Ask A Victorian Notable

Rudyard Kipling: Author, Poet, Nobel Prize Winner and Advice Giver

Are you wrestling with a personal issue? Do you have a question that you're aching to have answered? Well, no need to despair. Just ask a Victorian Notable. After all, they may be dead, but their words live on. It would be a shame to waste them. Our guest Victorian Notable this post is Mr. Rudyard Kipling, British author, poet and Nobel Prize winner. (He could have been a knight as well, but he refused the honor.) But now it's all about 21st century angst as the man who penned the lines "Tiger, Tiger, burning bright" turns his formidable grey matter in the direction of our readers' agony!




Dear Mr. Kipling,

I'm a woman in my thirties who is still struggling to get over a relationship with a man who left me for another woman two days after our ten year anniversary. It has been very difficult so far because I keep hearing about his new life, how happy he is, etc. It's as though he has forgotten about me completely while my feelings toward him remain the same....except for my anger. Do you have any advice?
                                                                                                            Misery Loins in Massachusetts

Dear Misery Loins,

Brothers and sisters I bid you beware,
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em the more do we grieve;
For when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?


Dear Mr. Kipling,

My sister and I were once very close, but now we are at odds because of my newfound interest in reincarnation. We were both raised Episcopalian, but she married a Methodist and has become very narrow in her views. She says that no intelligent person ascribes to reincarnation and until I stop being such an idiot, I'm not welcome on cribbage night. I feel that spirituality is more important than cribbage night. What do you think of reincarnation? (I loved Jungle Book, by the way.)
                                                                                 
                                                                                                           Reincarnated Reject in St. Paul


Dear Reincarnated,

They will come back--come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls.
He never wasted a leaf or a tree, do you think he would squander souls?


To have your questions addressed and perhaps resolved by a Victorian Notable, simply email us or leave a comment pertaining to your specific query. Remember---an unasked question like a cancer grows. Or is that silence? Either way, it bears thinking about. See you next post. Kisses.