The Hero in His Bath

The Hero in His Bath VINCENT MILLER hen our nineteenth-century forebears wrote biographies, they proceeded sensibly. They lied and created heroes for the very young to emulate. Today we consider it dis- honest to lie to create or maintain a public appearance, and we have there- fore to find some new excuse for Robert E. Lee: A Portrait 1809- 1861, by Margaret Sanborn. Lippin- cott, $6.95 Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889, edited by Hudson Strode. Harcourt, $7.50 writing and reading biographies. But of the excuse we’ve been using for the past few decades, of this inter- minably wearisome pursuit of the hero im his bath, or an: his. skin, or underneath his skin, haven’t we had enough? Action—public action—is a crea- tion. It is, precisely, an “appearance,” something made to appear in the light of day, where it may indeed shine.

But the private and personal depths from which that action springs—the inner recesses of the soul where, as Hannah Arendt says, man becomes whole only by being broken—these cannot be brought to the light. For none of us knows himself, let alone anyone else. We know, by an immut- able law of being, only the word proceeding.

VM

About the Author

Vincent Miller

The Hero in His Bath VINCENT MILLER hen our nineteenth-century forebears wrote biographies, they proceeded sensibly. They lied and created heroes for the very young to emulate. Today we consider it dis- honest to lie to create or maintain a public appearance, and we have there- fore to find some new excuse for Robert E. Lee: A Portrait 1809- 1861, by Margaret Sanborn. Lippin- cott, $6.95 Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889, edited by Hudson Strode. Harcourt, $7.50 writing and reading biographies. But of the excuse we’ve been using for the past few decades, of this inter- minably wearisome pursuit of the hero im his bath, or an: his. skin, or underneath his skin, haven’t we had enough? Action—public action—is a crea- tion. It is, precisely, an “appearance,” something made to appear in the light of day, where it may indeed shine.

But the private and personal depths from which that action springs—the inner recesses of the soul where, as Hannah Arendt says, man becomes whole only by being broken—these cannot be brought to the light. For none of us knows himself, let alone anyone else. We know, by an immut- able law of being, only the word proceeding.