Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Anecdotes
The Letters of Edward FitzGerald, edd. Alfred McKinley Terhune and Annabelle Burdick Terhune, Volume II: 1851-1866 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 366 (editors' comment, not by FitzGerald):
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Anecdotes are aids to biographers and editors. They illuminate and leaven text; they amuse readers. Too often, however, they mislead and deceive. The singular act, frequently distorted, is recorded as normal. Through repetition, the anecdote ossifies; the biographical barnacle results.
