“‘The Admiralty do not trust me. They send this coxcomb Smith to show that they do not think I have done my best in the matter of destroying those transports at Alexandria. The nation will do nothing for me—£100,000 means so little for England, and £100,000 worth of foodstuffs would save a kingdom here. I have to bear the brunt of it all.’
“Still she said nothing, but drew me closer to her, and let me feel how her generous heart was beating for my troubles.
“‘And now my own captains think I might do more. Troubridge, who is hipped, does not hesitate to tell me so, as if I or any other man could do more anywhere. They say you——’
“Then she cried out, ‘This moon blinds me: let us move a little further into the room, and rest our eyes with darkness.’
“And then, I know not how long afterwards, I was overcome by the magic of soft lips and the fragrance of a woman’s throat, and she had given me her whole heart.
“I was a villain.
“But yet, now that I come to look back on it, with the steady gaze of matured love, I cannot but think that this villainy is a villainy invented of man—if it were not ordained for his eternal punishment when he was driven out of the Garden. It can have been no part of the original plan that the holy consummation of love should only have been intended for everyday use, like eating and drinking. Or if it were, then surely, like eating and drinking, it should have been freed from all conditions except immoderate use. The one is as natural to the weak human body as the other. Man cannot do without sleep, when he has known the need for it. My brave fellows on the Theseus went to sleep at the capstan-bars in my battle, at the moment that they were trying to move the ship down to conquer new enemies. They went to sleep in the act of battle. I suppose if a man were starved of sleep he would die, as if he were starved of food and drink. And as with a man who has felt the imperious call of sleep, so it is with a man who has felt the imperious call of love. To some men it comes late: I have lived forty years without it, but now that it has come, though I know I must be a villain, I feel as if love were as much part of my human nature as sleep, and I feel that life is a great, lovely, glorious thing, and that life with love is like winning a victory in which you do not let one ship escape.”
More follows, under various dates, in the same strain: in each one the note of fretfulness and ailing health being in greater prominence. In the severe attacks of bodily depression to which our beloved Admiral, in spite of his great spirit, was so peculiarly liable, he could even doubt Lord St. Vincent, and call Heaven to witness the ingratitude of Captain Troubridge, though he was the best friend he ever had except in the matter of regarding this great love of the Admiral’s from a somewhat narrow, uncharitable view. And in this matter some allowance is to be made for the Captain, who was one of the finest seamen who ever entered the British Navy, though he had not the imagination which made our Admiral the greatest of all naval commanders. It was not having imagination which made him judge the Admiral hardly in this matter now, though he regarded it much more gently afterwards. To Captain Troubridge, then, My Lady was an adventuress. He never thought that the love which ennobled her connection with Mr. Greville might also ennoble her passion for the Admiral; and he made no allowance for the rich colours of the imagination with which the Admiral painted My Lady’s companionship and love, till it seemed to him like the sunshine which makes the difference between the winters of Naples and England.