Men full of meat whom wholly He abhors,[42]—­

who, trying to keep a foot in each world of legality and indulgence, sought patronage from the rich and deceived and exploited the poor.

Certainly not the least of his objections to the “enfranchising measure” was that, in breaking down the hedge of the law, it invaded Delicacy; and whatever invaded delicacy helped to precipitate gross though perhaps unforeseen evils.  Unfortunately there are great masses—­whole classes—­of people to whom delicacy, whether in speech or act, means nothing.  To eat, drink, sleep, buy and sell, marry and be given in marriage, is for those masses the ideal and the law of life.  These things granted, they desire no more:  any restriction on them, any refinement of them, they dislike and resent.  In another place[43] we have cited the mysterious effect produced upon the Paris Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph by the sudden sound of the word “Delicacy.”  And that word was uttered in connexion with the “enfranchising measure.”  “If legislation on this subject were impeded by the party of bigotry, if they chose not to wait for it, if they got married without it, and if you were to meet them on the boulevard at Paris during their wedding tour, should you go up to Bottles and say:  ’Mr. Bottles, you are a profligate man!’ Poor Mr. Matthew Arnold, upon this, emerged suddenly from his corner, and asked hesitatingly:  ’But will any one dare to call him a man of delicacy?’ The question was so utterly unpractical that I took no note of it whatever, and should not have mentioned it if it had not been for its extraordinary effect upon our Paris Correspondent....  My friend Nick, who has all the sensitive temperament of genius, seemed inexplicably struck by this word delicacy, which he kept repeating to himself.  ‘Delicacy,’ said he—­’delicacy—­surely I have heard that word before!  Yes, in other days,’ he went on dreamily, ’in my fresh enthusiastic youth; before I knew Sala, before I wrote for that infernal paper, before I called Dixon’s style lithe and sinewy—­’ ’Collect yourself, my friend,’ laying my hand on his shoulder; ’you are unmanned.  But in mentioning Dixon you redouble my strength; for you bring to my mind the great sexual insurrection of the Anglo-Teutonic race, and the master-spirit which guides it.’"[44]

But in matters far outside the region of marriage, that word “delicacy,” which so powerfully affected the Paris correspondent, is the key to a great deal of what Arnold felt and wrote.  In the sphere of conduct he set up, as we have seen, two supreme objects for veneration and attainment:  Chastity and Charity.  He practised them, he taught them, and he used them as decisive tests of what was good and what was bad in national life.  But plainly there are large tracts of existence which lie outside the purview of these two virtues.  There is the domain of honesty, integrity, and fair dealing; there is a loyalty to truth, the pursuit of conscience at all costs and hazards; there is all that is contained in the idea of beauty, propriety, and taste.  None of these are touched by charity or chastity.  For example, a man may have an unblemished life and a truly affectionate heart; and yet he may be incorrigible in money-matters, or be ready to sacrifice principle to convenience, or, like our great Middle Class generally, may be serenely content with hideousness and bad manners.