New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1895-11-24
Az HONiE.

l.
AT HOME.
We have found Arnods atmosphere OF truth
most often recalling the specific element OF cnar-
ecter to which allusion has been made at the
outset and for man who lived so passionatey
and persistenty the intellectual life SUCH an ee-
nent seems the most typical, the most useful 10
-o,ranber But II is also the symbol for the
spirit that lived behind intellect in him, the
spirit of the man we'll as of the author. we
how. heard so little of Arnold the man that We
ire disposed to let the author wait ana 10
finger first over the traits of nobility which
make him not merely admirable but lovap!e'
These traits come out perhaps most strikingly
I'm his letters to his mother with their constant
reflection of his devotion to her and TO his father.
They are always even after he becomes man
grown. dearest mother and dear papa" to him.
and with a naturalness that completely excludes
from the letters any of the merely sentimental
a,vor which such forms of address or reference
ara ant 10 wear in print. Arnold is in truth
letter writer who in his greatest intimacies pre-
served a wholesome. high-bred tone which makes
II possible for the reader to share with the crc
family all sorts Of condolences and never feel the
familiarity that breeds contempt. No matter 10
whom he was writing. Arnold remained an es-
septially dignifed character. Not even 10 MS
vile. his Flu" If we may judge from
his printed letters to her, was he one OF
these men who abandon with thelr XIII
the courteous reserve they consider heces-
ss,y for the preservation OF their puohc re-
spect Take him III his attitude on the question
. which hurt him most-the question or his spend
inc much of his life in uncongenial employment
He worked like a slave. England gave MIN WORK
n do in his inspecting of schools which was ut
ao,,t and
Blu, in all the years Of it which covered by his
letters there is no word of complaint At the
most there is some playful allusion to his incu-
bus as in the following fragment: Here is my
programme for this afternoon: Avalanches-The
Steam Engine-The Thames-India Rubber
Rrtcks-The Battle of Poictiers-Subtracnon-
The Reindeer-The Gunpowdcr Plot-The Jordan.
Alluring is II not? Twenty minutes each. and
the DAYS Of ones life only threescore and ten
To his mother he mildly writes that inspecting
! IN a little too much as the business half OF ones
ufe in contradstinction TO the inward and spir-
i.,ial half Of 1t. or l should be quite satisfied
But II was characteristic of him to make the
inward and spiritual half Of his life the irradi-
ating half, and 10 preserve silence IN the
other breaking that silence. II at all. only with
playfuness and gentle thrusts at his task as
though the latter were amusing in its inert re-
from his wearying examination papers to the
fields beyond London, and there are letters and
letters which open after the manner Of this one
10 Miss Arnold: MY dearest Fan: 1t is an east
wind and a gray sky but had meant to go to
Horsley and see the dafodils" His thought
about nature is never still. and 1t overfiows
from nine-tenths Of his correspondence. He
never tired Of fresh and natural sensations. and
while he writes TO his sister at one time that
he feels himself more worldly than any OF his
family he really kept his heart unspotted from
the world. II constantly responding to the
little events of his intimate circle and expand
ing without limit in the sunshine Of his love for
children animals, flowers and all gentle things.
"A little brook runs into the sea here" he writes
from Bournemouth. "and my great amusement
was to hang upon the bridge and watch two
little girls who had laid plank across the
stream below me. almost touching the water,
the banks being on level with It,. and kept
running across II by turns. spashing themselves
by the jigging of the plark." He is writing to
his mother at Fox How, and putting to her. in
lucid and profound sentences the political stua-
ton in England, and then he breaks off with,
"Dicky has just come in in trousers. II breaks
ones heart 10 think OF his changing the dress
that one knows him so by. Bulge (another SOM
does not come for fortnight" And then char
acteristicaly "My report plaques dread
fully" good proportion of long letter to
Miss Arnold is taken up with account of
his little daughters having been to the pho
tographers, aud he ends the passage thus:
Now, mind you, answer this with long letter
and tell me in ii II you don't think Nelly looks
a duck"
The great charm of all this is that one never
feels in 1t the unbendins from pedantic heights
whit has mfr hee
Arnold by people who have circulated anecdotes
Of his domestic life. AS we 1t mirrored in his
correspondence that life was intensely affection
ate: the mere number and length Of his family
letters would show how closely he maintained
with all his people the ties which to lie out
side the region OF pure thought In which he con-
stantly had his being. He brings them into that
region, exercising the instinct TO which we have
referred. the instinct for knowing before feeling
In other words he loved his correspondents be-
knows is not brought 10 the surface in every
mans life by any means. Whatever concerned
his sisters. brothers or children concerned him at
once. and you feel in his interest consciousness
Of what best I'm their interest. For his sis
ter. Mrs Forster he seems to have had an in
telectual sympathy which made him give her OF
his very finest in his letters. and to his mother
he is at once the tendery affectonate son and
the deeply interested friend threshng out qucs-
lions OF literary and political significance with all
the ardor and all the cagerness to hear her views