f a Methodist clergyman.

Kipling was brought to England when he was five years old to be
educated. While in college at Westward Ho he edited the _College
Chronicle_. For this paper he contributed regularly, poetry and
stories. After his school days and on his return to India, he served
on the editorial staff of the Lahore _Civil and Military Gazette_ from
1882 to 1887, and was assistant editor of the _Pioneer_ at Allahabad
from 1887 to 1889.

Kipling has travelled extensively. He is at home in India, China,
Japan, Africa, Australia, England, and America. The odd part about his
realistic observations, however, is that his notes, whether written
about California or India, are often repudiated by the people whom he
has visited. After visiting England and the United States in a vain
effort to find a publisher for his writings, he returned to India and
published in the _Pioneer_ his _American Notes_, which were
immediately reproduced in book form in New York in 1891.

He married Miss Balestier of New York in 1892. They settled at
Brattleboro, Vermont, immediately after their marriage and lived there
until 1896. Kipling revisited the United States in 1899. While on this
trip he suffered a severe attack of pneumonia which brought out a
demonstration of interest from the American people that clearly showed
their appreciation of him as a man and a writer.

CRITICISMS

Kipling is journalistic in all his writings. Oftentimes his material
is very thin, flippant, and sensational, but he always is interesting,
for he possesses the expert reporter's unerring judgment for choosing
the essentials of his situation, character, or description, that catch
and hold the reader's attention. In his earlier writings, like _Plain
Tales from the Hills_ or _The Jungle Books_, the radical racial
differences between his characters and readers, and the background of
primitive, mysterious India caught the reading world and instantly
established Kipling's fame.

His technique is brilliant, his wit keen, and his energy of the bold
and dashing military type. This audacious energy leads him very often
into sprawling situations, a worship of imperialism, and reckless
statements concerning moral and spiritual laws. Unlike Bret Harte, who
was in many respects one of Kipling's ideals, he leaves his bad and
coarse characters disreputable to the end. This is due in a large
measure to the lack of warmth and light in his writings. In
contradiction to th