TheArtofBiography 10006229-3

Un i ve rsi ty f
o Vi r gi n i a
B a rb ou rP a ge F ou n d a ti on
-
THE ART OF BIOGRAPHY

B OOKS IN THE
—
P AGE B AR B OU R F OUN D ATION
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
THE ART O F BI G R P HY O A
By William Rosco Tha y e e
r
O E
P R B L M S OF LAW
By J ohn H enry Wig m ore
m ORIG IN S O F THE TRIP L E ALLIAN CE

B y A C Cool
. .idg e
m C ONFL ETW EEN IN D IVID UALIS M
ICT B AN D
C OLLECTIVI S M IN A D EM O CRA CY
e s W El
B y Ch arl iot .
THE EARLY LIT RARY E CAR EER OF O

R B ERT
BR OW NIN G
B y Th om as R . Loun sb ury
C HARLES S CR IB NER S SONS

’
THE
ART O F B IOG RAP HY
BY
”
WI LLIAM ROSCOE THAY E R
‘“
Am on or m s m a m a s or CAVOUl
m .
z u r n AND Lm zns or JOHN n u

“
m m “ . n ooszvu r : AN m m “: com a! In c
.
NEW Y ORK
CHARLES SCRIB NER S SON S ’
1 9 2 0
Com m e nt . 1 9 2 0. m :
E E
CHARL S SCRI B N R S SONS
’
Pu i h ed S p e b e
bl s e t m r. 1 9 20
Go
ED W IN A N D ER SO N A LD ERM A N
TH E UNIVERSITY OI VIRGINIA
E
I D D ICA TE THIS TTLE
LI B OOK
Cm n m c z, M AS SACHUSEI I S
‘ ‘ ‘
M a rch 5 , m ac
THE HAR BOUR PAGE LE CTURE -
FOUN D ATI ON
The Un ive rsi ty of Vi rgi n i a is in de b t e d

for t he e st a b li sh m e n t of t e B a r b u r P a e
h o -
g
Fo u n d a tio n t o th e wi sdo m and
g iy
e n e ro s t of
M rs Th om
. as Ne l so n P a ge , of W a sh i n gt on ,
D . C . In 1 907 , M rs P a ge don a te d
. to t h e
Un i ve rsi ty th e su m of th e a n n ua l
i
in com e o f wh i ch is to be u se d in i
se cu r n
g
e a ch se ss on i t he de l i ve ry be fo re th e Un i ve r
sit
y of a se r e s of n ot i le ss t h a n r
th e e l e ct ure s
by so m e d i st i n gu i sh e d
l e tte rs or of
m an of
sci e n ce The con di tion s o f t h e Foun d a tion

.
r e uire th a t th e B a r b o u r P a e l e ct u re s for
q g
-
e a ch se ssi on b e n o t l e ss t h a n t h re e in n u m b e r ;
t h a t t h e y b e de l i ve re d by a sp e ci a l i st in so m e
b r a n ch o f l i te ra t u re scie n ce o r a r t ; t h a t th e
, ,
vu
le ct ure r p re se n t in i l
th e se r e s of e ct u re s som e
fre sh p a s e ct o r a s e ct s o f t
p h e de p a rt m e n t of
t ho ugh t i n wh i ch h e is a s e ci a l
p i st ; a n d t h a t
t h e e n t i re se rie s de l i ve re d i
e a ch se ss o n , t a ke n
toge t he r, sh a ll p o sse ss su c h u n it
y tha t the y
m a
y b e
p u bl
i sh e d b
y t h e Fo un d a tion in boo k
form .
CONTENTS
BIOGRAP HY IN ANT I Q U ITY
FROM M E D IE VAL To M OD E RN RI
OGRAP HY
B IOGRAP HY IN THE N I N ETEE NTH

C E NT U RY
A SHORT LI ST or Boo x s
TH E A RT O F BIOGRAP HY
I
BIOGRAPHY IN ANTIQUITY
HE instinct of re p roduction Is ,
next to th a t of self preserva tion-

,
the most impera tive of a ll I t includes .
not merely the desire to le ave fl e sh a nd -
blood progeny but a lso a fter huma n ,
being s h ave re a c hed a ce rt a in intel

lectu a l level a desire to perpetu a te
,
symbols of t heir t hough ts a nd e xp e ri

ence and evidences however crude of
, , ,
their p a ssions I n the slow course of

.
ages the s avage com es to rega rd hi m

self as a n i n d i vidu a l that is an ulti
, ,
m ate unit in his tribe or cl a n Later

, .
he discovers that he is a p e r son a ,
being through whom som e other being ,
more than hu m an mysterio u sly speaks

, .
THE ART OF BIOG RA PHY
And so a s ma n a cquires a richer e n
,
dowm ent of expression faculties more

,
delicate talents whic h he learns to con

,
—
trol and to use with greater skill in a
,
- —
word self expression become one of
his dominant characteristics .
M any of his records are u n p re m e di

t a te d. Th e rude figures which the
Laplander scra tched on reindeer bones
had no further significance for hi m than
the gratification of a fleeting fancy .
He did not dream t ha t they would be

used long afterward by anthropologists
to measure the degree of his savagery .
The rough daubings on the walls of an

Etrusc a n tomb m ay have had som e
religious m eaning to those who m ade
them ; but for us who inspect the m
now th ey a re merely m arkers in the
scale of expression of the earliest
Etruscans .
As men beco me more civilized how

,
ever they labor consciously to express

,
BIOGRAPHY IN A NTIQUITY
t he m selves They feel an inner urging

.
to register remarkable events A long .
ti m e passes before the private indi

vidu a l counts in these records As .
the re is but one dominant person

t he monarc h in and above t h eir
daily lives and th e collectiv e life of
,
their community so the mon a rch is

,
t he subject a round wh om t h e c h ronicle
”
“
is woven . I n t he d ays of the G re a t
King or I n t h e ninth ye a r of the
,
reign of Tigla t h P ile se r

-
”
so run the
form ul a s of t h e early c h roniclers But .
the mon a rch continues to be for a long

time little more t h an a symbol or a n
abstraction of one who is a ll power -
ful ; neither his features nor his traits

are individualized But the men a nd
.
women over whom a mon a rch reign ed ,
nature indi vidualized ; e a ch knew joy,

and su ffering each felt the glow of
,
hope or t h e bitterness of desp a ir ; you

,
cannot lessen t h e weariness and pain

TH E ART OF BIOGRAPHY
of the coflle s of slaves who built the
Pyra m ids or rowed the galleys by ,
generalizing Still other generations

.
must elapse before any individual lower

than the monarch is held worthy of
having his personal record or expres
sion h a nded down .
Consider for a momen t how arro

gant it seem s that any man should
h ave his likeness preserved his deeds
, ,
his t houghts his passions ! I n t h e

,
fa ce of I nfinity and of Eternity what ,
is he but a speck ? I s any particular

,
bubble on the ever fl owin g strea m of

-
Nile or Am azon an iridescent bea m

at one mom ent and gone the next
,
singled out for lasting re m e m brance ?

We look up at Sirius to night knowing
-
,
that the dart of light which reveals the

star to us began its journey
itself be gan If .
we could would we preserve to night s

,
-
’
Sirian ray rather than to morrow s ? -

’
BIOGR A PHY I N ANTIQUITY
Suc h questions answer themselves We .
are m en and man is the measure for

,
us With difficulty and stri ving and

.
m any doubts a nd tears we can come

,
to an understanding of our duty here .
The time tests of astronomy do not

concern us except as they te a ch us
,
that we too are parts of the universe

, ,
a nd should conduct ourselves wit h a ll

the dignity which t h at i m plies .
I do n ot know which biography is

t h e first to escape oblivion D oubtless .
the earliest books of China I ndia , ,
Egypt and Western Asia contain b i

,
og ra p hica lfrag m ents hardly to be de
ta ch e d now from t h eir surrounding

text For my purposes however I
.
, ,
will t a ke t h e story of Joseph in t h e

book of Ge n e si s as a starter Al
, .
t hough I suspect that part s of it may

be legenda ry and not biographical it ,
contains on the whole an orderly con ,
se cut iv e and to a certain ex tent indi

, , ,
v id u a l
ize life I t has also t h e typical
d .
, ,
quality peculiar to primitive works .
An unusual play of emotion runs

th rough it and there is a plot with
,
several dramatic crises wh ic h a mod

ern playwrigh t might envy .
Joseph the young son of t he He

,
brew Patriarch Jacob was hated by ,
his brothers They were jealous of

.
h im because t h eir father loved him

best of a ll and the boy had an a nnoy
,
ing way of dreaming dreams in whic h

t hey bowed down before him While .
tending their flocks t hey cons p ired to

gether to kill him but one of t hem , ,
Reuben advised aga inst downrigh t

,
murder lest t hey s hould h ave his blood

upon t heir h a nds So they put h im .
into a dry pit havin g first stripped

,
him of a coat of many colors whic h his

fat her had given him and Reuben ,
hoped to steal back and rescue the

b o y after t h e other brothers had de
6
hi m fro m post to post until he rose ,
to be the chief person except his mas ,
ter in the house

, .
Prosperity however though coveted

, ,
by e verybody makes a dull b a ck

,
ground to a story a nd so the ancient

,
Hebrew or Egyptian biographer brings

in at this point an al most tragic inter
ruption Potiphar s wife fell violently
.
’
in love with the young and handsome

Joseph and atte m pted to seduce him
, ,
but he broke away from her a nd then

she in fury at being scorned a c
, ,
cu se d him to her husband Thereupon .
Josep h was t h rown into prison and

had only the blackest future to look
forward to Some of his fellow pris
.
oners had ominous dreams wh ich he ,
interpreted and a s his interpretations

, ,
were verified Joseph s reput a tion as a

,
’
diviner spread beyond his prison walls .
'
After a while Pharaoh himself took

to dre aming He s aw seven fa t fl e sh
.
-
8
BIOG R APHY IN ANTIQUITY
kine which seven thin and lean kine
swallowed up He dreamed also that
.
seven ears of corn came up in one

stalk fu l l and good ; and that seven
,
other ca rs t h in and withered and

blasted wit h the east wind sprang up
after the m I n anxiety Pharaoh sent
.
for his magicians but none of them

,
could interpret his dreams Finally .

,
having heard of Joseph he ordered h i m,
to be brought from his dungeon and ,
Joseph interpreted the drea m s a s por

tending that after seven years of abun
d a nt h arvests there would follow seven
years of dearth .
Ph arao h rewa rded him by making

him Go vernor of Egypt second to ,
none except h imself and during t h e

,
seven ye a rs of plenty Joseph like an ,
ancient Hoover stored up collected

, , ,
and distributed grain and foodstu ffs .
Now by a stroke of consu mm ate art

, ,
if th is be a sto ry and n ot an act

9
ual biography the connection between
,
Joseph s youth and the period Of his

’
power and splendor in Egypt is made .
The years of deart h blasted t h e land

of Canaan and wh en the pinch of
, ,
hunger came Jacob sent his sons down

,
into Egypt to buy corn There t h ey .
dealt with Joseph whom t h ey did not,
recognize but he recognized the m and

,
inquired for his father and t he fa mily ,
and when he heard that his mother

had a younger son Benjamin Jose p h , ,
desired to see him His brothers talked

.
a mong themselves in Hebrew and did

not suppose that Joseph wit h whom ,
they spoke in Egyptian understood ,
the m But he sent them ho m e with

.
t heir sacks filled with corn and with ,
the money they had brought to pay

for it in the mouth of each sack He .
required the m to leave Si m eon one ,
of their brothers and to return with

,
Benjamin .
When they told their father Jacob of
this demand he grieved sorely for he ,
had never ceased to lament the loss of

Joseph the youngest in the e a rlier
,
ti m e and he feared now to lose Ben

,
ja m in Nevertheless he consented at
.
,
last rather than see all his people perish

from hunger So the brothers ca me
again into Egypt wit h Benjamin and ,
when Joseph saw his own brother the ,
little Benja m in he was so much moved

,
that he went into a nother roo m and

wept After v arious co n t riv in g s by
.
,
which Joseph aimed at pro longing the

anxiety of his brothers for they were
,
stricken with remorse a nd a ttributed

the evils which h a d co m e to the m as
punishment for their sin against Joseph
in selling him to the I shmae l ites he ,
m ade hi m self known to the m and they

,
fel l down and bowed their he a ds b e

fore hi m thus fulfilling the e a rly drea m
,
which had m ade the m hate him .
II
THE ART OF BIOGR A PHY
The brothers were much am azed to
find Joseph the chief person in Egypt ,
and perhaps they wondered whether

he would not punish them for their
wickedness long ago But h is a fl e c
.
‘
tion prevailed He kissed the m and

.
wept upon their necks and they talked

,
toget her Ph araoh rejoiced wh en he

.
heard of their com ing and he approved

,
of Joseph s plan of sending the m back

’
to Canaan to fetch Jacob and all of

Jacob s fa mily into Egypt This they
’
.
did The Patriarch ca me and was

.
given l ands and cattle and wit h his , ,
children and grandchildren around hi m ,
he prospered to the day of his death .
Joseph survived him m any years never ,
l o sing t h e good will of the Pharaohs

-
whom he served .
I f the story was written to illustrate

a moral the moral is p l ain Except
,
.
for t h e long interva l s of ti me which

pass when nothing happens it wou l d ,
12
m ake an excellent dra m a to which the ,
two or three side episodes lend variety .
Nothing could be more natural than

the way in wh ich results flow from
the precedent causes The uniformity .
with which Joseph always acts in ch ar

acter is always generous and a ffe c
t io n a t e self controlled and v irtuous
,
-
inclines me to believe that h e was a

real person the story of whose life
,
was handed down bec ause it made a

ve ry deep impression upon both the
I sraelites a nd the Egyptians The .
u sual fable or apologue lacks the ve ry

, ,
precise individualized traits which are

sa l ient here .
I n other parts of the Old Testa ment

we come upon e vident biographical
fragments Th e sto ry of D avid for
.
,
exa m p l e is very vivid and personal and

, ,
it abounds in those su preme touches

which the old Hebrew geni u s always
displayed Neverthe l ess D avid s l i fe
.
,
’
I3
like that of Joshua see m s to be histo ry
,
rather than biography .
When we co m e to the earliest of the

G reek writers who m ay on several a c ,
counts b e considered biographers we

, ,
are m et by a si m ilar interm ixing of his

to ry and biography Xenophon who .
,
see m s to me one of t h e G reeks of the

great period who had a strange m an o f ,
-
the world quality for an Athenian of

-
his time wrote two books which have

,
been classed ever since as biographies ,
although whe n you exa m ine the m

,
closely you see that other ch ar a ct e ris

,
”
“
tics preponderate Xenophon s Gyro
.
’
p ae d ia purports to describe the boy

hood and training of the great king Cy
rus ; but much of this period is known
only through hearsay and legend and ,
then when Xenophon goes on to tell

,
about the ca m paigns and a d m inistra

tion of Cyrus he obviously becom es
,
more historical than biographical I n .
14
TH E ART O F BIOG R APHY
Xenophon in spite of having a p ie r c
,
ing intellect and various real talents ,
never fathom ed the Socratic deeps I t .
took Pl a to for that if in fact some

, ,
Of the deeps which Plato attrib u ted to
Socrates were not his own Perhaps I .
have said enough to indicate why

”
”
“ “
Xenophon s Cy rop m dia and M em
’
orabilia interesting though t hey be

, ,
and i m portant are not examples of true

,
biography .
What you ask is the difl e re n ce b e

, ,
‘
tween history and biography ? Wh at

should a biography tell First it s hould ,
reveal to us the individual m an or ,
wo m an that indivisible unit whic h

,
has no exact counterpart in t h e world .
B u t this alone is not enough th e indi

vidual m ay be known to u s chiefly as a
soldier or a poet or a states m an or a
, , ,
m erchant ; so we must have unfolded

to u s the inevitable reactions between
the individual and his profession .
Next if n ot first we s ha ll expect to

