fell

constant play of comment from him as his eye on every little object in the room with the liveliest curiosity."

Mr. Kipling is a fair draughtsman, a clever amateur actor, a remarkable conversationist, a gracious host,- though of freezing manners toward the impertinent and curious, and a royal entertainer of children. Of children he has said that he who can reach the child's heart can reach the world's heart. In athletics and out-of-door games he has the keenest interest, though he plays more like an enthusiastic amateur than a professional sportsman. During the winter - he at any rate when in Vermont coasts, snow-shoes, "skis," plays golf upon the crust, and shovels out the paths and walks; in summer he wheels, tramps, cultivates a garden, or fishes. More deservedly than to almost any living author does the hackneyed phrase "an all-round man" apply to Mr. Rudyard Kipling.

15. PORTRAITS. Among the familiar portraits of Mr. Kipling may be named (1) The Bourne and Shepherd (Simla) photograph, taken when the author was about twenty years of age; (2) the Elliott and Fry (London) photograph, perhaps the most widely known; (3) the painting by the Hon. John Collier, exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1891; (4) the celebrated colored woodcut lithograph made by Mr. William Nicholson for the New Review, and published by Heinemann in England,

and R. H. Russell in New York (standing posture); (5) the drawing by the Marchioness of Granby (profile, without glasses); (6) the etching by William Strang from life (profile, arms folded); (7 and 8) the portrait frontispieces to The Courting of Dinah Shadd, Harper's, and to the Outward Bound edition of works, Scribner's.

CHAPTER TWO

MR. KIPLING'S WRITINGS

I

I. THE STAR IN THE EAST.- Mr. Kipling's advent into the world of letters occurred at a very fortunate moment. Both critics and public were weary of the burrowing analysis which had come to supplant a healthy love of incident and a regard for plot. Microscopic dissection of motives and the photography of hard-featured men and women formed the staple of contemporary fiction. Combined with this uncompromising realism was an excessive refinement of language, evasive and self-conscious. It was at this juncture that Mr. Kipling presented the English people with his brusque, unhackneyed stories of "a cleaner, greener land," and found an audience eager to welcome him.

2. THE ZENITH OF FAME. Fifteen years ago Rudyard Kipling's name was unknown in India; ten years ago it was unknown in England. To-day Mr. Kipling's fame is international. William Dean Howells has said in a recent interview: "I am honestly of the opinion that Kipling is the most famous man in the world to-day. In fact I think it

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fair to say that Kipling's reputation is greater than that of any English-speaking poet who ever lived.” How can this most meteor-like of literary reputations be accounted for?

3. CAN WE ACCOUNT FOR KIPLING'S VOGUE ? Mr. Kipling's popularity may be attributed to the romantic conception of a "young Lochinvar of fiction, who came out of the East, came unannounced, and came all alone." It may be attributed his vital interest in

it

to his contemporaneousness what the world is talking about, whether it be the Queen's Jubilee, America's policy in the Philippines, or the Czar's Proclamation. We may say is due to his celebration of machinery, and of nineteenth century exploration and enterprise, or to his flattery of British national pride. But such answers are superficial. Other versifiers and tale-writers have struck the same notes; our newspapers are full of timely poems which are either left unread, or read once and forgotten. Other writers, too, have made entrances on the literary stage which have been almost as dramatic. Wide-spread popularity may be won by many qualities: world-wide fame has never yet been, and never will be, won except by a union of qualities deserving to be called great. What gives Mr. Kipling's work the character of greatness? V4. WHY KIPLING MAY BE CALLed Great. Mr. Kipling's work may properly be called great because he has so much to say, and knows so well

how to say it.

sage and style.

He combines and coördinates mes

This combination may at first thought seem common enough. A second thought convinces one of the contrary. Who remembers nine-tenths of current magazine verse? With all their gift for saying things, most magazine poets have nothing to say. At any event, they have nothing new to say. They give us graceful prettiness and millinery, but offer little to our intellects, and nothing to our immortal souls. On the other hand, many earnest men have something to tell us, but are inarticulate from lack of training, or at best are stammering, hoarse-voiced, and full of awkward gestures. Here at last comes a man who, it would seem, has been everywhere, observed everything, arrived at the meaning of his discoveries, and knows also how to make us perceive with our own eyes what he has viewed with his a man, in a word, who has both

matter and manner.

Mr. Kip

5. MESSAGE AND STYLE ANALYZED. ling's body of thought is of the highest importance, because it combines truth, human interest, and variety; his style is of the highest value, because it combines force with precision.

6. MESSAGE: Truth. No work of literature can be of lasting importance if its fundamental conception is based upon an untruth. Many of Mr. Ruskin's charmingly written papers fall short of the