To give to the world a collection of the successive portraits of a man
is to tell his affairs openly, and so betray intimate personalities.
We are often found quarrelling with the tone of the public press,
because it yields to what is called the public demand to be told both
the private affairs of noteworthy persons and the trivial details and
circumstances of those who are insignificant. Some one has said that a
sincere man willingly answers any questions, however personal, that
are asked out of interest, but instantly resents those that have their
impulse in curiosity; and that one's instinct always detects the
difference. This I take to be a wise rule of conduct; but beyond lies
the wider subject of our right to possess ourselves of personal
information, although we have a vague remembrance, even in these days,
of the belief of old-fashioned and decorous people, that subjects, not
persons, are fitting material for conversation.
But there is an honest interest, which is as noble a thing as
curiosity is contemptible; and it is in recognition of this, that
Lowell writes in the largest way in his "Essay on Rousseau and the
Sentimentalists."
"Yet our love of minute biographical details," he says, "our desire to
make ourselves spies upon the men of the past, seems so much of an
instinct in us, that we must look for the spring of it in human
nature, and that somewhat deeper than mere curiosity or love of
gossip." And more emphatically in another paragraph: "The moment he
undertakes to establish ... a rule of conduct, we ask at once how far
are his own life and deed in accordance with what he preaches?"
This I believe to be at the bottom of even our insatiate modern
eagerness to know the best and the worst of our contemporaries; it is
simply to find out how far their behavior squares with their words and
position. We seldom stop to get the best point of view, either in
friendly talk or in a sober effort, to notice the growth of character,
or, in the widest way, to comprehend the traits and influence of a man
whose life in any way affects our own.
* * * * *
Now and then, in an old picture gallery, one comes upon the grouped
portraits of a great soldier, or man of letters, or some fine lady
whose character still lifts itself into view above the dead level of
feminine conformity which prevailed in her time. The blurred pastel,
the cracked and dingy canvas, the delicate brightness of a miniature
which bears touching signs of wear--from these we piece together a
whole life's history. Here are the impersonal baby face; the
domineering glance of the school-boy, lord of his dog and gun; the
wan-visaged student who was just beginning to confront the serried
ranks of those successes which conspired to hinder him from his duty
and the fulfilment of his dreams; here is the mature man, with grave
reticence of look and a proud sense of achievement; and at last the
older and vaguer face, blurred and pitifully conscious of fast waning
powers. As they hang in a row they seem to bear mute witness to all
the successes and failures of a life.
This very day, perhaps, you chanced to open a drawer and take in your
hand, for amusement's sake, some old family daguerreotypes. It is easy
enough to laugh at the stiff positions and droll costumes; but
suddenly you find an old likeness of yourself, and walk away with it,
self-consciously, to the window, with a pretence of seeking a better
light on the quick-reflecting, faintly impressed plate. Your earlier,
half-forgotten self confronts you seriously; the youth whose hopes
you have disappointed, or whose dreams you have turned into
realities. You search the young face; perhaps you even look deep into
the eyes of your own babyhood to discover your dawning consciousness;
to answer back to yourself, as it were, from the known and discovered
countries of that baby's future. There is a fascination in reading
character backwards. You may or may not be able easily to revive early
thoughts and impressions, but with an early portrait in your hand they
do revive again in spite of you; they seem to be living in the
pictured face to applaud or condemn you. In these old pictures exist
our former selves. They wear a mystical expression. They are still
ourselves, but with unfathomable eyes staring back to us out of the
strange remoteness of our outgrown youth.
"Surely I have known before
Phantoms of the shapes ye be--
Haunters of another shore
'Leaguered by another sea."
It is somehow far simpler and less startling to examine a series of
portraits of some other face and figure than one's own. Perhaps it is
most interesting to take those of some person whom the whole world
knows, and whose traits and experiences are somewhat comprehended. You
say to yourself, "This was Nelson before ever he fought one of his
great sea battles; this was Washington, with only the faintest trace
of his soldiering and the leisurely undemanding aspect of a country
gentleman!" _Human Documents_--the phrase is Daudet's, and tells its
own story, with no need of additional attempts of suggestiveness.
It would seem to be such an inevitable subject for sermon writing,
that no one need be unfamiliar with warnings, lest our weakness and
wickedness leave traces upon the countenance--awful, ineffaceable
hieroglyphics, that belong to the one universal primitive language of
mankind. Who cannot read faces? The merest savage, who comprehends no
written language, glances at you to know if he may expect friendliness
or enmity, with a quicker intelligence than your own.
