The lives of friends and acquaintances

 “A biography should either be as long as Boswell’s or as short as Aubrey’s,” said Lytton Strachey.

Strachey, who was closer to the John Aubrey school, wrote his biographical essays for magazines. I’d guess most are between 2,500 and 3,500 words. James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson is about 350,000.

I’m a fan of both kinds of biographies.

A person should have a few close friends and many acquaintances. You know your close friends at book length. You know a great deal less about acquaintances — but knowing a little is preferable to complete ignorance.

If you’d like proof that a little is sometimes enough, try Strachey’s essay on “Lady Hester Stanhope.” I don’t think you could make a case that she was an important character in world history. But Strachey made an excellent case that she was one of the great English eccentrics. 

I know a little about her now. And that’s enough.

• Source: The quotation is from Lytton Strachey’s essay “John Aubrey,” originally published 1923 and collected in Biographical Essays; San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, N.D. “Lady Hester Stanhope,” originally published in 1919, is in the same collection.