small naked cupids."

Clearly there is something wrong with the popular habit of regarding Mr
Kipling as essentially concerned with the carving of men to the "nasty
noise of beef-cutting on the block." His "god in a halo of gold dust"
seriously discourages any attempt to brand him with the mark of the
reverting carnivor.




IV

NATIVE INDIA

From Simla we have come down to the plains and the work of the English
in Imperial India. Thence we pass to India herself. Concerning native
India Mr Kipling's principle thesis--a thesis illustrated with point
and competency in many excellent tales--is that for the people of the
West there can be no such thing as the real India--only here and there
an understanding that wavers and frequently expires. Mr Kipling does
not insolently explain that India is thus and thus. He allows the
impression to grow upon us, as once it grew upon himself, that in India
all the settled ways of the West are insecure, that at any moment we
may be looking into the House of Suddhu.


"A stone's throw out on either hand
From that well-ordered road we tread,
And all the world is wild and strange: