Excerpt from Select Poems of Matthew Arnold Matthew arnold was born at Laleham, on the Thames, in the county of Middlesex, December 24, r 822. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, who had begun prae tical life, as we may call it, on leaving Oxford, by taking private pupils. The father is famous now as Headmaster of Rugby, a man of most powerful and influential life in education, and in religion as well, whom his son always remembered with affection, though he followed a life or (more important) a line of thought very different from Thomas Arnold's. He was one of a large family who were closely bound together by great affection through life, so that the real view we have of Arnold's personal life is gained almost entirely from letters either to his mother, or his sisters, and, of course, to his wife. The influence of childhood amounted to much with Arnold, for, though the family soon left Laleham for Rugby (which is not a very attractive place), yet vacations were spent at Fox How in Westmoreland, of which Dr. Arnold was devotedly fond, where Matthew learned to know the Lake Country and Wordsworth - two very strong elements in forming his life and his poetry. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.