An Interesting query from a Civil Engineer
A prominent member of the Civil Engineering world has asked for some
enlightenment on the background behind the wording of a poem by Rudyard
Kipling "The Hymn of the Breaking Strain" which had been published as a
supplement to "The Engineer" of March 15th 1935. Neal FitzSimmons, FASCE,
would like to know if a structural failure [at that time] had prompted
Kipling to write it.
The quote from "The Hymn of the Breaking Strain" is:
"The careful text-books measure
(Let all who build beware)
The load, the shock, the pressure
Material can bear,
So, when the faulty girder
Lets down the grinding span,
The blame of loss, or murder
Not on the Stuff-the Man!"
There is more interesting background in a recent Civil Engineering Magazine,
including the discovery of a letter from Rudyard Kipling dated December 21,
1935 addressed to Sir Alexander Gibb concerning his biography of Thomas
Telford. The letter expresses Kipling's 'extreme pride' of the honour of
having the book dedicated to 'Rudyard Kipling, the Poet of Empire and
Engineering'. The article goes on to say that nine days later, Kipling
celebrated his 70th birthday and 28 days after that, on January 18, 1936, he
died. This letter to Sir Alexander Gibb it seems may well have been the
last known letter written by Rudyard Kipling.
So the question is, what was it that prompted Rudyard Kipling to write the
words quoted above? Is anyone aware of any structural failure of that
period which may have induced Kipling to put pen to paper on the subject in
what the Engineering Magazine describes as his penultimate poem.
I am not familiar with the poem "The Hymn of the Breaking Strain", so would
like to
see the entire text, as well as to learn of its inspiration.
I am grateful to my old friend Michael Guilford, a retired Civil Engineer in
Hong Kong for passing me this interesting puzzle.
The article suggests that the question has already been passed to the
Kipling Society, but I have not seen it in the e-mail columns.
Best wishes, Ron in Hong Kong
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