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 somethingbeyond—tendentemque manus ripæ ulterioris amore."—Essays inCriticism.
PREFACE
It may be thought that some apology is needed for the production of yetanother book about Matthew Arnold. If so, that apology is to be found inthe fact that nothing has yet been written which covers exactly theground assigned to me in the present volume.
It was Arnold's express wish that he should not be made the subject of aBiography. This rendered it impossible to produce the sort of book bywhich an eminent man is usually commemorated—at once a history of hislife, an estimate of his work, and an analysis of his character andopinions. But though a Biography was forbidden, Arnold's family feltsure that he would not have objected to the publication of a selectionfrom his correspondence; and it became my happy task to collect, and insome sense to edit, the two volumes of his Letters which were publishedin 1895. Yet in reality my functions were little more than those of thecollector and the annoPg viiitator. Most of the Letters had been severelyedited before they came into my hands, and the process was repeated whenthey were in proof.
A comparison of the letters addressed to Mr. John Morley and Mr. WyndhamSlade with those addressed to the older members of the Arnold familywill suggest to a careful reader the nature and extent of the excisionsto which the bulk of the correspondence was subjected. The result was acurious obscuration of some of Arnold's most characteristictraits—such, for example, as his over-flowing gaiety, and his love ofwhat our fathers called Raillery. And, in even more important respectsthan these, an erroneous impression was created by the suppression ofwhat was thought too personal for publication. Thus I remember to haveread, in some one's criticism of the Letters, that Mr. Arnold appearedto have loved his parents, brothers, sisters, and children, but not tohave cared so much for his wife. To any one who knew the beauty of thatlife-long honeymoon, the criticism is almost too absurd to write down.And yet it not unfairly represents the impression created by a