organised effort the Socialism of our time failed to express, that the current socialist movement still fails, I think, to express. The sort of thing that follows, for example, tore something out of my inmost nature and gave it a shape, and I took it back from him shaped and let much of the rest of him, the tumult and the bullying, the hysteria and the impatience, the incoherence and inconsistency, go uncriticised for the sake of it:—
“Keep ye the Law—be swift in all obedience—Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford, Make ye sure to each his own That he reap where he hath sown; By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord!”
And then again, and for all our later criticism, this sticks in my mind, sticks there now as quintessential wisdom:
> “The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone;
> 'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own;
> 'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about
> An' then comes up the regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out.
> All along o' dirtiness, all along o' mess,
> All along o' doin' things rather-more-or-less,
> All along of abby-nay, kul, an' hazar-ho,
> Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so!”It is after all a secondary matter that Kipling, not having been