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Page 26
For there can be no doubt that in the main contention of his
manifesto, as of his book, Mr Arnold was absolutely right. It was true
that England, save for spasmodic and very partial appearances of it in
a few of her great men of letters--Ben Jonson, Dryden, Addison,
Johnson--had been wonderfully deficient in criticism up to the end of
the eighteenth century; and that though in the early nineteenth she
had produced one great philosophical critic, another even greater on
the purely literary side, and a third of unique appreciative sympathy,
in Coleridge, Hazlitt, and Lamb, she had not followed these up, and
had, even in them, shown certain critical limitations. It was true
that though the Germans had little and the French nothing to teach us
in range, both had much to teach us in thoroughness, method,
_style_ of criticism. And it was truest of all (though Mr Arnold,
who did not like the historic estimate, would have admitted this with
a certain grudge) that the time imperatively demanded a thorough
"stock-taking" of our own literature in the light and with the help of
others.
Let _palma_--let the _maxima palma_--of criticism be given
to him in that he first fought for the creed of this literary
orthodoxy, and first exemplified (with whatever admixture of
will-worship of his own, with whatever quaint rites and ceremonies)
the carrying out of the cult. It is possible that his direct influence
may have been exaggerated; one of the most necessary, though not of
the most grateful, businesses of the literary historian is to point
out that with rare exceptions, and those almost wholly on the poetic
side, great men of letters rather show in a general, early, and
original fashion a common tendency than definitely lead an otherwise
sluggish multitude to the promised land. But no investigation has
deprived, or is at all likely to deprive, the _Essays in
Criticism_ of their place as an epoch-making book, as the manual of
a new and often independent, but, on the whole, like-minded, critical
movement in England.
Nor can the blow of the first essay be said to be ill followed up in
the second, the almost equally famous (perhaps the _more_ famous)
_Influence of Academies_. Of course here also, here as always,
you may make reservations. It is a very strong argument, an argument
stronger than any of Mr Arnold's, that the institutions of a nation,
if they are to last, if they are to do any good, must be in accordance
with the spirit of the nation; that if the French Academy has been
beneficial, it is because the French spirit is academic; and that if
(as we may fear, or hope, or believe, according to our different
principles) the English spirit is unacademic, an Academy would
probably be impotent and perhaps ridiculous in England. But we can
allow for this; and when we have allowed for it, once more Mr Arnold's
warnings are warnings on the right side, true, urgent, beneficial.
There are still the minor difficulties. Even at the time, much less as
was known of France in England then than now, there were those who
opened their eyes first and then rubbed them at the assertion that
"openness of mind and flexibility of intelligence" were the
characteristics of the French people. But once more also, no matter!
The central drift is right, and the central drift carries many
excellent things with it, and may be allowed to wash away the less
excellent. Mr Arnold is right on the average qualities of French
prose; whether he is right about the "provinciality" of Jeremy Taylor
as compared to Bossuet or not, he is right about "critical freaks,"
though, by the way--but it is perhaps unnecessary to finish that
sentence. He is right about the style of Mr Palgrave and right about
the style of Mr Kinglake; and I do not know that I feel more
especially bound to pronounce him wrong about the ideas of Lord
Macaulay. But had he been as wrong in all these things as he was
right, the central drift would still be inestimable--the drift of
censure and contrast applied to English eccentricity, the argument
that this eccentricity, if it is not very good, is but too likely to
be very bad.
Yet it is perhaps in the illustrative essays that the author shows at
his best. Even in the Gu�rin pieces, annoyance at the waste of
first-rate power on tenth-rate people need not wholly blind us to the
grace of the exposition and to the charming eulogy of "distinction" at
the end. That, if Mr Arnold had known a little more about that French
Romantic School which he despised, he would have hardly assigned this
distinction to Maurice; and that Eug�nie, though undoubtedly a "fair
soul," was in this not distinguished from hundreds and thousands of
other women, need not matter very much after all. And with the rest
there need be few allowances, or only amicable ones. One may doubt
whether Heine's charm is not mainly due to the very lawlessness, the
very contempt of "subject," the very quips and cranks and caprices
that Mr Arnold so sternly bans. But who shall deny the excellence and
the exquisiteness of this, the first English tribute of any real worth
to the greatest of German poets, to one of the great poets of the
world, to the poet who with Tennyson and Hugo completes the
representative trinity of European poets of the nineteenth century
proper? Very seldom (his applause of Gray, the only other instance, is
not quite on a par with this) does the critic so nearly approach
enthusiasm--not merely _engouement_ on the one side or serene
approval on the other. No matter that he pretends to admire Heine for
his "modern spirit" (why, _O Macar�e_, as his friend Maurice de
Gu�rin might have said, should a modern spirit be better than an
ancient one, or what is either before the Eternal?) instead of for
what has been, conceitedly it may be, called the "tear-dew and
star-fire and rainbow-gold" of his phrase and verse. He felt this
magic at any rate. No matter that he applies the wrong comparison
instead of the right one, and depreciates French in order to exalt
German, instead of thanking Apollo for these two good different
things. The root of the matter is the right root, a discriminating
enthusiasm: and the flower of the matter is one of the most charming
critical essays in English. It is good, no doubt, to have made up
one's mind about Heine before reading Mr Arnold; but one almost envies
those who were led to that enchanted garden by so delightful an
interpreter.
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