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MATTHEW ARNOLD'S


SOHRAB AND RUSTUM


AND OTHER POEMS




EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

JUSTUS COLLINS CASTLEMAN

HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, SOUTH DIVISION
HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE




1905



CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION
    A Short Life of Arnold
    Arnold the Poet
    Arnold the Critic
    Chronological List of Arnold's Works
    Contemporary Authors
    Bibliography

  SELECTIONS FROM ARNOLD'S POETICAL WORKS

  NARRATIVE POEMS

    Sohrab and Rustum
    Saint Brandan
    The Forsaken Merman
    Tristram and Iseult


  LYRICAL POEMS

    The Church of Brou
    Requiescat
    Consolation
    A Dream
    Lines written in Kensington Gardens
    The Strayed Reveller
    Morality
    Dover Beach
    Philomela
    Human Life
    Isolation--To Marguerite
    Kaiser Dead
    The Last Word
    Palladium
    Revolutions
    Self-Dependence
    A Summer Night
    Geist's Grave
    Epilogue--To Lessing's Laocooen


  SONNETS

    Quiet Work
    Shakespeare
    Youth's Agitations
    Austerity of Poetry
    Worldly Place
    East London
    West London


  ELEGIAC POEMS

    Memorial Verses
    The Scholar-Gipsy
    Thyrsis
    Rugby Chapel


  NOTES

  INDEX

       *       *       *       *       *



INTRODUCTION


A SHORT LIFE OF ARNOLD

Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village of Laleham,
Middlesex County, England, December 24, 1822. He was the son of Dr.
Thomas Arnold, best remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby and
in later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and of Mary
Penrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character and intellect.

Devoid of stirring incident, and, on the whole, free from the
eccentricities so common to men of genius, the story of Arnold's life
is soon told. As a boy he lived the life of the normal English lad,
with its healthy routine of task and play. He was at school at both
Laleham and Winchester, then at Rugby, where he attracted attention
as a student and won a prize for poetry. In 1840 he was elected to
an open scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, and the next year
matriculated for his university work. Arnold's career at Oxford was a
memorable one. While here he was associated with such men as John Duke
Coleridge, John Shairp, Dean Fraser, Dean Church, John Henry Newman,
Thomas Hughes, the Froudes, and, closest of all, with Arthur Hugh
Clough, whose early death he lamented in his exquisite elegiac
poem--_Thyrsis_. Among this brilliant company Arnold moved with ease,
the recognized favorite. Having taken the Newdigate prize for English
verse, and also having won a scholarship, he was graduated with
honors in 1844, and in March of the following year had the additional
distinction of being elected a Fellow of Oriel, the crowning glory of
an Oxford graduate. He afterward taught classics for a short time at
Rugby, then in 1847 accepted the post of private secretary to the
Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council, which position he
occupied until 1851, when he was appointed Lay Inspector of Schools
by the Committee on Education. The same year he married Frances Lucy
Wightman, daughter of Sir William Wightman, judge of the Court of the
Queen's Bench.

Arnold's record as an educator is unparalleled in the history of
England's public schools. For more than thirty-five years he served as
inspector and commissioner, which offices he filled with efficiency.
As inspector he was earnest, conscientious, versatile; beloved alike
by teachers and pupils. The Dean of Salisbury likened his appearance
to inspect the school at Kiddermaster, to the admission of a ray
of light when a shutter is suddenly opened in a darkened room.
All-in-all, he valued happy-appearing children, and kindly sympathetic
teachers, more than excellence in grade reports. In connection with
the duties of his office as commissioner, he travelled frequently on
the Continent to inquire into foreign methods of primary and secondary
education. Here he found much that was worth while, and often carried
back to London larger suggestions and ideas than the national mind was
ready to accept. Under his supervision, however, the school system of
England was extensively revised and improved. He resigned his position
under the Committee of Council on Education, in 1886, two years before
his death.

In the meantime Arnold's pen had not been idle. His first volume of
verse, _The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems_, appeared (1848), and
although quietly received, slowly won its way into public favor. The
next year the narrative poem, _The Sick King in Bokhara_, came out,
and was followed in turn by a third volume in 1853, under the title of
_Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems_. By this time Arnold's reputation
as a poet was established, and in 1857 he was elected Professor of
Poetry at Oxford, where he began his career as a lecturer, in which
capacity he twice visited America. _Merope, a Tragedy_ (1856) and a
volume under the title of _New Poems_ (1869) finish the list of his
poetical works, with the exception of occasional verses.

