MAHAN AND SEA-POWER
SIR,—Your account of the late Admiral Mahan omits to notice two of his famous works, one the truly admirable Life of Nelson, who ex- pressed for him the perfection of seamanship, Lord Tennyson's " The greatest sailor since the world began." The other was a Christian retrospective meditation on his own life, which he called a " Harvest " of gathered thoughts. The one point for which you praise him was, alas, not original, the word and the idea of " sea-power." I am pub- lishing a new edition of Thucydides. who wrote in Greek a history of some 45o years B.C. In this work he too, like Mahan, mentions the idea and gives the very name of " sea-power " (Thuc. I cxliv 5: TO Tin OaXciaans Kpcfros.). The idea of " sea-power " constantly appears, e.g., I xiii 4 and xciii 5. Still this in no way detracts from Mahan's supreme excellence as first-rate seaman both in writing and action.—Yours obediently, A. H. T. CLARKE. S. Katharine's Vicarage, Savernake Forest.
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