Mr. KipUnc/s Five Nations. 843 tion ; his ideas are many but his words this banquet. In this attitude the poet are few. He dislikes action, yet he at­ descended to the arena of strife, on a tracts the active. He seeks no recloMies, level with others of not half his merit yet he is acclaimed. In a study of Mal- who had dinners given in their honor. larm^ and his salon which appeared in How difficult it is to refuse at the right 1892,1 said: " In this poet we find a phi­ moment! The art of saying " no " is the losopher free from superstition and pre­ supreme art in the life of every thinker. judice, a thinker who embraces all that Of all things connected with the daily is vital in art, music, and literature." routine of a man of talent, tliis thing of But the best minds are often led into knowing when and how to I'efuse is the foolish acts, even against their better simplest and the rarest. It is so easy to judgment. The poet was inveigled into know and so hard to do. But until we accepting a banquet in his honor, offered learn to do it we can expect nothing but by a number of his admirers, at which misunderstanding and failure. conventional toasts, speeches, and re­ It was remarked by a journalist that sponses, prearranged and machine-made, Mallarm^, at this banquet, looked as if were the order of the evening. He was he had come to bury his last friend. proclaimed " prince " of the young poets; And no wonder ; for he had descended but Mallarm^ sat immovable, fatigued, from his sanctuary in the Rue de Rome and bored. It was no place for him. to a place where his star gave no light. When a wise man is placed in a ridiculous He was attracted beyond his orbit by position, the fools, as Goethe says, have the comets and meteors of the phenome­ their innings. We blunder the moment nal world, and he could say with Joseph we cease to reason and permit others to Roux : '• When I return from the coun­ reason for us. Mallarm^, who was king try of men I take nothing with me but in his own sphere, cut a poor figure at illusions and disillusions." Francis Grierson.

MR. KIPLING'S FIVE NATIONS.

A NEW volume of poetry from the hand him the gift of magical utterance, what, of a man of recognized power is like a after all, is the verdict which he brings message brought from a battlefield. in ? Better equipped than the rest of us One's chief interest is in learning how as to eye and mind and tongue, what has the battle is going. Whether the mes­ he to tell us of the world, and the soul, senger arrives on foot or on horseback, and the life of man in organized society ? whether he gasps his tidings in quick, This very old query asserts itself with breathless sentences, or weaves them into quiet persistence as one turns the pages elaborate parable and allegory, are of The Five Nations.' Here is verse merely matters of detail. The main written by one of the most widely known question is, Are we winning or losing ? authors of the English-speaking world. No doubt, whenever a poet makes a Many of these poems have been cabled fresh report upon human life, the manner in which he phrases his verdict demands ^ The Five Nations. By RUDYAKD KIPLINO. close scrutiny, because without that mas­ New York : Doubleday, Page & Co. 1903. Also in the Outward Bound Edition of Mr. tery of musical phrase he might almost Kipling's writings, Vol. XXI. New York: as well be inarticulate. But, granting Charles Serihner's Sons. 1903.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 844 Mr. Kipling's Five Nations. across the seas and discussed as events force, its occasional defects of taste and of international significance. They liave its frequent lapses into mere rhymed bois- been produced by an exceptionally inter­ terousness were easily forgiven. It is esting man. Winning his first successes true that these poems were curiously de­ as a journalist, and carrying something ficient, as a whole, in new felicities in the of the journalistic knack into almost all interpretation of Nature. They spoke his subsequent work, Mr. Kipling gained but little to the mind. Back of the eye fame at twenty-three, and has held it de­ that caught so avidly at many varieties servedly. His artistic resources are un­ of the human species, there was evident, questionable : in keenness of observation, in almost all of his many poems deal­ in technical knowledge of his chosen ing with alien races, a hard racial pride. fields, and in sheer myth-making imagi­ Yet The Seven Seas touched the unquiet nation, he leads the writers of his day. heart of youth. Its glorification of brute He has traveled greatly, and has written force was synchronous with a recrudes­ about men and animals and things, up cence of theories of " white man's " gov­ and down the globe, with an eagerness, ernment, the world over. Its vigorous a vividness, and a sincerity of conviction character-drawing, as in Tomlinson and that have carried him very far. He has in McAndrew's Hymn, pleased not only made easy conquest of the hearts of chil­ the secretly feeble literary folk who love dren, first with his wonderful Jungle the praise of action, but also the non-lit­ Books, where his best powers have had erary persons who would have been de­ their freest play, and latterly with the terred by such consummate character- delightful Just So Stories,^ which have studies as The Northern Farmer, or Era now taken their place in the long row Lippo Lippi. Finally, in depicting cer­ of volumes of the Outward Bound Edi­ tain moods and temperaments, as in the tion. It is needless to say that Mr. Kip­ Wanderlust or the homesickness of Man- ling belongs in the very front rank of dalay, the L'Envoi to Life's Handicap, living story-writers, and he has proved the Anchor Song and For to Admire, his capacity to write poems which in­ Mr. Kipling showed extraordinary psy­ stantly irritate or uplift a whole nation. chological insight and produced genuine poetry of the human heart. His earliest verse, indeed, was uncom­ monly barren, both in ideas and form. It All this rich achievement lingers in showed imitative dexterity in practicing the memoiy as one reads The Five Na­ upon the styles of many masters, and tions. Here is the same personality, little more. Among the works of even coloring every page. But has the author third-rate English poets it would be hard grown, either in wisdom or in stature? to find more consistently uninteresting The title of the volume indicates its po­ metrical experiments than those which litical drift. The London Spectator says : Mr. Kipling has chosen to preserve.^ " The name is in itself an act of imperial But before long came the Barrack-Room interpretation, and signifies that within Ballads of 1889-91, and The Seven Seas, our free empire stand the five free na­ revealing a maturer hand and the stamp tions of Canada, Australia, New Zea­ of a virile personality. Verse so chal­ land, South Africa, and ' the islands of lenging in its front, so novel in its rhyth­ the sea.' " Is the book mainly a clever mical patterns, so irresistible in its humor example of pamphleteering in verse, — and pathos, could not fail to make its way. a passionate defense of the Imperial In view of such incontestable positive England that now is, — or does it betray

