Year by year the penalties of celebrity increase, and the biographer whether fulsome or candid is more and more to be dreaded. Till a little while ago he was only a posthumous terror, perhaps an early installment of purgatory, but, so far as this world knew and saw, afflicting only the survivors. Nowadays he pursues his ravages upon the living, and no conspicuous person can count upon ten years of immunity. Mr. J. M- Barrie, to do him scant justice, is one of the least obtrusive among literary personages, yet this trait is ...
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Year by year the penalties of celebrity increase, and the biographer whether fulsome or candid is more and more to be dreaded. Till a little while ago he was only a posthumous terror, perhaps an early installment of purgatory, but, so far as this world knew and saw, afflicting only the survivors. Nowadays he pursues his ravages upon the living, and no conspicuous person can count upon ten years of immunity. Mr. J. M- Barrie, to do him scant justice, is one of the least obtrusive among literary personages, yet this trait is no protection and a gentleman who has, so far as we can gather, not even a common acquaintance with him sets to work to gratify public curiosity. Mr. Hammerton explains his qualifications by stating that he is a "brither Scot" and has edited a paper in Nottingham where Mr. Barrie began his journalistic career. That the book needs an apology he is aware, but only because captious critics may hold that "it implies the elevation of its subject to the rank of a classic." Mr. Hammerton may be easy; nobody will accuse him of conferring a rank upon Mr. Barrie. The serious question is whether he may not injure a really admirable author in the esteem of the judicious; and the apology which he alleges, namely, that the public has an appetite for "literary" gossip about living authors is entirely irrelevant. In our opinion such a book as he has written could only be justified by the statement that it was published with Mr. Barrie's entire approval; and we are extremely glad that this justification is not forthcoming. There is however nothing positively offensive in the work except the insertion of one story, for the truth of which Mr. Hammerton wisely does not vouch, but gives it as "an index to character." Such a protest against the vanities of aristocratic dinner parties would prove not "courage and strength of will" but simple boorishness. What the book contains is a mass of the most commonplace criticism and a stringing together of fragments, some autobiographical some not, from Mr. Barrie's published writings. It contains also the incidental remark that "a dislike to being fussed about" is "essentially a Scots characteristic." If Mr. Barrie shares this characteristic-as we can well believe - he deserves our most sincere condolence. - The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art , Volume 90 [1901]
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