THE ART OF BIOGRAPHY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 34, 9 February 1935, Page 24

THE ART OF BIOGRAPHY

MR. ARTHUR BRYANT

IN! THE "LONDON MERCURY"

(By "Ajax.")

Bryant's article on "The Apt of Biography" in Hhe July numtier^bf'the Mercury" is a well- . balanced arid illuminating essay on an always interesting subject. It is, as he says, a subject in which there has recently been a great revival of interest as the result chiefly of the small group of experimental biographers of which Mr. Lytton Strachey was the founder and chief practitioner. Adopting, \as it seems to me, a very genet rous view of the liberties that they are apt to take with the facts, Mr. Bryant emphasises the value of a biography that stirs the imagination and makes the past, often for the first time, real. "The first essential of good history is to make people feel that the past .actually: happened," and the historian'\vho has rendered that service is apparently entitled' to our gratitude,' even though he has made the past real, with unreal colours which, less' imaginative historians must remove. • , .. '- . * * ft "Biography, .says Mr. Bryant,: is thus primarily the art of making the dry bones of'a dead man live. There are' two cardinal offences against the art: that.of failing to make the bones live and that of utilising any other ' ingredients but bones for the operation. The first was the besetting sin of the Victorian bio-graphers,-and the second is that;of the modern. The Victorians assembled an imposing heap of bones in two volumes and called •• it a full-length {portrait! The Georgians conjure up a. neat phantasy of psychological and ironical conjecture and call'it a penetrating sttidy. -' ■•' : * .-.'"•'■ * :■''.* • ■■■■■■■■ Amdhg..th'e;dry.;bones'to which the: biographei; has to ; impart life Mr. Bryant mentions 'letters,-^or such of them, as have^ survived^,the fire and the waste-paper basket, official-and semiofficial records, '*Press cuttings, reports of speeches, opinions of colleagues, friends, and others, photographs, 'and perhaps a portrait. With' all these materials the biographer would have but a small part of the record that he wanted,.and whole episodes that had thrilled'and torn the man, arid changed his whole outlook and character would have 'passed/.without leaving a trace behind; "The psychological artists of the modern school, would be completely . justified,"' says Mr. Bryant,, if the materials for a judgment went no further than the kind of things he has mentioned. ; ) ''• •-", .-■..■\?-'--..:::.-- .* : .-■••■ *':■'■■-' ..,, But there 'is/ he continues, one .•.eternal standard by 'which -men-= can be judged,even after they are dead. By the fruits, we are told, we may know them. We do not need the details' of Shakespeare's' pri- , vato life to understand what manner of man he was—a Rhodes or a Loyola is our. friend or enemy,• as we approve or "detest the giant structure he raised; we apprehend hip, though we know nothing of his loves, his private hopes and fears, his struggles with himself. The first study of a biographer must, therefore, be the work of his hero. ■•-.■■:■'.-. ; •■"...-■■■■ •:■■■■- * ' •■'■:-.- * ■'.■'■«.. ■■ '■ ■•■.- . This last remark—that .the biographer's first study must be the work of his herorr-would still be true, Mr. Bryant adds, even if the whole of a man's private life were unfolded before his biographer; and he supports his;;contention; with"aVstartling•■'illus--ItratibniSVFpr/ nearly, ten years ■'. Samuel Pepys>kept a- faithful?record ,bf. the .eytots'-;-';ol-\hisi:;life,:;:his->-''mQods^-rand thoughts - from ■ : day, to.• day. -^ Reading this "all but incredible- journal," the ,■ydrldi*v^ibichy'■^thus^Vistepi«■d,'>'^: witli6ut anyp efforpirito^the'ishoes•■of the'•■ most .faYburedibiographer!,";-completely mis-.•^dei^ipd,;.;;^ie'.-;writer.'": ;it set him down -as '"a- vain, amorous, and mean gbssip"—Ayhich Mr. - Bryant does , not declare^ tb: be'wrong—but overlooking the fact ; that Pepys was a worker as well as a 'gossip arid a diarist, -it failed to discover that in the long .hours ,pf his daily ".".task at the Admiralty hie was compiling j another record, of greater importance. He was": ; writing "the clear, exhaustive letters and memoranda which in the teeth of discouragement and opposition laid the foundations of British sea power." ■■ :"- . ••,■':., "«-i-/;-,.