The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-07-19
IN SIGHT OF MoNADNocK.
RudyaSd Kipling Writes of His impress
sions of New England.


In little volume, entitled Letters of
travel, just issued, Rudyard Kipling de-
scrlbes his journeyings between the years,
ioSZ-I9l3, and IN which are recorded the
results of his keen observations with
comments thereupon that are not always
characterized by kindly and sympathetic
spirit. The first of these is ''In sight of
Monadneck, and describes a winters
Journey from New York to the foothills
OF the Green Mountains of Vermont We
take 1T that this was a journey taken by
hlpllng on his first visit to the United
States, and it may have been the one out
OF which he came to build himself bung-
allow in Brattleboro, VT, where be made
has residence for a few short years, and
from which he departed without regret.
He writes:
This part of the country belongs by
laws unknown to the United States, but
which obtain all the world over to the
New England story and the ladies who
write it. You feel this in the aim as soon
as You see the white-painted wooden
houses left out in the snow, the austere
schooihouse, and the people the men OF
the farms, the women who work as hard
as they with, it may be, less enjoyment
ot lHe-the other houses, well painted and
quantity rooted that belonged to Judge
This, Lawyer That, and Banker Such am
one; all powers in the metropolis of six
thousand folks over thele lty the railway
station. More acutely still, do you realize
the atmosphere when you read in the
local paper announcements of chicken sup
pers and church sociables to be given by
such and such denomination, sandwiehed
between paragraphs of genial and friendly
IntPrQSt CHI hat no
land without Staying each other) on terms
OF terrifying intimacy
1t has been recorded that Kipling found
this atmosphere quite uncongenial for pro-
tracted breathing. In this reflection. he
may be recording the impressions of
later experience than. the one borne in
upon him on that first journey
Altogether delightful was the impress
sion gained at his first sight of Monad-
mock. This appealed to his poetic imagi-
nation Beyond the very furthest range, )"
he writes, where the pines turn to
amt blue haze against the one solitary
peak-a real mountain and not hill
showed like a gigantic thumbnail point
ing heavcpward You know how il often
happens that a word shuttles in and out
Of many years, waking all sorts of incon-
gruous associations. I had met Monad-
mock on paper in a shameless parody Of
Emerson's style, before ever style or
verse had interest for me- But the word
stuck because of rhyme, in which one
was
crowned coeval
With Monaduoel,'s crest
And my wings extended
Touch the East and West.
Later the same word, pursued on the
same principle as that blessed one Mes
opotamia, led me to and through Emer-
son up to his poem on the peak itself,
the wise old giant busy with his sky af-
fairs, who makes us sane and sober and
free from little things if we trust him.
So Monadnock came to mean everything
that was helpful, healing, and full of quiet,
and when l saw him half across New
Hampshire he did not fail me-
There is SO much. so very much to
write, if it were worth while. about that
queer lit le town by the railway station.
with its life running so smoothly. to all
outward seeming. and within disturbed
by the 6atreds and troubles and iealousics
that vex The minds of all but the gods.
For instance-no. it is better to remcm-
Der the lesson MonadnoeI. and Emerson
has said. .Ieus hates busy-bodies and peo-
niles who do too much Fitchburg Sen
tinel