The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-03-15
Saturday Review
Biographical Ane cdotes.
Craving of the Public for Personal De-
scriptions.

The value of anecdotes in biography has
can be no doubt chat biography is chiefly
valued for its anecdotes. These stories are
the only parts of history that all the world
knows, and to be ignorant of them is practi-
cally to be ignorant Of history. Alfred's ad-
venture with the cakes is remembered where
the treaty of Wedmore is forgotten; and Oil
yer Cromwell is best known for his practi-
cal jokes, the ominous drops Of blood on his
untidy linen collar, and his desire to be
painted with his wart and his wrinkles. An
ecdotes are to biography what early legends
are to national history. Johnson's love of
tea is more famous than all his essays, as
Horatius Coolies is a better known character
than Tiberius Gracious, and Egeria more
noted than Agrippina. We are so made
that we like to hear of Montaigne's taste in
wine better than of the policy of Louis XII,
and Gre more for Villon's burglaries than
for his ballads. This is an extremely litter
ate, uncritical and unrefned habit of human
nature; but people being constituted as they
are, they read Bishop Wilberforce's Remi-
niscences eagerly. They will turn with more
attention to the anecdotage about M. Gam
beta and Prince Bismarck, which has lately
filled the papers, than to discussions about
the future of parties in France, or about the
probabilities of European war.
The remarkable Dr. Busch, who once pub
lishea two volumes on Prince Bismarcks
private habits, has lately contributed anoth-
er essay on the same subject to Viennese
paper. At the same time a correspondent
of the Times publishes recollections of M
Gambetta. AS we compare the two sets of
anecdotes, we gather that Prince Bismarck
and NJ. Gambetta, though public enemies,
must have been congenial spirits in private.
Both were Of an open frankness which puz-
zled the tortuous and astute, both were fond
of eating, drinking and festivity at large,
and both were superstitious. In the last
quality they resemble most men, great and
small; for we all retain so much of the saw
age as to expect effects to be produced by
causes which cannot possibly influence
them, but which are in some way connected
with them in our minds. Probably great
men, retaining much of the eternal child in
their characters, are more superstitious than
the ordinary bourgeois, who have got rid of
imagination, with all its hopes and fears
Cromwell, Napoleon, DR.. johnson, Pascal,
WIN Oil AiOlC oupC1obltlOuS tudu tuG uISl
city man or barrisrer you may chance to
meet; but the 'tfears of the brave and follies
of the wise'' do not spring from weakness OF
| mind, but from uneradicated hereditary ten
| denotes. As an example of Prince Bis
| malck's superstition, we are told that she
| will not have battle which is as yet unde-
| cided spoken of as If it were won." But
this is sound sense, not superstition. Many
battle would have had different conclu.
sion if generals had not regarded it as won
before it was really decided. We might as
well call the Australian Eleven superstitious
| because they never thought match was
lost till the last wicket had fallen.
That is more genuine superstition, of the
sort familiar to Cromwell, in Bismarck's re-
| fusal to negotiate the surrender of Metz OIL
the 18th of October, the date of Hochkirch
| and Jena. The Princes dislike of Friday
| The will not start on a Friday, nor sign any
important document on that day Of the
| WEEKS survival of very ancient notion
| illustrated by the taboo days of South Sea
islanders, and by the Roman, Mexican
Chaldean and Egyptian calendars. The
reason why. in Christian times, Friday is
thought dies nefastus is, of course, obvi
Gus enough. If we could combine all the
taboo days of different superstitions, all OF
| which are equally reasonable, we probably
| should not find single lucky day in the
year. Bismarck hesitated, it is said, about
accepting the title of Count, because there
had Eeen great mortality among counts in
| Pomerania. Perhaps he fancies that the
curse of Sidonia the Sorceress is still upon
| the noble houses of the land. He is said to
have predicted the day, month and year OF
his own death, as many persons are tabled
| to have done successfully, especially lady
| mentioned by Henry More; but then she
had got the straight tip from the ghost of
her sainted mother. We are not told wheth-
er the Princes prophecy referred to date
| still in the future, or whether it has already
been falsifed, like DR.. Cummings theories
| of the end of the world. He seems to have
| predicted, not on the information of ghost
! or a dream. but on calculations about a
mystical figure" But students of the
Number of the Beast, of roulette, and of the
mystical figure in the Republic of Plato
| all know that estimates in this unholy and
| necromantic arithmetic cannot always be
relied on with certainty. There is dash Of
| the astrologer in the Prince, and he com
mends those who get their hair cut wher
the moon is waning. Thus this great mind
| has beliefs in common with Hesiod, and
with the pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus, who
| grayely indicates the conjunction of the
| planets under which man should order
| new clothes.