How Kipling Discovered America.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 24, 9 December 1908, Page 49

How Kipling Discovered America.

Bailey Millard, who was the first American to welcome Kipling to the United States, writes interestingly on "How Kipling discovered America.” Mr. Millard, then a reporter on a San Francisco daily in 1889, ran across Kipling at an hotel, and celebrated his arrival with a twelve-line personal, which was probably quite enough for an almost unknown young writer. Even to a man who knew nothing of his consummate genius (writes Mr. Millard), just then beginning to bud, there was something distinctive about Kipling, as there is about all men of marrow. Once has reserve was broken, one could not help being attracted by him and his conversation, and yet one was never convinced of his great culture. Over Iris brandy and soda he could be eloquent for live minutes at a time, but, on the whole, I remember him as a man more given to enquiry than ready to impart information. Indeed, it was only after several talks with hiiq that 1 learned he was the correspondent of the Allahabad “Pioneer,” and that he intended to write his impressions of America for that paper. On that first evening of his arrival he wanted someone to pilot him around the town, which I readily volunteered to do. Wn walked up Market-street while the theatre crowds were pouring into that thoroughfare. He was plainly disappointed in all that he saw, for he was

looking for something Western and raw. One thing that worried him was the rapid step of the crowd. He wanted to know if they always walked that way. The gorgeously lighted and lavishly spread shop windows made him stare, and he said it was all vastly different from anything he had ever seen. The wonderfully deeorated and bemirrored cafes, which were the boast of old San Francisco, were something anjazing to him, and never failed to bring forth admiring comment. The prodigal freeluneh system of the town, by which you could buy a glass of wine and have a whole meal thrown in, appealed to him strongly. I led him into the big newspaper building where 1 worked, and showed him the presses, the composition room, and the editorial staff preparing the paper for the next issue. In the things he took morning. In these things he took much interest, and when I introduced him to some of the choicest spirits of the Press he talked with them in a friendly, though somewhat condescending way. But we had always looked for this from Englishmen, and did not mind it. He made a strong impression upon the folk of the Press, and, in fact, upon everyone to whom he was introduced. After his first brief pose of insular indifference, he revealed himself as a dynamic personalty, readily conversable, strongly assertive, and as English as they make them. I well remember that night our walk along Kearny-street, through which thoroughfare 1 was conducting him back to his hotel, that he might not get lost. He had much to say of literature, particularly of the big Frenchmen. He evinced a fondness for Maupassant and Gautier and we talked of Table’s comparison between Alfred de Musset and and Tennyson, which was so much to the discredit of Tennyson. As I remember it, he did not greatly disagree with Taine in the salient points made in favour ol de Musset’s youthful warmth and his abounding love of life, on the one baud, Tennyson, which was so much to other; but, being British and Tory, he must needs, after all. give Tennyson a much higher place than that, of the Frenchman.

On our way we picked up a late wandering friend of mine, who, because he knew all about politics, greatly interested Mi*. Kipling. The conversation was a long and, to me, highly entertaining one. Kipling was the “ehiel amang us takin’ notes.” I had never known a foreigner who asked many and such strange questions about American affairs. Some of them seemed inspired and touched the very heart of our economic system, but for the most part they were naive enough Boss methods in polities interested him greatly, and as my political friend, for the sake of drawing his fire, made bold to defend them, Kipling rushed hotly to the other end of the argument, and ventured such opinions upon our undemocratic democracy as would have won him the lifelong friendship of Mr. Debs. During the fortnight or so of his stay in San Francisco I saw much of Kipling and heard more, for the rather convivial set of men around town who took him hi tow seemed to revel in the novelty of him, and they recounted with delight the various ways in which they “strung” him. They once told him yarns-—ancient, shrivelled ones, baggy at the knees: tales known everywhere, except in Allahabad —and these he afterward solemnly related in his book as new stories. His innocence, as manifested by his artless questions, was a source of infinite joy to these reckless raconteurs, and inspired them to outdo themselves for his edification. But, on his own side. Kipling has told some yarns in his "Notes” that compare quite favourably with those told by the Californians. while they are almost as moss-grown. For examples I should select the narratives of his own experience with a bunco-steerer and that of the Irish priest and the Chinaman as being purely apocryphal. Please to remember that none of the club-folk, who rejoiced in getting hold of this young man fresh from India, had the slightest idea that he had literary greatness concealed about his person. We were used to the globe-trotters in San Francisco —the man who dared all sorts of things, even to the wearing of tweeds at formal dinners, and who puffed his pipe and wore his knee-breeches and long woollen hose down Marketstreet in defiance of the loeal ordinances in such made and provided. Kipling was

hardly of that sort, but he shared one trait with all his countrymen that is to say, he regarded his visit to San Fran cisco as a sort of slumming tour, and was ready to go anywhere, in almost any company, Something is to Iw allowed for the youth of the man at that period and much for his curiosity, which seemed insatiable. One of the men about town with whom he foregathered on more than one occasion was a festive el.ub fellow named Bigelow", whom everybody called "Petie” Petie endeared himself to Kipling byshowing him through Chinatown and into all the worst dives of the Barbary coast. Kipling seemed to he "game” for whatever was forward. Even when he found that his new friend could embrace the flagon with more warmth and frequency than any other man on "the route,” and was, in fact, the bibulous prize of the town, he was not terrified.

It was “Petie” who showed Kipling into the Barbary coast resort where he found his "dive girl with a Greek head,” so rapturously set forth in his "Notes” as among the eight American maidens with whom he fell "hopelessly in love.’’ Mr. Miller re-tells with much detail,

the circumstances of Kipling's dinner aft the famous liohcmiati (lub. and the rage with which lierary San Francisco real the young writer's abusive criticisms of hi* hosts in his •‘American Notes,” That is an old story. This seems to Im* new— In the San Francisco Press (’lub they will lull you a story of how Kipling, who was anxious to raise money to meet travelling expenses, offered two Mulancy manuscripts to the Sunday editor of a local journal, and of how the editor after reading them over, returned them to the author with his thanks and his comments that, while they were well written, they were not “aailable." as they were not were not available as there was no interest in East Indian tales in this country. 1 have heard this story repeated so many times that I am inclined to think it is true, though the editor, probably covered with confusion by the wonderful popularity of those very tales would never admit the authenticity of the report. If it was true, as many believe and declare, |>ere was anothe believe and declare, here was another Kiplingian reason why San Francwco was “a perfectly mad eity.” 4