He was a man of
genius; and genius in an Englishman (not to cite the good old simile of
a pearl in the oyster) is usually a symptom of a lack of balance in
the general making-up of the character; as we may satisfy ourselves by
running over the list of their poets, for example, and observing how
many of them have been sickly or deformed, and how often their lives
have been darkened by insanity. An ordinary Englishman is the healthiest
and wholesomest of human beings; an extraordinary one is almost always,
in one way or another, a sick man. It was so with Lord Nelson. The
wonderful contrast or relation between his personal qualities, the
position which he held, and the life that he lived, makes him as
interesting a personage as all history has to show; and it is a pity
that Southey's biography--so good in its superficial way, and yet so
inadequate as regards any real delineation of the man--should have taken
the subject out of the hands of some writer endowed with more delicate
appreciation and deeper insight than that genuine Englishman possessed.
But the English capacity for hero-worship is full to the brim with what
they are able to comprehend of Lord Nelson's character. Adjoining the
Painted Hall is a smaller room, the walls of which are completely and
exclusively adorned with pictures of the great Admiral's exploits. We
see the frail, ardent man in all the most noted events of his career,
from his encounter with a Polar bear to his death at Trafalgar,
quivering here and there about the room like a blue, lambent flame.
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