ere set in his own country, India, and in his own time;
and it was not until his actual experience had broadened to
other lands, that, to any great extent, his subjects broadened
geographically. In his stories of his own people, Mr. Kipling just as
faithfully portrays the every-day existence he has actually observed
as any realist. His method is romantic always: he deduces his details
from his theme, instead of inducing his theme from his details. He
is entirely romantic in the direction of his thought; but it is very
suggestive of the tenor of contemporary romance, to notice that he
has taken the advice of the realists and seldom gone beyond his own
experience.

The range of romance is therefore far wider than the range of realism;
for all that may be treated realistically may be treated romantically
also, and much else that may be treated romantically is hardly
susceptible of realistic treatment. Granted that a romantic have
truths enough in his head, there is scarcely any limit to the stories
he may deduce from them; while, on the other hand, the work of the
inductive novelist is limited by the limits of his premises. But
the greater freedom of romance is attended by a more difficult
responsibility. If it be easier for the romantic to tell the truth,
because he has more ways of telling it, it is surely harder for him to
tell nothing but the truth. More often than the realist he is tempted
to assert uncertainties--tempted to say with vividness and charm
things of which he cannot quite be sure.

But whatever may be the comparative advantages and disadvantages of
each method of exhibiting the truth, it is absolutely certain that
either method of presentment is natural and logical; and hence all
criticism that aims to exalt romance above realism, or realism above
romance, must be forever futile. Guy de Maupassant, in his valuable
preface to "Pierre et Jean," has spoken very wisely on this point. The
ideal critic, he says, should demand of the artist merely to "create
something beautiful, in the form most convenient to him, according to
his temperament." And he states further:--"The critic should appraise
the result only according to the nature of the effort.... He should
admit with an equal interest the contrasted theories of art, and
judge the works resultant from them only from the standpoint of their
artistic worth, accepting _a priori_ the general ideas from which they
owe their origin. To contest the right of an a