On the Museum

So, I keep thinking about the scene in the museum, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I'm thinking there must be a connection between his fascination with the historical personages whose portraits he gazes at and gives so much attention to, reconstructing their entire lives and what they must have been like and how far superior to himself they were, and the fact that he is writing the biography of another great man. What is his fascination with history and with the lives of important and influential people in it? Is it that he is jealous of their apparently solid sense of purpose? Does he see in this something that he, who lives somewhat like a hermit and questions his own right to existence, lacks? What do you think?