reporter, who while stressing Arnold's deliberateness of address in the first "Numbers" lecture, nonetheless describes him as holding "his manuscript in his left hand, nearly level with his face and speaking "extemporaneously” only a few times. Moreover, Life's parodic newspaper, the Sydney Boomerang, reports, "We are requested not to publish the lecture; and cheerfully refrain from doing so." The New York Tribune was, in fact, asked by its London correspondent, George W. Smalley, not to publish the lecture so that Arnold's next reading would not be pre-empted; to Smalley's chargin, a summary did indeed appear. A second impersonator purportedly goes to Calcutta, where, according to the nonexistent Calcutta Times, he delivers a talk "full of brilliant ideas" but "so obscure, that we cannot but think that the leaves had not been numbered and that the lecture had been shuffled wrong.' The third impersonator is sent to Boston, The "Modern Athens," where he astonishes his "cultivated and refined audience" by his appearance in "pink tights and a single eye-glass" quite as much as Arnold is popularly supposed to have horrified the Boston grandees by his refusal to accord greatness to Emerson. As the nonexistent Boston Herald reports, the impersonator gives an "inferior exhibition" of "Sleight of Hand or Spiritualism Unmasked," a turn of phrase which may suggest that Arnold "unmasked" Transcendentalism. The section ends by implying that Arnold's sharp criticism is tantamount to "eating glass and swallowing swords." Portraying the impersonator as a mountebank may be an oblique reference not only to D'Oyly Carte's sponsorship of the tour but to Barnum's rumored support as well. Moreover, since Arnold in "Numbers" notes that the Athenian state fell because the saving remnant was too small, Life's sobriquet for Boston--the "Modern Athens"--is hardly the praise it seems; it is, rather, of a piece with the New York magazine's constant sniping at its bluestocking neighbor. Four months later Life again attacked Arnold for trading his genius for cash; he is revealed as a circus curiosity, a kind of human Jumbo, as well as a posturing "intellectual giant" who attacked Emerson unjustifiably (24 Apr. 1884, p. 228). "Pater's Divine Dialogue" is a conversation between a professor and his daughter: Is not Mr. Arnold a great teacher and leader in thought? Prof. Yes! He assumes to be--or it is assumed for him--that he is a modern Moses in literature, leading his people out of the bondage of ignorance into a land of culture. He is especially the apostle of sweetness and light. D - D -- Why did he come to America? Prof. D - ... Does he want to found a chair of sweetness and light-or perhaps a college? Prof. Not exactly, my dear! He wants to pay off the debts made by his son, who has been sowing a crop of uncivilized oats--at the university. D -- (pauses)--Oh, I see. Was he invited to come . . . by some professors and literary men who wanted to know more about sweetness and light? Prof. No! A popular manager of English Opera Bouffe brought him out. D And placarded him all around like a circus clown? . . Then people went to see him as they do Jumbo, who is also large and English? . . . And will he not lose all prestige as a man of letters after he has been willing to lower himself, just for a few paltry dollars to the level of a Punch and Judy show? I do not know that we have all looked at it in that light, D-- Then his American tour was a total and disastrous failure? Prof. -- Intellectually and morally speaking, I suppose we must admit that it was, but financially it was a success. Probably Life's best expression of paranoia in this respect is Oliver Herford's cartoon, "The Modern Argonauts with Their Golden 'Fleece' "' (11 Mar. 1886, p. 145; fig. 2); Arnold, portrayed with a bilious, distrustful mien, has a prominent place. In clockwise order, beginning with Arnold, the figures in the ship seem to be Canon Frederic, William Farrar, Oscar Wilde, Henry Irving, W. S. Gilbert, and Lily Langtry. The figure lurking between Wilde and Irving is too indistinct to recognize, but the top hat and monocle may identify him as a generic British tourist like Sir Lepel Griffin; the "argonaut" leaning over the gunwale has not yet been identified. The cartoon appeared with the following commentary: The more we think of it the more we pity those poor pillaged Britishers, so feelingly alluded to by Mr. W. S. Gilbert. There was the poverty-stricken Oscar Wilde, who came over with a few other emigrants shortly after Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan had saturated us with musical advertisement of THE MODERN ARGONAUTS WITH THEIR GOLDEN "FLEECE." Respectfully dedicated to Mr. W. S. Gilbert and others who "have been pillaged right and left" by Americans. his peculiarities. Mr. Wilde came here with nothing but his clothes and hair. Of these the American pirate robbed him even to the last vestige of his pauperism. So thoroughly stripped of all he had was he that in self-defense he went home and got married, so that he should have some visible means of support and keep him from vagrancy. Then there was Henry Irving, absolutely pelted out of the land with seventy-nine cent dollars. Canon Farrar, too, went home loaded to the muzzle with depreciated American currency, which the pickpocket American public left in his trousers by mistake. Mrs. Langtry came among us, confiding her sweet presence to our care, and actually left a hundred thousand dollars' worth of mortgages on New York real estate. Poor pillaged thing! Matthew Arnold lost several carloads of sweetness and light to these American bandits without receiving any more than some fifty thousand dollars. As for Gilbert & Sullivan, whose operas have carried desolation into so many homes, they are the worst sufferers of all. It is said that Mr. Gilbert never received a penny from the elevated railroad patent, while Sullivan's request for a share of the Madison Square Garden receipts have [sic] always been treated with silent contempt. Herford's drawing and the editorial were published in response to a letter written by W. S. Gilbert to The London Times (2 Feb. 1886, p. 8). Headed "International Copyright" and preceded by the text of a note from Harper & Bros. which accompanied a £10 "royalty” fee for the use of Gilbert's librettos in a Franklin Square Library edition, the letter is as follows: Gentlemen -- You have been good enough to forward me a donation of 10. Notwithstanding the fact that for many years I have been pillaged, right and left, by such of your countrymen as are engaged in publishing and theatrical ventures, I am not yet reduced to such a state of absolute penury as would justify me in taking advantage of the charitable impulse which prompted your gift. But the Victoria Hospital for Children stands sorely in need of funds, and I have therefore taken the liberty of handing your cheque to the secretary of that institution. Life irresponsibly ignores the real issue, which is that Harper's pirated Gilbert's work and then brazenly offered a small sum for the privilege; rather, the magazine contends that British figures take advantage of the gullible American public. In fact, Arnold's earnings were probably almost half of what Life suggests. Like Life, Judge maintains that Arnold was a foreign profiteer;9 also like Life, Judge offers commentary on specific lectures and expresses disappointment in "Numbers," which it renames "Cherish That Remnant" (22 Dec. 1883, p. 10): So warmly have we felt your agile pen Your kindly heart will find, here naught of treason, So prithee, spare our rhyme, nor spurn our reason. The poem elaborates on Arnold's implied conceit: he is a Moses, travelling out of an English Egypt to an American promised land, delivering as he goes a lecture-circuit Deuteronomy about the duties of the remnant. Punch also questions the effectiveness of the lecture: MATTHEW ARNOLD ON "NUMBERS'* [The lecturer dwelt on the errors of majorities, especially in morals and politics.] Nothing so good as a merry minority, Though you belong to a feeble minority, You can look up and be bold with the best, Ever arise in your militant breast; Take up an ARNOLD'S ineffable song, |