And the listener finds himself analyzing the motives of the painter when he is supposed to be contemplating his picture; sometimes the more exciting task of the two, where especial insight is assumed.
Where the pen is the delineator, the impediments in the way of true portraiture lie often in mere indifference to truth. The more ordinary class of biographers set to work harmonizing and putting in picturesque order main points and features gathered from others who possess the knowledge without knowing how to use it. All literary work, as such, has an eye to effect, for which the writer is willing to gibe up minute accuracy. The conclusions of personal experience should be free from this aim at pictorial composition. They should give us something real and distinct, however unreconcilable, to look at. But to be real, to be able to say exactly what we mean, is no such easy work; it implies a mind well disciplined and cognizant of temptations and dangers wherever self is concerned. In fact, there is no intellectual gift that needs moral integrity for its successful development more than character-drawing. To describe a person without any telling, exact truth, the designer must have been in some relation with him; the closet the relation the more important his opportunities. To make a character out of the delineations of other people is guesswork; in clever, able hands it is often the best approach to truth we can have; but still this is felt by the reader to be uncertain, questionable, and lifeless, compared to the hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye, ear-to-ear encounter of personal contact. Yet it is this very personal contact which creates the need of moral clear-sightedness. And it very often happens that keenness of insight into the mind, motives, and actions of other people diverts the student from a parallel home scrutiny, He never suspects his own bias; he supposes himself to see things by the light of day, while they are in fact unconsciously colored by his personal wishes or prejudices. The more interesting, striking, distinguished a character is, the important it is to self-love to come off well in any close relation with it; and, if there is failure, to make it appear that the break=down in traceable to some flaw in the object of study rather than in the student. There is scarcely any man so fair and impartial as to give no more weight to sa slight or wrong done to himself than to one offered to a stranger or acquaintance. Of course it may be said that we know the circumstances of our own case more intimately than we can those of any other. This is an obvious explanation, but it is one of those plausibilities of which every honest conscience knows the fallacy.
This point of the relation of the character studied to the student is so important that, until we know something about it, we can pay little attention to the estimate drawn by even a keen intellect of the more delicate and subtle qualities of a character. Words and acts, no doubt, go for much if they are very emphatic words and acts; but such do not make up the sum of human intercourse, and generally a man's sayings and doings are open to various constructions, according to our established view of him. Hence it is necessary to take with caution all reports and delineation of leaders of opinion, whether political or religious, given by subordinates. We must first know the relation of the writer to his subject, so that we may judge whether he describes in a sore or grateful spirit. We must know how thee matter stood before we can estimate the value of the testimony of all but the singularly fair and candid. Take, as a familiar example, the manner of a distinguished person. If it is negligent towards ourselves, we convict the man of rudeness, arrogance, want of discernment, general defect of courtesy; if to another, at the worst we suspend our judgment; it does not make much impression; we are lenient, perhaps amused; perhaps we set it down to originality, which is the excuse for so much of human nature's ungracious, slovenly work.
There have been periods when manners were trained in ultra-courtesy, in which drawing of characters was a fashionable pastime, and fine ladies and gentlemen invested each other with a sequence of heroic qualities. No honest man could have recognized himself in such portraits, but the flattery was agreeable all the same. And all character-drawing, unless there is a design the other way, is apt to set up its subject on too high a pedestal. The very act of distinguishing makes its object distinguished. Some people—and observant people, too, by whom it is pleasant to be thought well of—have a knack of putting their friends into very becoming attitudes and placing them well before the world; but these people are not wits. The company of wits is very delightful, but it involves the drawback that our weaknesses are apt to be the points in us that strike them most and survive all the rest of us in their memory. The passion for epigram is fatal to many a respectable reputation/ Especially is this posthumous retribution
