they had not been acquainted with Johnson.’  He quotes Johnson at length and repeatedly as the author of his own large conception of biography.  He was Goldsmith’s ‘great master,’ Garrick feared his criticism, and one cannot but recognize the power of Johnson’s personality in the increasing intelligence and consistency of Garrick’s interpretations, in the growing vigor and firmness of Goldsmith’s stroke, in the charm, finality, and exuberant life of Sir Joshua’s portraits; and above all in the skill, truth, brilliance, and lifelike spontaneity of Boswell’s art.  It is in such works as these that we shall find the real Johnson, and through them that he will exert the force of his personality upon us.

Biography is the literature of realized personality, of life as it has been lived, of actual achievements or shortcomings, of success or failure; it is not imaginary and embellished, not what might be or might have been, not reduced to prescribed or artificial forms, but it is the unvarnished story of that which was delightful, disappointing, possible, or impossible, in a life spent in this world.

In this sense it is peculiarly the literature of truth and authenticity.  Elements of imagination and speculation must enter into all other forms of literature, and as purely creative forms they may rank superior to biography; but in each case it will be found that their authenticity, their right to our attention and credence, ultimately rests upon the biographical element which is basic in them, that is, upon what they have derived by observation and experience from a human life seriously lived.  Biography contains this element in its purity.  For this reason it is more authentic than other kinds of literature, and more relevant.  The thing that most concerns me, the individual, whether I will or no, is the management of myself in this world.  The fundamental and essential conditions of life are the same in any age, however the adventitious circumstances may change.  The beginning and the end are the same, the average length the same, the problems and the prize the same.  How, then, have others managed, both those who failed and those who succeeded, or those, in far greatest number, who did both?  Let me know their ambitions, their odds, their handicaps, obstacles, weaknesses, and struggles, how they finally fared, and what they had to say about it.  Let me know a great variety of such instances that I may mark their disagreements, but more especially their agreement about it.  How did they play the game?  How did they fight the fight that I am to fight, and how in any case did they lose or win?  To these questions biography gives the direct answer.  Such is its importance over other literature.  For such reasons, doubtless, Johnson ‘loved’ it most.  For such reasons the book which has been most cherished and revered for well-nigh two thousand years is a biography.