Rudyard Kipling Read online

  II

  SIMLA

  Mr Kipling's Indian stories fall into three groups. There are (1) thetales of Simla, (2) the Anglo-Indian tales, and (3) the tales of nativeIndia. There is also _Kim_, which is more--much more--than a tale ofIndia.

  Mr Kipling's Indian stories necessarily tend to fill a disproportionateamount of space. They are of less account than their number or theattention they have received would seem to imply. Their discussion inthis and the two following chapters will be more of a political than aliterary discussion. Mr Kipling as journalist and very efficientcolourman in words has made much of India in his time. He hasperceived in India a subject susceptible of being profitably workedupon. Here was a vast continent, the particular concern of theEnglish, where all kinds of interesting work was being done, wherestories grew too thickly for counting, and where there was, ready tothe teller's eye, a richness and diversity of setting which beggaredthe most eager penmanship. Moreover, this continent was virtuallyuntouched in the popular literature of the day. Naturally Mr Kiplingmade full use of his opportunity. He did not write of India becauseIndia was essential to his genius, but because he was shrewd enough torealise that nothing could better serve the purpose of a young authorthan to exploit his first-hand acquisition of an inexhaustible store offresh and excellent material. India was annexed by Mr Kipling attwenty-two for his own literary purposes. He was not born to interpretIndia, nor does he throw his literary heart and soul into the business.When, in the Indian stories, we meet with pages sincerely inspired wediscover that their inspiration has very little to do with India and agreat deal to do with Mr Kipling's impulse to celebrate the work of theworld, and even more to do with his impulse to escape the intellectualcasuistry of his generation in a region where life is simple andintense. These aspects of his work will be more clearly revealed at alater stage. For the moment we are considering the Indian tales simplyas tales of India; and from this point of view they obviously belong tothe journalist rather than to the author who has helped to make theEnglish short story respectable. Mr Kipling simply gets out of Indiathe maximum of literary effect as a teller of tales. India, forexample, is mysterious. Mr Kipling exploits her mystery competentlyand coolly, making his points with the precision, clarity and force ofone to whom the enterprise begins and ends as an affair of technicaladequacy. The point is made with equal ability that India is notwithout peril and difficulty ruled and administered by the sahibs; orthat India has a complicated history; or that India is thickly peopled.Mr Kipling in his Indian tales makes the most of his talent forobserving things, always with a keen eye for their effective literaryemployment. His Indian tales are descriptive journalism of a highquality; and, being journalism, their matter and their doctrine havehit hard the attention of their particular day.

  This reduces us to the necessity of considering not so much their formand quality as the ideas and doctrines they contain--a barren task butnecessary in order to clear away many misconceptions with regard to MrKipling's work. Regarded as literature, Mr Kipling's Indian tales aremainly of note as preparing in him that enthusiasm for the work of theworld which, later, was to inspire his greatest pages; as finallyleading him in _Kim_ to a door whereby he was able to pass into theregion of pure fancy where alone he is supremely happy, and asprompting in him the instinct to simplify which urged him into thejungle and into the minds of children. But all this has very little todo with India. So long as we are dealing with Mr Kipling's Indianstories as in themselves finished and intrinsic studies of India, weremain only in the suburbs of Mr Kipling's merit as an author. TheSimla tales are not more than a skilful employment of a literaryconvention which Mr Kipling did not inherit. The Anglo-Indian andnative tales are the not less skilful work of a young newspaper manbreaking into a storehouse of new material. We are interested firstlyin Mr Kipling's craft as a technician, as one who makes the most of histheme deliberately and self-consciously; and secondly in Mr Kipling'spoint of view, in the impressions and ideas he has collected concerningthe country of which he writes. Until we arrive at _The Day's Work_ weshall be mainly occupied in clearing the ground of impertinentprejudices concerning Mr Kipling's temperament and politics. Forthough the Indian and soldier tales are as literature not impregnableto criticism, they can at any rate be rescued from those who haveannexed or repudiated them from motives which have little to do withtheir literary value.

  We will begin with the Simla tales.

