He has gone deeply into the character or writings of master minds in some field of knowledge or activity. If he has a truly great nature he is able to find in many a passage of Hebrew writings a power that welled up from the great hearts of the prophets of old—or a wisdom that gradually evolved with civilization through experiment, disaster, struggle, and contrition, and was corrected and formulated with rare understanding by the few great minds of history. Such writings are a very wellspring of knowledge and understanding for a young man of this or any age.
Have you read the earlier as well as the later writings of Rudyard Kipling? What a growth of power! The evolution of his ideal ever promises and realizes greater things. When recently it seemed that the riper fruits of his progress would be denied us, the keenest solicitude was everywhere manifest. It was a spontaneous tribute to the principle of ideal spiritual evolution in the individual. We now know Kipling's secret. In his weakness and his sorrow he has already turned to a new and more ambitious undertaking and has gathered to himself all material that may enable him to pluck out from his subject the heart of its mystery, and reveal it to the world of thought and culture. It is with the magic of industry that he evolves the ideal of his life.
The following story is told of Kipling—that it is not authentic does not rob it of its use: Father and son were on a voyage. The father, suffering from seasickness, had retired to his cabin, when an officer appeared and cried: "Your son has climbed out on the foreyard, and if he lets go he'll be
