"Books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good,
Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness can grow."--WORDSWORTH.
"Not only in the common speech of men, but in all art too--
which is or should be the concentrated and conserved essence
of what men can speak and show--Biography is almost the one
thing needful" --CARLYLE.
"I read all biographies with intense interest. Even a man
without a heart, like Cavendish, I think about, and read
about, and dream about, and picture to myself in all
possible ways, till he grows into a living being beside me,
and I put my feet into his shoes, and become for the time
Cavendish, and think as he thought, and do as he did."
--GEORGE WILSON.
"My thoughts are with the dead; with them
I live in long-past years;
Their virtues love, their faults condemn;
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind."--SOUTHEY.
A man may usually be known by the books he reads, as well as by the
company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of
men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of
books or of men.
A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same to-day
that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and
cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of
adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness;
amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in
age.
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they
have for a book--just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the
admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb,
"Love me, love my dog." But there is more wisdom in this: "Love me, love
my book." The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think,
feel, and sympathise with each other through their favourite author.
They live in him together, and he in them.
"Books," said Hazlitt, "wind into the heart; the poet's verse slides
into the current of our blood. We read them when young, we remember them
when old. We read there of what has happened to others; we feel that it
has happened to ourselves. They are to be had everywhere cheap and good.
We breathe but the air of books. We owe everything to their authors, on
this side barbarism."
A good book is often the best urn of a life, enshrining the best
thoughts of which that life was capable; for the world of a man's life
is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the
best books are treasuries of good words and golden thoughts, which,
remembered and cherished, become our abiding companions and comforters.
"They are never alone," said Sir Philip Sidney, "that are accompanied by
noble thoughts." The good and true thought may in time of temptation be
as an angel of mercy purifying and guarding the soul. It also enshrines
the germs of action, for good words almost invariably inspire to good
works.
Thus Sir Henry Lawrence prized above all other compositions Wordsworth's
'Character of the Happy Warrior,' which he endeavoured to embody in
his own life. It was ever before him as an exemplar. He thought of it
continually, and often quoted it to others. His biographer says: "He
tried to conform his own life and to assimilate his own character to it;
and he succeeded, as all men succeed who are truly in earnest." [191]
Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most
lasting products of human effort. Temples crumble into ruin; pictures
and statues decay; but books survive. Time is of no account with great
thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through
their authors' minds ages ago. What was then said and thought still
speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect
of time has been to sift and winnow out the bad products; for nothing in
literature can long survive but what is really good. [192]
Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the
presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what
they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we are
participators in their thoughts; we sympathise with them, enjoy with
them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if
we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.
The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books
their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an
intellect to which one still listens. Hence we ever remain under the
influence of the great men of old:
"The dead but sceptred sovrans, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns."
The imperial intellects of the world are as much alive now as they were
ages ago. Homer still lives; and though his personal history is hidden
in the mists of antiquity, his poems are as fresh to-day as if they had
been newly written. Plato still teaches his transcendent philosophy;
Horace, Virgil, and Dante still sing as when they lived; Shakspeare is
not dead: his body was buried in 1616, but his mind is as much alive
in England now, and his thought as far-reaching, as in the time of the
Tudors.
The humblest and poorest may enter the society of these great spirits
without being thought intrusive. All who can read have got the ENTREE.
Would you laugh?--Cervantes or Rabelais will laugh with you. Do you
grieve?--there is Thomas a Kempis or Jeremy Taylor to grieve with
and console you. Always it is to books, and the spirits of great men
embalmed in them, that we turn, for entertainment, for instruction and
solace--in joy and in sorrow, as in prosperity and in adversity.
Man himself is, of all things in the world, the most interesting to
man. Whatever relates to human life--its experiences, its joys, its
sufferings, and its achievements--has usually attractions for him beyond
all else. Each man is more or less interested in all other men as his
fellow-creatures--as members of the great family of humankind; and the
larger a man's culture, the wider is the range of his sympathies in all
that affects the welfare of his race.
Men's interest in each other as individuals manifests itself in a
thousand ways--in the portraits which they paint, in the busts which
they carve, in the narratives which they relate of each other. "Man,"
says Emerson, "can paint, or make, or think, nothing but Man." Most of
all is this interest shown in the fascination which personal history
possesses for him. "Man s sociality of nature," says Carlyle, "evinces
itself, in spite of all that can be said, with abundance of evidence, by
this one fact, were there no other: the unspeakable delight he takes in
Biography."
Great, indeed, is the human interest felt in biography! What are all
the novels that find such multitudes of readers, but so many fictitious
biographies? What are the dramas that people crowd to see, but so much
acted biography? Strange that the highest genius should be employed on
the fictitious biography, and so much commonplace ability on the real!
Yet the authentic picture of any human being's life and experience ought
to possess an interest greatly beyond that which is fictitious, inasmuch
as it has the charm of reality. Every person may learn something from
the recorded life of another; and even comparatively trivial deeds and
sayings may be invested with interest, as being the outcome of the lives
of such beings as we ourselves are.
The records of the lives of good men are especially useful. They
influence our hearts, inspire us with hope, and set before us great
examples. And when men have done their duty through life in a great
spirit, their influence will never wholly pass away. "The good life,"
says George Herbert, "is never out of season."
Goethe has said that there is no man so commonplace that a wise man may
not learn something from him. Sir Walter Scott could not travel in a
coach without gleaning some information or discovering some new trait
of character in his companions. [193] Dr. Johnson once observed that
there was not a person in the streets but he should like to know his
biography--his experiences of life, his trials, his difficulties, his
successes, and his failures. How much more truly might this be said
of the men who have made their mark in the world's history, and have
created for us that great inheritance of civilization of which we are
the possessors! Whatever relates to such men--to their habits,
their manners, their modes of living, their personal history, their
conversation, their maxims, their virtues, or their greatness--is always
full of interest, of instruction, of encouragement, and of example.
