ly felt
sure that he would not have objected to the publication of a selection
from his correspondence; and it became my happy task to collect, and in
some sense to edit, the two volumes of his Letters which were published
in 1895. Yet in reality my functions were little more than those of the
collector and the annotator. Most of the Letters had been severely
edited before they came into my hands, and the process was repeated when
they were in proof.

A comparison of the letters addressed to Mr. John Morley and Mr. Wyndham
Slade with those addressed to the older members of the Arnold family
will suggest to a careful reader the nature and extent of the excisions
to which the bulk of the correspondence was subjected. The result was a
curious obscuration of some of Arnold's most characteristic
traits--such, for example, as his over-flowing gaiety, and his love of
what our fathers called Raillery. And, in even more important respects
than these, an erroneous impression was created by the suppression of
what was thought too personal for publication. Thus I remember to have
read, in some one's criticism of the Letters, that Mr. Arnold appeared
to have loved his parents, brothers, sisters, and children, but not to
have cared so much for his wife. To any one who knew the beauty of that
life-long honeymoon, the criticism is almost too absurd to write down.
And yet it not unfairly represents the impression created by a too
liberal use of the effacing pencil.

But still, the Letters, with all their editorial shortcomings (of which
I willingly take my full share) constitute the nearest approach to a
narrative of Arnold's life which can, consistently with his wishes, be
given to the world; and the ground so covered will not be retraversed
here. All that literary criticism can do for the honour of his prose and
verse has been done already: conscientiously by Mr. Saintsbury,
affectionately and sympathetically by Mr. Herbert Paul, and with varying
competence and skill by a host of minor critics. But in preparing this
book I have been careful not to re-read what more accomplished pens than
mine have written; for I wished my judgment to be, as far as possible,
unbiassed by previous verdicts.

I do not aim at a criticism of the verbal medium through which a great
Master uttered his heart and mind; but rather at a survey of the effect
which he produced on the thought and action of his age.

To the late Professor Palgrave, to Monsieur F