explanation--almost an apology--seems due for any renewal of the
attempt; but, not to mention the attractiveness of the theme in
itself, it is essential to the completeness and rounding off of the
author's discussion of the Influence of Sea Power, that he present a
study, from his own point of view, of the one man who in himself
summed up and embodied the greatness of the possibilities which Sea
Power comprehends,--the man for whom genius and opportunity worked
together, to make him the personification of the Navy of Great
Britain, the dominant factor in the periods hitherto treated. In the
century and a half embraced in those periods, the tide of influence
and of power has swelled higher and higher, floating upward before the
eyes of mankind many a distinguished name; but it is not until their
close that one arises in whom all the promises of the past find their
finished realization, their perfect fulfilment. Thenceforward the name
of Nelson is enrolled among those few presented to us by History, the
simple mention of which suggests, not merely a personality or a
career, but a great force or a great era concrete in a single man, who
is its standard-bearer before the nations.

Yet, in this process of exaltation, the man himself, even when so very
human and so very near our own time as Nelson is, suffers from an
association which merges his individuality in the splendor of his
surroundings; and it is perhaps pardonable to hope that the subject is
not so far exhausted but that a new worker, gleaning after the
reapers, may contribute something further towards disengaging the
figure of the hero from the glory that cloaks it. The aim of the
present writer, while not neglecting other sources of knowledge, has
been to make Nelson describe himself, — tell the story of his own
inner life as well as of his external actions. To realize this object,
it has not seemed the best way to insert numerous letters, because, in