IV 



MATTHEW AENOLD'S CRITICISM 



TTTHElsr Matthew Arnold, during his visit to 

 ^ ' this country in 1883-84, delivered himself 

 upon Emerson and Carlyle, he criticised two men 

 who belong to quite a different order of mind from his 

 own, — men who are the prophets of the intuitions 

 and the moral sense, as he himself is the apostle of 

 culture and clear intelligence. Emerson and Car- 

 lyle were essentially religious, and were filled with 

 the sentiment of the infinite, which M. Kenan re- 

 gards as the chief gift of medisevalism to the modern 

 world; while Arnold is essentially critical, and is 

 filled with the sentiment or idea of culture, which 

 is the chief gift to the world of Greek civilization. 

 What he had to say of these two men I shall con- 

 sider in another chapter. At present I wish to take 

 a general view of Arnold's criticism as a whole. 



Probably the need for the urbanity and' clear 

 reason which Arnold brings is just as urgent as the 

 need for the moral fervor and conviction which Car- 

 lyle brings; if not to us in this country, where the 

 conscience of man needs stimulating more than his 

 intellect needs clearing, then certainly in England, 

 where the popular mind is less quick and flexi- 



