VII

[Sidenote:  Conclusion]

“Un Milton jeune et voyageant” was George Sand’s description of the young Arnold.  The eager pursuit of high aims, implied in this description, he carried from youth into manhood and age.  The innocence, the hopefulness, and the noble curiosity of youth he retained to the end.  But these became tempered with the ripe wisdom of maturity, a wisdom needed for the helpful interpretation of a perplexing period.  His prose writings are surpassed, in that spontaneous and unaccountable inspiration which we call genius, by those of certain of his contemporaries, but when we become exhausted by the perversities of ill-controlled passion and find ourselves unable to breathe the rarified air of transcendentalism, we may turn to him for the clarifying and strengthening effect of calm intelligence and pure spirituality.

[Footnote 1:  From Dr. Stanley’s Lectures on the Jewish Church, Macmillan’s Magazine, February, 1863, vol. 7, p. 336.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARNOLD’S POEMS.

1849. The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems. 1852. Empedocles on Etna, and other Poems. 1853. Poems. 1855. Poems (Second Series). 1858. Merope. 1867. New Poems. 1869. Poems (First Collected Edition). (A few new poems were added in the later collections of 1877, 1881, 1885, and 1890.)

ARNOLD’S PROSE.

1859. England and the Italian Question. 1861. Popular Education in France. 1861. On Translating Homer. 1862. Last Words on Translating Homer. 1864. A French Eton. 1865. Essays in Criticism. 1867. On the Study of Celtic Literature. 1868. Schools and Universities on the Continent. 1869. Culture and Anarchy. 1870. St. Paul and Protestantism. 1871. Friendship’s Garland. 1873. Literature and Dogma. 1875. God and the Bible. 1877. Last Essays on Church and Religion. 1879. Mixed Essays. 1882. Irish Essays. 1885. Discourses in America. 1888. Essays in Criticism (Second Series). 1888. Civilization in the United States. 1891. On Home Rule for Ireland. 1910. Essays in Criticism (Third Series).

For a complete bibliography of Arnold’s writings and of Arnold criticism, see Bibliography of Matthew Arnold, by T.B.  Smart, London, 1892.  The letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88, were edited by G.W.E.  Russell in 1896.

CRITICISM OF ARNOLD’S PROSE.

BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE:  Res Judicatae, London, 1892.

BROWNELL, W.C.:  Victorian Prose Masters, New York, 1902.

BURROUGHS, JOHN:  Indoor Studies, Boston, 1889.

DAWSON, W.H.:  Matthew Arnold and his Relation to the Thought of our
Time, New York, 1904.