LORD NELSON.
HORATIO NELSON.
It is a significant fact that the life of a leader is never an easy one. Nelson's life was one of struggle from beginning to end; a battle with poverty, lack of appreciation ofttimes by his country, much ill-health, domestic disquietude, and many hardships. He died at forty-seven, the greatest naval hero of the age.
Horatio Nelson, the son of a country rector, the Rev. Edmund Nelson, was born Sept. 29, 1758, at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England. The mother, Catherine, was descended from a good family, her grandmother being an elder sister of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Oxford. Catherine died when her little son, Horatio, was nine years old, leaving eight out of eleven children to mourn their capable mother. Nelson said of her later, just a short time before he died, "The thought of former days brings all my mother into my heart, which shows itself in my eyes."
The boy Nelson was fearless and ambitious. It is related of him that, straying away from the house when a mere child, his grandmother thought he had been carried off by gypsies. When found sitting beside a brook which he could not cross, the old lady said, "I wonder, child, that hunger and fear did not drive you home."
"Fear," said the boy, "I never saw fear; what is it?"