A cynical Frenchman has defined life as the collection of recollections for the time when you shall have no memory. It is, at any rate, true (and the preachers are welcome to the moral) that the keenest joys of the senses leave a scant deposit in the memory, and that if sensual pleasures are doubled in anticipation, it is the spiritual that are doubled in looking backward.
[Sidenote: Long Lives]
Just as there are many persons of whose existence you are unaware till you read their obituaries, so there are many of whose celebrity you are ignorant till you see the advertisement of their biographies. On all sides we are flooded with big books about little people. What is this new disease that has come upon us? Life is short but a "Life" is long. Can there be any one man in this great procession of the suns who deserves the two royal octavo volumes, which is the least monument that the pious biographer builds? The perspective is all wrong. Bossuet got the history of the world into a fifth of the space. How keen must be the struggle for life amid these shoals of "Lives." How futile and vain this aspiration for a "Life" beyond the grave! Vainer still the bid for immortality, when one's own hand raises the mendacious memorial. It is an open question whether even Marie Bashkirtseff's self-hewn shrine will stand-she, who sacrificed her life to her "Life." If it does, it will not be by virtue of its veracity. I would not trust George Washington himself to write a perfectly accurate record of a prior day. As for the average biography, it is but the "In Memoriam" of memory. A friend of mine has written some excellent fiction and some entertaining reminiscences; only he has mis-labelled his books, and called his fiction "reminiscences," and his reminiscences "fiction."
VIVE LA MORT!
Wherefore do the critics rage?
'Tis the Biographic Age.
Every dolt who duly died
In a book is glorified
Uniformly with his betters;
All his unimportant letters
Edited by writers gifted,
Every scrap of M.S. sifted,
Classified by dates and ages,
Pages multiplied on pages,
Till the man is-for their pains-
Buried 'neath his own Remains.
Every day the craze grows stronger,
Art is long, but "lives" are longer.
Those who were the most in view
Block the stage post mortem too.
Hark the tongues of either sex-
Reminiscences of X!
Of his juvenile affections
Hundreds write their Recollections,
(None will recollect their writings)
Telling of his love for whitings
Fried in butter, or his fancy
For bananas, buns, and Nancy.
Thank the gracious gods on high,
Every day some "Life" must die:
Death alone is our salvation.
Though'tisdubious consolation
That of all these countless "Lives"
Only the unfit survives.
[Sidenote: Men and Bookmen]
The literary market is inundated with people who have no right to a stall. Aristocrats are badgered for books merely because they have the titles; and to have achieved success in any other profession than literature is the surest recommendation to the favour of the publishers. If I had to start my literary career over again, I should commence by hopping on one leg through the Pyrenees, or figuring in a big divorce case; anything short of assassination, which makes one's success too posthumous. It is most unfair, this doubling of the parts of doing and writing. Our modern heroes and heroines are quite too self-conscious; amid all their deeds of derring-do they have their eye on Mudie's. The old way was better. Even before the Pyramids were reared, when books were pictures and letters were cuneiform, heroes had their poets and kings their laureates. You can no more imagine Agamemnon, after the fall of Troy, rushing off to write an account of it for "Bentley's," than you can imagine Helen certifying that she found Pears' soap matchless for the complexion. It was better for the heroes as well as for the writers. Aeneas would never have dared to draw such constant attention to his "piety" as Virgil does; and even Louis Quatorze would have hesitated to describe the taking of Namur in the language of Boileau-
Et vous, vents, faites silence:
Je vais parler de Louis.
The true hero nowadays is the man who conquers himself and does not write books.
[Sidenote; James I. on Tobacco]
But even ancient kings did write sometimes, as witness this of James I: I hold it aye to be a Kings part to the Body-Politicke of all euils excesses, would fain demonstrate afresh to my dear Countrey-men how abhorrent to Heauen is this stinking incense that ascendeth day night; but amid the heat burden of the day I cannot find an hour to examine into this matter de nouo, must needs be content with commending to the readers of "Without Prejudice" my booklet, "A Counterblaste to Tobacco," imprinted Anno 1604, wherein they will find the abuses of this foreign custome duly set forth at length. But, on second thoughts, perchance these moderns read nothing but what is under their noses, so I will shortly recapitulate my main positions, merely adding that my objections to Smoak are to-day even stronger than when I wrote. (1) It is a fallacie of the vulgar that because the braines of men are colde wet, therefore Tobacco Smoak, being hote and dry, is good for them; a conclusion which no more followeth on the Premiss than the Ratiocination of one who should apply a cake of cold lead to his stomacke, because the Liver, being the fountaine of blood, is always hote. Moreover, the Smoak hath also a venomous qualitee. (2) It is a vulgar fallacie that the affection of mankind for the Practise is a proof that it is good for them; inasmuch as men are ledd astray by a mode, furthermore, the affectation conceit of the patient persuadeth him he is benefited; yet how shall one drug cure of all diseases men of all complexions? (3) Men are by this custom disabled in their goods, spending many pounds a year upon this precious stinke, and are no better than drunkards. (4) It is a great iniquitee against all humanity that the husband shall not bee ashamed to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome and cleane complexioned wife to that extremitee that either shee must also corrupt her sweete breath therewith, or else resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment. In short, tis a custome lothsome to the eye, hateful to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, in the blacke stinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomeless.
[Sidenote: A Counterblaste to James I.]
So please your Majestie, I would beg leave in all loyaltie service to cry you mercy on behalf of the foreign weed, Tobacco, which stands for all time condemned by the potent Counterblaste of a monarch, the maruelle of Christendom, whose brow hath borne at once the bays of Apollo, the laurels of Mars, the crownes of Scotia Anglia. And imprimis I would venture humbly to obserue that your Majesties arguments are to the last Degree asinine. Euen the title-which, as is customarie with great personages, is the best part of your Majesties book-is marred by an unseemlie concession to paronomasia. That your Majesties manifold abuses of the Logicks may be better espied, I will take them seriatim. (1) The ground founded upon the Theoricke of a deceiuable apparence of Reason-your Majestie is mistaken in thinking that I hold it a sure aphorisme in the Physickes. For the braines are neuer colde wet saue when there is water on them; those who do not Smoak haue no braines for Tobacco to benefit. (2) Your Majesties argumentation proueth how zealously your Majestie striueth to liue up to the nickname of the British Solomon. And, of a veritie, I could not myself run atilt more cunningly at this popular fallacie; though I might back up your Majestie with a most transparent illustration-to wit, that the affection of Mankind for monarchs is no proof that they are good for them. (3) I denie that Tobacco wastes ones substance, I would refer your Majestie to my demonstration of the Extrauagance of not smoaking. (4) And is it not an advantage that it resembleth to the Stigian smoak of the pit? The more we accustom ourselves thereto, the lesse we shall suffer when we join your Majestie. Will your Majestie kindlie recommend a Brande? Nor can I conclude without a word as to the ill-taste of that supplement to your Majesties booklet-a tax of Six Shillings Eighte-Pence uppon euery Pounde-Waighte of Tobacco , ouer aboue the Custome of Two Pence uppon the Pound-Waighte usuallye paide heretofore. Did your Majestie hope to effect so little by Reason that your Majestie must needs fall back on Reuenue? Hauing challenged this habit by the Kings pen, how unmannerly to resort to the coastguards cutlass fight the custome at the Custome House. Was it, perhaps, that your Majestie was wishful to promote English Agriculture or was getting up a cornere in Cabbaiges?