Discussion of this incident
The Admiralty censure Nelson
Nelson's discontent
His complaints of his health




CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.

1758-1783.


It is the appointed lot of some of History's chosen few to come upon
the scene at the moment when a great tendency is nearing its crisis
and culmination. Specially gifted with qualities needed to realize the
fulness of its possibilities, they so identify themselves with it by
their deeds that they thenceforth personify to the world the movement
which brought them forth, and of which their own achievements are at
once the climax and the most dazzling illustration. Fewer still, but
happiest of all, viewed from the standpoint of fame, are those whose
departure is as well timed as their appearance, who do not survive the
instant of perfected success, to linger on subjected to the searching
tests of common life, but pass from our ken in a blaze of glory which
thenceforth forever encircles their names. In that evening light break
away and vanish the ominous clouds wherewith human frailties or tyrant
passions had threatened to darken their renown; and their sun goes
down with a lustre which the lapse of time is powerless to dim. Such