I
This year (1922) brings the centennial of Matthew Arnold’s birth.
Except for a few of his more important poems, we confess to an
affectionate ignorance about Arnold. Of course, we remember taking
notes during a number of lectures about him when we were at college;
a few catchwords about culture and anarchy; sweetness and light;
seeing life steadily and seeing it whole; Barbarians, Philistines, and
Populace--a few faded buntings of this sort flutter rather dingily from
the halliards of our memory; and we remember that he had exceptionally
fine whiskers. We used to speculate, in the jejune manner of youth,
as to whether Matt, as Rugby boy and Oxford undergraduate, was not
a rather amusing contrast to the robust Tom Brown whom his father
made famous. But, as you will see, Arnold has never been more than an
interesting and gracious wraith in our mind. Those of his essays that
we were told to reread we have forgotten, or else (more likely) we
never opened.
But rambling not long ago in the cellar of Mr. Mendoza’s bookshop
on Ann Street we found, with a shock of excitement, a little book
published in Boston in 1888, called _Civilization in the United States:
First and Last Impressions of America_, by Matthew Arnold. We wondered
whether this little book had ever been perused by any of the vigorous
skeptics who published a recent large volume with the same title. They
made, as far as we can recall, no allusion to it. Yet they would have
found in it much nourishing meat.
Matthew Arnold’s analysis of American life is interesting to read
now. Much of his estimate he would certainly wish to revise. We
forget just when it was that he travelled over here--in the 80’s, we
suppose--but his general comment was that American civilization was not
_interesting_. He used the word in a very special sense, apparently;
he explains it by mentioning the sense of beauty and the sense of
distinction. He found American life lacking in charm and in those
elements of beauty which appeal to the tranquil and more reflective
emotions. It is entertaining--in view of later developments--to hear
him say that “the American cities have hardly anything to please a
trained or a natural sense for beauty ... where the Americans succeed
best in their architecture--in that art so indicative and educative of
a people’s sense for beauty--is in the fashion of their villa-cottages
in wood.” One cannot help putting a little covey of exclamation marks
in the margin at that point. Those “villa-cottages in wood” of the
1880’s are now the jest and rapidly vanishing pox of our suburbs.
Even to Abraham Lincoln, by the way, he denies “distinction.” He
says, “shrewd, sagacious, humorous, honest, courageous, firm; a man
with qualities deserving the most sincere esteem and praise, but he
has not distinction.” We have read somewhere (it is an unforgettable
crumb of human oddity) that Arnold was chiefly interested in Lincoln’s
assassination because the murderer shouted in Latin as he leapt on the
stage.
There is much that might be said about a point of view so sincere, so
sympathetic, so bravely honest, and yet so lacking in some qualities
of imagination as that we seem to find in Arnold’s book. But what we
want to quote is a portion of his comment on the American newspapers.
Perhaps it is more nearly true still--and, since Northcliffe, more
nearly true of British newspapers also--than any other part of his
remarks. But we wish to quote it without either assent or denial. He
wrote:
You must have lived amongst their newspapers to know what they
are. If I relate some of my own experiences, it is because
these will give a clear enough notion of what the newspapers
over there are, and one remembers more definitely what has
happened to oneself. Soon after arriving in Boston I opened a
Boston newspaper and came upon a column headed: “Tickings.”
By _tickings_ we are to understand news conveyed through the
tickings of the telegraph. The first “ticking” was: “Matthew
Arnold is sixty-two years old”--an age, I must just say in
passing, which I had not then reached. The second “ticking”
was: “Wales says, Mary is a darling”; the meaning being that
the Prince of Wales expressed great admiration for Miss Mary
Anderson. This was at Boston, the American Athens. I proceeded
to Chicago. An evening paper was given me soon after I arrived;
I opened it, and found under a large-type heading, “_We have
seen him arrive_,” the following picture of myself: “He has
harsh features, supercilious manners, parts his hair down the
middle, wears a single eyeglass and ill-fitting clothes.”
Notwithstanding this rather unfavourable introduction, I was
most kindly and hospitably received at Chicago. It happened
that I had a letter for Mr. Medill, an elderly gentleman of
Scotch descent, the editor of the chief newspaper in those
parts, the Chicago _Tribune_. I called on him, and we conversed
amicably together. Some time afterwards, when I had gone back
to England, a New York paper published a criticism of Chicago
and its people, purporting to have been contributed by me to
the _Pall Mall Gazette_ over here. It was a poor hoax, but many
people were taken in and were excusably angry, Mr. Medill of
the Chicago _Tribune_ amongst the number. A friend telegraphed
to me to know if I had written the criticism. I, of course,
instantly telegraphed back that I had not written a syllable
of it. Then a Chicago paper is sent to me; and what I have the
pleasure of reading, as the result of my contradiction, is
this: “Arnold denies; Mr. Medill refuses to accept Arnold’s
disclaimer; says Arnold is a cur.”
There were California boosters even then, we note. Arnold quotes a
Coast newspaper which called all Easterners “the unhappy denizens of
a forbidding clime,” and added: “The time will surely come when all
roads will lead to California. Here will be the home of art, science,
literature, and profound knowledge.”