The great lesson of Biography is to show what man can be and do at his
best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to
others. It exhibits what life is capable of being made. It refreshes
our spirit, encourages our hopes, gives us new strength and courage
and faith--faith in others as well as in ourselves. It stimulates our
aspirations, rouses us to action, and incites us to become co-partners
with them in their work. To live with such men in their biographies, and
to be inspired by their example, is to live with the best of men, and to
mix in the best of company.
At the head of all biographies stands the Great Biography, the Book
of Books. And what is the Bible, the most sacred and impressive of all
books--the educator of youth, the guide of manhood, and the consoler
of age--but a series of biographies of great heroes and patriarchs,
prophets, kings, and judges, culminating in the greatest biography of
all, the Life embodied in the New Testament? How much have the great
examples there set forth done for mankind! How many have drawn from
them their truest strength, their highest wisdom, their best nurture and
admonition! Truly does a great Roman Catholic writer describe the Bible
as a book whose words "live in the ear like a music that can never be
forgotten--like the sound of church bells which the convert hardly knows
how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather
than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of
national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it, The potent
traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of
all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the
representative of his best moments, and all that has been about him of
soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him for
ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has
never dimmed and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of
the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness about
him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible." [194]
It would, indeed, be difficult to overestimate the influence which the
lives of the great and good have exercised upon the elevation of human
character. "The best biography," says Isaac Disraeli, "is a reunion with
human existence in its most excellent state." Indeed, it is impossible
for one to read the lives of good men, much less inspired men,
without being unconsciously lighted and lifted up in them, and growing
insensibly nearer to what they thought and did. And even the lives of
humbler persons, of men of faithful and honest spirit, who have done
their duty in life well, are not without an elevating influence upon the
character of those who come after them.
History itself is best studied in biography. Indeed, history is
biography--collective humanity as influenced and governed by individual
men. "What is all history," says Emerson, "but the work of ideas, a
record of the incomparable energy which his infinite aspirations
infuse into man?" In its pages it is always persons we see more than
principles. Historical events are interesting to us mainly in connection
with the feelings, the sufferings, and interests of those by whom they
are accomplished. In history we are surrounded by men long dead, but
whose speech and whose deeds survive. We almost catch the sound of their
voices; and what they did constitutes the interest of history. We never
feel personally interested in masses of men; but we feel and sympathise
with the individual actors, whose biographies afford the finest and most
real touches in all great historical dramas.
Among the great writers of the past, probably the two that have been
most influential in forming the characters of great men of action and
great men of thought, have been Plutarch and Montaigne--the one by
presenting heroic models for imitation, the other by probing questions
of constant recurrence in which the human mind in all ages has taken the
deepest interest. And the works of both are for the most part cast in
a biographic form, their most striking illustrations consisting in the
exhibitions of character and experience which they contain.
Plutarch's 'Lives,' though written nearly eighteen hundred years ago,
like Homer's 'Iliad,' still holds its ground as the greatest work of
its kind. It was the favourite book of Montaigne; and to Englishmen it
possesses the special interest of having been Shakspeare's principal
authority in his great classical dramas. Montaigne pronounced Plutarch
to be "the greatest master in that kind of writing"--the biographic;
and he declared that he "could no sooner cast an eye upon him but he
purloined either a leg or a wing."
Alfieri was first drawn with passion to literature by reading Plutarch.
"I read," said he, "the lives of Timoleon, Caesar, Brutus, Pelopidas,
more than six times, with cries, with tears, and with such transports,
that I was almost furious.... Every time that I met with one of the
grand traits of these great men, I was seized with such vehement
agitation as to be unable to sit still." Plutarch was also a favourite
with persons of such various minds as Schiller and Benjamin Franklin,
Napoleon and Madame Roland. The latter was so fascinated by the book
that she carried it to church with her in the guise of a missal, and
read it surreptitiously during the service.
It has also been the nurture of heroic souls such as Henry IV. of
France, Turenne, and the Napiers. It was one of Sir William Napier's
favourite books when a boy. His mind was early imbued by it with
a passionate admiration for the great heroes of antiquity; and
its influence had, doubtless, much to do with the formation of his
character, as well as the direction of his career in life. It is related
of him, that in his last illness, when feeble and exhausted, his mind
wandered back to Plutarch's heroes; and he descanted for hours to his
son-in-law on the mighty deeds of Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar.
Indeed, if it were possible to poll the great body of readers in all
ages whose minds have been influenced and directed by books, it is
probable that--excepting always the Bible--the immense majority of votes
would be cast in favour of Plutarch.
And how is it that Plutarch has succeeded in exciting an interest which
continues to attract and rivet the attention of readers of all ages and
classes to this day? In the first place, because the subject of his work
is great men, who occupied a prominent place in the world's history, and
because he had an eye to see and a pen to describe the more prominent
events and circumstances in their lives. And not only so, but he
possessed the power of portraying the individual character of his
heroes; for it is the principle of individuality which gives the charm
and interest to all biography. The most engaging side of great men is
not so much what they do as what they are, and does not depend upon
their power of intellect but on their personal attractiveness. Thus,
there are men whose lives are far more eloquent than their speeches, and
whose personal character is far greater than their deeds.
