cient magic,
it is a natural step into the regions of pure fancy where Mr Kipling is
happiest of all. _The Children of the Zodiac_ and _The Brushwood Boy_
are the earliest proofs that Mr Kipling flies most surely when he is
least impeded by a human or material document. We have here to make a
last protest against a too popular fallacy concerning the tales of Mr
Kipling. Mr Kipling's passion for the concrete, which is a passion of
all truly imaginative men, together with his keen delight in the work
of the world, has caused him to be falsely regarded as a note-book
realist of the modern type. He is assumed to be happiest when writing
from direct experience without refinement or transmutation. We cannot
trace this error to its source and expose the many fallacies it
contains without going deeper into aesthetics than is here necessary or
desirable. The simple fact that Mr Kipling's best stories are those in
which his fancy is most free is answer enough to those who put him
among the reporters of things as they are. It sufficiently excuses us
from the long and difficult inquiry as to whether Mr Kipling's account
of the people who live next door is accurate and minute, and allows us
to assume, without starting a controversy which only a heavy volume
could determine, that, if Mr Kipling had ever set out to describe the
people who live next door, he would have simplified them out of all
recognition. Mr Kipling has pretended, often with some success, that
his people are really to be met with in the Royal Navy or in the Indian
Civil Service. But let the reader consider for a moment whom they
remember best. Is it Mowgli or is it someone who is a C.I.E.? Is it
the Elephant Child, or is it Mr Grish Chunder De? When does Mr Kipling
more successfully convey to us the impression that his people are alive
and real? Is it when he is supposed to be drawing men from the life,
or is it when he has set free his imagination to call up the People of
the Hills or the folk in the Jungle?

The grain of Mr Kipling's work is the finer, his vision is more
confident and clear, the further he gets from the world immediately
about him. Already we have seen how happily in India he left behind
his impression of the alert tourist, his experience of the mess-room
and bazaar, to enshrine in his fairy tale of _Kim_ the faith and
simplicity of two of the children of the world--each, the old and the
young, a child after his own fashion. _Kim_ i