them, in short. But
it must have the atmosphere, it must find itself amidst the order of
ideas, in order to work freely; and these it is not so easy to command.
This is why great creative epochs in literature are so rare; this is why
there is so much that is unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of
real genius; 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 own
control.

Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the
business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, "in
all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, 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 profitably avail
itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true,
yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to make the best
ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, the touch of truth
is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth everywhere; out of
this stir and growth come the creative epochs of literature.

Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general
march of genius and of society,--considerations which are apt to become
too abstract and impalpable,--everyone can see that a poet, for instance,
ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in poetry; and
life and the world being, in modern times, very complex things, the
creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great critical
effort behind it; else it would be a comparatively poor, barren, and
short-lived affair. This is why Byron's poetry had so little endurance in
it, and Goethe's so much; both had a great productive power, but Goethe's
was nourished by a great critical effort providing the true materials for
it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew life and the world, the poet's
necessary subjects, much more comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron.
He knew a great deal more of them, and he knew them much more as they
really are.

It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our
literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it, in
fact, something premature; and that from