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CONTENTS PAGE NOTES—J. P. COLLINS ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 RUDYARD KIPLING—MAJOR-GENERAL IAN HAY BEITH, C.B.E., M.C 3 IN MEMORIAM, MRS. ALICE MACDONALD FLEMING—FLORENCE MACDONALD, M.B.E 7 "TRIX"—HILTON BROWN ... ... ... ... ... ... 9 BOYHOOD DAYS RECALLED—THE LATE NELSON DOUBLEDAY 10 COULD IT BE BATEMAN'S? ... ... ... ... ... ... 11 KIPLING AND FRANCE—PART IV—BASIL M. BAZLEY ... 13 COL. C. H. MILBURN—DR. ALFRED COX ... ... ... 15 LETTER BAG ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 16 THE KIPLING SOCIETY SALES DEPARTMENT POSTCARDS : LIST OF MEMBERS : Burwash or Kipling's Grave. Extra copies for members 1d. each or 9d. per dozen. only, 6d. KIPLING PENCILS : JOURNALS : 2d. each or 1/9 per dozen. Extra copies for members only, 1/- each. Special prices which may be obtained from the Secretary, apply however BOOK PLATES : to those numbers which are 1d. each. nearly out of print. All the above are sent post free. Correspondence should be addressed to— THE HON. SECRETARY THE KIPLING SOCIETY 98, GOWER STREET LONDON, W.C.l. — Tel.: Euston 7117 — THE KIPLING JOURNAL published quarterly by THE KIPLING SOCIETY Vol. XVI. No. 89 APRIL, 1949 Notes IAN HAY'S LECTURE. some obituary notices of the sort THERE were many points for that appear in this issue are no more mutual congratulation about the consolation than the ceremonial splen- annual autumn meeting of the dours and " noble ossuaries " of old Society, as Miss Macdonald suggests in sententious Sir Thomas Browne. But a graceful note to the Editor. There they serve to awaken memories from was a fifty-fifty balance between the the pages of this Journal, where names sexes ; the talk was preceded (or like Fleming and Milburn are solid sampled) by a most delectable tea; guarantee for good Kiplingiana. In and our President, Field-Marshal Lord the case of that vivacious and dainty Wavell, made everybody feel at home. soul, Mrs Alice Fleming (Kipling's Also the surroundings might well be sister, Trix) it is no slight tribute to described in Tennysonian vein as R. K. that his fame has so far eclipsed breathing the calm of Vere de Vere, her and all those around him. for it was in the large drawing-room of We members of the Society in that Kensingtonian hotel where one London must always remember her recalls pleasant celebrations years ago. delightful freshets of recollection, de- Speaking easily, as he did, from the livered with half-surprise and pleasure advantage of a sheaf of loose notes, at her own temerity, and her ventur- Major-General Ian Hay Beith took us ing on further escapades of retrospec- roving through a storied Avalon, not tion with the same half-titter over merely of the poet's schooldays and again. I said to her once, after one of Westward Ho, but through all the chief our meetings, that she seemed to me passages and triumphs of his career. born for something better than books Personally, I relished his furtive and spooks; and then with an touches of disagreement in matters of admonitory finger, she remarked that politics, and still more, the crumbs we one genius in the family was surely were spared of intimacies gathered in a enough. I told her without insincerity certain private post-war club which how much pleasure (and very much the lecturer had shared with the poet more promise) I had derived from her behind the hush-hush of velvet cur- half-forgotten novel, " A Pinchbeck tains and world strategy. But where Goddess," especially the girlish con- he had to touch on the back-draught fidences of the early chapters. Besides, of policy, especially the die-hard there are the glimpses of landscape sort of years ago, I bethought me of the beauty and glory like Madeline's characteristic way in which R. K. vision across the desert by night, as championed his old friends, Jameson seen from the moonlit deck of a liner in and Rhodes, in the days of slump and the Suez Canal, during the intervals of vilification. a passengers' dance. One sentence (On a later page, the first part of the alone is worth quoting:—- lecture is reproduced, and the con- cluding part will appear in the next " A string of camels, roped nose to number of the Journal). tail, festooned like a decorative frieze against the pale sky; the tall, " RUD " AND SISTER TRIX. soft-footed creatures looped along The hand of the reaper is officiously with the leisurely, reluctant shuffle busy in the winter season, and hand- that has never willingly quickened 2 THE KIPLING JOURNAL April, 1949 since the slow descent from Mount Long Island, that these death-notices Ararat." were dispatched, and it was there that Nelson