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Hereditary Genius
145
the average distance of the enemy and the closeness of his fire. At
long distances, and when the shooting was wild, the decrease would
be insensible; at comparatively close ranges it would be unimportant,
for even the sums of A and B, p. 34, are only about one-fifth more
than 2 A, (In the last column of the table 77 + 48 = 125 is only 21, or
about one-fifth more than 2 x 48 = 96.) As a matter of fact,
commanders are very frequently the objects of special aim. I
remember, when Soult visited England, that a story appeared in the
newspapers, of some English veteran having declared that the hero
must have lived a charmed life, for he had “covered” him with his
rifle (I think my memory does not deceive me) upwards of thirty
times, and yet had never the fortune to hit him. Nelson was killed by
one of many shots aimed directly at him, by a rifleman in the maintop
of the French vessel with which his own was closely engaged.
The total relative chances against being shot in battle, of two men of
the respective heights and weights I have described, are as 3 to 2 in
favour of the smaller man in respect to accidental shots, and in a
decidedly more favourable proportion in respect to direct aim; the
latter chance being compounded of the two following,—first, a better
hope of not being aimed at, and secondly, a hope very little less than 3
to 2, of not being hit when made the object of an aim.
This is really an important consideration. Had Nelson been a large
man, instead of a mere feather-weight, the probability is that he
would not have survived so long. Let us for a moment consider the
extraordinary dangers he survived. Leaving out of consideration the
early part of his active service, which was only occasionally
hazardous, as also the long interval of peace that followed it, we find
him, aet. 35, engaged in active warfare with the French, when,
through his energy at Bastia and Calvi, his name
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