study. Well, as my opinions were thus undergoing a transition, my practice moved in the same direction, and I adopted all the modes I could devise to acquire the power of exciting myself into the wildest emotions of passion, coercing my limbs to perfect stillness. I would lie down on the floor, or stand straight against a wall, or get my arms within a bandage, and, so pinioned or confined, repeat the most violent passages of Othello, Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, or whatever would require most energy and emotion; I would speak the most passionate bursts of rage under the supposed constraint of whispering them in the ear of him or her to whom they were addressed, thus keeping both voice and gesture in subjection to the real impulse of the feeling. Such was my process.' Perhaps when I have the pleasure of seeing you I may make myself more intelligible, if you desire further acquaintance with my youthful discipline. I was obliged also to have frequent recourse to the looking-glass, and had two or three large ones in my room to reflect to myself each view of the posture I might have fallen into, besides being under the necessity of acting the passion close to a glass to restrain the tendency to exaggerate its expression-which was the most difficult of all-to repress the ready frown, and keep the features, perhaps I should say the muscles of the face, undisturbed, whilst intense passion would speak from the eye alone. The easier an actor makes his art appear, the greater must have been the pains it cost him. I do not think it difficult to act like Signora Ristori; it seems to me merely a melodramatic abandonment or lashing up to a certain point of excitement. It is not so good as Rachel, nor to be compared with such acting as that of Siddons and O'Neill. But you will have cried, 'Hold, enough!' long since. Will you give my love to your husband, and ask him for me the name of his optical instrument maker. I want to send some articles to be refitted, and, from Willie's enthusiasm about his telescope, I hope I may derive some benefit from his acquaintance. I have a great deal to tell you, if I had time to gossip, but I am sure here is more than sufficient for one post. All loves from home. Mine to your little boys. Believe me Yours most sincerely, W. C. MACREADY. CCCXIV. There is scarcely a page of the two volumes of the 'Life and Correspondence of Dr. Arnold,' by Dean Stanley, which does not throw a beam of light on the character of one of the most interesting, zealous, and useful men of this century. Few are the instances, even in modern biographical literature, in which so forcible a representation of character is given by means of epistolary correspondence. From the abundance of his earnestness for this is the most striking of his characteristics—we who had not the advantage of falling within the sphere of his influence, may snatch from his letters most vivid glimpses of his work as a church reformer, a political thinker, a scholarly author, a friend of the working classes, and greatest of all, as a schoolmaster. It is not merely within the precincts of Rugby School that his name is a household word. The Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., to the Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Rugby: September 28, 1828. It is, indeed, a long time since I wrote to you, and there has been much of intense interest in the period which has elapsed since I did write. But it has been quite an engrossing occupation; and Thucydides and everything else has gone to sleep while I have been attending to it. Now it is becoming more familiar to me, but still the actual employment of time is very great, and the matters for thought which it affords are almost endless. Still I get my daily exercise and bathing very happily, so that I have been, and am, perfectly well, and equal in strength and spirits to the work. For myself, I like it hitherto beyond my expectation, but, of course, a month is a very short time to judge from. I am trying to establish something of a friendly intercourse with the Sixth Form, by asking them, in succession, in parties of four, to dinner with us, and I have them each separately up into my room to look over their exercises. I mean to bring in something like 'gatherings' before it is long, for they understand that I have not done with my alterations, nor probably ever shall have; and I am going to have an examination for every form in the school, at the end of the short half-year, in all the business of the half-year, Divinity, Greek and Latin, Arithmetic, History, Geography, and Chronology, with first and second classes, and prize books for those who do well. I find that my power is perfectly absolute, so that I have no excuse if I do not try to make the school something like my beau ideal -it is sure to fall far enough short in reality. There has been no flogging yet, (and I hope that there will be none,) and surprisingly few irregularities. I chastise, at first, by very gentle impositions, which are raised for a repetition of offences-flogging will be only my ratio ultima-and talking I shall try to the utmost. I believe that boys may be governed a great deal by gentle methods and kindness, and appealing to their better feelings, if you show that you are not afraid of them. I have seen great boys, six feet high, shed tears when I have sent for them up into my room and spoken to them quietly, in private, for not knowing their lesson, and I have found that this treatment produced its effects afterwards, in 、 making them do better. But, of course, deeds must second words when needful, or words will soon be laughed at. CCCXV. The Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., to an old pupil at