himself at the feet of an ideal--was beyond the gentle, well-ordered,
and somewhat prosaic charms with which alone Mrs. Nisbet was invested
by Nelson, even when most loverlike in tone. "My greatest wish," he
writes in the first of his letters to her that has been preserved,
"is to be united to you; and the foundation of all conjugal happiness,
real love and esteem, is, I trust, what you believe I possess in the
strongest degree toward you." Fifteen months later, and but a short
time before their wedding, he says again: "His Royal Highness often
tells me, he believes I am married; for he never saw a lover so easy,
or say so little of the object he has a regard for. When I tell him I
certainly am not, he says, 'Then he is sure I must have a great esteem
for you, and that it is not what is (vulgarly), I do not much like the
use of that word, called love.' He is right: my love is founded on
esteem, the only foundation that can make the passion last." But
general maxims, even when less disputable than this, do not admit of
universal application; and if an affection was to hold its own in a
nature enthusiastic and imaginative as that of Nelson, it had need to
strike root deeper than that surface soil indicated by mere esteem, at
least when the latter rests simply upon an assemblage of upright and
amiable qualities, and not upon that force of character which compels
dependence as well as appreciation. At their last parting he solemnly
avowed that his esteem was not lessened; while he was destined also to
afford a conspicuous illustration of how enduring a passion may
flourish where no just title to esteem exists.

The progress of his wooing was rapid enough. On the 12th of May he
mentions their first meeting; on the 28th of June he writes to his
brother: "_Entre, nous_.--Do not be surprised to hear I am a
_Benedict_, for if at all, it will be before a month. Do not tell." On
the 11th of September is dated his first letter to her, already