king forward to following their
fathers' careers as servants of the Crown. It was in charge of an
admirable head-master, Mr. Cormell Price, whose character was such
that he won the affection of his boys no less than their respect. The
young Kipling was not an easy boy to manage. He chose his own way. His
talents were such that he might have held a place near the highest in
his studies, but he was content to let others surpass him in lessons,
while he yielded to his genius in devoting himself to original
composition and to much reading in books of his own choice. He became
the editor of the school paper, he contributed to the columns of the
local Bideford _Journal_, he wrote a quantity of verse, and was
venturesome enough to send a copy of verses to a London journal,
which, to his infinite satisfaction, was accepted and published. Some
of his verses were afterward collected in a little volume, privately
printed by his parents at Lahore, with the title "Schoolboy Lyrics."
All through his time at school his letters to his parents in India
were such as to make it clear to them that his future lay in the field
of literature.

His literary gifts came to him by inheritance from both the father and
mother, and they were nurtured and cultivated in the circle of
relatives and family friends with whom his holidays were spent. A
sub-master at Westward Ho, though little satisfied with the boy's
progress in the studies of the school, gave to him the liberty of his
own excellent library. The holidays were spent at the Grange, in South
Kensington, the home of his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones,
and here he came under the happiest possible domestic influences, and
was brought into contact with men of highest quality, whose lives were
given to letters and the arts, especially with William Morris, the
closest intimate of the household of the Grange. Other homes were open
to him where the pervading influence was that of intellectual
pursuits, and where he had access to libraries through which he was
allowed to wander and to browse at his will. The good which came to
him, directly and indirectly, from these opportunities can hardly be
overstated. To know, to love, and to be loved by such a man as
Burne-Jones was a supreme blessing in his life.

In the autumn of 1882, having finished his course at school, a
position was secured for him on the _Civil and Military Gazette_,
Lahore, and he returned to his parents in India, who had m