Notoriety

“ For I have come, not from obscurity into the momentary notoriety of crime, but from a sort of eternity of fame to a sort of eternity of infamy, and sometimes seem to myself to have shown, if indeed it required showing, that between the famous and the infamous there is but one step, if as much as one. ”

“ But if by fame the aspirant means having his name brought before and kept before the public, there is a much cheaper way of acquiring that kind of notoriety. Have your portrait taken as a “Wonderful Cure of a Desperate Disease given up by all the Doctors.” You will get a fair likeness of yourself and a partial biographical notice, and have the satisfaction, if not of promoting the welfare of the community, at least that of advancing the financial interests of the benefactor whose enterprise has given you your coveted notoriety. ”

“ When twenty thousand of him find time to look up between mouthfuls and grunt something about something they aren’t the least interested in, the net result is called fame, reputation, or notoriety, according to the taste and fancy of the speller my lord. ”

“ Reputation is favorable notoriety as distinguished from fame, which is permanent approval of great deeds or noble thoughts by the best intelligence of mankind. ”

“ But the real satisfaction that they get out of it all is simply the feeling of notoriety, the sense of belonging to a circle to which ordinary people are not admitted and to whose doings the world, just for this reason, pays envious attention. ”

“ Of course no fame is actually worth much now-a-days,—because it is not classic fame, strong in reposeful old-world dignity,—it is blatant noisy notoriety merely. ”

“ They’re the kind of people that might be called ‘classy.’ I never use that word, but somehow it seems to fit them. They want notoriety, the same as the people in the country papers who have their back fence painted. ”

“ By standing still. Profound meditation on the philosophy of modern society has convinced me that the only way left for acquiring notoriety is to do nothing. Every other way has been exploited and is suspected. ”

“ It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death. The dust-cloud of notoriety which follows and envelopes the men who drive with the wind bewilders contemporary judgment. ”

“ For, my lords, what is the evidence of common fame, which has been so much exalted, and so confidently produced? Does not every man see that, on such occasions, two questions may be asked, of which, perhaps, neither can easily be answered, and which, yet, must both be resolved before common fame can be admitted as a proof of facts. ”

“ Is fame, my lords, that fame which cannot err? a report that flies, on a sudden, through a nation, of which no man can discover the original; a sudden blast of rumour, that inflames or intimidates a people, and obtains, without authority, a general credit? No man versed in history can inquire whether such reports may not deceive. Is fame rather a settled opinion, prevailing by degrees, and for some time established? How long, then, my lords, and in what degree must it have been established, to obtain undoubted credit, and when does it commence infallible? ”

“ There is not, in all the politics, a place less handled and more worthy to be handled, than this of fame. We will therefore speak of these points: What are false fames; and what are true fames; and how they may be best discerned; how fames may be sown, and raised; how they may be spread, and multiplied; and how they may be checked, and laid dead. And other things concerning the nature of fame. ”

“ Here is the royal road to fame: get together a small and select audience of connoisseurs, real experts, whose praise, whose blame are equally to be relied upon; display your skill to these; and if you can win their approval, you may rest content that in a single hour you have gained a national reputation. I argue thus. If you are known to be an admirable performer by persons who are themselves universally known and admired, what have you to do with public opinion? Public opinion must inevitably follow the opinion of the best judges. ”

“ This is emphatically a work of our age. Its life is its TRUTH. Its breath its FACT. It is history in the guise of fiction, history whose accuracy is attested by public records and State documents. Each character is a living reality. ”

“ How difficult it is for the historian who tries to be impartial to arrive at the exact truth in regard to the sentiments and opinions of the illustrious personages who have filled the world with their fame! ”

“ Suppose a man should ask at what time this state supported the most illustrious reputation—in the present days, or in those of our ancestors? With one voice you would reply, "In the days of our ancestors." At what time did our citizens display the greatest merit—then or now? ”

“ Not for many years has a work of such extraordinary interest been given to the reading public. It is the mart of news, of scandal, of rumour, of intrigue, of a galaxy of princes, courtiers, men and women of rank and fashion, of sullied virtue and invidious attachments. ”

“ Common fame is the only authority which I can allege for the details which form the basis of the poem, and I must trespass upon the forgiveness of my readers for the display of newspaper erudition to which I have been reduced. ”

“ At first, seeming to feel that every passer-by, white or black, must fathom and divine his secret. he presently gained self-confidence once more. Even a pride, a sense of power now began to grow in him.
That he, just one of the army of underlings in a minor office, should by chance hold in his hands—skilled only to the typewriter and the reporter’s pencil—secrets of state, perhaps, matters of life, death, national fate, the destiny of nations, thrilled him with a sudden flare of joy. ”

“ I have sometimes tried to compel the public to return to the truth and to destroy the legendary side of certain personages whom history, with all its documents, now represents to us as they were in reality, but the public never followed me. ”

“ How much more numerous is the list of those, whose abilities not rising beyond the circle of social usefulness have lived "obscure to fame," yet owe the pleasure they imparted to their friends, and the beguilement of many troubles inseparable from mortality, to the fruits of their university studies, and to a partial unrolling before them of that map of knowledge, which before those of loftier claims and some hold upon fame had been more amply displayed! ”

“ But what an indulgence must it have furnished to the national curiosity, which, seeing the origin of all things in individual character, justly regards the eminent characters of that day as the founders of every remarkable change which has shaped the constitution in our own! Public life has never before or since abounded in such variety, strength, and brilliancy of character. ”

