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Show Some Recent Autobiographies. ' From "Notes of a Professional Exile," in the February Century, we quote the following: "I have with me the autobiographical autobio-graphical works of Carlyle, edited by Froude, which have attracted so much attention. There are two periods in the history of the world's state of mind towards to-wards almost every clever and successful success-ful man. One of these is when he is recognized re-cognized ; the other is when he is found out. At the former period his distinctions distinc-tions and peculiar abilities are perceived. per-ceived. The world sees what he is.. He may then be said to have been recognized. recog-nized. But along with this recognition the world is apt to bestow a vague and tacit credit tor superiority in those qualities quali-ties in which he has not been tried. There comes a time, however, when his limitations are understood. The world sees what he , is not. He may then be said to have been found out. That man is fortunate who is recognized early and found out late. The latter period was much deferred in Carlyle's case, owing to the vigor of the impression he made upon us. But when the . time came ior tne public to be undeceived with regard re-gard to the character of this great and good man, it certainly did not judge him fairly. The ill-nature of these writings of Carlyle is not profound. Carlyle had the presumptious discontent of a spoiled child. It was his instinct and habit to 'sass' right and left. And the public itself vas mainly to blame for the spoiling. spoil-ing. The fault in such cases is mainly the public's, on account of the. queer exemptions ex-emptions they accord people who are able to 'sling ink' particularly well. Authors are spoiled because of the weak supposition supposi-tion of the public that they are as good as they profess to be. The public will not insist upon remembering that great authors are like other people. Has not an author hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ; if you prick them do they not bleed ; if you tickle them do they not laugh ? Of course, the book reveals Carlyle as an egotist. But are not nearly all recent autobiographers egotists? A number of such works have appeared during the last ten years,and the position of the autobiographer has been I in nearly every case the, same namely, that God did a good thing when he made him; but that he should have made anybody any-body else, and should have taken an interest in-terest in the . other individual equal to that which he manifested in the auto biographer, is a proposition which he cannot bring himself for a moment to consider. . Two books in which this view is conspicuous are the biographies of John Quincy Adams and Miss Harriet Martineau. Carlyle is a mild egotist beside these writers. Adams does not speak of himself as an individual, but as a cause which he has espoused. Of the two, Miss Martineau is the more naive. She is for arranging the world entirely from her own point of view. For instance, in-stance, she attacked the late Lord Lytton because he did not carry an ear-trumpet. Lord Lytton was deaf, and preferred not to carry an ear-trumpet. Miss Martineau was deaf also, and did carry one. She did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and was very hard upon any one who was of a contrary opinion. Her heaven, had her belief permitted her to have one, would have been a place where they all sat round with ear-trumpets and derided the doctrine of the immortality im-mortality of the soul." |