Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century: Literary PortraitsBrandes, Georg
History
Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century: Literary Portraits
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism
I gazed long into his deep, blue eyes, before I could prevail upon
myself to bid him a final farewell. It was my earnest desire to imprint
upon my mind this so earnest and so stem, yet at the same time so
bold, countenance, with all its youthful freshness. I wished to render
it impossible to me to forget the peculiar greatness stamped on the
man's form and on his every word. It is of considerable importance
in grasping the character of an author to learn in what relation the
impression of his human disposition stands to that of his disposition
as an author. I have never known a great man in whom these two
impressions were so thoroughly harmonious as in Mill. I have never
discovered any quality in him as an author that I have not rediscovered
in my personal intercourse with him, and I have found his different
characteristics in both spheres exalted above and subordinated to one
another in precisely the same order and manner. There are authors in
whose writings some definite quality--for instance, philanthropy, or
wit, or dignity--plays a more prominent rôle than in their lives;
others whose writings display not a trace of those qualities, such as
humor or free humanity, which render them amiable in their private
lives. Most authors are far inferior to their books. In Stuart Mill
no such inequality existed, for he was the very incarnation of
truthfulness. There occurs in Mill's "Autobiography" a situation which
affords an opportunity of measuring the degree of this truthfulness.
I have in mind his position when he, the social reformer, who was so
far removed from all demagogism, at a meeting of electors, comprised
chiefly of the working class, was asked if he had written and made
public the statement that the working classes of England were, as a
rule, liars. He answered at once, and briefly, "I did." "Scarcely," he
adds, "were these two words out of my mouth, when vehement applause
resounded through the whole meeting. It was evident that the working
people were so accustomed to expect equivocation and evasion from those
who sought their suffrages, that when they found, instead of that, a
direct avowal of what was likely to be disagreeable to them, instead
of being affronted, they concluded at once that this was a person whom
they could trust."
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