Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States: First and Last Impressions of America.

[134] Yet, if one thinks of it, Mr. Trevelyan was thus telling the Irish members simply that he was just that which Ireland does not want, and which can do her no good. England, to be sure, has given Ireland plenty of her worst, but she has also given her not scantily of her best. Ireland has had no insufficient supply of the English gentleman, with his honesty, personal courage, high bearing, good intentions, and limited vision; what she wants is statesmen with just the qualities which the typical English gentleman has not flexibility, openness of mind, a free and large view of things.

Everywhere we shall find in our thinking, a sort of warp inclining it aside of the real mark, and thus depriving it of value. The common run of peers who write to the Times about Reform of the House of Lords one would not much expect, perhaps, to “understand the signs of this time.” But even the Duke of Argyle, delivering his mind about the land question in Scotland, is like one seeing, thinking, and speaking in some other planet than ours. A man of even Mr. John Morley's gifts is provoked with the House of Lords, and straightway he declares himself against the existence of a Second Chamber at all; although — if there