Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/173



IOGRAPHY is the key to the best society the world has ever had. By the best society I do not mean those exclusive circles, based on wealth, privilege, or heredity, which have flourished at all times and in every place. I mean the men and women who, by the richness of their talents or the significance of their careers, or, it may be, by some special deed, have emerged from the throng. One of the strongest instincts planted in us is our aversion to bores. Biography, as by a short cut, admits us to the fellowship of the choice spirits of the past four thousand years, among whom we shall find entertainment in endless variety. And not entertainment only; for entertainment is not the end of life, but its sweetener and strengthener. To develop our talents for good, to build up character, to fit ourselves, like the cutwater of a ship, to cleave whatever seas of experience Fate may steer us into, to set ourselves a high, far goal and always consciously, through storm or shine, to seek that goal that is the real concern of life. On this quest biography shows the way by example. Most of us have intervals of tedium or depression when we try to get out of ourselves. Or it may be some stroke of ill-fortune, some sorrow, some moral lapse, some desperate blunder, locks us up within ourselves as in a dungeon. Then biography comes to our rescue, and we forget ourselves in following the career of other men and women who may have passed through similar ordeals. The loneliness of grief loses some of its poignancy, the agonizing isolation which sin creates round the sinner is broken in upon by the knowledge that others have suffered or failed, and yet found strength to endure and to return.