It is also to be observed, that while the best and most carefully-drawn
of Plutarch's portraits are of life-size, many of them are little more
than busts. They are well-proportioned but compact, and within such
reasonable compass that the best of them--such as the lives of Caesar
and Alexander--may be read in half an hour. Reduced to this measure,
they are, however, greatly more imposing than a lifeless Colossus, or
an exaggerated giant. They are not overlaid by disquisition and
description, but the characters naturally unfold themselves. Montaigne,
indeed, complained of Plutarch's brevity. "No doubt," he added, "but
his reputation is the better for it, though in the meantime we are the
worse. Plutarch would rather we should applaud his judgment than commend
his knowledge, and had rather leave us with an appetite to read more
than glutted with what we have already read. He knew very well that a
man may say too much even on the best subjects.... Such as have lean
and spare bodies stuff themselves out with clothes; so they who are
defective in matter, endeavour to make amends with words." [195]
Plutarch possessed the art of delineating the more delicate features
of mind and minute peculiarities of conduct, as well as the foibles
and defects of his heroes, all of which is necessary to faithful and
accurate portraiture. "To see him," says Montaigne, "pick out a light
action in a man's life, or a word, that does not seem to be of any
importance, is itself a whole discourse." He even condescends to
inform us of such homely particulars as that Alexander carried his head
affectedly on one side; that Alcibiades was a dandy, and had a lisp,
which became him, giving a grace and persuasive turn to his discourse;
that Cato had red hair and gray eyes, and was a usurer and a screw,
selling off his old slaves when they became unfit for hard work; that
Caesar was bald and fond of gay dress; and that Cicero [19like Lord
Brougham] had involuntary twitchings of his nose.
Such minute particulars may by some be thought beneath the dignity of
biography, but Plutarch thought them requisite for the due finish of
the complete portrait which he set himself to draw; and it is by
small details of character--personal traits, features, habits, and
characteristics--that we are enabled to see before us the men as they
really lived. Plutarch's great merit consists in his attention to these
little things, without giving them undue preponderance, or neglecting
those which are of greater moment. Sometimes he hits off an individual
trait by an anecdote, which throws more light upon the character
described than pages of rhetorical description would do. In some cases,
he gives us the favourite maxim of his hero; and the maxims of men often
reveal their hearts.
Then, as to foibles, the greatest of men are not visually symmetrical.
Each has his defect, his twist, his craze; and it is by his faults that
the great man reveals his common humanity. We may, at a distance, admire
him as a demigod; but as we come nearer to him, we find that he is but a
fallible man, and our brother. [196]
Nor are the illustrations of the defects of great men without their
uses; for, as Dr. Johnson observed, "If nothing but the bright side of
characters were shown, we should sit down in despondency, and think it
utterly impossible to imitate them in anything."
Plutarch, himself justifies his method of portraiture by averring that
his design was not to write histories, but lives. "The most glorious
exploits," he says, "do not always furnish us with the clearest
discoveries of virtue or of vice in men. Sometimes a matter of much less
moment, an expression or a jest, better informs us of their characters
and inclinations than battles with the slaughter of tens of thousands,
and the greatest arrays of armies or sieges of cities. Therefore, as
portrait-painters are more exact in their lines and features of the face
and the expression of the eyes, in which the character is seen, without
troubling themselves about the other parts of the body, so I must
be allowed to give my more particular attention to the signs and
indications of the souls of men; and while I endeavour by these means
to portray their lives, I leave important events and great battles to be
described by others."
Things apparently trifling may stand for much in biography as well as
history, and slight circumstances may influence great results. Pascal
has remarked, that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the whole face
of the world would probably have been changed. But for the amours of
Pepin the Fat, the Saracens might have overrun Europe; as it was his
illegitimate son, Charles Martel, who overthrew them at Tours, and
eventually drove them out of France.
That Sir Walter Scott should have sprained his foot in running round
the room when a child, may seem unworthy of notice in his biography; yet
'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,' and all the Waverley novels depended upon
it. When his son intimated a desire to enter the army, Scott wrote to
Southey, "I have no title to combat a choice which would have been my
own, had not my lameness prevented." So that, had not Scott been lame,
he might have fought all through the Peninsular War, and had his breast
covered with medals; but we should probably have had none of those works
of his which have made his name immortal, and shed so much glory upon
his country. Talleyrand also was kept out of the army, for which he had
been destined, by his lameness; but directing his attention to the study
of books, and eventually of men, he at length took rank amongst the
greatest diplomatists of his time.
Byron's clubfoot had probably not a little to do with determining his
destiny as a poet. Had not his mind been embittered and made morbid by
his deformity, he might never have written a line--he might have been
the noblest fop of his day. But his misshapen foot stimulated his mind,
roused his ardour, threw him upon his own resources--and we know with
what result.
So, too, of Scarron, to whose hunchback we probably owe his cynical
verse; and of Pope, whose satire was in a measure the outcome of his
deformity--for he was, as Johnson described him, "protuberant behind
and before." What Lord Bacon said of deformity is doubtless, to a great
extent, true. "Whoever," said he, "hath anything fixed in his person
that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to
rescue and deliver himself from scorn; therefore, all deformed persons
are extremely bold."
As in portraiture, so in biography, there must be light and shade.
The portrait-painter does not pose his sitter so as to bring out his
deformities; nor does the biographer give undue prominence to the
defects of the character he portrays. Not many men are so outspoken as
Cromwell was when he sat to Cooper for his miniature: "Paint me as I
am," said he, "warts and all." Yet, if we would have a faithful likeness
of faces and characters, they must be painted as they are. "Biography,"
said Sir Walter Scott, "the most interesting of every species of
composition, loses all its interest with me when the shades and lights
of the principal characters are not accurately and faithfully detailed.
