Matthew Arnold | Page 8

from the shadowy impressions of the past the most splendid intimations of the future. Against such vain imaginings Arnold set, in prose, the "inexorable sentence" in which Butler warned us to eschew pleasant self-deception; and, in verse, the persistent question--
Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share?
He rebuked
Wishes unworthy of a man full-grown.
He taught that there are
Joys which were not for our use designed.
He warned discontented youth not to expect greater happiness from advancing years, because
one thing only has been lent To youth and age in common--discontent.
Friendship is a broken reed, for
Our vaunted life is one long funeral,
and even Hope is buried with the "faces that smiled and fled."
Death, at least in some of its aspects, seemed to him the
Stern law of every mortal lot, Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear; And builds himself I know not what Of second life I know not where.
And yet, in gleams of happier insight, he saw the man who "flagged not in this earthly strife,"
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
mount, though hardly, to eternal life. And, as he mused over his father's grave, the conviction forced itself upon his mind that somewhere in the "labour-house of being" there still was employment for that father's strength, "zealous, beneficent, firm."
Here indeed is the more cheerful aspect of his "criticism of life." Such happiness as man is capable of enjoying is conditioned by a frank recognition of his weaknesses and limitations; but it requires also for its fulfilment the sedulous and dutiful employment of such powers and opportunities as he has.
First and foremost, he must realize the "majestic unity" of his nature, and not attempt by morbid introspection to dissect himself into
Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers, Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control.
Then he must learn that
To its own impulse every action stirs.
He must live by his own light, and let earth live by hers. The forces of nature are to be in this respect his teachers--
But with joy the stars perform their shining, And the sea its long moon-silvered roll; For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting All the fever of some differing soul.
But, though he is to learn from Nature and love Nature and enjoy Nature, he is to remember that she
never was the friend of one, Nor promised love she could not give;
and so he is not to expect too much from her, or demand impossible boons. Still less is he to be content with feeling himself "in harmony" with her; for
Man covets all which Nature has, but more.
That "more" is Conscience and the Moral Sense.
Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never be fast friends.
And this brings us to the idea of Duty as set forth in his poems, and Duty resolves itself into three main elements: Truth--Work--Love. Truth comes first. Man's prime duty is to know things as they are. Truth can only be attained by light, and light he must cultivate, he must worship. Arnold's highest praise for a lost friend is that he was "a child of light"; that he had "truth without alloy,"
And joy in light, and power to spread the joy.
The saddest part of that friend's death is the fear that it may bring,
After light's term, a term of cecity:
the best hope for the future, that light will return and banish the follies, sophistries, delusions, which have accumulated in the darkness. "Lucidity of soul" may be--nay, must be, "sad"; but it is not less imperative. And the truth which light reveals must not only be sought earnestly and cherished carefully, but even, when the cause demands it, championed strenuously. The voices of conflict, the joy of battle, the "garments rolled in blood," the "burning and fuel of fire" have little place in Arnold's poetry. But once at any rate he bursts into a strain so passionate, so combatant, that it is difficult for a disciple to recognize his voice; and then the motive is a summons to a last charge for Truth and Light--
They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee? Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot and pass'd, Hotly charged--and sank at last.
Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall!
But the note of battle, even for what he holds dearest and most sacred, is not a familiar note in his poetry. He had no natural love of
the throng'd field where winning comes by strife.
His criticism of life sets a higher value on work than on fighting. "Toil unsevered from tranquillity," "Labour, accomplish'd in repose"--is his ideal of happiness and duty.
Even the Duke of Wellington--surely an unpromising subject for poetic eulogy--is praised because he was a worker,
Laborious, persevering, serious, firm.
Nature, again,