MATTHEW ARNOLD'S NEW POEMS.
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[1]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.
And thou hast done with fears.
Man gets no other light,
Search he a thousand years.
Sink in thyself; there ask what ails thee, at that shrine."
This is the gospel of αὐτάρκεια, the creed of self-sufficience,[2] which sees for man no clearer or deeper duty than
- ↑ the adverse verdict of any French heretic. Witness the words of a writer whom I once fell in with, heaven knows where; who, being far above the shallow errors of foolish "Greeks" and puerile "pagans," takes occasion to admonish their disciples that "our philosophers and poets will tell you that they have got far beyond this stage. The riddles they have to unravel involve finer issues" (and among these perhaps they might deign to expound what manner of thing may be the involution of an issue); no doubt, in a word, but they are the people, and wisdom shall die with them. They may tell us so, certainly; thought and speech are free, and for aught I know they may be fully capable of the assertion. But it is for us to choose what amount of belief it may please us to accord them.
- ↑ I take leave to forge this word, because "self-sufficingness"