BOOKS.

MR. KIPLING'S NEW STORY-BOOK.*

THE first verdict on this book will come, not from the critics in the newspapers, but in the nurseries. And a perfectly honest and unprejudiced verdict it will be, for the one thing you can never do is to persuade a small child that it likes a book when it does not. Grown-up people have a dozen reasons for saying they like a book ; children but one,— because they really do like it. Smith, Jones, and Robinson say they, like or dislike a book because it is the fashion, because they have always declared they like all So-and-so's work, because their favourite critic says it is good, or because they fancy that to say they did not like it would prove that they bad "no real literary instinct." Meg and Marjory, Molly and Kate, Tom, Bob, and Jack, care for none of these things. Their judg- ment comes straight from the heart, and it is utterly useless to quote learned opinions in the contrary sense, or to talk about an appeal to a higher Court. The decision is final. We feel, then, that in a great measure we are performing an empty function, and that this book's fate is a matter with which the reviewer can have little to do. But though we cannot for a moment expect to influence the legitimate and independent judges of .Tust So Stories, we may venture to express an opinion as to what the nursery view is likely to be. In our belief, it will be highly favourable, and in a very few days innumerable heads, black, brown, and yellow, will be studiously bent over Mr. Kipling's new book. As the shortening days bring a longer "reading-time" it will be brought forth from various safe places and solemnly placed by little bands in bigger hands with a request for "a read." It could hardly be otherwise, for in it is to be found all that in the nursery- world is adored. The stories go straight home. They are fantastic, but never unintelligible. There is just the right amount of iteration, or rather repetition, in the nature of a musical refrain, and there are plenty of nice long words, which, however, need not be understood to make out the story, and yet set it off and decorate it most delight. fully. Again, as in all good stories, the creatures talk and admonish, and look at once fierce and friendly, as should all • Just So Stories for Litt!. Children. By Rudyard Ripling. With rilzistla*

Mons by the Author. London Macmillan and Co. [6s.J

children's animals, wild and tame. Lastly, there are pictures which it is easy for every one to understand, and where the people and the children, and the dogs, cats, and bears, appear in sizes proportionate to their importance, and have in addition opposite them explanations which show exactly what they mean. The pictures lend themselves perfectly to the pointing finger, sucked or dry, dirty or clean, which is so solemnly laid down with a "Here is the elephant; that is the cat." In truth, there is no impediment either in the stories or the book why .Tut So Stories should not become a book as well beloved by the little children as The Jungle Book is by the children who are no longer to be classed as little.

To our mind, the best thing in this enchanting volume is the story of " The Cat that Walked by Himself." Mr. Kipling, we fear, does not like cats; but in this pleasant history he is strictly just, and the cat scores. It is, like several of the other "Just so" stories, a tale of primitive man. It tells how the cat who walks by himself won the right to live in the house, to sit by the fire, and to lap his saucer of milk. When the dog, the horse, and the cow went up to the cave and were tamed by the woman and became in turn domestic animals, the eat sat outside in a secret hiding-place and watched, but refused to come in and to give up his freedom and his habit of walking by himself. When, however, he saw how the primitive estab- lishment was growing, and that there was a warm fire in the cave and also milk going, he thought it might be nice to have the entree of the cave. Accordingly the cat went and inter- viewed the woman and asked to be admitted. But she would not, and told the cat point-blank that he would never be allowed to come into the cave till she had said a word in his praise, or to sit by the fire till she had said two words, or to lap the milk till she had said three words in his praise, which also she declared she would never do. Quite fascinating is the way in which the cat betrays the woman into praising him. Needless to say, it is after the arrival of the baby. The woman is busy cooking inside the cave and the baby is crying outside. Then the cat plays with the baby, and it coos and laughs. "And the woman heard him and smiled." Then the bat flew off and told the woman that "a wild thing from the wild woods is most beautifully playing with your baby." Naturally, the woman, like the Ancient Mariner, blessed the cat unawares, and, naturally, the cat instantly claimed his rights. So it happened again and yet again, till the woman at last bad said three words in the cat's praise,—the last time because the cat killed the mouse that frightened her and made her jump upon the footstool in front of the fire. But the story told thus in a cold abstract can give no adequate idea of the beauty and charm of the narrative as a whole. It must be read in Mr. Kipling's own inimitable child's prose,—a prose always simple and yet never degenerating into the sentimental or the ridiculous. The style is wordy and full of repetitions, as befits the talk of those who talk to the child, but it is never trivial or jejune. We wish we had space to quote from this as well as from the wholly ad- mirable story of "The Elephant's Child," the most humorous, as the cat-story is the most fascinating, tale in the book. "The Elephant's Child" is broad farce, and in it there is a didactic Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock - Snake who talks exactly like a Bengali Baboo. Here is a specimen of his talk when the crocodile in the Limpopo seized hold of the elephant's child's nose and tried to draw him into the water in order to give bun experimentally an answer to the question—the elephant's child had an inquiring mind—What do crocodiles eat?— Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile, and I'll whisper. Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close P? the Crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very week, day, hour, and 1,71-111:Tte, had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful. f think,' said the Crocodile—and he said it between his teeth, like this—q think to-day I will begin with Elephant's Child!' At this, 0 Best Beloved, the Elephant's Child was much annoyed, and he said, speaking through his nose, like this, 'Led go ! You hurtig be! Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled c!oowil from the bank and said, My young frien 1. if you do not _ew unmediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is 1.7", Pinion that your acquaintance in the Ii rge-p ttern leather r (and by this he meant the Crocodile) • w.ai jerk you into Yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.' This is El the way Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk. Then the

