Kipling's Reading and Its Influence on His Poetry [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512819304

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KIPLING'S

READING

KIPLING'S READING and Its Influence on His

Poetry

ANN M. WEYGANDT

When Omer smote 'is He'd 'eard men sing An' what he thought 'e Έ went an' took—the

bloomin' lyre, by land an' sea; might require, same as me!

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia

*939

Copyright 1939 A N N M. W E Y G A N D T Manufactured

in the United

States of

America

PREFACE PREFATORY

A

NOTE

have used and seems advisable.

on the editions of Kipling's works I the bibliographies I have consulted

T h e r e is no complete and all-inclusive edition of K i p l i n g in existence. Macmillan's expensive and limited Sussex Edition, now in the process of publication, will be so, but it will never be easily available to the average reader. I have used the American T r a d e Edition, which is dark green and stamped on the cover with a caravel designed by Kipling, and have supplemented it with isolated non-uniform volumes. I have also been forced to employ two editions of From Sea to Sea other than the American T r a d e , one for the sake of " A Fleet in Being," the other for " T h e Smith Administration." I have specified the edition in the footnotes each time I referred to either of these, and I shall append to this preface a list of the extra-American T r a d e Edition volumes I have referred to in the text and footnotes. In every case I have attempted to make my references so full that it will be possible to find the passages designated in any edition of K i p l i n g should the reader wish to do so. In order to avoid completely smothering a text already overburdened with footnotes, I have given no references for the poems included in the Verse: Inclusive Edition 1885-1932, published in N e w York by Doubleday, Doran. T h e Inclusive Verse has a complete alphabetical index, and also lists separately the poems written between 1918 and 1926, and those between 1926 and 1932, together with The Muse among the Motors. Poems printed only in Early Verse or with the texts of tales are always attributed to their source. A l l dates of publication are taken from E. W . Martindell's A Bibliography of the Works of Rudyard Kipling (London, Lane, 1923) unless I have stated to the contrary. Additional V

vi

KIPLING S READING

information about dates of publication has been drawn from Mrs. Flora V. Livingston's Bibliography of the Works of Rudyard Kipling (New York, Wells, 1927) and Mr. Ellis Ames Ballard's Catalogue Intimate and Descriptive of my Kipling Collection (Privately printed, Philadelphia, 1935). T h e bibliography of Kiplingiana which has been most helpful to me is that contained in Bibliographies of Twelve Victorian Authors, compiled by Theodore G. Ehrsam, Robert H. Deily, and Robert M. Smith, and published by Wilson, New York, 1936. After I had completed my study, I had, through the kindness of Dr. Karl T . Waugh, an opportunity to consult RearAdmiral L. H. Chandler's A Summary of the Work of Rudyard Kipling, New York, T h e Grolier Club, 1930. T h i s book was privately printed in an edition of only three hundred and twenty-five copies, and is not easily obtainable. T h e additional information I have garnered from it has been incorporated into my footnotes. T h e following is a list of the editions of texts other than the American T r a d e Edition cited in my footnotes: Abaft the Funnel

New York, Doubleday, Page,

A Book of Words Captains Courageous Collected Dog Stories

1909· London, Macmillan, 1928. New York, Century, 1918. New York, Doubleday, Doran,

The Complete Stalky & Co.

1934· New York, Doubleday, Doran, !930·

T h i s contains " T h e Satisfaction of a Gentlemen," not collected elsewhere. Early Verse France at War From Sea to Sea II

New York, Scribner, igoo. New York, Doubleday, Page, 1916. New York, Doubleday & McClure, Swastika Edition.

vii

PREFACE T h i s contains " T h e Smith Administration." From Sea to Sea I I I

New York, Doubleday, Page, n. d. New World Edition.

T h i s contains " A Fleet in Being." The Irish Guards in the Great War

New York, Doubleday, Page,

1923· The Jungle Book New York, Century, 1907. The Second Jungle Book New York, Century, 1 9 1 4 . Just So Stories Doubleday, Page, 1 9 1 2 . Land and Sea Tales New York, Doubleday, Doran, 1928. The One Volume Kipling New York, Doubleday, Doran, »932T h i s contains the hitherto uncollected " L a m e n t a b l e Comedy of W i l l o w W o o d , " " T h e Legs of Sister Ursula," and " F o r One Night Only." The New Army Training Sea Warfare

in London, Macmillan, 1 9 1 5 . N e w York, Doubleday, Page, i9!7·

T h i s contains The Fringes of the Fleet, Tales of Trade," and Destroyers at Jutland. Something

of Myself

Souvenirs of France "Thy Servant a Dog"

"The

N e w York, Doubleday, Doran, >937London, Macmillan, 1933. New York, Doubleday, Doran, 1930. A.M.W.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS WISH to thank Mrs. R u d y a r d K i p l i n g and Messrs. Doubleday, Doran for their kindness in granting me permission to quote from the works of R u d y a r d K i p l i n g named below.

I

POEMS: " T h e Bees and the Flies" from Actions and Reactions (copyright 1909, 1936 by Rudyard Kipling); the translation of " T h e R u i n " in " T h e Uses of R e a d i n g " from A Book of Words (copyright 1914, 1921, 1923, 1925, 1928 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e Birthright" from Debits and Credits (copyright 1919, 1924, 1926 by R u d y a r d Kipling; copyright 1915, 1918 by the Metropolitan Magazine Co.; copyright 1925, 1926 by McCall.); " T h e Last Department," " T h e Masque of Plenty," " L a N u i t Blanche," and " T h e Explanation" from Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads. (Departmental Ditties and other Poems, revised A p r i l 1899, copyright 1899 by R u d y a r d Kipling; Ballads and BarrackRoom Ballads, copyright 1892 by Macmillan; new edition with additional poems, copyright 1893 by Macmillan; copyright 1899, 1920, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling); "Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm" and " T h e Sea and the Hills" f r o m The Five Nations (copyright 1903, 1930 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e C u r é , " "Song of Seventy Horses," excerpts from the " C h a u c e r of Manallace" in the text of "Dayspring Mishandled" and " A h , would swift ships" in " T h e Manner of M e n " from Limits and Renewals (copyright 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932 by Rudyard Kipling; " A n d if ye d o u b t , " chapter heading to " A Matter of Fact" from Many Inventions (copyright 1893 by Appleton; copyright 1920 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e r e is pleasure," chapter headi n g to Chapter V I I of The Naulahka (copyright 1891, 1918 by R u d y a r d K i p l i n g and Wolcott Balestier; copyright 1892 by Macmillan; copyright 1899, 1920, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling); " N o t though you die," chapter heading to " B y ix

χ

KIPLING'S

READING

Word of Mouth" from Plain Tales from the Hills (revised April 1899, copyright 1899, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e Runes on Weland's Sword" and " A Tree Song" from Puck of Pook's Hill (copyright 1905, 1906, 1933 by Rudyard Kipling); " A Carol," "Poor Honest Men" and the song " I have given my heart" in "Marklake Witches" from Rewards and Fairies (copyright 1910 by Rudyard Kipling); "When 'Omer Smote 'Is Bloomin' 'Lyre" from The Seven Seas (copyright 1896, 1923 by Rudyard Kipling; copyright 1905 by Appleton); "You don't want to fight" in " T h e Swelling of Jordan" in The Story of the Gadsbys from Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White (copyright 1895 by Macmillan; copyright 1899, 1922, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling); "Blue Roses," "Cuckoo Song," "Heriot's Ford," " A Song of Travel," "Tarrant Moss" and "Unto Whose Use," and the chapter heading " K i m " from Songs from Books (copyright 1891, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1909, 1910, 1912 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e Necessitarian" and " T h e Runners" (with chorus "Nimrud") from Traffics and Discoveries (copyright 1904, 1931 by Rudyard Kipling); two "Epitaphs of the War" ("The Bridgeroom" and "Ex-Clerk") and " T h e Oldest Song" from The Years Between (copyright 1904, 1905, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1 9 1 1 , 1912, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e Fabulists" from Rudyard Kipling's Verse, Inclusive Edition, 1885-1918 (copyright 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1 9 1 1 , 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e Consolations of Memory," "Contradictions," " T h e Inventor," " T h e Justice's T a l e , " " T h e Marrèd Drives of Windsor," " T o Motorists," and " T h e Tour," all in " T h e Muse among the Motors," and "Fox-Hunting" from Rudyard Kipling's Verse, Inclusive Edition, 18851932 (copyright 1904, 1913, 1919, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1933, 1934). PROSE: " T h e Betrayal of Confidences" and " A Supplementary Chapter" from Abaft the Funnel (authorized edi-

xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

tion, New York, Doubleday, Page, 1909); " T h e House Surgeon" from Actions and Reactions (copyright 1909, 1936 by Rudyard Kipling); "Fiction," "Some Aspects of T r a v e l , " " T h e Spirit of the Latin," " T h e Uses of Reading" and " T h e Verdict of Equals" from A Book of Words (copyright 1 9 1 4 , 1 9 2 1 , 1923, 1925, 1928 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e United Idolators" from Debits and Credits (copyright 1919, 1924, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling; copyright 1 9 1 5 , 1 9 1 8 by the Metropolitan Magazine Co.; copyright 1925, 1926 by McCall); " T h e Dog Hervey," " M y Son's W i f e , " and " T h e V o r t e x " from A Diversity of Creatures (copyright 1910, 1 9 1 1 , 1 9 1 2 , 1 9 1 3 , 1 9 1 4 , 1 9 1 5 , 1 9 1 7 by Rudyard Kipling); A Fleet in Being in From Sea to Sea, New World Edition (copyright 1899, 1907, 1926, 1934 by Rudyard Kipling); The City of Dreadful Night, From Sea to Sea, and Letters of Marque from From Sea to Sea (copyright 1899, 1907, 1926, 1934 by Rudyard Kipling); "Egypt of the Magicians," and "From Tideway to T i d e w a y " from Letters of Travel (copyright 1892, 1900, 1908, 1914, 1920 by Rudyard Kipling); " T h e Dream of Duncan Parrenness," from Life's Handicap (copyright 1891 by Mac millan; copyright 1899, 1918, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling); The Light that Failed (copyright 1899, 1926, 1927 by Rudyard Kipling); " A u n t Ellen," " T h e Church that was at Antioch" and "Uncovenanted Mercies" from Limits and Renewals (copyright 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1 9 3 1 , 1932); "Brugglesmith" from Alany Inventions (copyright 1893 by Appleton; copyright 1920 by Rudyard Kipling); "Wressley of the Foreign Office" from Plain Tales from the Hills (revised edition, copyright 1899, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling); " O n the Great Wall" from Puck of Pook's Hill (copyright 1905, 1906, 1933 by Rudyard Kipling); Something of Myself (copyright 1937 by Caroline Kipling); " I n Ambush" from Stalky and Co. (copyright 1897, 1898, 1899, 1926 by Rudyard Kipling); Thy Servant a Dog (copyright 1930); " T h e Captive" from Traffics and Discoveries (copyright 1904, 1931 by Rudyard Kipling). A.M.W.

CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE

V

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IX

INTRODUCTION

I

KIPLING'S

!

KNOWLEDGE

OF

OLD

AND

MIDDLE

ENGLISH

LITERATURE

II

KIPLING'S

KNOWLEDGE

8

OF

ELIZABETHAN

AND

SEVEN-

TEENTH-CENTURY L I T E R A T U R E

III

KIPLING'S

KNOWLEDGE

OF

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

ROMANTIC L I T E R A T U R E

24

AND

59

IV

KIPLING'S KNOWLEDGE OF VICTORIAN L I T E R A T U R E

85

V

KIPLING'S KNOWLEDGE OF A M E R I C A N L I T E R A T U R E

I4O

KIPLING'S USE OF T H E B I B L E AND P R A Y E R BOOK

15G

KIPLING AND T H E SONG

166

CONCLUSION

L8A

VI

VII

INDEX

xiii

185

INTRODUCTION UDYARD

R

KIPLING

tells us in Something

of Myself

that a

. m a n o n c e took h i m o u t to d i n n e r to find o u t w h e t h e r

he had " e v e r read m u c h . " 1 It may seem strange that a n y o n e

s h o u l d have d o u b t e d his i n t i m a t e a c q u a i n t a n c e w i t h English literature, b u t this h a p p e n e d in the early n i n e t i e s , w h e n the y o u n g m a n f r o m I n d i a was the literary sensation of L o n d o n , a n d an i n s o l u b l e puzzle to the critics. K i p l i n g ' s a n o n y m o u s entertainer was by n o means a l o n e in his c u r i o s i t y as to his guest's r e a d i n g . T h e r e v i e w e r s of the I n d i a n tales a n d verse shared it. Y e t , a l t h o u g h there was a fair b o d y of u p o n which to base

conclusions, 2

writing

a n d that writing of a n a t u r e

to show that K i p l i n g was n e i t h e r i g n o r a n t n o r d i s r e g a r d f u l of his predecessors, they c o u l d c o m e to n o a g r e e m e n t u p o n the e x t e n t of his r e a d i n g , or the d e g r e e of its i n f l u e n c e u p o n h i m . W h e t h e r they were j u d g i n g his prose or his p o e t r y , n o t w o reached precisely the same v e r d i c t . O n e f o u n d that M r . K i p l i n g ' s stories " o w e d n o t h i n g to a n y o t h e r w r i t e r ; n o one h e l p e d to f o r m h i m . " 3 A n o t h e r was e q u a l l y c o n f i d e n t that, " w h e t h e r consciously or not, he d e s c e n d e d f r o m B r e t H a r t e . " 4 A third spoke of his parodies of " m a n y styles f r o m B r o w n i n g to S w i n b u r n e , " 5 thus i m p l y i n g that his o b l i g a t i o n s to earlier 1

Something

of Myself, Doubleday Doran, New York, 1937, 101.

By i8g3, the following books had appeared in English editions (the dates given are of the first publication in England): Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw, Wee Willie Winkie (all 1888), Plain Tales from the Hills (1890), The City of Dreadful Night (1891), The Light that Failed (1891), Life's Handicap (1891), The Naulahka (1892), Barrack-Room Ballads (1892), Many Inventions (1893). Departmental Ditties did not come out in England until 1897, but it seems to have been easily obtainable earlier. 3 J. M. Barrie, " M r . Kipling's Stories," Contemporary Review, L I X , March 1891, 366. * W . H. Bishop, " M r . Kipling's Work So Far," Forum, X I X , June 1895, 477. Barrie acknowledges that he is more like Harte than anyone else. 5 Quarterly, C L X X V , 1892, 146. 2

1

KIPLING'S READING

2

writers were conscious, while a fourth believed Kipling unaware of his debt, and a victim of a "dreadful and slovenly receptivity."® Perhaps it is not surprising that such a variety of opinions should have prevailed. The striking feature of Kipling's Indian tales was their novelty of matter and tone; similarities of method to Harte or Dickens were apt to go unremarked while readers rejoiced in the freshness of his stories of native life or deplored the youthful cynicism of his pictures of Anglo-Indian society. Yet the similarities of method were there, and discerning critics noted them. The derivative quality of much of his earlier verse was of course obvious. The uncharitable gentleman who thought Kipling himself oblivious to it could never have seen a copy of Echoes/ or even he must have conceded that the Tennysonian or Browningesque cadences in Departmental Ditties could not be entirely unconscious reminiscences. But again, it was not his imitations of earlier poets that made the deepest impression on Kipling's critics; it was the use to which he put the musichall song in Barrack-Room Ballads. There was nothing "literary" about "Fuzzy Wuzzy" or " T h e Widow at Windsor." It was natural to think of their author as an unliterary man, and even when one remembered his parodies and imitations of Victorians and Romantics, to wonder whether he knew much of English literature before 1800, beyond a few Shakespeare tags and a smattering of balladry. The quotations in Kipling's prose works might have helped the enquirer here, but that mine of allusions, From Sea to Sea, had not yet appeared in book form, and stories in which Hindus and soldiers were the chief figures, and often the narrators, gave little scope for references to sixteenth- or seventeenth-century writers. It is true that in the tales of Anglo-Indian life and in e

F . Adams, " M r . Rudyard Kipling's Verse," Fortnightly

Review, L X , Nov. 1,

1893. 591· 7

Echoes, By T w o Writers 1884, but Kipling's own share in Vol. X V I I of the Outward de Luxe in 1900. Livingston,

(Kipling and his sister) appeared in India in in the work was not reprinted until it appeared Bound edition and Vol. X V I I I of the Edition Bibliography, 440 and 448.

INTRODUCTION

3

" T h e Finest Story in the World" 8 an earnest seeker might have found evidence that Kipling ranged outside his own century, and in "Baa-Baa Black Sheep" 9 a suggestion that, if he bore any resemblance to his hero, he read everything he could lay hands on, but there was no one story or poem, or series of stories and poems, that compelled one to realize the width of Kipling's reading. Such works were to come. The Muse among the Motors (1904-1932), Puck of Pook's Hill (1906), and Rewards and Fairies (1910) do not reveal all Kipling's literary preferences and affiliations, but they make )it impossible for anyone to doubt his careful and loving study of the literature of all periods and many countries. Since their publication, and the collection of his early travel papers in From Sea to Sea (1899) and Abaft the Funnel (1909) most of his critics have taken it for granted that Kipling had roots and was conscious that he sprang from them. Some— such as write brief notices in histories of the literature of the nineties, or, like M. Chevrillon, 10 are explaining him to a foreign audience—pay little or no heed to his antecedents, emphasizing rather his individual characteristics—energy, originality of matter, power of description. Those who confine themselves to Kipling, and write at length, give more time to his relations to his predecessors. Richard Le Gallienne, 11 Cyril Falls,12 Ralph Durand, 13 and Thurston Hopkins,14 make casual reference to his indebtedness to this or that poem or poet, book or author, besides devoting an 8

In Many

" I n Wee

Inventions Willie

(1893).

Winkte

(1888).

10

A n d r é C h e v r i l l o n , Three

11

R i c h a r d L e G a l l i e n n e , Rudyard

Studies

in English Kipling,

Literature,

a Criticism,

N e w Y o r k , 1923. London and

New

Y o r k , 1900. 12

C y r i l Falls, Rudyard

13 Ralph

Durand,

first p u b l i s h e d 14

Kipling:

A Handbook

A Critical

Study,

to the Poetry

N e w Y o r k , 1915.

of Rudyard

Kipling,

London,

1914.

I h a v e read three of R . T h u r s t o n H o p k i n s ' books o n K i p l i n g :

Kipling:

A Literary

1921; a n d The

Appreciation,

Kipling

Kipling's reading.

Country,

N e w Y o r k , 1915; Kipling's

Sussex,

Rudyard

New York,

N e w Y o r k , 1925. T h e first gives most space to

4

KIPLING'S READING

occasional paragraph to his literary preferences. Sir George MacMunn deals briefly with his origins and likings in Chapter V of Rudyard Kipling, Craftsman" but does not pretend to treat the subject exhaustively. Walter Morris Hart goes more deeply into the influences on his prose,18 in Kipling the Story-writer, and Milford Rhoades Waddell chose Rudyard Kipling's Reading with special attention to Puck of Pook's Hill as the subject for his master's thesis at Cornell." The two last-named are the only treatises to discuss with any approach to thoroughness any phase of Kipling's reading. Of these, the former concerns itself only with such of his reading as influenced his prose, and has more to say of parallels to his method than of models demonstrably followed by him, and the latter, while it lists many of Kipling's favorite authors, gives detailed consideration to Puck of Pook's Hill alone. T w o periodical articles devoted to "Echoes and Growth in Rudyard Kipling" and "Kipling as a Critic" deserve mention, but their ten-page scope makes it impossible for them to be other than superficial. The first, written by Benjamin Heydrick and published in the Poet-Lore for October 1902, shows that the critical world was awakening more thoroughly to the fact of Kipling's conscious debt to his predecessors, but does not attempt a complete study of the evidences of reading in his work up to that date. Cecil Barbour, writing in the National Review in August 1927, had the opportunity to do a far more definitive piece of work than was possible in 1902. He could reasonably suppose that the greater part of Kipling's entire output was before him. But, while he listed many of the more obvious instances of 15 Lt. Gen. Sir George MacMunn. London, 1937. The Kipling Journal, the publication of the Kipling Society to which Sir George acknowledges his indebtedness, contains several brief articles concerned with Kipling's reading. Notable among them is S. A. Courtauld's "Kipling's Literary Allusions," Kipling Journal, X X V , March 1933, 7-19. 18 Semicentennial Publications of the University of California, Berkeley, • 918. 17 This has not been published, but there is a manuscript copy at the University of Cornell Library. It is dated June 1929.