  Characteristically the author who began virtually at the end of hiscareer--proclaiming himself a finished virtuoso at the start--enteredinto prose with a volume of tales, radiating from Simla, which betrayqualities that are usually associated with the later rather than withthe early work of an author. _Plain Tales from the Hills_ number moreSimla stories to the square page than any other volume of Mr Kipling.Now Mr Kipling's Simla stories are the least important, but in someways the most significant of all the stories he wrote. They begin andthey end in sheer literary virtuosity. We feel in reading Mr Kipling'sstudies of the social world at Simla that he had no intuitive call towrite them; that they are exercises in craft rather than genuineinspirations. Mrs Hawksbee stands for nothing in Mr Kipling'sachievement save only for his power to create an illusion of realityand enthusiasm by sheer finish of style. She is not a creation. Sheis only the best possible example of the clever sleight-of-hand of anaccomplished artificer. She is in literary fiction cousin to thewitty, flirtatious ladies of the modern English theatre. Herconversation is delightful, but it belongs to nobody. It does not evenbelong to her author. Mrs Hawksbee talks as all well-dressed womentalk in the best books. She does it with a volubility andresourcefulness which almost disguises the fact that she lives only byhanging desperately to the end of her author's pen; but she cannotdeceive us always. Mr Kipling does not really believe in Mrs Hawksbee.He has no real sympathy or knowledge of the social undercrust where thetangle of three is a constant theme. The talk of Mrs Hawksbee and hercircle is derived. Its conduct is fashionable light comedy in anIndian setting.

  Simla really does not deserve to be known outside the Indian Empire.It is a comparatively cool place whither Indian soldier and civilianssend their wives in the hot weather and whither they retire themselvesunder medical advice. It is not unlike any other warm and idle city ofrest where there is every kind of expensive amusement provided for amigratory population. Mr Kipling has failed to make Simla interesting,because Simla is Biarritz and Monte Carlo or any place which in fictionis frequented by people who behave naughtily and enjoy themselves, andin real life is frequented by the upper middle classes mechanicallypassing the time. Mr Kipling's ingenious pretences regarding Simla areamusing, but they cannot long conceal from his readers that thesetales, apart from literary exhibition, were really not worth thetelling. Mr Kipling pretends, of course, even at twenty-four, to knowof all that passes between women unlacing after a ball; but MrKipling's pretended omniscience is part of his literary method, and hedoes not quite carry it off in the Simla tales. He gives us not Simlaor any place under the sun, but a sparkling stage version of Simla--alldancing and delight, a little intrigue, a touch of sentiment, patchesof excellent fun, and now and then a streak of Indian mystery. But MrKipling's heart is not really in this business. His Simla tales willnot endure, and they have been given too much prominence in the popularidea of his work. They are not plain tales, but tales very artfullycoloured. They fall far short of the standard to which Mr Kipling hasraised the English short story. Yet even here we may note the skillwith which the author has concealed his failure. Mrs Hawksbee may betaken as a symbol of the distinction between the work of an inspiredauthor and the work of an author playing with his tools. Mr Kipling of_The Jungle Books_ and _The Day's Work_ is an inspired author. MrKipling of the Simla tales, on the other hand, is simply concerned toshow that he can work a conventional formula of the day as well as anyman; that he can redeem the formula with individual touches beyond thereach of most; and can enliven it with impudent pretence
s which pleaseby virtue of their being utterly preposterous. Take, for example, thepretence that Mrs Hawksbee is a charming woman. Mrs Hawksbee is reallynothing of the kind. She is an anthology of witty phrases. She is theabstract perfection of what a clever head and a good heart is expectedto be in a fashionable comedy. But Mr Kipling desires her to beaccepted as a charming woman. His procedure, on a high and delicateplane, is precisely the procedure to which we are accustomed on a lowand obvious plane in the majority of popular novels where the hero hasto be accepted for a man of brilliant genius. We have to take theauthor's word for it. The author who tells us that his hero is agenius usually requires us to believe it without further proof. Hedoes not show us a page of the hero's music or the hero's poetry, butwe must believe that it is very fine, even though the hero loves PietroMascagni and worships Martin Tupper. Similarly Mr Kipling, presentingus with Mrs Hawksbee, nowhere affords us direct evidence that she is acharming woman. He assumes it, gets everyone else in the story toassume it, and expects his readers to assume it--his cunning as awriter being of so remarkable a quality that there are very few of theSimla tales in which the reader is not prepared to assume it for thesake of the story.

  Mrs Hawksbee is typical of the majority of Mr Kipling's studies insocial comedy. His success in this kind is remarkable, but it isbarren. Mr Kipling realised this himself quite early, for he quitesoon abandoned Simla. There are some sixteen stories in _Plain Talesfrom the Hills_ into which the Simla motive is threaded. In the booksimmediately following, published in 1888 and 1889, Simla is not whollyabandoned, but the proportion of Simla stories is less. _The PhantomRickshaw_ (1889) is the last story which can fairly be brought withinthe list, and this story can only be included by straining its point tovanishing. Of all the groups of stories in _Plain Tales from theHills_ the Simla group, though it was largest, promised least for thefuture.