150 INDOOR STUDIES 



If he is "the friend and aider of those who would 

 live in the spirit," he is equally the friend and 

 aider of those who would found a great state, a 

 great literature, a great art. The spirit he brought 

 to his task, and which he displayed through his life, 

 is a stimulus and a support to all noble endeavor, 

 of whatever kind or in whatever field. 



Yet it is to be said that neither Emerson nor 

 Carlyle was a typical literary man. They both had 

 too great moral vehemence, or bent, to be the doc- 

 tors and professors of mere literature for and of 

 itself. They both belong to that class of writers 

 who are not so much critics of life as feeders and 

 reinforcers of life; who gather in from wide-lying 

 realms, not always with nice judgment or wise selec- 

 tion, but always with bold, strong hands, much that 

 nourishes and fertilizes the very roots of the tree 

 Igdrasil. Such writers were Emerson and Carlyle. 

 Such a writer is not Mr. Arnold, though his func- 

 tion as pruner and cultivator of the tree is scarcely 

 less in importance. 



Disinterestedness is to be demanded of the critic, 

 but the creative imagination may have free play 

 within the limits of a strong intellectual bias. The 

 charm and value of Darwin is his disinterestedness, 

 but Darwin is a critic of the scheme of creation: he 

 is interested only in finding and stating the largest 

 truth, in outlining the theory that will cover the 

 greatest multitude and the widest diversity of facts. 

 But the charm and value of such a writer as Abram 

 Cowley, or Mr. Euskin, or our Thoreau, is largely 



