Froude is perhaps the most eminent man of letters of his generation who has not become the victim of a biography. I do not hold that the world has any claim for biographies upon the representatives of distinguished men. If they or theirs prefer silence I am inclined to applaud the refusal to gratify curiosity. Froude could undoubtedly have written a very interesting autobiography had he chosen to reveal the story of his inner life. As, however, nothing has been published, we must assume that if anything was written, it was not meant for the world in general. We must be content to be ignorant of what he alone could have told us. There are few notices of him in contemporary reminiscences; and though I knew him for many years, I could add nothing worth the setting down. I had, indeed, good reason to know that he could be very charming in personal intercourse, and that he was cordially
Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/232
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