LAND AND WATER 
August 21, 1915. 
he was born 
but the last -^av of the year 1865 
" between the ptahus and the sea." Heaven with both 
hands dowered him at Kj birtli. It placed within his 
breaiit the genius of a |)oet ; but, greater gift still, it 
cradled him in a home where the genius of parenthood 
shone brilliantly. Kipling would have won fame under 
any circumstances, but he never would have become the 
Laureate of Empire, so acclaimed by all men Overseas 
and by all who have toiled and suffered O' erseas, were 
it not for the golden lessons which were taught to him 
under his father's roof-tree. 
The miraculous survival of the Jewish Nation 
through all the centuries is attributed in no small degree 
to the I'ifth Commandment, " which is the first com- 
mandment with promise "; but we are apt to overlook 
tliat the first great Christian writer, himself a Jew by 
birth and upbringing, St. Paul, while commending this 
commandment, added a corollary to it : 
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this 13 right. 
And ye fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring 
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 
So the Christian ideal of home is one where the parent is 
both honoured and honouring, and the child is both 
obedient and gladly andspontaneously renders obedience. 
But in that " we are neither children nor Gods, but men 
in a world of men," this ideal can never be approached 
unless there is freedom and also trust between the two 
generations and unless the parent is prepared to practise 
that abnegation of self which it is human nature for him 
to preach to the young and is willing to let a double por- 
tion of his spirit be upon the sons without waiting for 
the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. It was 
in such a home that Kipling spent his latter boyhood 
and early manhood. 
In his Preface to " Life's Handicap " he mentions 
that " a few (of these tales), but these are the very best, 
my father gave me." The italics are ours. And in the 
bpening chapter of " Kim " he has sketched, with that 
delicate sympathy and reverence which only deep aiTec- 
don can inform, his father as the Curator of the Wonder 
House— his father, the late Mr. Lockwood Kipling, who 
m his day had the reputation of knowing more about 
India than any living European. And his love for his 
mother, ' the wittiest woman in India," and her love for 
him, have followed the poet to dizzier heights, to blacker 
depths than ever he foresaw when he penned his touching 
Mother o* Mine." Her love has kept his head steady 
and his feet straight amid the giddy peaks of fame: her 
tears have washed the sting and poison from the wounds 
which loss and disappointment deal; her prayers have 
T^^?u ^"l "" °'^' ^°/^' '" ^'^ P"'"« *^e can compress 
for the advantage of his own son all that life has con- 
tained for him-its goodness and its greatness, its ills 
and Its httlenes^into that one noble |oem " If " 
In that Lahore household, where, as we mav rather 
from the Jungle Books, the Law pre^ailerSrit o 
which was Obey, the Seer, while hardly more E a 
of°^EmTre':.htr "' ''^ ^^ ^^ ^-med^^ dream 
or iimpire, which, as was only reasonable wa<: aft^r fK» 
fashion of his home. He had^beeTenabled to pu 7^^^^^^ 
to do. His dedication of " Soldiers ThreP " «„ ? 
ends in this address to'his mother : 
The long bazaar wiU praise, but fchou- 
And in . ■ ""^ lieart>-have I done well? 
inaugu"rL\Toror ' the'comm "^ ^T.'''' -""^ ^ ^^^ 
should be read in fc ^""^'"""^ca'th of Australia (it 
here), the Yol X ^"^'''e^v; it is too long to quote 
Mother: "TtSlb^eT" '"'""f ^^^ ^'^ Queen? h 5 
Our crown for al.^?.*'^^^'-^" ^^ Our crowning to hold 
g«t. He, the young son, had willingly 
and gladly laid at his mother's feet the " rude figures of 
a rough-hewn race," careless of other praise, so long as 
she approved, and he believed the same sentiment domi- 
nated Australia's respect for England and voiced it. 
A Nation spoke to a Nation, 
A Queen sent word to a Throne, 
" Daughter am I in ray mother's house 
Bub mistress in my own." 
Again, the same home idea, but this time it is Canada, 
And so through all his writings his faith in the love and 
strength of the home is undimmed, yet he never loses 
sight of the everlasting verity, which is true equallv of 
individuals and nations, of households and empires, that 
sentiment and self-interest are the woof and warp of 
human life. If not interwoven, the threads are fluttered 
and torn by every wind that blows; but let the shuttle be 
plied with an honest hand and lo ! a texture which with- 
stands the roughest weather. 
It were an easy thing, were the space available, to 
quote the many sayings of Rudyard Kipling that have 
been fulfilled in these later days. Can any critic who 
sneered at " The Islanders " a dozen years ago read it 
through at this hour without remorse?" 
Fenced by your careful fathers, ringed by your leaden seas, 
-l^ng did ye wake in quiet and long lie down at ease ■ 
Till ye said of Strife, " What is it ? " of the Sword, " It is 
far from our ken "; 
Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy of your 
armed men. 
Perhaps even more remarkable and more apposite 
Jf -r t^ King's Task," a ballad that is published in 
1 raffles and Discoveries " ; it should be read in full : 
Our pride was before the battle : our sloth ere we lifted a 
spear. 
But now we are purged of that fever— cleansed by the letting 
of blood. ^ 
Something leaner of body— something keener of mood. 
Then there is that noble epitaph on General Joubert, 
which was written during the South African War, and 
which contains these prophetic lines : 
Later shall rise a people, sane and great. 
Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one; 
Telling old battles over without hate — 
Not least his name shall pass from sire to son. 
The Dreamer has never been, and never will be a 
favourite with his brethren. He comes to his triumph 
either through the long processes of years when he him- 
self is gathered to his fathers or else through heroic trials 
which test his words in strong fires. Thereupon he dis- 
appears if his dreams do not come true. But with 
Kudyard Kipling they have come true, terribly true, 
splendidly true in this day of Armageddon. 
„ Jis conception of the Empire as one house, where 
the Head is honoured and honours, and the children fuU 
grown free to go their own ways, are glad to return with 
ttie gilt— Love without promise or fee "—is the ri^ht 
conception. It has withstood the onset; the pillars have 
not fallen. It will endure. The new Word, " Let us 
be One that aforetimes ran " whispering o'er the 
waste of the ultimate slime," and at which our enemies 
mocked and jeered, now rises full-voiced to the dome of 
^T^u\'^^'T\''' ^^ ^^"^ '^h^o"^ itself by the Sons 
of the Blood who have surrendered their own lives for 
tL^t ^If- ^°"°"'' ^J '^^' ^"^'^d ^hom they call 
Mother. Kipling to-day enters into his kingdom, and 
we can salute him best in his own words : 
Drawbridge let fall, it's the Lord of us all, 
1 he Dreamer whose dreams come true. 
16 
RIGHT WAY TO FILL A PEN. 
On page 28* of the special supplement in last week's 
number, a pnnter s error shows an illustration of the filUn^ 
^L w.^^"" 'J'^'T '^^''" ^"^^^ self-filling pen with the pen 
and bottle upside down. It is hardly necessary to point on\> 
iJ'v^°!-****'"P**^ ^ ^ ^^^ P«° i° ^^^ ^ay t^e results 
would be disastrous The correct way, of course, is to stand 
the bottle on a table, dip the pen in the ink. and raise and 
Zlli^f If'^K ^T'- ^''^ "^Sard to the merits of the 
pen Itself it has already won its place in public favour. 
