The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-22
KIPLING AS PHELPS
 OF YALE SEES HIM
Man Who Wrote "RecessionaF Also Wrote Worst Novel Yale Professor Ever
 Read.
Says British Author Has Done Nothing Worthy Of Note Since His Illness in New York 10 Years Ago.


 | many very interesting things and gave the brilliant British author such a raking over and dissection as one sell dom hears outside the labratory He 1 said Kipling is a living writer, a very living writer, and very young indeed | to have had such tremendous reputa- tion for 20 years. He is now man of but 43. Most mems literary reputation does not begin before that age. It is somewhat audaciOuS to discuss him at ali. Kipling has said Heaven will come when the youngest of the critics are deed; no one should praise or blame but God who made the artist. Life, said Prof. Phelps. is too shcrt to be afraid of anybody. If cat may look at a king, I at this distance, and in the midst of 8 friendly audience, may look at Kipling. He was born in Bom- bay, educated in England, and was mostly a newspaper man. In 1886 he made a little volume of his poems and sent them tc his friends with postal
 card asking their opinion. the same as Walt Whitman circulated his first poems. These books cost almost noth- ing-now they fetch tremendous prices. If we only knew who was to be a popular author we might get very rich buying up a whole edition, and there are those who would appreciate litera-
 
 friend in New York. Henry Arthur Jones. the playwright. He was called | in @ paper the millionaire playwright. | He did not like it. Why" I said, that is just the thing. If you are I only dramatist. people will sniff, but when it is known that you have made a million of dollars, they will speak of you with respect"
 | The success of his first volumes gave 1 Kipling what pr. Oliver Wendell Holmes called the Head poison.'' It is the disease which comes from seeing ones works in cold lead type. Klpling went | on volume after volume, and became very popular. He built a beautiful l house in Brattleboro. Vt, from which | he was driven by his crazy brother-in- law. He now lives in the south of England. I think 1t would have been very gratifying to have such man of | letters living near us in Vermont through! It is a far cry from India to Vermont. He was once asked to a dinner given by some students of Yale. He sent in reply a picture showing himself stuck in the midst of vast snow bank. He said he couldn't come. He was but 20 years old when he pub lished his first book. He was called a new star rising in the east. In 1888 he wrote Plain Tales From the Hills, and five other books. All of these became famous. In 1890 appeared his first novel; in 1892 his Barrack Room Ball. lards; in 1894 the Jungle Book; in 1897 his famous poem the "Recessional" William the ConQueror is one of his best stories.
 A great physical, if not mental crisis came to him when he was taken so sick in New York with pneumonia. Prof. Phelps had reason to remember this for he was sick in bed himself, and one morning his doctor came in and said Kipling is dead. And it is good thing, too," added the doctor. MT. Phelps asked how he knew Kipling was dead. Because from the condition he was in last night he could not live until morning." Never said Prof. Lincoln. at whose bedside the whole nation watched with such ferocious in terest People in New York, who had never seen Kipling, went about the streets crying, and the Emperor of Germany sent frequent cablegrams ask ing about the progress of the disease The doctor went on to explain his re- mark-"If he dies now he is an inn mortal genius; if he had lived he might in the end nave dwindled out" Prof. Phelps thinks this severe illness was a literary crisis in the life of Kiplfng. He has written practically nothing since. But this should not blind us to what he wrote before. If he goes on he may have the melancholy fate of surviving his reputation, like Bret Harte. If he writes so poorly now what will be do in 20 years?
 Lorna Doom was a splendid novel by Blackmore. but he has not written a good book since. It is humiliating to be beaten by ones past. A man can- not play as good a game of tennis as he could 15 years ago; he is better at 40 than at 60. Poor old Swift is an example. When an old man he was looking at the "Tale of the Tub" I had when I wrote that book!"
 Kipling has since written the worss novel I ever read-"Stocking and Co.," There have been other bad novels by Mrs. E. D. N. .Southworth. and Laura Jean Libbey, but they are not litera- ture. Kipling keeps abreast with the scientific progress of the age. One of his recent books is called Wireless" I think we will soon have a book on airships. I determined to read every 1 word of his last book if it killed me, 1 and it very nearly did. A good motto ! for Kipling would be: one touch of India Makes the Whole World kin Prof. Phelps gave number of the opinions of other people about Kipling and said that since 1899 his admirers mourn. Yet honors have come to him 1 from the highest sources. He has re- Co1VoQ the QOCLOTS QGkIcc lOuI l1IllCS including Oxford and Cambridge; also 1 the Noebel prize for literature. The admiration for Kipling was a craze, a fad, and not a popularity. Yale had a l Kipling club He was asked to dine 1 with them. He was kind enough to write a poem in reply, which the club l framed and hung upon the wall. He was at one time very much like king ball. It came in with great force but | soon died out. It used to be said of him-"Rudyard Kipling is supposed to 1 be the cleverest man now holding a l pen" The fad died but the man lived. | He is 8 hard, faithful, conscientious | workman His books are well known | all over the world; they have been | translated into all languages. He is to-day the real poet leaureate of Eng land Prof Phelps spoke of the poems, '"The White Mans Burden,' and "The Absent Minded Beggar,'' but he added they are not literature. India, as liter | ary material. from Kipling's point of | view, was a new country-new literary ore collected out of 8 strange land. Are these pictures of Indian life true: We cannot tell at all here in Stratford and it's suburbs. There is wonderful local color 10 all except the people who are described-they say it is lie. i Don't mention a book called the May or of Warwick to the people of Hart ford Don't do it. They repudiate 1t. I wish someone would write a story of Stratford life. The newspapers may be