hant's Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and

, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Ltneedile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with gl'eat sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled. And the Elephant's Child's nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching ; and tho Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose grew longer and longer—and it hurt him hijjus ! Then the Elephant's Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, This is too butch for be!' Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant's Child's hind-legs, and said, 'Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-pro- pelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck' (and by this, 0 Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile) 'will permanently vitiate your future career.' That is the way all Bi-Coloured- Fython-Rock-Snakes always talk."

Very delightful, too, is the story of the kangaroo and of "Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo, always hungry and grinning like a rat-trap," a story chiefly composed in a kind of loom hexa- meter, or as the rock python would have said, "in rhythmical prose, with a marked dactylic emphasis."

Before we leave these enthralling tales we must find space to say just a word or two as to the charming verses that are to be found scattered up and down the "Just so" stories. The best of these is one of the finest pieces of poetry that Mr. Kipling has achieved in the elegiac mood, and in that mood he has had many signal triumphs, though the public, which likes a man to have only one form of art, does not readily acknowledge the fact. It is a poem dealing by reflection with the story of " Teguruai," a primitive man who dwelt with his daughter " Taffy " in primitive England on the chalk downs between Guildford and Dorking, those incomparable stretches of green turf and wild woodland—oak and ash and thorn and yew and wild pear—which remain to this day very much what they were in the time of the Phcenicians :—

"There runs a road by Merrow Down—

grassy track to-day it is— An hour out of Guildford town, Above the river Mrey it is.

Here, when they heard the horse-bells ring.

The ancient Britons dressed and rode To watch the dark Phcenicians bring Their goods along the Western Road.

And here, or hereabouts, they met To hold their racial talks and such— To barter beads for Whitby jet, And tin for gay shell torques and such.

But long and long before that time (When bison used to roam on it) Did Taffy and her Daddy climb That down, and had their home on it.

Then beavers built in Broadstonebrook And made a swamp where Branaley stands ; And bears from Shere would come and look For Taffimai where Shamley stands."

Surely, if verse ever possessed the elegiac spell, this does. But even more captivating is the second part :— "Of all the Tribe of Tegumai Who cut that figure, none remain,— On Merrow Down the cuckoos cry— The silence and the sun remain.

But as the faithful years return And hearts unwounded sing again, Comes Taffy dancing through the fern To lead the Surrey spring again.

Her brows are bound with bracken-fronds, And golden elf-locks fly above; her eyes are bright as diamonds And bluer than the skies above.

In moccasins and deer-skin cloak, Unfearing, free and fair she flits, And lights her little damp-wood smoke 'Co show her Daddy where she flits.

For far—oh, very far behind, So far she cannot call to him, Comes Tegumai alone to find The daughter that was all to him."

Without any doubt after this Taffy is free of that rare and secret golden country peopled with children by the poets.

There will she meet many free and gentle spirits, but unless we mistake not, she will above all others like to play with the little boys in Wordsworth's "Beggars " :— " Wings let them have, and they might flit Precursors of Aurora's car."

Truly are we grateful to Mr. Kipling for his book, a worthy contribution to a worthy literature,—a literature already en-

nobled by such monuments of art as the two " Alices," the "Snark," and all Lear's nonsense-books.

A word must be said in conclusion in regard to Mr. Kipling's pictures. They are worthy of the text, and truly reflect its spirit, What is further noteworthy about them is their technical dexterity. Mr. Kipling knows how to handle black and white, and to make them suggest colour,—but then the artist is in him hereditary, for he was, so to speak, born and bred in a studio.