Oxford. February 25, 1833. It always grieves me to hear that a man does not like Oxford. I was so happy there myself, and above all, so happy in my friends, that its associations to my mind are purely delightful. But, of course, in this respect, everything depends upon the society you fall into. If this be uncongenial, the place can have no other attractions than those of a town full of good libraries. The more we are destitute of opportunities for indulging our feelings, as is the case when we live in uncongenial society, the more we are apt to crisp and harden our outward manner to save our real feelings from exposure. Thus I believe that some of the most delicate-minded men get to appear actually coarse from their unsuccessful efforts to mask their real nature. And I have known men disagreeably forward from their shyness. But I doubt whether a man does not suffer from a habit of self-constraint, and whether his feelings do not become really, as well as apparently, chilled. It is an immense blessing to be perfectly callous to ridicule; or, which comes to the same thing, to be conscious thoroughly that what we have in us of noble and delicate is not ridiculous to any but fools, and that, if fools will laugh, wise men will do well to let them. I shall really be very glad to hear from you at any time, and I will write to the best of my power on any subject on which you want to know my opinion. As for anything more, I believe that the one great lesson for us all is, that we should daily pray for an 'increase of faith.' There is enough of iniquity abounding to make our love in danger of waxing cold; it is well said, therefore, 'Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, believe also in Me.' By which I understand that it is not so much general notions of Providence which are our best support, but a sense of the personal interest, if I may so speak, taken in our welfare by Him who died for us and rose again. May His Spirit strengthen us to do His will, and to bear it, in power, in love, and in wisdom. God bless you. CCCXVI. This letter was written while Coleridge was staying at Fox The Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., to Mr. Justice Coleridge. If you have the same soft air that is now breathing round us, and the same bright sun playing on the trees, which are full charged with the freshness of last night's rain, you must, I think, be in a condition to judge well of the beauty of Fox How. It is a real delight to think of you as at last arrived there, and to feel that the place which we so love is enjoyed by such dear friends, who can enjoy it fully. I congratulate you on your deliverance from Lancaster Castle, and by what you said in your last letter, you are satisfied, I imagine, with the propriety of the verdict. Now you can not only see the mountains afar off, but feel them in eyes, lungs, and mind; and a mighty influence I think it is. I often used to think of the solemn comparison in the Psalm, 'the hills stand about Jerusalem; even so standeth the Lord round about His people.' The girdling in of the mountains round the valley of our home is as apt an image as any earthly thing can be of the encircling of the everlasting arms, keeping off evil, and showering all good. But my great delight in thinking of you at Fox How is mixed with no repining that I cannot be there myself. We have had our holyday, and it was a long and most agreeable one; and Nemesis might well be angry, if I was not now ready and glad to be at work again. Besides, I think that the School is again in a very hopeful state; the set, which rather weighed us down during the last year, is now broken and dispersed; and the tide is again, I trust, at flood, and will, I hope, go on so. You would smile to see the zeal with which I am trying to improve the Latin verse, and the difficulty which I find in doing it. But I stand in amaze at the utter want of poetical feeling in the minds of the majority of boys. They cannot in the least understand either Homer or Virgil; they cannot follow out the strong graphic touches which, to an active mind, suggest such infinitely varied pictures, and yet leave it to the reader to draw them for himself on the hint given. But my delight in going over Homer and Virgil with the boys makes me think what a treat it must be to teach Shakespeare to a good class of young Greeks in regenerate Athens; to dwell upon him, line by line, and word by word, in the way that nothing but a translation lesson ever will enable one to do; and so to get all his pictures and thoughts leisurely into one's mind, till I verily think one would, after a time, almost give out light in the dark, after having been steeped as it were in such an atmosphere of brilliance. And how could this ever be done without having the process of construing, as the grosser medium through which alone all the beauty can be transmitted, because else we travel too fast, and more than half of it escapes us? Shakespeare, with English boys, would be but a poor substitute for Homer; but I confess that I should be glad to get Dante and Goethe now and then in the room of some of the Greek tragedians and of Horace; or rather not in their room, but mixed up along with them. I have been trying something of this in French, as I am now going through, with the Sixth Form, Barante's beautiful Tableau de la Littérature Française pendant le Dix-huitième Siècle. I thought of you the other day, when one of my fellows translated to me that splendid paragraph, comparing Voltaire to the Babouc of one of his own romances, for I think you first showed me the passage many years ago. Now, by going through Barante in this way, one gets it thoroughly; and with a really good book, I think it is a great gain. |