I can no more sympathise with a mere eulogist, than I can with a ranting
hero on the stage." [197]
Addison liked to know as much as possible about the person and character
of his authors, inasmuch as it increased the pleasure and satisfaction
which he derived from the perusal of their books. What was their
history, their experience, their temper and disposition? Did their lives
resemble their books? They thought nobly--did they act nobly? "Should we
not delight," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "to have the frank story of the
lives and feelings of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Campbell, Rogers,
Moore, and Wilson, related by themselves?--with whom they lived early;
how their bent took a decided course; their likes and dislikes; their
difficulties and obstacles; their tastes, their passions; the rocks they
were conscious of having split upon; their regrets, their complacencies,
and their self-justifications?" [198]
When Mason was reproached for publishing the private letters of Gray,
he answered, "Would you always have my friends appear in full-dress?"
Johnson was of opinion that to write a man's life truly, it is necessary
that the biographer should have personally known him. But this condition
has been wanting in some of the best writers of biographies extant. [199]
In the case of Lord Campbell, his personal intimacy with Lords Lyndhurst
and Brougham seems to have been a positive disadvantage, leading him
to dwarf the excellences and to magnify the blots in their characters.
Again, Johnson says: "If a man profess to write a life, he must write it
really as it was. A man's peculiarities, and even his vices, should be
mentioned, because they mark his character." But there is always
this difficulty,--that while minute details of conduct, favourable or
otherwise, can best be given from personal knowledge, they cannot always
be published, out of regard for the living; and when the time arrives
when they may at length be told, they are then no longer remembered.
Johnson himself expressed this reluctance to tell all he knew of
those poets who had been his contemporaries, saying that he felt as if
"walking upon ashes under which the fire was not extinguished."
For this reason, amongst others, we rarely obtain an unvarnished
picture of character from the near relatives of distinguished men; and,
interesting though all autobiography is, still less can we expect it
from the men themselves. In writing his own memoirs, a man will not tell
all that he knows about himself. Augustine was a rare exception, but
few there are who will, as he did in his 'Confessions,' lay bare their
innate viciousness, deceitfulness, and selfishness. There is a Highland
proverb which says, that if the best man's faults were written on his
forehead he would pull his bonnet over his brow. "There is no man," said
Voltaire, "who has not something hateful in him--no man who has not some
of the wild beast in him. But there are few who will honestly tell us
how they manage their wild beast." Rousseau pretended to unbosom himself
in his 'Confessions;' but it is manifest that he held back far more
than he revealed. Even Chamfort, one of the last men to fear what his
contemporaries might think or say of him, once observed:--"It seems to
me impossible, in the actual state of society, for any man to exhibit
his secret heart, the details of his character as known to himself, and,
above all, his weaknesses and his vices, to even his best friend."
An autobiography may be true so far as it goes; but in communicating
only part of the truth, it may convey an impression that is really
false. It may be a disguise--sometimes it is an apology--exhibiting
not so much what a man really was, as what he would have liked to be. A
portrait in profile may be correct, but who knows whether some scar on
the off-cheek, or some squint in the eye that is not seen, might not
have entirely altered the expression of the face if brought into sight?
Scott, Moore, Southey, all began autobiographies, but the task of
continuing them was doubtless felt to be too difficult as well as
delicate, and they were abandoned.
French literature is especially rich in a class of biographic memoirs,
of which we have few counterparts in English. We refer to their MEMOIRES
POUR SERVIR, such as those of Sully, De Comines, Lauzun, De Retz, De
Thou, Rochefoucalt, &c., in which we have recorded an immense mass of
minute and circumstantial information relative to many great personages
of history. They are full of anecdotes illustrative of life and
character, and of details which might be called frivolous, but that they
throw a flood of light on the social habits and general civilisation
of the periods to which they relate. The MEMOIRES of Saint-Simon are
something more: they are marvellous dissections of character, and
constitute the most extraordinary collection of anatomical biography
that has ever been brought together.
Saint-Simon might almost be regarded in the light of a posthumous
court-spy of Louis the Fourteenth. He was possessed by a passion for
reading character, and endeavouring to decipher motives and intentions
in the faces, expressions, conversation, and byplay of those about him.
"I examine all my personages closely," said he--"watch their mouth,
eyes, and ears constantly." And what he heard and saw he noted down with
extraordinary vividness and dash. Acute, keen, and observant, he pierced
the masks of the courtiers, and detected their secrets. The ardour with
which he prosecuted his favourite study of character seemed insatiable,
and even cruel. "The eager anatomist," says Sainte-Beuve, "was not more
ready to plunge the scalpel into the still-palpitating bosom in search
of the disease that had baffled him."
La Bruyere possessed the same gift of accurate and penetrating
observation of character. He watched and studied everybody about him.
He sought to read their secrets; and, retiring to his chamber, he
deliberately painted their portraits, returning to them from time to
time to correct some prominent feature--hanging over them as fondly as
an artist over some favourite study--adding trait to trait, and touch
to touch, until at length the picture was complete and the likeness
perfect.
It may be said that much of the interest of biography, especially of the
more familiar sort, is of the nature of gossip; as that of the MEMOIRES
POUR SERVIR is of the nature of scandal, which is no doubt true. But
both gossip and scandal illustrate the strength of the interest which
men and women take in each other's personality; and which, exhibited in
the form of biography, is capable of communicating the highest pleasure,
and yielding the best instruction. Indeed biography, because it is
instinct of humanity, is the branch of literature which--whether in the
form of fiction, of anecdotal recollection, or of personal narrative--is
the one that invariably commends itself to by far the largest class of
readers.
There is no room for doubt that the surpassing interest which fiction,
whether in poetry or prose, possesses for most minds, arises mainly
from the biographic element which it contains. Homer's 'Iliad' owes its
marvellous popularity to the genius which its author displayed in the
portrayal of heroic character. Yet he does not so much describe his
personages in detail as make them develope themselves by their actions.
