KIPLING ON LIFE'S CHANGE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13334, 10 July 1907, Page 3

KIPLING ON LIFE'S CHANGE.

"King Kolonun, speaking of thiugo in gen-.ml, «aid tl-at- ilia race was 101. the swift, n.r the b,.ttle j lie srong Speaking of Art in particular, lie said: ' Nor yet favour to men of skill, but Time and Chance happeneth to them all.' Nov, Solomon was a general patron of tlie-- Arts and an original man of letters. Nobody has improved on Lis remark, and you may have noticed that nobody has improved the state of affairs that gave rise to it." So spoke Mr Kipling, as reported by the Tribune," at the annual dinner of the Artists' Benevolent Fund. He continued : " Thera inu-'t be as many men nowadays as there were in Solomon's time whose skill lias not found favour. I should like to try to interest you in the fate of a few of them. In an ■enlightened and democratic age like ours, it is possible to say that if a man's skill has not found favour with tho public the blame must- lie with the man, or with the skill. This is a. pretty doctrine. I wish I could subscribe to it myself. There are, however, men who devote their skill to producing things and expressing ideas for which the public have no present need. Being artists, thesa men must needs do the work that is laid upon them to do, and while they are doing it' they are apt to overlook a number of important worldly considerations. Ifc is reprehensible, of course, and worse than reprehensible; it is unbusinessliks ,but it happens, and it happens more frequently than people would imagine. " Besides these, there are the others whose skill, however much they may dtsire- it, has not found favour. 'lhey labour all their days at the work which is laid upon them to do, but as far ;>s that work is concerned, their public' might be asleep, or gone on .a journey, or gone hunting. Yet, year afUr year, they build their faithful altars, and year alter year they waited in the hope that the file will come down and make a clieer- ! ful blaze for themselves and their families, I and year after j'ear they are disappointed. Time has nob given them their chance, their skill has not- found favour, and, by the world's verdict, they have not success. "If this be- so, it is a comfortable thought that an organisation exists which, by our good will, can help them as quick- , ly and as unostentatiously as they helped us. But it is much more pleasant to coritemplate the men who have found, and hold favour. One is almost hypnotised into the belief that here at least time and , chance have somehow been eliminated by the progress of modern civilisation. Unluckily, the report of the 'Benevolent Institution for last y-;ar showis that' they ate as uncontrolled a brace of impressionists as ever they were ,rather brutal in their methods, but deadly sure of their effects. " You can see that it covers several of the calamaties that can overtake a working man—want, disease, breakdown, madness and death. Your imagination can fill in the background. And, talking of imagination, do you know the Diack thought, gentlemen? I am loth to remind you of it in .this fenced and pleasant place, but it is the one emotion "that all men of imagination have in common. " It possesses some men in tlis dead of night, some when they are setting their palettes, some when they are sharpening tlieir razors; but' very few of us are exempt. If we look at the repoit again we can sea that our blackest forebodings about our eyes, and our brain, and our hand, and our body ,and our soul, by which we live and work, hav? been realised last year/in the case of these 2u6 fellow workers. We only heard the bullets of time and chance; those oth-?rs have had to stop ■fhem with their bodies." ■ /