For years Henry Fairfield Osborn, a distinguished naturalist of New York, has been publishing a variety of biography somewhat after the manner of the “Roadmakers” series of Small, Maynard and Co. It deserves praise and imitation. Impressions of Great Naturalists are made up of reminiscences of Darwin, Huxley, Cope and other great men with whom he was once intimate. Each verbal portrait is prefaced by a brief legend which summarises the author’s relationship to, or contact with, the subject.
Professor Osborn does not attempt to portray the whole man but a principal aspect of each life, and as such aspect is always pleasant and inspiring, he has only praise for his subjects. Some will find him too laudatory, too uncritical. But he maintains with the French author that if love is blind, friendship will not see faults; and when friendship is engendered by the admiration and veneration that every one should have for such benefactors of science, petty faults of life and trifling defects of nature are forgotten.
Thus we read of the superiority of Francis Balfour, of the impression he gave of living “in a higher atmosphere, in another dimension of intellectual space” and of the great lessons of the balanced daily life he gave to his disciples. We learn that Thomas Huxley had a delightful sense of humour, combined with a spirit of sacrifice to education which gained him popularity and gratitude. Mr. Osborn draws an interesting contrast between John Burroughs and John Muir who had in common their Christian names, their love of nature and “to a certain extent, their powers of expression”; but they were unlike in almost every other respect; and their variations are attributed to racial differences. The author’s studies of ethnology make him competent to feel the influence of race and of blood, and he applies his knowledge to understanding of the soul.
The best sketch in the book is that of Pasteur, “the greatest benefactor of mankind since the time of Jesus Christ,” in which love is as visible as admiration.
Similar commendation may be given to the series of biographies now being published by Henry Holt & Co., called Writers of the Day. They have the rare merit of brevity and they are done by authors who know how to write; one of the recent issues, Bernard Shaw, by Edward Shanks fulfils nearly every requirement of biography. It does not dwell upon the facts or data of his life, the scenery surrounding his boyhood home, his self-imposed dietetic restrictions or his partiality for the Automobile Club, but it does throw an illuminating light on the character, personality and intimate thoughts of the extraordinary man who has courage, understanding and humour.
Ivor Brown was not so successful in his presentation of a man who has been up to his chin in the life of his time, because he pitched his song of praise in too high a key. H. G. Wells has diverted many and instructed some, but few will agree that when Woodrow Wilson lost his sovereignty over the minds of men, it was transferred in no small measure to him who would rather be called journalist than artist.
The accolade must be given to a Bishop. William Lawrence has written one of the best biographies that have appeared in America for many a year. His subject is Henry Cabot Lodge, a life-long friend. It fulfils all the requirements of biographical writings, and it does more: it gives a picture of the author: big heart, good mind, simple, sincere, sympathetic, and above all tolerant and understanding. And the picture of Lodge! With paint a Velasquez might rival it. It gives his intellectual and emotional measurements, his compulsions and restraints; his possessions and his limitations in just the way a priest should know how to reveal them.
The student and general reader who want to learn about Samuel Butler should turn to his own books, and especially to Alps and Sanctuaries, Luck or Cunning, rather than to Mr. Jones’ ponderous biography. In the former, Butler is to be seen as he was in the flesh, whimsical and wise, cranky and crabbed, sensitive to beauty but fearful of betraying it, arrogant in characterisation but weak in manner, urbane in speech and demure in looks. Painfully aggressive himself, he loathed aggressiveness in others and could not abide in his fellows the quality that he possessed so abundantly: cleverness. He prided himself that he was like the priests in the Sanctuary of S. Michelo, “perfectly tolerant and ready to extend to others the consideration they expected themselves,” but he was as unlike them as any one imaginable. He had a first-class double-track mind, and although he lacked heart, he had humour.
Demand unquestionably governs, in some measure, supply in biographic literature. There would not be so many lives of prize-fighters, “screen artists,” singers and actors of a day’s reputation if publishers did not have a market for them, or if experience had not taught writers that the public is keen to hear the details of their lives. Biographies pander to the urge that is so important to our progress and welfare: curiosity. They ward off the poisoned arrows of ennui, and they prevent the shells of boredom from exploding. Practically all biographies and autobiographies are of individuals who have “succeeded” or “arrived.” Men who make failures of their lives rarely have their biographies written. It is to be regretted, for they would be helpful. We learn more from our mistakes than from our ten strikes.
When the dominant determination of man seems to be to speed up life so that we can do, or have done for us, in a day what formerly took a month, it seems paradoxical that biography should continue to be what Mr. Lytton Strachey says it is: “Two fat volumes with which it is our custom to commemorate the day—who does not know them, with their ill-digested masses of material, their slip-shod style, their love of tedious panegyric, their lamentable lack of selection, of detachment, of design?” Biographies have fallen so far behind the bandwagon of progress that their makers can not even hear the music. We should like to have our boys know about Willard Straight, but it is too much to expect that they should read a ponderous volume of six hundred pages to find out about the making of a young American, even though he was a credit to his country. It is not fair to the boy, and it is unjust to Miguel Cervantes. And much as one might like to travel through Asia and Africa with A. Savage Landor, his two fat volumes make one’s eyes turn lovingly to the thin, caressable Religio Medici or to the latest novel of Sheila Kaye-Smith. The great biographies, are they not very long? They are, and that is the pity of it. No one reads them now save a few bookworms and those who became acquainted with them before tabloid nutriment was discovered.