University of Virginia Library

James Thomas Knowles (1831-1908) edited the Contemporary Review from 1870-1877. When the Review changed hands in 1877, he disagreed on certain matters with the new owners and, as a consequence, resigned his editorship. Immediately he founded the Nineteenth Century, becoming its sole owner and editor. (See DNB, Second Supplement, January 1901-December 1911, II, 408.) Arnold himself had no part in Knowles's controversy, and remained a loyal contributor to his editor-friend of the Nineteenth Century.

Indeed, Arnold had never appeared in the Contemporary Review until Knowles became its editor, and with good reason if one considers a letter that he wrote to his mother in 1867: "I am to meet Swinburne at dinner on Monday.... He expresses a great desire to meet me, and I should like to do him some good, but I am afraid he has taken some bent His praise has, as was natural, inclined the religious world to look out in my writings for a crusade against religion, and the Contemporary Review, the Christian World, and other similar periodicals, fix on the speeches of Empedocles and Obermann, and calmly say, dropping all mention of the real speakers, 'Mr. Arnold here professes his Pantheism,' or 'Mr. Arnold here disowns Christianity.' " (Letters of Matthew Arnold 1848-1888, ed. George W. E. Russell [1895], I, 436-437.) But under the editorship of Knowles, who appreciated Arnold's genius and sympathized with his religious thought, Arnold became a frequent contributor to the Review, publishing ten essays in it. Among these were his "Review of Objections to 'Literature and Dogma,' " the seven parts of which were later published as God and the Bible (1875). Arnold's references to the magazine during Knowles's editorship were always complimentary. In 1873, he wrote to his friend M. Ernest Fontanès, a French pasteur: "Vous avez bien gout, je crois, de vous abonner à la Contemporary Review.... (Letters, II, 121. For other references to the magazine under Knowles's editorship, see Letters, II, 134, 138, 139, 238.) One can clearly see the rapport between author and editor in a letter that Arnold wrote to his sister Frances in December, 1886, at a time of bad weather: "To-day we have no post at all.... To London [however] the line is open, and letters will be sent there to-night. How much farther they will get I know not, but Knowles will get the corrected proof of my article ["The Zenith of Conservatism," Nineteenth Century, XXI (January, 1887, 148-164] at his house in St. James's Park, and take it to the printer.... That is being a good editor; to do everything to facilitate your contributor's task, instead of worrying him." (Letters, II, 418-419. For other references to Knowles, see Letters, II, 232, 241, 320, 380, 412, 416.)

Arnold's first book to bear the imprint of Macmillan and Company was A French Eton (1864). One sees the regard that Alexander Macmillan (1818- 1896), director of the house and founder of Macmillan's Magazine, though never its editor, had for Arnold in a letter that Arnold wrote to his mother in 1864: "I have a note from Macmillan, who is an extremely intelligent, active man, sending me a cheque for my article ["A French Eton," Part II, Macmillan's Magazine, IX (February, 1864), 343-355], and saying he only wished he could afford to pay it in any degree in proportion to its worth-so excellent and important did he think it." (Letters, I, 260. For an account of Arnold's publications in Macmillan's, see Charles Morgan, The House ot Macmillan, 1843-1943 [1944], pp. 59-60.) Considering Arnold's friendly relations with Knowles and Macmillan, one sees that he had little reason to find other outlets for his articles.

The discourse on Emerson was the famous lecture that Arnold first delivered in Boston in 1883 while he was on his American lecture tour (October, 1883-March, 1884). It was first published, under the simple title "Emerson," in Macmillan's in May, 1884 (L, 1-13), and was afterwards reprinted in Discourses in America (1885).

Arnold's elder daughter was soon to marry a young American. (See Note I, Letter II.) Apparently Arnold and his wife planned to visit the young couple in the latter part of 1885. However, Arnold himself was not to return to America until June, 1886. (See Letters, II, 383 ff.)

The title that he had intended to use for the article, "A Christmas Meditation," was changed to "A Comment on Christmas."

Arnold's elder daughter, Lucy Charlotte, was married to Frederick Wallingford Whitridge, of New York, whom she had met while accompanying her parents on their tour of America.

The article that Arnold had promised to Knowles for the January number of the Nineteenth Century was seemingly "A Word More about America," which, however, did not appear until February, 1885 (XVII, 219-236.)

Arnold published only two articles in 1885, "A Comment on Christmas," and the one referred to in Note 2, Letter II.

One has no way of knowing the particular circumstances in which "A Comment on Christmas" was written. Nevertheless, the following description of the inspector at work on one of his essays during free time at a school is not irrelevant. This reminiscence was recorded by a teacher who had known Arnold only as an inspector: "Some of Matthew Arnold's own literary work was performed during lawful intervals of active inspection on such occasions. For hours the students would be silently writing their tasks while the inspector was silently writing his. His manuscript was placed on the lid of a grand piano which stood in the roomy hall, a few words would be penned, and then the author would rise and noiselessly pace the floor, chin aloft, and hands clasped in the rear. A few more words would then be added, and the perambulation would begin again." (Pall Mall Budget, XXXVI [April 19, 1888], II.)

