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14 INTRODUCTION
his pillow. In the early days he must have snatched pen and paper at once to work his idea up; but often the inspiration must have worked Kipling up. That was when he allowed his enthusiasm to steer his vessel. Mr. Desmond MacCarthy, writing in The New Statesman, points out that since Kipling settled in Sussex his work has been fed more than before by books and fancy. And it is in the regions of pure fancy that Kipling is happiest of all. Out of all his characters who do we remember best ? Is it Kim or is it Pagett, M.P. ? Is it Mowgli or Wali Dad ? Fancy is the deep, clear, sparkling stream which carries along and solves and neutralises, if not sweetens, in its impetuous flow life's rubbish and superfluities of all kinds. The Sussex tales of Kipling are his safe escape from the style of the alert tourist and the knowing journalist. The great difference between his early and later style is that latterly he has used his particularly sensitive gift for perception and observation, not to render things seen, but more often things dreamt, and the extraordinary appetite for exterior influences has waned a little in consequence. But for all that the purpose of his virtuosity is exactness. The stillness and ancientry of the Sussex wayside cannot kill this bent in him. In the |
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