General Grant by Matthew Arnold, with a Rejoinder by Mark Twain (review)

BOOK REVIEWS381 religious sentiment, didacticism, pathos, and the exploitation of local color and folklore. Incidental historical judgments are sometimes shallow, as in one unique contribution to revisionism: "Had Northern politicians but retained their sense of humor when planning the Reconstruction program, reconciliation could have taken place before it did." Or downright startling: "the rise of the Negro politically and economically"—toward the end of the nineteenth century! But the author touches all the bases. His book and its bibliography will therefore become valuable reference tools. The lecturer or writer will find summarized and categorized useful material to illustrate and enliven his points. Here one can encounter such familiar authors as Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, Richard Malcolm Johnston, and George W. Bagby, and such less familiar figures as Frank L. Stanton, Opie Read, Sam W. Small, and F. Hopkinson Smith, together with the new phenomenon of female humorists, Will Allen Dromgoole, Ruth McEnery Stuart, and Jeanette Walworth. Because of the book's plan, however, one will gain more intimate acquaintance with their creations than with the authors: such characters as Mozis Addums, Bill Arp, Uncle Remus, Old Si, Brother Dickey, Old Wash, and the like, who crop up, some of them repeatedly , under the appropriate rubrics. Civil War buffs should note that, despite the title, the book's longest chapter is on Civil War humor. George B. Tindall University of North Carolina General Grant by Matthew Arnold, with a Rejoinder by Mark Twain. Edited by John Y. Simon. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1966. Pp.58. $4.25.) Professor Simon has edited an intriguing piece concerning a quarrel between Matthew Arnold, a major English literary critic of the late-nineteenth century, and Mark Twain, a close personal friend of Grant and publisher of the best-selling Memoirs. This is a little book, few in pages, narrow in scope, limited in depth. It is readable and interesting within these imposed limitations. This work should prove informative to those interested in the three figures involved. As his contribution, the editor has placed the dispute between Arnold and Twain in its historical perspective. The volume is especially significant because it adds a new dimension to Grant; it places him in relation to the literary men of that era. The work is further to be commended as Arnold's essay does not appear in his collected works and Twain's rejoinder has not been reprinted in a correct text. The introduction also successfully places perspective upon America's repeated assertion of cultural independence. Matthew Arnold's essay on General Grant appears to present-day 382CIVIL WAR HISTORY readers to be a rather generous appraisal. Arnold published the two-part article in Murray's Magazine in 1886 fn order to foster rapprochement between Great Britain and the United States. While his intentions were honorable, the views expressed received considerable condemnation when reprinted in Boston during the next year. Mark Twain endeavored to speak for all Americans when he delivered a caustic rejoinder to the Englishman in a brief speech before Connecticut's Army and Navy Club on April 27, 1887. Twain described the Memoirs as "a great (and in its peculiar department) unique and unapproachable literary masterpiece." His defense was largely an appeal to Anglophobia and an attempt at ridicule. The major portion of this work is rightfully devoted to the Arnold essays. One of the key sections is his assessment of Grant. In addition to observations drawn from the Memoirs, Arnold had met the former President on two occasions. He described the American military hero as "strong, resolute and business-like ... a man with no magical personality, touched by no divine light and giving out none," but also "a man of sterling good-sense as well as of the firmest resolution; a man, withal, humane , simple, modest; from all restless self-consciousness and desire for display perfecdy free." Arnold confessed that he preferred Grant to Lincoln and that he held only Benjamin Franklin in higher esteem among all Americans. Arnold's assessment of Grant's character irritated hero-worshipping Americans; his criticism of the general's literary style involved the national interest. The prose found in the Memoirs was described as "an English...