126 INDOOR STUDIES 



main argument. The wit is usually a thrust, as 

 ■when he says of the Nonconformist that he "has 

 worshiped his fetich of separatism so long that he is 

 likely to wish to remain, like Ephraim, 'a wild ass 

 alone by himself. ' " The book in which he uses the 

 weapons of wit and humor the most constantly he 

 calls, with refined sarcasm, "Friendship's Garland," 



— a garland made up mainly of nettles. Like all 

 of his books, it is aimed at the British Philistine, 

 but it is less Socratic than the other books and con- 

 tains more of Dean Swift. Arnold is always a mas- 

 ter of the artful Socratic method, but this book has, 

 in addition, a playful humor and a nettle-like irony 



— an itch which ends in a burn — that are more 

 modern. What a garland he drops by the hand of 

 his Prussian friend Arminius upon the brow of Hep- 

 worth Dixon in characterizing his style as " Middle- 

 class Macaulayese : " — 



" ' I call it Macaulayese, ' says the pedant, ' because 

 it has the same internal and external characteristics 

 as Macaulay's style; the external characteristic being 

 a hard metallic movement with nothing of the soft 

 play of life, and the internal characteristic being a 

 perpetual semblance of hitting the right nail on the 

 head without the reality. And I call it middle- 

 class Macaulayese because it has these faults without 

 the compensation of great studies, and of conver- 

 sance with great affairs, by which Macaulay partly 

 redeemed them. ' " 



By the hand of another character he crowns Mr. 

 Sala thus : — 



