Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1916 — No Genius Biographer. [ARTICLE]

No Genius Biographer.

Biography has not yet bad her Shakespeare, her Dante, or even her Goethe; her supreme and only Boswell remains unapproached in the region where he dwells aloof from rivalry through such self-sacrifice as no other has been willing to make; but from Plutarch down, biography has had the advantage of every other muse in the absolute simplicity of her duty. After her choice of a hero, she has no choice but truth to the facts of his life, or any choice except between fullness or spareness in her devotion to them. If she is faithful to these, she will not have failed of her duty to her theme; and such is the charm of one man’s life to all other men, she will not have failed of the fascination which every muse likes to exercise upon mortals. —W. D. Howells.