"--_Essays in
Criticism_.
PREFACE
It may be thought that some apology is needed for the production of yet
another book about Matthew Arnold. If so, that apology is to be found in
the fact that nothing has yet been written which covers exactly the
ground assigned to me in the present volume.
It was Arnold's express wish that he should not be made the subject of a
Biography. This rendered it impossible to produce the sort of book by
which an eminent man is usually commemorated--at once a history of his
life, an estimate of his work, and an analysis of his character and
opinions. But though a Biography was forbidden, Arnold's family 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.
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