Rudyard Kipling
From Conservapedia
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English poet (born in India, which was a British colony at the time) and writer of children's books who spent some time living in Vermont. His unusual first name comes from Lake Rudyard wher his parents spent many happy hours together. He authored Captains Courageous and The Jungle Books. He won an early Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1907. He made his home at Bateman's, near the prosperous village of Burwash in Sussex, England.
He wrote in the Ballad of East and West:
"Oh, East is East, and West is West,
And never the twain shall meet,
Till earth and sky stand presently,
At God's great judgment seat"
Kipling's other writings included Gunga Din (1890) and Kim (1901). His poem If topped a BBC poll for the nation's (UK) favorite poem.
Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, drew on some of Kipling's ideas. His 1908 Scouting for Boys included a condensed version of Kim, and the memory training exercise "Kim's Game" was and remains part of Scouting. Also, the Cub Scouting program in America is largely influenced by Kipling's Jungle Book.
Kipling was identified with British imperialism, and for a time fell victim to a kind of political correctness. In a famous essay, George Orwell notes that "During five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kiping is in some sense still there." He said that Kipling "is the only English writer of our time who has added phrases to the language." Giving as an example Kipling's line "He travels the fastest who travels alone," Orwell notes "It may not be true, but at any rate you it is a thought that everyone thinks. Sooner or later you will have occasion to feel that he travels the fastest who travels alone, and there the thought is, ready made and, as it were, waiting for you. So the chances are that, having once heard this line, you will remember it."[1]
Kipling wrote a number of stories about engineers and machines, topics unusual in literature at the time. His poem, "The Hymn of Breaking Strain" analogizes mechanical and human failure. A curious sidenote is an 1897 story, ".007 The Story of an American Locomotive"(1897), by Kipling which anthropomorphizes railroad engines. It tells the story of how one particular young locomotive performs in a heroic way, wins the respect of his peers, and is inducted into a sort of fraternal organization, the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotives. Fans of Ian Fleming have often speculated that this was the inspiration for fictional spy James Bond's code number, but it has never been proven.
President Ronald Reagan had this to say about Rudyard Kipling near the very end of Reagan's presidency, "As I prepare to lay down the mantle of office...I cannot help believe that what Rudyard Kipling said of another time and place is true today for America: 'We are at the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities.' Thank you, and God bless you."
References
- ↑ Orwell, George (1942), "Rudyard Kipling." The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, volume 2, pp. 184-197