"There are in Homer," said Dr. Johnson, "such characters of heroes and
combination of qualities of heroes, that the united powers of mankind
ever since have not produced any but what are to be found there."
The genius of Shakspeare also was displayed in the powerful delineation
of character, and the dramatic evolution of human passions. His
personages seem to be real--living and breathing before us. So too with
Cervantes, whose Sancho Panza, though homely and vulgar, is intensely
human. The characters in Le Sage's 'Gil Blas,' in Goldsmith's 'Vicar of
Wakefield,' and in Scott's marvellous muster-roll, seem to us almost as
real as persons whom we have actually known; and De Foe's greatest works
are but so many biographies, painted in minute detail, with reality so
apparently stamped upon every page, that it is difficult to believe his
Robinson Crusoe and Colonel Jack to have been fictitious instead of real
persons.
Though the richest romance lies enclosed in actual human life, and
though biography, because it describes beings who have actually felt the
joys and sorrows, and experienced the difficulties and triumphs, of real
life, is capable of being made more attractive, than the most perfect
fictions ever woven, it is remarkable that so few men of genius have
been attracted to the composition of works of this kind. Great works of
fiction abound, but great biographies may be counted on the fingers. It
may be for the same reason that a great painter of portraits, the
late John Philip, R.A., explained his preference for subject-painting,
because, said he, "Portrait-painting does not pay." Biographic
portraiture involves laborious investigation and careful collection of
facts, judicious rejection and skilful condensation, as well as the
art of presenting the character portrayed in the most attractive and
lifelike form; whereas, in the work of fiction, the writer's imagination
is free to create and to portray character, without being trammelled by
references, or held down by the actual details of real life.
There is, indeed, no want among us of ponderous but lifeless memoirs,
many of them little better than inventories, put together with the
help of the scissors as much as of the pen. What Constable said of the
portraits of an inferior artist--"He takes all the bones and brains out
of his heads"--applies to a large class of portraiture, written as well
as painted. They have no more life in them than a piece of waxwork, or a
clothes-dummy at a tailor's door. What we want is a picture of a man as
he lived, and lo! we have an exhibition of the biographer himself. We
expect an embalmed heart, and we find only clothes.
There is doubtless as high art displayed in painting a portrait in
words, as there is in painting one in colours. To do either well
requires the seeing eye and the skilful pen or brush. A common artist
sees only the features of a face, and copies them; but the great artist
sees the living soul shining through the features, and places it on
the canvas. Johnson was once asked to assist the chaplain of a deceased
bishop in writing a memoir of his lordship; but when he proceeded to
inquire for information, the chaplain could scarcely tell him anything.
Hence Johnson was led to observe that "few people who have lived with a
man know what to remark about him."
In the case of Johnson's own life, it was the seeing eye of Boswell that
enabled him to note and treasure up those minute details of habit and
conversation in which so much of the interest of biography consists.
Boswell, because of his simple love and admiration of his hero,
succeeded where probably greater men would have failed. He descended to
apparently insignificant, but yet most characteristic, particulars. Thus
he apologizes for informing the reader that Johnson, when journeying,
"carried in his hand a large English oak-stick:" adding, "I remember Dr.
Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad
to know that Milton wore latchets in his shoes instead of buckles."
Boswell lets us know how Johnson looked, what dress he wore, what was
his talk, what were his prejudices. He painted him with all his scars,
and a wonderful portrait it is--perhaps the most complete picture of a
great man ever limned in words.
But for the accident of the Scotch advocate's intimacy with Johnson, and
his devoted admiration of him, the latter would not probably have stood
nearly so high in literature as he now does. It is in the pages of
Boswell that Johnson really lives; and but for Boswell, he might have
remained little more than a name. Others there are who have bequeathed
great works to posterity, but of whose lives next to nothing is known.
What would we not give to have a Boswell's account of Shakspeare? We
positively know more of the personal history of Socrates, of Horace, of
Cicero, of Augustine, than we do of that of Shakspeare. We do not
know what was his religion, what were his politics, what were his
experiences, what were his relations to his contemporaries. The men
of his own time do not seem to have recognised his greatness; and Ben
Jonson, the court poet, whose blank-verse Shakspeare was content
to commit to memory and recite as an actor, stood higher in popular
estimation. We only know that he was a successful theatrical manager,
and that in the prime of life he retired to his native place, where he
died, and had the honours of a village funeral. The greater part of the
biography which has been constructed respecting him has been the result,
not of contemporary observation or of record, but of inference. The best
inner biography of the man is to be found in his sonnets.
Men do not always take an accurate measure of their contemporaries. The
statesman, the general, the monarch of to-day fills all eyes and ears,
though to the next generation he may be as if he had never been. "And
who is king to-day?" the painter Greuze would ask of his daughter,
during the throes of the first French Revolution, when men, great for
the time, were suddenly thrown to the surface, and as suddenly dropt out
of sight again, never to reappear. "And who is king to-day? After all,"
Greuze would add, "Citizen Homer and Citizen Raphael will outlive those
great citizens of ours, whose names I have never before heard of."
Yet of the personal history of Homer nothing is known, and of Raphael
comparatively little. Even Plutarch, who wrote the lives of others: so
well, has no biography, none of the eminent Roman writers who were
his contemporaries having so much as mentioned his name. And so of
Correggio, who delineated the features of others so well, there is not
known to exist an authentic portrait.
