RUDYARD KIPLING.

Shannon News, 25 July 1924, Page 1

RUDYARD KIPLING.

' LAUREATE OF THE EMPIRE. THE MAGIC OF HIS VERSE. OPENED ENGLAND'S EYES. "Although he is not, and now never will be, Poet Laureate, Kipling is undoubtedly the laureate of the British people," said Mr. J. W. Shaw, M.A., who at the Grafton Library last evening gave a very fine appreciation of

Kipling's work as the man that made

the British Empire recognise itself. The lecturer reminded his large audience of the fact we are apt to forget,

that thirty years ago England did mot care a farthing about the Empire; in

fact, people did not know or care whether there was such a thing as the Empire. Then Kipling began to sing his rousing songs, and the race began to realise the si 'glorious past, the stlill more glorious present, and —if people only had the courage—even more glorious future of the British Empire. At one time —that was when Queen Victoria shut herself up after the

death of the Prince there was

very little between England and a Republic, said Mr, Shaw, and then came the marvellous change, a change for which Mr. Kipling's trumpet" of Im-

perialism was largely responsible. The Queen became the symbol of the British Empire, the British people, and evolution culminated in the glorious celebrations of 1897, her Jubilee year, when Uhe children from the ends of th e earth gathered under the old roof tree in that dear England for which its children, no matter ini what part of the earth they happened to be born, had such a wonderful affection. Scotsman though he was, Mr. Shaw confessed lio a somewhat indefinable but intense love of England, with her greeni fields, her beautiful' old places, and her wooded knolls—fit home for a great and courageous people! KIPLING'S YOUTH. Rapidly, but with deft touches, Mr. Shaw traced Kipling's early days, up to the age of five, in India, where he unconsciously imbibed the idea of the ruling race, with its concomitant burden of responsibility fo r tine welfare of ! the subject peoples and then his school days at Portsmouth, where he grew up under the system by which English youths were trained to toke their part in the burden of Empire. Mr. Shaw frankly admitted that Kipling in some moods was almost distasteful to him now—when he looked for something that spoke from heart to heart, and was met only with the noise and clang of the cymbalsbut Kipling was essentially tihe poet of youth, the cocksureness and confidence of youth, afraid of nothing:, and abounding in energy. And Mr. Shaw further admitted that he did not like "Stalky and Company,", in which the boys were too clever and the masters too gullible, but still, the thing behind "Stalky and Company' (which dealt with Kipling's old school) was the training of youths to play, not for their their own hand, but for the form, the team, the school, and then in a wider sense the Empire. The boys learned that before they could command they must obey. Self-control, self-knowledge anid consecration—that was the meaning of it, and even if the boys did not imbibe much "learning" they had learned a great lesson. It was that school tihat set the seal on Kipling's character, and when he went back to India, between sixteen and seventeen years of age, he began to see what the Empire meant. He then began to put his glowing thoughts in the ringing verse that at last opened the eyes of England and the British people to their glorious heritage. Kipling's work as missionary of Empire culminated, as Mr. Shaw said, in the jubilee celebrations of the old Queen, and while the lecturer admitted that the realisation of the Empire might have happened without him, still Kipling was the most individual figure of the Victorian age. The fact of the British Empire was now so obvious, and we had grown so familiar witih it that we were apt to forget the stupendous part Kipling had played in waking up England to the real meaning of the spread of he r sons to every quarter of the earth.

BLEMISHES. Mr. Shaw was not by any means blind to some of Kipling's faults, his jingoistic lapse and such blemishes as the reference to "the lesser breeds without the law," in t(he otherwise fine "Recessional," and while admitting that sometimes Kipling failed to appeal to certain serious moods, still all the old magic was there, and in some ways—his songs of the English and of the sea, for instance—Kipling had never been surpassed. Yea, the magic was stil tOiere! Mr. Shaw showed his enthusiasm by the keen relish with which he gave the illustrative extracts from Kipling's poems.

The lecture was not by any means critical, nor analytic, and Mr. Shaw dealt almost entirely with Kipling's poetry, but he tihrew many interesting sidelights on what went to make up the man, and reminded one that when he was at school at Portsmouth, Kipling was brought under the influence of a Puritanical old aunt, who made him imbibe a great deal of the Old Testament. Mr. Shaw traced everywhere in Kipling's work the rhythm and swing and imagery of the Bible stories, which were singularly adapted to the burden of the message he felt

h e had to "deliver to the English people. - -

By well-chosen extracts, Mr. Shaw vividly illustrated Kipling's magic mastery of words, as for instance in the exquisite pictures of places he paints in "Buy My English Posies," with its panorama of the Empirejust a few lines to each place, but lines of perfect beauty. In addition to the numerous extracts read by Mr. Shaw himself, the lecture was further illustrated by Kipling items by Miss Ver'a Ziman, Mr. Duncan Black, Mr. E. Bond, and'Mir.'A. Jackson, Miss Ormond acting as accompanist. Mr. S. Irwin Crookes prer sided over an audience that filled the hall to its fullest capacity. The lecture was one of those in connection with the Grafton Library winter course.