As Arnold said in his first letter to Bunting, "A Comment on Christmas" follows "in general the same line of thought ant feeling with which Literature and Dogma and God and the Bible have made the public more or less familiar." The theme of the article and of the two books is simply expressed in a letter that Arnold wrote to young George Macmillan, the son of his publisher, in 1876: "In Literature and Dogma I have pointed out that the real upshot of the teaching of Jesus Christ was this: 'If every one would mend one, we should have a new world.' " (Letters, II, 150.)

In the article, Arnold asserts that, although a belief in miracles must be lost, one must, at the same time, retain Christian morals. To lose Christian morals is to imperil oneself, and needlessly. What men need most, he maintains, is an understanding of what the essential facts and truths of Chrisianity really are, not a literal belief in the miraculous or preternatural

The two Christian virtues with which he is most concerned in the essay are pureness and charity. The virgin birth he regards as “the popular homage to a high ideal of pureness,” a virtue recognized by such lofty spirits as Plato, Sophocles, and Goethe. The ideal of pureness is the force needed to oppose lubricity, which brings moral confusion. (For a penetrating exposition of Arnold's attitude toward lubricity, see Lionel Trilling, Matthew Arnold [1939], pp. 344-346.)

In discussing charity, Arnold insists that both rich and poor must prefer the common good to private possession and personal enjoyment. If they do not, they will be unable to make part of the ideal society of the future. He finds virtue of charity in the ascendency, especially “in the framing of laws and in the interpretation of them by tribunals,” where “regard to property and privilege used to be . . . paramount, and the idea of common good hardly considered at all. . . .An acceleration of progress in the spread of ideas of this kind,” Arnold says, “a decline of vitality in institutions where the opposite ideas were paramount, marks the close of a period. Jesus announced for his own period such a close; a close necessitated by the emergence of the new, the decay of the old.” (St. Paul and Protestantism [1889], p.170.) Jesus, Arnold insists, did ot announce the end of the world, but rather the end of the age. In looking over the society of his own time, Arnold is inclined to augur that the social orgtanization of the 1880's is not far from such end of the age. Dissolution will be peaceful, he says, if men have virtue enough, and violent if they are vicious.

The essay, them, is a plea for an ideal society, one that conforms “to the line of Jesus”; for the attainment of such a future, each member of society must mend himself, must implant within him the two central virtues of Christianity, pureness and charity.

Arnold's religious position and its effect upon his readers is succinctly stated by his friend George W. Smalley, the American journalist who was European correspondent to the New York Tribune, and who helped him plan his lecture tour of America: "[Arnold] saw how much there is in current theological dogmas which it has become impossible to preserve. All the more he wanted to preserve what had not become impossible. But the orthodox were furious and, I suppose, may for some time yet continue to be furious. If they but knew it, Arnold was on their side, only wiser than they." ("Matthew Arnold," London Letters and Some Others [1891], I, 296.)

The Revised Version of the New Testament was first published in England on May 17, 1881, and that of the Old and New Testaments together on May 19, 1885. (See C. J. Cadoux, "The Revised Version and After," The Bible in Its Ancient and English Versions, ed. H. Wheeler Robinson [1940], p. 250.) Arnold would have written ably on the Revised Version, not only because he had long been a careful student of the Bible, but also because he had prepared an emended transcript of Isaiah, one of many early efforts to improve upon the Authorized Version. (See A Bible- Reading for Schools [1872], The Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration [1875], and Isaiah of Jerusalem [1883].)

This letter refers to the tour that Arnold made of Germany, Switzerland, and France at the request of the Education Office. (See Letters, II, 337 ff.) Its purpose was to make a study of free schools abroad. (See Stuart P. Sherman, Matthew Arnold: How to Know Him [1917], pp. 47-48.) Arnold's Special Report, the result of the tour, was issued by the Education Department in 1886 and was later reprinted as Special Report on Elementary Education Abroad ( 1888).

Arnold, who had been appointed one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools on April 14, 1851, resigned his post on April 30,1886.

This terse letter was written on the day that Arnold's brother-in-law William Edward Forster (1818-1886) was buried at Burley-in-Wharfedale. Forster, who had married Jane Martha Arnold in 1850, died in London on April 5. A Quaker manufacturer and statesman, he represented the conservative type of liberal in Parliament. With Arnold, he had been a supporter of popular education, and in February, 1870, had introduced his most important piece of legislation, the Elementary Education Bill.

It was characteristic of Arnold to refuse requests to write memorial pieces for those whom he had cared for most. After the death of his close friend Arthur Hugh Clough, Arnold said in a letter to his mother: "I have been asked to write a Memoir of him for the Daily News but that I cannot do. I could not write about him in a newspaper now, nor can, I think, at length in a review, but I shall some day in some way or other relieve myself of what I think about him." (Letters, I, 177.) Though Clough died in November, 1861, "Thyrsis" was not published until April, 1866; and almost certainly it was "published as soon as it was written." (C. B. Tinker and H. F. Lowry, The Poetry of Matthew Arnold, A Commentary [1940], p. 216.)

