Excerpt from Personal Reminiscences Literature of Personal Reminiscence is more i extensive than its casual readers might suppose, and is of a more entertaining character, it seems to me, than any other kind of Literature. The historian, the novelist, the dramatist, depict men and women, but generally at the expense of some truth which escapes them, or which they conceal. They are like portrait painters who place their sitters in the most striking atti tudes, and under the most favorable light. They profess to paint likenesses, and the most skillful do, perhaps, but they paint something more, and something less. There is a restraint in art which is not in nature the inner life that lurks in the curve of a lip, that flashes out suddenly from the eye, that is perceived in the carriage of the body, these elude the artist. Could he come upon his sitter un awares, they might be caught and transferred to his can vas. This is the reason why so many portraits are disap pointing, and the reason why so many biographies are disappointing for what is true of Art is true of Litera ture. There is that in men and women which eludes the literary artists who essay to paint them elaborately, but which is sometimes caught by others, who are mere sketchers, as these artists would have us believe, but who. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.