Companionship of Books : Part 2

Character
by Samuel Smiles

(Page 11 of 20)

Man himself is, of all things in the world, the most interesting to man. Whatever relates to human life - its experiences, its joys, its sufferings, and its achievements - has usually attractions for him beyond all else. Each man is more or less interested in all other men as his fellow-creatures - as members of the great family of humankind; and the larger a man's culture, the wider is the range of his sympathies in all that affects the welfare of his race.

Men's interest in each other as individuals manifests itself in a thousand ways - in the portraits which they paint, in the busts which they carve, in the narratives which they relate of each other. "Man," says Emerson, "can paint, or make, or think, nothing but Man." Most of all is this interest shown in the fascination which personal history possesses for him. "Man s sociality of nature," says Carlyle, "evinces itself, in spite of all that can be said, with abundance of evidence, by this one fact, were there no other: the unspeakable delight he takes in Biography."

Great, indeed, is the human interest felt in biography! What are all the novels that find such multitudes of readers, but so many fictitious biographies? What are the dramas that people crowd to see, but so much acted biography? Strange that the highest genius should be employed on the fictitious biography, and so much commonplace ability on the real!

Yet the authentic picture of any human being's life and experience ought to possess an interest greatly beyond that which is fictitious, inasmuch as it has the charm of reality. Every person may learn something from the recorded life of another; and even comparatively trivial deeds and sayings may be invested with interest, as being the outcome of the lives of such beings as we ourselves are.

The records of the lives of good men are especially useful. They influence our hearts, inspire us with hope, and set before us great examples. And when men have done their duty through life in a great spirit, their influence will never wholly pass away. "The good life," says George Herbert, "is never out of season."

Goethe has said that there is no man so commonplace that a wise man may not learn something from him. Sir Walter Scott could not travel in a coach without gleaning some information or discovering some new trait of character in his companions. Dr. Johnson once observed that there was not a person in the streets but he should like to know his biography - his experiences of life, his trials, his difficulties, his successes, and his failures. How much more truly might this be said of the men who have made their mark in the world's history, and have created for us that great inheritance of civilization of which we are the possessors! Whatever relates to such men - to their habits, their manners, their modes of living, their personal history, their conversation, their maxims, their virtues, or their greatness - is always full of interest, of instruction, of encouragement, and of example.

The great lesson of Biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others. It exhibits what life is capable of being made. It refreshes our spirit, encourages our hopes, gives us new strength and courage and faith - faith in others as well as in ourselves. It stimulates our aspirations, rouses us to action, and incites us to become co-partners with them in their work. To live with such men in their biographies, and to be inspired by their example, is to live with the best of men, and to mix in the best of company.

At the head of all biographies stands the Great Biography, the Book of Books. And what is the Bible, the most sacred and impressive of all books - the educator of youth, the guide of manhood, and the consoler of age - but a series of biographies of great heroes and patriarchs, prophets, kings, and judges, culminating in the greatest biography of all, the Life embodied in the New Testament? How much have the great examples there set forth done for mankind! How many have drawn from them their truest strength, their highest wisdom, their best nurture and admonition! Truly does a great Roman Catholic writer describe the Bible as a book whose words "live in the ear like a music that can never be forgotten - like the sound of church bells which the convert hardly knows how he can forego.

Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it, The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible."

It would, indeed, be difficult to overestimate the influence which the lives of the great and good have exercised upon the elevation of human character. "The best biography," says Isaac Disraeli, "is a reunion with human existence in its most excellent state." Indeed, it is impossible for one to read the lives of good men, much less inspired men, without being unconsciously lighted and lifted up in them, and growing insensibly nearer to what they thought and did. And even the lives of humbler persons, of men of faithful and honest spirit, who have done their duty in life well, are not without an elevating influence upon the character of those who come after them.

History itself is best studied in biography. Indeed, history is biography - collective humanity as influenced and governed by individual men. "What is all history," says Emerson, "but the work of ideas, a record of the incomparable energy which his infinite aspirations infuse into man?" In its pages it is always persons we see more than principles. Historical events are interesting to us mainly in connection with the feelings, the sufferings, and interests of those by whom they are accomplished. In history we are surrounded by men long dead, but whose speech and whose deeds survive. We almost catch the sound of their voices; and what they did constitutes the interest of history. We never feel personally interested in masses of men; but we feel and sympathise with the individual actors, whose biographies afford the finest and most real touches in all great historical dramas.

About the Author

Born in Haddington, Smiles was the eldest of eleven children. He left school at the age of 14 and was apprenticed to a doctor, eventually enabling him to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. While studying and after graduating he campaigned for parliamentary reform, contributing articles to the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and the Leeds Times.