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http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_words_thirtyfive.htm
[April 11th 2011] Publication Published in pamphlet form, Doubleday, New York, 1931 as "Address at the Annual Banquet of the France Grande Bretagne Association". A short version was published in The Times for 4 July 1931, page 11. Collected in the Sussex Edition vol. XXV, pp. 309-14, together with the earlier speeches collected in A Book of Words, and in the Burwash Edition vol. XXIV. Background Kipling was the guest of honour at the Banquet. From the chair, the diplomat, archaeologist and writer, the Marquis de Vogué (1848-1910), told his audience that Kipling was loved in France for his writing, and also for his love of the country. After his speech, M. Reynard (1878-1966), the Minister for the Colonies, again thanked Kipling for his friendship to France. After hearing the speech, the art historian and literary historian, Louis Gillet (1876-1943), asked Kipling to write Souvenirs de France, published in French and in English in 1933. See also his poem "France", and the stories "The Bull that Thought" (Debits and Credits), "The Miracle of Saint Jubanus"(Limits and Renewals), and "The First Assault upon the Sorbonne£. Kipling began by recalling his childhood visit to Paris for the Exhibition Universelle. Speaking of the relationship between France and Britain, he noted the history of invasions of one by the other, taking the gentlemanly understanding of two warring admirals as an example of mutual respect. He recalled the First World War, and declared his belief in the friendship of the two nations. (the page and line numbers below refer to Volume XXV of the Sussex Edition of Kipling's works, Macmillan, London 1938). [Page 311 line 2] Colonial Exhibition held in Paris in 1931. [Page 311 line 4] Exposition of ’78 the "Exposition Universelle" or Third World’s Fair. Kipling describes his time at the esposition in Something of Myself, pp 24-25.  [Page 311 line 13] Trocadero gardens in Paris, on the site of the Palais de Chaillot and opposite the Eiffel Tower. The Palais de Trocadéro was built for the Exposition Universelle and the head of Liberty stood in the garden during the exhibition.[Page 311 line 14] Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904), French sculptor. His Statue of Liberty has stood in New York Harbour since 1885. [Page 312 line 8] French conquerors the Norman invasion of England under William the Conqueror took place in 1066. Kipling may also be thinking of the accession of Henry II, the first Plantagenet or Angevin king, in 1154. [Page 312 lines 10-11] English invaders Kipling is referring to the Hundred Years War against France, which began in 1337 during the reign of Edward III (1312-77). It ended with the French capture of Bordeaux in 1453. [Page 312 line 25] our national English game cricket. It never aroused Kipling's enthusiasm. [Page 312 lines 26-27] Commodore Du Casse Jean-Baptiste Du Casse (1646-1715). [Page 312 line 27] Admiral Benbow John Benbow (1653-1702) was a Vice Admiral of the Royal Navy. Having met a French fleet under Du Casse off Santa Marta in the West Indies, he pursued it in his flagship, HMS Breda, but was, as Kipling says, forced to retire because his captains protested and refused to support him. He died of his wounds in Jamaica soon afterwards. [Page 313 line 14] jusqu’au bout To the end, completely. |
Sunday, February 8, 2015
KIPLING FRANCE AND BRITAIN
TOMLINSON BY KIPLING
Publication In the National Observer (23 January 1892), but according to Carrie Kipling's diary, written in the previous April. Collected in Barrack-room Ballads, R.B. and O.V., 1892; I.V., 1919; D.V., 1940; Sussex Edition, Vol. 32, page 322; Burwash Edition, Vol. 25. Lines omitted from the published version The ORG prints the following "extra lines" from the text of the original manuscript. Lines 33 to 36. "Ye have taken toll of a thousand soul in silver and snippet and share,Six lines at the end So Tomlinson took up the flesh in his home in Berkeley SquareBackground to the story On his arrival in England in October 1889 Kipling took an instant dislike to the followers of the so-called Aesthetic Movement, who tended to go in for long hair, affectation of speech and manner, and eccentricity of dress. In a poem ("In Partibus") which he sent to the Civil and Military Gazette in the following month he wrote- "But I consort with long-haired thingsTomlinson is one of these, see The Long Recessional by David Gilmour (2002), pp. 92-95. Comments In Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work (1955) Charles Carrington remarks (p. 350): "The reader of Kipling's verse will not fail to notice a tendency to slip into Scotticisms (for example in "Tomlinson") where there seems no need of that dialect in particular." |
Tomlinson |
| Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square, And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair - A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away, Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way: Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease, And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys. "Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die - The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!" And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone. "O I have a friend on earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide, And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side." "For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair, But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square: Though we called your friend from his bed this night, he could not speak for you, For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two." Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there, For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare: The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife, And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life. "This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me, And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy." The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path, And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath. "Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run: By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer - what ha' ye done?" Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore, For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before: "O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say, And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway." - "Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate; There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate! O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within; Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run, And...the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!" . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell: The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain, But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again: They may hold their path, they may leave their path, with never a soul to mark, They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease in the Scorn of the Outer Dark. The Wind that blows between the worlds, it nipped him to the bone, And he yearned to the flare of Hell-Gate there as the light of his own hearth-stone. The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew, But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through. "Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he, "That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me? I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn, For I strove with God for your First Father the day that he was born. Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die." And Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light; And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat. "O I had a love on earth," said he, "that kissed me to my fall, And if ye would call my love to me I know she would answer all." - "All that ye did in love forbid it shall be written fair, But now ye wait at Hell-Mouth Gate and not in Berkeley Square: Though we whistled your love from her bed to-night, I trow she would not run, For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!" The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife, And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life: "Once I ha' laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave, And thrice I ha' patted my God on the head that men might call me brave." The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and set it aside to cool: "Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool? I see no worth in the hobnailed mirth or the jolthead jest ye did That I should waken my gentlemen that are sleeping three on a grid." Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and there was little grace, For Hell-Gate filled the houseless Soul with the Fear of Naked Space. "Nay, this I ha' heard," quo' Tomlinson, "and this was noised abroad, And this I ha' got from a Belgian book on the word of a dead French lord." - "Ye ha' heard, ye ha' read, ye ha' got, good lack! and the tale begins afresh - Have ye sinned one sin for the pride o' the eye or the sinful lust of the flesh?" Then Tomlinson he gripped the bars and yammered, "Let me in - For I mind that I borrowed my neighbour's wife to sin the deadly sin." The Devil he grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high: "Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran, And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man: Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth: There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be spawn of earth." Empusa's crew, so naked-new they may not face the fire, But weep that they bin too small to sin to the height of their desire, Over the coal they chased the Soul, and racked it all abroad, As children rifle a caddis-case or the raven's foolish hoard. And back they came with the tattered Thing, as children after play, And they said: "The soul that he got from God he has bartered clean away. We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find: We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone, And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own." The Devil he bowed his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low: "I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go. Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place, My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face; They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host, And - I would not anger my gentlemen for the sake of a shiftless ghost." The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame, And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name: "Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry: Did ye think of that theft for yourself?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care: - "Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, "but the roots of sin are there, And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone. But sinful pride has rule inside - and mightier than my own. Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit, to each his priest and whore: Nay, scarce I dare myself go there, and you they'd torture sore. Ye are neither spirit nor spirk," he said; "ye are neither book nor brute - Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute. I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain, But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again. Get hence, the hearse is at your door - the grim black stallions wait - They bear your clay to place to-day. Speed, lest ye come too late! Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed - go back with an open eye, And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one - And. . .the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!" |
SCHOOL EXPERIENCES KIPLING
