"The critics, for instance," replied Bok.
"There are no such," came the answer.
"No such what, Mr.Kipling?" asked Bok.
"Critics."
"No critics?"
"No," and for the first time the pipe was removed for a moment."Acritic is one who only exists as such in his own imagination.""But surely you must consider that Rud has done some great work?"persisted Bok.
"Creditable," came once more.
"You think him capable of great work, do you not?" asked Bok.For a moment there was silence.Then:
"He has a certain grasp of the human instinct.That, some day, I think, will lead him to write a great work."There was the secret: the constant holding up to the son, apparently, of something still to be accomplished; of a goal to be reached; of a higher standard to be attained.Rudyard Kipling was never in danger of unintelligent laudation from his safest and most intelligent reader.
During the years which intervened until his passing away, Bok sought to keep in touch with Father Kipling, and received the most wonderful letters from him.One day he enclosed in a letter a drawing which he had made showing Sakia Muni sitting under the bo-tree with two of his disciples, a young man and a young woman, gathered at his feet.It was a piece of exquisite drawing."I like to think of you and your work in this way," wrote Mr.Kipling, "and so I sketched it for you." Bok had the sketch enlarged, engaged John La Farge to translate it into glass, and inserted it in a window in the living-room of his home at Merion.
After Father Kipling had passed away, the express brought to Bok one day a beautiful plaque of red clay, showing the elephant's head, the lotus, and the swastika, which the father had made for the son.It was the original model of the insignia which, as a watermark, is used in the pages of Kipling's books and on the cover of the subscription edition.
"I am sending with this for your acceptance," wrote Kipling to Bok, "as some little memory of my father to whom you were so kind, the original of one of the plaques that he used to make for me.I thought it being the swastika would be appropriate for your swastika.May it bring you even more good fortune."To those who knew Lockwood Kipling, it is easier to understand the genius and the kindliness of the son.For the sake of the public's knowledge, it is a distinct loss that there is not a better understanding of the real sweetness of character of the son.The public's only idea of the great writer is naturally one derived from writers who do not understand him, or from reporters whom he refused to see, while Kipling's own slogan is expressed in his own words: "I have always managed to keep clear of 'personal' things as much as possible."If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not grow tired by waiting Or, being lied about don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good or talk too wise;If you can dream and not make dreams your master, If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with triumph and disaster, And treat those two imposters just the same;If you can stand to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by Knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the work you've given your life to broken, And stoop and build it up with worn-out tools;If you can make one pile of all your winnings And risk it at one game of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again from your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss, If you can force you heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on, though there is nothing in you Except the will that says to them, "Hold on!"If you can talk to crowds and keep your virtue, And walk with Kings nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
Copied out from memory by Rudyard Kipling.
Batemons: Sept.1913
for E.W.Bok on his 50th Birthday It was on Bok's fiftieth birthday that Kipling sent him a copy of "If."Bok had greatly admired this poem, but knowing Kipling's distaste for writing out his own work, he had resisted the strong desire to ask him for a copy of it.It is significant of the author's remarkable memory that he wrote it, as he said, "from memory," years after its publication, and yet a comparison of the copy with the printed form, corrected by Kipling, fails to discover the difference of a single word.
The lecture bureaus now desired that Edward Bok should go on the platform.Bok had never appeared in the role of a lecturer, but he reasoned that through the medium of the rostrum he might come in closer contact with the American public, meet his readers personally, and secure some first-hand constructive criticism of his work.This last he was always encouraging.It was a naive conception of a lecture tour, but Bok believed it and he contracted for a tour beginning at Richmond, Virginia, and continuing through the South and Southwest as far as Saint Joseph, Missouri, and then back home by way of the Middle West.
Large audiences greeted him wherever he went, but he had not gone far on his tour when he realized that he was not getting what he thought he would.There was much entertaining and lionizing, but nothing to help him in his work by pointing out to him where he could better it.He shrank from the pitiless publicity that was inevitable; he became more and more self-conscious when during the first five minutes on the stage he felt the hundreds of opera-glasses levelled at him, and he and Mrs.
