Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1922-09-22
KILLINGS TROUBLE RECALLED
Alleged Attack on America Brings Out
"reminiscences by Boston Special
Writer

| Writer.
Whether or not Mr.. Kipling said the
unpleasant things about America to the
| imaginative Sheridan lady the SAYS he
| did mott, his unfriendly sentiments
| with regard to us are well known.
They have been repeatedly and cordially
| expressed in his acknowledged writings.
| 1t has been impossible for the Nomad
| TO become very much excited over the
| alleged onslaught because he has long
been aware of that curious condition of
| Mr.. Kiplng's fmind which turned him,
| some years ago, from being very good
| friend of America into d bitter hater
even of the American name. The
| change of heart, as is well known to
! Vt. seemed to date from certain I'M
favorable personal experiences. The
, Nomad well remembers when Mr.. Kip
! ling wrote very charming things about
us. As all know. Kipling married an
American woman. Miss Caroline Bales
| tier, sister of Wolcott Balestier, a
young novelist who died in Dresden in
1891, and also sister of Beatty Bales
| tier, a somewhat eccentric and peculiar
| man with whom Kipling fell into a
violent quarrel. The Balestiers were of
Brattleboro, VT. kipling fell quite in
love with that state and place, and in
the early nineties he built charming
house near Brattleboro, which he called
Naulahka, after the name of story in
the writing of which he elaborated
with Wolcott Balestier. The house
still stands, though it is now in quite
other hands than Kipling's.
AT about the same time Kipling be-
came deeply interested in the Glouces-
ter fishermen and published Captains
Courageous. q splendid picture of their
brave voyagings. in 1897. But some
w "a m ha fol int
personal trouble with Beatty Balestier
who had become embroiled with certain
Brattleboro tradesmen. There was
lawsuit; kipling was brought into
court, and there were scenes which
made great newspaper sensation. Mr.
kipling became disguised with life in
Vermont and soon sold Naulahka and
posed that Mr.. Kipling would have
taken grudge against all Americans
merely becauseshe had quarrel with
his brother in-law, especially as there
was always the memory of the genial
and sincerely lamented Wolcott But it
Is undoubtedly true that he resented
the publicity and all the hullabaloo at
Brattleboro
And then came the terrible illness at
New York. Kipling was taken i'll at the
Hotel Grenoble toward the end of
February. 1899, and soon fell into a very
critical state. At about this time his
eldest child, Josephine. was also taken
i'll, and she died afterward at private
house, where she was taken on account
of her fathers illness at the hotel. Her
father lifted the child off the floor on
the morning she. left the hotel, and
kissed her as she lay on his bed. In his
illness Mr.. Kipling was attended bv
DIR. Theodore Durham, whose wife was
Mrs. kipling's sister, and by DR.. Z. G.
Janeway. In his illness Kipling
imagined that he was in the hands of
enemies, and was constantly seeking
either to hide himself or to escape. Soon
after his recovery he returned to Eng
land. and never came back.
Throughout the illness there was the
keenest public concern. for at that time
Kipling was one of the most popular of
men in this country. Thousands of
cards and other messages were received;
flowers came in masses, and when he
was recovering the family were flooded
with all sorts of delicacies in the way
of food ALI mis-, together with the
tragedy of his daughters death, seemed
to have singular and a sinister effect
/ upon Kipling. The first indication of
resentment was when, after returning
to England, he instituted a suit against
very prominent American publishing
house for issuing an unauthorized edi-
tlon OF his works. In connection with
this suit he wrote public letter in
which he said of this concern: "Thev
have made me responsible. before a
public to whom / do peculiarly owe the
best and most honest work I can turn
out, for an egregious padded fake. and
tage of that Dublic'sj interest in my i'll
ness when | lay at the point of death"
This note indicates that at the time he
had pot yet developed any particular
hatred for Americans. But all his ad-
mirers will agree that he was certainly
not the same writer after his recovery
Nothing that he has written since the
quality to the poetry, and the stories
that went before; and the bitterness
toward America and the Americans
seems to have been developed entirely
since the strain and stress of this ex-
nerience.. So plain was it that Kip
lings mind and undergone deteriora-
ton las evidence in his work. that it
should have been attributed to some
loss or lesion which accompanied or re-
suited from the illness. Certainly Puck
of Pook's Hill Traffic and Discoveries.
Actions and Reactions, and the lum-
herinc later verse. in which the lyric
faculty and all the gift of epigram are
totally lost. seem hardly to he the work
~ tHe H.hn WHO wrote, Wanda 'aV. Tom
linson. Soldiers Three. The Brnshwood
Row. Kim. and The Jungle Books. The
furious slant AGAINST the Yankees
seems TO 90 with that strange deteriora.
ton of mind and body. 1t partakes of
the nature of mania We are evidently
aimed at in the guatrain on Quebec
which reads as follows:
From thy gray scarp / view with scorn-
full eyes
lgnoble broil of freedom most unfree
But fear not, Mother, where the car
rion lies,
There that unclean bird must be,
But lust what does that mean? The
recent interview onslaught, whether or
not .Kipling made it. was at least not
ambiguous. 1t is charitable. at least. to
believe that the fearful grudge against
America is not "A part of the mans
real nature, but is the result of some