A Comment on Christmas," under its title in the Contemporary Review, was reprinted in the popular edition of St. Paul and Protestantism (1887), which had originally appeared in 1870. The essay, which was placed at the end of the volume, is "timorously and incongruously associated with the otherwise admirable unity" of the book. "It contains but three material modifications of any scope; and these are readily explicable as examples of Matthew Arnold's steady desires to clarify and to condense." (E. K. Brown, Studies in the Text of Matthew Arnold's Prose Works [Paris, 1935], p. 39)

Arnold refers to the publication of Edward Dowden's The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1886). The essay was later written and was simply entitled "Shelley." It appeared in the Nineteenth Century in January, 1888 (XXIII, 23-39), and it was later reprinted in Essays in Criticism, Second Series (1888). Speaking of the essay, Arnold wrote to Lady de Rothschild in January 1888: "In this article on Shelley I have spoken of his life, not his poetry. Professor Dowden was too much for my patience." (Letters, II, 433.)

A Comment on Christmas" was Arnold's last appearance in the Contemporary Review. Before his death, however, in 1888, he published thirteen more articles: one in 1886 (a busy year for him with trips to the continent and to America), eight in 1887, and four in 1888. Of these, he gave seven to Knowles, of the Nineteenth Century, who esteemed him so highly. A letter that the aging Arnold wrote to his wife in April, 1886, gives touching proof of Arnold's happiness in pleasing Knowles: "I had a severe week with my article ["The Nadir of Liberalism," Nineteenth Century, XIX (May 1886), 645-663] last week, but it is all done now, and Knowles telegraphs to me that it is 'magnificent,' and that he means to open his number with it. So, at any rate, I continue to give satisfaction to the Editors." (Letters, II, 380.)

Of the remaining articles, two understandably appeared in Murray's Magazine, which was edited by his nephew E. A. Arnold. (See Letters, II, 406.) The other four appeared, one each, in Macmillan's Magazine, in which he had appeared sixteen times- in the Fortnightly Review, in which he had appeared eight times; in the National Review, in which he had appeared twice; and in the Century Magazine, to which he made his only contribution.

Concerning Arnold's distribution of his articles, one can conjecture with some confidence. It is clear enough why he gave articles to Knowles, his favorite editor, and to his nephew. As for the disposition of the remaining four, the answer is to be found in a letter that he wrote to M. Fontanès in November, 1886: ". . . on my return home [from America, where he had visited his elder daughter and her family] I find myself confronted by half a dozen editors, who allege promises made by me to give them an article when I became free: and, as I have at last resigned my inspectorship, they summon me to fulfil my promises. Something I must do to satisfy them, and this will keep me busy up to Easter...." (Letters, II, 413-414.) In other words, after he had taken care of Knowles and his nephew, he wished to oblige as many other editors as he could.

One may wonder why he gave Macmillan's only one of the later articles. Perhaps Arnold felt that, since Macmillan and Company were his publishers, they were getting their share of him.

Although Bunting repeatedly asked him for other contributions, there were not enough articles to supply the admiring Knowles, his nephew, and those other editors to whom he felt an indebtedness because of his promises and their genuine interest. It is obvious that, since Bunting offered Arnold a larger sum for his articles than he was in the habit of receiving, money could not persuade him to contribute to any periodical.

It might be added that some of the articles he was to publish after "A Comment on Christmas" continue to show his pre-occupation with religious attitudes, for instance, "A 'Friend of God,' " Nineteenth Century, XXI (April, 1887), 499-506; the last paragraphs of "Amiel," Macmillan's Magazine, LVI (September, 1887), 321-329; and much of "Count Leo Tolstoi," Fortnightly Review, XLII (December, 1887), 783-799.

Arnold had long been interested in Alexander Vinet (1797-1847), the Swiss-born French literary critic and theologian, who had received the admiration of such diverse men as Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Henri Amiel, and Edmond Scherer. (See Laura M Lane, The Life and Writings of Alexander Vinet [1890], pp. ix-x.) Vinet, along with Spinoza, Thomas à Kempis, St. Augustine, Joubert, the De and Bishop Wilson, had been important in helping Arnold "to work out for himself a modified version of the Christian belief." (Tinker and Lowry, pp. 268-269.)

Early in 1865, Arnold had written his mother: "If I can do Vinet to my mind it will be a great thing, and I shall have reached the Dissenters and the Middle Class; then I shall stop for the present." (Letters, I, 287. For other references to Vinet in Arnold, see Letters, 1, 303- Literature and Dogma [1902], p. x, and The Note-Books, pp. 430, 431, 436, 535, 536.)

Unfortunately Arnold died on April 15, 1888, before he was able to write the essay on Vinet.