Matthew Arnold by George Saintsbury
page 132 of 197 (67%)
page 132 of 197 (67%)
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and the concurrent endowment of Catholicism--were, at least, no
better, and went, if it were possible, even more in the teeth of history. It may be worth while (taking the usual chronological licence for the sake of logical coherence) to say a few words on the other political and quasi-political pieces reprinted with _Irish Essays_--the address to Ipswich working men, _Ecce Convertimur ad Gentes_, the Eton speech on _Eutrapelia_, and the ambitious _Future of Liberalism_[2] The first is a curious but not very important appeal to the lower class to educate the middle, with episodic praises of "equality," "academies," and the like, as well as glances at a more extensive system of "municipalisation," which, not to the satisfaction of everybody, has come about since. The second contains some admirable remarks on classical education, some still more admirable protests against reading about the classics instead of reading the classics, and the famous discourse on _Eutrapelia_, with its doctrine that "conduct is three-fourths of life," its denunciation of "moral inadequacy," and its really great indications of societies dying of the triumph of Liberalism and Conservatism respectively. A discourse quite admirable in intention, though if "heckling" had been in order on that occasion, a sharp youth might have put Mr Arnold in some difficulty by asking where the canons of "moral adequacy" are written. But _The Future of Liberalism_, which the Elizabethans would have called a "cooling-card" after the Liberal triumph of 1880, exhibits its author's political quiddity most clearly. Much that he says is perfectly true; much of it, whether true or not, is, as Mr Weller observes, "wery pretty." But the old mistake recurs of playing on a phrase _ad nauseam_--in this case a phrase of Cobbett's (one of |
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