"One would like to live a little longer, but thank God, I have done my duty."
Slower, slower, passes the red thread and stops. The weaving is done.
In the log-book of the Victory, it is written: "Partial firing continued until 4.30, when a victory having been reported to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., he died of his wound."
IX
CALAIS
It is a timber-yard, pungent with the smell of wood: Oak, Pine, and Cedar. But under the piles of white boards, they say there are bones rotting. An old guide to Calais speaks of a wooden marker shaped like a battledoor, handle downwards, on the broad part of which was scratched: "Emma Hamilton, England's Friend." It was a poor thing and now even that has gone. Let us buy an oak chip for remembrance. It will only cost a sou.
GUNS AS KEYS: AND THE GREAT GATE SWINGS
PART I
Due East, far West. Distant as the nests of the opposite winds. Removed as fire and water are, as the clouds and the roots of the hills, as the wills of youth and age. Let the key-guns be mounted, make a brave show of waging war, and pry off the lid of Pandora's box once more. Get in at any cost, and let out at little, so it seems, but wait—wait—there is much to follow through the Great Gate!
They do not see things in quite that way, on this bright November day, with sun flashing, and waves splashing, up and down Chesapeake Bay. On shore, all the papers are running to press with huge headlines: "Commodore Perry Sails." Dining-tables buzz with travellers' tales of old Japan culled from Dutch writers. But we are not like the Dutch. No shutting the stars and stripes up on an island. Pooh! We must trade wherever we have a mind. Naturally!