Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1872-01-30
Autopiographical Dish-water.
The N. Y. Tribute thus lays on
opinions with trowel concerning a
great and growing nuisance of the

The N. Y. Tribute thus lays on
opinions with trowel concerning q
great and growing nuisance of the
age:
"Ihe last literary announcement--.
that of the autobiography of a noto-
rious thief and ruffian--is straw of
q particularly large size and backs
breaking texture. Too much biog-
raphy will drive ns mad. The mass
Of limp aud pallid egotism that loads
every publisher shelves, and chokes
tho column of almost every newsDas
per, grows beyond telling enormous
and ridiculous. The hill of Fame has
apparently provided itself with pat
ent elevators aud laurel grows dusti-
" along che roadside, even as catnip
md knot-grsss. The mania OF per,
sonsl description, personal explana-
ton, aud self-iaudatiOn is becoming
wild and fearful. There is scarcely
a pompous unknown ia all the pro-
tessions who does not pine and pant
until be gets a chance 10 tell the un-
offending world the beginning, the
methods, and the degrees Of his una
Importance Actresses Of unsavory
regulations bTainless politicians,
farthing poets, and inventors OF wash
ing machines and churns, alike bah
bic photographed dish-water with
serene liberality. An Dogberry can
not write himself down an ass. and
straightway gets he an other TO do
the dreadful deed. The Emallafry
among writers, skirmishers along the
line Of literature, play Boswell to
each other increasingly and con the
more The Biographical unacv
grows with what it feeds on--the
devi- fab Of Persouaiism sends out
new arms continually. No man and
no woman, however refined and ren
served, whom any way step cut of
tho Commonplace, may hope to es-
cape the personal eketoher. TO be
shu away behind double locks in the
heart 81 labyrinth would not be
security these moral dentists would
dig you out were there no other way.
Rebltf5 are Of no use--pnssibly will
bring up0n Yon worse fate some
thing for instance. like that of the
sweet woman and poet who, after
death, had the sad and solitary little
romanee of her life flung out for
crows TO peck at and hyenas to laugh
over.
Says sapient Hofrath Heuschrecko:
biography is by nature the most
universally profitable, universally
pheasant Of all things" So it is
whom it is the history, sef-written or
otherwise, Of the souls strong en-
counters with its three enemies of
a aiighty soldier; Of q statesman
whose devotion, purity, or EneSSe was
the admiration of the world Of an
orator or writer whose flashing,
flaming sentences were the headlights
Of his time of q practical man who
hammered out splendid courage
and noble station on that rough
anvil, Experience. But when 1t
comes TO column after column, vol
ume after volume, of drivel anent
nonentities. or, worse still, the vul-
gar vices and devices OF a thieving
seamp-pab an ounce of civet, good
apothecary, to sweeten our imagina-
tions. If the kings Of the earth are
to lie in glory, then, by all the gods
Of morality, propriety, dramatic uni
ty and GOOD taste, let not murderers.
thieves and .wantons dig their own
loathsome graves beside those state
IL monuments