Editor’s Note: “If—” is a poem by English Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), written circa 1895 as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson. It is a literary example of Victorian-era stoicism. The poem, first published in Rewards and Fairies (1910), ch. ‘Brother Square-Toes,’ is written in the form of paternal advice to the poet’s son,…
