MR. KIPLING RENDERS AN ACCOUNT
[COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES OF ;AMERICA BY THE New York Times.] Debits and Credits. By Rudyard Kipling. (Macmillan, 7s. 6d. net.) MR. KIPLING'S new volume will be a source of satisfaction and a strong defence to his admirers throughout the English- speaking world, and, indeed, throughout the world in general —for what land is not full of his labours in the field of letters ? At the same time the new book, though it has one or two stories that reach the highest standard in his art, cannot be ranked as one of his great achievements. This will not matter to his loyal admirers, among whom .I class myself, but it must be noted in any sincere review.
The essential thing about Debits and Credits is the proof it offers that Mr. Kipling still writes in the old way and on the old themes, and with as much - verve and penetration as ever. The times have changed, especially in the realms of fiction, but Mr. Kipling has made no attempt to adapt his art to the new models or to look at the world with new eyes. At first sight to say this may seem to imply want of elasticity of mind, and of ability to appreciate and under- stand the new ways : but I have no such critical intent. On the contrary, I hold that Mr. Kipling has done well to give his heart its old rights and not to attempt to follow the fashions, and, like the plausible tradesman, to say, " I can show you the new season's goods as well as any literary commercial establishment in this country." Such an attitude is all very well for the journalist or for the writer who does not feel that he has any special message to mankind but is prepared to give the public what it wants with the latest trimmings. It would have been as unbecoming, and in the end as hopeless, a task for Mr. Kipling to have attempted this as it would have been, say, for Carlyle at the end of his life to have roared like the young lions of the 'seventies or 'eighties, or for Browning in his old age to have met the public demand for the " sugared sonnets " and Ballades of the writers who were inspired by the Rossetti, Swinburne and Morris tradition. Mr. Kipling has wisely chosen to make no attempt to be other than himself. He gives the world of his best, and does not attempt to set his sails to catch the winds and cross-currents of air which are now blowing.
A vast field of endeavour is covered in the present volume as in those of former times. In " Enemies to Each Other " Mr. Kipling deals in true Eastern fashion with the Creation. Allah, Eblis, the Archangel Azrael, Adam and Eve all play their parts. I shall not attempt to unravel the delightful story, but there is great fascination in the narration of how Adam wakes from his sleep and finds " our Lady Eve " beside him. Dryden tried something of the same sort in his opera, The Age of Innocence, but his figures were very much stiffer and, if I may use a hibernianism, showed the peruke and the flowered petticoat peeping through the primaeval nudities. The story of " that crude apple which diverted Eve " and of all the woes that followed has a delightful, original, and thoroughly Kiplingesque touch. When the Mole heard the Divine Command of Expulsion it occurred to that sly and subterranean beast that he would play the part of a private detective on the unhappy and ejected couple. Therefore he followed our Forefather and his august Consort under the earth and watched them in their affliction and " their abjection and their misery." When he returned from his criminal investigation duties the Mole was told by the Guardians of the Gate that Adam and Eve could by no means escape the curse of misery that had been placed upon them. To this the Mole replied that he had seen them, and that they had escaped :- " It was answered : Declare thy observation.' The Mole said : The enemies to each other have altogether departed from Thy worship and Thy adoration. Nor are they in any sort enemies to each other, for they enjoy together the most perfect felicity, and moreover they have made them a new God.' It was answered : ' Declare the shape of the God.' The Mole said : "Their God is of small stature, pinkish in colour, unclothed, fat and smiling. They lay it upon the grass and, filling its hands with flowers, worship it and desire no greater comfort.' It was answered : Declare the name of the God.' The Mole said : ' Its name is Quabil (Cain), and I testify upon a sure observation that it is their God and their Uniter and their Conherter.' " In Debits and Credits we have also stories of action and war, as for example, " Sea Constables : A Tale of '15," while in " The Bull that Thought," Mr. Kipling deals with a case of animal psychology. In " The Wish House " he depicts a con. fabulation between two old working women. 1" shall not spoil the tale by an attempted summary ; but it is full to the brim of those elemental passions and duties which Mr. Kipling likes to depict in the homeliest, or the most savage, settings. It is a story of cancer.
" The Janeites " will delight all lovers of Jane Austen. It is in form part of a series of Masonic war stories, though in itself it has little or nothing to do with the War. The narrator is a man who waits in a small Artillery mess and tells of a very peculiar form of inner Freemasonry which he heard there discussed. The secret society business which he tells us he heard the officers discuss turned upon " a secret society woman" called Jane :- " She was the only woman I ever 'eard 'em say a good word for. 'Cordin' to them Jane was a none-such. I didn't know then she was a Society. Fact is, I only 'ung out 'arf an ear in their direction at first, on account of bein' under instruction for mess-duty to this Macklin man.' " The Secret Society of Janeites was, of course, formed of wor- shippers of Jane Austen. No wonder that General Tilney, " Lady Catherine De Bugg," and Brass Bates get into the messman's head as part of the ritual of a new Masonry. Ulti- mately the creations of Miss Austen get mixed up with the battery. Such names as the Reverend Collins, General Tilney, and Lady Catherine De Bugg are chalked up on the guns by the messman. The story most adroitly ends by the mess- sergeant managing to get himself into an over-full ambulance train by saying to a Sister, " Only make Miss Bates there stop talkin' or I'll die." That soon opens the door to him. The question, " D' you know what you're sayin' ? " from the nurse meets with the reply, " Course I do, an' if you knew Jane you'd know too." The poem that closes the incident is " Jane's Marriage," which will please all Janeites, even though it cannot be classed among Mr. Kipling's happiest efforts in the same genre.
" On the Gate : A Tale of '16 " is a rollicking story, but with plenty of good and wise intent. St. Peter, who has just come off the gate for a rest, engages in a conversation with Death, who remarks to him, " One does the best one can with the means at one's disposal." But, like many great men who get off the office stool for a rest, all sorts of appeals are brought to him in what should have been his " secure hour " :- "'What is it now ?' He turned to a prim-lipped Seraph who had followed him with an expulsion-form for signature. St. Peter glanced it over. Private R. M. Buckland,' he read, on the charge of saying that there is no God. That all ? '
He says he is prepared to prove it, sir, and—according to the Rules If you will make yourself acquainted with the Rules, you'll find they lay down that the fool says in his heart, there is no God.' That decides it ; probably shell-shock. Have you tested his reflexes Y ' No, sir. He kept on saying that there—' Pass him in at once ! Tell off some one to argue with him and give him the best of the argument till St. Luke's free. Any-thing else ' "
I have but one more word to say. Why should not Mr. Kipling give us another volume of historical sketches suet' as we get in Puck of Pock's Hill ? I long to hear Mr. Kipling's account of Charles II, William HI, Queen Anne, Robert
Walpole and Chatham ; and I feel quite confident that he will have no difficulty in inventing the appropriate
" machinery," as Pope would have called it, for such an heroic epic. J. ST. LOE STRACIIEY.
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