MATTHEW AENOLD'S CRITICISM 117 



are the last and highest court of appeal. In no 

 other race and time has life been so rounded and 

 full, and invested with the same charm. "They 

 were freer than other mortal races," says Professor 

 Curtius, "from all that hinders and oppresses the 

 motions of the mind." 



It is the source of his weakness, or ineffectual- 

 ness, because he has to do with an unclassical age 

 and unclassical people. It is interesting and salu- 

 tary to have the Greek standards applied to modern 

 politics and religion, and to the modern man, but 

 the application makes little or no impression save 

 on the literary classes. Well might Arnold say, 

 in his speech at the Authors' Club in New York, 

 that only the literary class had understood and sus- 

 tained him. The other classes have simply been ir- 

 ritated or bewildered by him. His tests do not ap- 

 peal to them. The standards which the philosopher, 

 or the political economist, or the religious teacher 

 brings, impress them more. 



The Greek flexibility of intellect cannot be too 

 much admired, but the Greek flexibility of charac- 

 ter and conscience is quite another thing. Of the 

 ancient Hellenes it may with truth be said that they 

 were the "wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 

 Such fickleness, treachery, duplicity, were perhaps 

 never before wedded to such sesthetic rectitude and 

 wholeness. They would bribe their very gods. 

 Such a type of character can never take deep hold 

 of the British mind. 



When Arnold, reciting the episode of Wragg, tells 



