New-York tribune., 1901-08-10
"LIFE AND LETTERS. "
A PROTEST AGAINST THE PLAGUE OF
BIOGRAPHY.

and Letters plague Long ago Tennyson spoke
his mind about it in verse, but poets LIE ana
Letters on that occasion supplied the stock OF
the usual potage in two volumes. Things nave
grown worse and worse,
For now the dentist cannot die
And leave his forceps of DID,
But round him, ere he scarce be cold'
Begins the vast biography
the Life and Letters of Mr.. Scraunch In the
literary papers the holders of Scraunchs let-
ters asked to communicate with his daugh-
ter widow niece literary executor Messrs'
Bungay. we read, will publish the Life ana Let
tiers of the deceased dentist-a useful man,
man to whom many of owed much put not
a man of whom wish TO be reminded In our
hours of ease; not man whom the Worlu Mllt ~
Of the Molars of Molarcombe) does NOT interest,"
US; his education (private) does not olner @ uonI
that of many other practitioners; MS auNellGie
either never occurred or are olscreelIy NSIieu t
by his widow his religious opinions ne KEPT
carefully to himself. and Mr.. - was ms favor,
ite novelist Though he had extracted oucaI
and stopped even royal teeth (these, too, are
probably not exempt from decay, though ne
was in the front rank OF his peheIcent nut 81
cruciating profession I fail to what we want
with Mr. ScraunCh's Life and Letters. II ms
love letters were given, and if he conducted
several love affairs Spontaneously theH me- .
might be passionate and instructive compoheIltS
in the two volumes. But here the widow niece
or daughter steps in and suppresses the essen- es1
tial and the intimate. With the real man. Win
the actual Scraunch, we never became acqualht-
ed. l cannot say that l want to Know more OF
him myself. Still. he. too If unhnchlnsly eN-
have all of US, got into scrapes, ana these are
interesting and about these the authors OF Lives
and Letters never or hardly ever, teil US n, any
thing. Yet our scrapes. when we got INTO ttieiii'
how we bore ourselves when in, how we got out
again, are necessary to be known II our inner ,
natures are to be known, ana. IHey
are not why publish Lives and Letters!
A person lately remarked in ordinary so
ciety that he supposed nobody present ever
TO have come within the range OF the law.
'F3ut by Jove did once he added, though now
he did not go on 10 confess. l know what that
person had done, but as to giving MN away; WAY;
like the young American gentleman AT lllg -,
ding service, Il never would be so mean Inc
circumstances will never be revealed IN ms
Life and Letters Though they would DO no harm
tn him or anvboIy) and thus, despite the num-
Der of superluous biographies, the puoAc VIII
never know. ,s
life is never told and n great deal OF what Is ut
terly commonplace is usually narrated. me SUI
face currents of our existence eTe.tiy 80 er
each other, these in Lives ana Letters are eA
htbited in needless length. The inner verify per
petually escapes u.s. thanks to the decent haolt-
uaI reticence Of literary executors. Their ret
licences esteem and commend. BY all means 90
not tear the heart before the crowd Ike the
heart Of Keats, or of more recent VICTIMS I1 VI
biographical or editorial indiscreton Every
human heart must exhibit picture or meal
culable interest but how rarely ought the Ven 10
he withdrawn! In the case of the usual 'blo-
graphers" Gas Mr.. Gladstone called them), the
error does not lie In Withholding intimate 1actS
but in unrolling endless lengths OF fact ~ wnlcn
ere commonplace. The beginners in the modern
manner OF biography Boswell and Johnson
were concerned with heroes about whom almost
notbing could be told that was not interesting
MoreoTer next to nothing could be told that was
not fit and proper to be known But "heh the
bIographer has merely the man of moderate
note 10 deal with then the profusion OF point
less letters and banal detail chokes the little In
the life that was worthy OF record
AS TO letters, authority is found, as MT
Saintsbury declares that the degeneration OF
the art OF letter writing is not mere phrase
it is a fact Has any of my readers, asks MT
Saintsburv many or any correspondent, like
1FlyaC Cp11fI HOY qT11h
aid like Nine. de Sevigne or like Lady Mary?
Probably few of US have such correspondents
for the many obvious reasons known TO all men,
such as the newspapers, which give the news
and the absorption Of people who can write IN
writing for livelihood. Yet good letter writer's
not extinct, were not extinct so recently
as in the lifetime of Mr.. r. L. Stevenson and
Mr.. T. z. Brown, the poet Of the Isle Of Man
At this moment, l doubt not, many good let
ters speeding on the wings of the post let
ters from clever women from clever men who
not Scribes by profession, even from clever
people VINO are engaged IN literature, but can
not avoid being amusing and displaying ap-
propriate style even in their private correspond
ence. In the Francis letters lately published. were
some eplstes from young lady who wrote
nearly we'll Miss Austen and humorously
described characters like Miss Hunters Lydia
and Kitty and Wickham. In our time so clever
a girl is apt TO be busted in trying to write
novels of "problematic' and sombre charac-
ter. But, despite the attraction of the novel
market, many diverting women must be writ
ing good letters, as Of old and many charming
epistles must be going to and fro between
friends whom the ocean divides. I am not read
lily TO be persuaded that the art of letter writing
is dead. But, alas! the everyday 7'biographer''
is not good letter writer himself, nor has he
good letter writer's among his friends. The let
ters are, rule. only introduced to tell the
story that does not clamor to be told. read and
to illustrate the character that has no high
claims on our interest.
The biography and it's uncalled for length are
only the result of the fond affection Of family
or friends. and of the inevitable Iuces Boswell
ana of the actual biographer. OF this mental
han ha
dream Of turning his great bear into a lap dog
and pOstertty has not found him guilty of writ
ing; ing al; al too great length, and with too minute
particularly. But he set the fashion, and the
coat which was not too big for the great doctor
Is now made for every minor artist. cleric, judge,
soldier, man of letters Interested in his
hero. the biographer finds all that he did or
wrote of interest, hardly note or letter escapes
the printer. and the "biOgrapher' is swamped in
hlmset on the other hand, Waltons Lives,
OF men really eminent are not faultess; they
are occasionally involved, they are not of scien-
tine accuracy, but they are full of what is
essential. OF character affectionately studied
and analyzed; they written in a style orig
1nal and OF permanent charm, and they are ad-
mirably brief Wotton, Donne and the rest
smell sweet and blossom in these kind honest
loving records. This manner of biography can
only be done by the friend who knew his man,
whereas our modern Lives and Letters are too
commonly compiled by conscientious stranger
pouring his materials into a conventional mould
book no bigger than Mr.. Leslie Stephens
Pope" lin the series of English Men OF Let
ters) may be masterpiece, brief concise ac-
cessible. 10 endure while our stout octavos are
forgotten: Ike their heroes. The best remedy
is that of Thackeray and Matthew Arnold: the
living man may prohibit the writing of his
biography, IL he thinks of 1t in time. We know
enough of an author who is merely an author
from his books. or from his letters If he himself
has deemed them worthy of publication After
all that has been written about Burns and about
Horace. nothing has really been added TO the
sef-revelations of their poems. One knows
Molere well from his plays IL some scribe
a hOU Am he ri NELL