MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON ▪ HAVE this week been reading Miss Carola Oman's very full- ." length biography of Nelson. The book will be reviewed else- where : I mention it only because it has brought back to my mind the age-old controversy regarding the ethics of biography. Should a biographer paint his subject exactly as he was, warts and all ? Or should he cast into shadow the more disfiguring aspects and produce with prominence those features which were beautiful and strong ? In other words, should a biography be a synthesis of virtues or an analysis of human nature ? I am not for one moment suggesting that Miss Oman has composed an inaccurate portrait of Nelson ; she is far too scholarly for that. It seems to me, however, that her book (if I may quote Dr. Johnson on Oldisworth), " without criminal purpose of deceiving, shows a strong desire to make the most of all favourable truth." It may be a useful thing in our dilapidated age to set before one's readers a shining example of single-mindedness. It may be also that if, at the cost of much labour and research, one composes a study of single-mindedness, it is best to idealise single- ness of purpose in terms, not of egoism, but of patriotism and a sense of duty. All men and women are guided through their lives by mixed motives, some of which are unselfish and some of which are mean ; it is quite legitimate to assume that the true nature of an individual is reflected in his noblest moments and that the others are but the bark-peelings of a splendid tree. It may, moreover, be true that we have now outlived the reaction against Victorian biography and that we are becoming bored by the type of biography which dissects each type of virtue and destroys all boyhood legends. Hagiography is not necessarily dead today, and I should certainly place Mr. Evelyn Waugh's Campion among the most stimulating and well written of all modern lives. Yet the problem remains, and I should like this week to examine it afresh.
* * In the long history of English biography, from Beowulf to Carola Oman, two purposes have recurred. The first is the commemorative purpose. A hero dies, and his tribe or his relations feel it appro- priate that his exploits or his virtues should be recorded for future generations. This record may take the form of runic inscriptions or monoliths ; it may also take the form of a two-volume biography. The second purpose is didactic. It is felt that the lives and characters of great men or women can be presented in such a manner as to form a manual of virtue for young and old alike. We therefore had the lives of the saints, the martyrologies and the hagiographies, from which English biography, in its slow development, has drawn so much of its strength. Each of these two purposes, and they are persistent, has produced powerful biographies ; yet each of them has been synthetic in effect rather than analytical ; each of them has obscured truth. In the middle of the eighteenth century a third purpose began to emerge. People began to realise that it was not enough for a biography to be laudatory or improving ; it must also be convincing ; and if it was to be convincing it must be true. The great pioneer in this discovery was Dr. Johnson, who holds the extraordinary position of being at one and the same time the subject of the greatest British biography and the greatest exponent of the biographical art. I should not deny to James Boswell a certain touch of genius ; but it is curious to note that, whereas Boswell wrote little of real value apart from his books on Dr. Johnson, nobody could write about Dr. Johnson without becoming excited. Fanny Burney and Mrs. Thrale were alert women and could write well on other subjects: but Sir John Hawkins, as we know, was a terribly dull man. Yet even Sir John Hawkins, when he starts to write about Dr Johnson, becomes alive. Such was the immense stimulus which that great man could generate.
* * * It is salutary, in considering the ethics of biography, to recall what Johnson himself wrote upon the subject. In October, 175o, he stated in The Rambler that the interest of any biography was to be sought in "the parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds." In history, with its sequence
of impersonal events, this interest was diluted and blurred ; in biography it was intensified and concentrated. Biography, to his mind, should above all be intimate. It should " pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and to display the minute details of private hie." He was opposed to the " formal and studied narrative " which begins with a man's pedigree and ends with his funeral ; he did not care for the dramatic treatment of " striking and wonderful vicissitudes " ; he was less interested in the overt actions of great men than in their moments of self- reproach and diffidence ; he cared more for the intermittences of energy than for its continuity. He had no doubt at all in his own mind that a true portrait ,was preferable to a flattering portrait. " There are many," he wrote, " who think it an act of piety to hide the faults and failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection." We therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform perfection and not to be known from one another but by extrinsic and casual circumstances." " If," he concludes, "we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be laid to knowledge, to virtue and to truth." These are lapidary words.
* * * * The interesting thing about Dr. Johnson's theory of biography is that, while he discarded the commemorative purpose, he did not wholly discard the didactic purpose. He seems to have believed that biography should be written, if not to inculcate examples of virtue, then at least to provide comfort for human weakness and instruction for daily conduct. To him biography lay somewhere between the " falsehood " of fiction and the " useless truth " of history. Of all farms of narrative it seemed to him " that which is most eagerly read and more easily applied to the purposes of life." But never did he waver from his basic contention that no biography could be of any value unless it were strictly true. One is reminded of the vivid scene recorded in Boswell's great biography which occurred on Saturday, March 16, 1776. They were in a little wherry together rowing towards Blackfriars. Boswell mentioned a volume which he had seen advertised under the title lohnsoniana or the Bon-Mots of Dr. 7ohnson. Boswell was naturally perturbed by this premature and spurious publication ; he suggested even that Johnson should bring an action against the publishers. The latter, while admitting that the issue of this volume was ' a mighty impu- dent thing," felt that it would be unwise to prosecute. Boswell suggested that at least he should publicly disavow h. " I shall," replied Johnson, " give myself no trouble about the matter." They rowed on in silence and then Johnson uttered one of his most pregnant apophthegms. " The value," he said, " of every story depends upon its being true. A story is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general. If it be false, it is a picture of nothing." How often, when I have been obliged to listen in patience to imaginary or Stock Exchange stories, have I found myself inwardly repeating that remark! "If it be false, it is a picture of nothing." * * * *
The fact remains that the ironical school of biography is no longer fashionable ; it contained within itself the glittering beetle of its own decay. Biographers should be glad that they are no longer expected to poke fun at their victims. All serious biographies are the result of months, perhaps years, of drudgery and research ; there must come moments when the machine clogs and groans ; and unless the biographer possesses a fundamental respect—whether intellectual or moral—for his subject then there is no fly-wheel to his machine. One cannot write a serious biography about a person whom one utterly dislikes. All biographies represent a collaboration between the author and his subject, and incompatibility of temper is as disastrous to biography as to any other human relationship. Nor do I myself see much harm in making, as Miss Oman has made, the very most of all favourable truth.
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