Bibliography of Readings | Willa Cather Archive

Bibliography: "Without Benefit of Clergy" by Kipling, Rudyard

Note Source: Journal 12/23/1894
Note Relating to Cather: "He has been trying to live a respectable Puritan life in Vermont and be a full-fledged family man.... Go back to the east, Mr. Kipling; we and our world are not for you. Our life is not free enough for you and you are not strong enough for it.... Go back to the land where you wrote 'The Gate of a Hundred Sorrows' and 'Without Benefit of Clergy' and 'On the City Wall'.... Ah, Mr. Kipling, it would be sad and tragical if it were not so laughable that you who wrote 'The Story of the Gadsbys' should be the victim of matrimony. It has shorn the wings of your freedom, and your freedom was your art.... Alas! There were so many men who could have married Mrs. Kipling, and there was only you who could write Soldiers Three."