Preamble
The main purpose of this second book is obvious from its title. It’s mostly a collection of “Records” confirming what has already been written, and relates almost exclusively to years after 1902. As Lord Rosebery has said so well, “The war period in a man’s life has its definite limits”; and that period is what interests the general reader, and for that reason all attempt at a biography has been discarded.
In our present distress we certainly want badly just now Nelson’s “Light from Heaven”! Nelson had what the Mystics describe as his “seasons of darkness and desertion.” His enfeebled body and his mind depressed used at times to cast a shade on his soul, such as we now feel as a Nation, but (if I remember right) it is Southey who says that the Sunshine which succeeded led Nelson to believe that it bore with it a prophetic glory, and that the light that led him on was “Light from Heaven.” We don’t see that “Light” as yet. But England never succumbs.