Part 9

A stupid biography of an interesting person is indeed a very lamentable thing; and not only so, but a grave injustice alike to the dead and to the living. Since the protest alluded to was uttered, there has been no lack of this sad work. The most conspicuous recent examples that occur to us are the Lives of Thomas Moore and of Lady Blessington. But though the life of a man of genius, served up in the form of hodge-podge, is rather a melancholy repast, there are biographic nuisances less tolerable still. The features of a Jupiter or an Apollo may be hard to recognise in the plaster of an incompetent dabbler; but if the model were really a noble one, something of the god will break through to edify the spectator. It is different, however, with the rude idol of the savage. The biography of a respectable mediocrity is, it may be safely said, among the least interesting or useful of literary performances. Minerva Press novels are bad enough (those who think the species is extinct are greatly mistaken); spasmodic poems are anything but enlivening; and numismatic treatises are not ambrosial fare; but against any of these we would back for true invincible unreadableness the Memoir and Remains, we will suppose, of the Rev. Jabez Jones, D.D., late pastor of Ramoth-Gilead Chapel, Battersea. We select our instance from the class of religious biographies, because it is by far the most numerous, and the most distinctly chargeable with the sin of bookmaking. Jabez, we have no doubt, was in his day and generation an excellent man, though given, as his Memoirs of course will amply testify, to unnecessary groaning. But why his life should have been written, is a mystery to be solved only by the astute publisher, who calculates on a sale of several hundred copies among the bereaved congregation of Ramoth-Gilead. The sorrowful biographer, whose name on the title-page plainly marks him as an eligible candidate for the degree of D.D., will inform us in a “sweet” preface that the materials of the present work were put into his hands, &c.; that, painfully conscious of his own inability, he had long, &c.; but that a perusal of the documents had so deeply impressed him with the importance of giving the world, &c.; that such as it is, in short, he commits it—and then is pretty certain to follow a piece of nauseous blasphemy as to the nature of the patronage to which the pious speculation is held entitled.[5] The number is perfectly sickening of bereaved husbands, sons, and fathers, who practise this strange alchemy on the penitential tears and devout breathings, the sick-bed utterances and dying ejaculations of sainted wives, mothers, and babes.

But bad as it is causelessly to exhume the poor victim of mortality in order to make him sit for his likeness, the posthumous method of biography is the natural and becoming one. Only when a man has finished his work, and escaped beyond the reach of human passions and cares, is it fitting to delineate his character and trace the story of his devious path through life. The practice of biographising living men, however, has now become very common. The publication of éloges used formerly to be reserved as a posthumous honour, but this generation is wiser, and writes the éloge while the subject of it can himself enjoy its perusal in the land of the living and the place of hope. One would think it a curious evidence of regard, independently of the question of delicacy, to adopt so suggestive a method of reminding a man that he is due to posterity. But tastes differ, and some men are not averse to the Charles V. method of trying on their shrouds, to see, as the old woman said, what “a bonnie corpse” they will make. With us in Britain this practice of spiritual vivisection, or _ante-mortem_ inquests, has been confined for the most part to short sketches, pretentiously critical in general, and very seldom of any value. Fundamentally gossiping in its character, this school of literary sketchers (what may be called the Biographical Life Academy) has appealed mainly to the weak curiosity that hungers after any small scraps of information regarding the private life and habits of living notorieties. Such curiosity is no doubt extremely natural, but the men who have undertaken the function of gratifying it, have, as might be supposed, been distinguished by no qualities less than by discernment and good taste, correctness of outline being with them a small consideration compared to abundance and strength of colour. This vulgar species of authorship, the servants’-hall gossip of the literary family, has, we hope, seen its palmy days.

On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the business seems to flourish, like all other business, with great briskness. Our American friends, excellent people as they are in so many respects, have long been known to us as pre-eminent in the gossiping line; one of the chief characteristics of the Anglo-American race being intense curiosity—an admirable principle, as every one knows, when subordinate to a high end, a decided weakness when not. To say that the American people universally are influenced by the spirit of vulgar curiosity, would be as unjust as it would be to charge the whole British nation with foulness of taste because the _Mysteries of London_ has found myriads of readers. But that the fashion has been exemplified very extensively by Americans of making the public familiar with the insides of private drawing-rooms, and telling the world how popular poets and historians handle a tea-pot or blow their noses, is a fact not to be denied. Among a people recognising, or professing to recognise, as the fundamental principle of government and society, the Irishman’s profound axiom, that “one man is as good as another—faith, and a great dale betther too!” it is not indeed surprising that in the sphere of literature, as well as in others, they should make more free with the characters and habits of private life than is by us old-fashioned Britons considered tasteful and becoming. Having now, however, passed their infancy, and in literature as well as in social development “progressed” towards manhood, it is high time that they should put away childish things. It has always grieved us to see citizens of the great Republic betray so weak-minded a delight in scrutinising the costume and domesticities of English aristocrats, or the private life and fixings of American democrats.

