Kipling has been one of the most striking figures in English literature since tie first came to his own in 1890. It is now a commonplace to say that he revealed India to the western world, not after the romantic manner of Scott's dealing with Scotland, but in a wonderfully direct and realistic way. Of rare perceptive powers, he sees the import of things and is able to convey it to his reader exactly. Per haps there was no set plan about it, but his early tales comprehended nearly every phase of the English government in India so far as it came under his eyes. In them jostle the Eng lish soldier, the English civilian, and the native man and woman. He kept most closely to the Punjab, which he best knew; to its sweltering heat under which the mercury climbs slowly to the top of the glass and the printing-presses grow red hot; to its drenching rains, fever and cholera, in other seasons; its blinding sand storms, and the picnics and intrigues they inter fere with; the immense perspective of a star-lit heaven; the filth and superstition of the na tives; the hap-hazard process of law-making; villages invaded and blotted out by the jungle; and barrack-room yarns in which Tommy At kins tells of his practical jokes, adventures and death grapples on the battle-field with giant Afghans.
The conditions under which he first worked demanded great concentration of incident and style. Engaged to sort telegrams and clippings or to write editorials for his newspaper, he had little time for developing his stories at length. They were • dashed off rapidly from first impressions and made to fit into the scant space that was left for them. Merely the sketch or the outline was given in short jerky sentences, and the salient points in character were suggested by the epithet that comes only under the intense pressure of the moment. No other story-teller was ever able to put so much as Kipling into so little space. When more at his ease, he developed a type of his own running from 25 to 50 pages. Taken all in all, considering matter and treatment, the best story Kipling ever wrote is 'The Man Who Would be King.' What happens to one or the other when the Englishman involves him self with the affairs of the Hindoo woman is told in
Trained from the beginning in the short story, Kipling seems unable to break from its limitations. (The Light that Failed,' and Courageous' are most readable, but in neither case was the theme thoroughly grasped or the treatment adequate. (Kim) is not so much a novel as a short story long drawn out. But within the province of the short story Kipling may be classed with Ste venson. A tendency to obscure symbolism, ap parent now and then in his early work, has grown upon him, to the harm, it would seem, of his art. for example, beautiful as it is, was difficult to understand, and some of the other stories in (Traffics and Discoveries' were clearly an attempt to transfer to prose the dramatic monologue of Browning. Combined
with this endeavor is also a fondness for coin cidences, which, though cleverly managed, are unnecessary and unconvincing. The romanc ing of machinery in (.007,) and Ship that Found Herself,' so striking and novel at the time of their appearance, have since ceased to interest. Much of Kipling's •later work has, however, its own grace and beauty. Habi tation Enforced' is certainly a fine story, and (Puck of Pook's Hill) is a notable experiment in English folk-lore and legend. The later work of Kipling includes three volumes deal ing with phases of the Great European War. at War' (1915) is a tribute no less to the iron nerve and valor of the soldiers of that country than it is to the quiet, patient, day-by-day heroism and self-sacrifice of the women. of the Fleet) (1915) visu alises the work of the submarines, destroyers, and smaller craft of the British navy. (Tales of The Trade' (1916) tells of the remarkably daring and successful work of the British sub marines, especially at the Dardanelles, while (The Eyes of Asia' (1918) gives the Asiatic view of the war and Europeans. In these, his latest works, Kipling shows all the astounding mastery in phrase-making, the same sure in stinct for the inevitable word, that first brought him into fame. • It should be remembered that Kipling was a verse-maker before he wrote tales. As early as 1881 appeared for private circulation his (School Boy Lyrics.' Departmental Dit ties> were humorous and satirical jingles, which were originally thrown off without effort to fill in the blank spaces of his newspaper when other copy was wanting. His first great success was with (Barrack-Room Ballads,' mostly in the slang of the British (Tommy) dialect. They are not narrative ballads of the traditional type; they are rather songs with choruses and refrains, easily lending themselves to memory. In their kind there is nothing bet ter than (Tommy,' (Danny Deever,' FuZZy Wuzzy,> (Soldier, Soldier,' and (Mandalay,' wherein very refuse of language)) is made poetical. Kipling's theme has broadened with time. No poems of the present generation are better known than Recessional' (1897), composed on witnessing the naval review at Spithead on the occasion of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, and White Man's Bur den' (1899), an appeal to the spirit of impe rialism in the United States. Something of the same exalted strain characterizes his short poem written on the outbreak of the Great European War, 'Tor All We Have and Arco He was awarded the Nobel prize in literature in 1907. See BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS; JUNGLE BOOKS, THE; SOLDIERS' THREE; Bibliography.— Among the collected edi tions of Kipling's works in verse and prose are the Bound' and the Kipling Primer,' by F. L. Knowles (Bos ton 1899) contains a brief biography, and a bibliography to date. Richard Le Gallienne's (Rudyard Kipling' (London and New York 1900) is the most complete estimate. Consult also (Rudyard Kipling, the Man and His Work) (London 1899) by G. F. Monkshood (the pen-name of W. J. Clarke) ; Young, (Dic tionary of Characters and Scenes in the Stories and Poetry of Rudyard Kipling) (1911) ; Du rand, to the Poetry of Rudyard Kipling' (1914).