INTRODUCTION

5

allusion and imitation in the volumes at his hand, he could not hope to make a significant study in his short paper, and did not try to arrange his material in such a way as to show what periods and types of writing Kipling preferred. N o one has endeavored to draw a truly comprehensive picture of Kipling's reading in English literature, nor of its influence on his poetry. T h i s attempt it is my purpose to make. My first intention was to treat the influences on Kipling's prose writings as well as those on his poetry, but it became necessary to limit my field, and this topic seemed the best to drop, since it had already received some attention. Consequently I shall consider many authors read by Kipling without giving more than a suggestion of the manner and degree in which they affected his own work. I do not apologize for this, because it seems to me that a discussion of the extent of his reading has a value of its own apart from questions of influence. I do not expect to omit Jane Austen from the list of his preferences because she left no discernible traces upon his style; neither shall I neglect Dickins because I am unable to speak in detail of the readily discoverable marks of his influence on Kipling. T h e r e is ample material for such a study as I wish to make. Kipling supplies great masses of evidence as to his tastes. He is, as I have already hinted, an extremely allusive writer; countless quotations are woven into the text of his stories and poems, together with many direct references to individual books and authors. In Echoes and The Muse among the Motors18 he offers us a list of poets whom he knows so well that he finds it easy to parody them. Moreover, he is generous with autobiographical passages upon his reading; " A n English School" 1 9 and Something of Myself not only tell us much of what he read at various periods of his life, but also prove, if proof were necessary, that Stalky & Co. and "Baa-Baa Black Sheep" can be regarded as supplementary and only slightly fictionized bits of biogra18 18

Inclusive Verse (1932). In Land and Sea Tales (1923).

6

KIPLING'S R E A D I N G

phy, whose book lists are worthy of attention. Finally, many of Kipling's poems, while not acknowledged parodies, are, in whole or in part, so deeply indebted to ballad, song, or carol that they betray their debt and often the identity of the creditor as well. W e can say n o more of "East is East and West is W e s t " than that it owes much to ballad tradition; but a glance at " T h e Lowestoft Boat" enables us to point straight to " I n Amsterdam there dwelt a m a i d . " T h e r e is in Kipling's own work enough evidence, internal and external, upon which to base an account of his reading — a n d , of course, of its influence on his writing. W e are not, however, compelled to rely on K i p l i n g alone for our information. O u r greatest dependence must necessarily be upon him, but we can supplement what he tells us with material from at least three other sources. First of these is his father's book, Beast and Man in India.20 J. L. Kipling's frequent quotations help us to realize the flavor of the literary talk in the K i p l i n g h o u s e h o l d — t h e atmosphere that surrounded his son, the sort of guidance he received in the choice of books. O u r other informants on Kipling's reading are his schoolmates, M a j o r General L . C. Dunsterville and Mr. G. C . Beresford—Stalky and M ' T u r k . Each of these has described his days at the United Services College with Kipling, but General Dunsterville, w h o is w r i t i n g his autobiography, 2 1 , naturally gives far less space to the literary tastes of the triumvirate than Mr. Beresford, whose aim is to present a portrait of the boy "Gigger." 2 2 T h e s e are the materials to which students of Kipling's reading can turn. W i t h their aid, we can follow him d o w n the centuries and across the Atlantic. W e can note his varying degrees of familiarity with the various periods of English and American literature; we can trace the influence of their writers on his poetry; we can determine whether or no his 20 J. L. Kipling, Beast and Man in India, A Popular Sketch of Indian A n i mals in their Relations with the People, London, 1904 (First edition 1891). 21 Stalky's Reminiscences, New York, 1928. 22 Schooldays with Kipling, with a preface by Major General Dunsterville, New York, 1936.

INTRODUCTION

7

tastes change through the years, and can distinguish beUveen the men and forms to which he is fickle, and those to which he is loyal; we can show his fondness for quaint and out-ofthe-way works of practical purpose but literary flavor, such as Culpeper's Herbal; we can analyze his use of the Bible, to which he owes more than to any other book; we can reconstruct his opinion as to the function of the song, and record his indebtedness to the balladry of many ages and nations; we can expose the lapses of memory or fits of carelessness that lead to misquotations; we can uncover his preferences for one or another literary form, and judge whether poetry, drama, novel, or essay mean most to him. All these things we can do, but we cannot find out what he thought of such writers as attained prominence after 1890. On his opinions of his contemporaries and juniors he preserves a discreet silence. We see no more evidences of their influence on his style than we find mentions of their names in his text. As far as his available written works are concerned, with very few exceptions, the last forty years of writing might never have been. His views would be interesting, and the silence is, at least from our point of view, regrettable. But the number of things we know far excels the number of things we do not know. We must be content with that.

I

KIPLING'S KNOWLEDGE OF OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE tells us that Kipling's study of English Literature was not methodical. 23 He did not take notes, and presumably did not, except in so far as the school curriculum forced him to do so, devote himself first to one age of writing and then to another. But he had, in Mr. Beresford's own words, "a wild desire to embrace English literature as a whole," and he perhaps came as near to fulfilling this wish as a mortal man not exclusively occupied in scholarly pursuits could do. T h e best way in which to convey an impression of the immense scope of his reading is to divide the field of English letters into periods and consider each in turn, remarking the degree of his intimacy with it. Some subjects, however, demand to be treated elsewhere than in their chronological position. T h e influence of the Bible on Kipling's style is so great and constant that it deserves a chapter to itself. Moreover, his use of the song, both as pattern for his own poetry and as aid in creating the atmosphere and giving the period of his stories, can be observed to better advantage if we deal with it in one place, than if we consider examples of it separately as they come up. R. B E R E S F O R D

M

W e shall find that Kipling was ostensibly on easier terms with the more recent ages of literature than the more remote; at least, he uses them more frequently as mines for quotation. This does not always mean, however, that the earlier periods were less known to him than the later. We must bear in mind that Kipling's specific references to books and authors do not furnish us with his complete reading list. 23

Schooldays

with Kipling,

203. 8

O L D A N D M I D D L E ENGLISH

9

One's citations of individual passages, whether given in writing or conversation, come, after all, from a relatively small portion of the matter one has read, even though they indicate the regions in the field of English literature in which one's reading has been most concentrated. It is possible that Kipling knew well the literature of ages to which he refers infrequently—ages which had little effect upon his style. Here our greatest danger lies. In a treatise of this kind we are more open to sins of omission than those of commission. If we consider, however, both the n u m b e r and kind of his references to the writings of a given period, and the power of its influence upon him, we shall generally reach a just estimation of his familiarity with it. W e shall be able to assert confidently that he was well read in eighteenth-century writers, although he rarely echoed their notes, or that he was not without knowledge of earlier English authors, despite his comparatively few mentions of them. His cadences will tell us that he borrowed as much from the T u d o r and Stuart lyrists as from the Victorians, although his allusions to Donne and Herrick are fewer than those to T e n n y s o n and Browning. W e shall also discover that he is not ignorant of our very beginnings. In treating Kipling's literary affiliations in chronological order, we must open our study with a consideration of the O l d English period. O L D ENGLISH

PERIOD

It does not surprise us that K i p l i n g should have acquainted himself to some degree with O l d English writings. W e know his tendency to read everything t h a t came within his reach, and we should expect him to sympathize strongly with the glorification of courage and loyalty that formed such a large part of the scop's stock-in-trade. T h e language need have presented no difficulties; translations of all the more important originals existed." W h a t surprises us is the identity of 24 Kipling may have dabbled a little in Old English. T h e translation of " T h e R u i n " given in " T h e Uses of R e a d i n g " (A Book of Words, 80-81) does not follow word for word any that I have been able to find, though it closely

KIPLING'S READING

IO

the Old English works to which he makes specific reference. These are "The Ruin" and The Leech BookHe does not 29 mention Beowulf, though it is difficult to imagine that a resembles that of John Earle in the Academy. ( X X V I , July 12, 1884, 29.) It reads as if Kipling, with the aid of Bosworth and Toller's dictionary and Earle's attempt, had tried to produce a smooth and poetic English version. W h i l e inaccuracy is shown in his transcription of "forweorene geleorene" as "geworen forloren" (the omission of the "e"s might be forgiven, but he has no right to switch the prefixes), his rendering of this altered phrase as "worn away, lorn away" reproduces the sound of the original quite closely, and does not wander far from the meaning given to this passage in Bosworth under "geleoren"—"decayed, departed." W e may assume, however, that he always had a translation at his elbow when consulting Old English texts. I subjoin, for purposes of comparison, parallel passages of " T h e R u i n " as rendered by Earle and Kipling. Earle Earth-grasp holdeth valiant workmen T u m b l e d crumbled hard pressed of the soil . . . . . . many a baron joyous and gold-bright gaudily jewelled haughty and wine-hot shone in his harness . . . T h e r e stood courts of stone! T h e stream hotly rushed with eddy wide (wall all enclosed) with bosom bright, (there the baths were) hot in its nature: T h a t was highly convenient!

Kipling Earth's grasp holdeth T h e mighty workmen Worn away, lorn away In the grip of the grave . . . Gorgeous and gold-bright, Gaudily jewelled, Haughty and wine-hot Shining in armour . . . T h e r e stood courts of stone. T h e stream hotly rushed W i t h a wide eddy, Between shut walls T h e r e were the baths Hot to bathe in. T h a t was a boon indeed!

26 Referred to in " T h e Knights of the Joyous Venture" (Puck), 73, as " T h e Leechbook of Bald the wise." T h i s book of cures is printed in volume two of the Rev. Oswald Cockayne's Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starerai of Early England (London, 1865). It is not known whether Bald wrote the book or not, but he certainly owned it. (Preface xx-xxiii.) T h e date of the manuscript appears to be tenth century (Preface xxiv), so that there is no anachronism in supposing that Witta knew its contents in 1100. R e d William's death just before Sir Richard sets forth gives us this date for the voyage. Waddell (78) notes the whereabouts and date of the Leechbook. 28 Messrs. Hart (212-13) and Waddell (80) suggest that Beowulf supplied some hints for " T h e Knights of the Joyous Venture" (Puck of Pook's Hilt). T h e y point out that H u g h and Beowulf both owned a piece of Weland's work

OLD A N D MIDDLE ENGLISH man who had ferreted out the comparatively obscure " R u i n " neglected the famous epic, and he fails to take an excellent opportunity to quote " T h e Seafarer" when " T h e Conversion of St. Wilfrid" 2 7 offers it to him. T h e only other vernacular work of the period that we can confidently place on his reading list is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. From it he may have gleaned Witta's name;28 he almost certainly found in —one a sword, the other a byrnie; that the gorillas correspond to Grendel and his dam; that only their coats of mail save Sir Richard and Beowulf; that, as Wiglaf shows the dragon's treasure to the dying Beowulf, so Witta shows the gold to the wounded Richard and Hugh; that Richard had come to Hugh's assistance, as Wiglaf did to Beowulf's, and that Witta's generosity with the gold, and gift of his bracelets to Hugh, is in the best Beowulfian tradition. It seems possible that a reminiscence of the poem may have suggested the bracelet-giving, though any account of Scandinavian customs could have supplied the incident but it is doubtful whether Kipling was deliberately modeling his story on Beowulf. Certainly he needed no precedent for remarking that a coat-of-mail alone saved a man from death. We cannot prove that Kipling did not have Beowulf in mind in all the circumstances of " T h e Joyous Venture," but there is no conclusive proof that he did. 27

" T h e Conversion of St. Wilfrid" is in Rewards and Fairies. Waddell (68) thinks " T h e Seafarer" may have provided hints for the description of Weland's arrival in England in an icy boat. ("Weland's Sword:" Puck, 17). Of course, " T h e Seafarer" was written down several centuries after Wilfrid's mission in Sussex of 681-86 (it occurs in the eleventh-century Exeter Book), but if Kipling knew the poem and wished to use it, he could have assumed that it existed earlier in oral tradition. As matters stand, we have no means of knowing whether Kipling was familiar with the poem or not; I do not think the icicles it shares with Weland's ship are adequate evidence of borrowing. If Admiral Chandler is right in attributing to him "An Excellent Reason" and its prose heading, Kipling has also referred to "Caedmon's 'Battle of Brunaburh,' " in print. "An Excellent Reason" appeared in the Pioneer of Allahabad on May 23, 1887. It is Chaucerian in style, and, taken in conjunction with its heading, seems intended to cast ridicule on the practice of giving early and difficult English authors to beginning students of English at Indian schools and universities. (Of course, "Brunaburh" is not really Caedmonic.) Admiral Chandler's attribution is supported by the fact that one of Kipling's favorite quotations from Peter Simple—"allow me to insinuate in the most delicate manner in the world"—is included in the article. See Admiral Chandler's A Summary of the Works of Rudyard Kipling, 76-77; Chapter IV below, note 38. 28

Witta is named in the genealogies of the Saxon kings as the grandson of Woden. (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bohn ed., 309.) Our Witta hails from Stavanger, but his name may none the less have come from the Chronicle. Waddell (78) remarks on this possibility.

KIPLING'S READING

12

its pages the information that went into De Aquila's remark to a Saxon wench who was bent on proving herself freeborn: " T h o u art Cerdic's sister, and own cousin to the Lady of Mercia, if thou wilt only be silent." 29 Not for nothing had Kipling read genealogy after genealogy in which a king traced his ancestry to the great Cerdic, 30 nor had he vainly followed the movements of Ethelfleda, lady of the Mercians—the only queen in her own right mentioned in the Chronicle.Sl Whether his Weland 32 is drawn entirely from English sources is another question. W e hear most of Weland's prowess as a swordmaker in the Icelandic "Völundarkvitha," 33 but he is mentioned as a skilful smith in Beowulf34 and "Waldere," and as an unfortunate warrior in "Deor's Lament." None of the details given in the northern version of the story, and hinted at in the "Lament," play any part in Kipling's narrative. He seems to make more immediate use of the traditional Wayland Smith whose legend is told in Kenihuorth than of the Weland of written documents. Unless the episodes in the Scandinavian poem helped form Kipling's conception of Weland as a god who would not have been gentle in his day and his time and his power,35 we are not justified, so far as the internal evidence goes, in assuming that he had ever read them; he could have learned elsewhere of Weland's skill at forging swords.36 But we know from other sources that the 29 50 31 32 33 34

" O l d Men at Pevensey," Puck, 99. He invaded England in 495. See the Chronicle See the Chronicle under 912. "Weland's Sword," Puck. Poetic Edda.

under that date.

1. 455· See "Weland's Sword," 21. So far as I know, Kipling has no authority for calling him either a god, or a smith to gods, as he does on page 16. It was necessary to the story that Weland be divine, and he made him so. 36 He need not have gone farther than the opening pages of Green's Short History. John Earle, of whom, as we have seen, Kipling had knowledge, speaks of Weland on pp. 58 and 70 of his Anglo-Saxon Literature. (London, 1884.) Often it is difficult to tell whether K i p l i n g derives his information from original sources, or has gained it from a literary or historical survey of a period. B u t he was a man of infinite curiosity, w h o liked to get to the root of any matter he was investigating, and many times we find him quoting direct from the documents. I think we are safe in assuming that in most cases he has had personal contact with the matter whereof he speaks. 35

OLD A N D MIDDLE ENGLISH

>3

87

Poetic Edda was familiar to Kipling; we may then suppose that, w h i l e he was n o t ignorant of Weland's adventures with the swan-maidens, King N i t h u t h , and Bothvild, he f o u n d them alien to his purpose. A magic sword was necessary to the scheme of Puck of Pook's Hill; W e l a n d was the proper smith to make e n c h a n t e d weapons for the Saxons; Kipling used such elements of Weland's story as connected him with England and sword-making, and abandoned the rest. So far extends Kipling's avowed acquaintance with vernacular writing in England before the Middle English period. In " T h e Conversion of St. Wilfrid" he employs two works written in Latin by eighth-century Englishmen—Eddi's Life of St. Wilfrid and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. From the latter he takes the account of the Sussex famine, of the natives' proclivity for k i l l i n g themselves, and of the timely rain after the mass baptism, 3 8 as well as the information that Eddi was a "singing-master in the churches of the Northumbrians," 3 9 and the names of Meon 4 0 and Padda. 41 37 See his a d a p t a t i o n of 11. 169-170 of t h e H y n d l o - L i o d in "Cold I r o n , " Rewards, 23, "Few can see F u r t h e r f o r t h T h a n w h e n t h e Child Meets t h e Cold I r o n l " Cf. "Few m a y see F u r t h e r f o r t h T h a n w h e n O d i n Meets t h e W o l f . " T r a n s l a t i o n q u o t e d by Keary, "Heroes of Asgard," Ragnarok. 38 Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, Book IV, C h a p t e r X I I I ; " T h e Conversion of St. W i l f r i d , " Rewards, 236, 233. 236. 39 Ecclesiastical History, Book. IV, C h a p t e r II: " T h e C o n v e r s i o n " 238, 241. K i p l i n g is p r o b a b l y in e r r o r in p u t t i n g Eddi in Sussex with W i l f r i d e i t h e r at t h e t i m e of the s h i p w r e c k or later. T h e shipwreck occurred in 666 ( B e r t r a m , Colgrave's ed. Life of St. Wilfrid, C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1927, 27); W i l f r i d b r o u g h t Eddi to York f r o m Kent in 669 (Bede, Book IV, C h a p t e r II), a n d scholars agree t h a t E d d i d i d n o t accompany his bishop to Sussex o n t h e mission. (B. W . Wells, E d d i ' s " L i f e of St. W i l f r i d , " English Historical Review, VI, J u l y 1891, 546; R . L. Poole, "St. W i l f r i d a n d t h e See of R i p o n , " English Historical Review, X X X I V , J a n u a r y 1919, 12.) Kipling may have been a w a r e of this scholarly o p i n i o n ; Wells's article was at his disposal. ( " T h e C o n v e r s i o n " was w r i t t e n in 1909.) It is q u i t e possible t h a t h e deliberately p u t Eddi in, in defiance of t h e facts, because h e was interested in h i m . 40 Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, C h a p t e r X I I I . B e d e speaks of t h e p r o v i n c e of M e a n w a r a , lately given to Ethelwalch of Sussex by King W u l f h e r e . T h e m o d e r n town of W e s t M e o n in H a m p s h i r e p r o b a b l y s u p p l i e d K i p l i n g w i t h his spelling of t h e n a m e . In t h e story, Meon's land lies n e a r M a n h o o d F.nd in West Sussex, close to t h e H a m p s h i r e b o r d e r .

53

faults as clearly as his abilities in the way of marshalling "valiant words." His parodies, " T h e City of the H e a r t " " and "Contradictions," 8 5 both comment on the tendency to draw a moral apparent in " T h e Village Blacksmith" and "Sea-Weed," and both, the first especially, exhibit the common-placeness of thought and diction that makes the lesser Longfellow such dull reading. "Contradictions" is cast in the mold of " T h e Slave in the Dismal Swamp," " T h e Emperor's Glove," and some thirteen others of Longfellow's poems, " T h e Discoverer of the North C a p e " among them. T h e final stanza will show how close Kipling has come to Longfellow's idiom without being able to make the burlesque enjoyable: So, to the poet's mood, Motor or carrier's van, Properly understood, Are neither evil nor good— Ormuzd nor Ahriman! Kipling seems to appreciate Longfellow's talents as a storyteller, and his po\ver when he is moved by a truly poetic impulse, as in " M y Lost Y o u t h , " but he is impatient of his frequent versified moralizing. Emerson and Longfellow are the only members of the New England group of poets whom Kipling quotes to any extent. Whittier is mentioned once, apparently so that his version of "Skipper Ireson's R i d e " can be corrected; though T r o o p is made to say " 'Twas the only time that Whittier ever slipped up" 8 e we have no comments from Kipling on his other work. M ' T u r k remarks upon " K i n g ' s " fondness for Lowell, 87 but the only reflection of it in his pupil is a From Sea to Sea chapter heading from " T h e Pioneer." 88 W e must not deduce 84 85 88 87 88

Echoes, Early Verse, Scribner's, 1900, 65. The Muse among the Motors. Captains Courageous, Chapter I V , 1 1 5 - 1 7 , New Y o r k , Century, 1918. Schooldays with Kipling, 133. From Sea to Sea II, X X X I , C h a p t e r heading. Stanza 2.

