The Writing of Memoirs--Some Characteristics of Carl Shurz--Sam Bowles--Horace White and the Mugwumps I Talleyrand was so impressed by the world-compelling character of the memoirs he had prepared for posterity that he fixed an interdict of more than fifty years upon the date set for their publication, and when at last the bulky tomes made their appearance, they excited no especial interest--certainly created no sensation--and lie for the most part dusty upon the shelves of the libraries that contain them.

For a different reason, Henry Ward Beecher put a time limit upon the volume, or volumes, which will tell us, among other things, all about one of the greatest scandals of modern times; and yet how few people now recall it or care anything about the dramatis personae and the actual facts! Metternich, next after Napoleon and Talleyrand, was an important figure in a stirring epoch.

He, too, indicted an autobiography, which is equally neglected among the books that are sometimes quoted and extolled, but rarely read.

Rousseau, the half insane, and Barras, the wholly vicious, have twenty readers where Talleyrand and Metternich have one.
From this point of view, the writing of memoirs, excepting those of the trivial French School or gossiping letters and diaries of the Pepys-Walpole variety, would seem an unprofitable task for a great man's undertaking.

Boswell certainly did for Johnson what the thunderous old doctor could not have done for himself.