Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/104

92 hours, in the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof, seriously believe in this sort of thing? There are other excesses to which the sightless tradition of the old hide-bound Jingoistic, Anglo-Indian officialism leads Mr. Kipling, but they are excusable and even defensible. It is only abject silliness which can be neither defended nor excused. None the less, he carries some of these excesses to considerable length. Dickie, the most gentle and lovable of his male characters, blind, and going to his death, 'stretches himself on the floor' [of a carriage in an armed train at Suakim] 'wild with delight at the sounds and the smells' of the machine-gun, pouring out lead through its five noses upon hapless Arabs, fighting for their freedom in their native land. God is very good—I never thought I'd hear this again. Give 'em hell, men! oh, give 'em hell!" he cried.'

The exceeding goodness of God in relation to Englishmen and 'niggers' seems always to consist in the opportunity and ability of the former to give the latter 'hell.' Never once in his tales does Mr. Kipling appear to be aware that these same miserable aliens may have a point of view of their own—they also. There is always the tacit assumption of the fact that they are made merely to be fought with, conquered, and ruled. I am not quarrelling with