nduring wedded love which strikes root downward and
bears fruit upward, steadily growing in depth and devotion as the
years roll by. But Nelson was not an ordinary man, and from that more
humble happiness a childless marriage further debarred him. He could
rise far higher, and, alas! descend far lower as he followed the
radiant vision,--the image of his own mind rather than an external
reality,--the ideal, which, whether in fame or in love, beckoned him
onward. The calm, even, and wholly matter-of-fact appreciation of his
wife's estimable traits can now be seen in the light of his after
career, and its doubtful augury descried; for to idealize was an
essential attribute of his temperament. Her failure, even in the
heyday of courtship, to arouse in him any extravagance of emotion, any
illusive exaltation of her merits, left vacant that throne in his mind
which could be permanently occupied only by a highly wrought
excellence,--even though that were the purely subjective creation of
his own enthusiasm. This hold Lady Nelson never gained; and the long
absence from 1793 to 1797, during the opening period of the war of the
French Revolution, probably did to death an affection which owed what
languid life it retained chiefly to propinquity and custom. Both
Saumarez and Codrington, who served under him, speak passingly of the
lightness with which his family ties sat upon Nelson in the years
following his short stay at home in 1797. The house was empty, swept,
and garnished, when the simple-minded, if lion-hearted, seaman came
under the spell of one whose fascinations had overpowered the
resistance of a cool-headed man of the world, leading him in his old
age, with open eyes, to do what every prepossession and every
reasonable conviction of his life condemned as folly.

In the summer of 1786 Sir Richard Hughes was recalled to England.
During the later part of his association with Nelson, the strain which
had characterized their earlier relations had not only disappeared,
but had been succeeded by feelings approaching cordiality. The
Government's approval of his subordinate's action, and of himself as
credited with supporting it, had removed that element of apprehension
which in timid men induces irritation; and Hughes, who, though
irresolute, was naturally kindly, had been still farther placated by
the prize-money falling to him from the vessels condemned through the
zeal of Nelson. The latter, who never harbored malice, easily