, ,
1 6
learn how his environment in time and
in place afl e ct s him These are ve ry
.
subtle processes although the class of

,
men of science that regard all life h u ,
m an and animal as a manifestation of

“
,
materialism explain us all as the ”

mere products of our environment .
This I do not believe .
Judged by whate ver standard the ,
first real master of biography was Plu

tarch a Greek who flourished in the
,
latter half of the first centu ry of the

“
Christian era His Lives of the
.
”
celebrated Greeks and Romans of a n
t iq uit y a re a splendid monu ment to his
instinct for penetrating to th e h eart of

'
ind i viduals Not only events interest

.
him but a lso the way in wh ic h states

,
men o r soldiers sh ape events I n his .
Para llels h e uses t h e co m parati ve

met hod and tries to discover wherein
,
Solon differed fro m Nu m a or Pom p ey

fro m M arcus Brutus .
Plutarc h ha s so large a nd hospitable

I7
a mind that he brings with hi m an e n
tire civilization His rando m allusions
.
,
his quotations fro m ancient poets and

prose writers his use of popular say
-
,
ings current in his ti m e his fa miliar ,
ity with traditio n s and with the gossip

,
about great men which often exceeds

,
in trustworthiness t h e form al written

state ment cannot be m atched by any
,
modern biograp h er For t h e modern .
necessarily e m braces only a fragment

of his civilization ; Plutarch on the ,
contrary saw the record of G reece as

,
closed and co m plete and the record of ,
Ro me also — o f Republican and char
a ct e r i st ic Ro me as already made up .
I n this respect no mod ern can hope

to co m pete with Plutarch You m ay .
write a life of Bis m arck who was indis ,
p u t a b ly a wor l d figure but you cannot,
give to him the pecu l iar qua l ity which

belonged to Peric l es or to C ae sar a ,
quality which e manates from P l utarch s ’
1 8
BIOGRAPHY I N ANTIQUITY
sketches of those great men like fra
g ra n ce fro m a flower As time goes
. on
I suspect that posterity will see Bis
m arck loom up as Charlemagne does or ,
as Frederick B a rbarossa a h uge fig ,
ure a m id surroundings wh ich cannot

be considered civilized in spirit But .
when we read in Plutarc h of Ep a m i

n o n d a s or Timo l eon we feel that in ,
spite of t he lawlessness or quarrels

a mi d whic h th ey lived t here was noth ,
ing barbaric about t he m .
I t was Pl u tarch s good fortune of

’
course to inherit as it were

, ,
“
The glo ry t hat wa s Gre e ce ,
and to be enc irc l ed by

The gr a n d e ur t ha t wa s Rom e .
But it is to his everlasting personal

credit that by his knowledge and q u ick
sym pathy coupled with geni u s he e m
, ,
bodied so much of the classical civi l iza

t ion in h is works .
I9
TH E ART OF BIOGR A PHY
No wonder that the fo ll owing story
of Theodorus G aza the great scholar
,
at the Revival of Learning has been ,
“ ’
often quoted : Tis said that having ,
this extrav agant question p u t to h im

by a friend that if learning must sufl e r
,
a general sh ipwreck and he had only

,
his choice left h im of preserving one

aut hor who s hould be the m an h e
,
would preserve he answered Pl u tarch ;

, ,
and probably migh t give this re a son ,
that in saving h i m he should secure t h e

best co l lection of them all .
Being a moralist and immensely

curious as Job was to understand wh y
, ,
the Gods who planted moral laws in t h e

,
hearts of men allowed t h e wicked to

,
flouris h and th e virtuous to fail h e ,
“ ”
sometimes uses the subjects of h is
Lives as exam ples of th e way in
which moral laws disclosed the m selves
through mortal careers Our age t e .
“
sents being preached to as it calls ,
20
B I OGR A PHY I N ANTIQUITY
m ora l izing of this sort But fas h ion
.
changes ; a century ago our ancestors

not only submitted to but relished
”
“ ’
moral reflections South ey s Life of
.
Nelson abounds in t hem and it would ,
be entertaining to inquire why S out h

ey s Anglican moralizing see m s al most
’
obsolete like that of the S u nday school

,
-
books of my youth whi l e Pl utarch s is

,
’
fresh and pertinent .
What Plutarch added to t he Art of

Biography was therefore most im
, ,
portant He reached the point of de

.
fining each individu a l very clearly .
He had a most catholic interest in m any

types of persons and in th e case of
,
public men he s howed how far their

individual qu a lities afl e ct e d t h eir pub
‘
“
.
”
l ic actions As you first read the long
series of h is Lives you have an im
pression not unlike th a t which co mes
to you when you first wa l k thro ugh the
H a ll Of Busts at the Naples M u seu m ;
21
but when you stop to examine and to
compare you discover that each d ifl e rs
,
fro m the others that each face has its

,
own features .
Among so ma ny and divers speci

mens I find it hard to c hoose special
“
models ; Read until you are satisfied ,
”
would be the best advice ; but if you
wish to see Pl u tarch s methods and
’
“ ”
scope fairly illustrated read say the
,
“
, ,
A l cibiades and the Ju l ius C ae sar .

”
What modern biograp her could add
much t h at is essenti a l to our knowledge
fro m Plutarch of the fundam ental
charact e r of eit her of these men ? I n
one respect the modern would make
more orderly biographies . Plutarch
writes by topics and not by chronology ,
so that we a re not always sure where

this or that episode belongs in time ;
but in spite of this lack we feel on fin
i sh in g one of Plutarch s sketches that
’
he has included all of the most n e ce s

22
rose to wield power beyond that o f
Czars without ever harboring a selfish
, ,
despotic though t These a mazing con

.
t ra st s cal l the m paradoxes if you

wil l a re what most absorb our a t
tention Th e contrast need not be one
.
of event or position alone but it m ay

,
inhere in the ch aracter of the indi

vidual We seek to ex plain the lapse
.
into treason which no remorse could

expiate of Benedict Arnold after nearl y
, ,
forty years of an apparently honor
“ ”
able life There is an old Latin proverb
N e m o tu rp i ssi m u s r e p e n te
,
nobody
turns absolutely h a d all of a sudden .
We wish to trace the steps by which

the delinquence fro m virtue to gui l t
was reach ed These are usually hidden
.
and hard to uncover ; for motive lies

behind hu m an acts and motives are
,
often very subtle I was talking with

.
President Roosevelt about some points

in his career He said nothing for two
.
24
or three minutes and then as if musing
, ,
to hi m self he said : How strange mo

,
t iv e s are ! When you did a ce rtain

thing you thought that a single clear
, ,
reason determ ined you b u t on looking ,
back you see instead ha l f a dozen
pe e t at the time
,
.
”
mixed motives wh ich you did not sus
Th e M ystery of t h e Will interests us

most as soon as we perceive t h at t h e
,
Will gu ides conduct and action Re .
cent psyc hologists tell us that nobody

is m ade all of one piece all good or
all bad ; but that the state of con scious
n ess in wh ich each of us lives is based
on subconsciousness a compound of ,
p hysical instincts and desires of in ,
tuitions a nd inh erited tendencies Al l .
these perpetually try to strea m u p into

consciousness and control it When .
the ani m al in us for instance breaks

, ,
through we revert to cruelty or to

, ,
cunning or to lust ; and the object of

,
25
every civilization worthy of the na m e ,
is to strengthen the barrier so that these

pri mal lower instincts sha l l be kept
down .
“
Each of us said a well
,
”
“
known psychologist to me is like an ,
ice b erg t wo thirds of wh ic h lies under

,
-
water We h ave mistakenly supposed

.
th a t the third above t h e su rface

consciousness
our
which we see was al l , .
”
This psyc hological a spect of person
a l ity greatly increa ses of course our , ,
d ifli cul t y in following t h e manifesta
tions of the will But this aspect

.
,
being quite modern never appeared to

,
Plutarch or to t he Ancients They

, .
l ooked on men and their deeds as u n

co m plex and I at least find a certain
, , ,
ca lm ing si mplicity both in their b i

o g r a p h ie s and histories and in their ,
epics and tragedies Thanks to the .
divine facu l ty of the Imagination ,
Homer and Sophocles penetrated to

the botto m of the hu m an h eart so t h at , ,
26
B I OGRAPHY I N A NTIQUITY
a l though they had no knowledge of
d oub l e and triple personality or of the
Fre udian Wish or of inhibitions and
,
hysteria they were able to create fig

,
ures which have never lost their hold

on posterity And y e t the si m plicity
.
to which I allude belongs to them all ,
and it m ay be owing to their direct and

nai ve attitude toward actual persons .
I n reading t heir works we are sp a red the

feeling that the a uthor is le a ding us
through the solution of a series of prob
le m s The shadow of the proble m
.
darkens a lmost every intellectual prod

u ct of the last half centu ry -
But the .
Ancient a lt hough he felt t he burden

,
of the myste ry not less t h an t h e Mod

ern feels it kept a certain spontaneity
, ,
a freshness of outlook and a sense of ,
und u lled wonder toward life .
We on t he other hand are so p h ist i

, ,
ca t e d ; our deepest emotions our strong ,
est p assions have a l l been dissected and

,
27
THE ART OF B I OGR A PHY
classified and described in books to b e
, ,
pawed over and studied as proble m s .
For Plutarch however all wa s di ffe r

, ,
ent He was I suppose t he mo st

.
, ,
learned in p h ilosophy as well as in t h e ,
i mmediate knowledge of history of a n y ,
biographer ancient or modern but thi s ,
did not rob hi m of spontaneity or h is

other ancient inheritance He lacked .
,
necessarily our modern view of per

,
son a l it y and so he was not subtle

, ,
and h e overlooked matters which seem

to us mysterious and interesting We .
recognize that in a large sense he carves

eac h of his subjects out of a single
block of stone granite or marble or ,
basalt as th e case may be

, and yet
h is skill in portraying and his human ,
i m agination produce finished products

consistent generally logical and always
, ,
lifelike To understand his power to

.
d ifl e re n t ia t e between mythical and

half mythical personages and historical
-
28
h racters re a d his Lives of Theseus
c a ,
and of Romulus and comp a re t h em

,
wit h th e Li ves of t h e Emperors G alba

a n d Otho , or of M ark Antony and
Tiberius G racc h us .
D ryden one of th e gre a test of Eng

,
lish literary critics edited t he earliest

,
t a rch s
’ “
Lives ”
important version in English of Plu
Wh at h e said of
.
t hem m ay well be repe a ted in th ese

later times when erudition ha s grown
,
to i m m ense proportions but t a ste is
”
“
as rare as it always wa s I n read .
“
ing Plutarch h e s ays t h e following
, ,
points should be remembered He is a .
moralist rather than a h istorian His .
interest is less for politics and t h e

changes of empires and much more for
,
personal c h ara cter and individual a c

tion and motives to action ; duty per
formed and rewarded ; arrogance chas
t ise d hasty anger corrected ; h umanity
, ,
fair de a ling a nd generosity triump h ing

,
29
in t he visib l e or relying on the in visi
,
ble world His m ind in his biographic

.
memoirs is contin u al l y running on the

Aristotelian Ethics and t h e h igh Pla
tonic theories which formed the reli
time .
”
gion of the educated population of h is
One other biograp h ical gem comes

to us from antiquity the brief sketch
of Agrico l a by Tacitus the Roman his
, ,
torian who was Plutarch s contemp o ’
rary I n general plan and in topics

.
chosen by the biographer to be em

p h a size d it, rese m bles a Plutarchian
sketch but in literary treat ment it
,
could have been written only by the

tersest of prose masters Tacitus also .
indulges in pithy moral reflections .
Perhaps I ought to mention the Life

of Apollonius of Tyana by Ph ilost ra,
”
tus although I have my doubts I t
,
.
is not a normally p l anned and regu

la rly conducted biography but it ,
3 0
death perha ps t he bo a s t ful quality
,
may have been a dded by tradition .
I n Rome he raised a noble l a dy from

the dead He travelled no t only to
.
Nineveh a nd I ndia on t he ca st but to

Spain on t h e west ; and even du ring the
period when he observ ed silence he had
the power by a gesture or t h e c h ange
,
of expression in his face to move and

,
control multitudes The reports of his

.
“
travels re a d like the Arabi a n Nights .
”
M any of his conte m poraries revered
him whilst living as a deity a nd for ,
three centuries or more after h is death

p eople flocked to his sh rines So m e
.
persons c a lled him an i m postor ; som e

a magician ; some a god He typifies
.
the Holy M an d u ring t h e last stage of

Paganism who had much in common
,
wit h t he Hind u ascetics and was a ,
precursor of the early C h ristian ascetics

in th e East .
’
I n reading Ph ilost ra t us s life of hi m
3 2
B IOG R APHY IN ANTIQUITY
you will be kept on t h e alert to deter
mine what parts are biographical and
what parts are typical and would a p ,
ply to any Holy M an of his period .
The fact that the cult of Apollonius is

believed by som e scholars to have been
promoted by the adherents of vanish
ing Paganis m in order to check the
just rising cult of Christ adds to the ,
interest of the book .
I do not think that we need to p a use

a n d examine any of the other ancient
biographers The lives they wrote did

.
not add new qualities to the Art of

Biography The lives of the C ae sars
.
,
by Suetonius are of course fa mous

, , , ,
and they hold their popularity down

to the present But they are uncritical
.
and they show no re a l insight into char

acter and Classicists to day who know
,
-
,
the field distru st the accuracy of some

,
of Sue t on iu s s details He revelled in

’
.
personal anecdotes m any of which,
33
TH E ART OF BIOG RA PHY
amuse us but as a modern critic rc
, ,
“
m arks : He panders rather too m uch
to a taste for scandal and gossip .
Nor did they reveal any genius in the

writer co m parable to that of Plutarch
“
or of Tacitus I f you read the Life of
.
Nero by Suetonius a n d com pare it

with t he Life of Alcibiades by P lu ”
tarch you cannot fail to detect t h e shal
,
lowness of the Ro m an writer com pared

with the depth of the G reek Sue .
t o n iu s tells us of things on the su rface ,
the gossip and innuendos and the m ad

and cruel a cts Plutarch on the other
.
,
hand reveals to us the abiding char

,
acter of Alcibiades the very logic of

hi m so to speak Yet in m any re
,
.
sp e ct s Alcibiades equalled Nero in

abnorm ality .
The constant direction in the e v o lu

tion of Biography has been from the
outward to the inward At first the
chief e fl o rt was to de scribe the external
34
m an the rank or position he filled and
,
his visible acts Kings generals and

.
, ,
other conspicuous persons furnished

the usual t h eme G radually however
.
, ,
writers came to se e that a king in spite ,
of his supreme station m igh t be ve ry ,
du ll and uninteresting ; consequently ,
they fixed their attention on persons

who being intrinsically interesting did
, ,
not require the fortu itous spotlight of

a proud race or a high station They .
ca me to perceive also that t he motive

, ,
behind t he de e d was the really essential

thing to study and if possible to ex
, ,
plain o r at least to interpret .
The best modern Biograp hy see m s

to me to difl e r from the ancient in just
these points I f you turn to literature
.
you find t h at a similar develop m ent

has taken place At first the char
.
act ors in fiction were only slightly

individualized The type prevailed
. .
Stories de alt with monarchs and heroes ,
35
TH E ART O F BIOG R APHY
and then with nobles for the eve ry ,
day public was as eager to know how

the upper classes lived as our public
seems to be inq u isitive about the
coming and going or the dress sports
, , ,
a muse ments and scandals of our mul

,
t im illion a ire s The average English

.
shopke eper prob a bly never spoke to

a duke b u t in the pages of a romance
,
he could learn how dukes earls and , ,
b a rons were supposed to live and ,
how they spoke and even what t h e y

,
thought I suspect th at the portraits

.
of most of them being purely i m agi

,
na ry and drawn by authors as ig n o

ran t a s their readers were hardly life ,
like but t hey serv ed They held the

, .
field for a long ti me and they have not ,
been wholly discarded even now when

