Some time ago I was privileged to read the letters that one of our
naval heroes had, when a young man, despatched home to his mother
during our civil war. He participated in two or three of our most
desperate fights. All of these letters showed him to have been--and,
what is better, to have remained--a "mother's own boy" as long as she
lived.
He never sailed far enough away to weaken that potent and sacred
power. It reached around the world. The years did not diminish it.
When her hair of brown had turned to white, he found that the
influence which to his boyhood and youth had been so delightful became
to his manhood uplifting and glorious.
And yet no buccaneer that rioted afloat with Morgan had courage more
ferocious. Yes, and, on the other hand, no Bayard "without fear and
without reproach"; no Sydney who, when dying, handed his canteen to a
wounded comrade that he might moisten his lips, while Sydney's own
were crackling with fever, was ever more tender or considerate.
What was it the expiring Nelson said when his decks ran blood, and
crimson victory placed upon his whitening brow laurels of triumph,
whose leaves were mingled with cypress? "Kiss me, Hardy," was what he
said.
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