Two Essays Upon Matthew Arnold with Some of His Letters to the AuthorElkin Mathews, 1897 - 122 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abiding admirable Art of Writing assert Athenæum Club Austin Dobson beautiful cameo Bossuet breath buoyancy cameos of description charlatanism charm classical Cobham comparison console contemporary critic Cromwell Dante dear Galton definite delightful discuss with profit distinct Divine Comedy eighteenth century English essay ESSAY ON CRITICISM eternal excellent expression famous feel finer French gifts give Hobby Horse Horatian Echo impression Iseult Italy Johnson judge judgment laboured language less lines literature live look Lord Tennyson Loti masters Matthew Arnold says Matthew Arnold's poetry ment Milton mind models modern authors never Pains Hill Cottage pass passages perfect perhaps phrase poems poet's poetical quality poets politics popular practice previously written prose reader recall resembles anything previously Sainte-Beuve sense speak spirit Surrey taste things Thomas Cromwell thought tion touch true true and untrue truly truth verse Virgil Voltaire wish words Wordsworth
Popular passages
Page 7 - tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music ! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it. And hark ! how blithe the throstle sings ! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your Teacher.
Page 23 - Led on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world...
Page 98 - The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, "See, this is new"? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
Page 22 - Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge, And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deaf 'ning clamour in the slippery clouds, That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Page 76 - The story of Cambuscan bold, Of Camball, and of Algarsife, And who had Canace to wife, That owned the virtuous ring and glass, And of the wondrous horse of brass On which the Tartar king did ride; And if aught else great bards beside In sage and solemn tunes have sung, Of turneys, and of trophies hung, Of forests, and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Page 23 - Darken'd so, yet shone Above them all the archangel: but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd; and care Sat on his faded cheek...
Page 21 - Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry.
Page 75 - Oh may some spark of your celestial fire. The last, the meanest of your sons inspire (That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights; Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes) To teach vain Wits a science little known, T" admire superior sense, and doubt their own!
Page 97 - Let us conceive of the whole group of civilised nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working towards a common result; a confederation whose members have a due knowledge both of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one another. This was the ideal of Goethe, and it is an ideal which will impose itself upon the thoughts of our modern societies more and more.
Page 29 - But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.