4, we got a message from Walrond--"nothing certain is known, but
it is rumored that you are ahead." Then we went to get some toys
for the children in the Lowther Arcade, and could scarcely have
found a more genuine distraction than in selecting wagons for Tom
and Trev, with horses of precisely the same color, not one of which
should have a hair more in his tail than the other--and a musical
cart for Diddy. A little after five we went back to the telegraph
office, and got the following message--"Nothing declared, but you
are said to be quite safe. Go to Eaton Place." ["Eaton Place" was
then the house of Judge Wightman, Mrs. Matthew Arnold's father.]
To Eaton Place we went, and then a little after 6 o'clock we were
joined by the Judge in the highest state of joyful excitement with
the news of my majority of 85, which had been telegraphed to him
from Oxford after he had started and had been given to him at
Paddington Station.... The income is L130 a year or thereabouts:
the duties consist as far as I can learn in assisting to look over
the prize compositions, in delivering a Latin oration in praise of
founders at every alternate commemoration, and in preparing and
giving three Latin lectures on ancient poetry in the course of the
year. _These lectures I hope to give in English_.

The italics are mine. The intention expressed here and in the letter to
my father was, as is well known, carried out, and Matthew Arnold's
Lectures at Oxford, together with the other poetic and critical work
produced by him during the years of his professorship, became so great a
force in the development of English criticism and English taste, that
the lifelike detail of this letter acquires a kind of historical value.
As a child of fourteen I first made acquaintance with Oxford while my
uncle was still Professor. I remember well some of his lectures, the
crowded lecture-hall, the manner and personality of the speaker, and my