It was in June, 1899, when Rudyard Kipling, after the loss of his
daughter and his own almost fatal illness from pneumonia in America,
sailed for his English home on the White Star liner, Teutonic. The party
consisted of Kipling, his wife, his father J. Lockwood Kipling, Mr. and
Mrs. Frank N. Doubleday, and Bok. It was only at the last moment that
Bok decided to join the party, and the steamer having its full
complement of passengers, he could only secure one of the officers'
large rooms on the upper deck. Owing to the sensitive condition of
Kipling's lungs, it was not wise for him to be out on deck except in the
most favorable weather. The atmosphere of the smoking-room was
forbidding, and as the rooms of the rest of the party were below deck,
it was decided to make Bok's convenient room the headquarters of the
party. Here they assembled for the best part of each day; the talk
ranged over literary and publishing matters of mutual interest, and
Kipling promptly labelled the room "The Hatchery,"--from the plans and
schemes that were hatched during these discussions.
It was decided on the first day out that the party, too active-minded to
remain inert for any length of time, should publish a daily newspaper to
be written on large sheets of paper and to be read each evening to the
group. It was called The Teuton Tonic; Mr. Doubleday was appointed
publisher and advertising manager; Mr. Lockwood Kipling was made art
editor to embellish the news; Rudyard Kipling was the star reporter, and
Bok was editor.
Kipling, just released from his long confinement, like a boy out of
school, was the life of the party--and when, one day, he found a woman
aboard reading a copy of The Ladies' Home Journal his joy knew no
bounds; he turned in the most inimitable "copy" to the Tonic, describing
the woman's feelings as she read the different departments in the
magazine. Of course, Bok, as editor of the Tonic, promptly pigeon-holed
the reporter's "copy"; then relented, and, in a fine spirit of
large-mindedness, "printed" Kipling's peans of rapture over Bok's
subscriber. The preparation of the paper was a daily joy: it kept the
different members busy, and each evening the copy was handed to "the
large circle of readers"--the two women of the party--to read aloud. At
the end of the sixth day, it was voted to "suspend publication," and the
daily of six issues was unanimously bequeathed to the little daughter of
Mr. Lockwood de Forest, a close friend of the Kipling family--a choice
bit of Kiplingania.
One day it was decided by the party that Bok should be taught the game
of poker, and Kipling at once offered to be the instructor! He wrote out
a list of the "hands" for Bok's guidance, which was placed in the centre
of the table, and the party, augmented by the women, gathered to see the
game.
A baby had been born that evening in the steerage, and it was decided to
inaugurate a small "jack-pot" for the benefit of the mother. All went
well until about the fourth hand, when Bok began to bid higher than had
been originally planned. Kipling questioned the beginner's knowledge of
the game and his tactics, but Bok retorted it was his money that he was
putting into the pot and that no one was compelled to follow his bets if
he did not choose to do so. Finally, the jack-pot assumed altogether too
large dimensions for the party, Kipling "called" and Bok, true to the
old idea of "beginner's luck" in cards, laid down a royal flush! This
was too much, and poker, with Bok in it, was taboo from that moment.
Kipling's version of this card-playing does not agree in all particulars
with the version here written. "Bok learned the game of poker," Kipling
says; "had the deck stacked on him, and on hearing that there was a
woman aboard who read The Ladies' Home Journal insisted on playing after
that with the cabin-door carefully shut." But Kipling's art as a
reporter for The Tonic was not as reliable as the art of his more
careful book work.
Bok derived special pleasure on this trip from his acquaintance with
Father Kipling, as the party called him. Rudyard Kipling's respect for
his father was the tribute of a loyal son to a wonderful father.
"What annoys me," said Kipling, speaking of his father one day, "is when
the pater comes to America to have him referred to in the newspapers as
'the father of Rudyard Kipling.' It is in India where they get the
relation correct: there I am always 'the son of Lockwood Kipling.'"
Father Kipling was, in every sense, a choice spirit: gentle, kindly, and
of a most remarkably even temperament. His knowledge of art, his wide
reading, his extensive travel, and an interest in every phase of the
world's doings, made him a rare conversationalist, when inclined to
talk, and an encyclopedia of knowledge as extensive as it was accurate.
It was very easy to grow fond of Father Kipling, and he won Bok's
affection as few men ever did.
Father Kipling's conversation was remarkable in that he was exceedingly
careful of language and wasted few words.
One day Kipling and Bok were engaged in a discussion of the Boer
problem, which was then pressing. Father Kipling sat by listening, but
made no comment on the divergent views, since, Kipling holding the
English side of the question and Bok the Dutch side, it followed that
they could not agree. Finally Father Kipling arose and said: "Well, I
will take a stroll and see if I can't listen to the water and get all
this din out of my ears."
Both men felt gently but firmly rebuked and the discussion was never
again taken up.
Bok tried on one occasion to ascertain how the father regarded the son's
work.
"You should feel pretty proud of your son," remarked Bok.
"A good sort," was the simple reply.
"I mean, rather, of his work. How does that strike you?" asked Bok.
"Which work?"
"His work as a whole," explained Bok.
"Creditable," was the succinct answer.
"No more than that?" asked Bok.
"Can there be more?" came from the father.
"Well," said Bok, "the judgment seems a little tame as applied to one
who is generally regarded as a genius."
"By whom?"
"The critics, for instance," replied Bok.
"There are no such," came the answer.
"No such what, Mr. Kipling?" asked Bok.
"Critics."
"No critics?"
"No," and for the first time the pipe was removed for a moment. "A
critic is one who only exists as such in his own imagination."
"But surely you must consider that Rud has done some great work?"
persisted Bok.
"Creditable," came once more.
"You think him capable of great work, do you not?" asked Bok. For a
moment there was silence. Then:
"He has a certain grasp of the human instinct. That, some day, I think,
will lead him to write a great work."
There was the secret: the constant holding up to the son, apparently, of
something still to be accomplished; of a goal to be reached; of a higher
standard to be attained. Rudyard Kipling was never in danger of
unintelligent laudation from his safest and most intelligent reader.
During the years which intervened until his passing away, Bok sought to
keep in touch with Father Kipling, and received the most wonderful
letters from him. One day he enclosed in a letter a drawing which he had
made showing Sakia Muni sitting under the bo-tree with two of his
disciples, a young man and a young woman, gathered at his feet. It was a
piece of exquisite drawing. "I like to think of you and your work in
this way," wrote Mr. Kipling, "and so I sketched it for you." Bok had
the sketch enlarged, engaged John La Farge to translate it into glass,
and inserted it in a window in the living-room of his home at Merion.
After Father Kipling had passed away, the express brought to Bok one day
a beautiful plaque of red clay, showing the elephant's head, the lotus,
and the swastika, which the father had made for the son. It was the
original model of the insignia which, as a watermark, is used in the
pages of Kipling's books and on the cover of the subscription edition.
"I am sending with this for your acceptance," wrote Kipling to Bok, "as
some little memory of my father to whom you were so kind, the original
of one of the plaques that he used to make for me. I thought it being
the swastika would be appropriate for your swastika. May it bring you
even more good fortune."
To those who knew Lockwood Kipling, it is easier to understand the
genius and the kindliness of the son. For the sake of the public's
knowledge, it is a distinct loss that there is not a better
understanding of the real sweetness of character of the son. The
public's only idea of the great writer is naturally one derived from
writers who do not understand him, or from reporters whom he refused to
see, while Kipling's own slogan is expressed in his own words: "I have
always managed to keep clear of 'personal' things as much as possible."