thought, is an artist, is a writer'—to be able to go and say this, and to advance reasons for our belief in it of sufficient cogency to extort, perhaps, from our friends a genuine assent. If for this alone, we ought to be grateful to Mr. Rudyard Kipling, our Anglo-Indian story-teller.
I
From the very beginning, Mr. Kipling struck a strong and solemn personal note. To his first booklet, Soldiers Three, a collection of seven 'stories of barrack-room life,' and designed to 'illustrate' one of 'the four main features of Anglo-Indian life,' viz. the military, he attached the following sombre, proud, and yet pitiful envoi:
'And they were stronger hands than mine
That digged the ruby from the earth—
More cunning brains that made it worth
The large desire of a king;
And bolder hearts that thro' the brine
Went down the Perfect Pearl to bring.
'Lo, I have wrought in common clay
Rude figures of a rough-hewn race;
For Pearls strew not the market-place
In this my town of banishment
Where with the shifting dust I play,
And eat the bread of Discontent.
