Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-24

II he who wrote Ecclesiastes were
writing his most famous line today, no
doubt he would phrase It thus. "Of
making many biographies there Is no
end"
Right merrily the publishers pour
forth lives Of great men, until their
footprints on the sands of time loom
large in bookstores and homes.
Within the week there have been
issued lives, most of them done in the
new" manner. Of Abraham Lincoln,
Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Webster,
Beaumarchais, Gen. william Booth,
Anthony Wayne, George Meredith,
Queen Anne, Audubon, Hawthorne,
Amundsen.
These follow Napoleon, Queen Eliza
beth, Lincoln, Voltaire, lola, Disraeli,
Dumas, Gen. Grant, Mary Baker Eddy,
Henry VIII, George Washington and a
host Of others.
No n interested in any n who
ever lived can fail to find what he
seeks some time or other. II 1t Is not
already published, It will be next month,
or next year. Just keep on seeking
and you shall find.
The titles, in the main, seem divided
between plain names and attempts to
be kittenish. Thus the reader may Sc
lect a solid Life of George Meredith
or a cute and cunning Alas, Queen
Annei"
In those titles one finds summed I'D
the psychology of selecting names for
these new. newer and newest biogra-
phies. Evidently an author must
choose from a very u~nvarnished~ title,
to wit, the name of the subject, or he
must select a fancy handle, as 1t were,
to introduce the said subject.
In Meet Gen. Grant" which en-
joyed a big sale last year, the word
meet" put the reader on a plane Of
familiarity with the great general. The
veriest shoe clerk was enabled to meet
the man on terms of intimacy.
Alas, Queen Anne!" will make any
salesgirl feel quite at home with the
Queen. even give her a bit of condescen-
sion. indeed. we predict that the
sfrewd publishers will score a knockout
with that psychological Alas" Other
words. implying pity, contempt, ETC., no
doubt will have q vogue, too. II this one
goes over big"
Isn't there something slightly absurd
in the fact that biography had TO wait
so long to become so universally read?
Perhaps 1t was simply a matter of a
wider public growing up to biography.
for this form of writing always has been
- OAA va lC AIN AAi
Plutarch's Parallel Lives as he
called them. Of the Greeks and Ro-
mans have enjoyed unparalleled popu-
Iarity through the ages. Ebert Hub
bard's Little Journeys" to the homes
Of the great and near-great earned the
reading of thousands Of the discrim-
mating.
Hubbard was a shrewd a He
prided himself on being a business
man" one who could make money as
we'll as. write. 1t is interesting to note
that his effort in the latter field. as
exemplihed in his volumes Of short
biographies, in little more than a dec
ade since he was lost aboard the Lusi-
tania. has developed into one of the
major writing activities.
Perhaps the Little journeys" short
and spicy, filled with anecdote, yet sur
feited with the philosophy of life and
living. did their share toward making
the reading world conscious Of the
true worth of biography.
After ell, there is nothing more in
teresting to a normal man or woman
than success. in n form or another.
Practically every biography issued dur
ing the past 10 years has been Of some
successful figure. Perhaps the end Of
the career may not have been all that