For the writing of biography I had formed a theory of my own, a guiding principle, closely akin to the part which sea power had played in my treatment of history. This leading idea was not intended to exclude other points of view or manners of presentation, but was to subordinate them somewhat peremptorily. As defined to myself, my plan was to realize personality by living with the man, in as close familiarity as was consistent with the fact of his being dead. This was to be done first, for myself, as the necessary prelude to transmission to my readers. When there remains a huge mass of correspondence, by one as frank in utterance and copious in self-revelation as was Nelson, the opportunity to get on terms of such intimacy is unique, one-sided though the communication is. Besides, companions and subordinates have left abundant records of their association with him, which constitute, as it were, the other side of conversation; relieving the monologue of his own letters. The first thing in order is to know the living man; and it seemed to me that, with such materials, this could be accomplished most fully by steeping one's self in them, creating an environment closely analogous to the intercourse of daily life. I believed that passive surrender to these impressions, rather than conscious labored effort, would gradually produce the perceptions of immediate contact, to the utmost that the nature of the case admitted. Johnson doubtless was right in naming personal acquaintance as chief among the qualifications of a biographer; failing that, one must seek the best substitute. By either method the conception of character and temperament is formed; its reproduction to readers is a matter of power of expression, and of capacity to introduce aptly, here and there, the minute touches by which an artist secures likeness and heightens effect.