Rudyard Kipling | Page 5

craft rather than genuine inspirations. Mrs
Hawksbee stands for nothing in Mr Kipling's achievement save only for
his power to create an illusion of reality and enthusiasm by sheer finish
of style. She is not a creation. She is only the best possible example of
the clever sleight-of-hand of an accomplished artificer. She is in literary
fiction cousin to the witty, flirtatious ladies of the modern English
theatre. Her conversation is delightful, but it belongs to nobody. It does
not even belong to her author. Mrs Hawksbee talks as all well-dressed
women talk in the best books. She does it with a volubility and
resourcefulness which almost disguises the fact that she lives only by
hanging desperately to the end of her author's pen; but she cannot
deceive us always. Mr Kipling does not really believe in Mrs
Hawksbee. He has no real sympathy or knowledge of the social
undercrust where the tangle of three is a constant theme. The talk of
Mrs Hawksbee and her circle is derived. Its conduct is fashionable light
comedy in an Indian setting.
Simla really does not deserve to be known outside the Indian Empire. It
is a comparatively cool place whither Indian soldier and civilians send
their wives in the hot weather and whither they retire themselves under
medical advice. It is not unlike any other warm and idle city of rest
where there is every kind of expensive amusement provided for a
migratory population. Mr Kipling has failed to make Simla interesting,
because Simla is Biarritz and Monte Carlo or any place which in fiction
is frequented by people who behave naughtily and enjoy themselves,
and in real life is frequented by the upper middle classes mechanically
passing the time. Mr Kipling's ingenious pretences regarding Simla are
amusing, but they cannot long conceal from his readers that these tales,
apart from literary exhibition, were really not worth the telling. Mr
Kipling pretends, of course, even at twenty-four, to know of all that
passes between women unlacing after a ball; but Mr Kipling's
pretended omniscience is part of his literary method, and he does not
quite carry it off in the Simla tales. He gives us not Simla or any place
under the sun, but a sparkling stage version of Simla--all dancing and
delight, a little intrigue, a touch of sentiment, patches of excellent fun,

and now and then a streak of Indian mystery. But Mr Kipling's heart is
not really in this business. His Simla tales will not endure, and they
have been given too much prominence in the popular idea of his work.
They are not plain tales, but tales very artfully coloured. They fall far
short of the standard to which Mr Kipling has raised the English short
story. Yet even here we may note the skill with which the author has
concealed his failure. Mrs Hawksbee may be taken as a symbol of the
distinction between the work of an inspired author and the work of an
author playing with his tools. Mr Kipling of The Jungle Books and The
Day's Work is an inspired author. Mr Kipling of the Simla tales, on the
other hand, is simply concerned to show that he can work a
conventional formula of the day as well as any man; that he can redeem
the formula with individual touches beyond the reach of most; and can
enliven it with impudent pretences which please by virtue of their being
utterly preposterous. Take, for example, the pretence that Mrs
Hawksbee is a charming woman. Mrs Hawksbee is really nothing of
the kind. She is an anthology of witty phrases. She is the abstract
perfection of what a clever head and a good heart is expected to be in a
fashionable comedy. But Mr Kipling desires her to be accepted as a
charming woman. His procedure, on a high and delicate plane, is
precisely the procedure to which we are accustomed on a low and
obvious plane in the majority of popular novels where the hero has to
be accepted for a man of brilliant genius. We have to take the author's
word for it. The author who tells us that his hero is a genius usually
requires us to believe it without further proof. He does not show us a
page of the hero's music or the hero's poetry, but we must believe that it
is very fine, even though the hero loves Pietro Mascagni and worships
Martin Tupper. Similarly Mr Kipling, presenting us with Mrs
Hawksbee, nowhere affords us direct evidence that she is a charming
woman. He assumes it, gets everyone else in the story to assume it, and
expects his readers to assume it--his cunning as a writer being of so
remarkable a quality that there are very few of the Simla tales