But it would be wrong in characterizing Arnold’s essays to attribute their lack of theorizing about questions of art solely to his preoccupation with conduct. For theory in general and for abstractions in general,—for all sorts of philosophizing,—Arnold openly professes his dislike. “Perhaps we shall one day learn,” he says, in his essay on Wordsworth, “to make this proposition general, and to say: Poetry is the reality, philosophy the illusion.” Distrust of the abstract and of the purely theoretical shows itself throughout his literary criticism and determines many of its characteristics.
His hostility to systems and to system-makers has already been pointed out; this hostility admits of no exception in favour of the systematic critic. “There is the judgment of ignorance, the judgment of incompatibility, the judgment of envy and jealousy. Finally, there is the systematic judgment, and this judgment is the most worthless of all.... Its author has not really his eye upon the professed object of his criticism at all, but upon something else which he wants to prove by means of that object. He neither really tells us, therefore, anything about the object, nor anything about his own ignorance of the object. He never fairly looks at it; he is looking at something else.”[49] This hypnotizing effect that a preconceived theory exerts on a critic, is Arnold’s first reason for objecting to systematic criticism; the critic with a theory is bound to find what he goes in search of, and nothing else. He goes out—to change somewhat one of Arnold’s own figures—like Saul, the son of Kish, in search of his father’s asses; and he comes back with the authentic animals instead of the traditional windfall of a kingdom.
Nor is preoccupation with a pet theory the sole incapacity that Arnold finds in the systematic critic; such a critic is almost sure to be over-intellectualized, a victim of abstractions and definitions, dependent for his judgments on conceptions, and lacking in temperamental sensitiveness to the appeal of literature as art. He is merely a triangulator of the landscape of literature, and moves resolutely in his process of triangulation from one fixed point to another; he finds significant only such parts of his literary experience as he can sum up in a definite abstract formula at some one of these arbitrary halting-places; his ultimate opinion of the ground he covers is merely the sum total of a comparatively small number of such abstract expressions. To the manifold wealth of the landscape in colour, in light, in shade, and in poetic suggestiveness, the system-monger, the theoretical critic, has all the time been blind.
Knowledge, too, even though it be not severely systematized, may interfere with the free play of critical intelligence. An oversupply of unvitalized facts or ideas, even though these facts or ideas be not organized into an importunate theory, may prove disastrous to the critic. This danger Arnold has amusingly set forth in his Last Words on Homeric translation: “Much as Mr. Newman was mistaken when he talked of my rancour, he is entirely right when he talks of my ignorance. And yet, perverse as it seems to say so, I sometimes find myself wishing, when dealing with these matters of poetical criticism, that my ignorance were even greater than it is. To handle these matters properly, there is needed a poise so perfect that the least overweight in any direction tends to destroy the balance. Temper destroys it, a crotchet destroys it, even erudition may destroy it. To press to the sense of the thing with which one is dealing, not to go off on some collateral issue about the thing, is the hardest matter in the world. The ‘thing itself’ with which one is here dealing—the critical perception of poetic truth—is of all things the most volatile, elusive, and evanescent; by even pressing too impetuously after it, one runs the risk of losing it. The critic of poetry should have the finest tact, the nicest moderation, the most free, flexible, and elastic spirit imaginable; he should be, indeed, the ‘ondoyant et divers,’ the undulating and diverse being of Montaigne. The less he can deal with his object simply and freely, the more things he has to take into account in dealing with it,—the more, in short, he has to encumber himself,—so much the greater force of spirit he needs to retain his elasticity. But one cannot exactly have this greater force by wishing for it; so, for the force of spirit one has, the load put upon it is often heavier than it will well bear. The late Duke of Wellington said of a certain peer that ‘it was a great pity his education had been so far too much for his abilities.’ In like manner one often sees erudition out of all proportion to its owner’s critical faculty. Little as I know, therefore, I am always apprehensive, in dealing with poetry, lest even that little should prove too much for my abilities.”[50]
Discreet ignorance, then, is Arnold’s counsel of perfection to the would-be critic. And, accordingly, he himself is desultory from conscientious motives and unsystematic by fixed rule. There are two passages in his writings where he explains confidentially his methods and his reasons for choosing them. The first occurs in a letter of 1864: “My sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding has been adopted by me, first, because I really think it the best way of proceeding, if one wants to get at, and keep with, truth; secondly, because I am convinced only by a literary form of this kind being given to them can ideas such as mine ever gain any access in a country such as ours.”[51] The second passage occurs in the Preface to his first series of Essays in Criticism (1865): “Indeed, it is not in my nature—some of my critics would rather say not in my power—to dispute on behalf of any opinion, even my own, very obstinately. To try and approach truth on one side after another, not to strive or cry, not to persist in pressing forward, on any one side, with violence and self-will, it is only thus, it seems to me, that mortals may hope to gain any vision of the mysterious goddess, whom we shall never see except in outline. He who will do nothing but fight impetuously towards her, on his own one favourite particular line, is inevitably destined to run his head into the folds of the black robe in which she is wrapped.”[52]
