That a
book of essays on literary subjects, apparently so diverse in character,
so lacking in outer unity, and so little subject to system of any sort,
should take so definite a place in the history of criticism and make so
single an impression upon the reader proves its possession of a dominant
and important idea, impelled by a new and weighty power of personality.
What Arnold called his "sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding"
tends to disguise the seriousness and unity of purpose which lie behind
nearly all of these essays, but an uninterrupted perusal of the two
volumes of _Essays in Criticism_ and the volume of _Mixed Essays_
discloses what that purpose is. The essays may roughly be divided into
two classes, those which deal with single writers and those discussing
subjects of more general nature. The purpose of both is what Arnold
himself has called "the humanization of man in society." In the former
he selects some person exemplifying a trait, in the latter he selects
some general idea, which he deems of importance for our further
humanization, and in easy, unsystematic fashion unfolds and illustrates
it for us.
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