“
novels of high life are greedily de ” ,
v o u re d every year .
Earlier various passions or moods

,
took possession of the writers of fiction ,
3 6
B IOG R APHY I N ANTIQUITY
and then the persons they depicted
abounded in sensibility or in c andor, ,
and if I m ay use the expression their

, ,
tears flowed at every pore Occasion .
ally a huge block of actual life like

Fie l
“
d in g s To m Jones
’ ”
startled the
,
,
world into the conviction that trut h

surpasses all fictitious imaginings .
From anot her side al so came a

, ,
strong i m pulse to express t he real ,
inner m an not t he typical man the

, ,
creature whom convention had agreed

upon All judges do not look alike or
.
a ct alike . Al l old fathers are not noces

sa ril
y peppery in their temper and o h
durate in t heir will Eac h being a n
.
,
individu a l should be drawn as a n in

,
dividu a l Lyric poets who poured out

.
their inmost souls in verse and auto ,
biographers who unveiled their most

pri vate t houghts in confessions im ,
pressed upon t he world t h e fact th a t a

real h uma n being wa s quite unlike t h e
37
THE ART OF BIOG R APHY
st ifl an d affected a n d reall y l i feless
cont ri vances wh ich fas h ion wished to
substitute .
So fiction felt t he replenishing and

invigo ra ting influence of these m ighty
sources of true passion and the writers ,
of Biograp hy were moved whet her they ,
would or not by the writers of fiction

, .
I t would be indeed a paradox if a b i

, ,
og ra p h e r who sets out to describe the

,
l ife of an actua l person shou l d m ake ,
hi m less lifelike less real than the

, ,
novelist succeeds in m aking the p h an

tom ofl sp rin g of his i m agination .
This illustrates how if you would ,
understand the growt h of the Art of

Biography you must keep constant l y
,
in m ind the parallel growth in the lit

crary arts especially in those of poetry
,
and fiction Nor should I o mit paint

.
ing also for t hose who have access to

,
collections which exh ibit the historic

progress of that a rt The early paint .
3 8
TH E ART OF BIOGRA PHY
the few consumm ate biographies which
show us living men each unlike the ,
others with passions instincts a n d

, , ,
desires wit h motives too and wil l

, , , ,
which guides a nd governs t h em a ll .
From outwa rd to inward t h at is

the direction whic h t he Art of Biog
r a p h y h a s t a ken a nd t ha t is t h e dirce
,
tion wh ic h e very true biographer should

t a ke Only t hose who are fooled the m
.
selves o r love to fool ot hers i m agine

, ,
that life is nothing but surfaces And .
yet as we surv ey Histo ry we co m e

, ,
upon entire generations or epoc h s in

which mankind see m s to be content
”
“ ’
wit h surfaces By a . gentlem an s
agreement convention is accepted a s
su fficient Traditions m ay keep a live
.
the report of a long p a st day wh en mor

-
als flourished and men believed a r

de n t ly a nd ,
t ried to practise their belief ;
but ze a l cooled the very c a p a city to
,
hold a st rong belief failed a nd h y p oc ,
40
under the guise of convention or
r i sy , ,
keeping up appearances found a way ,
by lip service to satisfy t he last faint

whispers of the spi rit .
F inally a crust forms over Society

, ,
until there comes a poet or a religious .
prophet and breaks this crust and

'
drops his sounding plummet deep ,
deep into t he very heart of h uman

nature and life wells up again I f
, .
we co u ld analyze any age and discover

to what extent it lived by tradition and
habit and to what extent it brought
,
so mething new of its own we should ,
be better able to determine the value

of that age in the march of progress ;
the same would be t rue in the case of
individ u als We s hould know t hen
.
with precision wh ether a great man

was original how m uch b e borrowed
,
either through inheritance or through

contact with his fellows B u t this .
close meas u re ment although possible

,
4 I
TH E ART OF B I OG R APHY
to the chemist when he weigh s mole
cules and atom s is sti l l beyond our
,
scope in dealing with human beings .
Nevertheless the biographer m ust do

,
hi s ut most to help us to understand in

how far his subject stood on his own
feet and was original and in how far ,
he was de rived a product of custom

,
a nd t he Past only one speci men of

,
ten thousand stereotyped in the same

mould .
The examples I have given of Bi

og ra p h y in antiquity do not touch these
considerations a t all Pl utarch s men .

’
are what t h e y are and never suggest

,
that he puzzled hi m self over analyzing

where they got their substance and
qualities or their originality Life to
, .
day has become so much a tangle of

proble m s moral re l igious social eco
, , ,
nom ic hygienic that we are fo rt u

,
nate indeed if we keep any freshness

of youth any bloo m of wonder for the
, ,
4 2
BIOG R APHY IN ANTIQUITY
new adventures which meet us on our
journey through it We have learned.
so m uch about the mech a nical and m a
t e r i a l forces t hat like children with

,
their toys we must take apart our ex

,
p e r ie n
, ce s even our e m otions even our ,
love and grief a nd re morse and inspect ,
their mechanis m and assure ourselve s

that we are getting a norma l share of
each ; but when we move among Plu
’
t a r ch s m ultitude they seem as natural ,
as unco m plicated as the fields in sum

,
m er seem to the boys and girls who

p l ay in t he m and have not been
,
weighted down by the knowledge which

converts flowers into botanical speci
mens with Latin na m es .
The hope of the Biographer should

be to e m ulate Pl utarch in m aking his M
hero natural and at the sa me ti me to

,
add such inform ation not technical , ,
not pedantic as we more sophisticated

,
inquirers of the later worl d crave to

43
know The mode rn Biographer wi ll
.
not write to establish a theory or to

illustrate a c reed but he will give the
,
large and signific a nt h uman facts in

such a way that t he re a der who is curi
ous about the theory or the creed wil l
find his answer in the m while all read
,
ers will recognize their humanness .
The Opinion I m ay a l most cal l it

prejudice prevails that conte m po
rary history cannot be i m partial or ,
fully inform ed or fin a l I heard two

, .
of our h istorians discuss this matter ,
and ask how much time should elapse

before the true history of a significant
episode co u l d be written One urged
.
that at least fifty years ; the ot her who

,
measured by larger periods thought ,
that two or three hundred years wou l d

be required The same discussion
.
would apply to Biography altho ugh the

,
sa me li m its wou l d probably not be re

sp e ct e d
. M ost personages who fill a
large place in popular esti m ation while ,
they live dwindle ve ry rapidly after

,
t heir death a nd in even a century

,
would be forgotten Nevertheless the

.
,
best biography that could be written

wit hin a few ye a rs of their de a th might
be useful a nd import a nt Ought we .
,
therefore to observe rigidly the h un

,
dred year limit ? I do not think so

- .
The idea that t he a ctual h istory or

biograp h y c a nnot be written until all
t h e evidence is in seems to me mis
leading What we get after a h undred
.
years is a rationalized account thanks ,
to wh ic h we can pronounce a verdict ,
as a judge does But events as they

.
h appen a re seldom rational They .
lack an orderly beginning m iddle and , ,
end t he unexpected plunges in de

, ,
stroys t he natural sequence and turns ,
the a fl a ir off in another direction .
Wh ich of us in looking back over his

,
life c a n say that a llh is acts were logical

,
'
45
TH E ART O F BIOGRAPHY
or orderly ? You form a partners h i p
with a m a n wh o turns out to be an e m
b e zzl e r; illness or accident which you
could not foresee cuts your life in two ,
or any ot her stroke of good or evi l for

tune brea ks the regular course of your
career You yourself writing your a u
.
,
t o b iog ra p h y migh t not be aware of

,
these or other i n fluences in your devel

op m e n t , but you would re a l ize most
poignantly perhaps how it a fl e ct e d
, ,
you at the time and see m ed to give a

,
d ifl e re n t direction to your purposes

‘
.
I n writing h isto ry or biography t he

first ai m should be to tell the story as
nearly as possible as the actors or hero
underwent it I f you are dex terous
.
you can supply such facts as h ave sub

sequently co me out to alter t h e view
,
we h ave form ed fro m our knowledge of

its i m mediate unfolding .
Wh at for exam p l e is the true story

, ,
of t he Battle of Waterloo ? I s it the

46
issued h is orders on t h e assumption t h at
G ro uch y would arri ve in t h e afternoon .
Fossil h i sto ry knows that G rouchy was

not com ing ; it does not pay much a t
tention to t he desertion of t he D utc h
a nd ot h er regiments wh ich would have
,
di sco ncerted a General less unshakable

t ha n Wellington No to treat the acts
.
,
a nd p assions wh ic h make up history as

de a d t h ings is not t he highest ai m of
t he histori a n I t substitutes in t e lle c
.
tu a l p rocesses a nalysis criticism of

,
e vidence and the passing of judicial

,
—
verdicts for li fe at wh ite heat A tru e .
description of t he Battle of Waterloo

would ma ke t he re ader unless he have
,
a heart of pumice stone thril l as he

-
,
sees Ney le a d t h e Old Guard on

its magnificen t c h arg e fro m t he little
heigh t of La Belle Al l iance down
through the valley a scant half mile
,
-
,
and up the slope of Mount St Jean .

,
to bre a k itself aga inst t he iron wall of

4 8
Wellington s Redcoats and G renadiers
’
,
in fra ntic va lor as surf upon a ree f , .
E very one of t hese Fre nch G u a rds rode

impe tuously ga ll a ntly to t h e a tt a ck
'
, , ,
not knowing as we do how it wa s to

turn out but consciou s of t he Old
,
Guard s long record of glo ry never

’
,
dreaming th a t defe a t was p o ssible

wh ile Ney led a nd t he Empe ror looked
on.
A little l a ter in t he afternoon whe n ,
a n indistinct blur of troop s wa s dis

cerned in th e e a st beyond St L ambert .
,
how de scribe t h e suspense of each

Com ma nder until h e kn ew whose troops
they were ? And t h en how tell of ,
’
Wellington s relief when h e found t h ey
were Blii ch e r s or Napo leon s surprise
’
,
’
when he le a rned that t hey were not

’
G rouc hy s You can ne ver describe a
.
battle or a ny ot h er h isto ric a l event

,
u nles s you put in t h e suspense t h e pas ,
sion , t he ha lf knowledg e or comp lete

-
,
49
ignorance which determ ined its out
,
come I f t h e Hindu host had known

.
that C l ive could muster in com pari ,
son on l y a handful of Englishm en at

,
Pl assey they might not have fled in

,
rout Converse l y if the British had

.
,
known that the Turkish force at G al

lip ol i was reduced to three shel l s t h ey ,
would have m ade a final charge instead

of retreating and abandoning the D ar
danelles .
I conclude therefor e t h at alt hough

, , ,
later histo ry may serve a real purpose

in correcting errors due to contem
p o r a ry ignorance or prejudice the best ,
histo ry or biograp hy is that whic h

comes as near as possible to reproducing
the e vent or the person as in l ife I f .
you wish to describe an eruption of

Vesu vius to cite an exa m ple I have
used elsewhere you wi ll not be satis
fie d to measure the blocks of lava ,
which the people of Naples use as pav

SO
BIOG R APHY I N ANTIQUITY
ing stones but you will seek for t h e
-
,
testimony of t hose who saw the e rup

tion in process To t he imagination
.
the acts of men seem to pour forth in

perpetual flow from a volcano whose
crater runs down into t h e Unknown ,
and as you can never counte rfeit m o

,
tion by imm obility or molten lav a by

,
ice so you cannot make death a sub

,
st i t u t e for life Never fear t herefore

.
, ,
that Histo ry or Biograp hy can be too

lifelike ; your d ifli cult y will be to find
means t h rough t he art of literature to
produce an adequate si mulation of life
likeness Fossil histo ry fossil biog
.
,
ra p h y cannot satisfy m uc h longer living
r eaders . Fossil h istory knows t h at

Wellington h ad received a despatc h
fro m Blii che r saying that he would join
forces with t h e English on that day .
I n reading biographies of men and

women of different ti m es and races we
m ust be on our guard against t he illu
5 1
sio n s wh ic h mere dress a nd manners
create The first morning wh en you
.
,
walk t h ro ugh M us h ki in Cairo the

, ,
people seem all str ange in face and look

and dre ss but t h eir strangeness is so
,
uniform t h at y ou fail to detect indi

v id ua l
s among t h em I n a few days
.
,
however you come to kn ow t hem as

,
indi viduals to distinguish the Arabs

,
from t he Persians and the Ca fli rs and

t h e Hindus ; and among t hese again
you see well d e fin e d varieties We are
- .
so muc h the victi m s of fas h ion t h at we

attribute to its observance moral qu a li
ties which h ave little or not h ing to
,
do wit h it A soldier who launches

.
bravely on a peri l ous c aval ry charge

would be covered wit h m o rt ifica t ion ,
and would probably retreat if he found

himself in a ba l lroom wit hout his collar .
But literature and biograp hy s hould

teach you not to judge by clothes .
Young Abraha m Lincoln would have

5 2
B IOGRAPHY I N ANTIQUITY
m ade a poor enough figure on Fift h
Avenue in his deerskin pantaloons ,
and it is safe to say that not one of the

cultured and fa s h ionable New Yorkers
who m ight have met him would have
foreseen that he was to be the greatest
Am erican of t h e centu ry .
So the Biographer should make it

plain from the start that he introduces
you to a real man or wo m an and not,
to a lay figure or m anikin wearing gar

ments stylish or otherwise We will
, .
“
not dispute th a t M anners maket h
m an but manners of this sort spring
,
fro m t he moral nature or t he tempe ra

ment and not merely from etiquette
, .
Etiquette perm its mean conduct vu l ,
garity dissoluteness and punishes only

, ,
one crime t he crime of being found

,
out.
I ask you to hold these general con

siderations in mind at every point in
our brief study in Biography Con .
53
st a n t l
y comp a re t h e ev olution of t h is
a rt with th a t of Painting and of Fic
tion And above all do not be mis
.
, ,
led by any false o r specious arg uments

into believing t h at fossil histo ry or fos
sil biograp hy can e ver serve a s sub
st it ut e s for the true. Life has no real
representati ve except Life a n d t h ere
,
fore the best biogra phy and the best

h istory a re t he most li felike .
We have traced the steps by wh ich

biographers in antiquity arrived at
life l ikeness M ore than a thousand
.
years were to elapse be fore t h e appear

ance of the first tentati ve forerunners
of modern biography .
54
power to perform m iracles and in t h e , ,
earl ier ti mes when they strove to con

vert Pagans Into C h ristians t h ey ofte n ,
su ffered martyrdom The world t hey

.
lived in being wofully ignorant of the

,
simplest l aws of nature found it easier

,
to believe than to disbelie ve in so called -
miracles Only by a m iracle could the

.
Saint prove h is Saints h ip .
To an open minded modern it must

-
seem queer to say t h e least t h at it

, ,
often took so long for the experts who ,
ought to be t h e best qualified to dis ,
cover wh et her a person was a saint or

not Th e pious antics of t h at most
.
engaging Spanish nun Sain t Theresa

,
de Sepeda for instance were regarded

, ,
with more than suspicion by ort hodox

Catholics during her lifetime but t h ey ,
were set up forty years a fter she died

as unquestionable proofs that s h e wa s
a saint More astonis h ing still is ! t h e
.
case of J oan of Arc who was recently

,
5 6
MEDI EVA L TO MODERN
canonized after she had been de a d over
four hundred a nd eighty ye a rs
“
The Lives of the Saints wh ic h ”
.
were composed a nd preserve d du ring

t he M iddle Age and later often con ,
t a in e d deligh tful traditions a bou t t h eir
subjects and embodied in t h is gre a t vol

,
ume of biograp h ical ingredien t s t here

are p robably many true storie s of t he
way in which simple and devout Ch ris
tians practised t h eir r eligion and if ,
nee d h e die d for it But I do not re

, .
call t h at t h e writers added a nyt h ing to

the Art of Biography I f y ou once a d
.
mit th at a perso n has t h e power to

raise t h e de a d or when dec a pitated
, , ,
to walk wit h h is head under h is arm ,
or to perform a ny other alleged mi racle ,
you lose touc h wit h re ality so com

p le t e l
y t ha t Histo ry and Biogr a p h y
cease to hav e meaning for you It .
will not do to argue as m any Spiritists

,
a n d Occul t ists argue to d a y t h at as

-
, ,
57
THE ART O F BIOG R A PHY
there are m any t h ings in l ife which we
do not understand so we m ust not
,
assert t h at the spooks and apparitions

and comm unications with the dead ,
which t hey declare real are not real I

,
.
lose interest in reading about the mir

acle workers just as I do in reading
-
,
about fai ry god mothers and t he m agi

ca l personages of the medieval legends .
I f you believe literally that a witch can

turn a pumpkin into a coach and rats ,
into coachm en what ca n t you believe ?

,
’
There is no farther scope for surprise .
The world becomes topsyturvy and

lawless and the dwellers in it are in
,
fe r ior to the incurable in m ates of a

l unatic asylu m Reason too has its
.
august and holy rights and those who

,
flip p a n t l
y turn their backs upon it to
pursue specio u s and fli m sy phanto m s
are not fit to l ive in this world or any
other which a rational m ind can con
ce iv e of .
5 8
MEDIEVA L TO MODERN
One real biography shines out upon
us from the D ark Age l ike the steady
fla me of a candle a mong a t h rong of
evanescent will o the wisps Th is is
-
’
- -
.
“
the Life of the E m peror C h arl e
magne ! or C h arl es the G reat! by his
secretary and private chaplain Egin ,
hard o r Einhard He took Suetonius

.
as his model and after de voting forty

,
pages to the wars and political work of

the masterful King he spends t he last
,
twenty pages on the King s pri vate life ’
and personal affairs This part is rea l ly

.
interesting Einhard by merely re

.
,
citing rat her commonplace h uman ,
facts succeeds in m aking Charlemagne

,
l ive Although Ein h ard was a Frank

.
ish barb a rian writing in Latin whic h h e

,
confesses he could not use subtly h e ,
achieved a recognizab l e portrait which ,
even so slight a trifle as the state ment

t h at the King disliked physicians b e
cause they prescribed boiled meats and ,
59
TH E ART OF BIOG R APHY
he insisted on eating his roasted fills ,
out Einhard does not write a d e lib

.
e r a t e eulogy but h e tells only t h e nob l e

,
or wort hy t h ings about his m aster ,
whom h e so evident l y reveres that it ,
would be sacrilege for him to set down

any ble mishes Th us h e speaks of
.
Charle m agne s great affect ion for his

’
daugh ters The King loved the m so

.
much that h e insisted on having them

always near him and would not a l low
,
the m to m arry and he pretended to be

,
unaware that t h ey led i mmoral lives ,
which gave rise to muc h scandal .
As we hold Einhard s little Essay in ’
our h and and reflect that it contains

much of the vital conte m pora ry knowl
edge of Charle m agne which has come
down to posterity and look at the ten
,
m assive volu mes of Nicolay and Hay s ’
“
Abra h a m Lincoln we understand
,
t he i m mense advantage which the mod

ern hero h as over t he medieval or the
60
MEDI EVAL TO MODERN
ancient in securing a written monument
of h is career D av id M asson erected a
.
”
“
si mi l ar monument in Th e Life of John
M i l ton and the Histo ry of His Time .
But after a thousand years how m any

persons do you think will r e a d t h ese
, ,
encyc lopedic works ? Nico l ay and Hay

will be consulted as long as Lincoln is
remembered but to be read is quite
,
anot her matter After ele ven h undred

years however we read Einhard s
, ,
’
sketc h of Charle magne for it t a kes but ,
an hour The bullet journeys fart her

.
than the boulder .
Charle m agne stands as a colossal

monarch at the beginning of t he M iddle
Age Louis I X of France stands at its
.
close not equal to Charle m agne in

,
significance but still a very i mportant

,
and interesting sovereign who had the ,
good fortune of having his l ife told in

one of the most delightful biographies ,
ancient or modern Jean Sire de Join .

,
61
v ille wrote it a noble who was a mong
, ,
t h e King s inti m ates in war and peace

’
.
Out of his great love and reverence he

composed a work which although it ,
added little to the Art of Biography is ,

’
a real addition to the world s source of
pleasure being itself a work of art
,
.
You will not find an orderly or con

se cut iv e narrative of the career of Saint
Louis but you wil l fin d his most im

,
portant events properly described and ,
you will be ab l e to look as through ,
peepholes into his very heart Not

, .
m ere l y that ; you wi l l become a o

q u a i n t e d with the Barons of France
and the other Crusaders who devoted
themselves to the King s service and ’ ’
you will understand the motives and

practices of an entire caste the caste ,
which was swayed by the ideals of

Chiva l ry Next to Saint Louis Join
.
,
vi ll e hi m se l f m ay be regarded as the
hero of the book because he pours out
,
62
THE ART OF B IOGRAPHY
s a inthood and Fra ncis of Assisi was its
,
edifying pattern .
The book entitled

Flowers of St Francis .
The Litt l e
probably ,
”
written by an unknown monk of the
thirteenth century is not a form a l
,
biography but a collection of the say

,
ings and acts of St Francis told most

.
n ai vely and sweetly The Saint co u l d

.
not have written an autobiography ,
because for hi m to narrate hi m self

many of his m iracles and benevolent
acts would see m indelicate Bu t for
, .
,
acco m plishing the purpose which the

author intended he could have e m
,
ployed no better form of co m position .
After reading t he F i or e tti you feel that

you know St Franci s and y ou are so
.
,
thoroughly i m bued with the u n critical ,
myth making and m iracle seeing worl d

-
,
-
in which he lived that it all see m s very

natural You follow inti m ate l y the
.
every day life of a holy person at the

-
64
MEDI EVAL TO M ODERN
end of the M iddle Age who devoted ,
hi m se l f to altruistic work .
“
I n the Im ita t ion of Christ which ,
was written in the fifteenth century ,
and Thomas a Kempis still see m s to

have the best claim to be its author ,
we meet the third type of m edieval

personality t h e m an who was who ll y
,
absorbed in his religious meditations ,
prayers and self depreciations I t is

,
-
.
an unapproached record of the ascetic ,
who strives al most frantica ll y to save

his own soul Some one has re m arked
.
that from first to last he is so obsessed

by this purpose that he never mentions
saving the soul of or even he l ping
, ,
any one else And yet Christ bade us

.
give up our individual l ife for the

sake of another and find our own
,
soul by losing it for the sake of a n

other .
These three books which portray in ,
St Louis the Christian knight and cru

.
65
TH E ART O F BIOG RA PHY
sader perform ing his duty according to
the idea l s of chiva l ry ; the Christian
St Francis seeking altruistic idea l s ;
.
and the Christian ascetic i m prisoned

in hi m self desperately clutching at the
,
salvation of his own soul reveal to us , ,
by biography and by pseudo biography -

,
m any most characteristic ele m ents of

M edieva l M an .
Com ing down a century and a ha l f ,
the next exa m p l e I sha ll mention is the

“
Life of Cardina l Wo l sey by his ,
”
Gentle m an Usher George Cavendish , .
Wolsey you wi ll re m e m ber was both

, ,
an ecc l esiastic and the chief adviser of

Henry VIII one of those doub l e
natured men a laym an on one side
,
and an ofli cia lchurch m an on the other ,
several of whom before and after the

,
Reform ation served as pri me ministers

,
for the monarchs of Spain F rance and , ,
Engl and He belongs in the list with

.
Ximenes Riche l ieu M azarin F l eury

, , , ,
66
MEDI EVA L TO MODE R N
and A l beroni Judged by whatever .
standard Wol sey the butcher s son

, ,
’
was one of the greatest of Engl ish

states men the first I shou l d say who , ,
had a vision of Engl and as a dom inant

force in the worl d po l itics of that era- .
“
Cavendish s Life of hi m is m uch
’
more persona l than po l itica l so that ,
any one who reads it fo r a forthright

narrative of events wi ll be disappointed .
But if you read it as a biography which

gives in a series of me morab l e pictures
the i m portant crises in an extraordinary
career you wi l l not be disappointed
, .
Th e steps by which the hu m b l e butch

er s son was befriended and sent to
’
Oxford where he graduated at fifteen

,
and then took orders and was rapid l y ,
promoted beca me chap l ain to Henry

,
VII at thirty four D ean of Linco l n at

-
,
thirty seven A lmoner to Henry V I I I

-
,
the next year Bi shop of Linco l n at ,
forty three and Archbishop of York

-
,
67
THE ART OF BIOGRA PHY
the sam e year and Cardinal t h e
next year are briefly indicated
,
.
But the substance of the book relate s

to Wolse y s close companionship wit h
’
the h e a dstrong and v icious Henry VII I .
Among the paradoxes of history at

which we h ave a right to s mile is the
English Reform ation promoted by ,
Wolsey to gratify the te m poral a mbi

tion of the young king whi l e he hi m self
,
was intriguing to be made Pope of the

Ro man Church from which he was
,
really separat i ng England The reader .
of Cavendish however i s l ikely to re

, ,
member longest those passages in which

the biographer describes the eclipse of
his master Wh at can be more piti
.
able for instance than the death b e d

, ,
-
scene in Which t h e Cardinal ls deserted

,
by every one except Cavendish and a

few devoted fol lowers and is not eve n ,
a llowed to die in peace by the rapaciou s

and heartless King ? Having heard
68
th a t Wolsey in his disgrace still had
, ,
a few hundred pounds which the royal

,
vu l tures had been un a ble to scent and
“
,
”
seize Henry despatched a messenger
a M r Kingstone to dema nd the m
.
,
,
of the dying m an A n d so true a ser

.
vant of Henry was M r Kingstone that

.
he a lmost interrupte d the ad m inister

ing of extreme unction to the fa st
fa iling Cardin a l
.
Although C avendish can h a rdly be

cl a imed as a n innovator in Biography ,
those p a ssages of his which I refer to

show th a t he was sensitive t othe im
port a nce of personaldetails a d ire c
tion in whic h the Art was to develop
until it re a ched its highest expression .
History shows few examples of the

fall of a mighty personage from tower
ing splendor and dom ination into the
dust equal to Wolse y s and in Caven
,
’
dish s simple narrative the tragic con

’
tra st is a ll the more impressive bec a use

69
THE ART O F BIOG RA PHY
of the absence of a ll effort to prod u ce a
me l odra m atic effect We see Wo lse y s
.
’
utter surprise and b l ank a m aze ment at

it We see also how it sobered and sad
.
d e n e d the honest Cavendish who could ,
not understand how such a cala m ity

cou l d by God s Providence be al l owed
,
’
to strike down such a m an That the .
tru ly great states m an Wolsey shou l d

be the sport and victi m of the violent
and l ascivio u s Henry and his shameless
para mour A nne Bo l eyn sorely tested ,
Cavendish s re l igious trust His b i

’
.
o g r a p h y i ll ustrates how m uch the p e
cu l ia r qua l ities of the biographer he l p

to m ake or m ar a biography I n truth .
,
the ideal biographer is one who is so

sensitive to his subject s qua l ities that
’
he better than any one e l se perceives

, ,
the m He m ay not be a m aster in the

.
art of expression but if his divination

,
is sure this lack also m ay be com p e n

,
s a ted No one can doubt this in the

.
7 0
TH E ART O F BIOGRA P HY
v iew of the Cardina l The words ?
which he puts into t h e mouth of
Thomas Cromwe l l in rebuking G ardi
ner the Bishop of Winchester are b u t
, ,
the refrain which m urm urs half plain -
’
t iv e l
y from m any of the biographer s
pages
M y Lo rd of Win ch e st e r, y o u a re a l it t le ,
“
By yo ur goo d fa vo ur , t oo sha r p ; m e n so n ob le ,
Howe ve r fa ult y y e t shoul d fin d re sp e ct
,
”
Fo r what t h e y ha ve b e e n : t is a cr ue lt y
’
To loa d a fall in g m a n .
Shakespeare s other historical plays

’
abound of course in lines and passages

, ,
based on Holinshed a nd other chron

icle rs and no one can fail to perceive
’
how much he borrowed from Pl utarch s ’
sketch of Julius C e sar for his portrait

of the noblest Roman of the m a l l To .
have inspired Shakespeare would save

Cavendish fro m oblivion but the a c ,
tual worth of the biography wil l keep

it alive as long as men prize genuine
7 2
M EDI EVA L TO MODERN
fragm ent s of h um an l i fe and tragic
fortune .
One of Wo lse y s conte m poraries ’
whose l ife has lasting s m ack and flavor

was Sir Thom as M ore and his son in ,
-
law Roper wrote a biography which

, ,
should be read a long with Cavendish s ’
by any one who wishes to know the

prevalent idea l s in biography toward
the midd l e of the sixteenth century in
England The b ook is a l so of m uch
.
intrinsic interest as it should be to,
give a tru thfu l report o f M ore in ,
whom hu mor and wisdom were finely

blended and whose character shone
,
forth nobly in a t i me of t u rncoats and

sycophants I n the m ain Roper fol
.
,
l ows without i m itating ! because as he ,
probably never saw Cavendish s book ’
in m anuscript he cou l d not have i m i

,
Life of Wol sey ”

t a t e d it ! the meande ri ng method of the
“
M ost biographer s
.
in that age pre ferred that method I t .
73
was as if they s a t down with you and
talked over the career of their subject ,
re membering this or that point as they

ta l ked on q ui te indifferent to the
,
bounds of time a nd sequence .
The I ta l ian Renaissance p rod uced

one splendid biographical monument ,
”
“
in the Lives of the M ost Exce llent
Painters Sculptors and Architects
, ,
by George Vasari The col l ection cov

.
ers the three centuries from Giotto and

the Pisani to V asari s own conte m’
p o r a r
,
ie s including Titian and Tinto
ret The individua l sketches especi a lly
.
,
those of the men of the last century

treated by Vasari are probably more
,
nearly correct than are those of most

of Plutarch s subjects who lived cen
’
t u r ie s be fore Plutarch hi m self wrote .
V asari m ay have been personal l y a c

q u a i n t e d with the chief M asters of the
sixteenth century ,
and he heard the
facts and gossip about those whom he
74
MEDIE VA L TO MODER N
did not personally know You get the .
i m pression therefore of the sort of

, ,
m an each of the m was and you l earn ,
a great m any things about his p rofe s

sio u al career who employed hi m and ,
how m uch he was paid I n addition to .
a l l this Vasari frequently adds his own

,
criticis m s of the paintings statues and , ,
bui l dings so t h at you have the stand

,
ard of a rt criticism of one of the l at e r

masters of the Renaissance and what , ,
in ma ny c a ses was certainly t h e fash

,
io n a b l
e or orthodox verdict of the
time .
Coming back to English writers the

Lives written by Sir I zaak Walton
m ust not be overlooked They have .
in their way t h e charm which has de
”
“
l ighted generations of readers of The
Com pleat Angler a n d they describe
,
men who were the m selves interesting .
They are truly l and m arks a l though in

’
their com position they represent n o

75
THE ART O F BIOGRAPHY
new a dvance Wa l ton was a pains
.
taking searcher fo r facts as his appen ,

“
dix to the Life of M r Rich a rd .
Hooker be a rs witness But brute

dates and events seem of secondary im
port a nce compared with his delightful
gossip a bout his subjects I think of .
hi m a s on a sunny summer a fternoon ,
sitting under the s ha de of a tree and p a

t ie n t l
y waiting for a fish to b i te his
b ook enjoying the angler s mild sus
’
pense wh ich doe s not however cut h im

, , ,
off from a cosey and quiet ch a t with a
friend How much of himself goes into

