My Life as an Author

I have often been asked to prepare an autobiography, but my objections to the task have ever been many and various. To one urgent appeal I sent this sonnet of refusal, which explains itself:-

"You bid me write the story of my life,

And draw what secrets in my memory dwell

From the dried fountains of her failing well,

With commonplaces mixt of peace and strife,

And such small facts, with good or evil rife,

As happen to us all: I have no tale

Of thrilling force or enterprise to tell,-

Nothing the blood to fire, the cheek to pale:

My life is in my books: the record there,

A truthful photograph, is all I choose

To give the world of self; nor will excuse

Mine own or others' failures: glad to spare

From blame of mine, or praise, both friends and foes,

Leaving unwritten what God only knows."

In fact I always rejected the proposal (warned by recent volumes of pestilential reminiscences) and would none of it; not only from its apparent vainglory as to the inevitable extenuation of one's own faults and failures in life, and the equally certain amplification of self-registered virtues and successes,-but even still more from the mischief it might occasion from a petty record of commonplace troubles and trials, due to the "changes and chances of this mortal life," to the casual mention or omission of friends or foes, to the influence of circumstances and surroundings, and to other revelations-whether pleasant or the reverse-of matters merely personal, and therefore more of a private than a public character.

Indeed, so disquieted was I at the possible prospect of any one getting hold of a mass of manuscript in old days diligently compiled by myself from year to year in several small diaries, that I have long ago ruthlessly made a holocaust of the heap of such written self-memories, fearing their posthumous publication; and in this connection let me now add my express protest against the printing hereafter of any of my innumerable private letters to friends, or other MSS., unless they are strictly and merely of a literary nature.

Biography, where honest and true, is no doubt one of the most fascinating and instructive phases of literature; but it requires a higher Intelligence than any (however intimate) friend of a man to do it fairly and fully; so many matters of character and circumstance must ever be to him unknown, and therefore will be by him unrecorded. And even as to autobiography, who, short of the Omniscient Himself, can take into just account the potency of outward surroundings, and still more of inborn hereditary influences, over both mind and body? the bias to good or evil, and the possession or otherwise of gifts and talents, due very much (under Providence) to one's ancient ancestors and one's modern teachers? We are each of us morally and bodily the psychical and physical composite of a thousand generations. Albeit every individual possesses as his birthright a freewill to turn either to the right or to the left, and is liable to a due responsibility for his words and actions, still the Just Judge alone can and must make allowance for the innate inclinings of heredity and the outward influences of circumstance, and He only can hold the balance between the guilt and innocence, the merit or demerit, of His creature.

So far as my own will goes, I leave my inner spiritual biography to the Recording Angel, choosing only to give some recollections and memories of my outer literary life. For spiritual self-analysis in matters of religion and affection I desire to be as silent as I can be; but in such a book as this absolute taciturnity on such subjects is practically impossible.

For the matter, then, of autobiography, I decline its higher and its deeper aspects; as also I wish not to obtrude on the public eye mere domesticities and privacies of life. But mainly lest others less acquainted with the petty incidents of my career should hereafter take up the task, I accede with all frankness and humility to what seems to me like a present call to duty, having little time to spare at seventy-six, so near the end of my tether,-and protesting, as I well may, against the charge of selfish egotism in a book necessarily spotted on every page with the insignificant letter I; and while, of course on human-nature principles, willing enough to exhibit myself at the best, promising also not to hide the second best, or worse than that, where I can perceive it.

That shrewd old philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, thus excuses his own self-imposed task of "autobiography," and I cannot do better than quote and adopt his wise and just remarks:-

"In thus employing myself, I shall yield to the inclination so natural to old men, of talking of themselves and their own actions, and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to those who, from respect to my age, might conceive themselves obliged to listen to me, since they will always be free to read me or not. And (I may as well confess it, as the denial would be believed by nobody) I shall, perhaps, not a little gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I never heard or saw the introductory words, 'Without vanity I may say,' &c., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they may have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.

"And now I speak of thanking God, I desire, with all humility, to acknowledge that I attribute the happiness of my past life to His divine providence, which led me to the means I used, and gave the success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised towards me in continuing that happiness or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless us, even in our afflictions."

Thus speaketh the honest wisdom of Benjamin Franklin.

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I do not see that a better plan can be chosen for carrying out the title of this book than the one I have adopted, namely, tracing from the earliest years to old age the author's literary lifework, illustrated by accounts of, and specimens from, his various books and writings, especially those which are absolutely out of print, or, haply have never been published. No doubt, in such excerpts, exhibited at their best, the critical accusations of unfairness, self-seeking, and so forth, will be made, and may be met by the true consideration that something of this sort is inevitable in autobiography. However, for the matter of vanity, all I know of myself is the fact that praise, if consciously undeserved, only depresses me instead of elating; that a noted characteristic of mine through life has been to hide away in the rear rather than rush to the front, unless, indeed, forced forward by duty, when I can be bold enough, if need be; and that one defect in me all know to be a dislike to any assumption of dignity-surely a feeling the opposite to self-conceit; whilst, if I am not true, simple, and sincere, I am worse than I hope I am, and all my friends are deceived in their kind judgment of me.

But let this book speak for itself; I trust it is honest, charitable, and rationally religious. If I have (and I show it through all my writings) a shrinking from priestcraft of every denomination, that feeling I take to be due to some ancient heredity ingrained, or, more truly, inburnt into my nature from sundry pre-Lutheran confessors and martyrs of old, from whom I claim to be descended, and by whose spirit I am imbued. Not but that I profess myself broad, and wide, and liberal enough for all manner of allowances to others, and so far as any narrow prejudices may be imagined of my idiosyncrasy, I must allow myself to be changeable and uncertain-though hitherto having steered through life a fairly straight course-and that sometimes I can even doubt as to my politics, whether they should be defined Whig or Tory; as to my religion, whether it is most truly chargeable by the epithet high or low; as to my likings, whether I best prefer solitude or society; as to literature, whether gaieties or gravities please me most. In fact, I recognise good in everything, though sometimes hidden by evil, right (by intention, at least) in sundry doctrines and opinions otherwise to my judgment wrong, and I am willing to believe the kindliest of my opponents who appear to be honest and earnest. This is a very fair creed for a citizen of the world, whose motto is Terence's famous avowal, "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."

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