The book, however, is convincing and that may be its greatest danger. Whatever one’s cool judgment may be, it carries; and this success is probably due to the many vivid scenes and to the clever, if not profound or necessarily true, characterisations.
Lives and Times will delight most persons who are interested in early New York, because it is an attempt to do for that City what Dickens did for London. “That funny little town” as it first appeared to Jumel, and Philadelphia where Citizen Genêt suffered, are described in all their arrogance, pathos, bustle and absurdity. And it is done with neither sympathy nor indulgence, but with a smart dart which pricks through every page. No one very young and no one very old should read it. The young are too prone to look lightly on the generally respected portions of society, and the old would be angered. But most of all, no one without a sense of humour should read it; and to a sense of humour must be added perspective and a knowledge of the writing motives of the day. Let him read it who will not take it too seriously. Such an one will be entertained and will acquire a feeling for the seethe and churn and moil of the early days of the Republic which will be a real addition to his sense of what early America was—or may well have been—if it was as interesting as all that.
Yet, Mr. Minnigerode’s book does not contribute to the sum total of our knowledge of human personality, and that because it does not get behind the scenes; the whole action is played on the footlights and no preparation is ever visible. Characters must take their place in the scenery and are so overwhelmed with the details of the machinery that they fade from the picture. They are lost in their time. The author had a chance to work out the drives and conflicts going on back stage in the mind of Aaron Burr, for instance. But he neglected it; little is added to our real sense of what the man was. We know how he met situations, but not why. We know what he seemed to desire, but we never touch the spring of that desire. And the same thing is true of Theodosia. The picture is always charming and rendered with delightful observations and turns of expression. But none of the questions that rush to our mind as we read of her are answered. Her death is moving; yet we are stirred not by the loss of a character we have known, but merely by the disappearance of one whom we have seen move gracefully across the page.
And the other two characters, William Eaton and Genêt seem even less real. The study of Jumel is the most penetrating of the biographies, though it may be the most blameworthy from the point of view of the “gossip urge in man.” But at least the man becomes real and known, and we can appreciate the strange loyalty that bound him to his own destruction. He holds together, grows and develops, reaches the climax of his own possibilities and goes down to an end which is convincing. There is a picture of desolation in his solitude which is a literary contribution if not strictly a biographical one.
It is not entirely just to Mr. George S. Hellman to put his biography of Washington Irving in the category defined for Mr. Minnigerode’s book, but it fits there more accurately than elsewhere. It is laden with personalities and generously interspersed with gossip; particularly about Irving’s love affairs, perhaps the most interesting thing in the world about which to gossip and to conjecture: “It seems perhaps a cruel thing to say, but I am convinced that if Mathilda Hoffman had lived, the man of letters that the world of literature knows as Washington Irving would never have come into being.” Perhaps “cruel” is not the most felicitous adjective that the author might have used. No doubt many will find Mr. Hellman’s interpretation of Irving’s amativeness very entertaining, but it will scarcely add anything to his reputation as the greatest pioneer of American literature.
Mr. Hellman says, “The present volume has been called 'Washington Irving, Esq.,’ and it is in the life of a great and lovable gentleman that we are far more interested than in the easily ascertainable achievement of the writer whose works have long been the subject of critical evaluation.” If he had added to this that he had also wanted to give Irving’s first biographer, his nephew, a black eye, and to include a lot of letters which Irving had written from Spain, chiefly to the State Department, it would have been a perfect description of the motive for writing the book.
There are so many recent biographies that fall short of the ideal that it would seem prejudiced distinction to make mention of one and to point out with some specificity its shortcomings. But Mr. Ernest Brennecke, Jr., had an unusual opportunity, an inspiring subject, and a waiting public for his work. His Life of Thomas Hardy must be reckoned a failure. The reader who can glean a concept of the personality of the famous English novelist and poet, whom George Moore has recently derided, from Mr. Brennecke’s book has great perspicacity. The narrative itself is clumsily composed and awkwardly arranged; the material obtained from personal contact with Mr. Hardy is used maladroitly; gossip, anecdote and puerile information clog the wheel of the story; and the backgrounds of “origins” and “The Soil” take up nearly a third of the volume. In a foreword, the author says, “There is little spice and perhaps too little story in this book.” I would not say so, but there is too little style, substance and sequence; too much irrelevancy and not enough form and finality. If Mr. Brennecke had given to Mr. Strachey one of the ten years that he devoted to Mr. Hardy he might have written a more acceptable book.
The picture of Thomas Hardy which I should prefer to keep is neither that which George Moore has slashed irreverently nor that which Mr. Brennecke has muddled with too much reverence, but that traced by James Barrie in his famous rectorial address: “The pomp and circumstance of war will pass, and all others now alive may fade from the scene, but I think the quiet figure of Hardy will live on.” As an antidote, I suggest to those who have not found Dr. F. A. Hedgcock’s Thomas Hardy sufficiently informative and appreciative that they read the chapter entitled “The Builders” in Miss M. P. Willocks’ recent book called Between the Old World and the New.
Another biography which should be discouraged is James Elroy Flecker, by his friend Douglas Goldring. Critics of poetry who fulfil all the requirements set forth in Flecker’s Essay on “The Public as Art Critic” say that he has a permanent place in English literature. We should like to forget that his obscenity amounted to a gift; that one of Mrs. Peachum’s many descendants taunted him at a dinner party that his swarthiness would succumb to “soap and water” and that he thought our boys should not neglect the Cortigiano; whether he had one or several moustaches during his early manhood does not seem to be essential for our understanding of his emotions or our comprehension of his intellectual remains.
Flecker was a champion of beauty. One who knows him only from his friend’s “appreciation” could scarcely believe it.