Batemons: Sept. 1913
for E.W. Bok on his 50th Birthday
It was on Bok's fiftieth birthday that Kipling sent him a copy of "If."
Bok had greatly admired this poem, but knowing Kipling's distaste for
writing out his own work, he had resisted the strong desire to ask him
for a copy of it. It is significant of the author's remarkable memory
that he wrote it, as he said, "from memory," years after its
publication, and yet a comparison of the copy with the printed form,
corrected by Kipling, fails to discover the difference of a single word.
The lecture bureaus now desired that Edward Bok should go on the
platform. Bok had never appeared in the role of a lecturer, but he
reasoned that through the medium of the rostrum he might come in closer
contact with the American public, meet his readers personally, and
secure some first-hand constructive criticism of his work. This last he
was always encouraging. It was a naive conception of a lecture tour, but
Bok believed it and he contracted for a tour beginning at Richmond,
Virginia, and continuing through the South and Southwest as far as Saint
Joseph, Missouri, and then back home by way of the Middle West.
Large audiences greeted him wherever he went, but he had not gone far on
his tour when he realized that he was not getting what he thought he
would. There was much entertaining and lionizing, but nothing to help
him in his work by pointing out to him where he could better it.
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