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114 Mr. Kipling that they are sick to death of his continual efforts to galvanise his most puppetlike puppets into the dreary semblance of life. 'No more Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd, an you love us! No more Mrs. Hawksbee, and Strickland, and Mrs. What's-her-name! They are only visible and palpable object-lessons of your inability to create characters!' Mr. Kipling is young and full of vigour: what are we left to infer from the undeniable fact that the ascending force in his work is very slight? Nay, we might even question its existence. His work has not gone on improving in his successive efforts. He has never excelled 'The Big Drunk Draf',' or 'The Drums of the Fore and Aft,' or 'At the Pit's Mouth,' or 'Gemini,' each in its special style, and these (if I do not mistake) are all from his earlier period. There is nothing in any degree better—shall I say there is nothing in any degree so good?—in the whole collection of stories gathered up in Plain Tales from the Hills and Life's Handicap. Any attempt to classify Mr. Kipling, to give him a place, and his true place, in our modern fiction, would be premature. Hope (which, according to the Latin phrase, is 'the expectation of good') clings to this saving clause. But after his next book will this still be so? What should we make of another huge slice of 'The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney'