The dictionary definition of the word Autobiography is: "the story of one's life written by himself." This starts a train of thought in my mind. "One's life written by himself"--just as if himself were A, B, or C, or some other writing his biography. Of course, the dictionary is right, but there is a world of difference in that "him self." Brown's Life written by Brown is-to my mind-a different proposition from Brown's Life written by Jones or Smith. At all events, it is a different proposition in the mind of Brown when he takes up his pen, remembering himself: though, in fact, he may well decide to pretend that he is Smith, writing his life as though he were another person. He may say: "What is significant about me in the minds of others is that which Jones or Smith would write as my biography. So let me pretend that I am Jones or Smith, and enter into a neighbor's-eye-view of myself." Yet in saying this, isn't Brown taking a tremendous step? In deciding to write his own biography as though he were Jones or Smith, isn't he excluding a whole world that is himself as he appears not to Jones or Smith but to himself?Perhaps I overdramatize the affair: generals, statesmen, and biggame hunters-to take some random examples-may really appear to themselves exactly as they appear to other people. To themselves they are historic forces giving orders on battlefields, making speeches in Parliament, or moving through forests armed with guns like sticks, which they point at lions, tigers, and elephants. If there is anything left over from all this that is themselves, it is either unpublishable or else a charming proof to others of their humanity. For in the case of public personalities, humanity seems to begin where eccentricity appears, when they think or act in a way that is inconsistent with being generals, statesmen, or big-game hunters.