At the anniversary banquet of the Royal Academy, in London, May 5, Rudyard Kipling responded to the toast of "Literature." In that lean English of his, with all its evidence of fine condition, he made plain, as he understands it, the meaning of literature and its relation to life. It is the story of the tribe, told, not by the men of action, who are dumb, but by the masterless men who possess the magic of the necessary words.
We quote the address from the London Times:
There is an ancient legend which tells us that when a man first achieved a most notable deed he wished to explain to his tribe what he had done. As soon as he began to speak, however, he was smitten with dumbness, he lacked words, and sat down.
Then there arose—according to the story—a masterless man, one who had taken no part in the action of his fellow, who had no special virtues, but afflicted—that is the phrase—with the magic of the necessary words. He saw, he told, he described the merits of the notable deed in such a fashion, we are assured, that the words "became alive and walked up and down in the hearts of all his hearers."
Thereupon the tribe, seeing that the words were certainly alive, and fearing lest the man with the words would hand down untrue tales about them to their children, took and killed him. But later they saw that the magic was in the words, not in the man.
We have progressed in many directions since the time of this early and destructive criticism, but so far we do not seem to have found a sufficient substitute for the necessary word as the final record to which all achievement must look.
Even to-day, when all is done, those who have done it must wait until all has been said by the masterless man with the words. It is certain that the overwhelming bulk of those words will perish in the future as they have perished in the past; it is true that a minute fraction will continue to exist, and by the light of these words, and by that light only, will our children be able to judge of the phases of our generation. Now, we desire beyond all things to stand well with our children, but when our story comes to be told we do not know who will have the telling of it.
Too Close to the Tellers.
We are too close to the tellers; there are many tellers, and they are all talking together; and even if we knew them we must not kill them. But the old and terrible instinct which taught our ancestors to kill the original story-teller warns us that we shall not be far wrong if we challenge any man who shows signs of being afflicted with the magic of the necessary words.
May not this be the reason why, without any special legislation on its behalf, literature has always stood a little outside the law as the one calling that is absolutely free—free in the sense that it needs no protection?