In the department of contemporary biography, it must be confessed our energetic cousins have fairly got the start of us. It seems, in fact, to have attained the rank of an “institution” among the other beautiful machinery of their political life. When Jullien visits the provinces, he heralds his coming by means of a set of fascinating portraits, which announce from every print and music shop window that the great Conductor is at hand. Somewhat similar, but more intellectual and elaborate, is the proceeding of the American “coming man.” No aspiring senator now thinks of trying for the Presidency without securing in good time the services of a competent biographer to relate the heroic story of his life, and make his transcendent merits known to all whom it may concern. Even a meditative Hawthorne turns his vision-weaving pen to such service, and considers it no way unworthy of his genius to polish off an electioneering biography of General Franklin Pierce. So deeply do politics mingle in the current of American life; so sweet to the aspiring statesman are the uses of biography!

But if the lives of politicians be written for the admiration of mankind and the good of the State, should the lives of the mightier men who make and unmake presidents and governments be esteemed less worthy of that honour? Assuredly not. At it then, ye diligent Yankee scribes, and hasten to convert into obsolete absurdity the oft-quoted line of the dull old fellow who sang—

“The world knows little of its greatest men.”

Let it not henceforth be said, to the reproach of civilisation, that the world was ignorant during their lives of the birth and genealogy, the schoolboy adventures and manly freaks, the trials and the triumphs of such men as Horace Greeley and James Gordon Bennett. Be careful to inform us, ye veracious cinder-gatherers—for posterity will not pardon the omission—the length, breadth, and weight of these remarkable men,—their complete phrenological development (so far as the addition of abnormal bumps by hostile shillelahs can permit accuracy),—the kind of clothes they wear—the kind of pens they write with, whether quill, iron, or brass—the ink they use, whether common blue-black or sometimes black-and-blue, or perhaps a cunning distillation of ditch-water—the attitude in which they sit when discharging their thunder at the heads of kings and cabinets, or composing their delicate invectives at one another;—in short, let us have perfect daguerreotypes of these supremely interesting and estimable men.

Behold! the thing is done, the good work has actually been commenced. There, lying before us, in all the square-rigged ugliness of New York upgetting, are the first-fruits of this new field of biographic enterprise—the lives, in two stout volumes, of the “two noble kinsmen,” the two great Arcadians whose names we have above mentioned. Many of our readers, perhaps not grossly illiterate persons either, will look up and ask, Who are Horace Greeley and James Gordon Bennett? While duly pitying the limitation of culture implied in such a query, we cannot be too hard on these poor ignoramuses, as we must plead guilty to having been ourselves frequently staggered, in reading American books, by meeting names associated with those of Milton and Aristides, as utterly new to us as was, till recently, that of his Majesty Kamehameha III., Dei gratiâ king of the Sandwich Islands. These two men, then, let all such ignoramuses know, are the editors of two widely circulated New York papers—the two most widely circulated, we believe, of any in America.[6] What other claims they have to the honours of biography and the remembrance of posterity, we shall consider by-and-by. Meantime we have to say of the books that they are the most unique things in the way of biography, or indeed of literature, that have come in our way since America, about a year ago, furnished us with the autobiography of one of her smartest citizens. They are of very different character—as different as the men whose lives they profess to record—but in both the biographic muse appears in a state of decided inebriety, highly unbecoming the ancient dignity of her vocation. In the work of Mr Parton she is what is called half-seas over, unsteadily hilarious, and amusingly absurd, hiccuping out smart things now and then in a way that is irresistible, then suddenly looking grave and uttering sublimities that are still more outrageously laughable. In the anonymous companion-volume she is far gone towards mortal insensibility; she might be said, in fact, to be in _delirium tremens_, but that there is not a single flash of the wild energy that diversifies the symptoms of that shocking malady. It is pure dazed stupidity and double-vision from beginning to end. We have met nothing comparable to it in all our experience of biographies.

