Mr. Rudyard Kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they can
know of England who know England only. It is a far deeper and sharper
question to ask, "What can they know of England who know only the world?"
for the world does not include England any more than it includes
the Church. The moment we care for anything deeply, the world--
that is, all the other miscellaneous interests--becomes our enemy.
Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one's self
"unspotted from the world;" but lovers talk of it just as much
when they talk of the "world well lost." Astronomically speaking,
I understand that England is situated on the world; similarly, I suppose
that the Church was a part of the world, and even the lovers
inhabitants of that orb. But they all felt a certain truth--
the truth that the moment you love anything the world becomes your foe.
Thus Mr. Kipling does certainly know the world; he is a man of the world,
with all the narrowness that belongs to those imprisoned in that planet.
He knows England as an intelligent English gentleman knows Venice.
He has been to England a great many times; he has stopped there
for long visits. But he does not belong to it, or to any place;
and the proof of it is this, that he thinks of England as a place.
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