Journeys through Bookland : a new and original plan for reading applied to the world's best literature for children . ctured here. His crit-icisms of America and Americans were severe, for he sawpredominant the spirit of money-getting, the thirst formaterial prosperity and the absence of spiritual 1888, while at the house of a friend in Liverpool, hedied suddenly and peacefully from an attack of heartdisease. Arnold was one of the most exacting and critical of Eng- 27. This beautiful stanza makes a peculiarly artistic terminationto the poem. After the storm and stress of the comba
Journeys through Bookland : a new and original plan for reading applied to the world's best literature for children . ctured here. His crit-icisms of America and Americans were severe, for he sawpredominant the spirit of money-getting, the thirst formaterial prosperity and the absence of spiritual 1888, while at the house of a friend in Liverpool, hedied suddenly and peacefully from an attack of heartdisease. Arnold was one of the most exacting and critical of Eng- 27. This beautiful stanza makes a peculiarly artistic terminationto the poem. After the storm and stress of the combat and theheart-breaking pathos of Sohrabs death, the reader willingly restshis thought on the majestic Oxus that still ilows on, unchangeable,but ever changing. The suggestion is that after all nature istriumphant, that our pains and losses, our most grievous disap-pointments and greatest griefs are but incidents in the great dramaof life, and that, though like the river Oxus. we for a time becomefoiled, circuitous wanderers, we at last see before us the luminoushome, bright and tranquil under the shining SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 205 lish writers, a man who applied to his own works the samesevere standards that he set up for others. As a result hiswritings have become one of the standards of purity andtaste in style. The story of Sohrab and Rustum pleased him, and heenjoyed writing the poem, as may be seen from a letter tohis mother, written in 1853. He says: All my spare time been spent on a poem which Ihave just finished, and which I think by far the best thingI have yet done, and I think it will be generally liked;though one can never be sure of this. I have had thegreatest pleasure in composing it, a rare thing witii me,and, as I think, a good test of the pleasure what you writeis likely to afford to others. But the story is a very nobleand excellent one. Two men, both competent to judge, have given at lengththeir opinion of Matthew Arnolds character. So admir-able a
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