Page:Studies of a Biographer 1.djvu/124

 Johnson's life confirms one remark which is painfully impressed upon most readers of biography. A really first-rate biography ought, one may plausibly argue, to be the rarest of books. A man can write a poem by himself; but a biography requires not only a capable artist and a good subject, but the rare combination of circumstances which brings them together under the proper conditions. The most interesting part of most men's lives—and Johnson was no exception—is the early struggle in which their faculties were developing and the victory being won. A man, too, as Johnson said to Mrs. Piozzi, 'commonly grows wickeder as he grows older'; he would always, he declared, take the side of the young in a dispute, 'for you have at least a chance of virtue till age has withered its very root.' So far as my personal experience has gone, I think that Johnson was too nearly right. At any rate, the period of aspirations and illusions is the most interesting. Yet if a man lives to a full age, the companions of his youth are mostly dead; and the survivors, if by some fortunate chance there be any who are capable of articulate story-telling, look back too sadly and too bitterly on the old days to restore the old impressions to life.