MATTHEW AEKOLD's CBITICISM 123 



make the value to us of -writers like Landor, for in- 

 stance, but we everywhere strike continuous currents 

 of ideas that set definitely to certain conclusions; 

 always clear and limpid currents, and now and then 

 deep, strong, and heautiful currents. And, after all, 

 water was made to flow and not to stand, and those 

 are the most vital and influential minds whose ideas 

 are ivorking ideas, and lay hold of real problems. 



Certainly a man's power to put himself in com- 

 munication with live questions, and to take vital 

 hold of the spiritual and intellectual life of his age, 

 should enter into our estimate of him. We shall ask 

 of a writer who lays claim to high rank, not merely 

 has he great thoughts, but what does he do with 

 his great thoughts 1 Is he superior to them ? Can 

 he use them? Can he bring them to bear? Can 

 he wield them to clear up some obscurity or bridge 

 over some difficulty for us, or does he sit down amid 

 them and admire them 1 A man who wields a great 

 capital is above him who merely hoards it and keeps 

 it. Let me refer to Landor again in this connection, 

 because, in such a discussion, one wants, as they say 

 in croquet, a ball to play on, and because Lander's 

 works have lately been in my hands, and I have 

 noted in them a certain remoteness and ineffectual- 

 ness which contrast them well with Arnold's. Lan- 

 der's sympathies were mainly outside his country 

 and times, and his writings affect me like capital 

 invested in jewels and precious stones, rather than 

 employed in any great and worthy enterprise. One 

 turns over his beautiful sentences with a certain 



