ell. There has
been no man in his time who has shown a deeper reverence for his work,
or a more consistent increase in his command of it. His method is large
and noble, in accord with his design. He has given us the right to look
to him for better and better and always better, and it is only in the
direction indicated that he can mend.

V.--LIVING MASTERS--RUDYARD KIPLING

I was 'up in the back blocks' of Victoria when I lighted upon some stray
copies of the weekly edition of the 'Melbourne Argus,' and became aware
of the fact that we had amongst us a new teller of stories, with a voice
and a physiognomy of his own. The 'Argus' had copied from some journal
in far-away India a poem and a story, each unsigned, and each bearing
evidence of the same hand. A year later I came back to England, and
found everybody talking about 'The Man from Nowhere,' who had just taken
London by storm. Rudyard Kipling's best work was not as yet before us,
but there was no room for doubt as to the newcomer's quality, and the
only question possible was as to whether he had come to stay. That
inquiry has now been satisfactorily answered. The new man of half a
dozen years ago is one of England's properties, and not the one of which
she is least proud. About midway in his brief and brilliant career,
counting from his emergence until now, people began to be afraid that he
had emptied his sack. Partly because he had lost the spell of novelty,
and partly because he did too much to be always at his best, there came
a time when we thought we saw him sinking to a place with the ruck.

Sudden popularity carries with it many grave dangers, but the gravest
of all is the temptation to produce careless and unripe work. To this
temptation the new man succumbed, but only for awhile. Like the candid
friend of Lady Clara Vere de Vere, he saw the snare, and he retired. But
at the time when, instead of handing out the bread of life in generous
slices, he took to giving us the sweepings of the basket I wrote a set
of verses, which I called 'The Ballad of the Rudyard Kipling.' I never
printed it, because by the time it was fairly written.

Kipling's work had not merely gone back to its first quality, but seemed
brighter and finer than before, and the poor thing, such as it was, was
in the nature of a satire. I venture to write down the opening verses
here, since they express the feeling with which at least one writer of
English fiction hailed his first appe