biting it off, I let you take it out again unharmed. Get away with you! And do not again place yourself in my power."

The Frog who Wanted to Be as Big as an Ox

A vain Frog, surrounded by her children, looked up and saw an Ox grazing near by. "I can be as big as the Ox," she said, and began to blow herself out. "Am I as big now?" she inquired. "Oh, no; not nearly so big!" said the little frogs. "Now?" she asked, blowing herself out still more. "No, not nearly so big!" answered her children. "But now?" she inquired eagerly, and blew herself out still more. "No, not even now," they said; "and if you try till you burst yourself you will never be so big." But the Frog would not listen, and attempting to make herself bigger still, burst her skin and died.

The Dog in the Manger

A Dog lay in a manger which was full of hay. An Ox, being hungry, came near, and was about to eat when the Dog started up, and, with angry snarls, would not let the Ox approach. "Surly brute," said the Ox; "you cannot eat the hay yourself, and you will let no one else have any."

The Bundle of Faggots

An honest Man had the unhappiness to have a quarrelsome family of children. One day he called them before him, and bade them try to break a bundle of faggots. All tried, and all failed. "Now," said he, "unbind the bundle and take every stick by itself, and see if you cannot break them." They did his bidding, and snapped all the sticks one by one with the greatest possible ease. "This, my children," said the Father at last, "is a true emblem of your condition. Keep together and you are safe, divide and you are undone."

The Fox Without a Tail

A Fox was once caught in a trap by his tail, and in order to get free was obliged to leave it behind. He knew that his fellows would make fun of his tailless condition, so he made up his mind to induce them all to part with their tails. At the next assemblage of Foxes he made a speech on the uselessness of tails in general, and the inconvenience of a Fox's tail in particular, declaring that never in his whole life had he felt so comfortable as now in his tailless freedom. When he sat down, a sly old Fox rose, and, waving his brush, said, with a sneer, that if he had lost his tail, he would be convinced by the last speaker's arguments, but until such an accident occurred he fully intended to vote in favour of tails.

The Blind Man and the Paralytic

A blind man finding himself stopped in a rough and difficult road, met with a paralytic and begged his assistance. "How can I help you," replied the paralytic, "when I can scarcely move myself along?" But, regarding the blind man, he added: "However, you appear to have good legs and a broad back, and, if you will lift me and carry me, I will guide you safely through this difficulty, which is more than each one can surmount for himself. You shall walk for me, and I will see for you." "With all my heart," rejoined the blind man; and, taking the paralytic on his shoulders, the two went cheerfully forward in a wise partnership which triumphed over all difficulties.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Essays in Criticism

Matthew Arnold, son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby (see Vol. X, p. 260), was born on December 24, 1822, and died on April 15, 1888. He was by everyday calling an inspector of schools and an educational expert, but by nature and grace a poet, a philosopher, a man of piety and of letters. Arnold almost ceased to write verse when he was forty-five, though not without having already produced some of the choicest poetry in the English language. Before that he had developed his theories of literary criticism in his "Essays in Criticism"; and about the time of his withdrawal from Oxford he published "Culture and Anarchy," in which his system of philosophy is broadly outlined. Later, in "St. Paul and Protestantism," "Literature and Dogma" and "God and the Bible," he tried to adjust Christianity according to the light of modern knowledge. In his "Lectures on Translating Homer," he had expressed views on criticism and its importance that were new to, and so were somewhat adversely discussed by the Press. Whereupon, in 1865, with a militant joy, he re-entered the fray and defined the province of criticism in the first of a series of "Essays in Criticism," showing the narrowness of the British conception. "The Literary Influence of Academies" was a subject that enabled him to make a further comparison between the literary genius of the French and of the English people, and a number of individual critiques that followed only enhanced his great and now undisputed position both as a poet and as a critic. The argument of the two general essays is given here.

I.—Creative Power and Critical Power

Many objections have been made to a proposition of mine about criticism: "Of the literature of France and Germany, as of the intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical effort—the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge, to see the object as in itself it really is." I added that "almost the last thing for which one would come to English literature was just that very thing which now Europe most desired—criticism," and that the power and value of English literature were thereby impaired. More than one rejoinder declared that the importance here again assigned to criticism was excessive, and asserted the inherent superiority of the creative effort of the human spirit over its critical effort. A reporter of Wordsworth's conversation quotes a judgment to the same effect: "Wordsworth holds the critical power very low; indeed, infinitely lower than the inventive."

The critical power is of lower rank than the inventive—true; but, in assenting to this proposition, we must keep in mind that men may have the sense of exercising a free creative activity in other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; and that the exercise of the creative power in the production of great works of literature or art is not at all epochs and under all conditions possible. This creative power works with elements, with materials—what if it has not those materials ready for its use? Now, in literature, the elements with which creative power works are ideas—the best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current at the time. The grand work of literary genius is a work of synthesis and exposition; its gift lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, when it finds itself in them; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them in most effective and attractive combinations, making beautiful works with them, in short. But it must have the atmosphere, it must find itself amidst the order of the ideas, in order to work freely; and these it is not so easy to command. This is really why great creative epochs in literature are so rare—because, for the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment; and the man is not enough without the moment.

The creative power has for its happy exercise appointed elements, and those elements are not in its control. Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the business of the critical power in all branches of knowledge to see the object as in itself it really is. Thus it tends at last to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, yet true by comparison