes. how /
ever, II he asked him for any favor he .
might throw him down like as not"
Another viii tell you that he had often /
seen Kipling, but had never spoken to
him, although he does not doubt that 'if /
he had met him. man to man. he would
surely find him a good fellow" SbH an
other viii vpuchsafe the information that
while he was a queer duck he was
without doubt. "a real smart man" One
Of the genuer sex tells YOU that she is
sorry Kipling is going away. because he
gave tone to the town. For. be it known.
the Kipling chariots lacked not coachmen
and footmen, and that. Notwithstanding
they frequently rolled over the streets
up here-and splendid streets they are,
were always a sight" for to
see"
Perhaps you viii meet a young woman
and viii put the question TO her. Did
you ever meet the man who wrote Cap
tains Courageous?' " and she viii answer
as she takes down THE Days Work to
show you a passage understood to be
descriptive of a Vermont scene. that she
met him often. and that she always got
"a bow from him. although she did not
know him. but she supposed that he
thought her SOMEBODY else Then she
adds word about "the funny looking
fellow that be was. with his spectacles
and the long overcoat ard the queer
kind OF boots trimmed with fur and but
toning W the leg"
Perhaps" one w0uld say. ''be has
softened a bit since he had his triaT'-
the loss OF poor joe" PERHAPS
be has.
But ideas have changed a shade or
Two since Kipling oame TO Yankeeland to
dwell His unootusiveness. his always
sentemaniy department his love for
hard work and for his New England
home his uind-your-ovn-bus have
won him the respect Il nothing more
Il The nelghotrs with whom he has -e-