Page:Matthew Arnold, Coates, Century, April 1894.djvu/3

932 musician does not learn to distrust their facile charm, knowing the tendency of too-easy strains to become, after frequent repetition, tame, if not wearisome?

In all art it is the same. The most lasting is rarely first to captivate. Great symphonies require more than one hearing; great poems more than one reading. Examples readily suggest themselves: Keats and Shelley rejected, Millet neglected, Browning and Wagner derided and reviled. It is stated that the directors of the National Gallery delayed during four years and nine months (the term of choice being five years) the acceptance of the Turner bequest, and were finally shamed into action only by the scornful and persistent representations of Ruskin. Mozart was followed to his grave by a single mourner, and in the art-temple of the most artistic city of modern Europe the Samothracian Nike has waited twenty years for the appreciation and homage which are its due.

The work of Matthew Arnold is no exception to the rule which obtains concerning things of highest excellence; nor, in relation to that rule, was he himself an exception. Really to know him, it was necessary to know him, if not long, at least long enough, and in an association of sufficient unrestraint, for free and sympathetic interchange of thought and sentiment; and from his sedate simplicity of mind—his distaste for anything approaching affectation—it almost certainly followed that those who, upon a first encounter, looked for pearls from his mouth would meet with disappointment.

Of men of culture Emerson remarks that, upon coming together, they do not straightway fall to discussing the problems which chiefly engross them, but choose rather to speak of the weather, the crops, and topics of a kindred and every-day interest. Only a poseur is always effective; he has a little speech ready for each occasion, and remembers constantly that he is in the eye of the world. Men like Arnold and Browning fail to realize that more is expected of them than to be themselves; and so occupied with being are they, that for seeming they have neither leisure nor inclination.

I asked of one who had had the honor of his friendship, "What, above all, impressed you in regard to Matthew Arnold?" He replied, "That he was the most genuine human being I ever knew."

False impressions, especially when intensified by our prejudices, are difficult to eradicate; but of the many prevalent concerning Mr. Arnold, I should like to modify a few; and since we shall look on him no more, it may not be out of place to begin with a word as to his appearance.

In reproduction the defects of his face were easily exaggerated, while its finer and more characteristic qualities were of the kind which no photograph can more than suggest. Of his features the mouth was at first disappointing, being unusually large; but the lines were firm, and in conversation the early unfavorable impression was quickly lost. It was the kind of mouth which we associate with generous and sensitive natures, and its smiles were of a winning and whimsical attractiveness.

Before me is a partial copy of a letter written by Lord Coleridge to his friend, Mr. Ellis Yarnall of Haverford, soon after Mr. Arnold's death. In this connection, the following reference to him is not without interest.

"Bright, manly, beautiful!" To those who knew him, so it was.

His look was altogether noble, and though it might not have been true of him, as was said of Edmund Burke, that one could not stand with him five minutes under an awning where he had gone to escape the rain without knowing him to be the greatest man in England, yet one could not, I think, have been long in his presence without recognizing in Matthew Arnold one of the foremost of his time. His unusual height and erect bearing, the thick brown hair, scarcely changed, despite his sixty years, and growing in lines of perfect grace about a brow of peculiar breadth and beauty, the clear, benignant gaze of the blue-gray eyes—these alone must have given him always and everywhere an air of preëminent distinction.

"Male ugliness," it has recently been remarked, "is an endearing quality, and in a man of great talents assists the reputation by mollifying our sense of inferiority." Certain it is that Mr. Arnold's superiority of mien gave offense in some directions, appearing to be regarded as a kind of involuntary criticism. In addition to this, his lofty mental attitude and gravity of demeanor were by some felt to be oppressive, and were misconstrued as pride. Yet proud, in a narrow and selfish sense, Arnold was not. His nature, full of dignity, was yet gentle and singularly sweet, and his interest in the masses was sympathetic and sincere. Though he dreaded the domination of ignorance and vice, believing that salvation comes not by the might of the unenlightened many, but through the influence