Matthew Arnold |
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Common terms and phrases
admirable applied Aristocracy Arnold beauty beginning believed Bible called chapter character Christian Church criticism Culture dealing desire doctrine Education effect Elementary England English Essays established feel followed give hand happiness heart Homer House human ideal ideas interest Italy judgment kind Latin least lectures less letter Liberal light literary literature live look Lord matter Matthew Arnold means ment method Middle Class mind moral nature never object once Oxford Paul perfection perhaps poems poet poetry political popular praise present Professor question reason regard religion respect Schools seems sense social society spirit stand suggested taste taught teacher teaching things thought tion true truth turn University virtue whole wished writing wrote
Popular passages
Page 101 - It seeks to do away with classes ; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely, — nourished, and not bound by them. This is the social idea ; and the men of culture are the true apostles of equality.
Page 32 - Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood; Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore ; Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest ; Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave; Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest. Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never be fast friends. Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave ! To George Cruikshank ON SEEING, IN THE COUNTRY, HIS PICTURE OF 'THE BOTTLE.
Page 47 - Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults : and she has heavily paid for them in defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the modern world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the beauty and sweetness of that beautiful place, have not failed to seize one truth : — the truth that beauty and sweetness are essential characters of a complete human perfection.
Page 32 - Vain thy onset ! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last. Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still. They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Page 13 - I become In soul, with what I gaze on, wed! To feel the universe my home; To have before my mind - instead Of the sick room, the mortal strife, The turmoil for a little breath The pure eternal course of life, Not human combatings with death! Thus feeling, gazing, might I grow Composed, refresh'd, ennobled, clear; Then willing let my spirit go To work or wait elsewhere or here!
Page 138 - But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, natural and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. There is a view in which all the love of our...
Page 182 - Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?
Page 24 - Is on all sides o'ershadow'd by the high Uno'erleap'd Mountains of Necessity, Sparing us narrower margin than we deem. Nor will that day dawn at a human nod, When, bursting through the network...
Page 32 - If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of "the best in the whole world," has any one reflected what a touch of grossness in our race, what an original short-coming in the more delicate spiritual perceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideous names, — Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg! In Ionia and Attica they were luckier in this respect than "the best race in the world"; by the Ilissus there was no Wragg, poor thing!
Page 139 - ... force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing good. As in the first view of it we took for its worthy motto Montesquieu's words, "To render an intelligent being yet more intelligent...
Bibliographic information
| Title | Matthew Arnold Literary lives Literary lives, ed. by W. R. Nicoll |
| Author | George William Erskine Russell |
| Publisher | C. Scribner's sons, 1904 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | 10 May 2005 |
| Length | 265 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |