Rudyard Kipling

“ Where was the Sahiba?' said Kim under his breath.
'Yea, my soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul. As a drop falls into water, so my soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things. At that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills, and my own painted rocks at Suchzen; I saw every camp and village, to the least, where we have ever rested. I saw them at one time and in one place; for they were within my soul. ”

“ Rudyard Kipling, in his most calm and disillusionised hours, in the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof, seriously believe in this sort of thing? There are other excesses to which the sightless tradition of the old hide-bound Jingoistic, Anglo-Indian officialism leads Mr. Kipling, but they are excusable and even defensible. It is only abject silliness which can be neither defended nor excused. ”

“ Remember, I can change swiftly. It will all be as it was when I first spoke to thee under Zam-Zammeh, the great gun——'
'As a boy in the dress of white men—when I first went to the Wonder House. And a second time thou wast a Hindu. What shall the third incarnation be?' He chuckled drearily. 'Ah, chela, thou hast done a wrong to an old man because my heart went out to thee.'
'And mine to thee. But how could I know that the Red Bull would bring me to this business?'
The lama covered his face afresh, and nervously rattled the rosary. ”

“ Kim lit a rank cigarette—he had been careful to buy a stock in the bazar—and lay down to think. This solitary passage was very different from that joyful down-journey in the third-class with the lama. 'Sahibs get little pleasure of travel,' he reflected. 'Hai mai! I go from one place to another as I might be a kick-ball. It is my Kismet. No man can escape his Kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi Miriam, and I am a Sahib'—he looked at his boots ruefully. 'No; I am Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. ”

“ Kipling’s style is too well known to American readers to require introduction, but it can scarcely be amiss to say there is not a story in this collection that does not more than repay a perusal of them all.”—Baltimore American.
“As a writer of short stories Rudyard Kipling is a genius. He has had imitators, but they have not been successful in dimming the luster of his achievements by contrast.... ‘Many Inventions’ is the title. ”

“ They come and they go against bit or spur. Shout to Gul Sher Khan yonder to drive in that bay stallion's pickets more firmly. We do not want a horse-fight at every resting-stage, and the dun and the black will be locked in a little. . . . Now hear me. Is it necessary to the comfort of thy heart to see that lama?'
'It is one part of my bond,' said Kim. 'If I do not see him, and if he is taken from me, I will go out of that madrissah in Nucklao and, and—once gone, who is to find me again?'
'It is true. Never was colt held on a lighter heel-rope than thou.' Mahbub nodded his head. ”

“ I had heard the Jains would eat nothing that they had not cooked, but truly'—he looked away politely over the broad river—'where there is no eye there is no caste.'
'And we,' said Kim, turning his back and heaping a leaf-platter for the lama, 'are beyond all castes.'
They gorged themselves on the good food in silence. Nor till he had licked the last of the sticky sweet-stuff from his little finger did Kim note that the Kamboh too was girt for travel.
'If our roads be together, ' he said roughly, 'I go with thee. One does not often find a worker of miracles, and the child is still weak. ”

“ Of course, there are a dozen other of his stories which would put the average writer's best work to shame, all with the strange Stevenson glamour upon them, of which I may discourse later, but only to those two would I be disposed to admit that complete excellence which would pass them into such a team as this.
And who else? If it be not an impertinence to mention a contemporary, I should certainly have a brace from Rudyard Kipling. His power, his compression, his dramatic sense, his way of glowing suddenly into a vivid flame, all mark him as a great master. ”

“ Rudyard Kipling is not a matter of public interest, and I should be very unwilling to exploit it, even if I had the means of doing so. The youngest of living writers should really be protected for a few years longer against those who chirp and gabble about the unessential. All that needs to be known, in order to give him his due chronological place, is that he was born in Bombay in Christmas week, 1865. The careful student of what he has published will collect from it the impression that Mr. Kipling was resident in India at an age when few European children remain there ”

“ He will then say "What proof hast thou?" and thou wilt answer: "Mahbub Ali has given me the proof."'
'And all for the sake of a white stallion,' said Kim, with a giggle, his eyes aflame.
'That pedigree I will give thee now—in my own fashion—and some hard words as well.' A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding camel. Mahbub Ali raised his voice.
'Allah! Art thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is dead. Thy father is dead. So is it with all of them. Well, well—' he turned as feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of soft, greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. ”

“ De Aquila was right. One should not judge men. Fulke was merry. Yes, always merry—with a catch in his breath.'
'And what did you do afterwards?' said Una.
'We talked together of times past. That is all men can do when they grow old, little maid.'
The bell for tea rang faintly across the meadows. Dan lay in the bows of the Golden Hind; Una in the stern, the book of verses open in her lap, was reading from 'The Slave's Dream':
'Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his native land.'
'I don't know when you began that,' said Dan, sleepily. ”

“ Three days later, it was a dim fold in the earth to southward.
'Surely the Gods live here,' said Kim, beaten down by the silence and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows after rain. 'This is no place for men!'
'Long and long ago,' said the lama, as to himself, 'it was asked of the Lord whether the world were everlasting. To this the Excellent One returned no answer. . . . When I was in Ceylon, a wise Seeker confirmed that from the gospel which is written in Pali. Certainly, since we know the way to Freedom, the question were unprofitable, but—look, and know illusion, chela! ”

