Conundrum 104 – Rudyard Kipling
The answer to Conundrum 104 was of course Brother Rudyard Kipling. Those who answered correctly were WB Jerry Johnson (Accacia Lodge #51).
Born in British India, Kipling was a British author who penned such greats as the Jungle Book, The Man Who Would Be King and several famous poems including If (which was hinted in the conundrum question):
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
(an excerpt from If by Rudyard Kipling) Full text can be found here.
Born December 30, 1865 in Bombay, India, Kipling moved to the UK when he was five and remained there until he was done with school. After school, his father obtained him a job in Lahore, where his father served as Principal of the Mayo College of Art, and Curator of the Lahore Museum. Kipling was to be the assistant editor of the Civil and Military Gazette. In 1889 he left India a second time to move to London, but first traveled to San Francisco via Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. During his North American travels he met Mark Twain in Elmira, New York (an interesting story you should follow-up on).
In 1914, Bro. Kipling signed the “Authors’ Declaration”, in support of World War I war efforts. Signed by 53 prominent British novelists, poets, dramatists, and scholars the manifesto condemned German invasion of Belgium. Sadly, he would lose his son John in the Battle of Loos in 1915.
The Grand Lodge of England reports that Bro. Kipling was initiated at the age of 20 in the Lodge of Hope and Perseverance No. 782 in Lahore in 1886. Kipling’s Father John Lockwood Kipling was a freemason, and Rudyard received dispensation to be made a Master Mason while under the age of 21. His lodge had hoped for a good secretary, and Rudyard was immediately given this office because as a journalist, he had a typewriter. He later joined the Lodge of Independence with Philanthropy No. 391 in Allahabad. He also helped to found Builders of the Silent City Lodge No. 12 (France), and Builders of the Silent Cities Lodge No. 4948 (London). Kipling received the three degrees of Craft Masonry but also the degrees of Mark Master and Royal Ark Mariner.
Brother Rudyard Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, and in 1936 passed away in Middlesex Hospital in London at the age of 70.
Conundrum 105 – To one of our MN Masonic Podcasts you should go: who enjoys tennis, collecting coins, and knows about depth finders and bass fishing? Remind me: which episode am I referring to, and who was the guest? Send responses to masonicconundrum@gmail.com
References
Rudyard Kipling | United Grand Lodge of England