The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-04
Along Paths Llt'
By Aron Nosirrah.


 perhaps many strained and ill-adv'se from improper motives, but whiIe this ts true. there is much of 'candor ab put the present day record that has not been known before. and the effect must be salutary. We do not think that MT. Gosse is entirely correct when he gays that "the lives of great and good men which are published in England and America are expanded tracts. Their ob- ject to do good, and they think to attain this end by emphasizing all merits of the deceased, and by going over, or omit ng everything which is not rectls to edi fication, as though a, portrait can be picture at all if its shadows are left out, or if its modelling $ all kept of waxen biographer does not believe his tale at all; or. rather, he continues in that mud dled state of intellectual conscience. in which a man can not distinguish truth from fiction. but convinces himself that if a lie is told. for the best, 1t will. in the course of evolving itself turn into a sort of truth. This is fallacy. It merel'' corrupts into particularly dusty and foolish emptiness. If pious biographers could only persuade themselves to believe Spiniza when he says that, truth cau- not be contrary to the real interests of humanity Mir. Gosse anticipates an un- expressed, perhaps, but universal desire, when he says that 'the aim of all por- traiture ought to be the emphasizing of what makes the man different from. not like, other men," The individual features which have been betrayed in the publica- ton of letters. have furnished some very surprising records, some unpublished let ters of Ruskin and others are sde-ights In the revelation of the background of character, of men whose portraiture had all been from the front view. Much more entertaining to the general reader, is the many-sided picture. and obviously more instructive. To properly present his sub ject, and his work the b,ographer should allow us a view of the mould in which he was cast and the elements which compose the fibre of his makeup.
 The Insincere Biographer.-Mr. Crosse further deals with the insincere biog- rapher. We conceal this, and we tell lies about the other, and We make such a bother about retlcence and professional secrecy, that when a trait of nature does struggle to light as 1t is bound to do now and then. we scream with horror at the soiecism of It." Dr. Van Dyke in his '"The Little Mans Prayer" has this sem tence, Teach me to see the local color without being blind to the inner light" and 1t Is this inner light" that the stu dent of biography calls for. The subtle betrayal of how his ambitions tend: of how his conscience works. what stirs his animosities, of what kindles the fire in his soul, of his motives, of his purpose. of his aspiration. through these 'coffi- dences,' the friend reads the lineaments of the mans mental trend. and his moral tendency. At least. some what of this, Is the just expectation of the reader of biography; and whatever the motive of the man who writes a life" he must deal honestly with his subject, as well as with his reader. that he may secure appreciation, and charitable construction, and that the meaning of the story which he tells may not fall short of Its mark.
 Aron Nosrirah.