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Page 46
But Clio must have made interest with Nemesis; for, but a page or two
afterwards, this disregard of history leads Mr Arnold into a very odd
blunder. His French friend, M. Fontan�s, had thought of writing about
Godwin, but Mr Arnold dissuades him. "Godwin," he says, "est
int�ressant, mais il n'est pas une source; des courants actuels qui
nous portent, aucun ne vient de lui." Godwin is the high priest of
Anarchism; he is our first Socialist philosopher, he advocated no
marriage, woman's rights, the abolition of religion. And _dans nos
courants actuels rien ne vient de lui!_ This was early in 1876, and
later in the same year we have from him the singular judgment that
George Sand, just dead, was "the greatest spirit in our European world
from the time that Goethe departed." The chronicle may be
appropriately closed for the time by mentioning that in the spring of
1877 Mr Arnold was approached with a view to his standing once more
for the Poetry Chair, and declined. The invitation, however, was a
sort of summons to him to go back to his proper work, and in effect,
though doubtless not in intention, he had already obeyed it. "A French
Critic on Milton," published in January 1877, is the first literary
article of any importance that his bibliography records for the whole
decade which we have surveyed in this chapter.
_Note._--It is particularly unlucky that the _Prose
Passages_, which the author selected from his works and published
in 1879, did not appear later. It is almost sufficient to say that
less than one-fourth of their contents is devoted to literature, all
the rest to the "Dead Sea fruit." I have therefore said nothing about
the book in the text. It is, however, a useful though incomplete and
one-sided chrestomathy of Mr Arnold's style from the formal point of
view, illustrating both his minor devices of phrase and the ingenious
_ordonnance_ of his paragraphs in building up thought and
statement.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr Disraeli's words (in 1864) have been referred to above (p.
100). They were actually: "At that time [when they had met at Lord
Houghton's some seven or eight years earlier] ... you yourself were
little known. Now you are well known. You have made a reputation, but
you will go further yet. You have a great future before you, and you
deserve it." Crabb Robinson was a much older acquaintance, and is
credited, I believe, with the remark far earlier, that "he shouldn't
_dare_ to be intimate" with so clever a young man as Matthew
Arnold. Very shortly before his death in February 1867, he had met Mr
Arnold in the Athen�um, and asked "which of all my books I should
myself name as the one that had got me my great reputation. I said I
had not a great reputation, upon which he answered: 'Then it is some
other Matthew Arnold who writes the books.'" The passage, which
contains an odd prophecy of the speaker's own death, and an
interesting indication that Mr Arnold rightly considered the
_Essays_ to be "the book that got him his reputation," will be
found in _Letters_, i. 351.
[2] Of the remaining contents, the _Prefaces_ of 1853-5 are
invaluable, at least the first is, but this has been already noticed.
Of _The French Play in London_, I am, perhaps, no good judge, as I
take little interest in the acted drama. It is much occupied with the
inferiority of French poetry, and especially of the poetry of Hugo;
the inferiority of English civilisation, especially of the middle
class. There are good things in it, but they are better said
elsewhere. The rest needs no notice.
[3] A note on the contents of this and the subsequent collected
editions may not be unwelcome; for, as was always the case with him,
he varied them not a little. This first collection was advertised as
comprehending "the First and Second Series of the Author's Poems and
the New Poems," but as a matter of fact half-a-dozen pieces--including
things as interesting as _A Dream_ and _Stagirius_--are omitted,
though the fine _In Utrumque Paratus_ reappears for the first time as
a consolation. As reprinted in 1877, this collection dropped _The
Church of Brou_ except the third part, and recovered not only
_Stagirius_ and others but _The New Sirens_, besides giving, for the
first time in book-form, _Haworth Churchyard_, printed twenty-two
years before in _Fraser_. A further reprint in 1881 restored the whole
_Church of Brou_ and _A Dream_, and gave two or three small additions,
especially _Geist's Grave_. The _three-volume_ edition of 1885 also
republished _Merope_ for the first time, and added _Westminster Abbey_
and _Poor Matthias_. The _one_-volume edition of 1890 reproduced all
this, adding _Horatian Echo_ and _Kaiser Dead_; it is complete save
for the two prize poems, and six or seven smaller pieces.
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