A New Departure in Biography

IF the readers of biography grow weary of the accepted method and order of construction, — ancestry, boyhood, getting under way, etc., etc.,—how must it be with the writers ? They are not usually such dull persons as to lose sight of the fact that the sated reader is — after the subject of their writing — their chief concern. It is upon his tastes, his prejudices, his capacity of ennui or enthusiasm that the immediate success of a biography must depend. For this cause not only the readers, but the writers of biography may well rub their eyes and begin asking themselves questions when a fresh experiment in biographical method presents itself.

Such an experiment is Lincoln, Master of Men, A Study in Character, by Mr. Alonzo Rothschild. Though the book carefully calls itself something other than a mere biography, its total effect is that of a life of Lincoln. The author’s plan was to take one distinguishing characteristic of his subject,—the “vein of mastery,” — and test it in relation with the circumstances and the men which Lincoln’s work in the world called upon him to master. There was first the assertion of physical mastery in boyhood and young manhood, the rough-and-tumble winning of ascendancy over his fellow-frontiersmen. Then came the Black Hawk War and the early steps in law and politics with their further offerings of elemental trials of the “ best man.” The celebrated series of debates with Stephen A. Douglas take their natural place in the sequence of personal victories. For the remainder of the book, Lincoln is seen getting the best of one man after another, — Seward, Chase, Stanton, Frémont, McClellan, — using tact, patience, firmness, as each or all might be needed, and showing himself in every instance the man whose mastery must, with a generosity like Seward’s or a petulance like McClellan’s, be finally acknowledged.

If one were writing a review of the book, it would be necessary to point out how admirably most of this is done, from how many sources the author has brought together his material, how skillfully he has wrought it into the successive studies which make up the book. It might also be suggested that the material does not all lend itself equally well to the chosen methods — this is perhaps most noticeable in the Chase chapter;—that in dealing with Stanton and McClellan the instances which illustrate the waiter’s point may be unduly multiplied; that there is little discrimination in the text, on the score of authority, between the sources from which the material is drawn. But the notes assist the reader in making this discrimination for himself, and, through their mechanical arrangement, play an important part in a wise blending of the assumption of one’s knowledge and the provision against a lack of it. The reviewer, moreover, would have to admit that the book as a whole draws a remarkably clear picture of Lincoln’s character and career, of some of the chief men of his time, and of the time itself.

But a review is less the present concern than an inquiry into a novel biographical method. The question is, how generally can the method be applied ? Does it offer to writers and readers a means of escape from the conventional biographic structure ? Let us see, in the first place, what is essential to its successful application. Surely one thing is a certain familiarity, on the reader’s part, with the subject to be treated. Then, too, it were well that his activities should have been somewhat diversified, that he may be studied in a variety of human relations. Might not the principle, however, be applied with the help of touchstones other than mastery ? Take the life, for example, of Dr. Samuel G. Howe. Regard him primarily as a liberator. A series of studies of what he did for the independence of Greece, of his efforts on behalf of Polish liberty, of his anti-slavery work at home, and of his crowning achievement in the freeing of such spirits in prison as Laura Bridgman, would do for him very much what this book does for Lincoln in picturing the whole man and all the contemporary life he touched. An obscurer life, with still another connecting thread, might even be shown to demand no general familiarity with the background of facts.

Let the imaginative, well-equipped reader, then, amuse himself by “projecting” a series of lives upon this general plan. Sticking to the theme of mastery, let him see what could be done with Washington. Somewhat less, I suspect, than with Cromwell or Napoleon or Bismarck. But who can say, until the constructive imagination has done its full work ? It required imagination of no mean order for Mr. Rothschild to plan and perform his task with Lincoln. The next successful biographer of a great man, choosing perhaps a less obvious central theme, may reveal still greater possibilities in the method, and set so many imaginations on fire that the whole biographical horizon shall glow with a new light.

But let the innovator beware of trying to repeat a success, — to make an untried problem square with a solution which in one instance has justified itself. Certainly it would be the height of rashness to undertake a series of lives in the RothschildLincoln manner — and quite possibly it should never be attempted again. These suggestions are thrown out chiefly for the benefit of biographers chafing at the old methods, and casting about for something new. If the suggestions bear fruit, it may be that the reader’s satisfaction and gratitude will mingle with those of the biographer himself.