The time has now come when every one writes biography or autobiography, and from every corner of the earth, and from every branch of human or divine activity, there pour forth studies of the lives of prominent representatives. Musicians, poets, novelists, artisans, actors, playwrights, moving-picture stars and would-be stars, unfrocked clergymen, prize fighters, puzzle-makers, chess players, tennis champions, dethroned monarchs, manufacturers and jazzers have followed the movement, and as a result biographies are enjoying a great vogue. Soon people will make their living, not by taking in each other’s washing as Mark Twain predicted, but by selling each other’s biographies. When the King of the Chewing Gum Industry and the Czar of the Chain Cigar Stores--or some one able to write better than they--shall have related their lives and revealed the secret of their success, we shall know nearly everything we need to know about the business of life. Should Gerald Chapman have opportunity to publish his autobiography before he is hanged, we shall have a document rivalling in interest the greatest biographies of the past, for he would probably be able to display the sincerity of Jean-Jacques, the honesty of Benvenuto Cellini and the frankness of Dick Turpin. There seems to be no escape from the deluge, and it is probable that no escape should be wished for. There is no harm in writing one’s biography; it is the subject that one knows best and about which one is supposed to know more than any one else. But, alas, it is given to only one man in a million to be really self-revelatory. The only thing that can legitimately be wished is that the facile biographer should evince the same ardour for truth, sincerity and form that he does for approval, approbation and applause. If only a few of the hundreds of biographies and autobiographies that are constantly appearing succeed in surviving, there will be one thing for which our age should be gratefully remembered. For, if we know what a man really feels and thinks, we know the man, and forgiveness flows from understanding. However, a careful study of modern biographies, with all credit to the few which prove that the art is not lost and that it has disciples and followers, does not reveal the existence of biographies or autobiographies of genius. None of the recent ones comes up to the standard of many of the great ones of the past. It is true that these set up such a stage of perfection that it would be fatuous to hope that such performance can be repeated by every biographer. Now and then one comes upon a meritorious book such as Valléry-Radot’s _Life of Pasteur_, Charnwood’s _Life of Abraham Lincoln_, Cushing’s Life of _William Osler_, but they are few and far between. Of the hundred and more recent biographies and autobiographies that have been read in preparation of this volume, scarcely half a dozen have real claim to distinction, and none is worthy of comparison with the great predecessors.