CHAPTER XI
DEMOBILISATION
Nelson: What are you thinking, that you speak no word?
Hardy:... Thoughts all confused, my lord:—their needs on deck,
Your own sad state, and your unrivalled past;
Mixed up with flashes of old things afar—
Old childish things at home, down Wessex way,
In the snug village under Blackdon Hill
Where I was born. The tumbling stream, the garden,
The placid look of the grey dial there,
Marking unconsciously this bloody hour,
And the red apples on my father's trees,
Just now full ripe.
Nelson:————————Ay, thus do little things
Steal into my mind, too. But, ah my heart
Knows not your calm philosophy!—There's one—
Come nearer to me, Hardy,—One of all,
As you well guess, pervades my memory now;
She, and my daughter—I speak freely to you.
'Twas good I made that codicil this morning
That you and Blackwood witnessed. Now she rests
Safe on the nation's honour....
Thomas Hardy: The Dynasts.