142 HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 



expectations of my country; and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, 

 my thanks will never cease being offered up to the Throne of His mercy, etc." 

 (Mahan, n, 335). His ship's chaplain, who was also his confidential secretary, 

 said: "He was a thorough clergyman's son I should think he never went to bed 

 or got up without kneeling down to say his prayers." He always had divine service 

 on shipboard whenever the weather permitted (Mahan, u, 160). 



A part of this same emotional output was his strong expression of affection 

 for his men and fellow-officers. This was characteristic. When his squadron 

 was striving to beat the French fleet to the West Indies he wrote to the captain of 

 the slowest ship not to worry, he appreciated that his ship was doing all it could. 

 When, on the eve of the battle of Trafalgar, he happened to learn that a midship- 

 man had forgotten to post his letter on the naval frigate that was already under 

 way for England, he had the frigate recalled to take the letter. Such thoughtful- 

 ness for his men won their loyalty and their enthusiastic support in the battles 

 planned by him. 



To the superficial observer Nelson thus appears as a strange contradiction. 

 Lord Minto wrote of him: "He is in many points a really great man, in others 

 a baby." The childish reaction of an adult is often referred to as the criterion of 

 hysteria; and Nelson's behavior, at times, seems to fit more nearly that category 

 than any other. The emotional characteristic of the hysterical is lack of control 

 easy excitability, with show of vanity, joy, affection, religion; but also sometimes 

 overactive drive and fearlessness of consequences. On the physical side the hys- 

 terical often show temporarily numb areas on the skin or they suffer temporary 

 paralysis. Such symptoms Nelson repeatedly suffered. After his trip to India 

 (1776) he for some time lost the use of his limbs. This happened again in 1780. 

 He writes in 1781: "I have now perfect use of all my limbs, except my left arm, 

 which I can hardly tell what is the matter with it. From the shoulder to my 

 fingers' ends are as if half dead." In 1801, on duty in the English Channel, he 

 writes: "I have all night had a fever, which is very little abated this morning; 

 my mind carries me beyond my strength, and will do me up; but such is my nature. 

 I require nursing like a child" (Mahan, n, 139). He was apparently at other times 

 subject to such fevers, which resembled the so-called hysteric fevers that follow 

 great excitement. 



Nelson was not only extraordinary temperamentally, but also intellectually. 

 As Mahan (i, 83) says: "Good generalship, on its intellectual side, is simply the 

 application, to the solution of a military problem, of a mind naturally gifted there- 

 for, and stored with experience, either personal or of others." Now, Nelson's 

 education, like that of most midshipmen who enlisted at 12 years of age, was 

 unsystematic, and he never learned to express himself well in writing; but despite 

 this he had the mental qualities of a "great intellect." His memory was tena- 

 cious, his observation close and constant, and he acquired knowledge by extensive 

 intercourse with men and, like Napoleon I, by provoking others to debate and 

 listening to the discussion (Mahan, n, 233). He also, especially in his hypo- 

 kinetic moods, thought deeply and his mind naturally saw relations of cause and 

 effect. Hence he was able to become a great strategist. At 30, even, he impressed 

 the home office with the "justice and correctness of his views, the result, as they 

 were, of reflection based upon a mastery of the data involved." He showed great 

 capacity in diplomacy. At Naples, in 1793, he knew that troops were wanted at 