Doubleday had concentrated so Nor need we indulge any suspicions many branch enterprises which in of a fraternal touch in this haunting 1947 brought the firm's total pro- picture. We have only to realise that duction of publications to over thirty she, too, was transparently the child of millions. After which, it is good to a master-artist, craftsman, and ob- draw one's breath, and thank the server, John Lockwood Kipling. friends who have sent this budget of interesting reprint, including Mr. Paul A JUST-SO LEGEND. Vernon a well-known American reader, By the way, there is an interesting and our good founder, Mr J. H. C. attribution with Kipling interest in the Brooking. news obituaries of Mr Nelson Double- day, chairman of the U.S. publishing firm with whom he long had such R. K. AMERICANA. extremely friendly dealings. The de- Other Kiplingiana that surge into ceased, as a few enthusiasts may attention include Sir Stephen Allen's know, printed a foreword to a boxed scholarly lecture around that favourite illustrated edition of the Jungle Books yarn, " The Church That Was at last August, in which he told how, as Antioch " (to appear in the Journal a child, he grew interested in a story later), and one that must have given in St. Nicholas explaining how the the profoundest satisfaction to the whale got his tiny throat. Aware members of the Auckland Branch that his father knew the author, he (N.Z.). Here one may add a word asked if Mr. Kipling might be induced of acknowledgment to the " New to write more stories in this vein, York Times Book Review," for print- to put into a book. Father recom- ing a casual reminder of some of mended young Hopeful to write him- the unnoted workers who go to make self, and couched in careful and. up the populations of bailiwicks and approved schoolboy language, the continents alike, all the world over. letter went. But even at that early It reprints a few lines of dialogue and stage, there was the demon of business descriptive from the Letters of at work, and young Doubleday gained Travel, and then leaves these non- an easy promise that if the idea came to descripts to relapse into oblivion, anything, he should have " a penny " silent, indirect of speech, and im- (a cent.) for every copy sold." As the penetrable." The cutting comes from Just So stories since have sold over our esteemed friend Mr. Carl Naumburg, half a million copies in the U.S.A. the Society's Secretary for the U.S.A. alone, this made a modest addition Another western item contributed by to that youngster's income for life. our member Captain Brock, (H.M.S. Phoenicia, stationed at Malta) con- IN NEW ENGLAND. sists of an interesting excerpt from the Nelson Doubleday was not only Vancouver Daily Province. In it an proud of this early evidence of a excellent and welcome photo is re- sound life interest in the firm's con- produced showing Kipling visiting cerns, but for many a year he arranged Vancouver about 1889 for the first a succession of first-class fishing and time. It shows him slim, graceful, shy, hunting parties in New England, and deferential. He stands smiling, whenever R.K. happened to be in the with his bowler hat raised in a gloved western world. Moreover, he listened hand, and his moustache still has an to the poet reading original verses elegant curl which was to disappear in which, to his regret, were never to see his maturity. He stands alongside his the light; and when Kipling lay ill friend, tall and stately, the city in New York in 1899, it was Mr. solicitor, the late A. St. G. Hamersley, Doubleday's pride and pleasure to take and it would be a pity to encroach on the him invalid soup and other creature refreshing reminiscences the article consolations at a useful time. It was contains,—one which we hope to from Oyster Bay, that pleasant water- republish later. side resort on the " inside " shore of J. P. COLLINS. April, 1949 THE KIPLING JOURNAL 3 Rudyard Kipling By MAJOR-GENERAL TAN HAY BEITH, C.B.E., M.C. [The first part of an address to Mem- that we had become the controllers, bers of the Kipling Society in London.'] for good or ill, of an Empire—an OU will not expect me this Empire which, to quote a cynical evening to attempt the impos- remark of the time, appeared to have Y sible ; in other words, to give been acquired in a fit of absence of you a complete picture of Rudyard mind, and to have been governed Kipling—of the man himself, of his ever since by a policy of salutary work, or of his exact place in Litera- neglect. ture—within the time at our disposal. That comment contained a lot of All I can do will be to give you truth.

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