Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/113

 his true poetic note, who felt a new and lovely charm in such poems as the Scholar Gipsy, were sorry when poetry fled away from him, when the practical reason sat in the throne of imagination; but consoled themselves by thinking that he had done all he could do in poetry, that the gold of that mine was exhausted, and that if he had gone on, it would only have been silver that he could have given us. And Westminster Abbey and Geist are only silver. And then they felt how clear-eyed and sensible it was of him to put aside with so much ease and dignity his commerce with the Muses. It is not every day that we touch a man who, having reached some excellence in one of the great arts, knows when he can be excellent no more, and lays it by; and, moreover, takes up new work, in other realms altogether, conscious of new powers, pleased to exercise them, and exercising them with a sure hand. In this new work Arnold followed his own advice to others. He kept his eye fixed on his subjects. He realised his aim, and saw it, for the most part, distinctly. He worked with a deep anxiety to help the world forward to clearer views of life. He lived far less within himself, and far more for the sake of his fellow men. He took his share in the daily drudgery of the world and brought to it "sweetness and light." He believed in the new age while he deprecated its sensational elements, and he used all his powers to lead it into a simpler, quieter, and truer life. Much might well be said of his prose work; of