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Page 44
I must apologise, and I do, for anything that may appear too polemical
in this chapter. But the circumstances of the case made it almost as
impossible, as it would have been uninteresting, to be merely
recitative and colourless; and Mr Arnold's own example gives ample
licence. In particular, any one who has had actual and close knowledge
of the actual progress of politics for many years may be pardoned for
speaking with some decision on the practice of sitting at ease in
Zion, and raying out curious observations on Barbarians and Eutrapelia
and the character of Mr Quinion. We may have too little of such things
in English politics--no doubt for a good many years before Mr Arnold's
day we _had_ too little of them. But too much, though a not
unpopular, is a very clumsy and very unscientific antidote to too
little; and in Mr Arnold's own handling of politics, I venture to
think that there was too much of them by a very great deal.
It is very pleasant to turn from the literary results of this period,
from the spectacle of Pegasus
"Stumbling in miry roads of alien art,"
and harnessing himself to all manner of unsuitable vehicles, to the
private history of the decade. This, though sadly chequered by Mr
Arnold's first domestic troubles, was on the whole prosperous, was
somewhat less laborious than the earlier years, and was lightened by
ever more of the social and public distractions, which no man entirely
dislikes, and which--to a certain extent and in a certain way--Mr
Arnold did not dislike at all. The changes of occupation and of
literary aim by the termination of the professorship coincided, as
such things have a habit of doing, with changes in place and
circumstance. The Chester Square house grew too small for the
children, and a move to Harrow was first meditated and then achieved.
A very pleasant letter to his mother, in November 1867, tells how he
was present at the farewell dinner to Dickens on his departure for
America, how they wanted him (vainly) to come to the high table and
speak, and how Lord Lytton finally brought him into his own speech. He
adds that some one has given him "a magnificent box of four hundred
Manilla cheroots" (he must surely have counted wrong, for they usually
make these things in two-hundred-and-fifties or five-hundreds),
welcome to hand on, though he did not smoke himself. In another he
expresses the evangelical desire to "do Mr Swinburne some good."
But in January 1868 his baby-child Basil died; and the intense family
affection, which was one of his strongest characteristics, suffered of
course cruelly, as is recorded in a series of touching letters to his
sister and mother. He fell and hurt himself at Cannon Street, too, but
was comforted by his sister with a leading case about an illiterate
man who fell into a reservoir through not reading a notice. The Harrow
house became a reality at Lady Day, and at Midsummer he went to stay
at Panshanger, and "heard the word 'Philistine' used a hundred times
during dinner and 'Barbarian' nearly as often" (it must be remembered
that the "Culture and Anarchy" articles were coming out now). This
half-childish delight in such matters (like Mr Pendennis's "It's all
in the papers, and my name too!") is one of the most fascinating
things about him, and one of not a few, proving that, if there was
some affectation, there was no dissimulation in his nature. Too many
men, I fear, would have said nothing about them, or assumed a lofty
disdain. In September he mentions to Mr Grant Duff a plan (which one
only wishes he had carried out, letting all the "Dogma" series go
[Greek: kat ouron] as it deserved) for "a sketch of Greek poetry,
illustrated by extracts in harmonious prose." This would have been one
of the few great literary histories of the world, and so Apollo kept
it in his own lap. The winter repeated, far more heavily, the domestic
blow of the spring, and Tom, his eldest son, who had always been
delicate, died, aged sixteen only, at Harrow, where since the removal
he had been at school. There is something about this in the
_Letters_; but on the great principle of _cur� leves_, less,
as we should expect, than about the baby's death.
In February next year Mr Arnold's double repute, as a practical and
official "educationist" and as a man of letters, brought him the offer
of the care of Prince Thomas of Savoy, son of the Duke of Genoa, and
grandson of Victor Emmanuel, who was to attend Harrow School and board
with the Arnolds. The charge, though honourable and, I suppose,
profitable, might not have been entirely to the taste of everybody;
but it seemed to Mr Arnold a new link with the Continent, and he
welcomed it. The same year saw a visit to Knebworth, and a very
interesting and by no means unsound criticism on that important event
in the life of a poet, the issue of the first collected edition of his
poems.[3] This was in two volumes, and is now rather precious. "It
might be fairly urged that I have less poetic sentiment than Tennyson,
and less intellectual vigour and abundance than Browning; yet because
I have perhaps more of a fusion of the two than either of them, and
have more regularly applied that fusion to the main line of modern
development, I am likely enough to have my turn." One can only query
whether poetry has anything to do with "modern development," and
desiderate the addition to "sentiment" of "art." He seems to imply
that Mr Gladstone personally prevented his appointment to a
commissionership under the Endowed Schools Act. But the year ended
with a complimentary reference from Mr Disraeli at Latimers about
"Sweetness and Light."
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