This is where he tells us about his Daemon, a
kind of personal muse who he says inspired his writing. He tells us some very
interesting and significant things about this supernatural being.
The inspirational anecdote in summary is that
a man told Kipling a horror story that he said was a personal experience.
Kipling wrote it up but something stopped him from sending it to a publisher.
He was really glad about this when, ‘by chance’, he found the story, identical
in every way, in an old magazine. He gives credit to his Daemon for preventing
a charge of plagiarism, which would not be good for such a famous writer’s
reputation and would have been very stressful for him.
This may sound far-fetched, but other people
have had similar experiences although they may not attribute helpful inner
promptings and warnings to a daemon but, for example, to Providence, the
Universe or their subconscious minds. I have given examples of such positive
inner guidance in various articles.
The story in Kipling’s own words
“The nearest shave that ever missed me was
averted by my Daemon. I was at the moment in Canada, where a young Englishman
gave me, as a personal experience, a story of a body-snatching episode in deep
snow, perpetrated in some lonely prairie-town and culminating in purest horror.
To get it out of the system I wrote it detailedly, and it came away just a
shade too good; too well-balanced; too slick. I put it aside, not that I was actively
uneasy about it, but I wanted to make sure.
Months passed, and I started a tooth which I
took to the dentist in the little American town near 'Naulakha.' I had to wait
a while in his parlour, where I found a file of bound Harper's Magazines -- say
six hundred pages to the volume-- dating from the 'fifties. I picked up one,
and read as undistractedly as the tooth permitted.
There I found my tale, identical in every
mark--frozen ground, frozen corpse stiff in its fur robes in the buggy--the
inn-keeper offering it a drink--and so on to the ghastly end.
Had I published that tale, what could have
saved me from the charge of deliberate plagiarism? Note here. Always, in our
trade, look a gift horse at both ends and in the middle. He may throw you.”
Kipling was guided to the magazine story just
as I was guided to a charity shop that had The Marianne Trilogy, a book
that I really wanted but hadn’t been able to find anywhere. He paid a price in
toothache though while I just paid a train fare!
Two more examples of helpful interventions
Kipling tells of how his Daemon made useful
suggestions when he became stuck when writing stories:
“As an instance, many years later I wrote
about a mediaeval artist, a monastery, and the premature discovery of the microscope.
('The Eye of Allah.') Again and again it went dead under my hand, and for the
life of me I could not see why. I put it away and waited. Then said my
Daemon--and I was meditating something else at the time--'Treat it as an
illuminated manuscript.'”
Kipling changed his approach as instructed and
finished the story.
“Again, in a South African, post-Boer War
tale called 'The Captive,' which was built up round the phrase 'a first-class
dress-parade for Armageddon,' I could not get my lighting into key with the
tone of the monologue. The background insisted too much. My Daemon said at last
'Paint the background first once for all, as hard as a public-house sign, and
leave it alone.' This done, the rest fell into place with the American accent and
outlook of the teller.”
The Daemon steps in with good advice, but only
after Kipling has done everything he can to get his stories moving using his
own efforts and resources. There is a lesson here.
These anecdotes support the theory that
giving credit where it is due and expressing gratitude and appreciation, preferably
both spoken and written, for favours received will elicit more of the same -
from whatever source.
Rudyard Kipling in his study, perhaps waiting
for inspiration from his Daemon:
