loud the programme, and at the end of the
programme instead of "God Save the Queen," I read, "God Save Kipling," and
everybody cheered. "Stalky and Co." cooled me, and "Kim" chilled me. At
intervals, since, Kipling's astounding political manifestations, chiefly
in verse, have shocked and angered me. As time has elapsed it has become
more and more clear that his output was sharply divided into two parts by
his visit to New York, and that the second half is inferior in quantity,
in quality, in everything, to the first. It has been too plain now for
years that he is against progress, that he is the shrill champion of
things that are rightly doomed, that his vogue among the hordes of the
respectable was due to political reasons, and that he retains his
authority over the said hordes because he is the bard of their prejudices
and of their clayey ideals. A democrat of ten times Kipling's gift and
power could never have charmed and held the governing classes as Kipling
has done. Nevertheless, I for one cannot, except in anger, go back on a
genuine admiration. I cannot forget a benefit. If in quick resentment I
have ever written of Kipling with less than the respect which is
eternally due to an artist who has once excited in the heart a generous
and beautiful emotion, and has remained honest, I regret it. And this is
to be said: at his worst Kipling is an honest and painstaking artist. No
work of his but has obviously been lingered over with a craftsman's
devotion! He has never spoken when he had nothing to say--though probably
no artist was ever more seductively tempted by publishers and editors to
do so. And he has done more than shun notoriety--Miss Marie Corelli does
that--he has succeeded in avoiding it.

* * * * *

The first story, and the best, in "Actions and Reactions" is entitled "An
Habitation Enforced," and it displays the amused but genuine awe of a
couple of decent rich Americans confronted by the saecular wonders of the
English land system. It depends for its sharp point on a terrific
coincidence, as do many of Kipling's tales, for instance, "The Man Who
Was"--the mere chance that these Americans should tumble upon the very
ground and estate that had belonged to the English ancestors of one of
them. It is written in a curiously tortured idiom, largely borrowed from
the Bible, and all the characters are continually given to verbal
smartness or peculiarity of one kind or another. The