A Simple Soul
Nelson. By Clennell Wilkinson. (Harrap. 12s. 6d.) SPECULATIONS have been started by (amongst others) Mr. Bernard Shaw, who pursues the question with characteristic confidence and inaccuracy, whether Wellington or Nelson is the more typical Englishman. But does it matter ? And, anyhow, is it necessary that they should be typical ? Was Caesar a typical Roman—Caesar who - powdered his face, pulled out his superfluous hair and painted his lips ? Was Cromwell a typical Englishman, when he shed copious tears, as he often did, teste Mrs. Hutchinson, and slobbered kisses on his Mends ? Was James I, who did much the same things and worse, a typical Scot ? Is Napoleon the Corsican a type of the French ? Do we need always to look for type in a great man ? Doubtless it is highly flattering to the national pride for a people to be able to point to any leading figure as the line flower of the national genius, but surely sometimes an individual can be allowed to be just himself without being expected to conform to a rigid national mould. Wellington, born in Ireland, is acclaimed as an example of English hardi- hood, when he braved the inclemency of our winters in a pair of white duck trousers ; but Wellington took good care to wear a pair of thick woollen drawers underneath. But whether or no Nelson is to be considered a typical Englishman, it is the aim of Mr. Wilkinson's discerning book to discover, and the answer must be decided by the reader.
Mr. Wilkinson is quite frank about not being able to produce any new material concerning the world's greatest sailor, but he marshals the known facts succinctly and in good perspective, and, indeed, the Nelson story could hardly be better set forth. The main interest, however, of the book lies in its examination of the Nelsonian psychology. The author, then, finds the keynote of Nelson's psychological make-up to be simplicity— simplicity plus ambition and a deliberate intention from his earliest years of becoming a national hero, the intention itself being some evidence of a simple mind. From the same source flowed his vanity, for vanity has so often simple-mindedness for its sire. Nelson was vain; he admits it and speaks of himself just before the Nile as a vain man on Sunday evening at sunset, walking in his cabin with a squadron about him, who looked up to their chief .to lead them to glory." Theatrical he was too most obviously ; on great occasions— and how many there were of them in his hard-going life—he always mounted what Mr. Wilkinson aptly calls a " kind of histrionic heroism," which culminated in the famous " Kiss me, Hardy." And yet considered from another point of view such behaviour was perhaps not really theatrical ; it was merely that Nelson always dramatized his perfectly genuine emotions.
His vanity and simple heart made him specially susceptible to flattery, which his mistress, Lady Hamilton, was always ready to lay on with a trowel. To simplicity again is due what the misunderstanding may think of as boasting ; but it was merely that he spoke out frankly from his heart, and Mr. Wilkinson acutely points out that there is a theatricality of reticence as well as of speech. Also Nelson, whom Mr. Bernard Shaw has called " an exquisite coward," knew he was brave. On July 3rd, 1797, during a boat action, " a warm night at Cadiz " (as Nelson called it) he solemnly records " that perhaps my personal courage was even more conspicuous than at any other period of my life." Vain and almost childishly
emotional, Nelson was yet not introspective. It has been said of Washington that " he possessed the superb self- confidence that comes to a man whose inner life is faint," and the words might almost be applied to the temperamental Nelson, poles apart as he was from the hard-minded American, who hardly ever betrayed emotion throughout his whole career. (Or was Washington typically English ?) But besides this one may press the parallel between Washington and Nelson a little further. An American historian has remarked of Washington that he was " vain, fond of adulation and power," and, like Nelson, "greatly disturbed by criticism." Both minds too were, within limits, of the execu- tive type ; that is, they knew how to handle men and suc- ceeded in getting the best out of them. Professionally, Wash- ington was not a very great soldier ; whereas Nelson's naval genius was supreme. Not that, like the Great Cond4's, it flowered suddenly and as it were by a miracle. On the con- trary. Nelson had a hard, long and a varied sea-training as captain's servant, midshipman and able seaman, before he was passed as lieutenant, and it was not till he had been twenty-five years at sea that he saw a fleet action—at Toulon, where he was, as always, in the van of the attack. Nothing need here be said of his transcendent professional qualities, but a passing note may be made of the man's humanity in a singularly brutal service, of his winning manners which com- bined and contrasted with ruthlessness when ruthlessness was necessary, and of his constant care of his crews. No ship in which Nelson sailed but was a happy ship ; he was always satisfied with his crews and so got the best out of them. That he secured by maintaining their morale by means of theatricals, music and dancing, while a generous allowance of wine, lemons and onions helped to preserve their health.
If there is one fault in the book—in its views, though never in its treatment—it is the attitude the author takes up with regard to Lady Hamilton. He points out very rightly that this woman of extreme beauty and the shadiest of ante- cedents was emphatically not the central fact of Nelson's later life. But he suggests that this age may take a more lenient view of the relations of the pair than did the Victorians, who talked of a guilty passion. Were they wrong ? Here was a common trull—coarse in her manners, vulgar of speech (she called her husband " Sir Willem "), addicted to drink and like all cocottes prodigally extravagant. For her Nelson deserts his wife, who was " before everything a lady," and Emma (" ready to be in love with anyone, poor child ! "- anybody's woman in fact) was very ready to take on the hero of the Nile, who was himself inconstant and always susceptible to freshly presented female charm ; while Emma maintained her hold by her undoubted physical attraction and by copiously bedaubing her hero with flattery. Nelson on his part was enjoying the favours of the wife, and Sir William, the husband, was quite content to form part of the triangular
menage. This was the situation which Mr. Wilkinson calls " a great and beautiful thing." " You are a saint," Nelson wrote
to the woman, but people declined to know the saint, and that in the eighteenth century, which could not quite bring even its not over-delicate self to countenance the relations between what a contemporary gossip-writer called " Anthony and Moll Cleopatra."
M. J. C. MEINLEJOIIN.
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