316 IS POETRY AT BOTTOM 



indeed we might perhaps hear from a new school of writers 

 upon art, that * Criticism is at bottom the poetry of things,' 

 inasmuch as it is the critic's function to select the quintessential 

 element of all he touches, and to present that only in choice 

 form to the public he professes to instruct. Yet, when we 

 return to Mr. Arnold, and compare the passage above quoted 

 with the fuller expression of the same view upon a preceding 

 page, the apparent paradox is reduced to the proportions of a 

 sound and valuable generalisation : 



Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound 

 application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic greatness. 

 I said that a great poet receives his distinctive character of superiority 

 from his application, under the conditions immutably fixed by the laws 

 of poetic beauty and poetic truth, from his application, I say, whatever 

 it may be, of the ideas 



On man, on nature, and on human life, 

 which he has acquired for himself. 



A vital element in this description of poetic greatness is the 

 further determination of the ideas in question as moral : 



It is said that to call these ideas moral ideas is to introduce a strong 

 and injurious limitation. I answer that it is to do nothing of the kind, 

 because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. The 

 question, how to live, is itself a moral idea ; and it is the question which 

 most interests every man, and with which, in some way or other, he is 

 perpetually occupied. 



With the substance of these passages there are few who, after 

 mature reflection on the nature of poetry, will not agree. That 

 the weight of Mr. Arnold's authority should be unhesitatingly 

 given against what he calls the poetry of revolt and the poetry 

 of indifference to morals, is a matter for rejoicing to all who 

 think the dissemination of sound views on literature important. 

 It is good to be reminded at the present moment that Omar 

 Khayyam failed of true greatness because he was a reactionary, 

 and that Theophile Gautier took up his abode in what can 

 never be more than a wayside halting-place. From time 

 to time critics arise who attempt to persuade us that it docs 