“ Then he ran to the bazar, and found the young letter-writer to whom he owed a stamp.
'Now I pay,' said Kim royally, 'and now I want another letter to be written.'
'Mahbub Ali is in Umballa,' said the writer jauntily. He was, by virtue of his office, a bureau of general misinformation.
'This is not to Mahbub, but to a priest. Take thy pen and write quickly. To Teshoo Lama, the holy one from Bhotiyal seeking for a River, who is now in the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares. Take more ink. In three days I am to go down to Nucklao to the school at Nucklao. The name of the school is Xavier. ”

“ Mr Kipling often uses words with great skill to create in his readers the impression that words matter to him hardly at all. He will work as hard as the careful sonneteer to give to his manner a tang of rawness and crudity; and thereby his readers are willing to forget that he is a literary man. They are content simply to listen to a man who has seen, and possibly done, wonders in all parts of the world, neglecting to observe that, if the world with its day's work belongs to Mr Kipling, it belongs to him only by author's right—that is, by right of imagination and right of style. ”

“ C’est plus fort que moi! Assez!” And Sir Arthur blew his nose and said, “Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!” While Dad sat with the tears simply running down his cheeks.’
‘And what did Dr. Break do?’
‘He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I never suspected him of sensibility.’
‘Oh, I wish I’d seen! I wish I’d been you,’ said Una, clasping her hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering cockchafer flew smack against Una’s cheek. ”

“ Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. After education in England he became a sub-editor of a paper published in Lahore, India, where he lived for some years, becoming intimate with all the life of the land. He has lived at various times in India, the United States, South Africa, and England. He has written a great number of astonishingly clever stories, poems, and novels, all in quick, vigorous style, with freedom from restraint, with rough realism, and with genuine humor and pathos. ”

“ Day brought the routine of the studio, the smell of paint and turpentine, and the monotone wisdom of Kami, who was a leaden artist, but a golden teacher if the pupil were only in sympathy with him. Maisie was not in sympathy that day, and she waited impatiently for the end of the work.
She knew when it was coming; for Kami would gather his black alpaca coat into a bunch behind him, and, with faded flue eyes that saw neither pupils nor canvas, look back into the past to recall the history of one Binat. “You have all done not so badly,” he would say. ”

“ He trotted off to the open shop of a Kunjri, a low-caste vegetable-seller, which lay opposite the belt-tramway line down the Motee Bazar. She knew Kim of old.
'Oho, hast thou turned jogi, with thy begging-bowl?' she cried.
'Nay,' said Kim proudly. 'There is a new priest in the city— a man such as I have never seen.'
'Old priest—young tiger,' said the woman angrily. 'I am tired of new priests! They settle on our wares like flies. Is the father of my son a well of charity to give to all who ask? '
'No,' said Kim. 'Thy man is rather yagi (bad tempered) than yogi (a holy man) . ”

“ Above all, he has had something to say, a definite view of things to utter, and that always means that a man is fearless and faces everything. For the moment we have a view of the universe, we possess it.
Now, the message of Rudyard Kipling, that upon which he has really concentrated, is the only thing worth worrying about in him or in any other man. He has often written bad poetry, like Wordsworth. ”

“ Rudyard Kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they can know of England who know England only. It is a far deeper and sharper question to ask, "What can they know of England who know only the world?" for the world does not include England any more than it includes the Church. The moment we care for anything deeply, the world-- that is, all the other miscellaneous interests--becomes our enemy. Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one's self "unspotted from the world;" but lovers talk of it just as much when they talk of the "world well lost." ”

“ I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed, and the child is no whit better.'
He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert, and dropped behind it, his chin on a level with the coping-stone. Here he could command all the night-traffic, himself unseen.
Two or three carts passed, jingling out to the suburbs; a coughing policeman and a hurrying foot-passenger or two who sang to keep off evil spirits. Then rapped the shod feet of a horse.
'Ah! This is more like Mahbub,' thought Kim, as the beast shied at the little head above the culvert. ”

“ Oh see!'
'Nay, help,' said the cultivator, putting out a large brown hand and hauling him in. 'Thus is it done, father.'
'But—but—I sit on the floor. It is against the Rule to sit on a bench,' said the lama. 'Moreover, it cramps me.'
'I say,' began the money-lender, pursing his lips, [38] 'that there is not one rule of right living which these te-rains do not cause us to break. We sit, for example, side by side with all castes and peoples.'
'Yea, and with most outrageously shameless ones,' said the wife, scowling at the Amritzar girl making eyes at the young sepoy. ”

“ They were all real and true—solidly planted upon the feet—perfectly comprehensible—clay of his clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate. Said the Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this move: 'Let him go. I have done my share. Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes back from meditation, tell him.'
There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll half a mile away, with a young banian tree behind—a look-out, as it were, above some new-ploughed levels ”

“ A low murmur of horror went up from the coolies—some of whom were Spiti men and, by their lights, good Buddhists. The lama rose at the insult; his hand went to the heavy iron pencase that is the priest’s weapon, and the Babu danced in agony.
“Now you see—you see why I wanted witnesses. They are highly unscrupulous people. Oh, sar! sar! You must not hit holyman!”
“Chela! He has defiled the Written Word!”
It was too late. Before Kim could ward him off, the Russian struck the old man full on the face. Next instant he was rolling over and over downhill with Kim at his throat. ”

“ One small lamp in the white room showed Lalun and her maid leaning half out of the window, breathing heavily and evidently pulling at something that refused to come.
"Thou art late—very late," gasped Lalun without turning her head. "Help us now, O Fool, if thou hast not spent thy strength howling among the tazais. Pull! Nasiban and I can do no more! O, Sahib, is it you? The Hindus have been hunting an old Mahommadan round the Ditch with club. If they find him again they will kill him. Help us to pull him up. ”