Rudyard Kipling is a name that I associate with The Jungle Book. I have read various renditions of that book and seen numerous movie adaptations as well. However I would be hard pressed to tell you anything else that Kipling wrote. So when I stumbled across this title I thought it was the perfect opportunity to see what else Kipling wrote about.
The story is a fairly simple one and Kipling does a good job of describing how Dick Heldar is feeling throughout the book. He is a brash young man with the world at his fingertips. He has traveled as a war correspondent and following an injury returns to England. He then crosses patches with his childhood sweetheart and instantly realizes that he is still in love with her.
She does not have the same feelings but she does want the success that he has achieved as an artist. She tells him that she won’t ever have feelings for him but wants his advice and help to become a better artist. He agrees thinking in time she will fall in love with him. The story takes a turn when she returns to France and he goes blind.
Overall the story did not have an ending I anticipated and it changes this book from a 2 star into a 3 star rating.
On July 9, 1722 the New England Courant published a letter from Silence Dogood. The letter stated in part:
“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.
“This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own.”
Silence Dogood was the pen name Benjamin Franklin used for a series of letters that he wrote. Franklin outlines the importance of freedom of speech above. If freedom of speech is curtailed it is only a matter of time before every other right will be taken as well. In the letter Franklin continued by saying:
“The best ...