^ Just So Stories. By RUDYARD KIPLING. ^ See his Early Verse. Vol. XVII. of the The Outward Bound Edition, Vol. XX. New Outward Bound Edition. York: Charles Seribner's Sons. 1903.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 3Ir. Kipling's Five Nations. 845 a prophetic soul dreaming of things to contains no poems of exceptional power. come when there shall be better watch­ For impassioned imagination, there are words for humanity than are to be found The Bell Buoy, and White Horses, and in militant Anglo-Saxonisra ? The Destroyers. A subtle and haunting The new volume opens with one of nostalgia lurks in The Song of Diego those dedicatory poems which have often Valdez, Chant-Pagan, The Feet of the proved the fundamental seriousness with Young Men, and Lichtenberg. Such which Mr. Kipling confronts his poetic praise of the virtue of discipline as Tlie task ; and it closes with the well-known White Man's Burden, such a savage Recessional of 1897. Between these political fable as The Truce of the Bear, limits there are examples of most of the such merry and picturesque sketching of types of verse with which the author has national types as Piet and Pharaoh and caught the ear of his generation. There the Sergeant would make The Five Na­ is little that exhibits new aspects of his tions a notable collection, even if it did genius, and those readers who have fol­ not close with the Recessional. Yet lowed his recent verse as printed in the upon a second and third reading some of periodicals will scarcely find in the score the old limitations of Mr. Kipling's verse or more of unpublished pieces anything disclose themselves. Despite the per­ to modify substantially their estimate of sonal ardor of the author, and the fact Mr. Kipling as a poet. Of advance in that he draws upon so many quarters of the technique of his art there is notlilng the globe for his subjects, his poems are to record. His command of verse has singularly restricted in range of interest. lain hitherto either in cunning modula­ They portray, after all, but a compara­ tions of rhythm or in the sheer swing and tively narrow segment of liuman experi­ crash of full-flung lines, rather than in ence. They are for the young, the rest­ purity of melody or richness of harmony. less, the physically aggressive. But some of the verses in The Five Na­ " He must ^o — go —• go away from here! tions are perversely unrhythmical, and On the other side the world he 's overdue." even unmetrical. Nor is tliis perversity Those lines are typical of their mood. or carelessness confined to poems like Surely no young fellow is worth much The Islanders, where the author was unless that luring song has at some time obviously composing with angry haste. sung itself into his heart and set his feet The measures borrowed from Swinburne to wandering ; but nevertlieless he is and Morris and Browning are handled worth little to the community until he has neither better nor worse than in Mr. outgrown it. The dare-devils, adven­ Kipling's other volumes. Old ballad turers, rough riders, free-footed pioneers, metres he can work his will with, as al­ have played a useful part in civilization, ways, and the technical skill of some of but their role is daily growing less signifi­ his choruses intended for music-hall ren­ cant. The people who stay at home and dering is masterly. In poems like The earn their bread by commonplace occu­ Bell Buoy and The Destroyers there is pations, who put a little money in the sav­ scarcely a muffled line, and the grave ings bank, and perhaps go to church on and noble movement of the Recessional Sunday, are the ones who really sway the is mated to the nobility of his theme. fortunes of the world. Mr. Kipling has Yet not to advance in such a subtle art very little to say either to these people as that of the poet is probably to decline, or of them. Men and women whose and it must be confessed that Mr. Kip­ lives are far spent, who love to brood ling's average performance in The Five over the past or to dream of a better fu­ Nations is disappointing. ture for the world, find comparatively This is not saying that the new volume little enjoyment in reading verse that is