[April 12th 2011] Publication Published in The Times 6 October 1929, page 11. Published in pamphlet form as "Address at Milner Court", Doubleday, New York, 1929. Published in the King’s School Magazine, The Cantuarian, December 1929, and in the American magazine Living Age 15 November 1929. Printed in leaflet form in England, 1929. Collected in the Sussex Edition vol. XXV, pp. 301-7, together with the earlier speeches collected in A Book of Words, and in the Burwash Edition vol. XXIV. Background The Junior School of King’s School, Canterbury was named after Viscount Milner (1854-1925), whose widow gave the land at Milner Court, Sturry, on which the Junior School stands. At the request of Lady Milner, Kipling was speaking at the Dedication of the new School. The ceremony took place in the Tithe Barn, and the Archbishop of Canterbury conducted a short service. William Spens, the Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge presided. After Kipling’s speech, the Headmasters of the Senior and Junior Schools spoke, followed by the Bishop of Dover, John Macmillan (1877-1956), who asked Kipling to formally open the South Door of the New Building. Unfortunately, the boys, who were placed furthest from the platform, had difficulty in hearing Kipling’s speech, but the Headmaster later read it to them. Kipling’s request that the boys should have a half-holiday, to compensate them for having to come to school on a Saturday, was granted by the Headmaster, Norman Birley (1891-1980). Kipling argued that the schoolboys would learn about life at school. He urged them not to spend their time complaining about injustice or nursing grievances. He paid tribute to Lord Milner, giving a broad outline of his career, and concluded by urging the boys to follow Milner’s example. (the page and line numbers below refer to Volume XXV of the Sussex Edition of Kipling's works, Macmillan, London 1938). [Page 304 lines 27-28] Elevens and Fifteens cricket and rugby teams. [Page 305 line 8] to suffer fools see II Corinthians 2.3.  [Page 305 line 19] Lord Milner Alfred, Viscount Milner (1854-1925), imperial administrator. He was director general of accounts in Egypt (1889-92), High Commissioner in South Africa (1897-1905) and served in the War Cabinet from 1916-1918. He was a friend of Kipling's, who much admired him.[Page 305 line 32] a half-ruined Dominion Milner was High Commissioner for South Africa from 1897 to 1905. He had urged on the Cabinet the need to go to war against the Boer republics in 1899, in the Second South African War, and did much to rebuild the country after peace was made in 1902. Like Kipling, he believed strongly in the merits of British imperial rule. Many of his policies were opposed in the House of Commons, in particular by the Liberals, who were in office from January 1906 to May 1915. The Liberals gave the Boer republics self-government under the British Crown. [Page 306 lines 19-20] one thing needed to be done As a member of the War Cabinet, Milner was sent to France in 1918 to investigate the problems arising from the lack of a supreme command. As a result of his report, Marshal Foch was placed in overall command, and this helped to bring the war to an end. [Page 307 line 4] Lady Milner Violet Georgina, née Maxse (1872-1958), Editor of the National Review. |
KIPLING TRAVEL AND IMAGINATION
O loved little Island, forget never the Sea. Never the Sea forgivs such as forget her. Liverpool Shipbrokers’ Benevolent Society Adelphi Hotel, 26 October 1928 WHEN Lord Hewart was your guest lasy year he gave you some interesting facts about maritime law as that affected freights. But I don't recall that he mentioned a certain saying about that maritime by-product, passengers. So many of us guests are passengers, and so many of our hosts are interested in our passages, that I need not apologise for quoting it. It runs: 'God made men; God made women; and then He made passengers.' This libel is based on the cruel superstition that if you put people into a ship, and roll them round Ushant, by the time they are decanted at their first port, they look and behave like nothing on the face of the waters except passengers. I expect this accounts for the way we were treated within human memory. I won't go into details farther than to remind you that our cabins used to open directly into the dining-saloon, and we were warned by notices on the mahogany-inlaid mizzen-mast which came through the table that we were under the authority of the Master, and that 'the limit of his authority was the needs of the case, having regard to the security of the ship and those on board.' This covered a large area. But now that we have imposed the world-end habit on the week-end habit the case is altered. So long as we passengers muster at boat-stations with our belts on, and do not try to alter the ship's course or set her alight, we can do absolutely what we please. And we do. To take one side of our activities only: We arrive in 20,000-ton liners to assault lovely and innocent coast towns, a thousand of us, under cover of a gas attack by 200 motor-cars. We roar through the streets, a pillar of dust by day. We come back at night, with our picture postcards, to dance to amplified gramio- phones on promenade decks till it is time to call boarding parties away to carry the next place of interest on the, programme. And this traffic, this prodigious tourist-traffic, is increasing. Time and distance only excite it to wilder effort; for there is a man at this table who expressed his regret to me the other day that he could not for the moment—for the moment, mark you!—include the Galapagos Islands—where the giant tortoises come from—in a tourist itinerary. Well, even supposing we may be able, next year, to cruise about scratching our initials on turtle-back sterns, what is the good of us? Apart from our dividend-earning capacity what moral purpose do we passengers subserve in the general scheme of things? This—and it is not a little matter. When we are home again, and have arranged the snapshots of ourselves standing in front of the Pyramids or the Parthenon, we have, at the lowest, realised that there are other lands than ours where people live their own lives in their own way and seem quite happy about it, and where we have seen and touched the things we had hitherto only read about. And when interest in one's neighbour, curiosity about his housekeeping, and understanding of his surroundings are waked and can be gratified in hundreds of thousands of hearts, they make for toler¬ance, good-will, and so peace. And that is to the good.
