WRITERS OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7027, 15 January 1910, Page 9

WRITERS OF THE DAY.

What that is new, can I say of Mr Kipling 'and his works? So much has been -written. Never was a young author—somehow he will still be "young** to most of us even when he reaches the allotted three score years and-ten—so deluged with praise—and blame. Not even was Stevenson, in the early days of his Pacific Wanderjahre, more paragraphed by the newspapers which he affected to disdain, but for which, as we know, he had so warm a corner in his heart. The old excitement with which a "new Kipling" was received may not be with us on similar occuoions nowadays. Not that—despite all that has been said to the contrary—the quality has fallen off, but that most of ns are older and take both good things and poor with a calmness which we did riot possess in the good old duys when each blue-backed six shilling edition (Macmillans were then. es now, the publishers) gave ns a new thrill of delight over the exuberant veri«Uv of the glowing pictures drawn by the author of "Plain Tales from the Hills," "Soldiers Three." "Life's Handicap," and so many more volumes packed with, stirring stories, with Eastern backgrounds. Some- people, I believe, g*.iy that Kipling is too technical nowadays; others bleat out that "he lacks repose"; others, again—and these be anathema —that he is "not sufficiently cosmopolitan in his outlook"; others, yet again, that h» ia a "Jingo," lis if even the worst Jingo were not fifty times to be preferred to that spineless, mewling, nuking thing, "the little Englander." The Sydney "Bulletin," too, has, I believe, discovered th.it as a poet Kipling is far inferior to Bill Brown, of Bnngawurrawurra, and quite recently an American person, one li'arrv Menturn Peck, Iras gloated over the fact that the author was. christened Joseph Rudyard Kipling, and. thereby contends, by some mysterious working of his small Yankee soul, that his writings are not worth so much as those, sav, of Washington B. Chowder, of Oshkosh (Mich.) But despite all these things there is a goodly host of New Zealanders who have rejoiced in "Actions and Reactions," who have kindly memories of the sweetly mystical charm of "They," and who can and do turn very frequently to their bookshelves and take down one of the old favourites, always therein to find a safe and sure nepenthe from the cares, worries, and banalities of everday life.

And how many these favourites are. Let me run briefly through a few of the well-known titles. "Plain Tales from the Hills" appeared in 1887; "Soldiers Three" (surely even H. Menturn Peck and the Sydney Ked Page cannot hut admit that Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd, are of the Taimortals), "In Black and White," "Ciie" Story of the Gadsbys," "Under t.'jte Deodars," "The Phantom Rickshaw," and "Wee Willie AVinkie," in 1888-1889. In 1890

was published yet another collection of Indian yarns, "Life's Handicap," and in 1891 the brilliant but curiously unsatisfying (to rae at least) "Light" That Failed." "Many Inventions" (blessed be the name of that riotously funny tippler, Brugglesmith!) happened along in 1893, and then came the two completely delightful "Jungle Books." "Captains Courageous" (1897) touched new ground—or rather new waters, but somehow, with many confirmed Kiplingites, failed, to hit the mark, and as for "Stalky and Co." (1899) I have long ago given my copy away and never wish to sea the book again. This is only a personal view, or opinion, or prejudice, but I must candidly say that I have never met anybody who could honestly say he liked the book. But "Prom Sea to Sea" (1899), a collection of old newspaper-articles, on travels in India. Burniah, the Far East, and "the States," articles contributed to the Allahabad "Pioneer" "in the days of his youth," contained 6ome splendid

NO. 21. RUDYARD KIPLING

stuff. There is a description of .Teypore the Pink, that dwells in one's memory, and certain pictures of Hongkong, Canton —in Japan he got a trifle over enthusiastic —and above all, of San' Francisco and Chicago, which shall always be a joy to read and .re-read. Then, 'in 1901, came "Kim," a book worse than any other of Kipling's, redolent of the musky odour, the gorgeousness. the filth, the ever-surprising wealth of things quaint, startling and horrible, which spells the Bast, and especially India. "The Just So Stories for Children" (1902) I have never read, and know nothing about. -Perhaps, I have a treat in store, perhaps a slight disappointment. They may turn out to be "bacca," or "rum," but a-ssurcdly they will not be "tracts," for Kipling ut his worst is always readable ;"Stalky and Co." excepted). "Traffics and Discoveries" (ISO-i), "Puck of Pook's Hill" (1906), a really wonderful book never properly appreciated, aro too recent to need further , reference.

As for Kipling's verse—well, that is a very big subject. Some of it I like not at all, "cannot away with," .as Andrew Lang says (though not of Kipling). Some of it is not poetry at all, some of it is unnecessarily brutal, some —a little of it—is, to my mind, utterly wrongheaded and vicious in sentiment. Some of it, yet again, I cannot for the life of me comprehend the meaning. But—and there is as much virtue in a "but" as in an "if"—when one remembers "The Recessional," when, one recalls (to jump to.quite another vein) the hauntin<r refrain of "Mandclay," and, so recently as a. few weeks ago, the verses at the end of the first story in "Actions and Reactions," then he who loves good verse—yes,' good poetryshould be grateful indeed that Kipling ,has been —and is—and that despite the "discoverey" of H. Menturn Peck that, for private reasons which the .Yankee critic has been unable to fathom, Rudyard Kipling is in reality Joseph Rudyard Kipling.

Finally, a 'few lines of biographical detail. Mr Kipling was born at Bombay on the- 30th December.. 1865, so that he in now still on the right side of. fifty. He is the son of Mr J. Lockwood Kipling, C.1.E., who was, I believe, a Yorkshiroman by birth (hence perhaps the astonishing; accuracy of Learoyd's dialect in that wonderfully pathetic story, "On Gledhow Hill"). Mr Kipling was educated- at the United Services College, at AVestward Ho, North Devon, and was assistant-editor on the "Civil and Military Gazette" and "Pioneer" at Allahabad from 18S2 to 1889. He married a sister of the late Wolcott Balestier, an American author (with whom he collaborated in "The Naulakha"), and lived for a time up amongst the Vermont hills. Nowadays ho resides at a picturesque old Sussex village, Burwash, and as my readers will observe from the ac-

companymg picture, lias a . delightfully quaint home. Mr Kipling, it may be remembered, visited New Zealand a few years ago. His stay in Wellington was short, but I happen to know that he was very much taken with the quaintness, so it seemed- to him. of some of our Maori place-names, notably Paekakatriki and Paraparaumu, both of which he had faithfully jotted down in a fat little pocket-book, and he also did a certain young journalist the honour of laughing (or perhaps it was only goodnaturedly pretending to laugh) at that ancient wheeze about the English cricketer—;he was a Yorkshireman —who told his friends he was "goin' t' spend t' ■ afternoon out at a place tha' call PetOne" —with the accent on the one! It's a lons time ago now, but the journalist has not., I'll warrant, forgotten the chirpy, jaunty, little man, whose beady brown eyes sparkled with fun behind a pair of particularly large "specs."' "LIBER."