passing strange, that in the throat of men who talk like this a lump should rise, 'be they by sea or by land,' at the mystic formula which sums up the cult of the Sovereign who doesn't rule. Yet such, it appears, are we English, a 'peculiar people' in all conscience. Nor is even the saving grace of humour denied to our Anglo-Indian story-teller, to temper the foolisher aspects of that bilious and fiery jingoism of the devasted and terrible clime. The preface to Life's Handicap is a delicious proof of this, and paragraphs, sentences, and phrases that have the true piquant flavour are rarely to seek. Yet his touch is never certain. His false characterisation has its parallel in false criticism, sometimes merely the smart superficialities of the imperfectly educated journalist (to whom culture stands for nothing more than 'culchaw'): at other times quite shocking tributes of respect and admiration to tenth-rate personages. Mr. Kipling knows little beyond modern English prose. The secret of the art and literature of the great Continental peoples is hid from him. He is too young, and he has lived too hard, not to be considerably in the dark about himself. How else is one to explain the insertion of work absolutely vile and detestable in his latest book? The sacra fames auri might explain its composition; but it is another thing in the full flood-tide of your vogue, with name,
