Captain of Marines, or as a Keeper of Woods and Forests, or as a
Horse-Dealer. He gives his readers the impression that he has lived a
hundred lives, mastered many crafts, and led the life, not of one, but
of a dozen, active and practical men of affairs. He has created about
himself so complete an illusion of adventure and enterprise that it
seems almost the least important thing about him that he should also be
a writer of books. His readers, indeed, are apt to forget the most
important fact as to Mr Kipling--the fact that he is a man of letters.
He seems to belong rather to the company of young subalterns than to
the company of Eustace Cleever.

Hence it is necessary to consider closely the moral of that excellent
tale. When Eustace Cleever blasphemed against his art, Mr Kipling
predicted he would be sorry for it. Mr Kipling recorded that
prediction because he had the best of reasons to know how Eustace
Cleever would feel upon the morning after his debauch of enthusiasm for
the heroic life. Let each man keep to his work, and know how good it
is to do that work as well as it can be done. Eustace Cleever's work
was to live the life of imagination and to handle English words--work
as difficult to do and normally as useful as the job of the Infant.
Though for one heady night Eustace Cleever yearned after a strange
career, Mr Kipling knew that he would return without misgiving to the
thing he was born to do. Mr Kipling, like Eustace Cleever, knows that
though nothing is more pleasant than to talk with young subalterns, yet
the born author remains always an author. He knows, too, that even the
deeds he admires in the men who make history are, for him, no more than
raw stuff to be taken in hand or rejected according to the author's
need.

Mr Kipling, in short, is a man of letters, and we shall realise, before