.
his sketc h es and how glad we a re to

,
h ave it !
—
The personal quality t hat deter
mines our likes and dislikes our ple a s ,
ures a nd our pains ! Strictly speaking ,
of course we ought to have as little as

,
possible of the personality of the b i

og ra p h e r int r uded into his work and ,
yet being h uma n we not only tolerate

, ,
7 6
but enjoy it when it doe s not wrong
,
the trut h And especia ll y to t h e o l der

.
writers wh ether Plutarch or Joinvi l le

,
or Cavendish we wil l ingly grant t he

,
privilege of expressing t heir own op in

ions.
Although he wa s not prima rily a

biograp h er I must not pass over Lo rd
,
Clarendon wh ose h istory is rich in

,
so m e of t h e best drawn portraits in

-
existence He h ad an eye for seeing

.
features and com plexion and t h e play

, ,
of expression and for reproducing

,
th em all on th e printed page as won

de rfull
y as Sir Jos h u a Reynolds does
on canvas And any one who loves
.
t he splendor of jeweled words and t h e ,
beauty of elegant b ut u n affected p h rase ,
glories over the way in wh ic h Cla re n

don knew how to m atc h preciou s sub
stance with ra re style Those por .
traits of h is are like t h e h eads cut by

t he antique lapidary on emerald or
77
sapp hire and not on common onyx or
,
carnelian .
Perh aps t he most persona l records

of all are t hose wh ic h cannot be classed
as biograp h ica l and yet nevertheless , ,
reve a l passion at its supreme moments .
”
“
Take t he Letters of Abé la rd and H6
l oise : t h eir p a ssion keeps t h em alive
after eigh t h und red years Like wise .
,
many Autobiograp h ies or Confessions

burn wit h an undying glow M uc h of .
t he passionate e motion worsh ip love , , ,
re morse a nd spiritual distress speak

,
out of t he Old Testament from indi

s whose
v i du a l names are forgotten .
Th e passion lives on alt hough t he ,
heart wh i ch it consumed has v an

ish e d .
So I h ave said not hing abo ut Auto

biograp h y and t h e reason must be
,
evident Autobiograp h y is not like

.
Biography an art whose develop m ent

,
/ we can trace I t is the record of in

.
7 8
whic h t he worl d delights in yo u r
story of yourse l f is bound to live I t .
may be tha t you have not charm but ,
t h at your experience is so unusual so ,
full of re al interest t h at it will attract

,
as Solomon M a im on s does or as ’
”
“
Ric h ard J e ffe rie s s Th e Story of M y
’
Heart does And as persons repel

.
,
as well as attract so do their Con fe s

,
sions A literary friend of mine to

.
whom I had attri buted a cat holic !
”
“
taste tried to read The Story of M y
,
Heart and he con fessed to me with

,
a frankness wh ic h never deserted hi m ,
t h at h e h ad found it so a b o m inable
t h a t b e burnt it unfinis hed in the
, ,
furnace I h ave a lways wondered

.
wh at there was in it wh ich so aroused

his indignant aversion .
”
’
I was reading late l y Lo rd M orley s
Recollections and I l a id the book
,
down with great disappoint ment .
Why was I disappointed ? Here was

80
MEDI EVA L TO MODE R N
a work by t h e fore most man of letters
in England since Tennyson died a ,
m an who whi l e sti l l very young won

a high place in t he esteem of t he only
pub l ic whose verdict really counts and ,
who has continued during h alf a cen

tury not merely to justify the early
applause but to reach other heigh ts .
A mere author m ay live aloof from t he

world and produce h is nove l s or poe m s , ,
or histories in priv acy as a bird sings

‘
from a tree whose foliage h ides hi m .
But Morl ey strode into the a rena

where eve ry motion of the gladiator is
public and t here he took and gave
,
blows and c h a m pioned t he c a use of

,
al most every radicalism whic h fo r good ,
or for evil h as transform ed the com

,
placent conservative English speaking

,
-
world of 1 8 5 0 into t he whirl ing vor

tex of to day From p ub licist and p o
-
.
'
l e m ic he became politician a nd states

m an and spent thirty fiv e years in
,
-
81
TH E ART OF BIOG R APHY
Parliament He fough t in t he gre a t
.
battles for Home Rule ; h e was a Cab

inet M inister a nd President of the
Council ; in men a cing crises Englan d
c hose h i m to be Chief Secretary for
I re l and and later C h ief Secretary for
I ndia ; he was the inti mate and con
fid a n t of G ladstone a nd his biog ra
p her.
Better t ha n a ny one else of h is age

Joh n M orl ey seems to fulfil the idea l
wh ich St Paul set for h imself : h e had
.
unli m ited sym pa thy and wa s made all

,
th ing s to all men by that sym p a thy .
This does not m e a n th a t h e g ave up

his own essential nature t hat he a c
,
quiesced me a nly or co m promised fro m

,
a desire to please or that he wa s si m

,
ply a chameleon I t m eans t h at he

.
held in a beya nce h is idiosyncrasies so

that they should not prevent hi m from
understanding you perfectly ; h aving
t ha t understanding h e cou l d t he better
82
persuade you argue wit h you perh aps
, ,
even win you over .
And yet I was disappointed The

t wo volumes of his
“
Recollections do
.
”
n ot spring from his heart and p a ssion ,
but from his intellect his fund of in for ,
mation Th e larger part of one volume

.
is loaded wit h letters to t h e Earl of

M into t h e V iceroy of I ndia wh ich let
, ,
us see Lo rd M orley a s a pe rfect offi cial

letter writer abounding in culture in
-
, ,
special knowledge and in urbanity , ,
b ut never off his g u a rd never spon ,
Read Jo h n Stuart M ill s

”
’
t a n e ou s .
“
Autobiograp hy in orde r to percei ve
how a man of M orley s type in t e lle c ’
tual and rational c a n yet fe e land utter

,
h is feeling .
But my t h eme is Biogra p hy a nd I

touch on Autobiography m erely to
show how different it is and how diff er ,
ent m ust be the criteria by which we

judge it As in ft h e case of? Fictio n
' i
.
,
33
however the influence of Aut ob iog
,
r a p h y on t h e writing of Biography h as
probab ly been greater t h an biographers

or readers suspect Wh en we becam e
.
accustom ed to the intimate revelations

which persons who wrote t heir own
lives vouc h s afed to us we c ame to ex
,
p e ct so m et h ing similar in t h e portraits

which biograp h ers drew of t h eir sub
.
j e ct.s The best of all h u m an docu
”
’“
ments h appens to be Boswell s Li fe of
Sam uel Joh nson a nd not an Aut ob i
,
og ra p h y of Jo h nson by hi m self ; but

’
the reason why Boswell s work hold s
the primacy is precisely because we
fee l that it could not have been better
if Joh nson himself h ad written it .
This leads me to remark that t h e fa ct

that a man knows himself bet ter tha n
anybody else can know h im does not
necessarily i m p l y t h at he c a n write t h e
best story abou t hi m self This is a .
m atter of Art rather than of Know!

84
edge and I hope la t er to refer to it
,
b riefly .
“
Johnson s Lives of t h e M ost Emi
’
n ent English Poets With Critic al

!
Observations on Their Works may

be regarded a s a monument either in
Biogra phy or in literary criticis m I .
be l ieve th at current fas h ion in e riti

cism sneers at old D octor Jo h nson and ,
indeed I doubt whether most of t h e

critics have ever read hi m I f h e .
could glance at those masterpieces

which someti mes live a mont h wh ich
t h ey lo a d with t heir pra ises I suspect
,
“
th a t he would say : Tut ! tut ! Sir ,
a man migh t write suc h stuff forever

if he would a ba n don his mind to
And yet a m ind whose t a stes a nd st a nd
ards have not been formed by the
litera ry gossip of newspapers fro m day
to day wil l discover in Johnson a
cor p us of sound criticism .
Boswe l
l, IV, 1 83 .
85
The biographical part of his Lives
is subordinate to th e critic a l He .
gives a straightforwa rd a ccount of a

ma n before discussing the poe m s but ,
h e never fails to no t e pertinent fa ct s

or illustrative a necdote s concerning the
ma n as well as the poet And l ike h is
.
,
own Boswell h e sometimes rec a ll s

,
mere h a bits wh ich bring t h e human

side of his subject nearer to us Th us .
,
in his ess ay on M ilton he ment ions

,
“
such a det a il a s t his : Wh en he did
not c a re to rise e a rl y h e h a d some
,
t h ing read to him by h is bedside ; per

ha ps at this ti m e h is d a ugh ters were
employed He composed muc h in th e
.
morning and dictated in t h e d ay sit ,
ting obliquely in a n elbow ch a ir wit h

his leg thrown over t he arm
-
.
” ,
”
’
Several ot her of Doctor Joh n son s
“
Lives besides tha t of M ilton e s ,
p e ci a l
ly those of D ryden Swift Pope
, , ,
a nd S avage a re of considerable bulk

, ,
86
h ad genius y ou say and the world
, ,
is a lways interested in genius ,

”
but
t he re h ave been men of fa r greater
ge n ius t ha n h is of whom we ha ve not a
tent h of t h e person a l details t ha t Bos
well h as told us of him Somebody has
.
reconstructed t h e life of Frederick the
G reat d ay by d ay from h is birth to h is

, ,
de a th bu t a ssuredly suc h a monu

,
ment a l mons t rosity wort h y to st a nd

beside t h e Leipsic Si e ge s D e n km a l
will never have ent h usi a stic re a ders a t ,
le a st outside of Germa ny And even

.
t here it may require t h e ince ntive of a

c a sh prize to induce ma ny to re a d it
“ ”
t h rough W hen I a pply the p h ra se
.
enthusi a stic re a ders to Boswell I a m

,
ha rdly correct for t hose who re a d h im

,
a t a ll soon rise a bove the st age of de

m o n st ra t iv e ent h usiasm where t hey
feel th a t a dmirin g adjecti ves a re as un
nece ss a ry a s lovers of l a ndsc a pe do ,
wh en they wat ch a sunse t or a tempest

,
88
MED IEVA L TO MODE R N
at sea or s h adows and suns h i n e at
,
play among the mountains .
And yet this sam e Ja m es Boswe ll

who prod u ced the c h ief masterpiece in
modern biography was long in getting
even a nod of recognition from t he
critical public Everybody s aw t he
.
greatness of h is Life of Johnson and ,

”
in a ve ry few years after its public a tion
t h at book became a part of t h e intel
lectu a l equipment of cultivated persons
t h roughou t t he English speaking world -
,
and it ha s never ceased to hold this

place Even now t hose who a dmire
.
,
the biography admit only grudgingly

t h e clai m s o f Bozzy Nevert h eless .
,
masterpie ces are not produced by m a n

ikin s . Som etimes however t h e gulf
, ,
of disenchant ment opens between th e

m a n a nd h is work We regret for in
.
,
stance wh en we learn of it the sordid

, ,
ness of J M W Turner s c haracter a nd

. . .
’
life a nd we are glad t h at oblivion h a s

,
89
screened us fro m knowing too much
abo ut t he Elizabethan dramatists o r
the painters of the I talian Renaissance .
Boswell s bad reputation with pos

’
t e rit y was fixed by M ac a ul a y who saw,
characters a s painters in th e Leva nt

see landscape a bl aze of sunlight
,
contrasted with unmodulated silh ou

e t t e s a nd shadows M ac a ulay never
.
wrote a sentence which the youngest

reader could not understand When .
,
t h erefore he took Boswell for a sitter

,
he left not h ing uncertain no m argin

,
for specul a tion no bo rderl a nd for

,
doubt I n ma ny a passage which

.
,
ninety years ago ra ng with met a llic

clearness th rough the world h e held ,
poor Boswell up for contempt and

odium As a model of portraiture
.
’
by vituperation Ma caulay s sketch of
,
Boswe ll can hardly be m atched Let .
me quote a part of a fa mous passage :

“
He was the laughingstock of th e
90
of London , so curious to know e ve ry
body who was talked about t h at Tory , ,
a nd High Ch urc h man a s h e wa s h e ,
ma ne uvred we h ave been told fo r an

, ,
introduction to Tom Pa ine so vain

,
of t h e most c h ildis h distinctions th at , ,
when he h ad been to court he drove to

,
th e offi ce wh ere his book was being

printed without c h anging h is clothes ,
a nd su m moned all t h e printers devils ’
to admire his new ru ffles a nd sword ;

such was th is man ; and suc h he wa s
content and proud to be Everyth ing
.
wh ich another m a n would h ave h idden ,
everyt h ing the publication of wh ich

,
would have made a noth er man h ang

h imself wa s m a tter of gay and clamor
,
mind .
”
ous exultation to h is weak a nd dise a sed
I t h appens t ha t C a rlyle wrote a bout

Boswell a t the same time a s M acaul ay .
He had the sa me facts to draw his in

fe re n ce s fro m He too knew a l l of
.
, ,
92
MEDI EVAL TO MODERN
Boswell s foibles and t h e m any tradi
’
tions mostly disp a raging wh ich circled

, ,
round h is reputation Neverth eless .

,
C a rlyle discovered in Boswell some

thing wh ich M acaulay did not see I n .
h is impetuous deeply penetrating p a s

, ,
sio n a t e strokes he says :

,
“
Boswell was a person whose mean
or b ad qualities lay open to th e general
eye ; visible palpable to t h e dullest
, .
His good qualities again belonged not

, ,
to t h e time he lived in ; were far from

common t h en ; indeed in such a de ,
gree were almost unex am pled ; not

recognizable t h erefore by every one ;
nay apt even ! so strange h ad t hey
,
grown! to be confounded wit h t h e ve ry

vices th ey lay contiguous to and h ad
sprung out of That h e was a wine
.
bibber a nd gross liver ; gluttonously

fond of wh atever would yield h im a
little sol a ce ment were it only of
,
a stomach ic character is undeniable ,
93
enough Th at h e wa s va in heedless
.
, ,
a babbler ; ha d much of th e sycop h ant ,
alternating with the braggadocio curi ,
o usl y spiced too with an all

- perv a ding
dash of t he coxcomb ; t h at h e gloried
much wh en the tailor by a court suit
,
-
,
h ad made a new man of hi m ; that h e

appeared at the Sh a ksp e a re Jubilee
with a ribbon imprinted Corsi e a B os
‘
l round h is hat ; a nd in short if

’
we l, ,
you will lived no day of h is life wit hout

,
doing and saying more than one pre
is evident as the sun at noon .

”
t e n t io u s ineptitude : all this unhappily
Here you see are t h e sa me elements ,
and yet t h e i mpression left upon you

is n ot that of despising or loathing but ,
rather that of suspended judgment .
Ad mitting th at Boswell h ad all th ese

defects Carlyle lets you imp ly that the
,
c heap and tawd ry fe l low sti l l possessed

qua l ities wh ich would ret rieve h im .
Carlyle h imself looked through t h e

94
p h a n c or h is fribbling vanity or any

y, ,
other of his foibles which qua l ified h im

for h is Biography I n all case s wh ere
.
the a rtist seems unworthy of h is work ,

’
remember Emerson s trut h
Not from a va in o r shallow t ho ugh t
His a wful Jove youn g Ph idi a s b rought .
Wha t is t he secret of Boswell s mas ’
t e ry ? First and second and third h e

, , ,
wa s a highly sensitized p hotographic

plate receptive to t h e most delicate
,
impressions from Johnson He saw .
eve rything h e preserved everyth ing

, ,
but his sympathy kept hi m from mis

inte rpreting t h e old Doctor s words and ’
ge stures and acts Boswell is there a s

.
a transparent glass t h rough which you

l ook a t t h e real Joh nson The glass .
is not tinged or fl e cke d to give you a

Boswe l lian distortion Next to his.
gifts of transparency and of receptivity

a nd of sym pathy comes h is gift of selec
96
MEDI EVAL TO MODERN
tion Th is is th e distinctive talent of
.
the a rtist and with him it seems to

,
have been intuitive He knew j u st .
what to c h oose among h is mass of ma

s and he chose so n a t u ral l y th a t
t e r ia l ,
there see m s to be no art at all He h ad .

