Here is another set of quotations to keep you engaged
before the great Diversity of Kipling on Auhust 12/13.
1. …They
have no law. They are outcaste. They have no speech of their own but use the
stolen words which they overhear when they listen, and peep, and wait up above
in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are without leaders. They have
no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people
about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their
mind to laughter and all is forgotten…
2. … In a raucous voice he cried aloud
little matters, like the hope of Honour and the dream of Glory, that boys do
not discuss even with their most intimate equals; cheerfully assuming that,
till he spoke, they had never considered these possibilities. He pointed them
to shining goals, with finger which smudged out all radiance on all horizons.
He profaned the most secret places of their souls with outcries and
gesticulations. He bade them consider the deeds of their ancestors in such
fashion that they were flushed to their tingling ears…
3. …he stamped his foot.
'Tell them' he cried, 'that if a hair of any one of their heads is touched by
any official on any account whatever, all England shall ring with it. Good God
! What callous oppression ! The dark places of the earth are full of cruelty.'
He wiped his face, and throwing out his arms cried: 'Tell them, oh ! tell the
poor serfs not to be afraid of me. Tell them I come to redress their wrongs -
not, heaven knows, to add to their burden. '
The long-drawn gurgle of the practised public speaker pleased them much… .
The sources of the last set of rxtracts are s follows;
1. (I’ll come over every year after this,’ he said,
in a burst of delight, as we ran between two ten foot hedges of pink and white
may.) This is
from "My Sunday at Home" in The Day's Work.
2. (About
two o’clock we topped Sumtner Rising and looked down on the village of Sumtner
Barton, which lies just across a single railway line..) This is from
"The Vortex" in A Diversoty of Creatures.
3. (I found hidden
villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that
overhung grey Norman churches) This is from "They" in Traffics and Discoveries.
All are now
poised for A Diversity of Kipling, the 24-hrs of readings at Bateman’s.
starting at 2.00 pm on Saturday August 12th, which we hope to sream on the web.
For the NRG we have continued to annotate Kipling’s Early Verse.. Recent additions, from Echoes, are: "London Town" "Quaeritur" "Commonplaces" "The Sudder Bazaar" "Kopra Brahm" "Sonnet. On being Rejected of One's Horse", "Nursery Idyls", and "The Cursing of Stephen".
In our edited
Diaries of Carrie Kipling, we have now reached 1932. Three years to go.
Good holiday wishes to all
John R
