brown old earth." And the far-flung adventure has brought Kipling back to a very simple but not too easy code. At least, one cannot say that he sticks by the most English of English traditions because he has never seen anything else. He has had room and chance to choose. He has ended by being very orthodox, not to say conventional, about the fundamental human duties; and he reads history with a canny eye. But I do not think anyone can accuse Kipling of being a stick-in-the-mud. "With the Night Mail" does not look so Jules Verne-ish now as it did when it was printed. Perhaps some day we shall even have to give the benefit of the doubt to the later "flight of fact" called "As Easy as A. B. C." Though I admit that that is going far.

Just there, I did leave The Five Nations for the moment; but it is impossible to mention "As Easy as A. B. C." and not also quote some of "MacDonough's Song."

Whether the People be led by the Lord,
Or lured by the loudest throat;

If it be quicker to die by the sword
Or cheaper to die by vote-

These are the things we have dealt with once,

(And they will not rise from their grave)

For Holy People, however it runs,

Endeth in wholly Slave.

Whatsoever, for any cause,

Seeketh to take or give

Power above or beyond the Laws,

Suffer it not to live!

Holy State or Holy King

Or Holy People's Will

Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!

Saying-after-me:

'Once there was The People-Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of
Earth.

Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, O ye slain!
Once there was The People-it shall never be again!'

Easy enough to see why Kipling is not popular. Yet Kipling is by no means the only person who is warning us that mob-rule may come and sweep away our institutions. Most people who fear that event are doing their best to ingratiate themselves with the mob before it wholly loses its temper. I confess that-politics apart, and as a mere matter of dignity-it is a comfort to hear some man speak in another spirit and sense than that of craven conciliation. I have not quoted from "MacDonough's Song" because I think it is a great poem; but because it is perhaps the most nakedly, blatantly "unpopular" thing Kipling has ever written. There it is, openly admitted, in all its offensiveness-his greatest crime. Damn him for it if you feel inclined, but confess that to write as uncompromisingly as that is better manners than to have loathing

or fear in your heart and honey on your lips. "We reason with them in Little Russia," says Dragomiroff in "As Easy as A. B. C." Well, it looks as if, several generations ahead, that might still be the method in Little Russia. The story was written in 1912.

The Five Nations ends with the "Recessional," which preceded the Boer War by three years. And there is nothing to add to the "Recessional," even now; except that Germany needs to read it, at present, more than England does. All that I have meant to do is to point out that Kipling was right about preparedness, right about the Colonies, right about Germany, right about Russia, right about the Boers, right about Kitchener, right about demagogues and "labor," right about the elderly politicians, right about the decent British code, right about patriotism and the human heart-right about love; and that for all those things (except the last) he was slanged as if he were wrong. In political matters, "thought is free," with us, at least. But in the matter of literary criticism, it seems a pity not to realize the worth and distinction. of the few people we have who possess either. I have been told that Kipling still sells better than any other author in America. When I think of Harold Bell Wright, I hope, for the credit of America, that it is true. Perhaps the attitude of the intellectuals is mere snobbish

ness, which cannot consent to think a bestseller literature. But, as I say, it is a pity that the greatest living master of English style (for Conrad's is a restricted field) should not be confessed to as such by the few who still profess to care about style. One would not mind so much if they did not commend such a lot of third-rate stuff.

I am glad that Kipling himself has the vulgar consolation of royalties. He has, to be sure I repeat-the disadvantage of telling the truth prematurely. If we have just about caught up with The Five Nations-well, let us hope that the argument from analogy will not work in this case: that we shall never have to catch up with "As Easy as A. B. C."; that that, at least, may not be an instance of his remarkable rightness. For it does not make one happy about the immediate future.