CHAPTER IV.

KIPLING'S UNEXAMPLED POPULARITY.

Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!-Falstaff.

"Be not afraid of greatness;

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."

ET us present for your thoughtful perusal two tributes from the pens of two distinguished men of letters, tributes paid two entirely different men, in two entirely different ages, and then judge for yourselves the extent to which these tributes may be deserved:

"I am about to describe an extraordinary species of mind, perplexing to all the French modes of analysis and reasoning, all powerful, excessive, master of the sublime as well as the base; the most creative mind that ever engaged in the exact copy of the details of actual existence, in the dazzling caprice of fancy, in the profound complications of superhuman passion, a nature poetical, immoral, inspired, superior to reason, by the sudden revelation of its seer's madness, so extreme in joy and grief, so abrupt in gait, so agitated and impetuous in its transports, that this great age alone could have created such a child."

Do not judge too hastily, you may be mistaken as to who is meant to be praised by the wonderful

tribute just quoted. Hear another, which might be envied by the recipient of the first, for there is tribute enough in either, not only to awaken the jealousy of most men but to provoke the envy of all the gods that ever dwelled above "huge Olympus":

"If one were to ask whose voice at the present moment is the most widely heard; whose words go the farthest; whose verse sinks the deepest into the hearts of those who speak our language, there could be but one reply. There is no statesman; there is no preacher; there is no poet; there is no orator in that broad circle which the Anglo-Saxon has flung around the world, who can be compared with him, whether for the multitudes who listen, or for the persuasiveness of the words, or for the stirring of the blood, or for the quickening of the pulse, or for the beating of the heart, the rapt faces and eagerness of the eyes of those who listen."

Of these high encomiums the former may be recognized as the opening sentence of the eminent French critic's review of William Shakespeare. The latter is Sir Walter Besant's tribute to the

genius and greatness of of Rudyard Kipling.

Whether Mr. Taine would have dared to hazard his reputation as an unsurpassed critic of literature by paying such glowing tributes to the ability of Shakespeare before he had reached the age at which he wrote Hamlet,or Othello, or Richard III,

may be reasonably doubted. How he could have pronounced him the "master of the sublime,” “inspired, and superior to reason," until his gifted and many sided genius had yielded the full fruition in its greatest productions, is not easy to say. But that Mr. Taine should have pronounced Shakespeare prior to the age of thirty-five superior in intellectual ability to all the statesmen, orators, preachers, and poets, of succeeding generations is unreasonable. But Sir Walter does not hesitate to challenge the whole English speaking world of great men of whatever calling and whithersoever dispersed. None "can be compared with him”! Listen to his extravagant tribute of praise: "If one were to ask whose voice at the present moment is the most widely heard; whose words go the farthest, whose verse sinks the deepest into the hearts of those who speak our language, there could be but one reply." However much praise may be due Mr. Kipling, after allowing all reasonable latitude for difference of taste, difference of opinions, we do not hesitate to say that the broad assertion that Rudyard Kipling moves the English speaking world and moves about in its broad sweep of greatness with that majesty of a god necessary to render him absolutely without a peer, is utterly without foundation. There are hundreds

of statesmen, and orators, and divines, and poets, that a dispassionate judgment will pronounce his superior as a master intellect. Pitiable indeed would be the outlook for statesmanship, theology, oratory, and poetry, if Sir Walter Besant's assertion contained a tithe of truth. Whether we view the constant demands upon greatness in the direction of diplomacy in the interest of peace and humanity; or the daily and hourly strain upon statesmanship arising out of momentous questions of civil government; or the claims upon brain and heart of consecrated men and women in their efforts to harmonize the teaching of God's science of governing the universe with his plan of redemption; or whether it be the oratory that can still move parliaments and senates when emergencies arise; or the multitudes of sweet singers who supply the splendid literature of the day with lyrics that glitter and sparkle with the true brilliancy of priceless gems, from whatever standpoint we view this extravagant expression, it seems without warrant. The tribute at first seems splendid, but reflection and cold analysis challenge its merit, chill its ardor, wither it like sarcasm, and then inflate it to bombast. It is astonishing how much "immortality" has been won in this world by men forgotten by even the generation that bred them!

The names of the three hundred who fell by the side of Leonidas at Thermopylæ on that fatal day were once known to all Sparta as well as his. Perhaps there never was a charge made on any field of battle that did not inspire some captain with a hope of immortality. Inventions, and discoveries in science, have been fruitful sources of "immortals." But predictions of immortality in this field, too, omitted one important element in the seer's calculations: The greater the invention or discovery, the greater the vantage given to posterity to invent or discover something infinitely more useful to mankind, and from the praises sung to the last claimant for immortal honors there is scarcely breath enough left to say of the first in the line "Good enough in its day." One generation admires its inventors and discoverers, and wonders how the world ever got along without their genius; the next accepts all this as an ordinary matter of fact; while the third exhibits the "immortal" discoverer or inventor in the garb of an old "foggie," and points to his discoveries and inventions as a laughable contrast with the overshadowing wonders of to-day. If James Watt, Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, George Stephenson, had to exhibit themselves to-day in all seriousness before an audience of their countrymen, oper