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[Illustration: Matthew Arnold
_From a Photograph by Sarony_]
Literary Lives
MATTHEW ARNOLD
BY
G.W.E. RUSSELL
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published, March, 1904
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
LITERARY LIVES
Edited by Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.
MATTHEW ARNOLD. By G.W.E. Russell.
CARDINAL NEWMAN. By William Barry, D.D.
MRS. GASKELL. By Flora Masson.
JOHN BUNYAN. By W. Hale White.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË. By Clement K. Shorter.
R.M. HUTTON. By W. Robertson Nicoll.
GOETHE. By Edward Dowden.
HAZLITT. By Louise Imogen Guiney.
Each Volume, Illustrated, $1.00, net
OFFERED TO
MATTHEW ARNOLD'S CHILDREN
WITH AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE
"OF THAT UNRETURNING DAY"
"We see him wise, just, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless,
yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for something
beyond--_tendentemque manus ripæ ulterioris amore_."--_Essays in
Criticism_.
PREFACE
It may be thought that some apology is needed for the production of yet
another book about Matthew Arnold. If so, that apology is to be found in
the fact that nothing has yet been written which covers exactly the
ground assigned to me in the present volume.
It was Arnold's express wish that he should not be made the subject of a
Biography. This rendered it impossible to produce the sort of book by
which an eminent man is usually commemorated--at once a history of his
life, an estimate of his work, and an analysis of his character and
opinions. But though a Biography was forbidden, Arnold's family felt
sure that he would not have objected to the publication of a selection
from his correspondence; and it became my happy task to collect, and in
some sense to edit, the two volumes of his Letters which were published
in 1895. Yet in reality my functions were little more than those of the
collector and the annotator. Most of the Letters had been severely
edited before they came into my hands, and the process was repeated when
they were in proof.
A comparison of the letters addressed to Mr. John Morley and Mr. Wyndham
Slade with those addressed to the older members of the Arnold family
will suggest to a careful reader the nature and extent of the excisions
to which the bulk of the correspondence was subjected. The result was a
curious obscuration of some of Arnold's most characteristic
traits--such, for example, as his over-flowing gaiety, and his love of
what our fathers called Raillery. And, in even more important respects
than these, an erroneous impression was created by the suppression of
what was thought too personal for publication. Thus I remember to have
read, in some one's criticism of the Letters, that Mr. Arnold appeared
to have loved his parents, brothers, sisters, and children, but not to
have cared so much for his wife. To any one who knew the beauty of that
life-long honeymoon, the criticism is almost too absurd to write down.
And yet it not unfairly represents the impression created by a too
liberal use of the effacing pencil.
But still, the Letters, with all their editorial shortcomings (of which
I willingly take my full share) constitute the nearest approach to a
narrative of Arnold's life which can, consistently with his wishes, be
given to the world; and the ground so covered will not be retraversed
here. All that literary criticism can do for the honour of his prose and
verse has been done already: conscientiously by Mr. Saintsbury,
affectionately and sympathetically by Mr. Herbert Paul, and with varying
competence and skill by a host of minor critics. But in preparing this
book I have been careful not to re-read what more accomplished pens than
mine have written; for I wished my judgment to be, as far as possible,
unbiassed by previous verdicts.
I do not aim at a criticism of the verbal medium through which a great
Master uttered his heart and mind; but rather at a survey of the effect
which he produced on the thought and action of his age.
To the late Professor Palgrave, to Monsieur Fontanès, and 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