IV. FRANKLIN AND WOOLMAN
BY PROFESSOR CHESTER NOYES GREENOUGH
IN all the literature of fact—as distinguished from the literature of fiction—hardly any kind of book surpasses a good biography in its power to interest and instruct. It combines the suspense of the novel with the actuality of history. It fills in the detail without which history would be too impersonal, and it shows us how people, not at all points unlike ourselves, have ordered their lives—what their guiding principles have been, and how principles have sometimes been modified to meet circumstances. Especially in the case of autobiography is all this true, for here we have the pleasure of feeling that the record is both authentic and intimate. The best of biographers, however learned, vivid, or philosophical, leaves between us and the past an interval which only a good autobiography can span. Such an autobiography may possess great historical value if its author was intimately connected with significant events and had some capacity to perceive their causes and their effects. But if the writer happens to be earnest about his career, free from self-consciousness, and blest with a good prose style, we have sufficient reasons for valuing the record of his life even though the historical importance of it may be quite secondary. Such is the basis of our permanent regard for autobiographies like those of Benjamin Franklin〖Harvard Classics, i, 5ff.〗 (1706–1790) and John Woolman〖H. C., i, 169ff.〗 (1720-1772).