In discussing the character of a man, there is no course of error so fertile as the drawing of a hard and fast line. We are attracted by salient points and seeing them clearly we jump to conclusions, as though there were a lighthouse on every point by which the nature of the coast would certainly be shown to us. And so it will if we accept the light only for so much of the shore as it illumines. . . .

The man of letters is, in truth, ever writing his own biography. What there is in his mind, is being declared to the world at large by himself. And if he can so write that the world at large shall care to read what is written, no other memoir will perhaps be necessary.

--Anthony Trollope, The Life of Cicero

The desire is common to all readers to know not only what a great writer has written, but also of what nature has been the man who produced such great work.

--Anthony Trollope, Thackeray