As a patrician liberal, Arnold has become a cult figure with those - they are particularly strong in the universities - who see in him what they would like to be themselves, but so rarely are. As the son of the famous (and formidable) headmaster of Rugby he inherited a tender conscience and became that familiar mid-Victorian figure, a conscientious agnostic deeply aware that the sea of faith" was on the ebb and uneasy about what might fill the ensuing void. Since Arnold also inherited the family heart disease, he went through life feeling that he might die tomorrow, though in fact he lived into his late sixties. His 35 years as an inspector of schools made him a vocal crusader for education and he strongly favoured complete state control of schools (it is perhaps just as well that he did not live to see the results). Long service as virtually a civil servant did not prevent him from holding unorthodox and even rather dangerous views - for instance, his admiration for George Sand, then widely considered to be an immoral and subversive writer/influence.
Otherwise, his intellectual star was Goethe, something he shared with Carlyle, of whose writings and views he had rather a low opinion.
Arnold, the sensitive, introspective poet was often obscured by Arnold the critic, essayist, and controversialist; when he died, the obituaries concurred in remarking that he had not got his due in terms of public recognition. This well-written biography utilises an archive of the poet's early letters recently bequeathed to Oxford by his grandson.