I f , as A d m i r a l C h a n d l e r suggests, " W h a t Sir W i l l i a m T h i n k s " in the St. James Gazette for March 5, 1890, is by K i p l i n g , there is f u r t h e r evidence

154

KIPLING'S R E A D I N G

from this, however, that K i p l i n g knew these m e n slightly. T h e noisiest nineteenth-century American poet certainly did not escape his attention, though he never alludes to him by name or quotation. Stalky tells us that the triumvirate read Whitman, 8 9 and M ' T u r k devotes part of a chapter to the argument that followed upon Gigger's i n f o r m i n g " K i n g " that W h i t m a n was the greatest living poet.90 W e are led to believe that it was the Pre-Raphaelite rage for W h i t m a n that prompted K i p l i n g to enter the lists with his master, and this was doubtless so. T h e home influence may have had something to do with it, too; his father prefaces Beast and Man in India with Whitman's " I think I could turn and live with animals." 91 W h e t h e r K i p l i n g continued to give Whitman a high place in his regard, we have no certain means of knowing, but there are two pieces of his handiwork which may have taken a hint from " T h e Song of Myself" and " O u t of the Cradle Endlessly R o c k i n g . " T h e y are more regular than Whitman's wandering excursions, but neither of them rhymes and one does not scan. T h i s is " T h e R u n n e r s . " T h e recurrent "News," " N i m r u d , " and "Watchers, O Watchers" tie it together, and do so more efficiently than the fragments of the mocking-bird's song bind u p " O u t of the Cradle," but the second stanza surely carries more than a suggestion of W h i t m a n , though it is possible that Kipling's intention was only to make it sound like a translation of a H i n d u song. News! At the edge of the crops—now—now—where the well-wheels are halted, One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe, They beat (among the sowers and the reapers) "Nimrud—ah Nimrud! of his acquaintance with Lowell. T h e poem is a parody of Lowell's " W h a t Mr. Robinson T h i n k s " in The Biglow Papers. See Admiral Chandler's Summary, 309. 80 Dunsterville, Stalky's Reminiscences, 43-4. He says they read W h i t m a n aloud. 90 Schooldays with Kipling, 135-41. 9 1 "Song of Myself," 32.

AMERICAN

J 55

God prepares an ill day for Nimrud!" Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand. " S o n g of Seventy Horses" has an irregular first verse, b u t it soon settles d o w n to a stanza of three pentameter, one trimeter, and one hexameter lines, " I t is e n o u g h — i t is F r a n c e ! " finishi n g o u t the last and serving for refrain. N o n e the less the o p e n i n g , and the list-like effect of the f o l l o w i n g stanzas, each b e g i n n i n g with its " w h e t h e r , " are faintly reminiscent of W h i t m a n : Once again the Steamer at Calais—the tackles Easing the car-trays onto the quay. Release her! Sign—refill, and let me away with my horses. (Seventy Thundering Horses!) Slow through the traffic, my horses! It is enough—it is France! W h a t e v e r be the reason for the u n u s u a l patterns of these poems, it is o b v i o u s that W a l t W h i t m a n had no share in f o r m i n g the typical K i p l i n g s t y l e — o r styles. W h a t influence he may have had on K i p l i n g ' s attitude toward life, on his c h o i c e of subject, is another matter. It is also one a b o u t w h i c h it w o u l d be extremely difficult to speak w i t h assurance. A s R i c h a r d L e G a l l i e n n e has pointed out, 92 b o t h m e n are interested in " t h e labours of engines and the fields," and insist that " m o d e r n life is as heroic as a n y . " T h i s does n o t p r o v e that K i p l i n g w o u l d not have felt the same interests and adopted the same slogan if W h i t m a n had never existed, b u t it shows that something besides the commendations of his elders, or even the rhythms of W h i t m a n ' s speech, may h a v e attracted h i m to W h i t m a n w h i l e he was at school. A n o t h e r A m e r i c a n " i n f e c t i o n " f r o m w h i c h he suffered d u r i n g his days at W e s t w a r d H o ! was J o a q u i n M i l l e r , w h o , like W h i t m a n , was a hero in English literary circles d u r i n g the seventies. 88 H e appears to have made n o p e r m a n e n t impression u p o n K i p l i n g , and the only concrete evidences, aside " Rudyard Kipling, A Criticism, 51, 72. 83 See Norman Foerster's "Later Poets," Chapter X of the History of American Literature, Vol. Ill, 54.

Cambridge

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KIPLING'S R E A D I N G

from a reference in Something of Myself,9* of his temporary supremacy are the United Services College prize poem " T h e Battel of Assye," 85 and a parody in Echoes.™ T h e first has a prefatory bit in the author's own words, in the manner of Miller, and gives its narrator a devotion to Wellesley that resembles the hero-worship of Walker chronicled in " W i t h Walker in Nicaragua." "Himalayan" seems to have caught Miller's cadences, but neither attempt possesses much distinction. And Joaquin Miller is the most recent serious poet Kipling mentions, unless we are to interpret a remark of Laughton O. Zigler's in " T h e Captive" as an allusion to Edwin Markham's " M a n with the Hoe." 97 Yet, when we pause to consider, Kipling has noticed nearly every poet of importance in Victorian America at least once; Emily Dickinson is the only significant figure entirely omitted. He does not do so well by the writers of light verse. T h e r e is almost no evidence of his contact with the more artistic practitioners in this kind. We learn nothing from him of Holmes's work in rhyme, or Aldrich's metrical frivolities, but an adaptation of the envoy to Brander Matthews' ballade " A n American G i r l " in From Sea to Sea suggests that he may have followed the developments of our vers de société in the periodicals. 98 Among the less literary exponents • M I , 4 1 . " A t term-end he [Cormell Price] most unjustly devised a prize poem—subject ' T h e Battle of Assaye,' which, their being no competitor, I won in what I conceived was the metre of my latest 'infection'—Joaquin Miller." 95

School-Boy Lyrics, Early Verse, Scribner, 1900, 27. " H i m a l a y a n , " Early Verse, gg. T h i s is vaguely reminiscent of "Sea of Fire." 86

97 Traffics hoe he was, out in 1899, of the Boer time—"The

Miller's

and Discoveries, 1 3 , " . . . considerin' what sort of a m a n with a I thought he'd done right well with my Zigler." T h e poem came and the story came out in 1903, and was laid during the period War. Zigler frequently comments on the English attitude toward Man with the H o e " begins " B o w e d by the weight of centuries."

»»From Sea to Sea II, X X X V I , 154. Chapter head. Brander Matthews' version of this, as given in Helen Louise Cohen's I.yric Forms from France, New York, 1922, 222-23, runs: "Princes, to you the western breeze Bears many a ship and heavy laden, What is the best we send in these? A frank and free young Yankee m a i d e n . " According to Gleeson W h i t e (Ballades and Rondeaus, etc., London, n.d.), viii, this appeared first in The Century.

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157

of humorous verse he has at least two acquaintances. Will Carleton's "Betsy and I are O u t " provided the model for " T h e B e t r o t h e d , a n d the burden of Dicky Hatt's wife's letter in " I n the Pride of his Youth," was "gone with a handsomer man than you." 100 But his favorite funny man among the American poets is very evidently C. G. Leland. He quotes him and alludes to him and has even imitated him, though the imitations have never been collected. 101 He dubs the narrator of "Bertram and B i m i " and "Reingelder and the German Flag" 1 0 2 "Hans Breitmann"; he cites passages from the Ballads in Letters of Marque and From Sea to Sea;103 extracts from them serve as chapter headings for two Mulvaney stories,104 and the resemblance of Egypt to the India of his remembrance brought to mind a stanza of "Breitmann in Leyden." 1 0 5 Leland had made his Hans a vehicle for commentary on war and politics, so that it is not surprising to hear that Kipling printed "Hans Breitmann as an Administrator" in The Pioneer,10" or that his " H o w Breitmann Became President on the Bicycle T i c k e t " appeared in The Sunday World (1896). 107 T o ephemeral " S e e New York Herald Tribune for J a n u a r y 27 and 2g, 1936, " T h e Conning T o w e r , " Franklin P. Adams. 100 Plain Tales from the Hills, 2 1 5 . 101 Mention of them in made in Martindell's Bibliography, 1 5 1 , 153. 102 Life's Handicap. 103 Letters of Marque, X V , From Sea to Sea, 135, " m i t a harplike melodious twang." "Stcinli von Slang, Secondt P a r d t " Stanza 9. From Sea to Sea, X X I I , 423. C h a p t e r heading " B r e i t m a n n ' s G o i n g to C h u r c h , " stanza 6; slightly inaccurate. From Sea to Sea II, X X V I , 18, " W h e n like the pious Hans Breitmann Ί cut that city by the sea' "; " B r e i t m a n n in Ostende," stanza 6, last two lines. 104 " W i t h the Main G u a r d , " Soldiers Three, 56, Chapter heading; " B r e i t mann in Bivouac," stanza 2. " T h e Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney," Life's Handicap, Chapter heading; " B r e i t m a n n ' s Going to C h u r c h , " stanzas 13 and 22. 105

" A R e t u r n to the East," Egypt 242; " B r e i t m a n n in L e y d e n . " 108

See Martindell, Bibliography, tember 15, 1888.

of the Magicians

in Letters

of

Travel,

1 5 1 . T h e date of its printing was Sep-

107 See Martindell, Bibliography, 153. Leland's Jonniker and the Goblins is referred to in a letter to L a d y Margaret Gordon quoted in Mr. Ellis Ames Ballard's Catalogue, 56.

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KIPLING'S READING

satire the character and dialect of Hans conveniently lend themselves. But that "Breitmann in Leyden" should occur to Kipling as a suitable thing to quote in a serious mood seems odd. T h e Breitmann Ballads had enjoyed extreme popularity, and Kipling may have felt that the readers of his journalistic papers would be sure to recognize their lines. Even when this is taken into consideration, however, Leland seems to occupy a disproportionately large place in Kipling's library of American authors. His humor is obvious, his satire crude, and his rhymes jingling. And yet Kipling knew him so well that quotations from him constantly rose to his lips, while he found occasion to quote Lowell only once. It seems as if some chance association must have added to his pleasure in the Breitmann Ballads and made them more valuable to him than their intrinsic worth merited. Perhaps they meant to him as poetry what All in a Garden Fair meant as a novel. Or perhaps they helped to crystallize a notion that led to much better dialect poetry about soldiering in Barrack-Room Ballads. If that be so, we can forgive them their unreasonably large representation in his pages. We cannot tell whether Kipling's study of American literature was as systematic as his reading of English WTiters. It may be significant or just a happen-so that he never mentions so important a figure as Hawthorne. But we discover in his references to American writing the same gaps we discover in his references to English. T h e essay and the drama may not have compared favorably with the novel, the short story, and the poem produced on this side of the Atlantic, b u t we should have expected Kipling to neglect them even had they surpassed the other forms. Yet once again we see him appreciating variety of treatment within the limits of his favorite literary types. In his devotion to Emerson and Longfellow, Mark T w a i n and Bret Harte, we find him paying tribute to much of what was most original and most polished in nineteenth-century American prose and poetry.

VI KIPLING S USE OF T H E BIBLE AND PRAYER BOOK NE OF THE most striking features of Kipling's writing is his constant quotation from the Bible, allusion to its stories, and use of its language. Even the casual observer is impressed by the biblical element in his work. It is not necessary to read his tales and poems to notice it. A glance at his titles is sufficient. Many Inventions,1 Thy Servant a Dog,2 "Bread upon the Waters," 3 " T h e Prophet and the Country,"* " T h e Church that was at Antioch," 5 "Delilah," 6 "En-dor," 7 " T h e Sons of Martha" 8 —we could prolong the list indefinitely. T h e text of prose and poetry only confirms what the titles suggest—that Kipling very nearly knew the Bible by heart. He had reason to. Since both his grandfathers had been Wesleyan ministers, he must have heard plenty of biblical talk at home, and even if he had not, the favorite form of punishment meted out to him during his stay at Southsea would have supplied the lack. Afternoons upstairs with the Collects or portions of the Bible to learn 9 provided him with an endless fund of texts upon which to draw. T h e ones he does draw upon are scattered through very nearly the whole length of the Bible. They are not distributed evenly; the 1

Ecclesiastes, vii, 29. II Kings, viii, 13. 3 Ecclesiastes, xi, 1. The Day's Work. 4 Matthew, xiii, 57. Debits and Credits. s Acts, xiii, 1. Limits and Renewals. »Judges, xvi, 4. 7 I Samuel, xxviii, 7. 8 Luke, χ, 38 ff. 9 Something of Myself, I, 13. 2

ι6ο

KIPLING S READING

books of the law and the minor prophets are naturally not so often referred to as the lyrical, proverbial, and narrative parts, but no kind of biblical writing is entirely neglected, and the New Testament is proportionately as well represented as the Old. 10 Genesis is constantly used; there are innumerable allusions to the Garden of Eden, the fall, Cain, Noah, and Joseph; the ten commandments keep Exodus from being slighted; the stories of Samson and David 11 apparently had a strong appeal, and allusions to Naaman, Gehazi, and the House of Rimmon occur again and again. There is scarcely an incident in the Gospels that fails to be noted, and Kipling's keen interest in the character of Saint Paul is proved in two tales12 entirely devoted to him, as well as many independent references to Acts and the Epistles. Job, the Psalms, and Isaiah were his favorites among the poetical books, and all the books of wisdom—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Apocryphal Ecclesiasticus—are frequently cited. The phrases that are mentioned most often are the ones that everyone is familiar with—"horror of great darkness," 13 "swept and garnished," 14 "the wages of sin is death" 15 —but many passages which have not become so much a part of 10

In quotations traced to a definite source the New Testament comes off better. T h e Old Testament is rather more than three times as long as the new, yet of some 671 allusions traced to chapter and book, 418 are to the Old Testament, 253 to the New. But there are many more passages in which Kipling falls into biblical language, and here his cadences are generally those of the Old Testament. 11 Mr. Ballard (Catalogue, 250), quotes from a letter of Kipling to Edward Lucas White, dated Batemans, November 9, 1909, in which he shows especial interest in the episode of David and the Shewbread. He had evidently once intended to incorporate it into a story. 12 " T h e Church that was at Antioch," and " T h e Manner of Men," both in Limits and· Renewals. 13 Something of Myself, III, 71; " T h e House Surgeon," Actions and Reactions, 288; "Rahere," stanza 3 , 1 . 1. Genesis xv, 12. 14 From Sea to Sea, X V , 347; " T h e Dream of Duncan Parrenness," Life's Handicap, 83; "Simple Simon," Rewards and Fairies, 307; "Swept and Garnished," A Diversity of Creatures, 409; " T h e Plea of the Simla Dancers," prefatory stanza, 1. 3; Matthew xii, 44. 15 "Lamentable Comedy of Willow Wood" (One Volume Kipling), 1015; " T h e Prophet and the Country," Debits and Credits, 167; Something of Myself, III, 62; " T h e Gods of the Copybook Headings," stanza 6, 1. 4; Romans vi, 23.

BIBLE A N D P R A Y E R B O O K

161

everyday speech are casually alluded to in Kipling's pages. In " U p the R i v e r " we find him r e m a r k i n g " N o wonder 'every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians,' " 1 β in " O n the G a t e " he indicates that the clerk in the International Mortuary Department is a devil by noting that he trembles, and adding that "under all Heaven none do this" save those who come from that class which " 'also believe and tremble.' " 17 It is natural to him to call a geyser in Yellowstone Park "this Devil's Bethesda," 1 8 or to rattle off glibly a whole list of towns destroyed in their pride, whose names are scattered through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos. 1 9 T h e r e is no question that he knows the B i b l e better than most. Kipling's great intimacy with the Bible is the chief reason for its supplying more of his quotations than any other book. B u t there is a subsidiary cause. Characters in all walks of life can refer to it without destroying the verisimilitude of his tales. Even native Indians can be presumed to k n o w it, if they have been educated by the English. 20 N o other book can be so freely used Yet K i p l i n g has been very careful to keep within the limits of probability even here In Puck of Pook's Hill, where the majority of the stories are told by a R o m a n officer and a N o r m a n knight, very few allusions occur. Parnesius meets a "wandering philosopher" w h o jeers at the eagles, and the magistrate shows h i m " o u t of his own book, I believe, that, whatever his G o d might be, he should pay proper respect to Caesar." 21 Sir Richard of course knew Egypt of the Magicians, in Letters of Travel, 261; Genesis xlvi, 34. Debits and Credits, 290; James ii, 19. ". . . the devils also believe and tremble." 18 From Sea to Sea II, X X X I , 90; John v, 2. Bethesda is the pool in Jerusalem of which ail angel troubled the water. 1 9 " T h e Peace of Dives," stanza 17, Ashdod; Amos i, 8; stanza 18, "Is not Carchemish like Caino?" Isaiah x, 9; stanza 19; "Hast thou seen the pride of Moab?" Isaiah xv, ι; stanza 19, "Gaza . . . Askalon and G a t h . " Jeremiah xlvii, Zechariah ix, 5. 20 " T h e Strange Ride of Morrow bie Jukes," Under the Deodars, Matthew xxii, 30. 21 " O n the Great Wall," Puck of Pook's Hill, 151-2. Matthew xxii, 21. Parnesius's reaction was rather like Gallio's (Acts xviii, 17): " W h y should I care for such things, my business being to reach my station?" 16 17

KIPLING'S READING something of the Bible, b u t he could not read, and, if he could have done so, would not have been apt to familiarize himself with its contents in that way; the Church of R o m e d i d not encourage Bible-reading. Kadmiel, the Spanish J e w , loads his conversation with O l d T e s t a m e n t phrases, but the rest of the Puck characters are suitably sparing in their allusions. In Rewards similar care is taken to p u t biblical speeches in the mouths of fitting persons. St. Wilfred and Eddi, Q u e e n Elizabeth, and the puritanical Nicholas Culpeper seem to be best-read in the Scriptures. Kipling's allusions to the Bible are frequent, b u t by no means indiscriminate. It is not only in direct allusion that he pays tribute to the Bible, however. His style owes not a little to biblical influence. Perhaps his reading affected his vocabulary more than his rhythms; it is not often that his sentences so definitely echo the cadences of the O l d T e s t a m e n t as d o those describing the behavior of bees in a thunderstorm: 2 2 Deborah cowered. Where she flew, there she fled; where she was, there she sat still; and the solid rain closed in on her as a book that is closed when the chapter is finished. Yet he constantly uses phrases of unmistakable origin, which have no exact parallel: " A s is cold water in a thirsty land, so is a face from the old country," 2 3 or " T h e winds blew and they were not." 2 4 In " T h e Recessional" he blends actual quotations 2 5 with expressions of his own cast in their idiom, 2 8 and the effect of the whole is harmonious. Indeed, he more often employs biblical language in a dignified manner in his " T h e Vortex,". A Diversity of Creatures, 399. Compare Judges v, 27: At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed there he fell down dead. 23 From Sea to Sea, IV, 224. T h i s resembles Proverbs xxv, 25, Ps. lxiii, I, and cxliii, 6. 2 4 "Gloriana," Rewards, 52. Like Matthew vii, 25. " S t a n z a 2, 11. 3-4 are directly based on Psalm li, 17, " T h e sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, T h o u wilt not despise." 2 6 E.g., " L o , all our p o m p of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and T y r e ! " 22

BIBLE AND PRAYER BOOK

163

poetry than in his prose. In " T h e Settler" he tries his hand at the parallelism so common in Hebrew poetry: 27 Till the corn cover our evil dreams And the young corn our hate. Elsewhere—in " T h e Outlaws" for instance 28 —the use of archaic forms seldom encountered except in the pages of the King James version evokes their atmosphere. It seems as if Kipling had read the Bible so much that these seventeenthcentury expressions came to him even more easily than modern ones. All these things and more also seem to indicate that he was constantly refreshing his memories of the Bible with rereadings. His conception of Paul as the earnest, in some respects narrow-minded man with a mission, learning tolerance of a young Mithras-worshipper, 29 and winning converts by his understanding of human nature, 80 is evidently the result of a careful study of Acts and the Epistles. Moreover his estimate of the Bible is that of a mature man speaking of what he knows. He thoroughly appreciates the poetical as well as the narrative and character-revealing elements in the Bible. He does not quote Job merely because it became so much a part of him in childhood that he cannot help it. He respects it as a work of art. Of it he says, "If you go no further back than the Book of Job you will find that letters, Stanza 4, 11. 7-8. " T h e J e s t e r " has a similar c o n s t r u c t i o n , stanza 3, 11. 4-5, " W h o has saved a soul by a jest A n d a b r o t h e r ' s soul in sport." C o m p a r e w i t h these Genesis iv, 23, "I h a v e slain a m a n to my w o u n d i n g , a n d a y o u n g m a n to my h u r t . " 28 Stanza 2, 2. " O r digged f r o m e a r t h b e n e a t h . " 29 " T h e C h u r c h t h a t was a t A n t i o c h , " Limits and Renewals, 93. Valens's " q u o t a t i o n f r o m t h e old R i t u a l . " " M e n m a k e laws. N o t Gods . . . T h e y c h a n g e m e n ' s hearts. T h e rest is t h e S p i r i t " f o r e s h a d o w s t h e m a t t e r in R o m a n s . K i p l i n g has c o n j u r e d u p o u t of such passages as I Cor. vii, 10, " A n d u n t o t h e m a r r i e d I c o m m a n d , yet n o t I b u t t h e L o r d . . ." a n d I Cor. xv, 10, " b u t I l a b o u r e d m o r e a b u n d a n t l y t h a n they all: yet n o t I b u t t h e grace of G o d w h i c h was w i t h m e " a n d II Cor. xi-xii, a p i c t u r e of P a u l s t r u g g l i n g w i t h his o w n vanity a n d desire to boast. See " T h e C h u r c h , " 92; " Ί h a v e covered . . . a n d yet n o t I b u t t h e G o d ' ; h e m u t t e r e d . 'It's h a r d to c u r e oneself of boasting.' " Acts x-xi gives t h e b a c k g r o u n d f o r t h e story. 27

30

" T h e M a n n e r of M e n , " Limits

and

Renewals,

2 1 1 - 3 3 . Especially 232-33.

