The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-03-05

all stand out in lifelike distinctness. Then
the mirror shows us the Anglo-Indans-
young clerks with the fresh English bloom
on their cheeks equity and jaundiced SEN
iors invaded by long indulgence in wines
and curries, Woodworking officials at their
toll and fashionable people in their gave
ties.
Nowhere is life in the barracks and on
the parade ground more perfectly display
ed. Falstaff, Bardolph and Pistol are not
better drawn than Mulvaney, Learoyd and
Ortheris in Soldiers Three" There is no
long description. Kipling's characters
simply speak and reveal themselves. Null
vaney is Irish, Learoyd is a bluff York
shireman, and Ortherls a little Cockney,
but in each case the dialect is perfect. II
is not initiated, it is real
kpling is among dialect writer's what
Garrick was among actors. He can sus-
tain any part with equal readiness and
skill. Garrick was equally great in trag-
edy and comedy Kipling is just as much
at home in barrack-room slang, in the
conversational phrases of polite society
and in the technical terms of the learn
ed.
Next to the marvellous skill of his dia-
logues what most impresses me is the
perfection of the plot and setting of Kip
ling's stories. The frame of the picture
is often as wonderful as the painting it.
self. THE Counting of Dinah Shadd" a
strange, pathetic story of love, jealousy,
devotion, weakness and remorse, is made
doubly effective by being told by Mulva-
ney after an exciting description of the
pomp and circumstance of war. The i'm
agination is stirred by the maneuvers of
great bodies of horse and foot. The army
seems a magnificent machine, in which
the individuality of every man is lost.
Then comes the encampment for the
night. The hustle and stir, gradually les
sen, and then, as darkness deepens by the
lonely campfire, the heavy hearted soldier
tells a comrade the sad story of his life
failure. To find such tenderness and pa
thos In the midst of the glare and glitter.
the bang and clatter, of military life is
like finding fertile little valley shut in
by barren rocks. Each wonderfully sets
off the characteristics of the other We
are made to see the very heart of Ter
euce Mulvaney as he tells his friend how
he courted Dinah Shadd.
Not less touching Is the life history of
Learoyd, the big Yorkshireman, as he
tells 1t to his two friends, Mulvaney and
Ortheris. Here, too, we have the effective
contrast between the soldier as machine
and the soldier as a man. II was said Of
old: 1.-THE heart knoweth its own bitter
ness, and a stranger intermeddeth not
with its joy" And so, indeed. 1t is with
most men. They see the surface of the
lives of their fellows and no more, but
Kipling has the true dramatic faculty and
somehow seems to read the heart to the
depths. Not only can he see, he can also
reveal what he sees.
The variety of these stories is as won
derful as the excellence of each. Kip
ling seems, like a new Admirable Crich-
ton, to have read all lteratures and d.
gested all sciences In his youth Like
Shakespeare he is Indifferent to his sub
ject, and treats disease, insanity or the
supernatural with the same ease and mas
terry as the commonest incidents of life
1.-The Phantom Rickshaw'' is a strange
tale of brain fever. THE Conversion of
Aurelian McGoggin' treats of case of
aphasia brought on by overstudy. "At
the end of the Passage" is a startling med
ical picture. THE Gate of a Hundred
Sorrows tells the story of opium-eating
Another tale gives weird and awful ac-
count of life among the lepers "BimI'
is a tale of an orang-outang. THE Mu-
tiny of Moti-Guj" shows you the habits Of
the working elephant.
Like an ambidextrous athlete. Kipling
can use prose and verse with equal skill
and effect. In the volume of PLAIN Tales
there are odd and startling poetical intro
auctions to the several stories, and the
longer "Barrack-Room Ballads show