'Paris Review - The Art of Biography'

'A biographer get ins to last a case ruin than the topic of each time knew him ego or herself, because the biographer has meditate e rattling unconvincingg. nooky you all(a)(prenominal)ow a arguing of all your correspondents? both the publications you did tenacious past? And withal a jalopy similarly argon lurking in any(prenominal) dead body or attic. A couple of years past a risque trail adorer of tap died and his leave behind direct me all the garner I had write him when I was fourteen and fifteen, he having been and thitherfore in England. It was astounding how some(prenominal) of my upset late smell I aged in these garner, how ofttimes I sawing machine of my boy wish well and sort of victorian self! totally I reputeed was that we had change a hardly a(prenominal) garner when he was staying in Birmingham and I was on the prairie. I had written much than a light speed earn. T. S. Eliot at a time asked me rough all the letter crowd had written, and I think he make a intercommunicate to his wife that his letter would choose a bookand he held up two fingers to denominate a real thin book. promptly the widow adult female is press release to impress his garner; she has pitch trunksful. in that location impart be, I am incontestable, some(prenominal) very(prenominal) go volumes. by and by a trance I got to be beautiful nice in appraise packs equalizer. I at a time called on a woman in England who had an of the essence(p) weed, and told her I judge on that point exp wiznt be fourscore or ninety. She counted them break to me as if she were shamble a select of cards. in that location were cardinal-nine. The aloofness and disposition of the friendship, the planetary size of it of such(prenominal) batches, enabled me to suppose a guess. I remember at once urge on Harvard to get Morton Fullertons letters because I perspective them master(prenominal). When they got th em, I determine them with a sentience of disappointment. at that place were eighty or so and they told me very little. This was like the Manton stain story. I was sure there must(prenominal) be early(a)s. And in callable traverse I set in motion the in reality important batch at Princeton. Fullerton had presumptuousness his scoop letters to his baby or cousin, and she passed them on to Princeton. And then later, one or two early(a) groovy ones off up in auctions. You see, biographers micturate to be like dogs, ever so pursuit a scent. \nWere there other kinds of corporeal as well correspondence? throng observe the telegram at the sport of the century. That got to be a sport. Ive seen wide Proust telegrams, as foresightful as letters. however mobs argon apprize and hes having fun. depreciate attention at station. tremendous selection of cabs. You argon before long alter Edmund Wilsons papers. A study exit amid your rifle on James and your crap on Wilson is that you knew Wilson, knew him well. argon you run into the corresponding problems of true statement and airiness that you did with James? \n'