Per aspera ad astra

By May 1843, Fitzjames received command of the vessel HMS Clio and his First Lieutenant became his long time friend, Le Vesconte.

I am continually so intrigued by Hornblower's characterisation as this miserable wretch that is emotionally pulled hither and yon by his warring anxiety and depression, dual paralytic forces conquered only by his sense of duty as a Naval officer. He is so ashamed of these feelings that he stuffs them down behind an iron countenance that so far only Bush has proved capable of seeing behind. Hornblower is deeply prone to catastrophising, black moods, and self-criticism. A reader might anticipate the hero of eleven novels about the British Navy at the height of its power to be emblematic of the values of that institution; calm, stoic, and reserved. And yet Hornblower is lost in the sea of his own disordered thoughts that is not alleviated by any promotion he receives. Rather, a kind of impostor syndrome kicks in. He may have achieved all of the things that Horatio Hornblower has a achieved, but he has some Secret Innate Defect that renders him unworthy of any praise that anyone may want to give him. He lives in fear of his officers "discovering" his secret weakness. He has earned the high regard of his men, but can he keep it? does he deserve it?

This also echoes with his feelings towards Maria that I'll make another post about — there is a line early in Hotspur, "If Maria knew the truth about him she would turn away from him, her whole world shattered. The cruellest thing he could do would be to let her find him out; he must never do that." He allows himself to address the issue more succinctly with her because the issue with his fear of losing Maria is very clear and has a clearly identifiable source, his lack of romantic feelings for her. But we see again this harsh feeling of unworthiness rear its head in Hornblower.

My last point of interest goes back to Hornblower's general anxiety that he has decided to name as cowardice. When Grimes begs to be freed of the semaphore burning mission, when Hornblower is pacing the deck afterwards deciding what to do with the man, he eventually reaches the conclusion that his issue with Grimes lies not in the man's cowardice but in his voicing of it, in his action upon it. Hornblower cannot fault a man for being afraid but he certainly can for indulging such feelings to the point of acting as a coward. Regardless of the legal points of the matter, his moral issue with Grimes was the acting as a coward.

Then comes the bomb defuse scene. Half the officers of the Hotspur watch as Horatio extinguishes an explosive with his fingers, men rendered silent with horror at the event. Hornblower cannot understand their sense of awe at him. As he later describes, multiple times, his actions were those of a coward. He was afraid of the bomb and put it out. Yet to jump towards a lit explosive rather than away is rarely the act of a coward. He says he only extinguished it because he was at heart a coward, thus shaming himself for an action that saved a dozen lives. He chastises himself over and over throughout the book for the feelings of fear that grip him so many times; taking moral issue with his fears and anxieties that he calls cowardice. Grimes cannot be punished for feeling afraid. Hornblower can. Grimes cannot be punished for being a coward, only for acting as one — Hornblower can be punished for both.

Duncan Bell as Midshipman Clayton in THE EVEN CHANCE (1998)