“The book speaks for itself, leaps up at one from every page, brilliant and loving. But notice the characters: in the lama Kipling’s daimon ran away with him to create an immortal, wise, old holy man. He is really the decisive creation in Kim, even more important than Kim himself. And that is revealing: it means that Kipling’s creative genius was more powerful and compelling than his cerebral intentions. For the character of the lama flowered into a creation of unforgettable moral beauty: the holy man incarnates the patience, the wisdom of the East, the subjugation of self, the fully achieved human spirit. Though the lama is an old Tibetan monk, he is really India, he speaks for the East.”