Biographer

“ The wealth of detail with which she enriches her splendid story makes it a biography, or a cluster of biographies; and considered as biographies, these people are a vivid success, and all that extreme plausibility we have noted, all that conscientious dove-tailing of traits and circumstance, falls lightly and easily and beautifully into place as the brilliant and convincing effort of a biographer to explain her people, reconcile their self-contradictions, put them in the right light before the world, in the light in which they saw themselves and in which they saw each other. ”

“ To take out one of these side figures of history, and to make it the centre of a separate picture, grouping round it all the great events and characters among which it moved, is the work of a biographer. And by many it will be felt that nothing invests the general history of any period with such a living interest as viewing it through the light of some one human life. ”

“ Less stress, however, can be laid on the “agreed to” in regard to biography, because whereas history is officially admitted to be true, biography, not dealing exclusively with facts, is the stepping stone between fiction and history. Indeed, the fictionist is a biographer; when he creates a type of individual, he becomes his biographer, all the more so since the type exists only in his imagination. ”

“ The qualification for a biographer is not in the least that he is a virtuous person, or a second cousin, or a dear friend, or a trusty colleague; but that he knows how to write a book, has tact, style, taste, considerateness, sense of proportion, and a good eye for the beginnings and ends of things. ”

“ The chief duty of the biographer, then, is to discover the life-problem of his hero, to understand it, to learn how the hero came by it, how he tried to solve it, and what its significance is. Now this is much more easily accomplished with the personalities who have closed their span of existence than with those whom we know still living, with their answer to their problem yet incomplete. ”

“ Nor is this generation of biographers dead today. Half the lives of the great and good men, which are published in England and America, are expanded tracts. Let the biographer be tactful, but do not let him be cowardly; let him cultivate delicacy, but avoid its ridiculous parody, prudery.
And I also quote this from James Anthony Froude:
The usual custom in biography is to begin with the brightest side and to leave the faults to be discovered afterwards. ”

“ We say to the biographer: “Let your subject, as far as may be, tell us of himself; give us any fragments of autobiography or journals which may be in existence; print copiously of his letters.” The wise writer of biography does so; and the most valuable portions of the life of a man of note are those in which he speaks himself. Let Michael Angelo, with candle stuck in his pasteboard cap, teach those who undertake to show us a character in whom there is a public interest; let them keep their own shadows off the canvas. ”

“ Some may perhaps imagine that the value of biography depends upon the judgment and taste of the biographer; but on the contrary it may be maintained, that the merits of a biographer are inversely as the extent of his intellectual powers and of his literary talents. A plain unvarnished tale is preferable to the most highly ornamented narrative. ”

“ Such a biographer should make himself master of all that has been recorded by various authorities, and should then visit a large number of rookeries in all parts of the kingdom, collecting and sifting evidence, making a series of personal observations, and spreading his researches over all seasons of the year. ”

“ To use the words of one who had experience in a similar undertaking: "The biographer of our day is too often perplexed in the toil of his researches after adequate information for composing the history of men who were an honor to their age, and of whom posterity is anxious to know whatever may be added to increase the need of that veneration, which, from deficient knowledge, they can but imperfectly bestow." ”

“ I am well aware that the path of the biographer is beset with pitfalls, and that, for him, suppressio veri is almost necessarily suggestio falsi—the least omission may distort the whole picture. ”

“ Nothing is so essential to a biographer as an eye that can distinguish at a glance between real events that are the levers of thought and action, and what Donne calls "unconcerning things, matters of fact,"—between substantial personages, whose contact or even neighborhood is influential, and the supernumeraries that serve first to fill up a stage and afterwards the interstices of a biographical dictionary. ”

“ If the materials, of which history and biography are made—the sources of information—were accessible to every reader, and the patience and ability were his, to examine for himself, there is, probably, no historian nor biographer, in whose accuracy and impartiality, his confidence would not be occasionally weakened. ”

“ A collection of letters is one thing, a biography another; and they do not mix well when a career abounds in incident. Letters are material for biography, as original documents are material for history; but as documents are not history, so letters are not biography. The historian and biographer by publishing virtually contract to present their readers with a digested, reasoned whole; the best expression, full yet balanced, that they can give of the truth concerning a period, or a man. ”

“ There is nothing so attractive to a biographer as to complete the fragments of his hero's life; and, almost as children trace the forms of {Pg 301} animals and landscapes in the fire, by fixing the eye on salient particles, so a few words suffice to give "local habitation and a name," to such emotions as the poet has made the subject of his verse. To do this, and by an accurate investigation of dates, and a careful sifting of concomitant circumstances to discover the veiled event, is often the art of biography—but we must not be seduced too far. ”

“ If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the public curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness, overpower his fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. ”

“ So it should seem if we judged by the fact that biography, and especially that of men of letters, tends more and more towards these indecent exposures. The concern of the biographer should be with the mind, and not with the body of his victim. ”

“ If there be justice in these remarks, the general historian even should not lightly pass over the incidents of the private life of those eminent men whose public deeds it is his duty to record; but with the biographer such facts are of essential importance, not only as they develope the character of the subject of his biography, but as they establish or contradict the sincerity and truth of the alleged motives and principles of his public acts. ”

