effect designed to be produced, he
can follow with the greater economy of attention the narrative that
produces it. But, on the other hand, the method is inartistic, in that
it presents explicitly what might with greater subtlety be conveyed
implicitly, and subverts the mood of narrative by obtruding
exposition. In his later stories, Mr. Kipling has discarded for the
most part this convenient but too obvious expedient, and has revealed
his theme implicitly through the narrative tenor and emotional tone of
his initial sentences. That the latter method of opening is the more
artistic will be seen at once from a comparison of examples. This is
the beginning of "Thrown Away," an early story:--

"To rear a boy under what parents call the 'sheltered life system' is,
if the boy must go into the world and fend for himself, not wise.
Unless he be one in a thousand he has certainly to pass through many
unnecessary troubles; and may, possibly, come to extreme grief simply
from ignorance of the proper proportions of things.

"Let a puppy eat the soap in the bath-room or chew a newly blacked
boot. He chews and chuckles until, by and by, he finds out that
blacking and Old Brown Windsor made him very sick; so he argues that
soap and boots are not wholesome. Any old dog about the house will
soon show him the unwisdom of biting big dogs' ears. Being young, he
remembers and goes abroad, at six months, a well-mannered little beast
with a chastened appetite. If he had been kept away from boots, and
soap, and big dogs till he came to the trinity full-grown and with
developed teeth, consider how fearfully sick and thrashed he would be!
Apply that notion to the 'sheltered life,' and see how it works. It
does not sound pretty, but it is the better of two evils.

"There was a Boy once who had been brought up under the 'sheltered
life' theory; and the theory killed him dead...."

And so on. At this point, after the expository introduction, the
narrative proper begins. Consider now the opening of a later story,
"Without Benefit of Clergy." This is the first sentence:--"But if it
be a girl?" Notice how much has already been said and suggested in
this little question of six words. Surely the beginning of this story
is conducted with the better art.

The expository opening was copied from Mr. Kipling by O. Henry and
established by this writer as a fashion which is still continued by
contributors to American magazines. But a popular expedient is