“ An historian who should essay to compile the biography of a public man of today, even from the daily and weekly journals which are filled with personal gossip about those upon whom the attention of the public is fixed, would find such a mass of contradictions to deal with that he would abandon his task in despair ”

“ For if a fine spun story, consisting merely of fictions told of things done among the spirits below, tends much to the promoting of piety and justice, how much more then may we conclude that history, the most noble assertrix of truth, and very metropolis (as it were) of all philosophy, may adorn the manners of men which principles of justice and honesty? ”

“ But I will suppose you to write the history of a prince who had reposed in you a secret—ought you to reveal that secret? Ought you to say to all posterity what you would be criminal in disclosing to a single individual? Should the duty of an historian prevail over the higher and more imperative duty of a man? ”

“ And it is of inestimable value to any people to obtain such a narrative, which shall comprehend all epochs, be true to fact and, while resting on thorough research, yet be attractive to the reader; for only by this aid can the nation attain to a perfect self-consciousness, and feeling the pulsation of its life throughout the story, become fully acquainted with its own origin and growth and character. ”

“ Who better than the writer of the Essays could have painted a series of miniatures of the courts of Elizabeth and James?
When at last the political upheaval of this century compelled men to leave, whether in histories, or memoirs, or biographies, a record of what they had themselves experienced, the character attained to its full importance and excellence. ”

“ There is scarcely a page without some memorable statement by some memorable man. Politics and society and literature—the three great interests that make up life—are all discussed in turn, and there is no discussion which is unproductive of weighty thought or striking fact.”—Athenæum. ”

“ Private interests and the lives of individual men were what they had to think about and talk about; and just in so far as they were involved in gossip, they were debarred from the achievements of political history, and equally inclined to that sort of record in which individual lives are everything. ”

“ Some of the ways in which Literature may illustrate History are obvious enough. In the poems, the songs, the dramas, the novels, the satires, the speeches, even the speculative treatises, of any time or nation, there is imbedded a wealth of direct particulars respecting persons and events, additional to the information that has been transmitted in the formal records of that time or nation, or in its express histories of itself. ”

“ With great powers and great learning, much opportunity and earnest invitation, he has done but little to secure a posthumous reputation. A few disputative tracts, originating in personal and local altercation, some scattered volumes, manifesting his political creed, attachments, and speculations, and a few sermons on particular subjects and occasions, form the entire works of an individual, who might have enlightened, instructed, and adorned society. ”

“ Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who pretend to write anecdotes, or secret history; who send so many kings to their graves with a cup of poison; will repeat the discourse between a prince and a chief minister, where no witness was by; unlock the thoughts and cabinets of ambassadors and secretaries of state; and have the perpetual misfortune to be mistaken. Here I discovered the secret causes of many great events that have surprised the world. ”

“ Probably no other country furnishes so singular a fact, as that of being for two centuries without information much better than tradition, and accumulated diversities of opinions freely indulged in, respecting the political and private character, and inventive talent of one of its most remarkable, interesting, and glorious benefactors. ”

“ Choose, then, the events that all share in common if they are of value in giving a framework for your narrative [Pg 277] presentation, but especially choose those events that in their nature illuminate the personality and complement your analysis.
We think of events as being public. There is also the hero's private life. Often, especially with the more humble heroes, the home life is more important than the public deeds, brings out more clearly the real man than any amount of marching in the market place or discussing in the public square. ”

“ The breath of their life is in the columns of 'Literary Gossip;' and they should be allowed to perish with the weekly advertisements on which they pasture. Reviewing, of course, there must needs be; but great minds should only criticise the great who have passed beyond the reach of eulogy or fault-finding. ”

“ Without attempting to take too seriously an amusing story printed in a recent issue of a New York newspaper, leaders in movements and industries of modern life will be inclined to agree with the protagonist of publicity spoken of. According to the story, a man set out to prove to another that it was not so much what a man did as the way it was heralded which insures his place in history. ”

“ Even the strongest impression proves nothing as to the historical truth of these accounts. Even an account of a fictitious personage may produce the deepest impression on a community if it is given in historical terms. ”

“ Admitting these observations to be true, there is, nevertheless, a distinction to be drawn between the materials for a history of action and those for one of feeling; between the labors of men aiming at distinction among their fellow-beings, and the private, familiar sentiments that run into the texture of the social system, without remark or the hope of observation. ”

“ Others will be drawn towards the dramatic and personal elements in history, primarily as they appear in the lives of famous individual men, secondarily as they are seen, more dimly but not less impressively, in groups and masses of men, and in a nation at large, and will also observe and dwell upon incidents of private life or features of social and religious custom, which the student of stately politics passes by. ”

“ Others, no less able and conscientious, and no less learned, have re-admitted tradition to investigation, and have made it their special care to pick out the historical grain from the chaff of fiction. ”

“ Doubts, beliefs , suspicions and truths addled with syllables which make a name. Common populace , will they choose to know the truth and live with the measure of a human being or swallow myth and live with the flight of legend ? ”

“ The men who published their noble-mindedness, their earnestness, their love of morality and religion, their patriotism, &c., in the great market-place of publicity, always seemed to him either to be angling for applause or to be actuated by some business motive. ”

“ As a result, we have particularly assumed the duty in our historical novels, or romanticized histories, of telling things which no one has told before, and of relating matters which we know, but of which very few persons share that knowledge with us. ”