under these new circumstances, what code of laws still binds his conscience, what are his relaxations and what his observations, these are the questions which we ask and which Mr. Kipling essays for the first time to answer. Among the short stories which Mr. Kipling has dedicated to the British soldier in India there are a few which excel all the rest as works of art. I do not think that any one will deny that of this inner selection none exceeds in skill or originality _The Taking of Lungtungpen_. Those who have not read this little masterpiece have yet before them the pleasure of becoming acquainted with one of the best short stories, not merely in English, but in any language. I do not know how to praise adequately the technical merit of this little narrative. It possesses to the full that masculine buoyancy, that power of sustaining an extremely spirited narrative in a tone appropriate to the action, which is one of Mr. Kipling's rare gifts. Its concentration, which never descends into obscurity, its absolute novelty, its direct and irresistible appeal to what is young and daring and absurdly splendid, are unsurpassed. To read it, at all events to admire and enjoy it, is to recover for a moment a little of that dare-devil quality that lurks somewhere in the softest and the baldest of us. Only a very young man could have written it, perhaps, but still more certainly only a young man of genius. A little less interesting, in a totally different way, is _The Daughter of the Regiment_, with its extraordinarily vivid account of the breaking-out of cholera in a troop-train. Of _The Madness of Ortheris_ I have already spoken; as a work of art this again seems to me somewhat less remarkable, because carried out with less completeness. But it would be hard to find a parallel, of its own class, to _The Rout of the White Hussars_, with its study of the effects of what is believed to be supernatural on a gathering of young fellows who are absolutely without fear of any phenomenon of which they comprehend the nature. In a very late story, _The Courting of Dinah Shadd_, Mr. Kipling has shown that he is able to deal with the humours and matrimonial amours of Indian barrack-life just as rapidly, fully, and spiritedly as with the more serious episodes of a soldier's career. The scene between Judy Sheehy and Dinah, as told by Mulvaney in that story, is pure comedy, without a touch of farce.