164

KIPLING S READING

like the art of printing, were born perfect." 31 And on the revision of the Bible as a whole he comments, "one cannot re-express an idea that has been perfectly set forth." 32 Perhaps he thinks that even the authors of the King James version occasionally made this attempt. Most of his quotations from the Book of Common Prayer come from litany, prayer, catechism, baptismal, marriage, or burial service, and are so well known as to be frequently used by people who belong neither to the Church of England nor its American equivalent. 33 He makes little use of the Psalter, but once or twice he prefers its phrasing to that in the book of Psalms. "Sussex" provides the most important instance of this. It may be that he discarded " T h e lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places" for metrical reasons only, but, especially since he avoided it in From Sea to Sea also34 it seems likely that the version in the Psalter lay nearer to the surface of his mind, or better pleased his ear: " T h e lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground; yea, I have a goodly heritage." 35 Whether he quotes from Bible or Prayer Book, whether he prefers Psalms in King James or Psalter version, Kipling is displaying the predilection for sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury writing we have already remarked upon. T h e fact that the Bible is a translation does not alter the significance 31

" T h e Handicap of Letters," A Book of Words, 41.

" T h e Uses of Reading," A Book of Words, 90. 33 He recurs especially often to the "Benedicite omnia opera," and has written songs in litany pattern: " M ' A n d r e w ' s H y m n , " " H a i l Snow and Ice that praise the L o r d " ; Captains Courageous, X , 306-7; " T h e Conversion of St. Wilfred," Rewards, 231; " W i t h the Night Mail," Actions and Reactions, 149; " T h e Face of the Desert," Egypt of the Magicians in Letters of Travel, 282. 32

" T h e Lover's Litany," " T h e Prayer of Miriam Cohen," " T h e Wet Litany." Kipling was by no means the first to compose songs with a litany-like refrain. T h e custom was well established in the seventeenth century. See Percy Society, Vol. I l l , Political Ballads, and Vol. X I X , The Civic Garland, " T h e Plotting Papist's Litany," and footnote, "Parodies on the Litany were, at this period, far from uncommon. Scarcely any collection of political poems or songs is without several." 34 V , 236. 35 Psalm xvi, 6. Kipling alters it very slightly to make it suit his metre and sense—"has fallen to me."

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165

of this. Kipling himself repudiated the nineteenth-century revised rendering; it was Jacobean scholars, aided largely by the early T u d o r translators T y n d a l e and Coverdale that produced the version which, in his opinion, attained perfection. So interested was he in the methods they employed to make it perfect that he devoted a tale to pointing out one source from which they might conceivably have obtained help. He showed Miles Smith, a translator, and later an overseer of the final revision of the text, sending parallel versions of parts of Ezekiel and Jeremiah to Shakespeare, with a commission to blend and recast them. T h i s Miles is the reputed author of " T h e Translators to the R e a d e r " ; it seems probable that the wit, force, and clarity of his preface led Kipling to see in him, a scholar and an ecclesiastic, a potential admirer of such stage-plays as Macbeth and such lines as " T o m o r r o w and tomorrow and tomorrow." 3 6 At any rate, "Proofs of Holy W r i t " emphasizes the fact that for Kipling one of the Bible's chief merits—certainly its chief literary merit—was its use of words and rhythms characteristic of English speech between 1525 and 1 6 1 1 . T h e non-biblical T u d o r and Stuart influences on Kipling were numerous. When we add to them the influence of the Bible, we see the immense importance of the place these periods take in his background. T h e y supply far more of his quotations than any other age, and play nearly as large a part in shaping his style as does Victorian literature. W e cannot imagine a Kipling unaffected by their vocabulary and cadences. 36 " P r o o f s of Holy W r i t . " Strand Magazine, A p r i l 1934. K i p l i n g represents Miles as having met Shakespeare \vhen his company was playing in O x f o r d d u r i n g a plague season in L o n d o n . T h e verses Shakespeare is supposed to have recast occur in Isaiah l x , 1, 2, 3, 19, and 20, and Ezekiel x x v i i .

VII

KIPLING AND THE SONG has a keen sense of the importance of the ballad, . folk song, and popular tune in people's lives. He has studied all three carefully, and his knowledge of them is revealed in quotations, parodies, and imitations. He can catch the note of carol, chantey, music-hall song, and hymn; he knows the drawing-room ballads of T o m Moore and Jean Ingelow as well as "Chevy Chase" and "Widdicombe Fair." T h e majority of his tales contain an allusion of some kind to the popular music of the place or period depicted; he does not seem to feel that he has drawn an adequate picture of a class of society, a nation of people, or an age of time unless he has told us what it sings at work or at leisure. If he is writing of a day so remote in past or future that its balladry is beyond our reach, he provides it with lays of a suitable kind. His wolves have their hunting songs, and his Scotch terrier, Boots, quotes, "Drink, Puppy, Drink." 1 Even a highpressure cylinder hums "Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah." 2 Whether he is dealing with men, beasts, or machines, satirizing pacifism or sketching in the background of a Masonic story,' he calls upon the song to help him.

K

1

IPLING

" T h y Servant a D o g , " 5, p . 11. " H e has n o o w n god because he will pass-

the-bottle-round-and-grow Servant

a Dog,"

into-a-Hound."

"The

Great

Play

Hunt,"

"Thy

44. T a g s , the f o x , says, " T h e n I will go to my-home-among-

the-rocks-in-Wales." G . J. W h y t e - M e l v i l l e , " D r i n k , P u p p y , D r i n k , " 1. 1. "Here's to the f o x in his earth below t h e rocksl" C h o r u s . " . . . For he'll grow into a h o u n d , so we'll pass the bottle r o u n d . " " D r i n k , P u p p y , D r i n k " is also mentioned in "Slaves of the L a m p , " I, Stalky & Co., 45. 2

" T h e Ship that F o u n d Herself," The Day's Work,

3

" I n the Interests of the B r e t h r e n , " Debits

102.

and Credits,

60-61. H e speaks

of the " q u a i n t t u n e " of the " E n t e r e d apprentices Song," a n d quotes some of its words. T h e t u n e comes originally f r o m a v o l u m e of half-sheet songs (circa 1699-05) and the words are by M a t t h e w B i r k h e a d . See E d m o n d s t o u n e Duncan's " T h e Minstrelsy of E n g l a n d , " V o l . II, 179. D u n c a n calls the song " T h e Freemason's H e a l t h . "

166

T H E SONG

167

Excellent examples of his use of the song to give atmosphere can be found in Puck oí Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. There he takes pains to make selections that will be telling both from an artistic and an historical point of view. He is guilty of no anachronisms. When in "Hal o' the Draft" he chooses " O u r King went forth to Normandie" for Sir John Pelhams trumpeters to blow as the little cavalcade rides into Burwash, he does so for two reasons. First, because it is a fifteenth-century tune—of the early part of the century, to be sure, but a celebration of the victory at Agincourt might be supposed to be remembered eighty years or so later. Second, because a reader who knows its second line will understand that the "Brightling knaves" are crediting themselves with "grace of might and chivalry." 4 Kipling has already skilfully introduced the tale by means of the ballad of "Sir Andrew Barton." But when Hal tells the children that the Scotch pirate of whom he speaks is "Even that Andrew Barton you were singing of on the stair just now," he is not implying that he has heard the ballad before. A t the time he is talking of, Sir Andrew was still living, a menace to peaceful trade.5 "Mary Ambree," on the other hand, was probably at the height of its popularity in Armada year, when Drake had "his musicianers" play it "on their silver trumpets" to honor Simon Cheyney's aunt. Moreover, it was, like " O u r King went forth," significant in its context. T h e story of a woman who fought at the siege of Gaunt to revenge her lover's death on the Spaniards was a suitable tribute to one who had offered her boat as a fireship to "shift the Dons round Dunkirk corner." "Was not this a brave bonny lass, Mary Ambree?"® 4 "Hal o' the Draft," Puck, 222. Percy's Reliques, Series the Second, Book the first, v; E. Duncan, "Minstrelsy of England," I, 52. There is probably a reminiscence of this song in line one of " T h e King's Pilgrimage," "Our King went forth on pilgrimage." 5 "Hal o' the Draft," Puck, 207, 210. β "Simple Simon," Rewards, 308. T h e siege of Gaunt in question occurred in 1584. T h e tune was that of " T h e blind beggar of Bednall-Green." See Percy

ι68

KIPLING S READING

W e have already seen what pains Kipling took to give a Shenstonian cadence to the song Philadelphia sings at the end of "Marklake Witches." An eighteenth-century note did not yet seem old-fashioned in i8o6. T But the other song she hums at the beginning of the tale, "Oh, what a town! What a wonderful metropolis," is presumably of a later vintage. It is one of a group of rhymes all providing words for the same tune—variously known as "Oh what a day" and "The Tortoiseshell T o m Cat"—scattered through the pages of the Universal Songster/ and it describes in detail the sights of the London Philadelphia has just mentioned.® T h e airs T o m Shoesmith sings in "Dymchurch Flit" are suited to the locality and time at which they are sung as well as to the context in which they appear. "Old Mother Laidinwool," which heralds his approach to the oast-house, belongs to the hopping season.10 "I've bin to Plymouth and I've bin to Reliques, Scries the Second, Book the Second, xix. T h i s ballad seems to have been a favorite of Kipling's; it supplies the title for "Captains Courageous" in From Tideway to Tideway, Letters of Travel, 8.4, and the better-known tale of the Grand Banks. T h e first line is " W h e n captaines courageous, whom death cold not daunte . . ." " W a s not this a brave bonny lass" is the chorus. 7 See pages 70-71. Wellesley was at Hastings in 1806, which dates the story for us. See E. V. Lucas, Highways and Byways in Sussex, London, 1904, 341. T h e story is in Rewards and Fairies. s " O h what a t o w n " appears in Vol. I, 10, " T h e Universal Songster or Museum of Mirth," 3 vols. London, George Routledge, n.d. Rewards, 92. Kipling quotes nearly an entire verse of this in "Dymchurch Flit," Puck, 234. In Songs from Books and Inclusive Verse he prints six stanzas and two choruses. T h e first stanza of the later version differs slightly from that of the earlier. Perhaps the original stanza was the folk-song as Kipling had heard it sung. T h a t such a song did exist an extract from J. Coker Egerton's Sussex Folk and Susse ζ Ways (Methuen and Co., London), C h a p t e r V, p. 64, shows. Mr. Egerton was rector of Burwash. 1867-1888, and there is every reason to suppose K i p l i n g read his book, which is one of the better-known accounts of rural Sussex. None the less, K i p l i n g may well have encountered an old person who gave him the fragment he first quotes. If not, he was already reshaping the song when the tale was written. (It was published Sept. 1906.) Egerton's version is not identical with his. Mr. Egerton mentions some verses he had learned from an old man: " T h e y were part of a song w h i c h the old man told 8

10

me used to be sung in our hop-gardens, and which set forth the marvellous power of hops in drawing to the 'bins,' at hopping-time, old and young, sick

T H E SONG

169

Dover, I've been ramblin', boys, the wide-world over," his answer to Hobden's question about his doings, is a song sung at harvest-homes. 11 Both of them, moreover, are native to Sussex, and " O l d Mother L a i d i n w o o l " has special associations with Burwash. A l l these songs K i p l i n g f o u n d ready to his hand when he wished to fill out his picture of the period he was treating. B u t he was not always so fortunate. Panegyrics on T y r 1 2 have not survived the Neolithic age, nor are hymns to Mithras still extant; 1 3 they must be reconstructed. Suetonius tells us a little of the marching songs of Caesar's legions, but K i p l i n g was probably thinking of the habits of British regiments rather than of the " D i v u s J u l u s " w h e n he wrote " R i m i n i . " 1 4 and well, who can possibly stir out-of-doors. H e knew only the first two lines, which run as f o l l o w s — O l d Mother Nincompoop had nigh twelve months been d e a d — She heard the hops were pretty good, and just popped out her head.' " 11 Purk, 235. It is a drinking song, connected with a Hastings drinking ceremony at harvest home. E. V. I.ucas, Highways and Byways in Sussex, 343, quoting Sussex Archaeological Collections. See also John Broadwood, Sussex Songs, London, Stanley Lucas, Weber & Co., No. 21, p. 42. Here the source for the information is given as a lecture on "Sussex Songs and Music" delivered before the British Archaeological Association (Brighton, 1885), by Mr. F. E. Sawyer. 1 2 " T h e Knife and the Naked Chalk," Rewards and Fairies, 140. T h e "Song of T y r " is mentioned here, and at the end of the story appears a song praising T y r for what the narrator of the tale had done. Kipling, though he makes his flint worker speak of "the god T y r , w h o gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast" apparently is not referring directly to Scandinavian mythology here. He must regard T y r as an older and more universally worshipped god who survived in the rather artificial Valhalla of the Edda poems. He does not mean that the flint worker is a Norseman. T h e r e is a real error in this tale, however; he has skipped straight from the stone age to the iron age, leaving the bronze age out entirely. Unless he justifies himself on the grounds that iron would have been discovered earlier in a region as full of it as the Weald, this is a bad slip, to which Sussex archaeology seems to give no backing. 1 3 Parnesius sings a prayer to Mithras at the close of " A Centurion of the T h i r t i e t h " (Puck, 113), and " A Song to Mithras" is appended to " O n the Great Wall." 1 4 " O n the Great W a l l , " Puck, 149, 150. " T h a t ? O h , Rimini. It's one of the tunes that are always being born somewhere in the Empire. T h e y run like a pestilence for six months or a year, till another one pleases the

170

KIPLING'S READING

He had, however, a more ancient model for the stanza with which the Roman man-of-war is sung out of Marseilles in "The Manner of Men." It is based on Callimachus's epitaph on Sopolis, which Kipling had already drawn upon in "Epitaphs of the War." 15 In an old Greek colony a song with a Greek flavor is not out of place; the populace cannot have changed entirely when the government did. Many more examples might be given, but these will suffice to show what care Kipling takes to select and compose songs for his tales of old times. In his modern stories, in most of which the action is set at the very period of the writing, or only a little before, there is no need to fear anachronisms, and he seems to make no special effort to pick the very latest hits for reference. The Spanish W a r song "Dolly Gray" must for instance have been superseded by the time "The Puzzler" appeared. 1 ' He never fails, however, to make alluLegions, and they march to that." Only one stanza is given in Puck, but the Inclusive Version offers four. Helen Waddell in " T h e Wandering Scholars" (London, 1927) 15 and 16 speaks of the marching songs of Caesar's legions, written in the trochaic tetrameter of the "Pervigilium Veneris," and quotes from Suetonius Div. Jul. c. 49, a passage giving one line 'Ecce Caesar nunc triumphat qui subegit Gallias.' She points out that this is the metre of "Mandalay." " R i m i n i " is not in trochaic tetrameter, however. 15

Limits and Renewals, 220. "Ah, would swift ships had never been about the seas to rovel For then these eyes had never seen nor ever wept their love. Over the ocean-rim he came—beyond that verge he passed, And I who never knew his name must mourn him to the last!" T h e adaptation in "Epitaphs of the War," "V.A.D. (Mediterranean)," begins: " A h , would swift ships had never been, for then we ne'er had found, These harsh Aegean rocks between, this little virgin drowned . . ." In the Bohn edition of the Greek Anthology (London, 1854), p. 41, the epitaph is translated, "Would that swift ships had not existed; for we should not have lamented Sopolis, the son of Dioclides. But now he is borne somewhere on the sea, a corpse; and we, instead of him, pass by his name and empty monument." In " T h e Uses of Reading," A Book of Words, 88, Kipling says " I have no Greek . . . I depend for the rest of my knowledge on Bohn's cribs." T h e chapter headings to the various lectures in A Book of Words are all modeled on the epitaphs and epigrams in the Anthology. 16 It was first published in January 1907, and collected in Actions and Reactions, Oct. 1909. For "Goodbye, Dolly Gray" see Sigmund Spaeth, Read 'em and Weep (New York, 1926), 222. Of course, Kipling may have written this

T H E SONG sions that have point. T h e r e is irony in Mafflin's adaptation of " W e don't want to fight"17 to Gadsby's situation, and humor in a regiment's serenading an elephant which is blocking its path with " T o m m y make room for your Uncle." 1 8 T h e r e are more references to music-hall ditties of this sort than to any other brand of songs, 18 but wide as was Kipling's acquaintance with the type, I suspect that here, too, he himself was sometimes forced to write the song that would exactly fit the circumstances. H e has never collected " M y girl she give me the go onst," and it may not be original with him. B u t he does not usually quote the entire length of songs by other p e o p l e — h i s audience can be presumed to know them and catch their implications without such an interruption of the narrative—and Ortheris' solo is a perfect commentary on " T h e C o u r t i n g of Dinal Shadd." 20 T h e r e seems to have been no occasion for him to manufacture drawing-room songs. A t any rate, the parody in Echoes is the only effort in this kind that can be discovered anywhere particular tale long before it was published; he says in Something of Myself (VIII, 225), "I have had tales by me for three or five years." But there are so many instances of rather out-of-date singings of music-hall songs that this explanation can hardly cover them all. 1 7 Gadsby has just been declaring his intention of leaving the service because of his wife and son; Mafflin says: " Y o u don't want to fight, A n d by Jingo when we do. You've got the kid, you've got the W i f e , You've got the money, too." T h e original song, according to Putnam's Dictionary of Thoughts (New York, 1930, 458a), belongs to 1877. The English Song Book (edited by Harold Scott [New York, 1926]) gives its writer as G . W . Hunt. 1 8 " M y Lord the Elephant," Many Inventions, English Song Book, 140-41.

73. By T . S. Lonsdale; see

1 9 T h e r e is also m u c h reference to drawing-room ballads and patriotic tunes, and some reference to and much imitation of traditional ballads, but the total number of references to music-hall songs is greater, and he mentions more different ones.

Life's Handicap. Since my manuscript went to press, I have found that Ortheris' song is added to the collection of Barrack-Room Ballads in the recently published Vol. X X X I I of the Sussex Edition. See an article by W . G. B. Maitland in the Kipling Journal, X L I X , April 1939, 10. 20

172

KIPLING'S READING

in his pages.21 He draws quite heavily on such as are already in existence, however. Fragments of Moore's Irish Melodies and Sacred Songs appear every now and then—a line in " L e t Erin Remember" seems to explain the application of the name "Malachi" to a dog that wears "a collar of gold," 22 and Whyte-Melville's "Goodbye" 28 and "Place where the Old Horse died" 24 are referred to more than once. Bits of the cantata from Jean Ingelow's "High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire" recur through the length of a damp and rainy tale,25 and the significance of the verse from "Sailing beyond Seas" sung early in " T h e Dog Hervey" becomes clear when we reach the end of the story,2e One sea song which does not seem, in Allingham's rendering of it, to have a very salty tang, turns up in surprising surroundings—a fishing boat on the Grand Banks.27 T h e rest of the songs sung on the We're Here seem to be more native to the atmosphere. Kipling is evidently trying to " H o w the Day Broke," Drawing-Room Song, Echoes, Early Verse, iog. " T h e Dog Hervey," A Diversity of Creatures, 156; "beside him sat Malachi, wearing his collar of gold, or Legatt makes it look so." " L e t Erin Remember," 1. 3, " W h e n Malachi wore the collar of gold." T h e other allusions are to "go where Glory waits thee" ("A I.ittle Prep, Stalky ir Co., 201, and " T h e T a k i n g of L u n g t u n g p e n , " Plain Talcs, 114); "Love's young D r e a m " ("My Great and Only," Abaft the Funnel, 265); and "Sound the loud timbrel" ("My Great and O n l y , " 263). 21

22

23 From Sea to Sea II, X X X V I , 156; " T h e Killing of Hatim T a i " ; The Smith Administration, 337. " G o o d b y e , " stanza 2, 1. 3, "all the tomorrows shall be as today." T h i s was set by Tosti. T h e second reference is in From Sea to Sea II, Swastika Edition. 24"Sleipner Late T h u r i n d a , " Abaft the Funnel, 129, chapter heading. " T h e R o u t of the W h i t e Hussars," Plain Tales, 230. 2 5 " M y Son's W i f e , " A Diversity of Creatures, 340-2, 375. A mixture of stanzas 2 and 17 furnishes the chapter heading for " A t the Pit's M o u t h , " Under the Deodars, 30. 20 A Diversity of Creatures, 142. Stanzas 1 and 3. Kipling has slipped in a supernumerary " t h a t , " in line one. " M e t h o u g h t the stars were blinking bright And the old brig's sails unfurled W h e n I said I will sail to my love this night O n the other side of the world." " . . . O h , maid most dear, I am not here, I have no place a p a r t — N o dwelling more on sea or shore, But only in thy heart." 2 7 "Captain's Courageous," Chapter II, 43. T o m Piatt sings parts of stanzas 3, 4, and 5 of " T h e Sailor," a R o m a i c Ballad, included under "Translated or adapted" poems in Flower Poems and other Pieces by William Allingham.

