It is remarkable to note how elusive are the lives of many great
men. Some of the greatest have hardly been known at all. Others
are known only by glimpses and outlines. Some are known chiefly
by myth and tradition. Nor does the effort to discover the
details of such lives yield any considerable results. There are
great names which have come to us from antiquity, or out of the
Middle Ages, that are known only as names, or only by a few
striking incidents. In some cases our actual knowledge of men
who are believed to have taken a conspicuous part in the drama of
their times is so meagre and uncertain that critical disputes
have arisen respecting the very existence of such personages.

Homer for example--was he myth or man? The Christ? Where was
he and how did he pass his life from his twelfth year to the
beginning of his ministry? What were the dates of his birth and
death? Shakespeare? Why should not the details of his life, or
some considerable portion of the facts, compare in plenitude and
authenticity with the events in Dr. Johnson's career?

It seems to be the law of biography that those characters who are
known to the world by a few brilliant strokes of genius have as a
rule only a meagre personal history, while they whose characters
have been built up painfully and slowly out of the commonplace,
like the coral islands of the Atlantic, have a great variety and
multitude of materials ready for the hands of the biographer.

James Otis belonged to the first of these classes. There is a
measure of elusiveness about his life. Our lack of knowledge
respecting him, however, is due in part to the fact that near the