Posted on 02/13/2010 10:07:20 PM PST by flowerplough
When Rudyards cease from Kipling And Haggards Ryde no more ... So goes the wittiest couplet in English. But it falls short by pairing two writers who are only superficially alike: Ryder Haggard and Rudyard Kipling. Only Kipling comes close to real greatness when he is at his best, even on a par with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy. We are not supposed to know this because Rudyard Kipling is (wrongly) damned by the Left for his supposed British imperialism and aggravated normalcy. The Left controls the organs of propaganda, and in Britain, the cultural Left has been in control for a whole century. To the Left, there are no artists, but only propagandists for and against them. Everything is politicized. But great writers outlast their political enemies. Who really cares today if Shakespeare supported the Tudors or not?
The Kultursmoggers of the Left are wrong about Kipling in the way that they are so often wrong. Their vision is severely impaired by those black-and-white prisms they use. Kipling shows the most heartrending empathy with human suffering, the supposed monopoly of the literary Left. He goes far beyond Charles Dickens, for example, by the breadth of his empathic warmth. He can glory in the nobility, strength, and joys of an extraordinary range of real people, and not just wallow in their weaknesses and cruelties, or their victimization by a Mean Social System.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Literate, and great post! You might like this clip of Peter Sellers reprising the Sam Jaffe Gunga Din role. I think I have posted it like 6 times over the past few days.
parsy, who used to have a copy of Barrack Room Ballads - particularly enjoying the Grave of the Hundred head, or something like that and the Fuzzy Wuzzy poem
Rikki Tikki Tavi...loyalty and getting rid of vermin.
Rikki Tikki Tavi...loyalty and getting rid of vermin.
Here's some good writing from King Solomon's Mine:
Now our rebellion is swallowed up in victory, and our evil-doing is justified by strength.
In the morning the oppressors arose and stretched themselves; they bound on their harness and made them ready to war.
They rose up and tossed their spears: the soldiers called to the captains, 'Come, lead us'—and the captains cried to the king, 'Direct thou the battle.'
They laughed in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty thousand.
Their plumes covered the valleys as the plumes of a bird cover her nest; they shook their shields and shouted, yea, they shook their shields in the sunlight; they lusted for battle and were glad.
They came up against me; their strong ones ran swiftly to slay me; they cried, 'Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.'
Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a wind, and lo! they were not.
My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the lightning of my spears; I shook them to the ground with the thunder of my shoutings.
They broke—they scattered—they were gone as the mists of the morning.
They are food for the kites and the foxes, and the place of battle is fat with their blood.
Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?
Where are the proud ones who tossed their spears and cried, 'He is as a man already dead'?
They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but not in sleep.
They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness; they dwell in the dead moons; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their children shall remember them no more.
And I—! the king—like an eagle I have found my eyrie.
Behold! far have I flown in the night season, yet have I returned to my young at the daybreak.
Shelter ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort you, and ye shall not be dismayed.
Now is the good time, the time of spoil.
Mine are the cattle on the mountains, mine are the virgins in the kraals.
The winter is overpast with storms, the summer is come with flowers.
Now Evil shall cover up her face, now Mercy and Gladness shall dwell in the land.
Rejoice, rejoice, my people!
Let all the stars rejoice in that this tyranny is trodden down, in that I am the king.
Ignosi ceased his song, and out of the gathering gloom came back the deep reply—
"Thou art the king!"
Thus was my prophecy to the herald fulfilled, and within the forty-eight hours Twala's headless corpse was stiffening at Twala's gate.
*************
Reminiscent of the Psalms, it is.
Cheers!
It is good writing. I liked “She” and “The Return of Ayesha” or something like that. Ursula Andress was great in the film.
parsy, who is single and there is no longer a “she who must be obeyed”, thankfully
No, no, that was Rumpole of the Bailey.
Cheers!
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