T H E SONG

>73

give us as much as possible of the balladry peculiar to the trade; it is not likely that he has introduced any of his own compositions here. Disko's song of the Dreadnought28 and Dan's " U p jumped the mackerel" 29 are certainly genuine New England fishermen's ballads, and there is no reason to suppose that " N o w Aprile is over," 30 "It's six an' twenty Sundays" 3 1 and " O h , Double Thatcher" 3 2 are any less authentic. So necessary a part of the background does song seem to him that, though he speaks little of French boats, he gives us two of their songs—a version of "Auprès de ma blonde" 3 3 and Casimir Delavigne's " L a brigantine." 3 4 T h e r e are no chanteys in Captains Courageous, and Kipling does very little quoting of them anywhere. " M o l l Roe in the Morning," evidently one he could not quote, is alluded to in The Light that Failed;3* " T h a t ' s the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots" fills out a line in " T h e Merchantmen" and there is a reminiscence of "Stormalong J o h n " elsewhere. 30 T h i s is the only exact knowledge we have of the nature of the wide reading—and also, no doubt, listening—that must lie behind "Anchor Song" and "Frankie's T r a d e . " These are his best efforts in this idiom. Neither the First nor the Last Chantey really deserves the name; their subject matter alone gives them a claim to it. 28 C h a p t e r I V , 1 1 3 - 1 4 . Versions of this song are given in J o a n n a Colcord's Roll and Go (Indianapolis, 1924), 90, a n d Franz Rickaby's Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy (Harvard University Press, 1926). 29 C h a p t e r IV, 109-10. " T h e Boston Come-all-ye, o r T h e Fishes." Roll and Go, 99. It is said to have been sung by the Gloucester men to the air of the T y n e s i d e keelmen. 30 Chapter I V , 1 1 7 - 1 8 . Kipling's sister, Mrs. Fleming, told the K i p l i n g Society that she thought that this was a New E n g l a n d sea song he had heard. See Kipling Journal, X L I V , December 1937, 124-25. " C h a p t e r I V , 1 1 9 ; V I I I , 227. 32

C h a p t e r V I I I , 216. Chapter V , 166. 34 C h a p t e r V I I I , 214. 35 Chapter V I I I , 1 1 5 . " T h e old chantey whereof he, among a very few, possessed all the words was not a pretty o n e . " 38 "Frankie's T r a d e , " next to the last line. "Storm along, my gallant captains!" C o m p a r e " T o me way hay; storm along J o h n . " 33

KIPLING'S READING

174

"Fare well and adieu to you" is also a ballad rather than a chantey, but it seems to have been Kipling's favorite among sea-songs. He gives it a prominent place in The Light that Failed,37 patterns a poem upon it in The Fringes of the Fleet," and allows reminiscences of it to creep into " T h e King's Pilgrimage." 39 Among land ballads he apparently prizes " T h e Hunting of the Cheviot" 40 most highly, though he is obviously fond of "Thomas Rhymer," and may have taken Puck's oath "by Oak and Ash and T h o r n " from "Glasgerion." 41 " T h e Coiner" goes to the tune of "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury"; 42 and several scattered "up and spakes" may derive from "Sir Patrick Spens" rather than any other source. 4 ' 3 7 Chapter VIII. " W i t h o u t prelude he launched into that stately tune that calls together and troubles the hearts of the gipsies of the sea—• Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies!" 3 8 T h e version in Fringes of the Fleet (1915—included in Sea Warfare) reads "Greenwich ladies," and that in Inclusive Verse, 1932, "Harwich ladies." 88 T h e reminiscent lines are: " A n d the first land he found it was shoal and banky ground Where the broader seas begin." Compare " T h e first land w e made, it is called the Deadman." Kipling's second line is not in the same metre as the old song's. "Farewell and adieu to y o u " can be found in Chappell, Vol. II, 736-37, and elsewhere. 40 He paraphrases stanza 60 of Child's " b " version in " A Conference of the Powers," Many Inventions, 47, and again in " T h e Uses of Reading"; A Book of Words, 87. Here he compares the answer one man gave after a loss in the Boer War, when asked what w o u l d be done, " O h , I don't know. T h a n k Heaven we have within the land five hundred as good as they," with another man's journalistic remark that the flower of the British A r m y was lost. In " T h e English W a y " (one of the additional poems added to the 1932 Inclusive Verse) he both imitates the style of " T h e H u n t i n g of the Cheviot," and alludes specifically to this passage—stanzas 2 and 3. Stanza 3. "Five hundred Captains as good," said he, " A n d I trow five hundred more." 4 1 Compare " T h e Last R h y m e of T r u e T h o m a s , " and "Puck's Song." " T h o m a s R h y m e r " speaks of "the fernie brae" (stanza 1, 1. 4) and has several stanzas—12, 13, 14—beginning " O see not ye" that are very like Puck's series that begins—in the first l i n e — w i t h "See you the ferny ride that steals?" Puck first swears by Oak, Ash and T h o r n in "Weland's Sword," Puck, 8. T h e credit for noticing the oath by oak and ash and thorn in "Glasgerion" goes to Mr. Waddell (60). 4 2 An explanatory note at the beginning tells us that it is to be sung to this air. 43

".007," The Day's Work, 244. From Sea to Sea, V , 238; Letters of

Marque,

X I I , 105. T h i s last is obviously from "Sir Patrick Spens"; it quotes the next line as well.

T H E SONG

>75

But Kipling is far more inclined to write ballads than quote them. He has used the ballad technique in every way he can think of. Sometimes, as in " T h e Ballad of Minepit Shaw," he copies all its characteristics; sometimes, as in "Soldier, Soldier," with its dialogue form, he emphasizes one device the ballad-maker frequently employs, or, as in " T h e Ballad of the 'Clampherdown,' " gives freshness to the conventional manner by employing an unconventional stanza." The content of his poems varies as much in tone as the treatment does in degree of closeness to the original. " T h e Fall of Jock Gillespie" is a straightforward parody; " T h e Ballad of the Red Earl" a personal satire and "Tomlinson" an impersonal one;45 " T h e Scholars" and " T h e Clerks and the Bells" are contemplative in mood. "King Henry V I I and the Shipwrights" recaptures almost perfectly the note of such jovial tales in verse as "King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth," but it is far more amusing. In " T h e Ballad of Fisher's Boarding-House" Kipling has modified the traditional form a little, but has produced a poem which, for economy and effectiveness of speech, may well be considered the modern equivalent of the old ballad. " T h e Ballad of East and West," good as it is in its kind, seems a little florid beside it. T h e simplicity of "My Boy Jack" is also infinitely moving. In spite of its ballad form, its brevity, unity of effect, and intensity of emotion render it deserving of the name "lyric." Kipling is interested in other branches of folk-song than the ballad. We have seen that he made reference to two traditional airs in "Dymchurch Flit," and elsewhere he alludes to "White sand and grey sand"48 and " M y J o Janet." 47 Moreover, the title of one of his best-known books is taken from 44

abccb. "Tomlinson" is not printed in "common" metre, but its seven-stress lines can easily be broken up into quatrains of four and three. This is true of several of the other ballads I mention. I have mentioned his possible debt to Macaulay in the employment of this metre earlier. 46 "Regulus," A Diversity of Creatures, 272. T h i s is a round; its words and music can be found in Songs for the People, edited by Albert G. Emerick, Boston, Oliver Ditson, 1852, p. 238. 47 " T h e Hill of Illusion," Under the Deodars, 60. There is a version of this in Ritson's Scottish Songs.

i76

KIPLING'S READING

"We be soldiers three" which Chappell dates early in the Tudor period.48 But while he mentions few other songs of this kind, he more than once tries to reproduce their effects in his own verse. " A Three-Part Song" is perhaps a little more specific in its descriptive terms49 than time would permit a well-worn folk song to be. But " A North-Country Lass," with its refrain " O the oak and the ash, and the bonny ivy tree Do flourish at home in my own country" is not vague, and shows the same fondness for a particular locality that Kipling gives expression to.30 Several other poems, " T h e Bee-Boy's Song" and " T h e Looking-Glass" for example, suggest traditional verses in matter or manner, but the chorus of the "Cuckoo Song" seems as if it had been actually written to an old tune and modeled on an old set of words: Tell old Winter, if he doubt, Tell him squat and square-al Old Woman! Old Woman! Old Woman's let the Cuckoo out At Heffle Cuckoo Fair-a! Kipling has also some poems in the manner of the carol. "Good King Wenceslaus" 51 and "When shepherds watched their flocks by night" 52 are modern, but he knew other Christmas songs than these. He employed "God rest you merry" to give bite to "Russia to the Pacifists," and called to the attention of Dick Heldar, waiting in the oculist's office, the third stanza of "Joys Seven" (about "making the blind to see"). Later on, unless appearances are very deceiving indeed, he used 48 T h e title-page of the first edition of "Soldiers T h r e e " had upon it, "We be soldiers three/ Pardonnez moy, je vous en prie." See Martindell Bibliography, 20. It is printed in Chappell, I, 77, under "From Henry VII to Mary." T h e first printing of it extant is in Deuteromelia, 1609. Perhaps Kipling learned some old songs at school; Beresford says (Schooldays with Kipling, 98) that they sang "even old eighteenth century ballads." 49 Such as " O h , hop-bine yaller an' wood-smoke blue." 60 Chappell, II, 457-8. He dates it under the Commonwealth. 51 "William the Conqueror," II, The Day's Work, 239; Pearcy Dearmer, R . Vaughan Williams, Martin Shaw. Oxford Book of Carols, London, Humphrey Milford, 271. T h e tune is old; the words were written in 1853. 52 "William the Conqueror," II, 238.

THE SONG

177

"Joys Seven" as a model for "A Carol" in Rewards and Fairies. "Our Lord who did the Ox command" sings perfectly to "The first good joy that Mary had," and the repetition in the fourth and fifth lines, followed by "good sirs" exactly corresponds to the similar catching up of the fourth line, and concluding "good Lord," of his version of the original. 58 Nor does he seem to have contented himself with borrowing from one source; the opening of stanza four comes from the "Wassail Song."54 This is the only instance in which we can assert with confidence that he is indebted to a specific carol for metre or words. Perhaps there is a trace of "Adam lay ybounden" in "As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree," 55 and it is not utterly fantastic to suppose that some lines in The Furry Day Carol, "Remember us poor Mayers all!"56 influenced others in "A Tree Song."57 But we cannot prove that he owes anything to the two old songs. 53 The Light that Failed, C h a p t e r X. K i p l i n g ' s version d i f f e r s a l i t t l e f r o m t h a t given in t h e Oxford Book of Carols, 153, n o t a b l y in t h e s u b s t i t u t i o n of "good L o r d " f o r "good m a n " in t h e r e f r a i n . I give h e r e f o r p u r p o s e s of comp a r i s o n stanza 3 of "Joys S e v e n " as q u o t e d in The Light, a n d t h e first stanza of " A C a r o l " :

Joys Seven " T h e n e x t good joy t h a t M a r y h a d It was t h e joy of t h r e e , T o see h e r good son J e s u s C h r i s t M a k i n g t h e b l i n d to see; M a k i n g t h e b l i n d to see, g o o d L o r d , A n d h a p p y m a y we b e

A Carol " O u r Lord who did the Ox command T o k n e e l to J u d a h ' s K i n g . H e binds His frost u p o n the land T o r i p e n it f o r S p r i n g . — T o r i p e n it f o r S p r i n g , good sirs, A c c o r d i n g to H i s W o r d .

P r a i s e F a t h e r , Son a n d H o l y G h o s t W h i c h well m u s t b e as ye can see— T o all e t e r n i t y ! " A n d w h o shall j u d g e t h e L o r d ? " 54 "Wassail Song," Oxford Book of Carols, 3 1 ; stanza 7: " G o d bless t h e m a s t e r of this h o u s e " A c a r o l , " stanza 4, 11. 1-2. Likewise t h e mistress t o o . " " G o d bless t h e m a s t e r of t h i s h o u s e . A n d all w h o sleep t h e r e i n ! " 55 " A d a m lay y b o u n d e n " m a y b e f o u n d in E d i t h R i c k e r t ' s Ancient English Christmas Carols ( L o n d o n , C h a t t o & W i n d u s , 1925), 163. "As A d a m lay ad r e a m i n g " is t h e first l i n e of " T h e F o u r A n g e l s . " 50 Oxford Book of Carols, 103. Stanza 2, 1. 1, " W e h a v e b e e n r a m b l i n g half t h e n i g h t " ; stanza 3, " O , we w e r e u p as soon as d a y , T o f e t c h t h e s u m m e r horne a; T h e s u m m e r is a c o m i n g - o n , A n d w i n t e r is a g o n - a . " N o t e t h e a d d e d " a " s as in " C u c k o o Song." 57 Stanza 5, 11. 3-4. " B u t w e h a v e b e e n o u t in t h e w o o d s all n i g h t , A-conj u r i n g S u m m e r i n ! " K i p l i n g ' s w o r d s can b e s u n g to " T h e F u r r y Day C a r o l ' s " tune.

KIPLING'S READING

178

W e k n o w , however, that it was frequently his habit to compose to music, sometimes taking suggestions from the old words as well. H e was d o i n g it at school; in "Slaves of the L a m p " he finds new words for " A r r a h , Patsy m i n d the b a b y " ; M in " T h e Impressionists" he fits " O h , Prout he is a n o b l e m a n " to another u n n a m e d tune. 59 His superior on the Civil and Military Gazette tells us that "all the poems he wrote d u r i n g the years we worked t o g e t h e r — m a n y of the 'Departmental Ditties,' for i n s t a n c e — w e r e written not only to music, b u t as music." . . . " W h e n he had got a tune into his head, the words and rhyme came as readily as when a singer vamps his o w n b a n j o accompaniment." 6 0 L e Gallienne also asserts that K i p l i n g writes " m a n y of his ballads to popular or traditional airs." u l T h e tunes to which the Barrack-Room Ballads were composed proved ephemeral, and are lost to us, b u t some of the others we can identify. W e have already seen what he owed to " K i n g John and the A b b o t of C a n t e r b u r y , " "Farewell and adieu to you," and "Seven Joys." It is possible to point out a few more songs whose words or music he appropriated. " T h e Song of the O l d G u a r d , " a satire on the system of promotion in the army spoken by lazy and self-righteous officers, begins with the first stanza of " H e y , then, u p go w e , " and preserves througho u t the tone and parlance of its original,®2 which satirizes the se P a r t I, Stalky 58

Stalky

&

& Co.,

Co.,

46-7.

135. " T h e

fags rather

liked

the

tune;

the words

were

Beetle's." 60

Ε . K . R o b i n s o n , " K i p l i n g i n I n d i a , " McClure's,

V I I , J u l y 1896, 109. M r .

R o b i n s o n a p p e a r s to think K i p l i n g c o m p o s e d s o m e of his o w n tunes. Kipling's c o u s i n , Miss F l o r e n c e M a c D o n a l d , c o m m e n t s o n h i s t e n d e n c y to c o m p o s e h i s verse

to t u n e s , a n d tells o f his a s k i n g h e r t o s i n g " M ' A n d r e w ' s

Hymn"

to

" T h e C h u r c h ' s O n e F o u n d a t i o n " a n d " R e c e s s i o n a l " to " F o r T h o s e in Peril o n the Sea." (Dyke's "Eternal

F a t h e r . " S e e Kipling

Journal,

XI, October

2-3.) F o r M i s s M a c D o n a l d ' s c o m m e n t s , see " S o m e M e m o r i e s o f M y Kipling

Journal,

1929,

Cousin,"

X L V I , J u l y 1938, 48.

61

Rudyard

Kipling,

82

" H e y , t h e n , u p g o w e " b e l o n g s a p p r o x i m a t e l y t o t h e y e a r 1646. C h a p p e l l ,

I I , 425. A p o e m " T o m a g a z i n e Repulse

A Critical

Study,

65.

all o u r p e o p l e n o w o n l a n d , " w h i c h a p p e a r e d in

the

f o r C h r i s t m a s , 1918, is l o o s e l y p a t t e r n e d a f t e r C h a r l e s S a c k -

v i l l e ' s " S o n g , W r i t t e n a t Sea, i n t h e first D u t c h W a r , 1665, t h e N i g h t B e f o r e

THE SONG

»79

Puritans. "The Lowestoft Boat" adapts "In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid"83 to the description of a boat and crew in the East Coast Patrol during the war. Another song written during the war years parodied "Abdul the Bulbul Ameer." 94 And, though it cannot be demonstrated, it is a moral certainty that "Fox-Hunting" should be sung to "The Vicar of Bray." It can be so sung; the meditating fox traces his history down the centuries as the vicar his through five reigns, and the "sir's" in the two choruses chime with each other perfectly.®5 W e have now discussed the most important instances of Kipling's use of song to give atmosphere to stories, or to an E n g a g e m e n t . " T h e m a g a z i n e was p u b l i s h e d f o r the personnel of H.M.S. R e p u l s e . For a r e p r i n t of the p o e m see Kipling

Journal,

XXXIII,

March

>935- 6. 63

E. D u n c a n , The

Minstrelsy

of England,

II, 250.

K i p l i n g ' s version begins " I n L o w e s t o f t a boat was l a i d . " • 4 Ellis A m e s Ballard, Catalogue, T o w e r , " New i'ork Herald

Tribune,

104, a6: F. P. A d a m s , " T h e

Conning

F e b r u a r y 7, 1936. It begins:

" T h e sons of the s u b u r b s w e r e carefully bred A n d q u i t e u n a c c u s t o m e d to strife . . ." 85

" T h e V i c a r of B r a y , " E. D u n c a n , Minstrelsy

of England,

" I n g o o d K i n g Charles's g o l d e n days W h e n loyalty no h a r m m e a n t , A zealous h i g h - c h u r c h m a n was I, A n d so I got p r e f e r m e n t . K i n g s were by G o d a p p o i n t e d , A n d lost all those that dare resist, O r touch the Lord's a n o i n t e d . this is law that I'll maintain,

Until That

my dying day, Sir,

whatsoever

T o spoil the T i m n i t e s barley, A n d l e f t Philistia early. T h r o u g h Gath and Rankesborough gorse I fled. A n d took the C o p l o w R o a d , sir! A n d was a g e n t l e m a n in red W h e n all the Q u o r n w o r e w o a d .

king shall reign,

I'll still be Vicar of Bray,

" W h e n Samson set my brush afire I m a d e my p o i n t f o r Leicestershire

T o teach my flock, I never miss'd

And

I, 80.

Fox-Hunting

siri"

sir."

T h e r e a r e two o t h e r possible influences of w h i c h I am not so sure as these. " P o o r Honest M e n , " w h i c h begins, " Y o u r j a r of V i r g i n n y W i l l cost you a g u i n e a W h i c h you reckon too m u c h by five shillings o r t e n " m a y o w e something

to

the

early

eighteenth-century

"Admiral

Benbow"

(Chappell,

II,

641-2-3). It runs: " O we sailed to V i r g i n i a A n d thence to F a y a l W h e r e w e w a t e r ' d o u r s h i p p i n g a n d then we w e i g h ' d a l l . " T h e second half of the first stanza of Merrow

Down,

II, runs " O n M e r r o w D o w n the cuckoos c r y — T h e

silence a n d the sun r e m a i n . " S. B a r i n g - G o u l d has w r i t t e n words to a tune in Songs and Ballads the ravens croak."

of the West, III (1892), p p . 132-3: " O n B r o a d w a y D o w n

ι8ο

KIPLING'S READING

serve as a model for his poetry. In the course of it we have learned something of the range of his acquaintance with English balladry, but we have had no occasion so far to mention his knowledge of hymns and patriotic pieces. There is not much to be said upon the subject except that he quotes both freely. Heber and Keble appear to be his favorite hymnologists,M though he commends Baring-Gould's "Onward Christian Soldiers." 67 It would be useless to catalogue his allusions to " R u l e Britannia" and "God save the Queen"; they are fairly numerous, but not particularly significant in the manner of their making. More important than these are his references to marching songs—"The Mulligan Guard" which Kim's Irish regiment prefers," and his "Parade-Song of the Camp Animals," in which he supplies new words to tunes identified with various divisions of the a r m y — " T h e British Grenadiers," ra " T h e Lincolnshire Poacher," 70 and "Bonnie Dundee." 7 1 He is interested in these not only as patriotic or regional songs but also as songs which make work go more rapidly and smoothly. He often suggests the importance of song as a lightener of labor. In " T h e Children of the Zodiac" the Bull tells Leo his singing has "helped him to do a full half field more [plowing] than he would have done." 72 After Kipling's emphasis on this, it is not surprising to find him 6 8 Reginald Heber, " F r o m Greenland's icy Mountains," "Jobson's A m e n " ; " T h e "Eathen," " M o u n t a i n s and the Pacific," Letters to the Family, Letters of Travel, 199. " T h e Son of God Goes Forth to W a r , " " T h e Man W h o W o u l d be K i n g , " Under the Deodars, 226.

J. Keble, " H o l y Matrimony"; " T h e Sergeant's Weddin' "; "In the Pride of his Y o u t h , " Plain Tales, 211; " W i t h any Amazement," The Story of the Gadsbys, 152. " M o r n i n g , " From Sea to Sea II, X X X V I , 161: "Sun of my soul," "Baa-Baa, Black Sheep," Wee Willie Winkie, Under the Deodars, 244. 67 " A n English School," Land and Sea Tales, 304. 88 Kim, V , 127-8. T h e song can be found in Sigmund Spaeth's Read 'em and Weep, 129. e B "Elephants of the G u n - T e a m s . " " W e lent to Alexander." 70 "Screw-Gun M u l e s " — " A s me and my companions were scrambling u p a hill." 7 1 "Cavalry Horses," " B y the brand on my withers, the finest of tunes" . . . T h e Cavalry Canter of " B o n n i e Dundee." 72 Many Inventions, 414.

T H E SONG mentioning the song the Esquimaux women sing at their mending," the Song of the Pick which accompanies coal mining in India," or the tune a locomotive hums as it flies." It seems natural that he should note the importance of the regimental bard in the army,7® occasionally try his hand at sea chanteys, and even manufacture an air-chantey to go with the flying boats of "With the Night Mail." 77 Of course, this practical value is only one of the many aspects of song he is interested in. The picturesqueness of folk- and musichall song and their revelation of the life from which they spring; the artistry of the ballad; the lovely air of "In Amsterdam"; associations called up by carol, hymn, and national anthem—all these influences were working to make the song at once a useful tool, an acceptable model, and a source of pure and undiluted pleasure to him. 78 74 75 76 77

"Quiquern," Second Jungle Book, 207. "At Twenty-Two," In Black and White in Soldiers Three, 255. ".007," The Day's Work, 256. " A Conference of the Powers," Many Inventions, 36. "With the Night Mail," Actions and Reactions, 152.

CONCLUSION comes nearer to "embracing English poetry as a whole" than "English literature as a whole," at least in so far as his allusions go. He has neglected nearly all drama except the Elizabethan, and he at no time displays a wide acquaintance with the essay. Novel and short story he mentions frequently, but, setting aside the Bible, which contains a large poetical element, his references to poetry far outnumber those to prose of any variety. This could hardly be otherwise: poetry is more quotable, and easier to remember, than any other kind of writing. But even in Kipling's knowledge of poetry there seem to be occasional gaps. He pays as much heed to the earlier ages as we could expect, or more— but he has slighted the post-Chaucerian epoch. Perhaps he thinks his audience will not respond to citations of writers so obscure, but the fact remains that " O u r King went forth to Normandie" is the only piece of fifteenth-century composition he can be proved to have read. His familiarity with subsequent periods of English literature appears to be great, and we can perhaps accept his neglect of the drama as a criticism of it rather than as a proof of ignorance on his part. T h e essay, too, may have been unsuitable to his purposes as an artist rather than foreign to his taste as a man. Yet it is natural that an author should read most widely in the fields in which he himself is active, and we shall probably not go far wrong in assuming that his allusions indicate fairly accurately the comparative depth of Kipling's knowledge of the various branches of English writing.

K

IPLING

Within the branches that he is most familiar with his tastes appear to be catholic. If he likes tales full of action and color, he also enjoys the quiet realism of J a n e Austen; he admires men of such widely different temperaments as Chaucer and James Thomson; his appreciation of the perfect smoothness 182

CONCLUSION and skill of Keats and Tennyson does not prevent him from being devoted to Donne and Browning. His exaltation of the Romantic genius leaves him quite capable of realizing the greatness of Defoe and Swift. He respects art and beauty wherever he finds them. We have seen that the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Victorian ages exercised the greatest influence upon his work, and that for him Victorian literature was American as well as English. We have also noted the extent of his individual debt to such men as Herrick, Browning, Rossetti, and Swinburne, his adaptation of their techniques, as well as those of folkand music-hall song, to his needs. Kipling himself has said "in our trade we be all felons, more or less,"78 so that we cannot feel an analysis of his origins to be unwarranted. But while we are intent upon tracing to its source narrative device or turn of phrase, we must not lose sight of the fact that he is a creative artist. His style is far more than a combination of the styles that have gone before him; he has added his own individual note to English poetry. However much he owes to his predecessors, Kipling is, in his own phrase, "something by himself." 79 78 70

Something of Myself, Vili, S37. Ά Priest in Spite of Himself,' Rewards,

198.

INDEX [All volumes, tales, and poems by K i p l i n g mentioned in the text are indexed, as are the names of all the writers and critics to whom reference has been made. T i t l e s of works by authors other than Kipling are not indexed separately, but may be found by looking u p the page references under the authors' names. Anonymous writings are of course indexed by title. Subjects (e.g., " D r a m a , " " R o m a n t i c literature") are also listed.] Abaft the Funnel, vi, 3, 74, 76, 78, 86, 90, 94, footnotes 65, 67; 96, 97, 98, footnotes 86 a n d 89; 100, footnotes 95, 97 a n d 102; 102, 105, footnotes 1 3 1 - 1 3 3 ; i n , 1 1 6 , 120, 135, 142, 144, 146, 147, 149, 172, footnotes 22 a n d 24 A b d u l the B u l b u l Ameer, 179 Across a Continent, 140 Actions and Reactions, 28, 44, 57, 68,

Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle,

The,

11,

12,

'4 Anglo-Saxon literature, see Old English literature Appropriate Verses on an Elegant Landscape, 69 Argument for a projected Poem to be called " T h e Seven Nights of Creation," 1 1 0 Army of a Dream, T h e , 36. 92 Arne, Dr. Τ . Α., ηο Arnold, Sir Edwin, 114, 128, 129 Arnold, Matthew, 85, 1 1 5 , 1 1 6 , 130 Around the World with Kipling, 46 " A r r a h , Patsy, mind the b a b y , " 178 " A s the bell clinks," 148 At T w e n t y - T w o , 181 At the E n d of the Passage, g 1, 92, 105, 140 At the Pit's Mouth, 172 Augustan age of English literature, see eighteenth-century literature A u n t Ellen, 42, 5 1 , 78, 95, 1 1 6 " A u p r è s de ma blonde," 173 Austen, J a n e , 5, 73-75, 146, 182

73- 75- 7 8 > 79- 92. '04- >44. 160. 164, 170, 181 Adams, F., 2 Adams, Franklin P., 157, 179 Addison, J o s e p h , 59 Adventures of Melissa, T h e , 57 Advertisement, T h e , 15, 16 A f t e r the Fever, 108 " A h , would swift ships had never been about the seas to rove," 170 Ainsworth, Harrison, 102 " A l a s for m e , " 121 Alcott, Louisa May, 102, 147 Aldrich, T . B., 156 Allegory, 43, 67, 68 Allingham, W i l l i a m , 172 Alliteration, 15, 17, 81 American, A n , 44, 149 American literature, 6, 102, 140-158,

Baa B a a Black Sheep, 3, 5, 33, 62, 1 1 7 , 180 Bacon, Sir Francis, 42, text and footnote 66 Baconians, 36, 38 Bald, 10 B a l l a d , 6, 166, 167, 174, 175; b a l l a d metre, 16, 73, 128, 175, footnote 45 Ballad of B u r i a l , A, 105

'83 American T r a d e Edition of Kipling's Works, ν A m o n g the R a i l w a y Folks, see From Sea to Sea Anchor Song, 1 7 3 .85

.86

KIPLING S READING

Ballad of East and West, The, 6, 128, >75 Ballad of Fisher's Boarding-House, T h e , 175 Ballad of Minepit Shaw, The, 175 Ballad of the Clampherdown, T h e , >75 Ballad of the King's Mercy, The, 128 Ballad of the Red Earl, The, 175 Ballade of Jakko Hill, A, 132 Ballades, 85, 132-134, 156 Ballantyne, R . M., 102 Ballard, Ellis Ames, vi, 46, text and footnotes 86 and 87; 70, 81, 99, 1 4 1 , footnotes 7 and 8; 157, 160, >79 Barbour, Cecil, 4 Barclay, Alexander, 18 Barhara, R . H., 134, text and footnote 269 Baring-Gould, S., 179, 180 Barrack-Room Ballads, 1, 2, 120, 158, >7>. 178 Barrie, Sir J . M., 1, footnotes 3 and 4; 61, 141 Battle of Assye, The, 156 Battle of Brunaburh, The, 11 Beast and Man in India, see Kipling, J. L. Beaumont, Francis, 35 Becker, May Lamberton, 102 Beckford, William, 76 Bede, 13, 14 Bee-Boy's Song, The, 176 Bees and the Flies, The, 67, 68, 72 "Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm," 54, 55 "Before my Spring I garnered Autumn's gain," 122 Beginner, The, 109 Beginning of the Armadilloes, T h e , 26 "Benedicite omnia opera," 164 Beowulf, 10, text and footnote 26; 12, 15 Beresford, G. C., Schooldays with Kipling, 6, 8, 18, 19, 25, footnotes 3 and 7; 45, 55, 57, 60, footnotes

6 and 8; 65, 73, 77, 78, 79, footnotes 91 and 95; 80, footnotes 96 and 99; 81, 86, 103, 104, 110, m , 120, 122, 128, 153, 154, 176 Berners, John Bourchier, second Lord, 18 Bertram and Bimi, 157 Besant, Walter, 85, 94, 95-97, 99, 158 "Betrayal of Consequences, T h e , " 146 Betrothed, The, 157 Bible, 7, 8, 100, 159-165, 182; King James version, 163, 164, 165; Old Testament, 160, text and footnote 10; 161; New Testament, 160, text and footnote 10; Genesis, 160, 161, 163; Exodus, 160; Judges, 159, 160, 162; Samuel, 159, 160; Kings, 159, 160; Job, 160, 163; Psalms, 160, 162, footnotes 23 and 25: 164; proverbs, 160, 162; Ecclesiastes, 120, 159, footnotes 1 and 3; 160; Isaiah, 160; Jeremiah, 161, 165; Ezekiel, 165; Amos, 161; Zechariah, 161; Apocrypha, 160; Ecclesiasticus, 160; Matthew, 159, 160, 161, footnotes 20 and 21; Luke, 159; John, 161; Acts, 159, 160, 161, 163; Epistles, 160, 163; Romans, 160; Corinthians, 163, footnote 29; James, 161 Bibliographies of Kipling's works, v, vi Bibliography of Kiplingiana, vi, 141 Birkhead, Matthew, 166 Birthright, The, 3 1 , 32, 33, 41 Bishop W. H „ 1, 141 Bitters Neat, 1 1 1 Black Jack, 130 Black, William, 95 Blackmore, R . D „ 94 Blake, William, 77 Blind Beggar of Bednall Green, The, 167 Blue Roses, 122 Blunt, W. S., 137 Boethius, 21 Bohn Library, 170 Bold Prentice, The, 98

INDEX Bonds of Discipline, The, 80 Bonnie Dundee, 180 Book of Common Prayer, The, 100, 159, 164, text and footnotes 33-3", Book of Homage to Shakespeare, A, 3 6 . >45 Book of Words, A, vi, g, 15, 18, ig, 25, 26, footnotes 10-14; 27, 34, footnote 39; 37, 43, footnotes 71 and 73; 62, footnotes 14, 16, 17; 63, 71, footnotes 52 and 55; 78, 88, 92, n o , 116, 164, footnotes 31 and 32; 170, 174 Borrow, George, 87 Boston Come-all-ye, The, 173 Boswell, James, 14, 63, 64, text and footnote 27; 65, text and footnote 28 Bother, The, 116 Braggart, T h e , 67 Brant, Sebastian, 18 "Bread upon the Waters," 71, 93, '59 Breitmann, Hans, see Leland, C. G. Bridegroom, The, 54 Bride's Progress, The, 120, 128 British Grenadiers, T h e , 180 Broadwood, John, 169 Brontë, Charlotte, 94 Browne, Sir Thomas, 42, 43 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 129, 130 Browning, Robert, 1, 2, 9, 46, 47, 85, 103-109, 110, 1 1 5 , 139, 183 "Brugglesmith," 29, 64, 67, 72, 89, 90, 94, 100 Brushwood Boy, The, 112 Brut, 17 Bryant, William Cullen, 140 Buchanan, Robert, 130 Bullough, G., 24 Bunyan, John, 43-45 Burbadge, Richard, 38 Burden, The, 133 Burgher of the Free State, A, 87 Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 120, 124 Burne-Jones, Lady, 75, 120 Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 102 Burns, Robert, 66, 71, 72

.87

Burnt Νjal Saga, 122 Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 147 By Word of Mouth, 47, 62 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 73, 80, 81, 131 Cable, George Washington, 146 Caedmon, 11 Callimachus, 170 Cambridge History of American Literature, The, 155 Campion, Thomas, 29, 32, 41 Captains Courageous, vi, 105, 106, 140, 152, 153, 164, 168, 172, 173 Captains Courageous (From Tideway to Tideway), 168 Captive, The, 140, 144, 156 Carleton, Will, 157 Carlyle, Thomas, text and footnotes 10-12 Carol, A, 177 Carol, 6, 166, 176, 177, 181 Cavalier poets, 45, 53, 54 Cavalieri Servente, 121 Caxton, William, 18 Centurion of the Thirtieth, A, 127, i6g Cervantes, 75 Certain Maxims of Hafiz, 128 Chamberlain, Joseph, 133 Chambers, E. K., 24 Chandler, Rear-Admiral L . H., A Summary of the ÍVork of Rudyard Kipling, vi, 1 1 , 19, 26, 35, 57, 60, 130, 146, 153; articles in The Kipling Journal, 118, 123 Changelings, T h e , 137, 138 Chantey, 166, 173 Chapman, George, 31, 41 Chappell, William, 50, 174, 176, text and footnotes 48 and 5 1 ; 178, 179 Charm, A, 52, 53 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 1 1 , 17-23, 24, 182 Chevrillon, André, Three Studies in English, 3; England and the War, 78 Chevy Chase, 166, 174 Child, Francis J., 174

ι88

KIPLING'S READING

Children's books, 85, 99-103, 102, footnote 116 Children of the Zodiac, T h e , 149, 180 Child's Garden, A, 138 Chivers, T . H „ 148 Christmas in India, 108 Christy, Thomas, 82 "Church that was at Antioch, T h e , " 159, 163, text and footnote 29 Cities and Spaces, 149 "Cities and Thrones and Powers," 52 City of Dreadful Night, The, (Life's Handicap), 1 1 7 City of Dreadful Night, The (Edition in One Volume Kipling), 104 City of Dreadful Night, The, see From Sea to Sea City of Dreadful Night, The, (James Thomson), 1 1 7 , 118 City of the Heart, T h e , 153 Civic Garland, The, 164 Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 60, 74, 119, 178 Classics and the Sciences, The, 34 Clemens, S. L „ 141, 143-145, 158 Clerks and the Bells, The, 175 Clough, Arthur Hugh, 1 1 6 , 117 Cockayne, Oswald, 10 Cohen, Helen Louise, 156 Coiner, T h e , 50, 5 1 , 174 Colcord, Joanna, 173 Cold Iron, 13, 18, 83 Coleridge S. T . , 73, 77, 81, 83, text and footnote 114; 84, 85 Colgrave, Bertram, 13 Collected Dog Stories, vi Collins, Mortimer, 93 Collins, W. Wilkie, 93 Colvin, Jan, 100 Colvin, Sidney, 99 Come Hither, 48 Complete Stalky and Co., The, vi, 55· 9'- 137 Conclusion, A, 29 Conference of the Powers, A, 78, 118, •35. M i . 174. 181 Congreve, William, 41 Consequences, 109, 149

Consolations of Memory, The, 21, tt Contemporaries, opinion of, see Kipling, Rudyard Contradictions, 153 Conventionality, 107 Conversion of St. Wilfrid, The, 1 1 , text and footnote 27; 13, 14, 162, 164 Coolidge, Susan, 102 Cooper, Anice Page, 46 Cooper, J . F., 140 Corbet, Richard, 49, 50, 51, 99 Corbett, Sir Julian, 27 Coryatt, Thomas, 26 Courtauld, S. Α., 4 Courting of Dinah Shadd, The, 171 Coverdale, Miles, 165 Cow-House Jirga, T h e , 53 Cowper, William, 56, 65, 68, 69, 71 Crashaw, Richard, 45, 53, 58 Credat Judaeus, 107 Criticism of Kipling, 1-5, 23, 60, 61, text and footnotes 11 and 12; 79. footnote 89; 89, 1 1 7 , footnote 178; 14·, 142 Cuckoo Song, 176, 177 Culpeper, Nicholas, 7, 43, 82, 160 Curé, The, 1 3 1 , 132 Cursing of Stephen, T h e , 113, 114 "Daffodils in English fields," 123 Daniel, Samuel, 32, 45 Dante, 121, 151 Dates of publication, v, vi Daughter of the Regiment, The, 89 Davis, Richard Harding, 141, text and footnote 7; 147, text and footnote 44 Day's Work, The, 46, 61, 66, 7 1 , 78, 80, 86, 91, 93, 95, 1 1 2 , 149, 159, 166, 174, 176, 181 Dayspring Mishandled, 19, 20, 23, 65, 138 Dead Kings, 38, 43 Deal in Cotton, A, 75, 144 Dearmer, Percy, 176 Debits and Credits, 22, 24, 36, 40, 42, 43, 48, footnoes 92 and 94; 49, 57,

INDEX 5g. 6«, 63,66,68, 74, footnotes 60 and 64; 75, 86, 87, 89, g ì , 93, 97, î o ï , 1 1 2 , 124, footnotes 218 and 223; 135, 145, 146, footnotes 35 and 38; 147, 1 5 1 , 15g, 160, 1 6 1 , 166 Declaration of Independence, The, 140 Deep-Sea Cables, T h e , 126 Defoe, Daniel, 61, 62, 183 Deily, Robert H., vi, 141 Dekker, Thomas, 34, 35 De L a Mare, Walter, 48, 139 Delilah, 159 Deloney, Thomas, 40 De Quincey, Thomas, 73, 74 Delavigne, Casimir, 173 Deor's Lament, 12, 16 Departmental Ditties, 1, 2, 88, 1 1 8 , 1 1 9 , 125, 1 3 1 , 178 Departure, A , 133 Destroyers at Jutland, vii Deuteromelia, 176 Dickens, Charles, 2, 5, 60, 88, 89, 93. '39· ' 4 * Dickinson, Emily, 156 Disraeli, Isaac, 48, 4g, 59, 60, 68, 74 District at Play, A, 100, 1 1 1 Diversity of Creatures, A, 44, 64, 79, 88, 89, g2, g3, footnotes 56-58; g4, 98, footnotes 90 and 91; 102, 104, 1 1 1 , 1 1 2 , 128, 129, 140, 160, 162, 172, footnotes 22, 25 and 26; 175 Dobson, H. Austin, 85, 132, 134 Doctor of Medicine, A, 43, 162 Dodge, Mary Mapes, 102 Dodgson, Charles L., 100 Dog Hervey, T h e , 64, 94, 129, 172, text and footnotes 22 and 26 Donne, J o h n , g, 24, 43, 45, 46-48, 58, 183 "Doors were Wide, T h e , " 122 Dowson, Ernest, 138, text and footnote 293 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 97 Drake, Sir Francis, 27 Drama, 7, 34-42, 60, 61, 80, 85, 135, especially footnote 280; 139, 158, 182

Dream of Duncan Parrenness, T h e , 44, 160 Dryden, J o h n , 4 1 , 45, 57 Du Maurier, George, 94 Duncan, Edmondstoune, 166, 167, 17g, footnotes 63 and 65 Dunsterville, Major General L . C., 6. 25, 86, 87, 90, 154 Durand, R a l p h , 3, 95 Dying Chauffeur, T h e , 130 Dykes, J . B., 178 Dymchurch Flit, 50, 83, 168, text and footnote 10; 169, 175 Earle, J o h n , 10, 12 Early Verse, v, 42, 69, 72, 78, 82, 88, 108, 123, 124, 125, 150, 153, 156, footnotes 95 and g6; 172 'Eathen, T h e , 180 Echoes (collected in Early Verse), 2, 5, 69, 72, 78, 82, 107, 108, 1 1 3 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 8 , 1 2 1 , 123, 124, 125, footnotes 226, 228 and 230; 137, 150, 153, 156, 1 7 1 , 172 Edda, Poetic, 12, 13, 169 Eddi, 13, 14 Edge of the Evening, T h e , 98, 140 Editions of Kipling's works of which use has been made, v, vi, vii Education of Otis Yeere, T h e , 66, 94· >29. >35 Egan, Pierce, 74 Egerton, J . Coker, 168, 169 Egypt of the Magicians, see Letters of Travel Ehrsam, Theodore G., vi, 141 Eighteenth-century literature, 9, 5973. >83 Eliot, George, 94 Elizabethan literature, 9, 24-4·, 73, 164, 165, 182, 183 Emerick, Albert G., 175 Emerson, R . W., 1 4 1 , 147, 1 4 8 - 1 5 1 , 153.

