ne nas pretty well d fundamental British feeling-as is y by day, being proved. And let us squarely-fundamental British feeling e whole the most decent on earth. As ns, we like to think that we share it. to be sure, paid much attention to the ast cited: they took it out in criticizing ke "The Lesson," "The Islanders," he Old Men." Now we find that in ch-execrated poems he told the simple Vhy not admit it? Admit, that is, ingly, not only that he has been right 14, but that he was right much earlier, it is the other people who have had their point of view. olicies-as well foreign as domesticom of old, made bitter enemies and crimonious controversy. No one could d anything worse about Kipling than folk in all the serious English reviews ving (before the war), all the time, heir political opponents. You could xe up one of those famous periodicals feeling that vitriol had been spilled in political manner has alw agree under flashes view o drops ity on things are re spoke had g alway emoti has pretty t 1 attention t The Islanders nas domesti ter enemies y. No one co ut Kipling the English review ), all the time ts. You co mous period been spilled politically, because that is English manners. No one really minds, excep has always resented the doom of C What one does mind, what one doe is the judgment of the "intellectuals" ling's general human knowledge. They agree with Oscar Wilde that, in turr the pages, "one feels as if one wer under a palm-tree reading life by flashes of vulgarity. From the view of literature Mr. Kipling is a ge drops his aspirates. . . . He is our firs ity on the second-rate, and has seen m things through key-holes, and his bac are real works of art." Even Henr spoke of him tentatively, as a young had gone a long way before breakfast always make people see red; but th emotions in general, people ought to to discuss amicably. And the intellect never been willing to discuss Kiplin When he is dead, they will, of cours present they still consider him neglig Now no one-unless Rudyard Kip [269] relegated by our arbiters of taste to is of the frivolous or the hysterical or çar, passes the normal understanding. demands can respectably be made of , in order that he should be taken ly" that he should be to some extent r of style, and that he should have 1 serious things to say about life. To ho insist that Kipling is not a master ish style, one has, really-now I come of it-nothing to say. Especially as them will tell you, with straight faces, sworthy, or Arnold Bennett, or someis a master of style. Chiefly, it means y care so little about what he says that ittle his way of saying it. They persist g a purely momentary point of view. I fancy, can afford to await the judgposterity. He is destined to become a nglish name. = are probably several reasons for this scorn. One is that he writes short and short stories are not yet so digninovels-unless the writer be Mau Englishr the hu dom is ure. comes things war w Ta over, men come be to some av abo is not a ally-now l A. Especi Ith straight s Bennett, or ser Chiefly, it what he says g it. They pest y point of v o await the j ined to become 1 reasons for th he writes shit not yet so dign writer be Ma Englishness of the English scene. Mo they are uninterested in the very un of the emotions and events he dea patriotism, love, childhood and par duty, and death. Nor have they much laughter. As for tradition, they are scrapping it, that they are not concer illustrations of its continuity and death I could get up a better brief for K the human score, if I were not mal point of honor to stick to The Five For Kipling has gone on very much, e then. The Five Nations deals pa with the Boer War and reactions a Boer War. His more explicitly "hum dom is not to be found there in great ure. Yet in some ways The Five comes home to us just now more th things, when we are in the midst of war which he therein prophesied. Take the "Chant-Pagan." When th over, there will be some millions of men (to leave out the other Allies) come home singing that chant-if not [271] George's faith, are not going to make py. He is going to know too much al values. There is just a chance that, ving saved England in the field, he e England at home. There will-God be so many of him. No man can ; and yet already, in America, one cople wondering about our own boys, ery sense of the "Chant-Pagan." ally, as I say, the more personal hutions are not dealt with in The Five But there remains "The Second 'I do not know that anything saner or more poignant has ever been writIt that love between man and woman the bulwark of Occidental civilization. can deal more tenderly than Kipling idyll between boy and girl-look at ushwood Boy." He can even deal con with the great illicit love (though it a favorite theme of his)-witness t Benefit of Clergy" and the great h in "Love o' Women." But the love most often treats is the love between the god to put the land Perhap Many to rese is both because ferred crimina I su sincere the un often slang |