Matthew Arnold | Page 2

to Miss Rose
Kingsley my thanks have been already paid for the use of some of
Arnold's letters which are published now for the first time. It may be
well to state that whenever, in the ensuing pages, passages are put in
inverted commas, they are quoted from Arnold, unless some other
authorship is indicated. Here and there I have borrowed from previous
writings of my own, grounding myself on the principle so well
enounced by Mr. John Morley--"that a man may once say a thing as he
would have it said, [Greek: dis de ouk endechetai]--he cannot say it
twice."
G.W.E.R.

CHRISTMAS, 1903.

CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER II
METHOD 17
CHAPTER III
EDUCATION 48
CHAPTER IV
SOCIETY 111
CHAPTER V
CONDUCT 172
CHAPTER VI
THEOLOGY 210

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Matthew Arnold, 1884 Frontispiece
FACING PAGE

Laleham Ferry 16
Thomas Arnold, D.D. 32
Laleham Church 48
Fox How, Ambleside 64
The House at Laleham, where Matthew Arnold first went to School 80
Rugby School 96
Balliol College, Oxford 112
Fisher's Buildings, Balliol College 128
Oriel College, Oxford 144
Matthew Arnold, 1869 160
Pains Hill Cottage, Cobham, Surrey 176
The Union Rooms, Oxford 192
Matthew Arnold, 1880, from the Painting by G.F. Watts, R.A. 208
Pains Hill Cottage, Cobham, from the Lawn 224
Matthew Arnold, 1884 240
Matthew Arnold's Grave at Laleham 256

MATTHEW ARNOLD
Eldest son of Thomas Arnold, D.D., and Mary Penrose
Born 1822

Entered Winchester College 1836
Transferred to Rugby School 1837
Scholar of Balliol 1840
Entered Balliol College 1841
Newdigate Prizeman 1843
B.A. 1844
Fellow of Oriel 1845
Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne 1847
Inspector of Schools 1851
Married Frances Lucy Wightman 1851
Professor of Poetry at Oxford 1857
D.C.L. 1870
Resigned Inspectorship 1886
Died 1888
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This book is intended to deal with substance rather than with form. But,
in estimating the work of a teacher who taught exclusively with the pen,
it would be perverse to disregard entirely the qualities of the writing
which so penetrated and coloured the intellectual life of the Victorian
age. Some cursory estimate of Arnold's powers in prose and verse must
therefore be attempted, before we pass on to consider the practical
effect which those powers enabled him to produce.

And here it behoves a loyal and grateful disciple to guard himself
sedulously against the peril of overstatement. For to the unerring taste,
the sane and sober judgment, of the Master, unrestrained and
inappropriate praise would have been peculiarly distressing.
This caution applies with special force to our estimate of his rank in
poetry. That he was a poet, the most exacting, the most paradoxical
criticism will hardly deny; but there is urgent need for moderation and
self-control when we come to consider his place among the poets. Are
we to call him a great poet? The answer must be carefully pondered.
In the first place, he did not write very much. The total body of his
poetry is small. He wrote in the rare leisure-hours of an exacting
profession, and he wrote only in the early part of his life. In later years
he seemed to feel that the "ancient fount of inspiration"[1] was dry. He
had delivered his message to his generation, and wisely avoided last
words. Then it seems indisputable that he wrote with difficulty. His
poetry has little ease, fluency, or spontaneous movement. In every line
it bears traces of the laborious file. He had the poet's heart and mind,
but they did not readily express themselves in the poetic medium. He
longed for poetic utterance, as his only adequate vent, and sought it
earnestly with tears. Often he achieved it, but not seldom he left the
impression of frustrated and disappointing effort, rather than of easy
mastery and sure attainment.
Again, if we bear in mind Milton's threefold canon, we must admit that
his poetry lacks three great elements of power. He is not Simple,
Sensuous, or Passionate. He is too essentially modern to be really
simple. He is the product of a high-strung civilization, and all its
complicated crosscurrents of thought and feeling stir and perplex his
verse. Simplicity of style indeed he constantly aims at, and, by the aid
of a fastidious culture, secures. But his simplicity is, to use the
distinction which he himself imported from France, rather akin to
simplesse than to simplicité--to the elaborated and artificial semblance
than to the genuine quality. He is not sensuous except in so far as the
most refined and delicate appreciation of nature in all her forms and
phases can be said to constitute a sensuous enjoyment. And then, again,

he is pre-eminently not passionate. He is calm, balanced,
self-controlled, sane, austere. The very qualities which are his
characteristic glory make passion impossible.
Another hindrance to his title as a great