The sole ground on which these volumes claim any notice, contemptible as they both are (though not in equal degree) in matter and treatment, is that which gave some importance to the infamous revelations of Barnum. They are in some degree typical; their subjects at least are so in a very considerable degree—“representative men” of their kind, and so far important. A newspaper editor is in all civilised countries an important personage. We are not going here to enter on an elaborate consideration of the functions and influence of the press—so let nobody dread a homily. The subject has been often enough handled well and ill, and lately we have heard a good deal about it. We are nowadays rather given to flourishing about the “Fourth Estate.” There is a tendency towards cant on this as on all other interesting subjects. The Fourth Estate is a grand fact, but let those who have any pretensions to connection with it rather strive to keep it so than talk magniloquently about it. As for those who have not, let them take care that it does its duty, and does not go beyond it. Newspaper editors, we say, are important personages; but they are like other human beings, some of them eminent for intellect and virtue, many of them highly respectable for both, others of them dignified by neither. The anomalous and fluctuating conditions of newspaper life make it inevitable that men should sometimes attain high influence in virtue of connection with the press, whom neither nature nor education has eminently qualified for the guidance of their fellow-men. This applies, of course, peculiarly (though not exclusively) to America, where, on the admirable Irishman’s maxim above quoted, everybody is equally fit for everything—faith, and a great deal fitter too! where toll-keepers and publicans are colonels in the army, and the man who fails as a ratcatcher turns his hand to preaching, and, if that fail also, straightway sets up a newspaper. But though applying peculiarly to the American press, our statement is not exclusive of Britain. Journalism is becoming, indeed, with us more and more of a recognised profession—a profession, too, calling for special gifts and training—gifts and training, higher and more liberal, to those who think rightly of their vocation, than do any of the three hitherto exclusively entitled “learned.” The press is no more with us, if ever it has been, a kind of literary Diggings, where the outcasts and desperadoes, the halt, the maimed, and the blind, of every other calling, may find a precarious refuge and irregular adventurer-work, from forging of thunderbolts to winnowing of ash-buckets. But it is true, nevertheless, that the fundamental conditions of success in this career are compatible with a moral and intellectual standard by no means exalted. It is a common mistake, that high literary ability is the first requisite for editorial success. The fact is nearly the other way. The first requisite is knowledge of men, the second confidence, and the third perseverance. Let a man possess the concentrated gifts of a whole academy of _belles lettres_, and be deficient in shrewd practical discernment of what suits the public, he may pipe ever so melodiously, but he will get few subscribers to dance. Let him know, or imagine that he knows, ever so well what suits the public, if he have not a quick eye to see what other men are fit for, and how far they can be trusted to do his work, he may shut his shop and retire. Let him possess encyclopædic knowledge, and the readiest flow of winged words, but if he be not a man of hard-working, dogged persistence, he might as well sow the great Sahara as undertake to conduct a newspaper. A paper once fairly established may, indeed, conduct itself successfully, despite an unpractical and easy editor; for good machinery compels even inert matter into activity and order. But to rear a paper into vigorous existence amid a host of competitors—to make bricks without straw, and snatch the bread of victory out of the jaws of famine—the editor or conductor must be, in the first place, a man of business—it is of very subordinate importance that he be a man of letters. Hence it is sometimes objected, that newspapers, being in so many cases merely commercial speculations, must necessarily subordinate principle to profit. The objection is neither sound in logic, nor, in this country at least, true in fact. The manufacturer of shawls and blankets is not the less an honest man and estimable citizen because his primary object is not the good of the community but his own private advantage. His shawls and blankets are not the less excellent and indispensable because he converts them into pelf. If the shawl-manufacturer indeed become a power in the State, and begin to arrogate high virtue to himself for his services to the public, and to dictate laws in virtue of the prosperity of his business, it is reasonable that we should apply to him something analogous to the question, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” Applying this test to the press of our own country, we arrive, on the whole, at satisfactory conclusions. If we do not see so much as we could wish of a grave sense of responsibility, and a careful weighing of facts and motives, we know how much is due to the terrible exigencies of time. This we are assured of, that in no other profession or occupation is there more of manliness and fair play; in none other is the professional honour so untarnished by the contact of lucre; and, so far as chastity of sentiment and expression is concerned, “the freest press in Europe (Mr Macaulay might have said, in the world) is also the most prudish.” Occasional examples of recklessness and violence, of meanness and bad taste, invalidate in no wise the force of this general assertion. Newspaper editors and writers are, we repeat, human like others. To expect that they should in every case display faultless wisdom and virtue is a devout imagination, but an extremely vain and irrational one. As to the paltry £. S. D. considerations, we have, for our own part, often admired, as a striking example of the innate virtue of human nature, despite its depravity, the magnanimous zeal which sustains so many newspaper proprietors in the task of instructing the public at a very swinging loss to themselves!

