r the best work of an idealist tendency."

In reading Kipling it is best to begin with some of the tales written
in his early life, for these he has never surpassed in vigor and
interest. Take, for instance, _Without Benefit of Clergy_, _The Man
Who Was_, _The Drums of the Fore and Aft_, _The Man Who Would Be King_
and _Beyond the Pale_. These stories all deal with Anglo-Indian life,
two with the British soldier and the other three with episodes in the
lives of British officials and adventurers.

_The Man Who Would Be King_, the finest of all Kipling's tales of
Anglo-Indian life and adventure, is the story of the fatal ambition of
Daniel Dravot, told by the man who accompanied him into the wildest
part of Afghanistan. Daniel made the natives believe that he was a god
and he could have ruled them as a king had he not foolishly become
enamored of a native beauty. This girl was prompted by a native
soothsayer to bite Dravot in order to decide whether he was a god or
merely human. The blood that she drew on his neck was ample proof of
his spurious claims and the two adventurers were chased for miles
through a wild country. When captured Daniel is forced to walk upon a
bridge, the ropes of which are then cut, and his body is hurled
hundreds of feet down upon the rocks. The story of the survivor, who
escaped after crucifixion, is one of the ghastliest tales in all
literature.

Other tales that Kipling has written of Indian life are scarcely
inferior to these in strange, uncanny power. One of the weirdest
relates the adventures of an army officer who fell into the place
where those who have been legally declared dead, but who have
recovered, pass their lives. As a picture of hell on earth it has
never been surpassed. Another of Kipling's Indian tales that is worth
reading is _William the Conqueror_, a love story that has a background
of grim work during the famine year.

One of Kipling's claims to fame is that he has drawn the British
soldier in India as he actually lives. His _Soldiers Three_--Mulvaney,
the Irishman, Ortheris, the cockney, and Learoyd, the Yorkshireman--are
so full of real human nature that they delight all men and many women.
Mulvaney is the finest creation of Kipling, and most of his stories
are brimful of Irish wit. Of late years Kipling has written some fine
imaginative stories, such as _The Brushwood Boy_, _They_ and _An
Habitation Enforced_. He has also revealed his genius in such tales of
the futu