Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/282

 XXIII

KIPLING'S BALLADS OF "THE SEVEN SEAS"

HE dedication of Mr. Kipling's new collection of ballads is a significant poem, "To the City of Bombay," his birthplace.

This, like the prelude to his earlier book of verse, avows a recognition of the forces that have had most to do with his work. He finds it well that his birth fell not in "waste headlands of the earth"; but the world sees also that no more fortunate chance could befall an Englishman of his generation, and of a genius that would be manifest in any environment, than to be born in a distant and imperial British dependency; to be bred to realize what has made his nation so great; and thus, of all English writers, best to know the hearts of "such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world."

This good fortune, if through it he has lost something of the idyllic charm and sweetness, has saved [268]