,
too the gift of e m phasis which is only

, ,
another form of proportion .
Almost equa ll y rare as t h ese gifts

was his power of expression or litera ry ,
style M ost persons think th a t he had

.
no styl e You read hi m page by page

.
,
and ch a pt er b y c ha pter and are never

,
conscious of h is style Therein l ies its

.
excellence As you re a d you see the

.
things he tells about a nd you remem

ber the episode but n ot the word s
he used Tra nsparency in wh ich the
.
,
a u thor does not project himself b e

tween the reader and t h e text is again ,
the talent You have only to reflect

.
what the four vo l u me s of the Biography

of Johnson wou l d be if they were
97
written by Walter Pater or any other
of the much lauded and festooned
“
o ffi cial modern stylists in order to
,
”
thank God that James Boswe ll was
none of them We relis h a litt l e guava
.
jel l y now and then but the mere

'
,
thought of it through four octavo vol

umes gives one nausea .
I make no attempt to discover why

it is that Samuel Johnson described ,
in the minutest det ails by his devoted

biographer should so c a ptivate genera
,
tion after generation of readers One .
evident attraction is Joh nson s wit ’

.
We are too apt to think of him as the

exp loiter of a pondero u s style as being ,
elep h antine in his person and move

ments and as a pompous litera ry auto
,
cr a t ; but wh at made him triumph in ,
spite of all t h ese was wit at once

, ,
quick and s h arp and sound for real

wit must spring from sound ideas or
it is merely a verba l pl ay or a trick of
98
we l l doe s not use Johnson as a figu re
on whom to drape any theory or his
own prejudices His vision penetrates
.
,
not bec a u se he h as an e ager and keen

m ind which delights to e xercise itse l f
in suc h a nalysis but bec a use he has
,
sympathy and love which not only see

but understand And wh ether by in
.
,
tuition o r by intent h e commands a ,
style wh ic h is a perfect mediu m for

h is t hough ts Finally he has for a
.
,
subject a cre a ture strang e but with ,
a strangeness whic h attracts every

one and still after t hese many many
, , ,
’
years h a s not
, out the world s
inte re st .
”
It
III
BIOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY
GOOD many years a go wh en ,
M r Howells was fighting ma n

.
fully h is c a mpaign for Realis m he re ,
m arked that if the novelist cou l d get

Inside of the h eart and brain of a
moke smoking his corn cob pipe on a
,
-
l og he could produce a portrait which

,
’
wou l d t h row Shakespeare s Ha ml et ,
or any other masterpiece into the ,
shade I do not believe that this is

.
l iterally true I do not be l ieve that

.
the brain of any moke or of any per ,
son now l iving be he white b la ck

, , ,
yellow or mottled could match Shake

, ,
’
speare s brain in interest Providence .
has ordered it so that although we are

,
al l m ade of t he sa me stu ff that stu ff ,

h as innume ra b l e varieties and h u , ,
manly speaking those v a rieties a re

,
not equa l in interest in c h a rm or in

, ,
beauty or significance Bu t we see .
what M r Howells me a nt a nd t h e frag

.
,
ment of tru th in his meaning And .
there are ma ny biographies to prove

that the exce l lence and interest of a
biogra phy do not depend upon the h igh
position of its subject I f only the b i
.
og ra p h e r c a n pluck out the heart of a
man or woma n n o ma tter how hum

,
b l e and reve a l it truly the world wi l l

, ,
rejoice .
The modicum of trut h wh ic h the

Realist s doctrine contained p a ssed
’
,
into fiction a nd other forms of litera

t u re and into painting a nd into sculp
,
t u re The penal ty exa cted for estab

.
l ishin g any truth is exagg eration and ,
for a good while Re a lism ran to all

l engths No matter how inane or
.
sordid or putrescent a sto ry might be ,
1 02
he instinctively c a rried in his mind t h e
ideal of how a statesman ought to be
portrayed ; in like fa shion t h e sculptor
draped him in a toga holding a scroll
,
of ora tions in h is left hand This

se rved as well a s a sign bo a rd to wa rn
-
you th at the subject was a st a tesman

and orator a nd to prepare you to ex
,
amine the st a tue properl y If you will .
”
“ ’
comp a re Stanhope s Life of Wi ll i a m
”
Pitt the Younger wit h John Morley s ’
Life of G ladstone you will perceive

,
the ch ange t h at h ad come a bout in less

than a hundred years in the writing of
,
biographies of st a tesmen ; and even

“
M r M orley was less Realistic th a n
.
”
is M r Winston Churchi l l in h is life of
.
his fat h er Lo rd R a ndolph Churchi l l

, .
This was to be expected for M r Gl a d, .
stone was a lmost a symbol and in his ,
l ife he passed th rough t h e typic a l Eng

lish experiences at sch ool at the Un i ,
versity in the Anglic a n Church a nd

, ,
1 04
THE NINETEENTH C ENTUR Y
in Parlia ment which ma de him in some
,
respects rather the carrier o u and em -
bodi ment of traditions than a highly ,
individualized person I n their con .
se rva t ism the English sti ll c l ing to the

medie val habit of setting the Place
above the M an They write abo u t the
.
Regius Professor at Oxford or the ,
Dean of St Paul s or the Archbishop

.
’
of Canterbu ry withou t giving their

family names so that unless you have
,
these and a t housand others stored

,
away in your memory you m ust con ,
sult so me reference book in order to

discover who the Professor was or the ,
D ean in 1 8 3 0 or in 1 8 60
,
.
Th is English practice part l y a c

counts I t h ink for the difference b e
, ,
tween English a nd American b iog r a

phies of offi cials We speak of John
.
C Ca l houn and not of the Senator

.
fro m South Carolina of Phi ll ips Brooks ,
and not of the Protestant Episcopa l

1 05
Bishop of M assachusetts of John M ar
,
shal l and not of the Chief Justice of

the United States and so of all the
,
rest whom we refer to by na me and

,
not by title unless there is a particu l ar

,
reason fo r giving the title The texture

.
of t h e lives led by t h e A mericans was

also so fres h a nd unconvention al th at
it furnished l ittle excuse for imitating
the English practice in terminology .
I n England t h e successful man wh at

,
ever his profession rose to this or that

,
office which m ay h ave existed for gen

,
e ra t io n s and so it was natur a l for him

,
to be known by the offi ce or rank I n .
the United States on the ot h er h a nd

, ,
the pioneer in one decade migh t be a

St a te Governor or a Bishop or a Gen
eral in the nex t and so h e was known
,
for h i m self a nd not for his o ffice A

, .
perfect example is Abraham Lincoln ,
whom the most conventional of English

biogra phers would find it impossible
1 06
tory had to be respected so respect
“
for the proprieties had to be ob ” ,
served The intimate life of a man

.
,
his every day doings his weaknesses

-
,
and follies and m ist a kes must not be ,
mentioned But he m ust be described

.
a s being perpetual l y on parade the ,
counterpart of the portraits of m en in

their best appare l This fashion has
.
by no m ea ns passed away I read re .
ce n t ly a book of G eneral Robert E .
Lee which was so stu ffed with virtues

,
that I began to doubt the existence of

any virtue and onl y when the author
,
stated that Genera l Lee used to take

his ca se in a rocking chair sitting in -
,
his stocking feet did I percei ve that

-
,
h e wa s a real person .
I must forego any atte m pt to crit i

cise in detai l even the foremost of
modern biographies but I shall touch,
upon several of them which are rep

r e se n t a t iv e .Earl iest a mong the Brit
1 08
THE N I NETEENTH C ENTURY
”
“
ish is Letters and Journals of Lo rd
Byron with Notices of his Life by
, ,
Thom as M oore which wa s publis hed

,
in 1 8 3 0 I can ha rdly ove rpraise By

.
ron s own ma teri al which forms a con

’
,
e part of this work

si de ra b l To me .
he seems the best of Englis h letter

writers in t h e sense t h at he wa s t h e
,
most spont a neous and so to speak

, , ,
reckless uttering h is t hough t or whim

,
of the moment wit hout concern for

publication or discretion M ost of .
t he ot her famous letter writers are -
conscious that posterity is looking

over their shoulder while t hey write .
Wit h Stevenson a letter was not like a

private unpremeditated cha t wit h a
,
friend but a set litera ry perform a nce

, ,
in whic h all wa s premedit a ted and

wrought wit h hi s h ighest skill as a
literary a rtist .
The substance of Byron s Letters is ’
oft en dis a ppointing because it belongs

,
1 09
TH E ART O F BIOGR A PHY
to the baser side of his nature and we ,
are irritated and grieved to find a genius

like his seeming to prefer the lower
levels But a s h uman documents his
.
journ als a nd especially his letters are

, ,
’
invaluable M oore s connecting nar
.
r a t iv e
, though in the main good is ,
not re m arkable He wrote as a p r a c

.
t ise d literary man not as a born b i,
og r a p h e r His style is smoot h and

.
rather graceful but m ore antiquated

,
now than Boswell s and he evidently ’
su ffers by contrast wit h the rush a nd

vi vidness and h u m or and finality of
Byron s Like most of us M oore used
’
.
a trowel ; Byron carried a poniard .
We smile now or m oralize as we re

member that a centu ry ago some of
, ,
the critics esteemed M oore as superior

to Byron even in poetry ; and they
,
regarded Byron a s the luckiest of m en

to have M oore for a biographer .
T h is m erely i l l u strates the wid e

I IO
h ave found a writer whose judgm ent and
discretion they can trust t hey should
,
religiously refrain from meddling A .
witty English friend of mine whose ,
cousin Sir Alfred Lyall was writing

, ,
the life of Lo rd D u fferin said to m e :

,
“
I think Sir Alfred would agree with
you th a t suttee should be ma de com
p u
,
l
so ry on the widows of celebrities .
”
The next important biogra phy in
English to fol l ow that of Byron was
“
Lockha rt s Life of Scott
’
I t added
.
no new variety to the art but it is an

,
adm irable example of excel l ence with

out originality Lockhart wrote well
. .
He avoided passing fashions in styl e ;

he adhered to a chosen vocab u lary and
to a chosen scale He fe l t e motions
.
hi m self and h e could describe them in

Scott and he possessed the rare gift
,
of being simple when the emotions

,
t h emselves were most intense .
But Lockhart s defect was in draw

’
TH E NINETEENTH C ENTURY
ing h is po rtrait on too va st a sc a le .
His bio graphy stretches to nine vol

u mes some four thousand octavo pages
, .
What an elephantine gift to hand on

to poor Posterity our a fter comer
,
-
,
imaginary like Sairey G amp s M rs ’

.
Harris who is to read all the books

,
which we leave unread to crown with ,
laurel the innu m erab l e heads of genius

which we negl ected to convert by , ,
some strange a lchemy our mountains ,
of lies into truth and to do justice to

,
unhonored reputations !
Lockh a rt na rrates in too gre a t detail ;
he l acks that power of selection which
stamps t he ma n of genius in any art .
He quotes too copiously from Scott s ’
letters and journ a ls Scott unli ke By

.
,
ron not being a viva cious and swift

,
letter writer does not provide first

-
,
rate biographic a l m a terial in his corre
sp o n de n ce He is informa tional rather

.
than imaginative or temperamental .
1 1 3
A wiser selector th a n Lockh a rt would
h ave m a de a separate work of Scott s ’
journals of travel a s Boswell p ub

“
li sh e d Johnson s Journey to the West
’
ern Isles of Scot l and But a fter a ll

, ,
Scott wa s so nobly h uma n in n ature ,
so true in heart so wholesome that I

, ,
find it h a rd to bl ame Lockhart for tell

ing us too muc h a bout him .
Selection ! the discerning G reeks did

not make a M use of her because they
took it for granted that she was a n e ce s
sary part of every M use D uring the
.
past century she has been the most

neglected of all Time was when a n
.
author or other a rtist worked only un

der t he stress of a compelling inspira
tion But among moderns authorship
.
,
or the other art s is a trade Only .
early death can prevent a novelist

to day from fi ll ing a ten foot book
- -
shelf Our l eading A m erican master

.
of fiction has eighty volu mes or more

1 14
baker ac hieves his daily stint of m ix
ing cutting and frying a thousand
, ,
doug h nuts Writing and baking have

.
become trades This result is con .
firmed by biographers also ; for as I ,
have re m arked modern biograp hy has

,
been noticeably affected by fiction .
I n England financial motives have also

c a used biographies as well as novels , ,
to swell in bulk For a long time th ree

.
volumes was the accepted limit of a

novel that limit being fix ed by t he
,
willingness of a su fficient number of

buyers to pay a guinea for a t h ree
volume novel Latterly when four.
,
or five shillings or seven and six mark

, ,
the price which the gre a test number of

readers wi l l pay for their fiction the ,
text is correspondingly shortened For .
a long ti m e past a guinea has been t he

traditional sum to be paid for a b i
og ra p h y and as no publisher could
, ,
give without blushing less tha n two

, ,
1 16
THE NINETEENTH C ENTURY
vol u m es o f paper binding and press
, ,
work for t h at figure biographies have

,
been written to fill two volu m es .
Hence the appalling list of two volume -
lives of B ritish statesmen a nd e ccle si

a st i cs
, irrespective of t he fact tha t
many of the m could be adequately em
bal m ed in a hundred pages where a s ,
a few of the ot hers might deserve a

thousand pages The standard of h i
.
og ra p h y is set by fa shion and the pub
lish e rs at two volu m es but M r Gl a d

, .
stone a n d so me bishops and a rchbishops

be so strong that they come to three
volu m es .
What becomes of the a rtis t

. a nd ,
as I have so often insisted t he biog ,
r a p h e r must be a n artis t if he is
forced for t h e pecuni ary profit of his
,
publisher to ignore his art a nd to in

,
fl a t e three or four sign a tures of text

into a thous a nd p ages ? Even biog
ra p h e rs who are above s a cr ificing a ny
1 1 7
THE ART O F BIOGR A PHY
ideal for co m m ercial rea sons often ,
fail because they have neither the re

q ui re m e n t s of art nor any training .
M rs Charles Kingsley for exa m ple

.
, ,
wrote her life o f her husband in two

volumes but she subsequently re
,
duce d it to one and the improve ment

,
must be e vident to eve ry reader .
I n j udging novelists a nd biographers ,
therefore we must understand what

,
size convention prescribed for their

works Suppose th a t a sculptor had
.
to ma ke his statues irrespective of their

,
subjects of t h e s am e dimensions b e
, ,
cause he could procure p a cking boxe s -
of only one size to ship t h em in what ,
would become of the a rt of sculpture ?