There have been men who greatly influenced the life of their time, whose
reputation has been much greater with posterity than it was with their
contemporaries. Of Wickliffe, the patriarch of the Reformation, our
knowledge is extremely small. He was but as a voice crying in the
wilderness. We do not really know who was the author of 'The Imitation
of Christ'--a book that has had an immense circulation, and exercised
a vast religious influence in all Christian countries. It is usually
attributed to Thomas a Kempis but there is reason to believe that he was
merely its translator, and the book that is really known to be his, [1910]
is in all respects so inferior, that it is difficult to believe that
'The Imitation' proceeded from the same pen. It is considered more
probable that the real author was John Gerson, Chancellor of the
University of Paris, a most learned and devout man, who died in 1429.
Some of the greatest men of genius have had the shortest biographies. Of
Plato, one of the great fathers of moral philosophy, we have no personal
account. If he had wife and children, we hear nothing of them. About the
life of Aristotle there is the greatest diversity of opinion. One says
he was a Jew; another, that he only got his information from a Jew: one
says he kept an apothecary's shop; another, that he was only the son of
a physician: one alleges that he was an atheist; another, that he was a
Trinitarian, and so forth. But we know almost as little with respect to
many men of comparatively modern times. Thus, how little do we know of
the lives of Spenser, author of 'The Faerie Queen,' and of Butler, the
author of 'Hudibras,' beyond the fact that they lived in comparative
obscurity, and died in extreme poverty! How little, comparatively, do
we know of the life of Jeremy Taylor, the golden preacher, of whom we
should like to have known so much!
The author of 'Philip Van Artevelde' has said that "the world knows
nothing of its greatest men." And doubtless oblivion has enwrapt in
its folds many great men who have done great deeds, and been forgotten.
Augustine speaks of Romanianus as the greatest genius that ever lived,
and yet we know nothing of him but his name; he is as much forgotten
as the builders of the Pyramids. Gordiani's epitaph was written in five
languages, yet it sufficed not to rescue him from oblivion.
Many, indeed, are the lives worthy of record that have remained
unwritten. Men who have written books have been the most fortunate in
this respect, because they possess an attraction for literary men which
those whose lives have been embodied in deeds do not possess. Thus there
have been lives written of Poets Laureate who were mere men of their
time, and of their time only. Dr. Johnson includes some of them in his
'Lives of the Poets,' such as Edmund Smith and others, whose poems
are now no longer known. The lives of some men of letters--such as
Goldsmith, Swift, Sterne, and Steele--have been written again and again,
whilst great men of action, men of science, and men of industry, are
left without a record. [1911]
We have said that a man may be known by the company he keeps in his
books. Let us mention a few of the favourites of the best-known men.
Plutarch's admirers have already been referred to. Montaigne also has
been the companion of most meditative men. Although Shakspeare must have
studied Plutarch carefully, inasmuch as he copied from him freely, even
to his very words, it is remarkable that Montaigne is the only book
which we certainly know to have been in the poet's library; one of
Shakspeare's existing autographs having been found in a copy of Florio's
translation of 'The Essays,' which also contains, on the flyleaf, the
autograph of Ben Jonson.
Milton's favourite books were Homer, Ovid, and Euripides. The latter
book was also the favourite of Charles James Fox, who regarded the study
of it as especially useful to a public speaker. On the other hand, Pitt
took especial delight in Milton--whom Fox did not appreciate--taking
pleasure in reciting, from 'Paradise Lost,' the grand speech of Belial
before the assembled powers of Pandemonium. Another of Pitt's favourite
books was Newton's 'Principia.' Again, the Earl of Chatham's favourite
book was 'Barrow's Sermons,' which he read so often as to be able to
repeat them from memory; while Burke's companions were Demosthenes,
Milton, Bolingbroke, and Young's 'Night Thoughts.'
Curran's favourite was Homer, which he read through once a year. Virgil
was another of his favourites; his biographer, Phillips, saying that
he once saw him reading the 'Aeneid' in the cabin of a Holyhead packet,
while every one about him was prostrate by seasickness.
Of the poets, Dante's favourite was Virgil; Corneille's was Lucan;
Schiller's was Shakspeare; Gray's was Spenser; whilst Coleridge admired
Collins and Bowles. Dante himself was a favourite with most great poets,
from Chaucer to Byron and Tennyson. Lord Brougham, Macaulay, and Carlyle
have alike admired and eulogized the great Italian. The former advised
the students at Glasgow that, next to Demosthenes, the study of Dante
was the best preparative for the eloquence of the pulpit or the bar.
Robert Hall sought relief in Dante from the racking pains of spinal
disease; and Sydney Smith took to the same poet for comfort and solace
in his old age. It was characteristic of Goethe that his favourite book
should have been Spinoza's 'Ethics,' in which he said he had found a
peace and consolation such as he had been able to find in no other work.
[1912]
Barrow's favourite was St. Chrysostom; Bossuet's was Homer. Bunyan's
was the old legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton, which in all probability
gave him the first idea of his 'Pilgrim's Progress.' One of the
best prelates that ever sat on the English bench, Dr. John Sharp,
said--"Shakspeare and the Bible have made me Archbishop of York." The
two books which most impressed John Wesley when a young man, were 'The
Imitation of Christ' and Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying.' Yet
Wesley was accustomed to caution his young friends against overmuch
reading. "Beware you be not swallowed up in books," he would say to
them; "an ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge."
Wesley's own Life has been a great favourite with many thoughtful
readers. Coleridge says, in his preface to Southey's 'Life of Wesley,'
that it was more often in his hands than any other in his ragged
book-regiment. "To this work, and to the Life of Richard Baxter," he
says, "I was used to resort whenever sickness and languor made me feel
the want of an old friend of whose company I could never be tired. How
many and many an hour of self-oblivion do I owe to this Life of Wesley;
and how often have I argued with it, questioned, remonstrated, been
peevish, and asked pardon; then again listened, and cried, 'Right!
