The bright colours of the bazaars dazzle one's eyes. The
jaded, second-rate Anglo-Indians are in exquisite incongruity with their
surroundings. The mere lack of style in the story-teller gives an odd
journalistic realism to what he tells us. From the point of view of
literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the
point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than
any one has ever known it. Dickens knew its clothes and its comedy. Mr.
Kipling knows its essence and its seriousness. He is our first authority
on the second-rate, and has seen marvellous things through keyholes, and
his backgrounds are real works of art. As for the second condition, we
have had Browning, and Meredith is with us. But there is still much to
be done in the sphere of introspection. People sometimes say that
fiction is getting too morbid. As far as psychology is concerned, it has
never been morbid enough. We have merely touched the surface of the
soul, that is all. In one single ivory cell of the brain there are
stored away things more marvellous and more terrible than even they have
dreamed of, who, like the author of _Le Rouge et le Noir_, have sought to
track the soul into its most secret places, and to make life confess its
dearest sins.
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