{"id":"01KG6G84WMYF3XSR15ZG6RW9H9","cid":"bafkreibybbqijhgsarsffbfrmogprspskhbphrdh4k4yysdobqwjttluda","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":772,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.150Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":706,"text":"                                   IV\r\n\r\n\r\n       Concerning ‘The greatest sailor since the world began.’--\r\n\r\n                                                               TENNYSON.\r\n\r\n\r\nIn this matter of writing, resolve as one may to keep to the main road,\r\nsome by-paths have an enticement not readily to be withstood. Beckoned\r\nby the genius of Nelson I am going to err into such a by-path. If the\r\nreader will keep me company I shall be glad. At the least we can promise\r\nourselves that pleasure which is wickedly said to be in sinning, for a\r\nliterary sin the divergence will be.\r\n\r\nVery likely it is no new remark that the inventions of our time have at\r\nlast brought about a change in sea warfare in degree corresponding to\r\nthe revolution in all warfare effected by the original introduction from\r\nChina into Europe of gunpowder. The first European firearm, a clumsy\r\ncontrivance, was, as is well known, scouted by no few of the knights as\r\na base implement, good enough peradventure for weavers too craven to\r\nstand up crossing steel with steel in frank fight. But as ashore\r\nknightly valour, though shorn of its blazonry, did not cease with the\r\nknights, neither on the seas, though nowadays in encounters there a\r\ncertain kind of displayed gallantry be fallen out of date as hardly\r\napplicable under changed circumstances, did the nobler qualities of such\r\nnaval magnates as Don John of Austria, Doria, Van Tromp, Jean Bart, the\r\nlong line of British admirals and the American Decaturs of 1812 become\r\nobsolete with their wooden walls.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, to anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without\r\nbeing inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one\r\nthe solitary old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson’s _Victory_, seems to float\r\nthere, not alone as the decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but\r\nalso as a poetic reproach, softened by its picturesqueness, to the\r\n_Monitors_ and yet mightier hulls of the European ironclads. And this\r\nnot altogether because such craft are unsightly, unavoidably lacking the\r\nsymmetry and grand lines of the old battle-ships, but equally for other\r\nreasons.\r\n\r\nThere are some, perhaps, who while not altogether inaccessible to that\r\npoetic reproach just alluded to, may yet on behalf of the new order be\r\ndisposed to parry it; and this to the extent of iconoclasm, if need be.\r\nFor example, prompted by the sight of the star inserted in the\r\n_Victory’s_ deck designating the spot where the Great Sailor fell, these\r\nmartial utilitarians may suggest considerations implying that Nelson’s\r\nornate publication of his person in battle was not only unnecessary, but\r\nnot military, nay, savoured of foolhardiness and vanity. They may add,\r\ntoo, that at Trafalgar it was in effect nothing less than a challenge to\r\ndeath; and death came; and that but for his bravado the victorious\r\nadmiral might possibly have survived the battle, and so, instead of\r\nhaving his sagacious dying injunctions overruled by his immediate\r\nsuccessor in command, he himself when the contest was decided might have\r\nbrought his shattered fleet to anchor, a proceeding which might have\r\naverted the deplorable loss of life by shipwreck in the elemental\r\ntempest that followed the martial one.\r\n\r\nWell, should we set aside the more than disputable point whether for\r\nvarious reasons it was possible to anchor the fleet, then plausibly\r\nenough the Bethamites of war may urge the above.\r\n\r\nBut he _might have been_ is but boggy ground to build on. And certainly\r\nin foresight as to the larger issue of an encounter, and anxious\r\npreparations for it--buoying the deadly way and mapping it out, as at\r\nCopenhagen--few commanders have been so painstakingly circumspect as\r\nthis reckless declarer of his person in fight.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6NCB96FPDHAXE23JJ7Q3","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G84WMBTXTEYGB2QS0X0XF","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.916Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:23.757Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}