Kipling, Rudyard

Autograph letter signed with initials ("RK"), 2 1/2 pages (6 7/8 x 4 3/8 in.; 176 x 112 mm) on a bifolium of blue paper, no place, 22 November 1911, to David Blumenfeld, marked "Private"; tape stains at head and foot of second leaf; verso of second leaf discolored. Half orange folding-case, brown morocco labels.

Not in Letters of Rudyard Kiping, ed. Pinney, and apparently unpublished

Kipling on Home Rule and the Irish Unionists. David Blumenfeld was the American-born editor of London Daily Express. Kipling here offers him some provocative suggestions for editorial cartoons about the upcoming parliamentary elections, referring to Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, and to the Irish Parliamentary leader John Redmond. "Has it occurred to you that the future Elections must be headed as Elicktions or Elickshuns? or would you prefer a simple cartoon labelled 'The Welsh Tongue' presenting L. G. in the similitude of Kali the destroyer with a tongue down to his boots—the top charged with one penny stamp."

Alternatively, Kipling suggests a bit of doggerel in place of the political caricature: "Or, ascending the purer height of poetry:—Taffy was a Welshman | Taffy was a scamp | Taffy came to my house | and stuck a penny stamp | Me and the housemaid | General and cook | all went to Taffy's House | and Taffy took his book!"

"I have thought of Redmond." Kipling continues, "as the Learned Pig surveying a floor-full unrelated letters and clauses and subsections while L. G. with the Home rule turnip at the end of a stick asks him "Now Paddy, what does this mean?" The Pig, one eye cocked on the turnip: 'Statesmanship.' But you can work up that idea better in the office." After making a couple of more suggestions, Kipling concludes, "Maybe there's some thing in all this ... that may be useful. ... All my information goes to show that (as always happens with pie-bold criminals) their one attempt at trying to do something decent is going to wreck 'em. What do you think?" Early the following year, Kipling published his controversial polemical verses "Ulster 1912."