Copy Book Archive

Six Honest Serving-Men A professional journalist and author recognises that he has met his match
1902
Music: Felix Mendelssohn

Photo by Sgt Mike MacLeod, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source

About this picture …

Indian Army soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles and U.S. Army paratroopers with the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division on a field training exercise at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, USA, in 2013.

Six Honest Serving-Men
Bombay-born Rudyard Kipling’s first job was as a journalist in what was then the Indian city of Lahore. Kipling grasped the importance of sending his ‘honest serving-men’ out on duty in the search for accurate reports, but even the most investigative of journalists has to recognise that in certain company, he is a mere amateur.

I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small—
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends ’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes—
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

Source

‘I Keep Six Honest Serving-Men’, by Rudyard Kipling.

Suggested Music

Allegro leggiero in F-sharp minor (Songs Without Words VI:2)

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Played by Murray Perahia.

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How To Use This Passage

You can use this passage to help improve your command of English.

IRead it aloud, twice or more. IISummarise it in one sentence of up to 30 words. IIISummarise it in one paragraph of 40-80 words. IVMake notes on the passage, and reconstruct the original from them later on. VJot down any unfamiliar words, and make your own sentences with them later. VIMake a note of any words that surprise or impress you, and ask yourself what meaning they add to the words you would have expected to see. VIITurn any old-fashioned English into modern English. VIIITurn prose into verse, and verse into prose. IXAsk yourself what the author is trying to get you to feel or think. XHow would an artist or a photographer capture the scene? XIHow would a movie director shoot it, or a composer write incidental music for it?

For these and more ideas, see How to Use The Copy Book.

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