in the sense that everything depends upon obedience. There is no
perfectly epicurean corner; there is no perfectly irresponsible place.
Everywhere men have made the way for us with sweat and submission.
We may fling ourselves into a hammock in a fit of divine carelessness.
But we are glad that the net-maker did not make the hammock in a fit of
divine carelessness. We may jump upon a child's rocking-horse for a joke.
But we are glad that the carpenter did not leave the legs of it
unglued for a joke. So far from having merely preached that a soldier
cleaning his side-arm is to be adored because he is military,
Kipling at his best and clearest has preached that the baker baking
loaves and the tailor cutting coats is as military as anybody.

Being devoted to this multitudinous vision of duty, Mr. Kipling
is naturally a cosmopolitan. He happens to find his examples
in the British Empire, but almost any other empire would
do as well, or, indeed, any other highly civilized country.
That which he admires in the British army he would find even more
apparent in the German army; that which he desires in the British
police he would find flourishing, in the French police.
The ideal of discipline is not the whole of life, but it is spread
over the whole of the world. And the worship of it tends to confirm
in Mr. Kipling a certain note of worldly wisdom, of the experience
of the wanderer, which is one of the genuine charms of his best work.

The great gap in his mind is what may be roughly called the lack
of patriotism--that is to say, he lacks altogether the faculty of attaching
himself to any cause or community finally and tragically; for all
finality must be tragic. He admires England, but he does not love her;
for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons.
He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English.