Arnold's prose works, aside from his letters, consist wholly of
critical essays, in which he has dealt fearlessly with the greater
issues of his day. As will be seen by their titles (see page xxxviii
of this volume), the subject-matter of these essays is of very great
scope, embracing in theme literature, politics, social conduct, and
popular religion. By them Arnold has exerted a remarkable influence on
public thought and stamped himself as one of the ablest critics and
reformers of the last century. Arnold's life was thus one of many
widely diverse activities and was at all times deeply concerned with
practical as well as with literary affairs; and on no side was it
deficient in human sympathies and relations. He won respect and
reputation while he lived, and his works continue to attract men's
minds, although with much unevenness. It has been said of him that, of
all the modern poets, except Goethe, he was the best critic, and of
all the modern critics, with the same exception, he was the best poet.
He died at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his daughter returning
from America, April 15, 1888. By his death the world lost an acute and
cultured critic, a refined writer, an earnest educational reformer,
and a noble man. He was buried in his native town, Laleham.

Agreeably to his own request, Arnold has never been made the subject
for a biography. By means of his letters, his official reports,
and statements of his friends, however, one is able to trace the
successive stages of his career, as he steadily grew in honor and
public usefulness. Though somewhat inadequate, the picture thus
presented is singularly pleasing and attractive. The subjoined
appreciations have been selected with a view of giving the student a
glimpse of Arnold as he appeared to unprejudiced minds.

One who knew him at Oxford wrote of him as follows: "His perfect
self-possession, the sallies of his ready wit, the humorous turn which
he could give to any subject that he handled, his gaiety, audacity,
and unfailing command of words, made him one of the most popular and
successful undergraduates that Oxford has ever known."

"He was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet full of dreams
and schemes. His Olympian manners began even at Oxford: there was no
harm in them: they were natural, not put on. The very sound of his
voice and wave of his arm were Jove-like."--PROFESSOR MAX MUeLLER.

"He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. He conspired
and contrived to make things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was
a man of this life and this world. A severe critic of this world he
indeed was; but, finding himself in it, and not precisely knowing what
is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man, he set himself to
make the best of it. Its sights and sounds were dear to him. The
'uncrumpling fern, the eternal moonlit snow,' the red grouse springing
at our sound, the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing kine,' the
vagaries of men, of women, and dogs, their odd ways and tricks,
whether of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, tickled him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"In a sense of the word which is noble and blessed, he was of the
earth earthy.... His mind was based on the plainest possible things.
What he hated most was the fantastic--the far-fetched, all-elaborated
fancies and strained interpretations. He stuck to the beaten track of
human experience, and the broader the better. He was a plain-sailing
man. This is his true note."--MR. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.

"He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest of anybody to
his own; he had not a spark of envy or jealousy; he stood well aloof
from all the bustlings and jostlings by which selfish men push on;
he bore life's disappointments--and he was disappointed in some
reasonable hopes--with good nature and fortitude; he cast no burden
upon others, and never shrank from bearing his own share of the daily
load to the last ounce of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, and
most active interest in the well-being of his country and his
countrymen."--MR. JOHN MORLEY.

In his essay on Arnold, George E. Woodberry speaks of the poet's
personality as revealed by his letters in the following beautiful
manner: "Few who did not know Arnold could have been prepared for
the revelation of a nature so true, so amiable, so dutiful. In every
relation of private life he is shown to have been a man of exceptional
constancy and plainness.... Every one must take delight in the mental
association with Arnold in the scenes of his existence... and in his
family affections. A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful,
fond of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, and with
it a character so founded upon the rock, so humbly serviceable, so
continuing in power and grace, must wake in all the responses of happy
appreciation and leave the charm of memory.

"He did his duty as naturally as if it required neither resolve nor
effort, nor thought of any kind for the morrow, and he never failed,
seemingly, in act or word of sympathy, in little or great things; and
when to this one adds the clear ether of the intellectual life where
he habitually moved in his own life apart, and the humanity of his
home, the gift that these letters bring may be appreciated. That gift
is the man himself, but set in the atmosphere of home, with sonship
and fatherhood, sisters and brothers, with the bereavements of years
fully accomplished, and those of babyhood and boyhood--a sweet and
wholesome English home, with all the cloud and sunshine of the English
world drifting over its roof-trees, and the soil of England beneath
its stones, and English duties for the breath of its being. To add
such a home to the household rights of English Literature is perhaps
something from which Arnold would have shrunk, but it endears his
memory."