Such, then, is Arnold’s ideal of critical method. The critic is not to move from logical point to point as, for example, Francis Jeffrey was wont, in his essays, to move, with an advocate’s devotion to system and desire to make good some definite conclusion. Rather he is to give rein to his temperament; he is to make use of intuitions, imaginations, hints that touch the heart, as well as abstract principles, syllogisms, and arguments; and so he is to reach out tentatively through all his powers after truth if haply he may find her; in the hope that thus, keeping close to the concrete aspects of his subject, he may win to an ever more inclusive and intimate command of its surface and configurations. The type of mind most apt for this kind of critical work is the “free, flexible, and elastic spirit,” described in the passage just quoted from the Last Words; the “undulating and diverse being of Montaigne.”
A critic of this type will palpably concern himself slightly with abstractions, with theorizings, with definitions. And, indeed, Arnold’s unwillingness to define becomes at times almost ludicrous. “Nothing has raised more questioning among my critics than these words—noble, the grand style.... Alas! the grand style is the last matter in the world for verbal definition to deal with adequately. One may say of it as is said of faith: ‘One must feel it in order to know it.’”[53] Similarly in the Study of Poetry, Arnold urges: “Critics give themselves great labour to draw out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of poetry. It is much better to have recourse to concrete examples.... If we are asked to define this mark and accent in the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should thereby be darkening the question, not clearing it.” Again: “I may discuss what in the abstract constitutes the grand style; but that sort of general discussion never much helps our judgment of particular instances.”[54] These passages are characteristic; rarely indeed does Arnold consent to commit himself to the control of a definition. He prefers to convey into his readers’ mind a living realization of the thing or the object he treats of rather than to put before them its logically articulated outlines.
Moreover, when he undertakes the abstract discussion of a general term, he is apt to be capricious in his treatment of it and to follow in his subdivisions and classifications some external clue rather than logical structure. In the essay on Celtic Literature he discusses the various ways of handling nature in poetry, and finds four such ways—the conventional way, the faithful way, the Greek way, and the magical way. The classification recommends itself through its superficial charm and facility, yet rests on no psychological truth, or at any rate carries with it, as Arnold treats it, no psychological suggestions; it gives no swift insight into the origin in the poet’s mind and heart of these different modes of conceiving of nature. Hence the classification, as Arnold uses it, is merely a temporary makeshift for rather gracefully grouping effects, not an analytic interpretation of these effects through a reduction of them to their varying sources in thought and feeling.
This may be taken as typical of Arnold’s critical methods. As we read his essays we have little sense of making definite progress in the comprehension of literature as an art among arts, as well as in the appreciation of an individual author or poem. We are not being intellectually oriented, as in reading the most stimulating critical work; we are not getting an ever-surer sense of the points of the compass. Essays, to have this orienting power, need not be continually prating of theories and laws; they need not be rabidly scientific in phrase or in method. But they must issue from a mind that has come to an understanding with itself about the genesis of art in the genius of the artist; about the laws that, when the utmost plea has been made for freedom and caprice, regulate artistic production; about the history and evolution of art forms; and about the relations of the arts among themselves and to the other activities of life. It may fairly be doubted if Arnold had ever wrought out for himself consistent conclusions on all or most of these topics. Indeed, the mere mention of his name in connection with such a formal list of topics suggests the kind of mock-serious deprecatory paragraph with which the “unlearned bellettristic trifler” was wont to reply to charges of dilettantism—a paragraph sure to carry in its tail a stinging bit of sarcasm at the expense of pedantry and unenlightened formalism. And yet, great as must be every one’s respect for the thorough scholarship and widely varied accomplishment that Arnold made so light of and carried off so easily, the doubt must nevertheless remain whether a firmer grasp on theory, and a more consistent habit of thinking out literary questions to their principles, would not have invigorated his work as a critic and given it greater permanence and richer suggestiveness.