[196] Nor are the illustrations of the defects of great men without their uses; for, as Dr.Johnson observed, "If nothing but the bright side of characters were shown, we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in anything." Plutarch, himself justifies his method of portraiture by averring that his design was not to write histories, but lives.

"The most glorious exploits," he says, "do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or of vice in men.

Sometimes a matter of much less moment, an expression or a jest, better informs us of their characters and inclinations than battles with the slaughter of tens of thousands, and the greatest arrays of armies or sieges of cities.

Therefore, as portrait-painters are more exact in their lines and features of the face and the expression of the eyes, in which the character is seen, without troubling themselves about the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the signs and indications of the souls of men; and while I endeavour by these means to portray their lives, I leave important events and great battles to be described by others." Things apparently trifling may stand for much in biography as well as history, and slight circumstances may influence great results.

Pascal has remarked, that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the whole face of the world would probably have been changed.