from the struggle of life and watch it calmly.

  He who hath watch'd, not shared the strife,
  Knows how the day hath gone.

Aloofness, provided it be not selfish, has its own value, and, indeed, isolation must be recognized as a law of our existence.

  Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow,
    And faint the city gleams;
  Rare the lone pastoral huts—Marvel not thou!
  The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,
  But to the stars and the cold lunar beams;
  Alone the sun rises, and alone
    Spring the great streams.

From Goethe, also, Arnold derived the gospel of culture and faith in the intellectual life. It is significant that while Carlyle and Arnold may both be looked upon as disciples of Goethe, Carlyle's most characteristic quotation from his master is his injunction to us to "do the task that lies nearest us," while Arnold's is such a maxim as, "To act is easy, to think is hard."

In some ways Wordsworth was for Arnold a personality even more congenial than Goethe. His range, to be sure, is narrow, but he, too, has attained spiritual peace. His life, secure among its English hills and lakes, was untroubled in its faith. Wordsworth strongly reinforces three things in Arnold, the ability to derive from nature its "healing power" and to share and be glad in "the wonder and bloom of the world"; truth to the deeper spiritual life and strength to keep his soul

  Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
  Firm to the mark, not spent on other things;

and finally, a satisfaction in the cheerful and serene performance of duty, the spirit of "toil unsevered from tranquillity," sharing in the world's work, yet keeping "free from dust and soil."

From the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and from the slave Epictetus alike, Arnold learned to look within for "the aids to noble life." Overshadowed on all sides by the "uno'erleaped mountains of necessity," we must learn to resign our passionate hopes "for quiet and a fearless mind," to merge the self in obedience to universal law, and to keep ever before our minds

  The pure eternal course of life,
  Not human combatings with death.

No conviction is more frequently reiterated in Arnold's poetry than that of the wisdom of resignation and self-dependence.

These great masters, then, strengthened Arnold in those high instincts which needed nourishment in a day of spiritual unrest. From the Greek poets he learned to look at life steadily and as a whole, to direct it toward simple and noble ends, and to preserve in it a balance and perfection of parts. From Goethe he derived the lessons of detachment and self-culture. From Wordsworth he learned to find peace in nature, to pursue an unworldly purpose, and to be content with humble duties. From the Stoics he learned, especially, self-dependence and resignation. In general, he endeavored to follow an ideal of perfection and to distinguish always between temporary demands and eternal values.

IV

[Sidenote: Theory of Criticism and Equipment as a Critic]

In passing from poetry to criticism, Arnold did not feel that he was descending to a lower level. Rather he felt that he was helping to lift criticism to a position of equality with more properly creative work. The most noticeable thing about his definition of criticism is its lofty ambition. It is "the disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world," and its more ultimate purpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection." It is not to be confined to art and literature, but is to include within its scope society, politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which is blameworthy, but to appreciate and popularize the best.

For this work great virtues are demanded of the critic. Foremost of these is disinterestedness. "If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument," says Emerson in the essay on Self-Reliance. Similarly Arnold warns the critic against partisanship. It is better that he refrain from active participation in politics, social or humanitarian work. Connected with this is another requisite, that of clearness of vision. One of the great disadvantages of partisanship is that it blinds the partisan. But the critical effort is described as "the effort to see the object as in itself it really is." This is best accomplished by approaching truth in as many ways and from as many sides as possible.

Another precaution for the critic who would retain clearness of vision is the avoidance of abstract systems, which petrify and hinder the necessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined and scrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected … that the critic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one's ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good humor" (letter to his mother, October 27, 1863). In addition to these virtues, which in Arnold's opinion comprised the qualities most requisite for salutary criticism, certain others are strikingly illustrated by Arnold's own mind and methods: the endeavor to understand, to sympathize with, and to guide intelligently the main tendencies of his age, rather than violently to oppose them; at the same time the courage to present unpleasant antidotes to its faults and to keep from fostering a people in its own conceit; and finally, amidst many discouragements, the retention of a high faith in spiritual progress and an unwavering belief that the ideal life is "the normal life as we shall one day see it."

Criticism, to be effective, requires also an adequate style. In Arnold's discussion of style, much stress is laid on its basis in character, and much upon the transparent quality of true style which allows that basic character to shine through. Such words as "limpidness," "simplicity," "lucidity," are favorites. Clearness and effectiveness are the qualities that he most highly valued. The latter he gained especially through the crystallization of his thought into certain telling phrases, such as "Philistinism," "sweetness and light," "the grand style," etc. That this habit was attended with dangers, that his readers were likely to get hold of his phrases and think that they had thereby mastered his thought, he realized. Perhaps he hardly realized the danger to the coiner of apothegms himself, that of being content with a half truth when the whole truth cannot be conveniently crowded into narrow compass. Herein lies, I think, the chief source of Arnold's occasional failure to quite satisfy our sense of adequacy or of justice, as, for instance, in his celebrated handling of the four ways of regarding nature, or the passage in which he describes the sterner self of the working-class as liking "bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer."

By emotionalism, however, he does not allow himself to be betrayed, and he does not indulge in rhythmical prose or rhapsody, though occasionally his writing has a truly poetical quality resulting from the quiet but deep feeling which rises in connection with a subject on which the mind has long brooded with affection, as in the tribute to Oxford at the beginning of the Essay on Emerson. Sometimes, on the other hand, a certain pedagogic stiffness appears, as if the writer feared that the dullness of comprehension of his readers would not allow them to grasp even the simplest conceptions without a patient insistence on the literal fact.

One can by no means pass over Arnold's humor in a discussion of his style, yet humor is certainly a secondary matter with him, in spite of the frequency of its appearance. It is not much found in