The lines that are written slowly and certainly by the pen of
character, the deep mark that sorrow once left, or the light
sign-manual of an unfading joy, there they are and will remain; it is
at length the aspect of the spiritual body itself, and belongs to the
unfolding and existence of life. We have never formulated a science
like palmistry on the larger scale that this character-reading from
the face would need; but to say that we make our own faces, and,
having made them, have made pieces of immortality, is to say what
seems trite enough. A child turns with quick impatience and
incredulity from the dull admonitions of his teachers, about goodness
and good looks. To say, "Be good and you will be beautiful," is like
giving him a stone for a lantern. Beauty seems an accident rather than
an achievement, and a cause instead of an effect; but when childhood
has passed, one of the things we are sure to have learned, is to read
the sign-language of faces, and to take the messages they bring.
Recognition of these things is sure to come to us more and more by
living; there is no such thing as turning our faces into unbetraying
masks. A series of portraits is a veritable Human Document, and the
merest glance may discover the progress of the man, the dwindled or
developed personality, the history of a character.
These sentences are written merely as suggestions, and from the point
of view of morals; there is also the point of view of heredity, and
the curious resemblance between those who belong to certain
professions. Just what it is that makes us almost certain to recognize
a doctor or a priest at first glance is too subtle a question for
discussion here. Some one has said that we usually arrive, in time, at
the opposite extreme to those preferences and opinions which we hold
in early life. The man who breaks away from conventionalities, ends by
returning to them, or out of narrow prejudices and restrictions grows
towards a late and serene liberty. These changes show themselves in
the face with amazing clearness, and it would seem also, that even
individuality sways us only for a time; that if we live far into the
autumnal period of life we lose much of our individuality of looks,
and become more emphatically members of the family from which we
spring. A man like Charles the First was already less himself than he
was a Stuart; we should not fail in instances of this sort, nor seek
far afield. The return to the type compels us steadily; at last it has
its way. Very old persons, and those who are dangerously ill, are
often noticed to be curiously like their nearest of kin, and to have
almost visibly ceased to be themselves.
All time has been getting our lives ready to be lived, to be shaped
as far as may be by our own wills, and furthered by that conscious
freedom that gives us to be ourselves. You may read all these in any
Human Document--the look of race, the look of family, the look that
is set like a seal by a man's occupation, the look of the spirit's
free or hindered life, and success or failure in the pursuit of
goodness--they are all plain to see. If we could read one human face
aright, the history not only of the man, but of humanity itself, is
written there.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO ACCOMPANY THE "HUMAN DOCUMENTS" GIVEN IN THIS
NUMBER.
GENERAL LEW WALLACE was born in Brookville, Indiana, in 1827. After
receiving a common school education, he studied law. He distinguished
himself in the Civil War, and was made a brigadier-general. After the
war he practised law in Crawfordsville, Indiana. A few years later he
was for a time Governor of New Mexico. From 1878-81 he was Governor of
Utah, and from 1881-85 Minister to Turkey. His first book, "A Fair
God," appeared in 1877. "Ben Hur," published in 1880, has reached a
sale of several hundred thousand copies. General Wallace's home is in
Crawfordsville, Indiana.
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS was born in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, March 11, 1837.
His father was the editor of a country newspaper, and young Howells
learned the printer's trade. He began to write at an early age. At
nineteen he was Columbus correspondent of the "Cincinnati Gazette,"
and at twenty-two, news editor of the "Ohio State Journal." A campaign
"Life of Lincoln," gained him the consulship at Venice, where he
seriously devoted his leisure hours to literature. "Venetian Life"
gave him reputation. On his return to America in 1865, he wrote for
newspapers and magazines. In 1866 Mr. Howells joined the editorial
staff of "The Atlantic." In 1872 he became the editor. About this time
the success of "Their Wedding Journey" determined his career as a
novelist.
HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN was born at Frederiksvaern, Norway, September
23, 1848. When twenty-one years of age he came to the United States.
In 1874 he was appointed professor of German at Cornell University,
and is now professor of Germanic languages and literature at Columbia
College, New York. It was in the early seventies that Professor
Boyesen's name began to appear in the magazines. In 1873 he published
his first long romance, "Gunnar," and other novels followed, well
known to the reading world.
ALPHONSE DAUDET was born at Nimes, May 13, 1840. His early life was
full of hardship and deprivation. In 1857 he arrived in Paris, with
some manuscript poems and no money. He almost starved, but kept on
writing and hoping. His volume of verse, "Les Amoureuses" (1858),
attracted some attention. He persisted, took to writing novels, and
achieved greatness. The story of his life and struggles, as told by
himself, will be given in an early number of MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE.