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diff --git a/old/52453-h/52453-h.htm b/old/52453-h/52453-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index bac5a79..0000000 --- a/old/52453-h/52453-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3006 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title> - Joseph Conrad, by Hugh Walpole - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} - .x-small {font-size: 75%;} - .small {font-size: 85%;} - .large {font-size: 115%;} - .x-large {font-size: 130%;} - .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} - .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} - .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} - .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} - .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} - .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; - font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; - border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Joseph Conrad, by Hugh Walpole - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Joseph Conrad - -Author: Hugh Walpole - -Release Date: June 30, 2016 [EBook #52453] -Last Updated: November 20, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOSEPH CONRAD *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - JOSEPH CONRAD - </h1> - <h2> - By Hugh Walpole - </h2> - <h4> - New York: Henry Holt And Company - </h4> - <h3> - 1916 - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0008.jpg" alt="0008 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0008.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0009.jpg" alt="0009 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0009.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <h3> - TO - </h3> - <h3> - SIR SIDNEY COLVIN - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I—BIOGRAPHY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II—THE NOVELIST </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III—THE POET </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV—ROMANCE AND REALISM </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH CONRAD’S - PRINCIPAL WRITINGS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#linkindex"> INDEX </a> - </p> - - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - I—BIOGRAPHY - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>O any<span - class="pagenum">7</span><a name="link007" id="link007"></a> reader of the - books of Joseph Conrad it must be at once plain that his immediate - experiences and impressions of life have gone very directly to the making - of his art. It may happen often enough that an author’s artistic life is - of no importance to the critic and that his dealing with it is merely a - personal impertinence and curiosity, but with the life of Joseph Conrad - the critic has something to do, because, again and again, this writer - deliberately evokes the power of personal reminiscence, charging it with - the burden of his philosophy and the creation of his characters. - </p> - <p> - With the details of his life we cannot, in any way, be concerned, but with - the three backgrounds against whose form and colour <span class="pagenum">8</span><a - name="link008" id="link008"></a>his art has been placed we have some - compulsory connection. - </p> - <p> - Joseph Conrad (Teodor Josef Konrad Karzeriowski) was born on 6th December - 1857, and his birthplace was the Ukraine in the south of Poland. In 1862 - his father, who had been concerned in the last Polish rebellion, was - banished to Vologda. The boy lived with his mother and father there until - his mother died, when he was sent back to the Ukraine. In 1870 his lather - died. - </p> - <p> - Conrad was then sent to school in Cracow and there he remained until 1874, - when, following an absolutely compelling impulse, he went to sea. In the - month of May, 1878, he first landed on English ground; he knew at that - time no English but learnt rapidly, and in the autumn of 1878 joined the - <i>Duke of Sutherland</i> as ordinary seaman. He became a Master in the - English Merchant Service in 1884, in which year he was naturalised. In - 1894 he left the sea, whose servant he had been for nearly twenty years: - he sent the manuscript of a novel that he had been writing at various - periods during <span class="pagenum">9</span><a name="link009" id="link009"></a>his - sea life to Mr Fisher Unwin. With that publisher’s acceptance of <i>Almayer’s - Folly</i> the third period of his life began. Since then his history has - been the history of his books. - </p> - <p> - Looking for an instant at the dramatic contrast and almost ironical - relationship of these three backgrounds—Poland, the Sea, the inner - security and tradition of an English country-side—one can realise - what they may make of an artist. That early Polish atmosphere, viewed - through all the deep light and high shade of a remembered childhood, may - be enough to give life and vigour to any poet’s temperament. The romantic - melancholy born of early years in such an atmosphere might well plant - deeply in any soul the ironic contemplation of an impossible freedom. - </p> - <p> - Growing into youth in a land whose farthest bounds were held by unlawful - tyranny, Conrad may well have contemplated the sea as the one unlimited - monarchy of freedom and, even although he were too young to realise what - impulses <span class="pagenum">10</span><a name="link010" id="link010"></a>those - were that drove him, he may have felt that space and size and the force of - a power stronger than man were the only conditions of possible liberty. He - sought those conditions, found them and clung to them; he found, too, an - ironic pity for men who could still live slaves and prisoners to other men - when to them also such freedom was possible. That ironic pity he never - afterwards lost, and the romance that was in him received a mighty impulse - from that contrast that he was always now to contemplate. He discovered - the Sea and paid to her at once his debt of gratitude and obedience. He - thought it no hard thing to obey her when he might, at the same time, so - honestly admire her and she has remained for him, as an artist, the only - personality that he has been able wholeheartedly to admire. He found in - her something stronger than man and he must have triumphed in the - contemplation of the dominion that she could exercise, if she would, over - the tyrannies that he had known in his childhood. <span class="pagenum">11</span><a - name="link011" id="link011"></a>He found, too, in her service, the type of - man who, most strongly, appealed to him. He had known a world composed of - threats, fugitive rebellions, wild outbursts of defiance, inefficient - struggles against tyranny, he was in the company now of those who realised - so completely the relationship of themselves and their duty to their - master and their service that there was simply nothing to be said about - it. England had, perhaps, long ago called to him with her promise of - freedom, and now on an English ship he realised the practice and - performance of that freedom, indulged in, as it was, with the fewest - possible words. Moreover, with his fund of romantic imagination, he must - have been pleased by the contrast of his present company, men who, by - sheer lack of imagination, ruled and served the most imaginative force in - nature. The wonders of the sea, by day and by night, were unnoticed by his - companions, and he admired their lack of vision. Too much vision had - driven his country under the heel of Tyranny, had bred in himself a - despair of <span class="pagenum">12</span><a name="link012" id="link012"></a>any - possible freedom for far-seeing men; now he was a citizen of a world where - freedom reigned because men could not perceive how it could be otherwise; - the two sides of the shield were revealed to him. - </p> - <p> - Then, towards the end of his twenty years’ service of the sea, the - creative impulse in him demanded an outlet. He wrote, at stray moments of - opportunity during several years, a novel, wrote it for his pleasure and - diversion, sent it finally to a publisher with all that lack of confidence - in posts and publishers that every author, who cares for his creations, - will feel to the end of his days. He has said that if <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> - had been refused he would never have written again, but we may well - believe that, let the fate of that book be what it might, the energy and - surprise of his discovery of the sea must have been declared to the world. - <i>Almayer’s Folly</i>, however, was not rejected; its publication caused - <i>The Spectator</i> to remark: “The name of Mr Conrad is new to us, but - it appears to us as if he might become the Kipling of the Malay - Archipelago.” He <span class="pagenum">13</span><a name="link013" id="link013"></a>had, therefore, encouragement of the most dignified kind - from the beginning. He himself, however, may have possibly regarded that - day in 1897 when Henley accepted <i>The Nigger of the Narcissus</i> for <i>The - New Review</i> as a more important date in his new career. That date may - serve for the commencement of the third period of his adventure. - </p> - <p> - The quiet atmosphere of the England that he had adopted made the final, - almost inevitable contrast with the earlier periods. With such a country - behind him it was possible for him to contemplate in peace the whole - “case” of his earlier life. It was as a “case” that he saw it, a “case” - that was to produce all those other “cases” that were his books. This has - been their history. - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p> - His books, also, find naturally a division into three parts; the first - period, beginning with <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> in 1895, ended with <i>Lord - Jim</i> in 1900. The second contains <span class="pagenum">14</span><a - name="link014" id="link014"></a>the two volumes of <i>Youth</i> and <i>Typhoon</i>, - the novel <i>Romance</i> that he wrote in collaboration with Ford Madox - Hueffer, and ends with <i>Nostromo</i>, published in 1903. The third - period begins, after a long pause, in 1907 with <i>The Secret Agent</i>, - and receives its climax with the remarkable popularity of <i>Chance</i> in - 1914, and <i>Victory</i> (1915). - </p> - <p> - His first period was a period of struggle, struggle with a foreign - language, struggle with a technique that was always, from the point of - view of the “schools,” to remain too strong for him, struggles with the - very force and power of his reminiscences that were urging themselves upon - him, now at the moment of their contemplated freedom, like wild beasts - behind iron bars. <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> and <i>The Outcast of the Islands</i> - (the first of these is sequel to the second) were remarkable in the - freshness of their discovery of a new world. It was not that their world - had not been found before, but rather that Conrad, by the force of his own - individual discovery, proclaimed his find with a new voice and a new - vigour. In the <span class="pagenum">15</span><a name="link015" id="link015"></a>character of Almayer, of Aissa, of Willems, of Bahalatchi - and Abdulla there was a new psychology that gave promise of great things. - Nevertheless these early stories were overcharged with atmosphere, were - clumsy in their development and conveyed in then style a sense of rhetoric - and lack of ease. His vision of his background was pulled out beyond its - natural intensity and his own desire to make it overwhelming was so - obvious as to frighten the creature into a determination to be, simply out - of malicious perversity, anything else. - </p> - <p> - These two novels were followed by a volume of short stories, <i>Tales of - Unrest</i>, that reveal, quite nakedly, Conrad’s difficulties. One study - in this book, <i>The Return</i>, with its redundancies and overemphasis, - is the crudest parody on its author and no single tale in the volume - succeeds. It was, however, as though, with these efforts, Conrad flung - himself free, for ever, from his apprenticeship; there appeared in 1898 - what remains perhaps still his most perfect work, <i>The Nigger of the - Narcissus</i>. This <span class="pagenum">16</span><a name="link016" id="link016"></a>was a story entirely of the sea, of the voyage