Among modern writers Arnold turned first to Goethe, “Europe’s sagest head, Physician of the Iron Age.”  One of the things that he learned from this source was the value of detachment.  In the midst of the turmoil of life, Goethe found refuge in Art.  He is the great modern example of a man who has been able to separate himself 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.