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.