Clairvoyant, Hornblower could foresee that in a year's time, the world would hardy remember the incident. In twenty years, it would be entirely forgotten. Yet those headless corpses up there in Muzillac; those shattered redcoats; those Frenchmen caught in the four-pounder's blast of canister -- they were as dead as if it had been a day in which history had been changed.

Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know.

Novel writing wrecks homes.

When I die there may be a paragraph or two in the newspapers. My name will linger in the British Museum Reading Room catalogue for a space at the head of a long list of books for which no one will ever ask.

A whim, a passing mood, readily induces the novelist to move hearth and home elsewhere. He can always plead work as an excuse to get him out of the clutches of bothersome hosts.

I thank God daily for the good fortune of my birth, for I am certain I would have made a miserable peasant.

I did not ask for objections, but for comments, or helpful suggestions. I looked for more loyalty from you, Captain Hornblower.' That made the whole argument pointless. If Leighton only wanted servile agreement there was no sense in continuing.