Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/76

50 50 MEEKNESS OF MR. RUDYARD KIPLING the stab and glitter of the first careful Kipling furore, and the way the critical raptures went rocketing up, breaking into a superior fire of epigrams, eager to announce the discovery. A new star had arisen, a rival to Loti, and the elect were at once in full song. Perhaps the hour was specially apt for such an over- ture. It was the hour of the 'eighties — the ineffable 'eighties — when a recondite vulgarity was the vogue ; and aesthetic London was tremendously anxious to display its capacity for enjoying raw sensation. Dilettantism had deserted the Oxford of Walter Pater for "The Oxford" of Marie Lloyd and Walter Sickert. If you were a poet you were ashamed not to be seen in cabmen's shelters ; and a little hashish was considered quite the thing. Oh, a superior hour ! And so when the rag-time chords of the Departmental Ditties flicked and snapped an introduction to the laconic patter of the coloured Plain Tales from the Hills, and when the tingling Tales themselves, with their parakeets and ivory, their barbaric chic and syncopated slang, provided qualities reminiscent in fairly equal parts of exotic Eastern prints and East- End music-halls — then the "ten superior persons scattered through the universe" were naturally per- suaded that their hour had found its very voice — And 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat — jes' the same as Theebaw's queen ; An' I see 'er first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot, An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot : Bloomin' idol made o' mud Wot they called the great Gawd Budd — Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed her where she stood." It seemed the last delicious insolence of aesthetics : bizarrerie of the best. The youngster was bracketed
 * "Er petticoat was yaller and 'er little cap was green,