The Fox Without a Tail
A Fox was once caught in a trap by his tail, and in order to get free was obliged to leave it behind. He knew that his fellows would make fun of his tailless condition, so he made up his mind to induce them all to part with their tails. At the next assemblage of Foxes he made a speech on the uselessness of tails in general, and the inconvenience of a Fox's tail in particular, declaring that never in his whole life had he felt so comfortable as now in his tailless freedom. When he sat down, a sly old Fox rose, and, waving his brush, said, with a sneer, that if he had lost his tail, he would be convinced by the last speaker's arguments, but until such an accident occurred he fully intended to vote in favour of tails.
The Blind Man and the Paralytic
A blind man finding himself stopped in a rough and difficult road, met with a paralytic and begged his assistance. "How can I help you," replied the paralytic, "when I can scarcely move myself along?" But, regarding the blind man, he added: "However, you appear to have good legs and a broad back, and, if you will lift me and carry me, I will guide you safely through this difficulty, which is more than each one can surmount for himself. You shall walk for me, and I will see for you." "With all my heart," rejoined the blind man; and, taking the paralytic on his shoulders, the two went cheerfully forward in a wise partnership which triumphed over all difficulties.
[MATTHEW ARNOLD]
Essays in Criticism
Matthew Arnold, son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby (see Vol. X, p. 260), was born on December 24, 1822, and died on April 15, 1888. He was by everyday calling an inspector of schools and an educational expert, but by nature and grace a poet, a philosopher, a man of piety and of letters. Arnold almost ceased to write verse when he was forty-five, though not without having already produced some of the choicest poetry in the English language. Before that he had developed his theories of literary criticism in his "Essays in Criticism"; and about the time of his withdrawal from Oxford he published "Culture and Anarchy," in which his system of philosophy is broadly outlined. Later, in "St. Paul and Protestantism," "Literature and Dogma" and "God and the Bible," he tried to adjust Christianity according to the light of modern knowledge. In his "Lectures on Translating Homer," he had expressed views on criticism and its importance that were new to, and so were somewhat adversely discussed by the Press. Whereupon, in 1865, with a militant joy, he re-entered the fray and defined the province of criticism in the first of a series of "Essays in Criticism," showing the narrowness of the British conception. "The Literary Influence of Academies" was a subject that enabled him to make a further comparison between the literary genius of the French and of the English people, and a number of individual critiques that followed only enhanced his great and now undisputed position both as a poet and as a critic. The argument of the two general essays is given here.