Rudyard Kipling From a Cartoon by W. Nicholson[ToList]
Finally Kipling reached London in September, 1889, and after several months of discouragement, he induced a large publishing house to bring out Plain Tales From the Hills. It scored an immediate success. Like Byron, the unknown young writer awoke to find himself famous; magazine editors clamored for his stories at fancy prices and publishers eagerly sought his work. It may be said to Kipling's credit that he did not utilize this opportunity to make money out of his sudden reputation. He doubtless worked over many old sketches, but he put his best into whatever he gave the public. He married the sister of Wolcott Balestier, a brilliant American who became very well known in London as a publishers' agent, and after Balestier's death Kipling moved to his wife's old home in Brattleboro, Vermont, where he built a fine country house; but constant trouble with a younger brother of his wife caused him to abandon this American home and go back to England, where he set up his lares at Rottingdean, in Surrey. There he has remained, averaging a book a year, until now he has over twenty-five large volumes to his credit. In 1907 Kipling was given the Nobel prize "for the best work of an idealist tendency."
In reading Kipling it is best to begin with some of the tales written in his early life, for these he has never surpassed in vigor and interest. Take, for instance, Without Benefit of Clergy, The Man Who Was, The Drums of the Fore and Aft, The Man Who Would Be King and Beyond the Pale. These stories all deal with Anglo-Indian life, two with the British soldier and the other three with episodes in the lives of British officials and adventurers.
The Man Who Would Be King, the finest of all Kipling's tales of Anglo-Indian life and adventure, is the story of the fatal ambition of Daniel Dravot, told by the man who accompanied him into the wildest part of Afghanistan. Daniel made the natives believe that he was a god and he could have ruled them as a king had he not foolishly become enamored of a native beauty. This girl was prompted by a native soothsayer to bite Dravot in order to decide whether he was a god or merely human. The blood that she drew on his neck was ample proof of his spurious claims and the two adventurers were chased for miles through a wild country. When captured Daniel is forced to walk upon a bridge, the ropes of which are then cut, and his body is hurled hundreds of feet down upon the rocks. The story of the survivor, who escaped after crucifixion, is one of the ghastliest tales in all literature.
Other tales that Kipling has written of Indian life are scarcely inferior to these in strange, uncanny power. One of the weirdest relates the adventures of an army officer who fell into the place where those who have been legally declared dead, but who have recovered, pass their lives. As a picture of hell on earth it has never been surpassed. Another of Kipling's Indian tales that is worth reading is William the Conqueror, a love story that has a background of grim work during the famine year.
One of Kipling's claims to fame is that he has drawn the British soldier in India as he actually lives. His Soldiers Three—Mulvaney, the Irishman, Ortheris, the cockney, and Learoyd, the Yorkshireman—are so full of real human nature that they delight all men and many women. Mulvaney is the finest creation of Kipling, and most of his stories are brimful of Irish wit. Of late years Kipling has written some fine imaginative stories, such as The Brushwood Boy, They and An Habitation Enforced. He has also revealed his genius in such tales of the future as With the Night Mail, a remarkably graphic sketch of a voyage across the Atlantic in a single night in a great aeroplane. Another side of Kipling's genius is seen in his Jungle Stories, in which all the wild animals are endowed with speech. Mowgli, the boy who is suckled by a wolf, is a distinct creation, and his adventures are full of interest. Compare these stories with the work of Thompson-Seton and you get a good idea of the genius of Kipling in making real the savage struggle for life in the Indian jungle.
Of Kipling's long novels The Naulakha ranks first for interest of plot, but Kim is the best because of its series of wonderful pictures of East Indian life and character. Captains Courageous is a story of Cape Cod fishing life, with an improbable plot but much good description of the perils and hardships of the men who seek fortune on the fishing banks.
As a poet Kipling appeals strongly to men who love the life of action and adventure in all parts of the world. In his Departmental Ditties he has painted the life of the British soldier and the civilian in India, and his Danny Dever, his Mandalay and others which sing themselves have passed into the memory of the great public that seldom reads any verse unless it be the words of a popular song. The range of his verse is very wide, whether it is the superb imagery in The Last Chantey or the impressive Calvanism of McAndrew's Hymn. His Recessional, of course, is known to everyone. It is one of the finest bits of verse printed in the last twenty years.