This reduces us to the necessity of considering not so much their form and quality as the ideas and doctrines they contain—­a barren task but necessary in order to clear away many misconceptions with regard to Mr Kipling’s work.  Regarded as literature, Mr Kipling’s Indian tales are mainly of note as preparing in him that enthusiasm for the work of the world which, later, was to inspire his greatest pages; as finally leading him in Kim to a door whereby he was able to pass into the region of pure fancy where alone he is supremely happy, and as prompting in him the instinct to simplify which urged him into the jungle and into the minds of children.  But all this has very little to do with India.  So long as we are dealing with Mr Kipling’s Indian stories as in themselves finished and intrinsic studies of India, we remain only in the suburbs of Mr Kipling’s merit as an author.  The Simla tales are not more than a skilful employment of a literary convention which Mr Kipling did not inherit.  The Anglo-Indian and native tales are the not less skilful work of a young newspaper man breaking into a storehouse of new material.  We are interested firstly in Mr Kipling’s craft as a technician, as one who makes the most of his theme deliberately and self-consciously; and secondly in Mr Kipling’s point of view, in the impressions and ideas he has collected concerning the country of which he writes.  Until we arrive at The Day’s Work we shall be mainly occupied in clearing the ground of impertinent prejudices concerning Mr Kipling’s temperament and politics.  For though the Indian and soldier tales are as literature not impregnable to criticism, they can at any rate be rescued from those who have annexed or repudiated them from motives which have little to do with their literary value.

We will begin with the Simla tales.

Characteristically the author who began virtually at the end of his career—­proclaiming himself a finished virtuoso at the start—­entered into prose with a volume of tales, radiating from Simla, which betray qualities that are usually associated with the later rather than with the early work of an author. Plain Tales from the Hills number more Simla stories to the square page than any other volume of Mr Kipling.  Now Mr Kipling’s Simla stories are the least important, but in some ways the most significant of all the stories he wrote.  They begin and they end in sheer literary virtuosity.  We feel in reading Mr Kipling’s studies of the social world at Simla that he had no intuitive call to write them; that they are exercises in craft rather than genuine inspirations.  Mrs Hawksbee stands for nothing in Mr Kipling’s achievement save only for his power to create an illusion of reality and enthusiasm by sheer finish of style.  She is not a creation.  She is only the best possible example of the clever sleight-of-hand of an accomplished artificer.  She is in literary fiction cousin to the witty, flirtatious ladies of the modern English