Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/151

 flippancy and violence of manner, I am disposed in part to agree with this critic.

Elsewhere, in minor poems, Mr. Arnold also has now and then given signs of an inclination for that sad task of sweeping up dead leaves fallen from the dying tree of belief; but has not wasted much time or strength on such sterile and stupid work. Here, at all events, he has wasted none; here is no melodious whine of retrospective and regretful scepticism; here are no cobwebs of plea and counterplea, no jungles of argument and brakes of analysis. "Ask what most helps when known;" let be the oracular and the miraculous, and vex not the soul about their truth or falsehood; the soul, which oracles and miracles can neither make nor mar, can neither slay nor save.

This is the gospel of, the creed of self-sufficience, which sees for man no clearer or deeper duty than