KIPLING’S EARLY DAYS

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 December 1929, Page 3

KIPLING’S EARLY DAYS

INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. Mr Kipling’s reference in a recent speech to the “faraway days” when he was an obscure journalist, “ink-sling-ing in Lahore,” recalls a most interesting and almost unknown chapter in the life-story of this world-famous author —a, story which the writer of an article in an English newspaper, Mr H. Crichton, is in rather an exceptional position to tell. He writes: It was a blazing stifling day in 1886. I was walking with a friend in the main street of Lahore, when I saw coining toward me, a shortish, squat, figure attired in white cotton trousers axid thin, vest open, at the neck, and, crowned by aft dnbrmqus pith helmet. The figure was bustling along With head down, evidently oblivious of his sfirrdflhdings. As he passed he chahced to glance upwards, and I caitght a glimpse .of a sallow fade and keen eyes looking through large Spectacles, as with a nod and a cheery.“feood morning” to my companion he tasked us.

“Who is that little man?” I asked. “That’s Kipling,” niy friend answered. “Fax* and away the cleverest yoting fellow in Lahore; and, unless I am much mistaken, the world will hear a godd deal of him some day. I must Introduce you to him at the club this evening.” ’ A few hours later the promised introduction was made and I was spending one of the most delightful hours of* my life in the company of the young man whose name was already becoming familiar in India as author of some clever verses, known to-day the whole world over as “Departmental Ditties”; and it was not long before I realised that he was indeed an extraordinary young man. For a time the young writer seemed shy and indisposed, to talk; but the shyness soon vanished, and he was transfigured. The heavy face was alight with animation; the halting speech became fluent, almost torrential; his eyes began literally to dance with humour; and the flashes of wit and repartee succeeded each other as swiftly and brilliantly as gleams of summer lightning. Less than four years earlier young Kipling had come from England, where he had been educated at Westward Ho, to do the work of assistant edtor on the Civil and Military Gazette and Pioneer, and these years he had spent in the dreary drudgery of newspapeiwork — O n scissors-and-paste' paragraphs, dry political notes and summaries of Government reports—doing the work of three men in the stifling heat of the Punjab, and doing it with unfailing cheerfulness, never showing weariness and never downhearted. After his long office-hours were over, he found solace in writing his delightful sketches and poems, some of which found a corner in the Gazette; 'others, which the editor could not find room for, he sent to other papers in exchange for a few rupees. ' A few days after my first meeting with Kipling, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with his family, which only included four members, but each was little less remarkable than himself. The (father, John Lockwood Kipling, then curator of the Lahore Museum, was one of the most genial and delightful men I pave ever met, a man of great artistic and literary gifts, and author of more than one clever book. The mother was a charming lady, with a tongue almost as witty as her son’s; while Miss Kipling, the daughter, was a beautiful girl, devoted to art and letters, and with the most amazing memory I have ever known.

SPLASHES OF INK. The following morning, at Mr Kipling’s invitation, I called at his office to see him at his work, an experience I shall never forget. As I entered I was greeted with shrieks of merriment and saw the assistant and his chief convulsed with laughter, which even my appearance was powerless to check for some time. “You must really excuse me,” said the editor after’ Mr Kipling had composed himself sufficiently to introduce me; “but really I couldn’t help it. This young fellow” (pointing to KipTfng) “will be the death of me. He is so screamingly funny.” And indeed I could have laughed loudly myself, for the assistant, now restored to proper decorum, was the strangest spectacle I have ever set eyes on. Picture him for a moment in his white trousers,- his open vest exposing an expanse of chest and literally covered from neck to feet with splashes of ink, which also thickly sprinkled the floor for yards around his seat. “He is a most dangerous man to approach,” said the chief, seeing the cause of my amusement. “I scarcely ever come near him without getting a dab of ink in my eye or on my clothes, so recklessly does he flourish his pen. But, you see, onecan forgive much in a genius.” “Genius be blowed!” was Kipling s comment as Ills chief retired to his sanctum, and we settled down to our chat. Certainly no man ever so little suspected the genius that was already struggling for expression than Rudyard Kipling in those days.

MAN OF MODEST GENIUS. ' When I suggested to Kipling that he was wasted in India, and should seek a wider sphere, his laugh rang out merrily. “Why should I?” he answered. “What does England know or care for an obscure Indian journalist. I am doing useful work here, getting a good,drilling, and it will be time, enough to leave it when I know that I can do really good work.. But that is not yet.” . , , Such was the incorrigible modesty of the man whose name within a few years was to be a household word in four continents. But he was quite right. The training.,h.e was .getting in the Punjab was necessary to his future fame; and no man ever worked harder to secure it. Already there' was no man who knew s.o: intimately every phase of Indian life. Now he was hob-nobbing with the Tommies in the barracks on the sunscorched plain of Mian Mir, absorbing every detail of their lives, their thoughts, their language r -untilhe’knew them inside out better than any chaplain or sergeant. Now he was living among the railway men, that strange jumble of whites and blacks who dwelt in a world of their own, receiving their confidences, listening to the stories of their lives, mastering all the technicalities of their work. ..

Among the natives of every class he was equally at home, exploring every secret of their lives and customs, and winning their confidences as no other man ever did. Hindoo and Mussulman, Parsee and Pathan, he knew them all beter than they knew them-

selves; and to-day many an eye will still brighten at the very mention of “Kipling Sahib.” No danger deterred him in his quest of knowledge, for he was as ready to spend a suffocating night among the opium-eaters in the lowest slum. of Lahore as to look on the midnight orgies and butcheries of Mussulman and Hindoo. Such was Kipling in his ’prentice years of hard toil 4n the sun-scorched, suffocating city of Lahore, content to do to the best of his ability the work at his hand, and dreaming little and caring less that within a very few years “R.K.” of the poets’ corner of Indian newspapers would be hailed the world over as one of the greatest forces in English letters.