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[April 11th 2011] Publication Published in pamphlet form as "The Nerve that Conquers", Doubleday, New York, 1928. Published in The Times 27 October 1928, page 9 and on the same date in the New York Times and East Anglian Times. Collected in the Sussex Edition vol. XXV, pp. 285-91, together with the earlier speeches collected in A Book of Words, and in the Burwash Edition vol. XXIV. Kipling gave permission for his speech to be printed in pamphlet form in aid of the Benevolent Society, but there is no record of such a publication. Background  Kipling had been asked to give the speech by Sir Percy Bates (1879-1946), the Chairman of Cunard, and of the Morning Post, with whom he stayed.He arrived in Liverpool on 25 October and on the following day toured the docks on the Overhead Railway. An account of his visit was given in the Liverpool Echo of Ocrober 26th under the title: Rudyard Kipling Sees Our Ships. Famous Author's Trip Along the Docks: Youth is restless in Liverpool, today, for Rudyard Kipling is here. A glimpse of the author who has inspired every right-thinking Englishman, at some time or other, is a possibility of the streets.And middle-aged men reflect to themselves and try to recapture the magic of reading "Kim," or "Soldiers Three," or "Barrack Room Ballads" for the first time.In a letter to Elsie of October 10, Kipling wrote: I am going up to Liverpool to stay a night with Percy Bates and make a speech to the Benevolent Shipbrokers of that Port. Did not know that that sort of people were benevolent but anything is possible at Liverpool. |
KIPLING A HEALING BY THE STARS SPEECH
Rudyard Kipling XXXIII Healing by the Stars The Grave-stone, heavy with grief, says:—'Earth availed not to save my dead. Watchers of the sick, look up now to the over-regarding stars.' Royal Society of Medicine Dinner: November 15, 1928 WHEN FELLOW-GUESTS—1 don't know how it is with you, but, when a medical man approaches me in the language of compliment, I am filled with an uneasy suspicion that somebody's tobacco is going to be rationed. That possibility, however, is behind us for this evening, so we can the better appreciate Colonel MacArthur's flattering diagnosis of our several virtues and merits. Some of us must have all of the symptoms indicated. I have one. I am a story-teller. Lord Dawson, Members of the Royal Society of Medicine, gentlemen, and ladies, will you lend me your patience while I tell a perfectly true story? Nearly 300 years ago there was an astrologer-physician, called Nicholas Culpeper, practising in Spitalfields. And it happened that a friend's maid-servant fell sick with what the local practitioner diagnosed as plague. Culpeper was called in as a second opinion. When he arrived the family were packing up the beds, preparatory to going away and leaving the girl to die. He took charge. There was no silly nonsense about looking for the characteristic plague tongue. He only asked at what hour the young woman had taken to her bed. That gave him, as I need not tell you, 'the hour of the decumbiture.' He then erected a horoscope, and 'inquired of the face of the Heavens how the malady might prove.' The face of the heavens indicated it was not plague but just smallpox, which our ancestors treated almost as lightly as we do. And smallpox it turned out to be. So the family came back with their bedding, and lived happily ever after; the girl recovered; and Culpeper said what he thought of his misguided fellow-practitioner. Among other things, he called him 'a man of forlorn fortunes with sore eyes.' Preposterous as all this was, you must remember that Culpeper justified his practice by the theory that `this creation, though composed of contraries, is one united body, of which man is the epitome, and that he, therefore, who would understand the mystery of healing must look as high as the stars.' That was a distorted shadow of the ancient idea that the universe is one in ultimate essence—which essence is sustained and embraced and interpenetrated by a creative motion or inner heat—the pneuma of certain Greek physicians, who practised 500 years before St. Paul, preached at Athens. It was a noble belief, but it did not prevent Dr. Culpeper from using a pharmacopoeia and treatment that would have made a West African witch-doctor jealous. And when he came across anything that he did not understand, or that Aristotle had not provided for, he put it down to 'influences' or `emanations'—same as you do a common cold. But if he could return to earth to-day and see how things have progressed in the mystery of healing, I fancy he would be quite at ease in your Zion. He believed in the transmutation of metals. He could be shown that in full blast at a Royal Society soirée—with emanations. He would find that the essential unity of creation is admitted as far forth as we have plumbed infinity; and that Man, Culpeper's epitome of all, is in himself a universe of universes, each universe ordered—negatively and positively, by sympathy and antipathy—on the same lines as hold the stars in their courses.
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