The reason why Matthew Arnold, to my feeling, fails entirely as a poet (though no doubt his ideas were good - at least, I am told they were) is that he had no sense of touch whatsoever. Nothing made any impression on his skin. He could feel neither the shape nor the texture of a poem with his hands.

My poems are hymns of praise to the glory of life.

The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.

It is part of the poet's work to show each man what he sees but does not know he sees.

Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.

Poetry ennobles the heart and the eyes, and unveils the meaning of all things upon which the heart and the eyes dwell. It discovers the secret rays of the universe, and restores to us forgotten paradises.

By 'happiness' I do not mean worldly success or outside approval, though it would be priggish to deny that both these things are most agreeable. I mean the inner consciousness, the inner conviction that one is doing well the thing that one is best fitted to do by nature.