our Hon. Editor, Professor Jan
Montefiore, has receved the following query, which came
originally from India:
"I am emailing because I have received an enquiry from a colleague
in a college in India where I spent a year studying.
They are looking for one of Rudyard Kipling's quotes that they
heard once with the following description:
Apparently, he wrote a speech or poem (or whatever medium it was)
after some of his friends were graduating from university. In the
text, he encourages modesty to his excited friends by saying
something like 'one day you will meet someone (i.e. a very great
person) who will make you feel you have nothing at all'.
Have you ever come across anything like this? I cannot find
anything online. If not, do you know any others who may have an
idea?
Best,
Tushar"
If anyone has any ideas, would they please copy any reply they may
make to:
[log in to unmask]
I did wonder, in view of the suggested context of "some of his
friends [who] were graduating from university" if it weren't from
his Rectorial address at St. Andrews, but a cursory skip through
suggests not; likewise his shorter address at University College,
Dundee, made the following day; both in October 1923. (if anyone
has the time to look through both speeches with a finer tooth
comb, they are both in the NRG, in
A Book of Words.
Alastair Wilson
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