'58

F.n-Dor, 159 England and the English, 62 England's Answer, 126 English Flag, T h e , 1 1 5 , 126

KIPLING'S READING

îgo

English School, A n , 5, 19, 25, text and footnotes 3, 4 and 8; 61, 74, 93· 94· 100, 102, 180 English W a y , T h e , 174 Enlightenments of Pagett, M. P., T h e , 78, 90 Entered Apprentices Song, 166 Epitaphs of the W a r , j o , 54, 170 Essay, 7, 42, 43, 59, 63, 64, 73, 74, 85-88, 90, 139, 158, 182; outdoor essay, 87 Estunt the Griff, 121 "Et D o n a Ferentes," 110 Etherege, Sir George, 41 Evans, Mary A n n ("George Eliot"), 94 Evarra and his Gods, 128 Ewing, Juliana Horatia, 77, 100, 101, 102 Excellent

Reason,

35 Ex-Clerk, 30, 31, 32 Exeter Book, The, Exiles Line, T h e , Explanation, T h e , Eye of Allah, T h e ,

An,

11,

19,

26,

11 119 29 124

Fabulists, T h e , 32, 133 Face of the Desert, T h e , 98, 164 Fairy-kist, 83, 97, 101 Fall of Jock Gillespie, T h e , 175 Falls, Cyril, 3, 61 "Farewell and adieu to y o u , " 174, 178 Farquhar, George, 41 Farrar, Dean F. W., 102, 103 Fastness, 114 Fiction, 18, 63 Fielding, Henry, 60, text and footnote 6; 75 Fifteenth-century literature, 18, 182 Files, T h e , 87, 147 "Finest Story in the W o r l d , T h e , " 3, 78-80, 93, 98, 137, 152, text and footnotes 77-82 First Chantey, T h e , 173 Fitzgerald, Edward, 85, 119, 120, 139 Fleet in Being, A (collected in From Sea to Sea, New W o r l d Edition),

ν, vii, 42, 43, 80, 91, 93, 146, 149 Fleming, Mrs. J. M. (Alice Macdonâld Kipling), 2, 36, 173 Fletcher, John, 35, 40 Fletcher, Phineas, 45 Flight of Fact, A, 91, 98, 135, footnotes 278 and 280 Flight of the Bucket, T h e , 107 Foerster, Norman, 155 Folksong, 166, 168, 173, 175, 176, 179, 181, 183 Ford, John, 35, 40 For O n e Night Only, vii Fortunate Towns, T h e , 28 Four Angels, T h e , 121, 177 Four Points, T h e , 28 Fox-Hunting, 92, 179 France at War, vi, 98, 135 Frankie's Trade, 173 Freemason's Health, T h e , 166 Friend of the Family, A , 97 Fringes of the Fleet, The (collected in Sea Warfare), vii, 174 Froissart, Jean, 19 From a Winter Note-Book, 94, 145 From Sea to Sea (American T r a d e Edition), Part I, v, vi, vii, 2, 3, 55, 59, 60, 73, 74, footnotes 60 and 61; 80, 82, 94, 96, 97, 100, 102, 104, footnotes 125 and 127; 105, footnote 134; 110, 111, 112, 119, 121-123, 124, footnotes 221 and 222; 127, 138, 140, 142, 143, footnotes 20, 22 and 23; 146, 149, 157, 160, 162, 164, 174. Part 11, 55, 80, 88, 95, 97, 104, 105, 110, 111, footnotes 157 and 159; 112, 117, 121, 140, 141, 142, 143, footnotes 19, 2124, 26; 144, 145, 146, footnotes 37, 41 and 42; 147, 151, footnotes 73 and 76; 153, 156, 157, 161, 172, 180; title page of first edition of From Sea to Sea, 79. Among the Railway Folk, 98, 125, 144, footnotes 28 and 31; City of Dreadful Night, The, 63, 76, 79, footnotes 90 and 92; 88, 89, 94, 117. Giridih The, 55, 75; Letters

Coal Fields, of Marque,

INDEX 26, 63, 80, 86, 96, 100, footnotes 98 and 157, From

99; 160;

105, 119,

111, 124,

footnotes 128,

157,

Sea to Sea (New W o r l d

156, 174 Edi-

tion), ν, vii, 29, 42, 43, 80, 91, 93, ' 4 5 . '49 From Sea to Sea ν, vii, 100, 110, From the Wings, From Tideway to ters of Travel Furry Day Carol, Fuzzy Wuzzy, 2

(Swastika Edition), i n , 120, 128, 172 107 Tideway, see Let177

Gaskell, Elizabeth C., 94 G a t t y , Margaret S., 101, 102 G a y , John, 67, 68, 72 Gertrude's Prayer, 20 G i l b e r t , W. S., 135-137, 139 Gilchrist, Octavius, 49 Giridih Coal Fields, The, see From Sea to Sea Glasgerion, 174 G l o r i a n a , 29, 41, 162, text and footnote 24 G o d from the Machine, T h e , 135 " G o d rest you merry," 176 G o d Save the Q u e e n , 180 Gods of the C o p y - B o o k Headings, T h e , 160 G o l d s m i t h , Oliver, 59 " G o o d K i n g Wenceslaus," 176 G o o d b y e , Dolly Grey, 170 G o r d o n , Adam Lindsay, 130, text and footnote 250 G o r d o n , Lady Margaret, 157 Gosse, E d m u n d , 87 G o w ' s Watch, 35, 40 Grand-Master's Defence, T h e , 108 Gray, T h o m a s , 37, 65-67 Great-Heart, 44 Greek Anthology, The, 170 G r e e n , J. R., 12 G r e v i l l e , Fulke, L o r d Brook, 31 Grierson, H . J. C., 24 H a b i t a t i o n Enforced, A n , 28, 78, 104 H a g g a r d . H. R i d e r , 97, 98, 134

>9i

H a k l u y t , R i c h a r d , 25-27 Hale, E d w a r d Everett, 147 Hales, J. W „ 79, 81, 82 H a l f - B a l l a d of W a t e r v a l , 132 Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O., 18 Hal o ' the D r a f t , 41, 167, text and footnotes 4 a n d 5 H a n d i c a p of Letters, T h e , 164 H a n m e r , Sir T h o m a s , 38 Hans B r e i t m a n n as an Administrator, >57 H a r d y , T h o m a s , 94, 95 H a r p Song of the D a n e W o m e n , 16 Harris, J. C „ 141, 144, 145 Hart, W a l t e r Morris, 4, 10, 23, 109, 142, text a n d footnote 14 H a r t e , Bret, 1, 2, 141-143, 145, 158 H a w t h o r n e , N a t h a n i e l , 158 Hazlitt, W . C., 18 Head of the District, T h e , 1 1 1 , 135 H e b e r , R e g i n a l d , 180, text a n d footnote 66 Hemans, Felicia D., 80 Henley, W . E., 137-139 Henry, Patrick, 140 Henty, G . Α., io2 Herbert, George, 58 "Here's a mongoose," 123 Heriot's Ford, 121, 122 Herrick, R o b e r t , 9, 45, 51-53, 183 " H e y , then, u p go w e , " 178 Heydrick, B e n j a m i n , 4, 109 Hill of Illusion, T h e , 116, 175 H i m a l a y a n , 156 His Consolation, 107 His G i f t , 92, 97, 100, 112 H o g g , James, 79 Holmes, O . W . , 145, 146, 156 Holy W a r , T h e , 43, 44 H o m e r , 121 H o n o u r s of W a r , T h e , 79 H o o d , T h o m a s , 79 Hope of the Katzekopfs,

The,

49,

99. 100 H o p k i n s , J o h n , 53 H o p k i n s , R . T h u r s t o n , 3, 87, 96, 134 Horse Marines, T h e , 128 House Surgeon, T h e , 73, 97, 160

192

KIPLING'S READING

Housman, A. E., 138 How Breitmann Became President on the Bicycle Ticket, 157 How the Day Broke, 17* How the Goddess Awakened, 125 Howells, W. D., 146, text and footnote 41 Hunt, G. W., 171 Hunt, Leigh, 79 Hunter, Sir William W., 87, 88 Hunting of the Cheviot, The, 166, 174 Huon of Bordeaux, 18 Hymns, 178, footnote 60; 180, 181 Hyndlo-Liod, 13 "I've bin to Plymouth," 168, 169, text and footnote 11 Ibsen, Henrik, 85, 86, text and footnote a Idiot Boy, T h e , 79 Impressionists, T h e , 67, 94, 100, 112, 127. 1 35· '78 In Ambush, 88, 91, 101, 127, 140 "In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid," 6, 179, 181 In Black and White (American Trade Edition), see Soldiers Three; (De Luxe Edition), 78 In Error, 142 In Partibus, 86 In Sight of Monadnock, 147, 148 In Springtime, 108 In the House of Suddhoo, 147 In the Interests of the Brethren, 166 In the Pride of his Youth, 157, 180 In the Rukh, 124 In the Same Boat, 88, 93 Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney, T h e , 127, 157 Inclusive Verse, 1885-1932, v, 5, 15, 16, 33, 38, 39, 56, 119, 168, 170, •74 Independence, 71, 78, 110 Indian Farmer at Home, The, 72 Indian Troops, 44 Ingelow, Jean, 129, 166, 172 Instructor, The, 133

Inventor, T h e , 150 Irenius, 40 Irish Guards in the Great War, The, vii, 134 Irving, Washington, 140 "Is Kipling a plagiarist?" 149 "It's six and twenty Sundays," 173 Jacobean literature, 42, 45-49, 73. 164, 165, 183 James, Henry, 99, 141, 145, 146 Jam-Pot, The, 106 Janeites, The, 74, 75, 146 Jane's Marriage, 60 Jane Smith, 78, 79 Jefferies, Richard, 87 Jester, The, 163 Jewett, Sarah Orne, 147 Jobson's Amen, 180 Johnson, Samuel, 36, 38, 61, 63-65 Jonson, Ben, 24, 34, 35, 45, 46, 51 Joys Seven, 176, 177 Judgment of Dungara, The, 65 Judson and the Empire, 132, 135 Jungle Book, The, vii, 76, 77, 98, 100, text and footnote 95: 122, 129, '47 Justice's Tale, The, 21 Just So Stories, vii, 26, 144 Keary, A. and E., 13, 102 Keats, John, 73, 77, 81-83, 85, 183 Keble, John, 180, text and footnote 66 Keightley, Thomas, 18 Kennedy, Arthur G., 21 Kethe, William, 53 Kim, 61, 78, 89, 180 Kim (poem), 30, 31 King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth, 175 King Henry VII and the Shipwrights, '75 King John and the Abbot of Canterbury, 50, 51, 174, 178 King's Ankus, T h e , 23, 129 King's Pilgrimage, The, 167, 174 Kingsley, Charles, 77, 93, 99, 102, 127, 128

INDEX Kipling, Alice Macdonald, see Fleming, Mrs. J . M. Kipling, J . L., 83, 105, 141; Beast and Man in India, 6, 36, 42, 43, 63, 77, 140, 154 Kipling, Rudyard, width of reading, 1-3, 5, 8, 17, 18, 24, 58. 59, 72, 73, 85, 86, 103, 138, 139, 140, 141, 158, 182, 183; use of original sources, 12, footnote 36; opinion of contemporaries, 7, 85, 86, 136, 137139, 141, 146 Kipling Journal, The, 4, 36, 53, 75, 82, 88, 100, 118, 123, 138, 144, 171, '73. '78. '79 Knife and the Naked Chalk, The, 169 Knights of the Joyous Venture, The, 10, footnotes 25 and 26; 102, 152, footnotes 81 and 83 Kopra-Brahm, 149, 150 La Nuit Blanche, 1 1 2 , 136 Lady Geraldine's Hardship, 129, 130 Lamb, Charles, 74 Lamentable Comedy of Willow Wood, The, vii, 120, 1 2 1 , text and footnote 195; 160 Land and Sea Tales, vii, 5, 19, 20, text and footnote 6o; 21, 25, footnotes; 61, 74, 86, 91-94, 97, 98, footnotes 86 and 89; 100, footnotes 97 and 103; 102, 1 1 2 , 135, footnotes 278 and 280; 180 Landau, The, 131 Landon, L . E., 80 Landor, W. S., 74, 130 Langland, William, 18 Laocöon, 1 1 5 Last Chantey, T h e , 173 Last Department, The, 119, text and footnotes 187 and 188 Last of the Light Brigade, The, 114 Last of the Stories, The, 94, 96, 97, 98, footnotes 86 and 89; 100, 102, 105, footnotes 132 and 133; 1 1 1 , 116, 135, 142, 144 Last Rhyme of T r u e Thomas, T h e , •74

193

Last Term, The, 25, footnotes 3, 5-7, 9; 35. 45· 53. 57- 66, 73, 76, 80, 81, 86, 87, 91, 92, 100, 105, 119. 121, 130 Law of the Jungle, The, 128 Layamon, 17 Lee, Charles, 148 Le Gallienne, Richard, 3, 141, 155, .78 Legs of Sister Ursula, The, vii, 60 Leland, C. G., 141, 157, 158 Lesson, The, 107 Letters of Marque, see From Sea to Sea Letters of Travel: From Tideway to Tideway, 88, 94, 104, 110, 135, 140, 145, 147, 148, 168: Letters to the Family, 28, 29, 41, 92, 149, 180: Egypt of the Magicians, 38, 43, go. 98, 157, 1 6 1 , 164 Letters to the Family, see Letters of Travel Leveson, Henry Astbury, 87 Lewis, D. B. Wyndham. 148 Life's Handicap, 1, 36, 44, 53, gi, 92, 105, 1 1 1 , 112, 117, 122, footnotes 206 and 207; 127, 135, footnotes 272 and 277; 137, 140, 141, 157, footnotes 102 and 104; 160, >7' Light that Failed, The, 1, 48, 51, 56, 77, 118, 147, 149, 1 5 1 , text and footnotes 72 and 75; 173, 174, 177 Limits and Renewals, 18, 19, 23, 34, 42, 50, 5 1 , 65, 78, 83, 95, 97, 101, 116, 125. 135, 138, 159. 160, 163, footnotes 29 and 30; 170 Lincoln, Abraham, 140 Lincolnshire Poacher, T h e , 180 Literature, 43, 62, 71 Little Foxes, 92 Little Prep, A, 36, 137, 172 Livingston, Flora V., vi, 2, 48, 60, 79, 81 Locker-Lampson, Frederick, 132 Lodge, Thomas, 32, 40 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 141, '47- ' δ ' - ' δ Β . >58

'94

KIPLING'S READING

Lonsdale, T . S., 1 7 1 Lookiiig-Glass, T h e , 176 Lovelace, Richard, 53, 54 "Love-o'-Women." 35 Lovers' Litany, T h e , 131, 164 Lowell, James Russell, 153, text and footnote 88; 154, 158 Lowestoft Boat, T h e , 6, 179 Lucas, Ε. V., Edition of Tusser's Husbandry, 28, 44, 138; Highways and Byways in Sussex, 168, 169 Lyall, Sir Alfred, 128 Lydgate, J o h n , 17 Lyden, 40 Lyly, John, 26, 29, text and footnote 25 I.ytton, Edward George Earle LyttonBulwer, first Lord, 93, 135 Macaulay, T . B., Lord, 85, 87, 127, 128, 175 Macdonald, Florence, 178 Macdonald, George, 102 MacMunn, Sir George, 4, 35, 40, 75 Macpherson, James, 66 Madonna of the Trenches, A, 124 Magic Square, T h e , 92 Maid of the Meerschaum, T h e , 125 Maitland, W. G. B., 1 7 1 Malory, Sir Thomas, 17, text and footnote 50 Maltese Cat, T h e , 80 Man and the Shadow, T h e , 88 Man Who Would be King, T h e , 180 Mandalay, 170 Mandeville, Bernard, 68 Manner of Men, T h e , 160, 163, 170 Many Inventions, 1, 3, 29, 35, 56, 64, 67, 72, 78, 79, 80, 89, 90, 93, 94, 98, 100, 105, 118, 124, 132, 135, footnotes 271 and 274; 137, 144, 149, 152, footnotes 77-82; 159, 1 7 1 , 174, 180, 181 Mark of the Beast, T h e , 36, 135 Markham, Edwin, 156 Marklake Witches, 70, 109, 168, text and footnotes 7 and 8 Marlowe, Christopher, 25, 3 1 , 34, 35

Marrèd Drives of Windsor, T h e , 33, 34, 36, footnotes 44 and 45; 37, 38, 39. 63 Marryat, Frederick, 1 1 , 60, go, 9 1 , 93- '02 Marston, J o h n , 34 Martindell, E. W., ν, 46. 74· 79> 8 ι , ιο8, footnotes 144 a r | d 146; 1 1 6 , 118, 157. footnotes ι ο ί , ιο6 and 107; 176 Marvel!, Andrew, 56, 57 Mary Ambree, 167 "Mary Gloster," T h e , 109 Mary Postgate, 102 Masefield, J o h n , 22, 138 Mason, J o h n M., 38 Masque of Plenty, T h e , 77, 125, 136 Massinger, Philip, 35, 40 Master-Cook, T h e , 21 Matthews, Brander, 156 M'Andrew's Hymn, 71, 109, 128, 164, 178 McClean, S. S. F., 46 M ' T u r k , see Beresford, G. C. Matter of Fact, A, 56 Melville, Herman, 146 Menken, S. Stanwood, 102 Merchantmen, T h e , 173 Meredith, George, 94, 95, 99, 138 Merrow Down, 179 Mickle, J . F., 66 Middle English literature, 17-23, 24, 182 Miller, Joaquin, 141, 155, 156 Milton, J o h n , 45, 54-56, 58 Mine Own People, see Life's Handicap Minnigerode, Meade, 148 Miracle of Purun Bhagat, T h e , 46, 111, footnotes 156, 157 Misquotations, 7, 10, footnote 24; 70, 72, 81, footnote 104; 83, footnote 114; 1 1 2 , footnote 161; 116, 1 1 7 , footnotes 178 and 1 8 1 ; 120, footnotes 192 and 194; 124, footnotes 219 and 220; 126, footnote 232; 128, footnote 241; 130, footnote 253; 135, footnote 276; 147, 148,

INDEX

»95

footnote 50; 149, footnotes 57 and 58; 152, footnotes 77-79. 81; 157, footnote 103 Molesworth, Mary Louisa, 102 Moll Roe in the Morning, 173 Moore, Thomas, 76, 79, 166, 172 Moral Reformers, T h e , 78. 100 Morris, William, 120-122, 124 Mother Hive, T h e , 57, 68, 79 Moti Guj—Mutineer, 112 Mountains and the Pacific, 92, 180 Mrs. Bathurst, 40 Mulholland's Contract, 109 Mulligan Guard, T h e , 180 Muse Among the Motors, The, v, 3, 5, 15, 20, 21, 28, 33, 45, 47. 51, 55, 63, 64, 67, 79, 8i, 109, 114, 116, 129, 130, 131, 153 Music-hall song, 166, 170, 171, 178,

" O Baal, hear us," 42 " O h , Double T h a t c h e r , " 173 " O hush thee, my baby," 76 " O h , Prout he is a nobleman," 178 " O h what a day," 168 " O h what a town!" 168 O l d English literature, 9-17, 182 O l d Men at Pevensey, 12, 151 O l d Mother Laidinwool, 168, 169, text and footnote 10 O l d Song, An, 127 Oldest Song, T h e , 122 Oliphant, Margaret, 94 O n Being Rejected of One's Horse, »37 O n Exhibition, 86 O n the City Wall, 88 O n the Gate, 40, 43, 48, 161 O n the Great Wall, 101, 161, 169,

181, 183 My Boy Jack, 175 " M y girl she gave me the go onst," 171, text and footnote 20 My Great and Only, 105, 149, 172 My Jo Janet, 175 My Lord the Elephant, 171 My O w n T r u e Ghost Story, 118 My Rival, 131

footnotes 13 and 14 O n e Viceroy Resigns, 108 One Volume Kipling, The, vii, 60, 78, 90, 104, 121, 160 ".007," 174, 181 Opinions of G u n n e r Barnabas, T h e , 110 Ossian, 66 Other Man, T h e , 122 Otway, T h o m a s , 41 " O u r K i n g went forth to Normandie," 167, text and footnote 4; 182 O u r Lady of Rest, 108, 125 O u r Overseas Men, 88 Outlaws, T h e , 163 Overheard, 106

" M y Son's W i f e , " 92, 112, 129, 172 My Sunday at Home, 95, 149 Natural T h e o l o g y , 133 Naulahka, The, 1, 56, 108, 136 Naval Mutiny, A, 50 Necessitarian, T h e , 149 New Army in Training, The, vii, 44 Newbolt, Sir Henry J., 137, text and footnotes 285 and 286 New Brooms, 100 Newspapers and Democracy, 41 " N o r t h , Christopher" (John Wilson), 73· 74 Norton, C. E., 141 " N o t though you die tonight," 48 Novel, 7, 60-62, 73, 74-77, 85, 88-99. 139, 144-146, 158, 182 " N o w Aprile is over," 173 Nursery Idyls, 123

Paddy Doyle, 173 Paget, Francis E., 100 Palms, T h e , 56 Parade-Song of the C a m p Animals, 180 Patriotic songs, 166, 180, 181 Peace of Dives, T h e , 161 Peacock, T h o m a s Love, 74, 76, 77, •39 Peele, George, 31, 35 Pepys,Samuel, 43, text and footnote 71 Percy, T h o m a s , 167

KIPLING'S READING

ig6

P h a n t o m "Rickshaw, T h e

( u l e ) , 36,

11s Phantom

'Rickshaw,

1, a n d see Under P h e l p s , E . S.,

The

(collection),

the

Deodars

footnotes

102

P i g , 82 Pioneer, 157;

The

(Allahabad),

Pioneer

Weekly,

Mail,

11,

60;

108,

Pioneer

143

Tales

the Hills,

1, 47, 62,

82, 86, 89, 97, 104, l o g , 1 1 1 , 115, 120, 122,

125,

142.

