Mr. Rudyard Kipling, aided by his fine constitution and unusual
will-power, has won his long fight with death. On Sunday he was pronounced out of danger, and since then his progress has been steady. He has still, however, some fever, and, as he is wretchedly weak, it is thought necessary to keep from him the death of his little daughter Josephine, to whom he was tenderly attached. She died of pneumonia on Monday. Even his wife, therefore, keeps that secret, with what suffering under her smiles only mothers know. The patient is, however, allowed to hear some of the telegrams showered upon him from all parts of the world, the most noteworthy perhaps being one from the German Emperor. "As an enthusiastic admirer of the unrivalled books of your husband, I am most anxious for news about his health. God grant that he may be spared to you and to all who are thankful to him for the soul-stirring way in which he has sung about the deeds of our great common race.—WILLIAM." The Emperor is evidently willing to substitute the Teuton for the Anglo-Saxon as the ruling race of the future. He did not quite venture to call Mr. Kipling an American, bat being anxious that his telegram should be taken as a compliment to Americana rather than to Englishmen, the German journals have received a hint to describe the poet as an American. At least, as Germans read Kipling, and have translated him admirably, and know his pedigree as well as we do, that is the only explanation we can offer for their other- wise inexplicable unanimity in blundering. A perusal of the "Recessional" should have taught them better. Americans have most of the virtues, but an American frightened at his own success is an unthinkable phenomenon.
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