spirits, who laughed and joked the lifelong day. The first success of his short stories was due to the curiosity of the public to discover who were the originals of the various personages in Kipling's stories, and nothing can shake the belief of Anglo-Indians that every one of them was drawn from life. He was full of fun and fond of practical joking. On one occasion he amused himself for a whole evening by showing the natives of Dharwal all the grotesque monsters on magic-lantern slides illustrating Jack the Giant Killer, as authentic portraits of the Russians, whose activity beyond Herat was then causing considerable alarm in the Anglo-Indian mind.

Kipling did all manner of journalistic work, both for the Civil and Military Gazette and afterwards for the Pioneer of Allahabad. He served also as special correspondent in Rajpootana and the Northern Frontier. For seven years he studied India high and low, in the slums of the City of Dreadful Night, in the plains, in the hills, by the camp-fires of troops in the field, in the palaces of her princes. Everywhere he saw, he heard, he photographed on the retina of his eye a marvellous series of living pictures which he could call up at will. So it came to pass that he became the interpreter of India to the people who send forth the rulers who govern it. This young man of genius, said a writer in Blackwood years ago :

has shown us all what the Indian empire means. It is a magic, it is an enchantment. If her Majesty herself, who knows so much, desires a fuller knowledge of her Indian empire, how it is ruled and defended and fought for every day against all the Powers of Darkness, we desire respectfully to recommend to the Secretary for India that he should place no sheaves of despatches in the royal, hands, but Mr. Rudyard Kipling's books. There are only two volumes of them, besides sundry small brochures. A good bulky conscientious three-volume novel holds as many words. But there lies India, the most wonderful conquest and possession that any victorious kingdom ever made, the greatest fief, perhaps, that ever was held for God.

III. RECOGNITION.

In 1889 Mr. Kay Robinson, desiring to obtain for Mr. Kipling recognition by a wider public, sent copies of his ditties home to London editors who ignored them, one and all. But when in that year Rudyard Kipling left India and came to London vid China and the United States, he found himself famous. He tried his hand at novel writing. But "The Light that Failed" has never achieved the success of his shorter stories. In

1891 he wrote "The Naulahka" in company with Wolcott Balestier, and in 1892 he married Miss Balestier, and settled with his bride in a house he built for her in the Vermont Hills at Brattleboro'. There he lived for three years. Then he came back to England, made the tour of the world again, wrote all manner of things in prose and verse, doing special correspondence for the Times, among other items of labour, and finishing off by describing "The Fleet in Being" for the Morning Post only last year. It was not until his "Recessional" appeared after the Jubilee that he was quite forgiven by the good serious folk for his joyous sympathetic chronicling of the vices and failings of the men of common clay" who form the majority of his heroes. After "Recessional" even the "unco' guid" have forgiven him all his manifold sins and iniquities. For, as the leading case of King David shows, all manner of crimes and atrocities will be forgiven to a man if so be that he be a real man whose face, in all slips and stumbles, is set Zionwards.

His two "Jungle Books" gave a new impetus to his popularity. Many who were bored with " Mrs. Hawksbee," and could take no interest in "Soldiers Three," succumbed to the glamour of the Jungle and its denizens.

All the time he worked, and worked hard. In Vermont he shuts himself up in his study from nine to one, turning out the best paid copy in the world. He is said to receive for each of his short stories £240 in the States. The rights of publication elsewhere and of republication are said to bring him in three times as much as that. One thousand pounds for a single short story! What an Aladdin's lamp his genius is!

The papers have teemed with anecdotes of Kipling, and the American press has, as usual, excelled itself in descriptions of everything he does, or does not do, in his home in Vermont. The only new report which I came across the other day was the story that he had tried his hand at ploughing and had driven his furrow straight. He is said to be very fond of fishing, and devoted to gardening, to cycling, and to all manner of outdoor pursuits. Everything that lives is full of interest to him, as it is to any one who studies it closely enough. When "Captains Courageous," the story of New England fishermen's life, was before him, Kipling spent some weeks among the Gloucester salts with an acquaintance who had access to the household gods of the cod-folks. And before he wrote "The Fleet in Being," he made a cruise in the third-class cruiser Pelorus in the English Channel. Apparently shy and reserved on first acquaintance, he is the warmest of friends and the most delightful of companions.

