Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold, by G. W. E.
Russell

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Title: Matthew Arnold
Author: G. W. E. Russell
Release Date: September 25, 2005 [EBook #16745]
Language: English
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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