"Now of all the differences between men and women there is none more radical than this: that a man naturally loves law, whereas a woman naturally hates it and never sees a law without casting about for some way of dodging it. Laws, universals, general propositions--her instinct with all of them is to get off by wheedling the judge. So, if you want a test for a masculine poet, examine first whether or no he understands the Universe as a thing of law and order." "Then, by your own test, Kipling--the Jingo Kipling--is a most masculine poet, since he talks of little else." "I will answer you, although I believe you are not serious. At present Mr. Kipling's mind, in search of a philosophy, plays with the contemplation of a world reduced to law and order; the law and order being such as universal British rule would impose. There might be many worse worlds than a world so ruled, and in verse the prospect can be made to look fair enough:--" "'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!' "Clean and wholesome teaching it seems, persuading civilised men that, as they are strong, so the obligation rests on them to set the world in order, carry tillage into its wildernesses, and clean up its bloodstained corners. Yet as a political philosophy it lacks the first of all essentials, and as Mr. Kipling develops it we begin to detect the flaw in the system:-- "'The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood and stone; 'E don't obey no orders unless they is his 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. Etc.'