Excellent!' and in yet heavier hours entreated it, as it were, to
continue talking to me; for that I heard and listened, and was soothed,
though I could make no reply!" [1913]
Soumet had only a very few hooks in his library, but they were of the
best--Homer, Virgil, Dante, Camoens, Tasso, and Milton. De Quincey's
favourite few were Donne, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, South,
Barrow, and Sir Thomas Browne. He described these writers as "a pleiad
or constellation of seven golden stars, such as in their class no
literature can match," and from whose works he would undertake "to build
up an entire body of philosophy."
Frederick the Great of Prussia manifested his strong French leanings
in his choice of books; his principal favourites being Bayle, Rousseau,
Voltaire, Rollin, Fleury, Malebranche, and one English author--Locke.
His especial favourite was Bayle's Dictionary, which was the first book
that laid hold of his mind; and he thought so highly of it, that he
himself made an abridgment and translation of it into German, which was
published. It was a saying of Frederick's, that "books make up no small
part of true happiness." In his old age he said, "My latest passion will
be for literature."
It seems odd that Marshal Blucher's favourite book should have been
Klopstock's 'Messiah,' and Napoleon Buonaparte's favourites, Ossian's
'Poems' and the 'Sorrows of Werther.' But Napoleon's range of reading
was very extensive. It included Homer, Virgil, Tasso; novels of all
countries; histories of all times; mathematics, legislation, and
theology. He detested what he called "the bombast and tinsel" of
Voltaire. The praises of Homer and Ossian he was never wearied
of sounding. "Read again," he said to an officer on board the
BELLEROPHO--"read again the poet of Achilles; devour Ossian. Those are
the poets who lift up the soul, and give to man a colossal greatness."
[1914]
The Duke of Wellington was an extensive reader; his principal favourites
were Clarendon, Bishop Butler, Smith's 'Wealth of Nations,' Hume,
the Archduke Charles, Leslie, and the Bible. He was also particularly
interested by French and English memoirs--more especially the French
MEMOIRES POUR SERVIR of all kinds. When at Walmer, Mr. Gleig says, the
Bible, the Prayer Book, Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying,' and Caesar's
'Commentaries,' lay within the Duke's reach; and, judging by the marks
of use on them, they must have been much read and often consulted.
While books are among the best companions of old age, they are often the
best inspirers of youth. The first book that makes a deep impression on
a young man's mind, often constitutes an epoch in his life. It may fire
the heart, stimulate the enthusiasm, and by directing his efforts into
unexpected channels, permanently influence his character. The new book,
in which we form an intimacy with a new friend, whose mind is wiser and
riper than our own, may thus form an important starting-point in the
history of a life. It may sometimes almost be regarded in the light of a
new birth.
From the day when James Edward Smith was presented with his first
botanical lesson-book, and Sir Joseph Banks fell in with Gerard's
'Herbal'--from the time when Alfieri first read Plutarch, and Schiller
made his first acquaintance with Shakspeare, and Gibbon devoured the
first volume of 'The Universal History'--each dated an inspiration so
exalted, that they felt as if their real lives had only then begun.
In the earlier part of his youth, La Fontaine was distinguished for
his idleness, but hearing an ode by Malherbe read, he is said to have
exclaimed, "I too am a poet," and his genius was awakened. Charles
Bossuet's mind was first fired to study by reading, at an early
age, Fontenelle's 'Eloges' of men of science. Another work of
Fontenelle's--'On the Plurality of Worlds'--influenced the mind of
Lalande in making choice of a profession. "It is with pleasure," says
Lalande himself in a preface to the book, which he afterwards edited,
"that I acknowledge my obligation to it for that devouring activity
which its perusal first excited in me at the age of sixteen, and which I
have since retained."
In like manner, Lacepede was directed to the study of natural history
by the perusal of Buffon's 'Histoire Naturelle,' which he found in his
father's library, and read over and over again until he almost knew it
by heart. Goethe was greatly influenced by the reading of Goldsmith's
'Vicar of Wakefield,' just at the critical moment of his mental
development; and he attributed to it much of his best education. The
reading of a prose 'Life of Gotz vou Berlichingen' afterwards stimulated
him to delineate his character in a poetic form. "The figure of a rude,
well-meaning self-helper," he said, "in a wild anarchic time, excited my
deepest sympathy."
Keats was an insatiable reader when a boy; but it was the perusal of the
'Faerie Queen,' at the age of seventeen, that first lit the fire of his
genius. The same poem is also said to have been the inspirer of Cowley,
who found a copy of it accidentally lying on the window of his mother's
apartment; and reading and admiring it, he became, as he relates,
irrecoverably a poet.
Coleridge speaks of the great influence which the poems of Bowles had in
forming his own mind. The works of a past age, says he, seem to a young
man to be things of another race; but the writings of a contemporary
"possess a reality for him, and inspire an actual friendship as of a
man for a man. His very admiration is the wind which fans and feeds his
hope. The poems themselves assume the properties of flesh and blood."
[1915]
But men have not merely been stimulated to undertake special literary
pursuits by the perusal of particular books; they have been also
stimulated by them to enter upon particular lines of action in the
serious business of life. Thus Henry Martyn was powerfully influenced
to enter upon his heroic career as a missionary by perusing the Lives of
Henry Brainerd and Dr. Carey, who had opened up the furrows in which he
went forth to sow the seed.
Bentham has described the extraordinary influence which the perusal of
'Telemachus' exercised upon his mind in boyhood. "Another book," said
he, "and of far higher character [19than a collection of Fairy Tales, to
which he refers], was placed in my hands. It was 'Telemachus.' In my
own imagination, and at the age of six or seven, I identified my own
personality with that of the hero, who seemed to me a model of perfect
virtue; and in my walk of life, whatever it may come to be, why [19said
I to myself every now and then]--why should not I be a Telemachus?....
