"The open-ended nature of biography is one of its mysterious attractions. No Life is ever definitive: it draws or rejects from past work, it reflects often unconsciously the concerns and questions of its own age, and it passes on something hidden to the future. Every serious attempt at an historic portrait of the dead will subtly absorb the ' and of its living author, however objective he or she sets out to be. This is precisely the strength, rather than the weakness, of its subjectivity."