147,

150, 157,

172,

f o o t n o t e s 22 a n d 23; 180

45;

42, 48,

63, 66, 68, 74, 75,

87, 9 1 , 102, 112, 146 t h e C o u n t r y , T h e , 89,

' 4 7 · ' 5 ' . »59. >6° Prose: R o m a n c e , 18; a l l e g o r y , 43, 44; satire, 62, 63; travels, 25-26, 64, 65; see also essay, n o v e l , a n d short story Prose,

from

43 a n d

6*.

Prophet and

P h e l p s , W . L . , 144

Plain

36,

49- 57· 59.

non-fictional,

10-14,

5>

s

43, 62, 63, 140 P r o s e style, 40, 97, 109, f o o t n o t e 151; 146, 162, 183 P r y n n e , W i l l i a m , 35

P l a n t e r ' s S o n g , T h e , 53

Psalter,

P l e a of t h e S i m l a D a n c e r s , T h e , P l o t t i n g Papist's L i t a n y , T h e ,

160

164

164

P u c k , 38 Puck

of Pook's

Hill,

3 , 4, 10, foot-

P o e , Ε. Α . , 140, 141, 147, '4®

notes 25 a n d 26; 1 1 - 1 3

P o e t r y , see V e r s e

49, 50, t e x t a n d f o o t n o t e 101; 52,

Political

Ballads

(Percy Society),

164

6 1 , 62, 79, 83, gg, notes

Poole, R . L „

152, f o o t n o t e s 81 a n d 83; 161, text f o o t n o t e s 4 a n d 5;

179

P o p e , A l e x a n d e r , 65, text a n d

foot-

112,

123, 127,

151,

168, 169, foot-

notes 11, 13 a n d 14; 170, 174 Puck's Song,

n o t e 29; 66, 67 Possibilities,

114;

a n d f o o t n o t e 21; 162, 167, text a n d

P o o r D e a r M a m a , 59 Poor Honest Men,

and

101, 102, foot-

P o l l o k , R o b e r t , 80 13

111

23, 41,

174

Puzzler, T h e , 170

114

P o w e r of a D o g , T h e , 133 Q u a e r i t u r , 125

P r a e d , W . M . , 131, 132, 134, 139 P r a y e r of

Miriam Cohen, T h e ,

164

P r e - R a p h a e l i t e s , 77, 85, 120-124; 130,

Q u a r t e t t e , 74 Quiquern,

181

>54 P r e - R o m a n t i c l i t e r a t u r e , 66, text a n d

R a b e l a i s , 55 R a h e r e , 160

f o o t n o t e 36; 67, 71

R a l e i g h , Sir W a l t e r , 24, 26, 27, 3 1 , 75

Price, C o r m e l l , 25, 120, 156 " P r i e s t in Spite of H i m s e l f , A , "

183

R e a d e , C h a r l e s , 93

P r i o r , M a t t h e w , 65, 67

R e a d i n g the W i l l ,

Prisoners a n d C a p t i v e s , 60

R e a l l y G o o d T i m e , A , 74, 86 R e c e s s i o n a l , 149, 162, 178

P r i v a t e L e a r o y d ' s Story, 55 Proceedings emy

of

the

American

of Arts

and

Letters,

107

Acad-

R e c o r d of B a d a l i a H e r o d s f o o t ,

P r o - C o n s u l s , T h e , 32

R e c t o r i a l address at St. A n d r e w s , 71

Progress of t h e S p a r k , T h e , 47

R e d L a m p , T h e , 78, 94

P r o l o g u e to t h e M a s t e r - C o o k ' s

R e g u l u s , 44, 93, 104, 175

Tale,

19-21 Proofs

Reingelder of

footnote

Holy 54;

Writ, 40,

The,

105

146

34,

35,

38,

165

P r o p a g a t i o n of K n o w l e d g e , T h e , 24,

and

the

German

Flag,

157 R e q u i e s c a t i n P a c e , 107 R e s t o r a t i o n l i t e r a t u r e , 41, 45, 5 7

INDEX Return to the East, A , 157 Return of Imray, T h e , 122 Rewards and Fairies, 5, 11, 13, 14, 18, 23, 27, 29. 41, 43, 50, 61, 70, 83, 99, 100, 109, 123, 137, 160, 162, 164, 167, 168, 169, 177» R h y m e of the T h r e e Captains, T h e , 63. 95 R h y m e of the T h r e e Sealers, T h e , 128 Richardson, Samuel, 59, 60 Rickaby, Franz, 173 Rickert, Edith, 177 Riley, J. W., 141, text and footnote 6 Rimini, 169, text and footnote 14; 170 Ritson, Joseph, 70, 175 Road-Song of the Bandar-Log, 132 Robinson, E. K., 178 Romantic literature, 2, 66, 73-84, 183 Roosevelt, T h e o d o r e , 44 Rossetti, Christina, 122, 123 Rossetti, D. G., 120, 121, 124, 183 "Rosicrucian subtleties," 149, 150 Rowers, T h e , 16 Rout of the W h i t e Hussars, T h e , 172 Ruin, T h e , 9-11, 14, 15, 17 " R u l e Britannia," 180 Runes on Weland's Sword, T h e , 15, 16 Runners, T h e , 154 Rupaiyat of O m a r Kal'vin, T h e , 119 Ruskin, John, 86, 87 Russell, William Clark, 94 Russia to the Pacifists, 176 Sack of the Gods, T h e , 138 Scakville, Charles, Earl of Dorset, 178 Sacrifice of Er-Heb, T h e , 114, 128 "Said the Y o u n g O b a d i a h , " 166 Saintsbury, George, 87 Satisfaction of a Gentleman, T h e , vi, 55. 9» Sawyer, F. E., 169 Scholars, T h e , 82, 175 Schoolboy Lyrics (collected in Early Verse), 81, 103, 106, 107, n o , 118, «56

197

Schooldays with Kipling, see Beresford, G . C. Scott, Harold, 171 Scott, Sir Walter, 12, 28, 57, 66, 74, 75, 76, text and footnote 74; 77, 78, 102 Sea and the Hills, T h e , 127 Sea T r a v e l , 90 Sea Warfare, vii, 174 Seafarer, T h e , 11, and footnote 27 Second Jungle Book, The, vii, 23, 46, 111, footnotes 157 and 158; 181 Second-rate Woman, A , 33, 66, 104 Second Voyage, T h e , 37, 67 Sending of Dana Da, T h e , 36, 80, 83 Sergeant's Weddin', T h e , 180 Sestina of the T r a m p - R o y a l , 134 Settler, T h e , 163 Seven Joys, 176, 177, 178 Seven Nights of Creation, T h e , 110 Seventeenth century literature, 9, 4158, 73, 164, 165, 183 Sewell, Anna, 102 Shakespeare, William, 2, 24, 29, 30, text and footnote 26; 33, 34, text and footnote 38; 35, 41, 43, 63, 75, 145, 165; eighteenth century critics of, 38, total number of Kipling's allusions to, 36, footnote 47 Shaw, Martin, 176 Shelley, P. B., 77, 79, 80 Shenstone, William, 67, 70, 71, 168 Sheridan, R . B., 6o, 61 Ship that Found Herself, T h e , 166 Short story, 141-147, 158, 182 Sidgwick, Frank, 48 Sidney, Sir Philip, 30 Simple Simon, 27, 100, 137, 160, 167 Sir Andrew Barton, 167 Sir Patrick Spens, 174 Sixteenth century literature, see Elizabethan Slaves of the Lamp, 73, 80, 86, 88, 91, 102, 104, 105, footnotes 130, 132 and 133; 166, 178 "Sleipner," Late " T h u r i n d a , " 172 Smith Administration, The, v, vii, 53, 100, 110, 120, 128, 172

198

KIPLING'S READING

Smith, Alexander, 130 Smith, Miles, 165 Smith, Robert M., vi, 141 Smollett, Tobias, 60, text and footnote 6; 75 Soldier, Soldier, 175 Soldiers Three, 1, 130, 135, 157, 176, 1 8 1 ; In Black and White, 1, 36, 42, 65, 80, 83, 88; The Story of the Gadsbys, 1, 55, 59, 75, 90, 104, 123, 1 7 1 , 180 Solid Muldoon, The, 130 Some Aspects of Travel, 26, 37, 116 Some Earthquakes, 104, 110, 135 Something of Myself, vii, 1, 5, 22, 25, 37, 49, 60, 62, footnotes 13 and 18; 65, text and footnote 28; 66, footnotes 33 and 36; 74-77, 78, footnotes 85 and 86; 83, 86, footnotes 4 and 5; 87, text and footnotes 1 1 , 14, 15; 88, footnotes 18, 2 1 , 23; 90, 93, footnotes 58 and 59; 94-96, 98, footnotes 87, 88, 90, 91; 100-102, 103, footnotes 118-120; 104, 105, footnotes 1 3 1 , 135-137; 106, 1 1 0 , 112, 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 , 118, 120, 122, footnotes 205 and 212; 124, 126, 129, footnotes 243 and 248; 134, 137-139, 141, footnotes 5 and 10; 142, footnotes 13 and 15; 143, footnotes 22 and 25; 146-149, 1 5 1 , text and footnote 71; 156, 159, 160, footnotes 13 and 15; 1 7 1 , 183 Song, 6, 7, 8, 166-181; composing words to music, 50, 72, 76, 166, 1 7 1 , 176, 177, 178, 179, 180; see also carol, chantey, folk-song, hymn, music-hall song and patriotic song Song of French Roads, A, 132 Song of Seventy Horses, 155 Song of the Cities, T h e , 126 Song of the English, A, 126 Song of the Men's Side, 16g, text and footnote 12 Song of the Old Guard, 178 Song of the Sons, 126 Song of Travel, A, 33, 41, 54, 122 Song to Mithras, A, 169

Songs from Books, 168 Sonnet, 137 Sons of Martha, T h e , 159 "Sons of the Suburbs, T h e , " 179 Souvenirs of France, vii Spaeth, Sigmund, 170, 180 Spanish Ladies, 174, 178 Spenser, Edmund, 29, text and footnote 24; 67 Spirit of the Latin, The, 62 Spirit of the People, T h e , 135 Stalky, see Dunsterville, Major General L. C. Stalky and Co. (see also Complete Stalky and Co.), vi, 5, 25, text and footnotes; 35, 36, 45, 53, 57, 66, 67, 73, 74, 76, 78, 80, footnotes 96, 97 and 103; 81, footnotes 104 and 106; 86, 87, 88, footnotes 18 and 22; 91, footnotes 41-45; 92, 94, 100104, 105, footnotes 130, 132-134; 112, 119, 1 2 1 , 127, footnotes 236238; 130, 135, 140, 166, 172, 178, footnotes 58 and 59 Steele, Sir Richard, 59 Steevens, George, 38 Stephen, J . K., 134 Sterne, Laurence, 60, text and footnote 7 Sternhold, Thomas, 53 Stevenson, R . L., 97-99, 138 Stormalong, John, 173 Story of the Gadsbys, The, see Soldiers Three Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes, The, 161 "Such as in Ships," 53 Suckling, Sir John, 58 Sudder Bazaar, T h e , 124 Suetonius, 169, 170 Supplementary Chapter, A, 90, 100, 120, 147 Supplication of the Black Aberdeen, »S3 Supports, The, 18, 140 Surtees, Robert Smith, 90, 91-93, 97, >39 Susannah and the Elder, 60 Sussex, 164

INDEX Sussex A rchaeological Collections, 169 Sussex Edition of Kipling's Works, v, 171 Su tro, Alfred, 135 Swelling of Jordan, The, 171 Swept and Garnished, 160 Swift, Jonathan, 61-63, '^3 Swinburne, A. C., i, 2, 17, 53, 85, 103, 108, n o , 115, 124-127, 128, 139, 143, 183 Taking of Lungtungpen, The, 172 Tale of T w o Cities, A, 108 Tales of "The Trade," vii "Tara Chand is the gardener's mate," 123 Tarrant Moss, 121, 122 Tatlock, J. S. P., 21 Taylor, Jeremy, 43, 58 Teller, Fanny, 148 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 2, 9, 17, text and footnote 50; 85, 103, 109, text and footnote 150; 110-115, 128, 139. >83 Tents of Kedar, The, 104 Tewson, Orton W „ 148 Thackeray, W. M., 89, 90 "Their Lawful Occasions," 135 Theobald, Lewis, 38 They, 129 Things and the Man, 133 This Side the Styx, 110 Thomas Rhymer, 174, text and footnote 41 Thomson, James, 85, 117, 118, text and footnote 184; 139, 182 Three-Part Song, A, 176 Three Young Men, The, 76, 86, 89 Through the Fire, 53 " T h y Servant a Dog," vii, 159, 166 "Tiger! Tiger!" 77, 122 T o a Lady, Persuading Her to a Car, 45 T o be Filed for Reference, 104, 120, 125 T o Motorists, 51, 52 T o the Unknown Goddess, 53, 126 Tobacco, 82

»99

"Tobacco's but an Indian Weed," 53 Tom-a-Bedlam's Song, 48, 49, 83 Tomb of his Ancestors, The, 61, 66 Tomlinson, 86, 106, 128, 175 "Tommy make room for your uncle," 171 Tortoise-shell Tomcat, The, 168 Tour, The, 81, text and footnote 106 "Trade, The," 132 Traffics and Discoveries, 25, 36, 40, 80, 82, 83, 92, 129, 135, 140, 144. 156 Treasure and the Law, The, 49, 162 Tree Song, A, 177 Trollope, Anthony, 94 Tusser, Thomas, 27, 28, 44, 138 Twain, Mark, see Clemens, S. L. Tyndale, William, 165 Uncovenanted Mercies, 18, 34, 125, •35 Under the Deodars, The Phantom 'Rickshaw, Wee Willie Winkie: Under the Deodars, 1, 33, 66, footnotes 32 and 34; 94, 104, 116, 117, 129, 135, 172, 175: The Phantom 'Rickshaw, 36, 112, 118, 161, 180: Wee Willie Winkie, 62, 102, 117, 180 Under the Deodars (One Volume Kipling edition), 78, 90 United Idolators, The, 86, 93, 135, •45 United Services College, 6, 8, 24, 42, 45, 55, 62, 65, 77, 87, 102, 120, 154-156 United Services College Chronicle, The. 60 Unsavoury Interlude, An, 80, 81, 100, 102, 127 " U p jumped the mackerel," 173. Up the River, 161 Uses of Reading, The, 9, 15, 19, 26, 27, 34, 88, 164, 170, 174 V.A.D. (Mediterranean), 170 Valley of the Shadow, The, 123 Vampire, The, 121 Vanbrugh, Sir John, 41

KIPLING'S READING

200

Vaughan, Henry, 58 Verdict of Equals, T h e , 25, 26 V e n de société, 131 S, 156 Verse, discussion of Kipling's readi n g of, 2, 10-12, 15-23. 27-34, 45-58, 62, 65-72, 75. 76, 77-84, 103-132, 143, 147-158, 182; light verse, 131>37· >56-158 Verse: Inclusive Edition, 1885-1932, see Inclusive Verse Verses on Gaines, 92 Vicar of Bray, T h e , 179 Victorian literature, 2, 9, 85-139, 140158, 165, 183 Village that Voted the Earth was Flat. T h e , 89, 111 Virgil, 57 Virginity, T h e , 133 Vision of India, A, 113 Vision of the Enchanted Island, The, 36. 145 Völundarkvitha, 12 Vortex, T h e , 98, 162 Waddell, Helen, 170 Waddell, Milford Rhoades, 4, 10, footnotes 25 and 26; 11, footnotes 27 and 28; 23, 50, 109, 174 YV'aldere, 12 Walking Delegate, T h e , 86 Walton, Izaak, 43, 58 Warburton, William, 38 Ward, E. S. Phelps, 102 W a r d , Mary Augusta, 97 Wassail Song, 177 Watson, William, 138, text and footnote 294 " W e be soldiers three," 176 " W e don't want to fight," 171 Webster, John, 35, 36, 40 W e e Willie Winkie (tale), 102, 180 Wee Willie Winkie (collection), 1, and see Under the

Deodars

" W h a t of the h u n t i n g , " 122 What Sir William T h i n k s , 153 What the People Said, 114 When Earth's Last Picture is Painted, 126, 127 " W h e n the earth was sick," 122 " W h e n the Great A r k , " 32 " W h e n the Journey W a s Intended to the City," 55 White, Edward Lucas, 46, 47, 70, 141, 160 White, Gilbert, 87 White, Gleeson, 156 " W h i t e sand and grey sand," 175 W h i t e Seal, T h e , 76, 100 Whitman, Walt, 154, 155 Whittier, J. G., 153 Whyte-Melville, G . J., 166, 172 Widdicomb Fair, 166 Widow at Windsor, T h e , 2 Wilde, Oscar, 86, text and footnotes 3 and 4 Wilkins, Mary E., 147 William the Conqueror, 46, 78, 91, 176, footnotes 51 and 52 Williams, R . V a u g h a n , 176 Wilson, John, 73, 74 Wireless, 82, 83 Wisdom, Robert, 53 Wish House, T h e , 22 " W i t h a heart of furious fancies," 49 With Any Amazement, 75, 180 With the Main Guard, 157 W i t h the Night Mail, 44, 94, 164, 181 Wither, George, 53 Without Benefit of Clergy, 122, 137 Wordsworth, William, 6g, 77-79 W o r l d W i t h o u t , T h e , 55, 90 Wotton, Sir Henry, 32 Wressley of the Foreign Office, 86 Wrong T h i n g , T h e , 41 Wycherley, William, 41

Weland's Sword, 11, 12, 49, 79, 102, >74 Wells, B. W „ 13 Wet Litany, T h e ,

164

Years Between, The, Yeats, W . B., 139 Young, Arthur, 87

44