What we need is biography by X-ray,
and not by tallow candle.
Until that time comes, dear reader, you yourself must supply the X-ray
of insight. If you can learn to do that, you will find history and
biography the most interesting of studies. Biography is, of course, the
basis of all history, since history is merely the record of man's
failures and successes; and, read thus, it is a wonderful and inspiring
thing, for the successes so overtop the failures, the good so out-weighs
the bad. By the touchstone of imagination, even badly written biography
may be colored and vitalized. Try it--try to see the man you are reading
about as an actual human being; make him come out of the pages of the
book and stand before you; give him a personality. Watch for his humors,
his mistakes, his failings--be sure he had them, however exalted he may
have been--they will help to make him human. The spectacle of
Washington, riding forward in a towering rage at the battle of
Monmouth, has done more to make him real for us than any other incident
in his life. So the picture that Franklin gives of his landing at
Philadelphia and walking up Market street in the early morning, a loaf
of bread under either arm, brings him right home to us; though this
simple, kindly, and humorous philosopher is one of the realest figures
on the pages of history.
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