III. Biography
Beginning in England of literary biography
With Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" biography in England took on a literary quality. Before that time such work had been perfunctory and had been done by hack writers; but with the appearance of the "Life of Savage" (1744), says Macaulay, a new era began. "The little work with all its faults was a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary biography existed in any language living or dead. The discerning critic might confidently have predicted that the author was destined to be the founder of a new school of English eloquence." And he was. Thirty-three years later, after he had become famous, a company of booksellers called on Dr. Johnson to add to the "Life of Savage" a series of biographical prefaces for an edition of the poets from Cowley downwards. Although intending at first to write only a few short paragraphs, this great and good talker let himself run on until he handed, over to the publishers ten volumes—somewhat short volumes to be sure, but a fine piece of work, and most of it very precious. From that time on, no biographer who expected to be read, dared be uninteresting. Prejudiced in temperament he might be, mistaken sometimes, but henceforth he must prove himself lively, vigorous, faithful, penetrating, sagacious, warm yet discriminating in praise, reasonable in censure, fearless in judgments, and fresh and exact in expression. The model had been set. The thing had been done not for one poet, but for many. Biography was now a literary type, to be written with care by a qualified person. It is worthy of note that the original type was short.
Great biographies in English
Since Johnson's day English literature has gained through biography some of the best books in the world. Boswell's "Life of Johnson" and Lockhart's "Life of Scott" are to be so ranked. Lockhart did also a superfine example of the short form, a biographical sketch of Theodore Hook, a very strange "bohemian." Lockhart's "Life of Napoleon" and "Life of Burns" are also standard. Trevelyan's "Life of Macaulay," Forster's "Life of Goldsmith" and "Life of Dickens" rank here, as possibly likewise Southey's "Life of Nelson," Mrs. Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Bronté," and Thomas Moore's brilliant "Life of Lord Byron." Macaulay's own short "Life of Johnson," though displaying Macaulay's faults of prejudice and exaggeration, is in itself a classic.
Writer and subject
Very naturally a biography is a double revelation—one of writer and subject. What you choose to praise or blame, how you praise or blame, what you notice, what you omit, how you emphasize, how you show your erudition, where you give your sympathy, the largeness or smallness of your view of life—all these and more are tale-tellers of your own personality. A luminous illustration of this fact is Goldy's "Life of Beau Nash." Oliver and the great beau had much in common, and when the biographer is commenting on "the mixed silliness and shrewdness" of his subject, "the taste and tawdriness, blossomed-colored coats and gambling debts, vanity, carelessness, and good-heart," he is writing a critique of his own life, past and to come. When he mentions Nash's "ill-controlled sensibility which was so strong that, unable to witness the misfortunes of the miserable, he was always borrowing money, to relieve them," we see the unlucky and reckless poet himself.
Beginning
Since it is the uncertain quantity of your own personality that will make your narrative dry or entertaining, we need hardly say more on the tone side of the work, unless it be to caution you about your diction, to have it simple and fresh. On the other hand, you might profitably notice at the end of this division the outline of general facts that the world expects in every biography. A certain number of questions ought to be answered, not in any set order, not with any set emphasis, but surely in sum finally. See if you can not be original in your beginning and ending. The amount of space that you will devote to one topic or the other will be determined by your purpose and your audience. If you are writing for children, as Hawthorne was in his "Biographical Sketches," you will emphasize those divisions of the life that a child would most naturally be interested in, or would be instructed by. Emphasis Be careful, however, not to make your poor hero or heroine the opportunity for a sermon. Besides being not quite fair, the device is trite and tiresome. Hawthorne we may forgive for preaching when we remember the taste of his day and the nearness of it to Puritanical ideals; but you live in an age that likes to take its own lessons from unvarnished facts and from truths put forth concretely, not deduced. Avoid fulsomeness and heroics. Attitude Set yourself to the task of revealing the personality just as it was, and it will teach its own lesson. Many people are more inspired by an erring soul that yet achieved, than they are by an icy paragon who knew no struggles. Be sure that in this history of another person you give us a human fellow.
Now, do not fly to the encyclopedia and cull facts about Napoleon or Cromwell. Take some one whom you know—a man or woman of attainment in your own neighborhood. Do the character-sketching with care. Be crisp and original in attack. The outline given below is a skeleton which you must hide with a pleasing exterior. But do not forget to put the heart and lungs in him. Exact and full information is the motor power of a living biography.