" That is perfectly true; and
the appearance of _Culture and Anarchy_ was a great social event. The
book so named was published in 1869; but the ground had been prepared
for it by some earlier writings, and these we must consider before we
come to the book itself.
In February, 1866, there appeared in the _Cornhill Magazine_ an essay
called "My Countrymen." In this essay Arnold, fresh from one of his
Continental tours, tried to show English people what the intelligent
mind of Europe was really thinking of them. "'It is not so much that we
dislike England,' a Prussian official, with the graceful tact of his
nation, said to me the other day, 'as that we think little of her.'"
Broadly speaking, European judgment on us came to this--that England had
been great, powerful, and prosperous under an aristocratic government,
at a time when the chief requisite for national greatness was Action,
"for aristocracies, poor in ideas, are rich in energy"; but that England
was rapidly losing ground, was becoming a second-rate power, was falling
from her place in admiration and respect, since the Government had
passed into the hands of the Middle Class.
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