The power of the press is greatly aided, as every one knows, by the mystery which shrouds the writer, merging all personality of the individual in the mysterious plurality of the organ through which he speaks. It is not John or Thomas that proclaims the danger of the nation, the incapacity of a Minister, the justice or injustice of a deed. It is an unknown voice, uttered out of darkness, and therefore formidable—the voice not of one, but of many, and therefore claiming respect. The voice of a Greek tragedian sounded through his mask more awful than it really was; and the majestic buskin raised a very ordinary figure to the kingly height of Agamemnon. The “we” of John or Thomas, through the speaking-trumpet of the _Times_, becomes a very different pronoun from the “I” of these gentlemen uttered through their individual windpipes. If any argument were necessary to prove that this formidable anonymousness is not only essential to the liberty of the press, but the true safeguard of its health and honesty, we might point for proof to the Press of those States, whether despotic or free, where it is not tolerated. In the United States, for example, there is almost as little anonymous writing as in Paris or Vienna. There is no statute on the subject, and no legal censorship exists, but the state of public feeling makes it almost impossible for a man to conceal his personality. The writer may not put his name to his articles, but if he does not, it is only because he finds it unnecessary. Is the press there more honest, more discreet, more tender of individual character than in Britain? No candid American will answer that question with an affirmative. The press of America is not the less formidable, not the more honest and scrupulous, that its principal writers are known or notorious men.

The character of the two nations is illustrated by some of their distinctive peculiarities in this respect. With us the tendency is to merge the individual in the body—with them the notion of liberty is associated with the clear recognition of individual independence. Here the newspaper editor is generally the invisible head of an association—there he is a right-well-known entity of flesh and blood, as cowhide and rattan applications have too often most strikingly demonstrated. There the journal is generally his, and his name figures conspicuously at the head of its columns—here he belongs more frequently to the journal, and, while wielding a great power in the community, his personal existence is a kind of myth, and his name may never have been heard by the great majority of his readers. The American editor, on the contrary, must make himself known, or he will not be listened to. All pugnacious republicans must have the means of knowing who it is that abuses them. The occupant of the White House must be made familiar with the name of the man who attacks or defends his policy, whose mouth may be silenced, or whose fidelity rewarded by a due share of the federal dollars. Let it not be imagined that any uncomplimentary remarks we make on the American press are intended to apply universally. So speaking, we should convict ourselves at once of ignorance and dishonesty. There are American newspapers and editors of high and unblemished character, as there are American politicians worthy of a better fate than to be kept waiting three months for the election of a Speaker. But of the American press generally the criticism still holds good, that, while boasting to be the freest in the world, it is in practical thraldom to an inextricably tangled system of democratic terrorism. Improvement there has been, we delight to think, within the last dozen years—so much so, that even papers which were the very offscourings of journalism, have become, in their European editions at least, fit for decent mortals to read. Out of a total of nearly three thousand papers, circulating among so mixed and changeful a population, it is little wonder, also, that there should be a large class of papers at which a cultivated man of any nation must look with contempt and sorrow. We know too well, from examples in our own colonies—as in India and Australia—how, in heterogeneous and young communities, where men of high talent and education seldom resort except in the established paths to success, newspapers are apt to fall into the hands either of government agents or of reckless adventurers, with the natural result, in the one case, of insolence and servility, in the other, of indecent violence and gossiping personality. That, therefore, in a country like the United States, where men of intelligence and enterprise are never at a loss for profitable occupation, the press should be left in a great measure to those who can get nothing better to do, need not surprise us; nor, as the necessary result, that its moral and intellectual standard should hitherto have been such as a civilised and educated nation would, if it were not too busy, and too jealous of foreign criticism, have viewed with consternation as a professed mirror of itself.