These eternal sounds about us take no note of our brief coming
and going, and will be the same when you and I, Antony, and all the
millions that come after us in the world have returned to dust.
Your loving old
G.P.
30
MY DEAR ANTONY,
Though I do not myself rank Matthew Arnold among the great prose
writers of England, yet, like all true poets--and he indeed was one of
them,--he wrote excellent English prose.
It is true that he turned to poetry to express his finest emotions and
thoughts, and he himself alludes to his prose writings thus: "I am a
mere solitary wanderer in search of the light, and I talk an artless,
unstudied, everyday familiar language. But, after all, this is the
language of the mass of the world."
The chief note of all his teaching was urbanity. "The pursuit of
perfection," he said, "is the pursuit of sweetness and light." "Culture
hates hatred: culture has one great passion--the passion for sweetness
and light."
This teaching, no doubt, leads to fields of pleasantness and charm,
and not at all to the high places of self-sacrifice, or the austere
peaks of martyrdom. Burning indignation against intolerable things,
fierce denunciation of the cruelties and abominations of the world
find no encouragement or sympathy from this serene, detached, and
therefore somewhat ineffectual, teaching.
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