That romance may be regarded as THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF MY WHOLE
CHARACTER--the starting-post from whence my career of life commenced.
The first dawning in my mind of the 'Principles of Utility' may, I
think, be traced to it." [1916]
Cobbett's first favourite, because his only book, which he bought for
threepence, was Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' the repeated perusal of
which had, doubtless, much to do with the formation of his pithy,
straightforward, and hard-hitting style of writing. The delight with
which Pope, when a schoolboy, read Ogilvy's 'Homer' was, most probably,
the origin of the English 'Iliad;' as the 'Percy Reliques' fired the
juvenile mind of Scott, and stimulated him to enter upon the collection
and composition of his 'Border Ballads.' Keightley's first reading of
'Paradise Lost,' when a boy, led to his afterwards undertaking his Life
of the poet. "The reading," he says, "of 'Paradise Lost' for the first
time forms, or should form, an era in the life of every one possessed of
taste and poetic feeling. To my mind, that time is ever present.... Ever
since, the poetry of Milton has formed my constant study--a source of
delight in prosperity, of strength and consolation in adversity."
Good books are thus among the best of companions; and, by elevating
the thoughts and aspirations, they act as preservatives against low
associations. "A natural turn for reading and intellectual pursuits,"
says Thomas Hood, "probably preserved me from the moral shipwreck so
apt to befal those who are deprived in early life of their parental
pilotage. My books kept me from the ring, the dogpit, the tavern, the
saloon. The closet associate of Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to
the noble though silent discourse of Shakspeare and Milton, will hardly
seek or put up with low company and slaves."
It has been truly said, that the best books are those which most
resemble good actions. They are purifying, elevating, and sustaining;
they enlarge and liberalize the mind; they preserve it against vulgar
worldliness; they tend to produce highminded cheerfulness and equanimity
of character; they fashion, and shape, and humanize the mind. In the
Northern universities, the schools in which the ancient classics are
studied, are appropriately styled "The Humanity Classes." [1917]
Erasmus, the great scholar, was even of opinion that books were the
necessaries of life, and clothes the luxuries; and he frequently
postponed buying the latter until he had supplied himself with the
former. His greatest favourites were the works of Cicero, which he says
he always felt himself the better for reading. "I can never," he
says, "read the works of Cicero on 'Old Age,' or 'Friendship,' or his
'Tusculan Disputations,' without fervently pressing them to my lips,
without being penetrated with veneration for a mind little short of
inspired by God himself." It was the accidental perusal of Cicero's
'Hortensius' which first detached St. Augustine--until then a profligate
and abandoned sensualist--from his immoral life, and started him upon
the course of inquiry and study which led to his becoming the greatest
among the Fathers of the Early Church. Sir William Jones made it a
practice to read through, once a year, the writings of Cicero, "whose
life indeed," says his biographer, "was the great exemplar of his own."
When the good old Puritan Baxter came to enumerate the valuable and
delightful things of which death would deprive him, his mind reverted
to the pleasures he had derived from books and study. "When I die," he
said, "I must depart, not only from sensual delights, but from the more
manly pleasures of my studies, knowledge, and converse with many wise
and godly men, and from all my pleasure in reading, hearing, public and
private exercises of religion, and such like. I must leave my library,
and turn over those pleasant books no more. I must no more come among
the living, nor see the faces of my faithful friends, nor be seen of
man; houses, and cities, and fields, and countries, gardens, and walks,
will be as nothing to me. I shall no more hear of the affairs of the
world, of man, or wars, or other news; nor see what becomes of that
beloved interest of wisdom, piety, and peace, which I desire may
prosper."
It is unnecessary to speak of the enormous moral influence which books
have exercised upon the general civilization of mankind, from the Bible
downwards. They contain the treasured knowledge of the human race. They
are the record of all labours, achievements, speculations, successes,
and failures, in science, philosophy, religion, and morals. They have
been the greatest motive powers in all times. "From the Gospel to
the Contrat Social," says De Bonald, "it is books that have made
revolutions." Indeed, a great book is often a greater thing than a great
battle. Even works of fiction have occasionally exercised immense power
on society. Thus Rabelais in France, and Cervantes in Spain, overturned
at the same time the dominion of monkery and chivalry, employing no
other weapons but ridicule, the natural contrast of human terror.
The people laughed, and felt reassured. So 'Telemachus' appeared, and
recalled men back to the harmonies of nature.
"Poets," says Hazlitt, "are a longer-lived race than heroes: they
breathe more of the air of immortality. They survive more entire in
their thoughts and acts. We have all that Virgil or Homer did, as much
as if we had lived at the same time with them. We can hold their works
in our hands, or lay them on our pillows, or put them to our lips.
Scarcely a trace of what the others did is left upon the earth, so as
to be visible to common eyes. The one, the dead authors, are living men,
still breathing and moving in their writings; the others, the conquerors
of the world, are but the ashes in an urn. The sympathy [19so to speak]
between thought and thought is more intimate and vital than that between
thought and action. Thought is linked to thought as flame kindles into
flame; the tribute of admiration to the MANES of departed heroism is
like burning incense in a marble monument. Words, ideas, feelings, with
the progress of time harden into substances: things, bodies, actions,
moulder away, or melt into a sound--into thin air.... Not only a man's
actions are effaced and vanish with him; his virtues and generous
qualities die with him also. His intellect only is immortal, and
bequeathed unimpaired to posterity. Words are the only things that last
for ever." [1918]