        "It may be overmuch
  He shunned the common stain and smutch,
         From soilure of ignoble touch
           Too grandly free,
         Too loftily secure in such
           Cold purity;
  But he preserved from chance control
  The fortress of his established soul,
  In all things sought to see the whole;
         Brooked no disguise,
  And set his heart upon the goal,
         Not on the prize."

  --MR. WILLIAM WATSON, _In Laleham Churchyard_.



ARNOLD THE POET

Matthew Arnold was essentially a man of the intellect. No other author
of modern times, perhaps no other English author of any time, appeals
so directly as he to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of
his pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. He is
always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for a word or phrase;
and on the whole, his judgments are good. Between his prose and verse,
however, there is a marked difference, both in tone and spiritual
quality. True, each possesses the note of a lofty, though stoical
courage; reveals the same grace of finish and exactness of phrase and
manner; and is, in equal degree, the output of a singularly sane and
noble nature; but here the comparison ends; for, while his prose
is often stormy and contentious, his poetry has always about it an
atmosphere of entire repose. The cause of this difference is not far
to seek. His poetry, written in early manhood, reflects his inner
self, the more lovable side of his nature; while his prose presents
the critic and the reformer, pointing out the good and bad, and
permitting at times a spirit of bitterness to creep in, as he
endeavors to arouse men out of their easy contentment with themselves
and their surroundings.

With the exception of occasional verses, Arnold's poetical career
began and ended inside of twenty years. The reason for this can only
be conjectured, and need not be dwelt upon here. But although his
poetic life was brief, it was of a very high order, his poems ranking
well up among the literary productions of the last century. As a
popular poet, however, he will probably never class with Tennyson or
Longfellow. His poems are too coldly classical and too unattractive in
subject to appeal to the casual reader, who is, generally speaking,
inclined toward poetry of the emotions rather than of the
intellect--Arnold's usual kind. That he recognized this himself,
witness the following quiet statements made in letters to his friends:
"My poems are making their way, I think, though slowly, and are
perhaps never to make way very far. There must always be some people,
however, to whom the literalness and sincerity of them has a charm....
They represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last
quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day, as
people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind
is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it." Time
has verified the accuracy of this judgment. In short, Arnold has made
a profound rather than a wide impression. To a few, however, of each
generation, he will continue to be a "voice oracular,"--a poet with a
purpose and a message.

=Arnold's Poetic Culture=.--Obviously, the sources of Arnold's culture
were classical. As one critic has tersely said, "He turned over his
Greek models by day and by night." Here he found his ideal standards,
and here he brought for comparison all questions that engrossed his
thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and Epictetus (of mood
congenial with his own) were props of his mind, as were Sophocles,
"who saw life steadily and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom he
called the purest of men. These like natures afforded him repose and
consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry and Greek philosophy
appealed profoundly to him. Of the Greek poets he wrote: "No other
poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets
have made their works so well balanced; no other poets have so well
satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied the religious
sense." More than any other English poet he prized the qualities of
measure, proportion, and restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity,
and high seriousness, conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the
substance of true poetry. In explaining his own position as to his
art, he says: "In the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the
bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetic
art, I seem, to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid
footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted
in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening,
and not hostile criticism." And again: "The radical difference between
the poetic theory of the Greeks and our own is this: that with them,
the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it,
was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed mainly on the
value of separate thoughts and images which occur in the treatment of
an action. They regard the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems
which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages,
and not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have
critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached
expressions, to the language about the action, not the action itself.
I verily believe that the majority of them do not believe that there
is such a thing as a total impression to be derived from a poem at
all, or to be demanded from a poet. They will permit the poet to
select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as
it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine
writing, and with a show of isolated thoughts and images; that is,
they permit him to leave their poetic sense ungratified, provided that
he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity."

Arnold has illustrated, with remarkable success, his ideas of that
unity which gratifies the poetical sense, and has approached very
close to his Greek models in numerous instances; most notably so