never kippled

[sam]

January 18th was the 70th anniversary of the death of Rudyard Kipling. The archbishop of Canterbury marked the occasion by holding a service at the church in Burwash (the village closest to acf HQ). I've never read any of his work(!) except the poem If, which my parents gave me a copy on my 18th birthday just before I left home.

As a defender of western imperialism he's not very fashionable these days - the leftie in me is obliged to be appalled by various of his writings - but he strode the earth a literary giant in his day.

[sam]

Kipling was a man of his times. And he has stayed there, stuck like an insect in amber, only coming alive when his prose and poetry are revivified in the reading. His most famous poem “If” was recently voted the nation’s favourite. Yet the poet’s name is mumbled as an afterthought, almost an embarrassment. As if someone like him couldn’t possibly write something like that.

Here's a picture having nothing to do with what's quoted above, other than it was taken in the grounds of Batemen's: "We had seen an advertisement of her, and we reached her down an enlarged rabbit-hole of a lane. At very first sight the Committee of Ways and Means said: That's her! The Only She! Make an honest woman of her quick!" Reminds me of what a tranquil place it is; a perfect setting for contemplation and scribbling. A refuge from unquiet lands.