KIPLING'S HOUSE AT ROTTING DEAN.

.....

Kipling objects to be interviewed. But Dr. Kellner, author of the "History of English Literature in the Victorian Era," was permitted to visit him in 1898 and to describe his conversation in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt. He summed up his impressions of his visit to Rottingdean in the memorable phrase, "To-day I have seen happiness face to face." So few authentic descriptions of Kipling and his home and

his talk have appeared, that I venture to draw freely upon Dr. Kellner's narrative :

The work-room is of surprising simplicity, the north wall is covered with books half its height, over the door hangs a portrait of Burne-Jones (Mr. Kipling's uncle), to the right near the window stands a plain table-not a writing-table-on which lie a couple of pages containing verses. No works of art, no conveniences, no nick-knacks, the unadorned room simple and earnest like a Puritan chapel. "I do my daily task conscientiously, but not all that I write is printed; most of it goes there." The waste-paper basket under the table here received a vigorous kick, and a mass of torn-up papers rolled on the ground. The Puritanic strain in his nature came out the more strongly at the moment when others-like Burns, for example-have lost their hold on themselves in the hour of triumph. Kipling is never so distrustful and self-critical as when he has around him the cries of praise. "I am very distrustful against praise," said he, "very distrustful against fame. You know the fate of eighteenth-century English literature, how many immortal' poets that prolific time brought forth, and yet how much of this 'immortal' poetry still lives in our time? To name only one, who reads Pope nowadays? I often run over these volumes here" (here he pointed to the "Edition de Luxe" of his works published by Macmillan) "and think to myself how much of that which is printed on such beautiful paper ought never to have seen the light. How much was written for mere love of gain, how often has the knee been bowed 'in the House of Rimmon?'" (a favourite expression of Kipling's).

All that fate-Kipling would call it "the good God"-has to bestow of real worth has been granted to this wonderful child of fortune; love, domesticity, independence, fame, and power, in the vigour of youth (he is only thirty-two) and sound health, and above all, the capacity for enjoying his good fortune. Nor is that all; Kipling has the happiest fortune which can happen to a man when he has attained his highest aims, his father and mother are still alive, and he can and does say with proudest modesty, "All that I am I owe to them."

"The annexation of one white nation by another," he said, "I regard as the greatest crime that a politician can commit. Don't annex white men."

"How about the blacks?"

"I am against slavery," was the answer, "if only for this reason, that the white man becomes demoralised by slavery." He is an ardent admirer of Cecil Rhodes, whom he knows personally and whose work he is able to judge of from his recent visit to Matabeleland.

"How did you get on with Rhodes? What sort of man does he appear?" was the question to which the answer came : "Rhodes is greater than his work." The interviewer expressed his astonishment that Olive Schreiner has represented men in such dark colours, but Mr. Kipling indignantly repudiated the reproaches of this writer as altogether unfounded, the sole harsh judgment heard by the interviewer throughout.

He interests himself in all the literary work of the day, and is at home in all the chief movements and side currents in the spiritual life of England. When discussing the "Literary History of England," which Dr. Kellner has in hand, Mr. Kipling said, "If I had your book to write I would attempt in a final chapter to discover the path which may lead from the present chaotic condition of our literature and that of the twentieth century. I would call the chapter 'Between two epochs.' I feel that we are between ebb and flood. It is now just what sailors call 'slack tide;' we are waiting for the great personality which will unite all the minor tendencies of the time and collect all the partial and petty forces into one power that will give a new and adequate expression to the new time." The interviewer concludes his interesting lines with the question, "Is that man still to come, or is he already here?"

