Sohrab & Rustum & Other Poems (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION I LIFE OF MATTHEW ARNOLD The external story of Arnold's life is commonplace; it is his character in relation to the character of the age in which he lived that is the really interesting thing about him. Chronological succession of events is almost nothing in him; what he stood for, what he was, is everything. It seems almost absurd to record the obvious fact that Arnold was English; yet it is only by reminding ourselves of this fact that we can reconcile the Arnold of the "poems" with the Arnold of familiar report. From the poetry we conclude that he was a man of great earnestness, of scholarship and refinement, of "austere hopefulness" rather than of mirthfulness. From his friends we learn that he was the " gayest, youngest companion always, and he loved young people, --and entered into their sports and pleasures with quite as much fervor of interest as he did into their studies." These two characters are not incompatible, however; in Englishmen of the finer sort they are almost typical. A hearty outof-doors man, a Wordsworthian in his fondness for Nature, a lover of animals, a companion of children, Arnold possessed also the moral earnestness which has so long been characteristic of his race and which in him, because of his special gift, made him a great interpretative critic of books and men. Richard Garnett says of him that "conduct interests him more than genius "--only another way of saying that he is intensely English. And perhaps the most English thing about him is, after all, what Mr. Birrell calls his "hearty un-English dislike of anomalies and absurdities." The picture is far from complete, however, without a word about the Arnold of Oxford. For his name will be forever associated with Oxford--not merely because he was Professor of ...