--*^-.? -::.V::>." There is a passage in Mr. Winston Churchill's "World Crisis," says Mr. Bryant, which, .though it never mentions him, tells as much or more of the man Pepys than the most detailed personal revelation ; m L the Diary: < It is a description; of.the', smooth■•"and secret mobilisation of the- Grand Fleet <Sn the eVe of the Wat:;: v ' .iv^C ...... ■■'. \ ;•■'".' " "If.war should come ho one would, know where to look for the British Fleet; Somewhere, in" that enormous-waste of'waters to : the'north of bur islands, cruising 'now this 'May, no\y that, shrouded in storms aiid mists, dwelt'this mighty organisation. Yet from ;the Admiralty building we could speak to them at any\ moment if need arose.,.: The King's ships: were atsea." ;":-.'. '/" * .'*' .' '_ .■". * "■•„.■ ■'-'' The. first plans for that giant machinery, Mr.Bryant continues, had been drawn.2oo and'more years before by Samuel Pepys Toits making went all the best of him 'and' the;enduring part of his heart. And where the heart lies, "ecce homo." •.."..-'"■■ .'• It isindeed an inspiring thought that, despite his prodigious expenditure of energy on frivolities and flirtations, and on the punctilious recording of them in his. secret cypher, Pepys had still enough'left to enable him to make his contribution to the winning of the World War.-more than two centuries after his death. ■ ' ■' '"•■■■.•■' ♦ »■ ■'"'•■ Industry, chronology, selection, and scale are the four points ih the equipment of a biographer.-on which Mr. Bryant lays;special stress. /r . .'.- The true biographer, he says, like a master of any craft, must approach his trade with humility and unwearying' industry. No fact must be too mean for his consideration nor too much trouble to obtain. "It is not imaginable to such as have not tried," wrote Evelyn, "what labour an historian (that would be esact) condemned to. He-must read all, good and bad, and remove a world of rubbish before he can lay the foundation." The biographer, dealing in the dry bones of the past, is not absolved from the historian's labour. He has merely cause to.be grateful that his studies are limited by the length of his hero's life and the scope of his contacts: the voyage is at least circumscribed. ■:■-■ ~. ■■•■.,_.- , ::vr--: ■:-.». ; - ♦ \r '■ '.-# ■■:.- Asto'chronology, Mr. Bryant goes so far as to advise that every, fact, wher-. ev^r.-culled," should be recorded on a separate sheet of paper, ''even if such facts are divided from each ottier by a single day or. even by a few hours." When subsequently he: arranges: his patiently-garnered facts their proper order, the reason for this will be clear. And his reward will probably be greater than he ever suspected at first, for it is extraordinary how some minute arid apparently: irrelevant fact when set in its right chronological: context will make something clear that had before been dark, or lead to a discovery that no one had ever suspected.. ■:.-'.... [■'.■■"'- ~ Those journalists who systematically conceal the date, the context, and the I

I source, and therefore the authority and the .weight, of their quotations "under that, disgusting Sormula ".a London writer—or a writer in arfbverseas journal—recently said" should be sent to school under Mr. Bryant. •.'..' * *. . * Scale is declared by Mr. Bryant to be as important to the biographer as to the cartographer, and he points out that, if the scale is preserved, a life may be as artistically perfect in 10 lines as in 10,000. He considers the miniatures of Clarendon and Aubrey, like those of Mr. Churchill in our own day, to be "as perfect as anything to be found in the whole range of biography." Aubrey's portrait of Dr. Stokes is quoted as follows:— • : . . '. Stokes, M.A. His father was Fellow of Eaton Coll. Qu. if not, Prebend of Windsor, and if not schoolmaster of Eton? He was bred there and at King's College. Scholar to Mr. W. Oughtred for Mathematiques and Algebra. He made himself mad, but became sober again, but I feare like a crakt glasse. Edidit Mr. Oughtred's "Trigcnometrie." Became a Roman Catholique, married unhappily at Liege; dog and catt, etc. Became. a sott. Dyed in Newgate Prison for dett, April, 1681.

"What more was there to say?" asks Mr. Bryant. It certainly would not be easy to pack more into the space.