This same Puritan strain in Kipling comes out in the account of how it was he became converted to Prohibition. In a concert hall in America he saw two young men get two girls drunk and then lead them reeling down a dark street. Mr. Kipling has not been a

total abstainer, nor have his writings commended temperance, but of that scene he writes :

"Then, recanting previous opinions, I became a Prohibitionist, Better it is that a man should go without his beer in public places, and content himself with swearing at the narrowmindedness of the majority; better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively at back doors, than to bring temptation to the lips of young fools such as the four I had seen. I understand now why the preachers rage against drink. I have said, 'There is no harm in it, taken moderately; and yet my own demand for beer helped directly to send these two girls reeling down the dark street to-God alone knows what end. If liquor is worth drinking, it is worth taking a little trouble to come at-such trouble as a man will undergo to compass his own desires. It is not good that we should let it lie before the eyes of children, and I have been a fool in writing to the contrary."

Tributes to his genius have been plentiful of late, so plentiful that it is difficult to say what to choose; but a few may be quoted. Here, for instance, is the tribute

Ian Maclaren wrote:

He deals at first hand with the half-dozen passions which mould human nature, and always with insight and nobility. His death-which may God forbid !-would, in my humble judgment, deprive English letters of our greatest name, and England of her real poet laureate.

Signor Verdinois, a Neapolitan critic, laments the impression of disconsolate sadness: all his writings might be called "The Light that Failed."

Kipling's art is still unequal and disconnected; it flies and touches; weeps and sobs; crushes and breaks; a blazing torch, which till now smokes too much. We wish health to the poet and that he may live to disperse this smoke. May Rudyard

Kipling live long, and instead of stumbling in the dark, give to art the light that never fails.

M. Victor Basch, a French writer, says :

The muse of Kipling lives in the courts and purlieus of the barracks. She has her nose purpled with gin; she smokes a pipe, chews tobacco, and is sea-sick. Her speech is the most fantastic of amalgams, in which the most diverse species of slang elbow each other. She speaks by turns the jargon of the soldier, the marine, the Cockney, the Irishman, and all the little colonial niggers. But she has one incontestable merit, and that even in her prose speech-the merit of movement and life.

I bring to a close the string of tributes to his power by a couple of stanzas in the Cockney dialect favoured by the Bard of the Daily Chronicle.

'Is kingdom runs wheer the white men be,
'E reigns till the ormernacks goes ter sleep
'E's cut 'is nime on the bloomin' tree,
And 'e's cut it bloomin' deep.

The ships is sylin', the troops miwch art,
The tiger sleeps when the sun is 'ot,
And we all come a mucker in 'ole or part-
But Kiplin' 'e knowed the lot.

TH

HE first stage of the International Crusade of Peace culminated in the presentation to Mr. Balfour of the Memorial that summed up and embodied the resolutions passed at more than 200 town meetings in all parts of the United Kingdom.

The presentation of the Memorial had been decided upon at the National Convention held in St. Martin's Hall, Charing Cross, on March 21st. Lord Salisbury was asked in the first place to receive the deputation bearing the Memorial. But Lord Salisbury was hasting southward to the Riviera, where he spent Easter in the neighbourhood of his Sovereign, and therefore the deputation had to be received by Mr. Balfour, who as First Lord of the Treasury, Leader of the House of Commons, and acting locum tenens at the Foreign Office was the natural recipient of the Memorial.

The deputation was received at the Foreign Office. Mr. Balfour, who was leaving town that afternoon, had fixed the hour for the reception at one o'clock on Wednesday. The weather was fine and bright. Most of the Members of Parliament had scattered to their homes. But the deputation was influential and representative enough to justify the attention which Mr. Balfour gave to its statements.

