The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1950. OF BIOGRAPHY

Wanganui Chronicle, 22 July 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1950. OF BIOGRAPHY

JT would be difficult indeed for the reader of the AVaverley Novels to be indifferent concerning the author of those stories. At every turn of the page the personality of the author speaks to the reader, not in words, but is influence. That subtle something which goes by the name of personality in writing seeps through the story and informs the mind and the heart of the reader. To want to know inoixi of the fountain of this accompanying glow to the story is natural enough and to do this one is led to an important department of literature. Almost everyone is interested more in persons than in things. The minority need not be given much consideration in this, for the majority is so large a portion of the human family. Biography then is a literary field which attracts many, both as readers and as writers.

What constitutes a good biography? Here is a question which might have taker, np much of the time of those, literary societies which flourished during the last century and witli whose disappearance the world became the poorer. A good biography should contain authenticated information concerning the subject personality of the work. His parentage, formative years, early experience, even the condition of his health are important data which might reasonably ba included. Where his thoughts have been expressed they too are of great value for they measure the mental and spiritual development of the man and that is the major interest of the biographer. Everything which aids him in his delineation and growth of the subject’s character is material which the biographer will prize. The true biographer should be, at one and the same time, an enthusiast for his subject and yet judicious in the handling of the material made available to him. He should within the limits of decency and decorum paint his portrait "warts and all.” It is seldom possible to' include all of the material that a biographer gathers, for to do so would make the book too large for practical purposes. Therefore a judicious selection of the evidence is called for. Here lies the thin ice, for it is in the selection of the data, that the biographer is likely to come to grief. If he allows his own preferences to guide him, so that he makes his subject a better or a worse one than he. actually is or was then he is no true biographer. It requires a nice sense of balance to make the necessary selections.

When a biography is completed it provides not only a record of the subject’s development, but it. also contains an intimate picture of the world in which the subject personality lived. This not only includes the house in which he dwelt, the clothes he wore, the personal habits of his day-to-day living, but it will reveal how he reacted to those of his fellow travellers along life’s rough road and what is of equal importance how they reacted towards hinr. It is sometimes a weakness in autobiography that the. writer tells his own tale,and in so doing becomes so absorbed in his subject that he writes looking outward all of the time. People touch him, but like electrically charged pithballs in a physics lairoratory they repel each other or at least stand apart. The late Mr. Justice O. J. T. Alpers’ autobiographical “Cheerful Yesterdays” (Murray), contained much that was very interestingconcerning himself, but he failed to grasp the opportunity to tell much about those with whom he worked. Alpqrs wrote more as an actor than as a judge. The value of a well written biography lies in the understanding which is gained of the character, but it docs more, it provides what Disraeli called the raw material of history. Here is an important point of interest, to what extent has the course of history been changed, what kind of man the chief actor happened to be in a critical period. Had Henry the Eighth been a good Papist but a. poor Catholic instead of the other way round what would have been the subsequent course of English history? Had Tmther been equipped with a mind like that of Count Cavour would there have been much difference in the history of Europe. I lad Abraham Lincoln been to a university college instead of roughing it on the frontier would he have been sufficiently tough in the fibre to have carried the country through the Civil War! If he had not been equal to the situation what would have been the otjjeome of the slavery issue in America? These are all speculative questions, but did the personal element in the crisis situation fashion the result or did it have very little influence? Did the Time Spirit decide the issue irrespective of the character of the prominent individuals of the time? The reading of biography will not necessarily solve these questions but it will provide the material which will help the enquirer on his way. The same study will give him a greater understanding of human nature The individual character is seldom, if ever, duplicated but men tend, to react to the same stimuli in very much the same way. What are the reactions of the individual to the prospect of success or to ils achievements? What are his reactions to failure? Napoleon tearing failure when a young untried officer walked the banks of the Seine in Paris, contemplating suicide. Yet he lived through his youthful depressions to become One of the greatest soldiers of history. Walter Scott through one impetuous decision faced a life of possible insolvency. -How did he. react? He fought his fight because his proud spirit could not contemplate an act of bankruptcy and so made an imperishable name for himself as an author. How many young men, facing a blank wall through which no door of opportunity is to lie discerned have been encouraged to keep on striving by reading of Napoleon’s •early life? How many men presented with a seemingly hopeless financial burden have gone forward with a stout heart because of the example of Sir Walter Scott and won to an unexpected fame? The inspirational quality of biography, after the manner of the late and to be respected Reverend Samuel Smiles who wrote “Self Help,” which is no more than a collection of success biographies, is not to be despised. But there are kindlier qualities to be gleaned from biography than the development of a disciple of the principal of Push and 'the reader who selects his biography with discernment will find in these higher fruits the greater reason for turning to history in the raw, which is biography.