Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Meynell, Esther (surface ebook reader txt) 📕

reach of the temptation which was clouding his clear honour, all might still have been well. But his craving heart was too much for him ; not all the solemn voices of duty and right, of faith and upright dealing, could prevent him returning to Lady Hamilton to ask and to obtain from her that tender flattery and adoring kindness which were so soothing to his sore spirit. However he may hitherto have disguised his passion to himself and called it by the name of friendship, there is little doubt that in the summer of 1800 it completely overpowered

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his resistance and his sense of honour and passed into the stage when he fearlessly and frantically avowed that Emma Hamilton was his " wife in the sight of Heaven/' Thus do men, driven by their own desires, persuade themselves that their wishes make fresh laws ; and it is not the least noble natures which feel themselves compelled to twist the universe upside down that they may put a face of right upon their own unhappy actions. It is, indeed, the perverted sense of right drives them to such extremes, for they would not believe with Hamlet that a man may " smile and smile and be a villain."

There was nothing in his surroundings to help Nelson resist his passion—the atmosphere he lived in was soft, luxurious, enamouring, soothing scruples to sleep. Emma Hamilton herself was not hard to win ; indeed, from the first she had wooed and flattered him, not with any deliberate intention of leading him astray, but simply from easy yielding to her own impulses and to her enthusiastic love for glory. There could not have been a more dangerous combination than these two ardent natures ; once they were brought together, in constant sight and presence of each other, the outcome was almost inevitable. Lord Malmesbury said of Nelson, " He added to genius, valour, and energy, the singular power of electrifying all within his atmosphere." And with those dazzling and

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persuasive qualities the sheer lovableness of the man must be remembered. In spite of the great mistake of his life, the great blot upon his fair fame, glory and honour were to Nelson one and inseparable. But to Emma honour had been so early lost that she had never learned to regard it as an indispensable foundation of existence. And so when Nelson's own resistance broke down he found no second barrier in the virtue of the woman he loved. It was probably the very thought of their approaching separation which showed them all too plainly how much they had become to each other, and what a sorry farce was all talk of platonic friendship.

The time was drawing near for them to leave Italy—Italy which had been the scene of their meeting, of their joint exertions, and of their growing passion. They were learning the meaning of the simple words in " Cuchulain of Muirthemne"—"all things are good in comparison with a parting." The prospect filled Emma with depression; she did not want to leave the sunny land that suited her so completely, and where she had played such a brilliant part, to return to the air of England, which she may well have felt would be cold and critical; where she could no longer be the British Ambassadress, no longer the friend of a Queen, and the principal ornament of a Court; above all, where she would have to yield her place by Nelson's side to his rightful

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wife. It was not a happy vision to the pleasure-loving woman who had so completely lost her earlier simplicity and who now hated dulness and obscurity above all things. Sir William was growing old and unenterprising; he sighed for quietness and repose, and Emma had no longer any feeling for him save a sort of daughterly affection. The very considerable difference in their years had grown more marked as Sir William stepped, stumbling, upon the boundaries of old age. Nelson was her all; he represented not only love, but glory, the centre of the stage, the focus of the world's eye—and these were things that Emma could not contentedly relinquish.

But the end of the Italian drama was nearly come. On the 22nd of April, Sir William Hamilton presented his letters of recall, and the day following Nelson took him and his wife for a pleasure voyage in the Foudroyant to Syracuse and Malta —a farewell to the Mediterranean. At Syracuse Nelson had victualled and watered his ships, owing to Emma's exertions on his behalf, before the Battle of the Nile, and had assured her, " surely watering at the Fountain of Arethusa we must have victory." He would not forget that past occasion when visiting the famous fountain with the woman who had aided him to triumph, for in Nelson's passion for Emma Hamilton love and patriotism were inextricably mingled. They

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also went to Malta, and, according to the somewhat inaccurate narrative of Lieutenant Parsons, the Foudroyant y by accident, got within range of the shot from the island, and Emma's precious life was exposed to danger, much to Nelson's anger and distress. But any form of excitement, even cannon-balls, appealed to Emma, and she is represented as arguing with Nelson on the Foudroyan£s quarter-deck, and declaring that she would not go below. This incident may or may not be authentic, but it is at any rate characteristic! Nelson was to say to her, some years later, that their child Horatia " is like her mother; will have her own way, or kick up a devil of a dust."

They returned to Palermo for the last time. If the Hamiltons