Chapter 8

THE INSIDE VIEW

THE ancients used to say that no man had earned the right to die until he had planted a tree, built a house, written a book and begotten a child. In relation to three of these-the tree, the house and the child – nobody need seriously quarrel; but, when it comes to the book, uncomfortable apprehensions arise. If Tom, Dick and Harry are all to write books, what kind of books are they to write? A possible solution of the problem emanates from Oliver Wendell Holmes. Life is too good, he suggests, to be allowed, at its conclusion, to pass from sight.

Whilst he still possesses the energy to do it, Holmes argues, every man should sit down and write his autobiography. Even if it is never printed, it will serve several excellent purposes. It will recall to the writer’s mind the early friendships that helped to mould his career; it will rescue from the peril of forgetfulness many pleasant experiences too good to be lost; and it will enshrine in a permanent form the record of incidents and impressions about which the memory would naturally become less trustworthy as the years pass.

The man whose life story is not worth writing has never yet been born. Let an aspiring author, eager for a theme, put on his hat and step out into the street. With as much politeness as he can muster, let him intercept the first person whom he happens to meet; and let him break to that astonished individual the sensational intelligence that he is about to write the stranger’s biography. It does not matter in the least who the stranger is. It may be a millionaire or it may be an organ-grinder; or, for that matter, it may be the millionaire’s mastiff or the organ-grinder’s monkey. Such a book, sensibly written, would prove of entrancing interest. The twists and turns of its colourful pageantry, the cunning intricacies of its droll comedy and poignant tragedy, would hold the reader spellbound from the first page to the last.

But Tom, Dick and Harry will probably prefer to write, not biographies, but autobiographies; and an autobiography possesses qualities that are positively sacramental. For an autobiography is far more than a self-written biography. An autobiography should be an epic of spiritual portraiture. It should reveal much of which a biographer takes no cognisance. A biographer views the temple of the hero’s personality from the outer court; the autobiographer views it from the inmost shrine. A biography is eventual-a record of events; an autobiography is spiritual-a seismograph of the soul.

The pivotal passages of life are all spiritual. The subtle processes of education, both in and out of school, are spiritual processes; the choice of a vocation is a poignant spiritual crisis; the surge of sex, the capture of the affections and the phenomenon of mating are all of them spiritual experiences; and it goes without saying that the dawn of faith is spiritual. These are the things that we have a right to expect in an autobiography. The man is in the confessional, and, having voluntarily entered it, he is under obligation to bare his inmost soul.

All literature divides itself into the biographical and the autobiographical. Take the novelist, for example. The old-fashioned novelist was a biographer. Describing certain characters, he told us what they said and did. It was George Eliot who set the new fashion. George Eliot stands in our literature as the audacious pioneer of introspective romance. She writes from the centre; she is in the secrets of all her characters; she scrutinises their motives, their sensations, their passions; she tells the tale from the inside.

The Bible itself is the outstanding example of this type of literature. In a way that seems positively uncanny, it senses the vague, formless, inarticulate cravings of every man’s inmost being. It says very little about the sensational happenings that engross the attention of contemporary historians, but it places on indelible record the things that help a man, of any nation or of any age, to live his life and to live it on the loftiest plane. In its throbbing pages, deep calleth unto deep. With gripping power it lays its hand upon the human heart. Without scolding, it stirs the conscience. Without arguing, it sways the reason. And, by the artless presentation of the most exquisite cameo in the entire gallery of world biography, it lifts our minds heavenwards and leads us back to God.

Dr. F.W. Boreham