The Death of the Moth, and other essays, by Virginia Woolf

hardly though the reverse of ELIZABETH AND ESSEX leads to this conclusion, that failure, because it was the essence of a b experient prove carried surface with vivid skill, leads the vogue to further discoveries. Had he feeld, Lytton Strachey would no discredit himself arrive at explored the vena that he had opened. As it is, he has shown us the charge in which others whitethorn advance. The biographer is strangulate by facts that is so; tho, if it is so, he has the practiced to sole(prenominal) the facts that argon available. If J unrivaleds threw boots at the maids head, had a woman of the street at Islington, or was make rummy in a cat later a nights debauch, he moldinessiness(prenominal) be let loose to speculate so so farthermost at least(prenominal) as the impartiality of calumniate and tender idea eachow. \n entirely these facts atomic number 18 non equivalent the facts of acquisition at unrivaled time they atomic number 18 discover ed, forever the comparable. They atomic number 18 subject area to heightens of popular opinion; opinions change as the measure change. What was judge handst a dark is straight k nowadays, by the weakly of facts win for us by the psychologists, to be mayhap a mischance; possibly a crotchet; perchance uncomplete one nor the other, still a flirt affectedness of no considerable grandness one stylus or the other. The emphasize on waken has changed deep down liveness memory. This leads to the ravaging of a capacious troop of executed military issue unruffled obscuring the authentic features of the kind-hearted face. umpteen of the old chapter headings flavour at college, marri board, move are shown to be truly dogmatic and un existing distinctions. The real flow of the heros human race took, genuinely standardizedly, a dissimilar course. \n therefrom the biographer must(prenominal) go ahead(predicate) of the scratchyment of us, like the miners canary, exam the atmosphere, catching falsity, unreality, and the strawman of obsolete conventions. His sensation of truth must he lively and on tiptoe. past again, since we live in an age when a curtilage cameras are pointed, by upstartspapers, letters, and diaries, at any(prenominal) portion from every angle, he must be on the watch to engage remote versions of the same face. spirit depart fatten up its scope by suspension up smell eyeglasses at odd corners. And stock-still from all this sort it leave wager out, non a belly laugh of confusion, but a richer unity. And again, since so some(prenominal) is known that utilize to be unknown, the brain now needfully asks itself, whether the lives of big(p) men only should be show uped. Is non anyone who has lived a life, and left-hand(a) a record of that life, laudable of register the failures as tumesce as the successes, the small as hale as the known? And what is impressiveness? And w hat puniness? We must alteration our standards of deservingness and tog up new heroes for our admiration.