Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/127

Rh style of thing, and 'Namgay Doola,' and 'The Lang Men o' Larut'?

But, once more, let me not seem to strike the unjust and ungracious note of depreciation and disappointment, especially at the close. We should be thankful for what we have got; but, if we chiefly show our thankfulness by energetically asking for more, let us not fall under the suspicion of want of generosity. The case, we say, for taking Mr. Kipling seriously has surely been made out beyond cavil. His vogue may pass—it seems passing somewhat already; but, at least, we shall not be able to declare of it, as of so many of its fellows—and, indeed, of some which seem at this hour to stand above all such changes and chances—that it was won on such inadequate grounds that a total extinction and oblivion were, in mercy to the vileness of the English artistic taste, its most expedient as well as its worthiest fate. That can never be said of the man who could describe Anglo-Indian society as in 'At the Pit's Mouth,' who could tell a story like 'The Courting of Dinah Shadd,' who could do a piece of such splendid analytical and dramatic work as 'The Drums of the Fore and Aft.'