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 846 Mr. Kipliuf/'s Five Nations. silent upon so many of the permanent Be that as it may, it is undeniable themes of great poetry. Save for a few that a poetical exposition of the com­ noteworthy exceptions, Mr. Kipling keeps plicated part which Anglo-Saxondom is resolutely and pertinaciously playing in the modern world calls for some qualities which Mr. Kipling does " slogf — slog — slogging " not possess. He understands the Neo­ along in step with lithic man and paints him with frank en­ joyment of his primal starkness. But " The -war-drum of the white man round the world." one suspects that he has neither the patience nor the insight to illuminate That tune is enlivening enough, no doubt, the ways of men in the infinitely com­ but it is far from touching any wide com­ plex paths of organized society. Aside pass of human emotions. from his interest in the one subject of The Five Nations must be viewed, in Imperial Federation, his political and short, as a brilliant apologia for the social theories have not advanced very British Empire, or at most for the " white far beyond the " beneficent whip " doc­ man." If one approaches it with pre­ trine of his master Carlyle. There is possessions in favor of its tenets, one nat­ material for literature, even here, and urally rejoices in the force and clever­ Mr. Kipling has demonstrated his skill ness of Mr. Kipling's argument. It is by making the most of it. But the true that, as an English critic pointed '• dog eat dog " theory of conduct, while out not long ago, the Laureate of Greater well adapted for such literary excursions Britain contents himself for the most Into the field of animal psychology as part with the mere fact of Imperialism Mr. Jack London has lately made in his without considering the deeper effects of Call of the Wild, breaks down in the Imperialism upon life and character. presence of the actual history of human Mr. Kipling would doubtless retort that society. It is too easy to be true. It this criticism is a sentimental one, that it leaves out of the reckoning too many deals with unknown future quantities, facts, to say nothing of that beatitude and that in the meantime such thorough which promises that the meek shall in- drilling of the weaker races as he cele­ nerlt the earth. brates in Pharaoh and the Sergeant and When Whitman attempted to state recommends in The White Man's Bur­ the criteria by which great national den deserves the honors of verse. In poetry is to be tested, he asked, among such a debate much depends upon the other queries, " Is the good old cause in national point of view. It is instructive it ? " To that question, however phrased, to note that some of the best minds upon one is bound to return after reading Mr. the Continent and among the Latin races Kipling's hymns of action. For — to say nothing of educated Orientals " Sidney's good old cause " — see in Mr. Kipling's Jingoism a men­ ace to true civilization rather than a bul­ meant to Whitman, as it has to so many wark of it.^ poets greater than either Whitman or ^ Notice, for example, the curiously sugges­ moindres, Hans I'Homme qui voidut Itreroi. Mais tive parallel drawn by the Vicomte de Vogii^ cette fois Robinson n'a plus sa Bible, I'ins^pa- in the Eevue de deux Mondes, May 1, 1901: rable amie retrouv^e aprfes le naufrage dans " Vingt fois, en lisant cette fiction [The Man la caisse du capitaine. II ne la consulte plus who Would be King] j'ai pens^ an Robinson sur les problfemes de conscience qui absorbaient Cruso^, au vieux livre anglais dont je disais un les meilleures facult^s de oes ames r^fl^chies. joiir ici qu'il expliquait toute I'expansion bri- L'homme babill^ de peaux de ch^vres a rev^tu tannique. L'affirmation de la Tolont^ anglaise I'uniforme khaki; sa religion, c'est I'imp^- et la plenitude du sens all^gorique ne sont pa^ rialisrae."

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Mr. Kipling's Five Nations. 847 Mr. Kipling, nothing less than the pro­ dozen eventful years that liave elapsed gress and freedom of the whole human since the publication of his previous vol­ race. " My theme is justice," exclaimed ume of verse have not modified, very es­ Wordsworth in proud defense of the sentially, Mr. Kipling's " gentleman-ad­ warmth of his pamphlet on the Conven­ venturer " attitude toward life. Never­ tion of Cintra, " and my voice is raised theless, there is at least evidence in the for mankind." But Mr. Kipling's theme new volume of a more kindly personal is never justice, except such justice as the feeling toward England's political foes. conquering Anglo-Saxon chooses to be­ And there is a humorous detached vision stow. His voice has never been raised of some flaws in the Englishman's scheme for mankind. He has no word for the op­ of things, which is more like the easy pressed. His answer to the proposal for raillery of Byron's Beppo than anything European disarmament was The Truce in recent poetry, and which hints of fu­ of the Bear. He celebrates war, not as ture growth. Mr. Kipling was once of the last argument of kings, but as the the opinion that the American's sense of only argument of republics; not as the humor would save him at the last. It necessary and therefore honorable police would be ungenerous not to give Mr. Kip­ work of the order-loving nations, but out ling himself the benefit of the same hope. of the naked lust of battle, or the boy­ His natural humor may be further en­ ish glee of riched by more humane and thoughtful experience. He will doubtless have op­ " Landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to portunity for wiser comprehension of them 'eathen kings.'' those who differ from him politically. To read him, after reading the politi­ Above all, he is dowered with an extraor­ cal poetry of Milton or Shelley, of Lowell dinary genius for the depiction of indi­ or Whittier, is to be conscious of a star­ vidual men, — brothers, though they be tling and radical difference, not merely at the ends of the earth, — and for en­ on the specific issue of human liberty, forcing the lesson learned by his troop­ but also in the general conception of ers in South Africa: -— life and destiny. Mr. Kipling's gospel " Why, Dawson, Galle, an' Montreal — Port is very simple. It is the Neolithic one Darwin — Timaru, of carrying a big stick, and the finest They 're only just across the road ! Good-bye poem he has ever written was inspired •— good luck to you ! by a mood of meditation — all too rare Good-bye, you bloomin' Atlases! You 've in him — upon the vast responsibilities taught us somethin' new : entailed upon the possessors of superior Tke world 's no bigger than a kraal. Good-bye physical force. — good luck to you ! " If one expects to hear in The Five It is through such gifts as these that Nations, therefore, any new message Mr. Kipling's poetry may yet — actu­ from that immemorial spiritual conflict ally, though perhaps quite unconsciously where men are struggling for knowledge — aid the good old cause, and further and happiness and the right to self-gov­ that better civilization in which his the­ ernment, he will listen in vain. The half- ories allow him to have such little faith. B. P.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 848 Books New and Old.

BOOKS NEW AND OLD.

PERSONAL ADVENTURES.

IT is a matter of common belief just by the numbers and showiness of its now, especially among those who do not neighbors. Surely people ought not, with­ often read essays, that the essay is pretty out fair investigation, to be persuaded much a thing of the past. There was, of that there is nothing of account now be­ course, a day of glory for it: there was ing done in this field. even a day when it held the top of the Here, for instance, are three volumes market, or nearly that. But this was a of essays, all quite unlike as to theme good vague while ago. Very few peo­ and treatment, all genuine contributions ple, we are assured, try to write essays to literature, all ordained in the nature nowadays, and when they do the results of things for a success of appreciation by are not worth much. Critical essays comparatively few readers. The news­ commonly deal with books and authors papers and " critical " organs will have that everybody knows about, or else with something brief and affable to say of books and authors that nobody wants to them ; but they will not be much talked know about. What do we care for John about either there or elsewhere. Never­ Doe's opinion of Shakespeare, or Rich­ theless, they will make their place and ard Roe's remarks on Lodovico Castelve- hold it. tro ? As for the discursive essay, it is The three chapters of Mr. Walkley's folly, at this day of the world, to adopt book ^ were originally delivered as lec­ such a medium for creative writing. tures before the Royal Institution, but What's the matter with the novel ? they bear few marks of the platform. Tliere is your true modern vehicle for The writer's theme is primarily the crit­ eloquence, or sentiment, or philosophy ; icism of current plays, but his conclusions and " something doing " besides. are of broad application to all criticism. The first paper, on The Ideal Spectator, has to do, somewhat strictly, with the con­ In a commercial sense, the essay does, ditions of the theatre. The drama, says just now, lie between the devil and the Mr. Walkley, difi'ers from other forms of deep sea, the special article and the novel. literary art in addressing itself directly Few American periodicals have room for to a crowd. Further, " a crowd forms a it. In the publisher's catalogue it holds new entity, with a mind and character a place of dignified obscurity next door of its own. . . . The qualities in which to the equally sequestered item of verse. the members of a crowd differ from one It is not advertised in the newspapers or another disappear, are mutually can­ displayed in book-shop windows : a back­ celled, while the qualities which they handed compliment, if one chooses, to the have in common are intensified by con­ incorruptible quality of the audience it tact. The qualities in which men dift'er is destined to reach. To the quality and are principally, of course, the conscious constancy of that audience, in fact, the elements of character, the fruit of edu­ essay owes its continued and healthy ex­ cation, of varying hereditary conditions, istence. Not yet has it been absorbed in and the intelligence. The qualities, on the novel or displaced by the special arti­ 1 Dramatic Criticism. By A. B. WALKLEY. cle, though its quiet merits have been London : John Murray ; New York : E. P. Dut- somewhat obscured to the ordinary eye tou & Co. 1903.

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