unconventional spirit, happy and brilliant himself, and loving the
happiness and brilliancy of the world; with not an ounce of pomposity in
his own nature, and with the most irreverent demeanour towards pomposity
in other people. "Our social Polyphemes," as Lord Beaconsfield said,
"have only one eye"; and they could not the least perceive that Arnold's
genius was like the genius of poetry as he himself described it--

Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground
Of thought and of austerity within.

In a letter to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of July 21, 1866, he first
introduced his friend Arminius,[26] Baron Von Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, the
cultivated and enquiring Prussian who had come to England to study our
Politics, Education, Local Government, and social life. A series of
similar letters followed at irregular intervals during the years 1866,
1867, 1869, and 1870. And Arminius' drastic method of questioning and
arguing became the idoneous vehicle for Arnold's criticisms on such
topics as our Foreign Policy, Compulsory Education, the Press, and the
Deceased Wife's Sister. The letters were eventually collected in that
little-read but most fascinating book, _Friendship's Garland_, which was
published in 1871.[27] But before _Friendship's Garland_ came out,
Arnold, who had tested his powers in social criticism by these fugitive
pieces, addressed himself to a more serious and solid effort in the same
field. The essays which eventually formed the book called _Culture and
Anarchy_ began to appear in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for July, 1867, and
were continued in 1868. The book was published in 1869. We saw at the
outset that he himself said of his _Discourses in America_ that they, of
all his prose-writings, were the writings by which he would most wish to
be remembered. Many of his disciples would say that _Essays in
Criticism_ was his most important work in prose. Some people would give