“ WATT Those who by cultivating the arts of peace have risen from obscurity to fame and wealth, seldom leave to the biographer such ample memorials of their private lives as he could wish to work upon. The details of a life spent in the laboratory or in the workshop rarely present much variety; or possess much interest, except when treated scientifically for the benefit of the scientific reader. ”

“ The biographer must be objective; he must be able to perceive quickly, to understand readily, to grasp, gather and evaluate facts, to fuse his material into a homogeneous mass, to stamp it with style, and mix with his literary qualities a certain amount of hero-worship. Self-consciousness has no place in his work; he may efface himself as much as he wishes, and recent biographies have proved that the more he does it, the greater his achievement. ”

“ Desire to visit Modena; Mazzini; Post Office Espionage; Biographer’s Personal Reminiscences; Portland Vase; Psalter, 1457; Interview with Francis IV; Libri.
In the honest endeavour to represent a man as he really was, both in his inward and his outward bearings, the biographer has much difficulty to encounter. It behoves him to reproduce a life with special regard to dates, with no matter likely to confuse a reader, or to press too heavily on his understanding ”

“ Such writings often contain much that is not pure narration. A historian may set forth merely the program of events, but most histories contain besides a large amount of description and explanation. Frequently, too, all of this is but the basis of either a direct or an implied argument. Likewise a biographer may be chiefly concerned with the acts of a man, but he usually finds that the introduction of description and explanation aids him in making clear the life purpose of the man about whom he writes. ”

“ Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written. Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving an intelligible account of it? ”

“ But leaving the poor poet, with his sorrows, to the regular biographer, we choose rather the lighter task of relating the history of the letter itself; a man's works are often preferred before himself, and it is believed that in this, the day of autographs, no further apology will be needed for the course taken on the present occasion. We hold ourselves, indeed, entitled to the especial gratitude of collectors for the following sketch of a document maintaining so high a rank in their estimation. ”

“ but the Business of the Biographer is often to pass slightly over those Performances and Incidents, which produce vulgar Greatness, to lead the Thoughts into domestick Privacies, and display the minute Details of daily Life, where exterior Appendages are cast aside, and Men excel each other only by Prudence, and by Virtue. ”

“ It is the usual practice with biographers to dwell at length and in explanation upon the discoveries and doctrines of the object of their labors, forgetting, apparently, that these things are almost universally known already, and that the main design of a biography should be to make public and illustrate the private life of those whom the world already knows as philosophers, statesmen, divines, or otherwise. ”

“ In the second place a biographer must set forth if he can the materials for the severest judgment on his subject, and in the case of a man whose fame was built on his honesty, but who certainly had an aptitude for ingenious tricks and took a humorous delight in them, this duty might involve a tedious examination of many unimportant incidents. ”

“ All physicians do not use the same method to diagnosticate disease. Some do it by painstaking analysis of the symptoms; others by process of elimination. One biographer reveals the spiritual and physical development of the individual by narrating his conduct, relating his successes and failures and by giving detailed accounts of his forebears and environment; another takes the individual, endows him with certain distinctive qualities and then proceeds to analyse, and later to synthetise them for our approbation, admiration, or amazement. ”

“ Biography and History, which have always formed a conspicuous portion of the contents, will retain the prominence assigned them, and will be treated with the added breadth that springs from increased familiarity with authorities and more exact appreciation of the province of the Biographer and the Historian. ”

“ Very soon, however, he settled down to the career of a journalist and man of letters, and achieved some reputation as a versifier, a biographer, and author of popular historical and topographical sketches. ”

“ An insertion here occurs in the manuscript, which has the appearance of having been written at a subsequent period, and introduced in this place, as if to preserve something like chronological accuracy.
“The man of whom a concise account is now about to be given, in every respect, whether we consider his talents, his virtues, or his fortunes, merits a more circumstantial detail, and a better biographer. His father was a very respectable tradesman in a provincial town, where he arrived at honours, bestowed only on the most eminent and most opulent citizens. ”

“ Especially in the case of autobiography is all this true, for here we have the pleasure of feeling that the record is both authentic and intimate. The best of biographers, however learned, vivid, or philosophical, leaves between us and the past an interval which only a good autobiography can span. Such an autobiography may possess great historical value if its author was intimately connected with significant events and had some capacity to perceive their causes and their effects. ”

“ Many modern biographers, we regret to say, do not appear to be influenced by any such consideration. They never seem to have asked themselves the question—Would my friend, if he had been compiling his own memoirs, have inserted such a letter for publication—does it not refer to a matter eminently private and personal, and never to be communicated to the world? Instead of applying this test, they print everything, and rather plume themselves on their impartiality in suppressing nothing. They thus exhibit the life not only of the author but of the man. ”

“ How often does the novelist feel, ay, and the historian also and the biographer, that he has conceived within his mind and accurately depicted on the tablet of his brain the full character and personage of a man, and that nevertheless, when he flies to pen and ink to perpetuate the portrait, his words forsake, elude, disappoint, and play the deuce with him, till at the end of a dozen pages the man described has no more resemblance to the man conceived than the signboard at the corner of the street has to the Duke of Cambridge? ”