They are already setting standards for the coming millions, and have sown little sprouts of regimental tradition which may grow into age-old trees. In one corps, for example, though no dubbin is issued a man loses his name for parading with dirty boots. He looks down scornfully on the next battalion where they are not expected to achieve the impossible. In another—an ex-Guards sergeant brought ‘em up by hand—the drill is rather high-class. In a third they fuss about records for route-marching, and men who fall out have to explain themselves to their sweating companions. This is entirely right. They are all now in the Year One, and the meanest of them may be an ancestor of whom regimental posterity will say: ‘There were giants in those days!’
THE REAL QUESTION
This much we can realise, even though we are so close to it. The old safe instinct saves us from triumph and exultation. But what will be the position in years to come of the young man who has deliberately elected to outcaste himself from this all-embracing brotherhood? What of his family, and, above all, what of his descendants, when the books have been closed and the last balance struck of sacrifice and sorrow in every hamlet, village, parish, suburb, city, shire, district, province, and Dominion throughout the Empire?
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
THE
SERVICE KIPLING
| In 26 vols. | 16 mo. | 2s. 6d. net each |
The volumes are bound in blue cloth, and printed in an old-style type designed after an old Venetian model and known as the Dolphin Type.
| Plain Tales from the Hills. 2 Vols. | |
| Soldiers Three. 2. Vols. | |
| Wee Willie Winkie. 2 Vols. | |
| From Sea to Sea. 4 Vols. | |
| Life’s Handicap. 2 Vols. | |
| The Light that Failed. 2 Vols. | |
| The Naulahka. 2 Vols. | 1915 |
| Many Inventions. 2 Vols. | February |
| The Day’s Work. 2 Vols. | March |
| Kim. 2 Vols. | |
| Traffics and Discoveries. 2 Vols. | April |
| Actions and Reactions. 2 Vols. | |