"Critics."
"No critics?"
"No," and for the first time the pipe was removed for a moment. "A critic is one who only exists as such in his own imagination."
"But surely you must consider that Rud has done some great work?" persisted Bok.
"Creditable," came once more.
"You think him capable of great work, do you not?" asked Bok. For a moment there was silence. Then:
"He has a certain grasp of the human instinct. That, some day, I think, will lead him to write a great work."
There was the secret: the constant holding up to the son, apparently, of something still to be accomplished; of a goal to be reached; of a higher standard to be attained. Rudyard Kipling was never in danger of unintelligent laudation from his safest and most intelligent reader.
During the years which intervened until his passing away, Bok sought to keep in touch with Father Kipling, and received the most wonderful letters from him. One day he enclosed in a letter a drawing which he had made showing Sakia Muni sitting under the bo-tree with two of his disciples, a young man and a young woman, gathered at his feet. It was a piece of exquisite drawing. "I like to think of you and your work in this way," wrote Mr. Kipling, "and so I sketched it for you." Bok had the sketch enlarged, engaged John La Farge to translate it into glass, and inserted it in a window in the living-room of his home at Merion.
After Father Kipling had passed away, the express brought to Bok one day a beautiful plaque of red clay, showing the elephant's head, the lotus, and the swastika, which the father had made for the son. It was the original model of the insignia which, as a watermark, is used in the pages of Kipling's books and on the cover of the subscription edition.