The true biographer however writes, ,
neither to fill out nor to curtail but to ,
present his subject in j ust p roportion .
The reaction of fiction on biogra p hy

conduced to improve the subst a nce
of biographic a l writing by forcing it
,
1 1 8
to affect both these arts For Science.
studied an animal a flo wer a tree dis

, , ,
passionately a nd with t h e ut m ost thor

o ug h n e ss . Science used a m icroscope ,
a nd t he public becomi n g gradually a c

,
customed to the wa y in wh ich Science

described its specimens instinctively,
looked for a similar met hod when b i

og ra p h e rs a nd nov elists po rtrayed the i r
subjects I n t h e end the scientific

.
metho d a pplied to the a rts defeated

, ,
its purpo se by sub st ituting m aterial

and mechanical st a ndards for spiritual .
Science can vi visect bodies but up to ,
the present t h e soul of m an eludes the

mi crosco pe and t h e scalpel The e s .
se n t i a lsubject of t h e biograp h er is the
soul of man .
I do not like to fix d ates beca use in ,
the transition be tween one social or

intellectual or religious season a nd
another there is the same el a sticity as
,
in the p a ss age from spring to summer ,
1 20
or from autumn to winter You can
.
not say absolutely that any da y marked

the line of div ision f The year 1 8 5 9 ,
”
’
w hich s aw t he publication of D arwin s
“
Origin of Species stands out in t h e
,
retrospect as t he be ginning of t he new

epoch and the end of t h e old ; but we
percei ve now t hat for several years b e
fore 1 8 5 9 the new ideas were in t h e
air ! to use a vague term of t h at ti me!
and that for a dec a de or more after
1 8 5 9 the old ideas survived even if
,
t hey did not prevail I n Biogra phy I

.
,
t hink the most cha racteristic speci

,
mens of the ch a ng ing ide a ls as to sub

stance and met hod a ppe a red in Joh n
M orl ey s studies of Voltaire a nd of
’
Rousseau Nothing better of its ki nd

.
exists in English so far as I know .
Morley does not attempt to write a

consecutive story of the event s which
made up the external life of either
man He gives us rather a survey
.
, ,
121
TH E ART OF B I OG RAPHY
of the intellectual and moral develop
ment of each and as any of us can
, ,
verify by looking over his own ex

p e r ie n
, ce this deve l op m ent does not
coincide with externa l happenings I t .
was the discove ry of Wordsworth s ’
poe m s which revolutionized John

Stuart M ill s inner l ife and so almost
’
,
eve ry i m portant m an acknowledges

that he got a great i m petus or perm a
nent spiritu al direction from so me
book or person .
Morley works by what I may call

the oblique m ethod in biography He .
seems to be more bent on criticising

than describing but when his portrait
,
is co m plete you recognize its lifelike

ness I f you watched Monet paint
.
,
you would wonder why he splashed on

one stroke or another but when y o u,
viewed his finished pict u re at the proper

distance you wo ul d see that eve ry drop
of p ai nt had its p u rpose and that not
,
1 22
THE ART OF B I OGRAPHY
inform ation m uc h of which Morl ey
only could give but does it not belong
,
to t he encycl opedic works l ike Nicol ay

“
and Hay s Abraha m Lincoln rather
’ ”
,
than to the really biographical works

”
”
“
of which Boswell s Johnson is the
’
“
model ? I n his Life of Cobden
Morl ey again presents to us t h e ebb
and flow of great po litical and econo mic
forces with their fre quent clash rather
, ,
than t h e inti m ate biography of the

Free T ra de cha m pion But this too.
, ,
is legiti m ate and indeed in the life of

,
any states m an t he proble m of his b i

og r a p h e r is to reach a balance between
history and biography between the ,
person and the ca use Nor should we

.
”
overlook M orley s Sir Robert Wal
’
pole in whic h h e rescues fro m gener

,
a t io n s of odium the reputation of a
states m an who really deserved an

hono rable fa m e .
The wonderfu l G reeks who visual ized

in permanent and vital sym bols e ven
their deepest t ho ughts pict ured Ti me
, ,
Chronos as devouring his chi l dren

,
.
His appetite is as insatiable now as

ever Just as we have co me to regard
.
one fashion as enduring h e creates ,
another to take its p l ace Tho mas .
Carlyl e thundered his depreciato ry doc

trines on eighteent h century France-
until he had m ade the world listen to
hi m and believe ; and then while h is ,
echoes still went re verberating John ,
Morl ey ca m e and ta ught us in tones ,
fa r l ess vehe m ent to see the good in

,
the France whi ch Carlyle had weighed

and found wanting Morl ey s account
.
’
of Voltaire if y o u seek to know what

,
Voltaire actually was in Ti m e wil l give ,
y o u the necessa r y infor m ation But .
for Carl yle Ti m e was a l ways mere ly a

fil m stretching in front of Eternity
, ,
neither whol ly tran sparent nor who lly

opaque So Carlyl e s j udgm ents are
.
’
1 25
not t hose of a decade or a fashion but ,
t hose which conform to t h e Eterna l

Laws as he saw the m And Voltaire
,
.
,
or Rousseau or M irabeau have a very

, ,
di fferent appearance to the intellect

busied primarily with things te m poral ,
from wh at they have when t hey are

th rown on the screen of things spiritual
and eternal .
D uring nearly fort y yea rs I h ave

passed through several phases in m y
estimate of Thom as Carlyle He made .
me a He ro Worshipper and a Hater of

-
S hams ; he held me spell bound by his

-
h umor and by t he m agnificence of

many of his pages ; he disclosed to me
Reality more real than I h ad found in
any other writer ; he spoke to m e wit h
an austerity strangely fascinating and ,
in language as rhythmic as t he long ,
everlasting rol l of t he sea messages ,
that m ight h ave co me fro m a Hebrew

prop het .
1 26
ing geni us Carlyle who flashed into ,
the ve ry h eart and soul of m en and

wom en ; Carlyle who h ad a special gift
,
for seeing through many pa rts of the

film of Time whic h were opaq ue to
m ost of us ; Carlyle who beyond al l,
ot h er historians unde rstood t he terror

of Li fe and its inexorable doom in ,
which eac h of us has a stake I de .
lighted afres h i n his incomparable h u

mor Wh o can co m pare wi t h hi m in
.
seizing upon t he s mall homely cosey , ,
things ? How he pounces on an a p

parent trifle which properly esti m ated
, , ,
was t he pivot on which history turned ,
such for instance as old D ragoon

, ,
D rouet who having caught a gli m pse

, ,
of Louis XVI and M arie Antoinette

taking flight in their berline toward
t he French border strides over t he
,
fields by a sho rt cut to Vare n nes inter ,
ce p t s t h em t h ere causes t heir arrest

, ,
and so turns awry the catast rophe

1 28
of t he French Revolution I doubt .
whether any other biographer or his

torian h as ever equalled Carlyle in his
genius for discerning the smallest de
tail ia externals and in sweeping a s on ,
’
a Se ra p h s wing over vast generaliza
,
tions on the inm ost meaning of Life .
As a biograp her Carlyle is very n u

even Having decided t h at Frederick
.
the Great was a hero be fore he under

took to write about h i m he could never
,
look straight at the man except when

he h ad magnifying or distorting glasses
on The resu l t is that Carlyl e the
.
,
most insistent of all historians on the

moral interpretation of history makes ,
of Frederick t h e Great who was really

,
a monarc h wit h out moral sense in

public affairs and t h e corrupter of t he
Germ an people a hero and model
, .
No wonder that Carlyle blinded by ,
t his fa lse si m ul ation of greatness should,
not recognize true greatness in George

1 29
Washington but shou l d sneer at hi m .
Granted however that Frederick s

, ,
’
portrait was to be painted as Carlyle

saw hi m what other historian could
,
equal the variety t h e hu mor with

, ,
which Carl yle painted it ? For life

likeness it could not be excelled and ,
yet it l acks sym m etry com pactness , ,
and t he supreme quality of finality and

beauty I f Carlyle only h ad had m ore
.
of t he Greek in h is m ake Up ! I f -
”
he h ad only taken the Greek motto
M 35 6 d ra v
7 nothing too m uch
‘
wh ich eve ry artist shou l d carry stam ped

on his heart ! But he was a Goth ,
and t h e Gothic genius riots in dig re s

sions and sup e rfl uit ie s He re m inds .
m e of Re m brandt am ong the painters ,
who gets so many of his e ffects fro m

shadows and darkness The figures .
in C a rlyle s h istoric dra mas see m l ike

’
,
Rembrandt s portraits to e merge out

’
,
of bl a ckest night into life and color

1 3 0
his e nemie s would say! wa s a st ro ng ,
m a n and wo rt hy of being reve red If .

,
“ ”
on t h e ot her h a nd you tu rn to t h e
Life of Schi ller wr itten earlier b e
,
,
fore his passion for interpretation h ur

ried Carlyle before it you will discover ,
rat her a conventional specimen of hi

og r a p hy in t he first t h ird of the Nine
”
“
t e e n t h Century His Life of Jo h n
.
Sterl ing however is one of t h e sweet

, ,
e st revelations o f a fine manly c h arac ,
ter whic h one friend ever made of a n

other ; a lt hough v i e wed from the ideals
,
of Art it has its excrescences and ex

,
cesses .
Th e I talians h ave a proverb wh ic h

sums up t he common opinion of a u
tr a d i tor e
”
t hors toward translators : Tr a d uttor e
The play on the I talian
.
,
words cannot be reprod u ced in Eng
”
“
l ish but the m eaning can be : Trans
,
lator traitor or betrayer

, I fee l that .
in too m any cases this motto wou l d

I32
TH E NINETEENTH C ENTURY
app l y also to biographers and to no ,
one more conspicuously t h an to James

Anthony Froude I once asked .
Charles Eliot Norton who knew both ,
men how Carlyl e ca me to designate

,
F roude as his biographer and M r ,

.
Norton replied by quoting La n do r s ’
sadly cynical epigra m :

“
The wi se st o f t h e wi se
Li st e n t o p re t t y l ie s,
An d love t o he a r t he m t ol d .
D o u b t n ot t hat So lom on
List e n d t o m an y a o n e ,
’
Som
d
ol .
”
e in his yo ut h a n d m ore wh e n he gre w
Froude who was younger than Car

,
lyl e by m ore t h an twenty years ,
had been one of his earl iest and

stanchest devotees and as Carlyle ,
sank into o ld age Froude attended hi m

a ssiduously and it is not unkind to
, ,
infer suggested that he be m ade the

,
great m an s literary executor and b i

’
o g ra p h e r We can see how under the

.
,
I3 3
circumstances Carlyle shou ld be grati
,
fie d to know that a disciple who gave

him back his own Opinions should have
charge of this i mportant service But .
see how tragic the results were !
Thom a s Carlyle in m any respects

, ,
filled fo r the English speaking world

-
during fifty years of the Nineteenth

Century a place si m ilar to that filled
,
in the Eighteenth Centu ry by Samuel

Johnson Through the good fortune
.
of having James Boswell for his biog

r a p h e r Johnson lives as the most l
,
n
t e r e st in g if not as the most belo ved

, ,
figure of his age ; whereas Carlyle ,
after the pub l ication of his life by

Froude su ffered a personal eclipse fro m
,
whic h he has not yet e merged This .
is not owing to the fact that the fashion

in writing History has changed that ,
Science has discredited Rom anticism ,
that liberal and even radical ideas

have swa m ped Carl yle s conservatis m ’
1 34
TH E ART OF B I OGR A PHY
were habit u al the very bone and
,
’
sinew of the m an s character was ,
bad a rt That kindest of critics a n d

.
sweetest natured of friends Horace

-
,
Furness told me that he never wanted

,
to hear of Carlyle again after he read

“ ’
in Fro n de s Life that he had allowed ”
his wife to scrub th e bricks in the little
back yard of Number 5 Cheyne Row
M iserable creature ! said M r F ur ”
,
.
.
”
“
ness he ought to have gone down on
,
his knees and scrubbed them hi m self !

Now if it was necessary to record
,
that incident at all Froude might h ave

done it in suc h a way as to show its
proper relation wit h the rest of Car
lyle s life instead of m aking it appear
’
,
an ungallant and almost brutal fact

whic h m ust spring from t he man s ’
whole ch ar acter Few can be t he .
house holds in wh ich there are not o c

curre n ce s which if ripped out of t h eir
,
proper perspecti ve would not e xpose ,
1 3 6
THE NINETEENTH C E NTU R Y
h u sbands and wives to very harsh and

totally u nj u stified inferences .
This is m erely one exa m ple out of

“
hundreds in Frou d e s Biography
’ ”
which illustrate the harm biographers
m ay do by i m proper e m phasis unless ,
each event is so fra med that the reader

can judge it tru ly as he would do if he
,
cou ld have seen it himself He either

.
sins wilfully or is incompetent I n .
F ro ude s case we are forced to concl u de

’
that he sinned deliberately in order to

,
gratify his own spite or to push his

own opinions How otherwise shall
.
we expl ain the m ultitude of verbal

’
changes from Carlyle s m anuscript to
’
Fro n de s printed version changes in
some of which the neutra l or kindl y
epithets of the origin a l became ab u sive
or malignant How otherwise shal l we
explain that the slip of paper on which
Carlyle prohibited the p u b l ication of
“
one of t he volu mes of Re m in is
I37
TH E ART OF B I OG R APHY
cence s disappeared and that Froude ,
discovered it only after the volu me

’
was pri nted and Carlyle s niece in sis
,
te n tl y de m anded it ? I cite Froude as

the great warning to biographers He .
not only comm itted a cri me against

the hero he wished to glorify but I ,
fear that he so da m aged Carlyle s repu ’
t a t ion that it can be restored o nly when

so me true man equipped wi th honesty
, ,
artistic sense and adequat e biograph

,
ical talent shall writ e a life of hi m .
How di ffere nt the fortune of M ac

’
a ul ay,
Carlyle s chief conte m porary
”
m aster in the writing of History ! His
“
Life by his nephew Sir Ge orge Otto
, ,
Trevelyan se e m s to m e second only

,
to Boswell s Johnson“
’
Trevelyan .
”
wrote on a di fferent plan from Bos
we ll s but h e achieved what he ln
’
tended not less re m arkably than did

Boswell I n this work you have a
.
perfect interweaving of biograp hy and

1 3 8
that her husb a nd Professor George H ,
.
Palmer wrote it He saw h e r as a

,
.
be a utiful ideal and h ad the art and

,
im agination and glow to make us all

see her as he did On t h e other hand .
,
Justin Winsor in his biograp hy of

,
Colu m bus fa lls short because he de

, ,
votes too much time to t he low qu ali

ties and misde meanors of Columbus .
Now Columb u s was cre a ted to discover

,
A me ri ca and not to be a p a ttern like

,
St Francis of Assisi or some of t he

.
,
Pilgri m Fat h ers of the highest Chris

,
tian virtues I n like fashion it see m s

.
,
to me the Re verend A V G Allen s

,
. . .
’
portrait of Phillips Brooks is out of

drawing bec a use h e e m p h asizes too
,
much m atters which interested Allen

as a Theologian mo re than t hey did
Brooks as an Evangelist whose mission
it was to spe a k at all times and a t all
pl a ce s wi th wonde rful persua sion the
, ,
me ssage of God .
1 40
THE NINETEENTH C ENTU R Y
I shall not a ttempt to discuss even ,
briefly the later biographies in Eng

,
lish I h ave already mentioned Mor

.
”
”
“
l e y s Life of Gladstone and Winston
’
“
C h urchill s Life of his father Lo rd
’
R a ndolph The latter would be t wice

.
as good if it were half as long for ,
Churchill errs as most Englishmen do

, ,
in attaching an exaggerated importance

to partisan political details After all .
,
Sir Stafford Northcote Goschen Lo rd , ,
Ha rrin g ton and even Lo rd S alisb u ry

,
are not personages of heroic size or g i

g a n t i c i m por t ance when viewed through
the perspective of thirty years and ,
M r Churchill describes t h e m so m i
‘
n ut e l y that I at l e ast find it di fi

f c u l t
to trace in his description the trunk
l ine of their policy .
Hallam Tennyson s Life of his ’
father wo uld confirm those who hold

that t h e widow o r son of a celebrity
ought ne ver to b e his biographer .
141
On the ot her hand Francis D arwin
,
a nd Leonard H uxley both produced

s atisfactory biographies of their fa
t h e rs .
I have not considered French ,
I t alian and Germa n biogra p h ical

,
works partly bec a use I a m not fa

,
miliar with enough of the m to draw

a ny general conclusions A whole li .
b ra r yhas be e n written about Napo

leon but so far a s I know nobody has
,
yet achie ved a transcendent biogra phy

of hi m The sa me is true of Bismarck
.
,
and the likelihood seems slight t h at he

will e ver be put into a book to be read
throughout t h e world For Germ an
.
biographers are so absorbed in the

sh oe buckl es and laundry bills of their
”
-
”
“
h eroes witness D ii n t ze r s Goethe’
“
and Schiller th a t they are unab l e
to get inside of the man or even to ,
stand upright and look at h im e y e to