Those who have been to many deputations to Ministers declare that they have never been at any deputation in which everything passed off with more ideal perfection. Lord Aberdeen, who introduced the deputation, was the beau ideal of tact, courtesy and good taste, and the speakers vied with each other in saying the best thing they could in the shortest possible time. Only one speaker failed, Lady Frederic Cavendish apparently having left town before receiving the request of the Committee that she would speak on behalf of the women. The Bishop of London acted as general spokesman for the Crusade Committee, Dr. Clifford represented the Nonconformists; Mr. Courtney, who again replaced Mr. Morley, as a Unionist. Mr. Shaw Lefevre spoke for the Liberals. Mr. Maddison, M.P., was the spokesman of Labour, and Mr. John O'Connor made an eloquent little speech on behalf of Ireland. I brought up the rear with a request for the compilation of a brief for plenipotentiaries at the Conference. Then Mr. Balfour replied. He spoke admirably. His sympathy, so frankly and ingenuously expressed, his cordial reference to the Tsar's proposal, and his well-weighed and emphatic declaration as to the waning of war, were all that any one could desire and more than most of those who heard him hoped for. Two staunch Liberals, who heard him for the first time, remarked as they left the room: "Is it worth while spending so much energy in order to turn out a good fellow like that in order to put our lot in?" Mr. Balfour's benediction was an appropriate culmination of the three months' service rendered in the cause of peace by the Crusade.

The best service I can render here is to print a full report of that memorable deputation, the good results of which were immediately felt and responded to in Russia and in France.

THE CRUSADE DEPUTATION TO THE
GOVERNMENT.

MR. BALFOUR AND THE MEMORIAL. The EARL OF ABERDEEN introduced the deputation with these words :

The deputation which I have the honour of introducing is a representative deputation. I think it is quite possible, more than possible that you have heard on some previous occasions a somewhat similar remark with reference to deputations which have had the pleasure of waiting upon you; but, however that may be, we may safely say that the present deputation has this special feature and characteristic, viz.: that it is composed of accredited representatives and deputies of a vast number of meetings held recently throughout the country, north and south, east and west, at which meetings the utterances have been of no uncertain sound. The meetings were held under circumstances which gave ample opportunity for discussion and access on the part of all shades of opinion; but, as I say, the utterances ani declarations deliberately mide by these meetings have constituted one voice and one deliberate expression of opinion. We are well aware that Her Majes.y's Government have placed this country in accord and sympathy with the peace proposals of the Emperor of Russia, and we rejoice in the knowledge; but I presume it does not follow from that that our coming here to-day is, as it were, to quote a French proverb, pushing open a door already opened. We feel that if our attitude is not that of expostulation but rather of endorsation and respectful exhortation, it will not on that account be regarded by you as superfluous; and as I speak of the attitude of Her Majesty's Government, I, of course, view amongst other manifestations a recent notable utterance of the First Lord of the Admiralty in Parliament. First of all, in ́order not to detain you, I will only say that the representatives of this representative deputation will, I think, illustrate by the'r own personnel the importance of the fact that this movement does not emanate from any one particular school of thought of opinion, but that, as you will observe from those who address you, it indicates the feeling of a vast s ntiment throughout what I venture to call the thinking public and the intelligent public. I now have great pleasure in requesting you to hear a few words. from the Lord Bishop of London.

The BISHOP OF LONDON said :

Mr. Balfour,-As Chairman of the Committee that has ben struggling to bring this matter before the conscience of th public in England, I have the honour to present to you a short account of the results of their proceedings. There has perhaps been no subject which has been received with such complet: enthusiasm and such immense unanimity as has this subject of the promotion of peace; and there is no subject upon which the English people have been approached for a long time, on which they have shown such deep-seated interest; and this is the more r markable because, of course, the English public is not given to express its approbation of ideas in the abstract; and those who stood aloof have probably stood aloof because of that reason that they wished see more what could com: of such an endeavour as that which has been set on foot by the Emperor of Russia before they expressed a strong opinion upon the subject. Furthermore, thes: meetings have been held without any connection with the current topics of political controversy which, as a rule, tend to give a factitious interest to meetings of any kind. They have been attended solely by serious-minded men and women, profoundly impressed by the opportunity which is now offer d, profoundly impressed by the absolute necessity of suppering by

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