Such biographies give one the sense of a man diving in sewers, grubbing
in middens, prying into cupboards, peeping round corners. To try as far
as possible to surprise your hero, and to catch him off his guard, is a
very different thing from being frank and candid. I remember once
coming upon the track of one of these ghouls. He was writing a Life of
a somewhat eccentric politician, and wrote to me asking me to obtain
for him a sight of a certain document. I forwarded his letter to the
relatives of the man in question. What was my surprise when they
replied that the biographer was not only wholly unauthorised by
themselves, but that they had written to him to remonstrate against his
expressed intention, and to beg him to desist. I forwarded the letter
to him, and added some comments of my own. The only result was that he
replied regretting the opposition of the relatives, saying that the
life of a public man was public property, and that he thought it his
duty to continue his researches. The book appeared, and a vile rag-bag
it was, like the life of a man written by a private detective from the
reminiscences of under-servants. The worst of it is that such a
compilation brings a man money, because there are always plenty of
people who like to dabble in mud; and a ghoul is the most impervious of
beings, probably because a ghoul of this species regards himself merely
as an unprejudiced seeker after truth, and claims to be what he would
call a realist.
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