1 42
sneered at a ny work in whic h foot note s -
and references did not outmeasure the

text But t his despotism by pedants
.
is we m a y hope at an end
, , .
An d so a fter our lon g survey we

, ,
bring t h e Art of Biogra phy down to

t he present when m ultiplicity seems
,
to be its fore most tra it We under .
stand t ha t a ny man wh o is i n te r e sti n g

may be a proper subject for a biog
grap her ; king dukes a n d t he upper
, ,
classes must now have more than their

title and position in order to attract
us We recognize also that each per
.
, ,
son like t h e sitter for a p ainter t e

, ,
quires t o be drawn in t h e a ttitude a nd

atmosp h ere wh ic h will most fit ly re
ve al him I regard symp a t hy a s an
.
indispens a ble qu alification in the b iog

ra p h e r a lt h oug h a good m a ny pe rsons
,
still belie ve t ha t de vil s a dvocates a re ’
more likely to t e ll t h e truth The sym .
1 44
pathy which I mean however does not , ,
degenerate into unrestrained eu logy ,
but interprets the defects blunders , ,
and even the sins of its subject in their ,
tru e relations The ai m of the b iog

.
grapher s hould be Totality which if , ,
achieved coincides with M ich a el An

,
”
“
gelo s definition of Be a uty : 1 1 Pi ll
’
nell Un o
’
— The whole in one or the ,
unive rsal in the particular .
To se e a wo rl d in a g r a i n o f sa n d ,
An d a he a v e n in a wi l d flowe r ;
An d i
e t e rn t y in an ho u r .
”
Ho ld i n fin i t y in t h e p alm of you r ha n d ,
So I le ave Biograp hy on the thresh

old of what may be a Golde n Age .
I ts outlook was neve r brighter I ts .
vot a rie s will pra ctise it wit h a con

st a n t l
y increasing skill The d e m a nd .
for vera city will not slacken The .
public grown more discerning willre ad

, ,
it wit h gre a ter relis h An d I t hink .
that we m ay pre dict that the general

1 45
average of biogra phical writing will be
hi gher than it h a s been though the ,
nu m be r of m aster biogra phers like that

of m ast e r portrait painters can never
-
be large hardly more than two or

,
three in a century .
The fact that the persons a nd e vents

the biographer depict s were r e al will
lend to the m an additional attracti ve
ness.
G iven life the first i m pulse of life

,
the incess a nt triu m phant i m pulse

,
is to ma nife st itself in indi viduals .
From the beginning there h a s never

been a moment ,or the fracti on of a
second wh en the uni verse or the ti ni est
,
part of it b e came abstract I n the

, .
world of m atter not less than in the

organic world of ani m als and plants ,
al ways a nd e verywhere a nd forever

indi viduals ! From a tom to Sirius ,
nothing but indi viduals ! Even in the

protean trans m utation of one thing
1 4 6
A S HOR T L I ST OF BOO KS
I ha ve b een a ske d t o l ist of t he furn i h s a s or t h
books re fe rre d t o in t h e se Essa y s The t it le s I ha v e .
se t d own a re e i t h e r t h ose o f t h e e di t io n s wh i ch I
m y se l f h a v e use d or wh i ch t h e re a d e r wi ll p ro b a b l
y
fin d t he m ost con v e n e n t i to p rocur I a k e . m e no
a t te m pt t o com pil e a co m p l t e bibl iog ra p hy

e .
W R T
. . .
oise , L ove Le tte rs of

a r d a n d He l
Abe l ! Lon don : De n t
' '
.
,
1 90 1 . Te m pl e Cl a ssi cs ! .
Agr icola , L ife of Ta cit us, t r a n sl a t e d by

. Ch urch
a n d Bro d ribb ! Lo n d on : M a c m illa n ,
.
Ap ol
lon i us of Ty a n a , L ife of . By Phil
ost ra t us; En g
li sh t ra n sl a t ion by F . C Con y b e a re ! Ne w
. .
York : M a cm illa n , 1 91 2 . 2 v ol
s .
!
B r ooks, P hil
lip s . Life and Le tte rs . By A V . . G .
All e n ! Ne w York : D ut t on , 1 901 2 vol s !

. . .
B ur ke . By Jo h n Morley ! Lo n don a n d Ne w Yo rk .
M a cm illa n ,
B y r on , Le tte rs a nd j l
ou r n a s o f L or d; wi th Notice s of
His Life . By Th om as M oore .
! Pa ris: 1 83 3 .
2 v ol
s .
!
1 49
TH E ART OF BIOGR APHY
By ron , Works P oe try .
7 vo l
s . Le tte rs an d f ou r
na l
s . 6 vo s l .
! Lo n don : M urra y ; Scribn e r ,
1 89 8 -
1 904 . 1 3 v ols ! .
Ca sa rs, Li ve s of Twe l
ve By Sue t on ius; t r an sla t e d .
b y J C Ro l fe ! N Y ’
. e w or k :.Putn a m s 1 9 1 4 . . .
Lo e b Cl
a ssica lLib ra ry ! .
Ca r l
yle , Thom Hi story of Fi rst Forty Ye a rs of
as .
e s Life By J A Frou d e ! Lo n don :

’
Ca rlyl . . . .
Ch a pm a n a n d Ha ll ; Ne w Yo rk : Ch a rle s Scrib
ner s
’
Son s, 1 88 2 . 2 vo s l ! .
History of Ca rly le s L ife i n Lon

’
Ca rl l
e
y , Thom as .
don . By J . A Froud e ! Lo n don : Cha pm a n

. .
d Ha ll ; Ne w Yo rk : Cha rle s Scribn e r

’
an s Son s,
1 8 84 . 2 vo s l ! .
Ca vou r , Com te de . By Ch a rle s d e M a za de .

! P a r is
Pl
on ,
l
Ce li n i, B e n ve n uto, L ife of . Tra n sl a t e d by J . A .
Sy m on ds .
! Lo n don : Ni m m o, Al
so
t ra n s la t e d by An n e M a cdon n e l .
! Lo n don :
De n t ,
L ife En g lish
’
Cha rl
em a gne , Ei n ha rd s o f . t ra n sl
a
t oni ! Oxford : Cla re n don P re ss

.
,
l Lor d Ra n dol
Chu r chi l , p h L ife of By Wi n st o n , .
Ch urch ill ! Lo n don : M a cm . il

la n , 1 906 . 2 v ol
s .
!
a r e n don , Edwa r d Hy de , Fi rst Ea r lof
Cl . Cha r a cte rs
a nd Ep isode s o f the Gre a t Re be l
li on . Edi t e d by
G . D Boy le . .
! Oxfo r d :
Cobde n , Richa r d, Life of . By Jo hn Morl ey .

! Bos
t on : Robe r ts Bros , .
1 5 0
Goe the , L ife of By H D ii n t ze r ; t ra n sl a t e d b y
. .
T W Ly st e r
.
! Lo n don : Un win ; Ne w Yor k :
. .
M a cm ill an ,
Huxle y Cha rle s He n ry Life

, , and Le tte rs of . By h is
so n Le on a rd Huxle y
, .
! Lo n don an d Ne w
York : M a cm ill a n ! .
Im ita ti on f
o Ch r ist . By Thom as 5 Ke m pis
! Ev e ry m an s
’
Libr a ry ! .
Jfi e e ri e s, R . Story f M y He a rt
o .
! Lo n don : Lon g
m a n s,
J ohnson , Sa m ue l . L i ve s of the En glish P oe ts .

! Lo n
don : Wa rn e Ch a n dos L ibra ry !
. .
By T Ca rly le
’
J ohnson , ls L ife of
B oswe l . . . In
Cri tica l an d M isce l
la n e ous Essa ys, v ol . III .
! Lon don : Ch a p m an an d Ha ll; Ne w Yo rk

Ch a rl e s Scr ibn e r s ’
Son s .
Edit e d b y G B irkb e ck
L ife of
’
J ohnson , B oswe l
ls . .
Hill .
! Oxford : Cla re n don P re ss, 1 88 7 6 v ols ! . .
J ose p h, Story of . Ge n e srs, —

C h a p s 3 7 48 . .
Ki n gsle y Cha r le s Le tte rs a n d M e m oi rs of By M rs

, , . .
F E Kin g sle y
.
! Lon
. d o n : 1 8 77 Ab r id g e d in . .
1 v ol, .
L incoln , Abr a ha m . By Lord Ch a m wood .

! Lon
don : Con st a b le ; Ne w Yo r k : Hol
t ,
L i ncoln Abr a ha m
, A History By Ni col ay a n d . .
Ha y ! Ne w York : Ce n t ury Co 1 890 1 0 v o ls !

. .
, . .
Lou is I! By J e a n Sire de Join v il

. le Edi t ion D e , .
W a illy ! Pa ris: D idot . Al so in M e m ,
oi rs f
o the Cr usa de s . Tr a n sl
at ed by Fra n k
1 5 2
A S HORT L I S T OF BOO KS
M a n i a ls .
! Lon d on : D e n t Ev e ry m
’
an s
Lib ra ry ! .
M aca ula y, T B Com p l e t e works ! Lon d on : Lo ng

. . .
m a n s; Bo st on : Ho ug h t o n M ifi in Co Fi re sid e .
Edi t ion , 1 91 0 . 1 0 v ol
s .
!
a y , Life a n d Le tte rs of Lor d
M aca ul By his n e p h e w, .
Ge o rge Ot t o Tre v e ly a n ! Lon don : Lo n gm a n s, .
1 87 6 . Al so Ne w York : Ha rp e rs,
M a im on , Sol
om on Autobi ogr a p hy Tr a n sla t e d by
. .
J . C M urra y
. .
! Bost on : Cupp le s 81 Hurd ,
M a rcus Au re lius Eng l ish by G H Re n d a ll . . . .

! Lon
don : M a cm il
lan ,
M e tte rn i ch ie r d Ancien Re gi m
’
Un Cha nce l By
'
. e.
Ch a rle s d e M aza de ! P a ris: .
M il
l, J ohn Stua rt . Au tobi ogr a p hy . 1 87 3 .
! Lo n
don : Lo n gm a n s; Ne w York : He n ry Ho lt ,
M ore , Life f
o Si r Thom as . By W Ro pe r . . L
! n
o
do n :
M orle y , J ohn . Re colle cti ons ! Lon don a n d Ne w
.
York : M a cm ill a n , 1 91 7 2 v ol s !
. .
P a lm Alice Fre e m Life of By G H P a lm e r

‘
e r, an, . . . .
B
! ost on : Ho ugh t on M ifllin Co .
,
’ ’ ’
P asca l Bl
a ise P e nse e s, d a p r e s le d
'
de B r un
'
, . .
schri gg ! Lon don : De n t Colle ct ion G a lli a !

.
, .
P aste u r Louis , Life of P aste u r By R Va lle ry . . .
Ra d or ! Lo n d on : N ut t Be rry ; Ne w Yo rk
.
-
D o u ble day Pa g e 81 Co 1 902 2 vol s! , .

, . .
P m Wil
, lia m Life of By Phil ip He n ry St a n ho p e
, .
,
fift h Ea rl St a n ho p e ! Lon don : 1 8 7 9 4 v ols ! . . .
I S3
Pl
uta r ch s
’
Li ve s . Th e lle d Dry d e n s
t ra n sl
a t on ca i ’
,
co rr e ct e d from t he Gre e k a n d re v ise d by A H . .
Clough .
! L i ve r poo l : He n ry Yo un g 1 883 3 , .
v ol s !.
Rousse a u . By J h n M o r le y
o .
! Lon d on : M a cm i ll an ,
1 91 5 . 2 vo s l ! .
St Augusti n e
. Confe ssi ons Tr a n sl a t e
. . d by E B . .
Puse y ! Lo n on.: C h a t d
t o 8: W n i d us ,
Also at e d
t r a n sl by W Wa t t s
.
, 1 63 1 .
! Lo n d on
He in e m ann, 1 9 1 2 . 2 v o ls ! .
St Fr a n cis, The
. Li ttle Flowe rs of .
! Fiore t t i ! Tra n s .
l a t e d by T W Arn o l d . . .
! Lo n don : De n t , 1 89 8 .
Te m p le Cl a ssi cs ! .
St Fr a n cis
. . Life of St Fr a n cis of Assisi By P a ul . .
Sa b a t ie r .
! Lo n don : Hodd e r a n d St o ug h t on ;
Ne w York : Ch a rl e s Scri b n e r s Son s ’
,
Schi l
le r , Fr i e d r i ch , Life f
o . By Thom Ca rly le
as .
! Lon don : Ch a p m an an d Ha ll ; Ne w York

Ch a rle s Scri b n e r
’
s So n s,
Schi l
l e r , Life of By H D ii n tze r ; En g l sh t r a n sl
. a . i
t ion by P E P n ke r t on ! Lon don : M a cm ll a n ,
. . i . i
Scott, Si r Wa lte r , Life f

o . By J . G Lockh a rt
. .
! Edin b urg h : C a d e ll, 1 83 9 .

9 vol
s .
!
Socra te s, M e m ia o
or a bi l f the L ife of . By ! e no p hon .
! Lo n don : De n t Ev e ry m Lib ra ry !
’
, 1 91 3 . an s .
Ste rl
i n g, J ohn , L ife of . By Th o m asCa rly le ! Lo n .
do n : Ch a pm an an d Ha ll; Ne w Yo rk : Ch a rl
es
i
Scr b n e r
’
s Son s,
1 54

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Un i ve rsi ty f

THE ART OF BIOGRAPHY

By J ohn H enry Wig m ore

m ORIG IN S O F THE TRIP L E ALLIAN CE

THE EARLY LIT RARY E CAR EER OF O

C HARLES S CR IB NER S SONS

z u r n AND Lm zns or JOHN n u

CHARLES SCRIB NER S SON S ’

The Un ive rsi ty of Vi rgi n i a is in de b t e d

sci e n ce The con di tion s o f t h e Foun d a tion

BIOGRAP HY IN ANT I Q U ITY

B IOGRAP HY IN THE N I N ETEE NTH

next to th a t of self preserva tion-

the most impera tive of a ll I t includes .

not merely the desire to le ave ﬂ e sh a nd -

blood progeny but a lso a fter huma n ,

being s h ave re a c hed a ce rt a in intel

symbols of t heir t hough ts a nd e xp e ri

their p a ssions I n the slow course of

ages the s avage com es to rega rd hi m

m ate unit in his tribe or cl a n Later

he discovers that he is a p e r son a ,

being through whom som e other being ,

more than hu m an mysterio u sly speaks

dowm ent of expression faculties more

delicate talents whic h he learns to con

M any of his records are u n p re m e di

He did not dream t ha t they would be

The rough daubings on the walls of an

As men beco me more civilized how

ever they labor consciously to express

t he m selves They feel an inner urging

to register remarkable events A long .

ti m e passes before the private indi

the re is but one dominant person

their community so the mon a rch is

t he subject a round wh om t h e c h ronicle

reign of Tigla t h P ile se r

the mon a rch continues to be for a long

ful ; neither his features nor his traits

women over whom a mon a rch reign ed ,

nature indi vidualized ; e a ch knew joy,

hope or t h e bitterness of desp a ir ; you

cannot lessen t h e weariness and pain

generalizing Still other generations

must elapse before any individual lower

Consider for a momen t how arro

his t houghts his passions ! I n t h e

fa ce of I nﬁnity and of Eternity what ,

is he but a speck ? I s any particular

bubble on the ever ﬂ owin g strea m of

Nile or Am azon an iridescent bea m

singled out for lasting re m e m brance ?

that the dart of light which reveals the

we could would we preserve to night s

Sirian ray rather than to morrow s ? -

are m en and man is the measure for

us With difﬁculty and stri ving and

m any doubts a nd tears we can come

to an understanding of our duty here .

The time tests of astronomy do not

that we too are parts of the universe

a nd should conduct ourselves wit h a ll