of a ship - from port to port and of the influence upon that ship and upon the human - souls that she contained, of the approaching shadow of death, an influence - ironical, melancholy, never quite horrible, and always tender and - humorous. Conrad must himself have loved, beyond all other vessels, the <i>Narcissus</i>. - Never again, except perhaps in <i>The Mirror of the Sea</i>, was he to be - so happily at his ease with any of his subjects. The book is a gallery of - remarkably distinct and authentic portraits, the atmosphere is held in - perfect restraint, and the overhanging theme is never, for an instant, - abandoned. It is, above all, a record of lovingly cherished reminiscence. - Of cherished reminiscence also was the book that closed the first period - of his work, <i>Lord Jim</i>. This was to remain, until the publication of - <i>Chance</i>, his most popular novel. It is the story of a young - Englishman’s loss of honour in a moment of panic and his victorious - recovery. The first half of the book is a finely sustained development of - a <span class="pagenum">17</span><a name="link017" id="link017"></a>vividly - remembered scene, the second half has the inevitability of a moral idea - pursued to its romantic end rather than the inevitability of life. Here - then in 1900 Conrad had worked himself free of the underground of the - jungle and was able to choose his path. His choice was still dictated by - the subjects that he remembered most vividly, but upon these rewards of - observation his creative genius was working. James Wait, Donkin, Jim, - Marlowe were men whom he had known, but men also to whom he had given a - new birth. - </p> - <p> - There appeared now in <i>Youth, Heart of Darkness</i> and <i>Typhoon</i> - three of the finest short stories in the English language, work of - reminiscence, but glowing at its heart with all the lyrical exultation and - flame of a passion that had been the ruling power of a life that was now - to be abandoned. That salutation of farewell is in <i>Youth</i> and its - evocation of the East, in <i>The Heart of Darkness</i> and its evocation - of the forests that are beyond civilisation, in <i>Typhoon</i> and its - evocation of the sea. He was never, after <span class="pagenum">18</span><a - name="link018" id="link018"></a>these tales, to write again of the sea as - though he were still sailing on it. From this time he belonged, with - regret, and with some ironic contempt, to the land. - </p> - <p> - This second period closed with the production of a work that was - deliberately created rather than reminiscent, <i>Nostromo</i>. Conrad may - have known Dr Monyngham, Decoud, Mrs Could, old Viola; but; they became - stronger than he and, in their completed personalities, owed no man - anything for their creation. There is much to be said about <i>Nostromo</i>, - in many ways the greatest of all Conrad’s works, but, for the moment, one - would only say that its appearance (it appeared first, of all ironical - births, in a journal—<i>T.P.‘s Weekly</i>—and astonished and - bewildered its readers week by week, by its determination not to finish - and yield place to something simpler) caused no comment whatever, that its - critics did not understand it, and its author’s own admirers were puzzled - by its unlikeness to the earlier sea stories. - </p> - <p> - <i>Nostromo</i> was followed by a pause—one <span class="pagenum">19</span><a - name="link019" id="link019"></a>can easily imagine that its production - did, for a moment, utterly exhaust its creator. When, however, in 1907 - appeared <i>The Secret Agent</i>, a new attitude was most plainly visible. - He was suddenly detached, writing now of “cases” that interested him as an - investigator of human life, but called from his heart no burning - participation of experience. He is tender towards Winnie Verloc and her - old mother, the two women in <i>The Secret Agent</i>, but he studies them - quite dispassionately. That love that clothed Jim so radiantly, that - fierce contempt that in <i>An Outcast of the Islands</i> accompanied - Willems to his degraded death, is gone. We have the finer artist, but we - have lost something of that earlier compelling interest. <i>The Secret - Agent</i> is a tale of secret service in London; it contains the - wonderfully created figure of Verloc and it expresses, to the full, - Conrad’s hatred of those rows and rows of bricks and mortar that are so - completely accepted by unimaginative men. In 1911 <i>Under Western Eyes</i> - spoke strongly of a Russian influence <span class="pagenum">20</span><a - name="link020" id="link020"></a>Turgéniev and Dostoievsky had too markedly - their share in the creation of Razumov and the cosmopolitan circle in - Geneva. Moreover, it is a book whose heart is cold. - </p> - <p> - A volume of short stories, <i>A Set of Six</i>, illustrating still more - emphatically Conrad’s new detachment, appeared in 1908 and is remarkable - chiefly for an ironically humorous story of the Napoleonic wars—<i>The - Duel</i>—a tale too long, perhaps, but admirable for its sustained - note. In 1912 he seemed, in another volume, <i>‘Twixt Land and Sea</i>, to - unite some of his earlier glow with all his later mastery of his method. - <i>A Smile, of Fortune</i> and <i>The Secret Sharer</i> are amazing in the - beauty of retrospect that they leave behind them in the soul of the - reader. The sea is once more revealed to us, but it is revealed now as - something that Conrad has conquered. His contact with the land has taken - from him something of his earlier intimacy with his old mistress. - Nevertheless <i>The Secret Sharer</i> is a most marvellous story, - marvellous in its completeness of theme and treatment, marvellous in the - <span class="pagenum">21</span><a name="link021" id="link021"></a>contrast - between the confined limitations of its stage and the vast implications of - its moral idea. Finally in 1914 appeared <i>Chance</i>, by no means the - finest of his books, but catching the attention and admiration of that - wider audience who had remained indifferent to the force and beauty of <i>The - Nigger of the Narcissus</i>, of <i>Lord Jim</i>, of <i>Nostromo</i>. With - the popular success of <i>Chance</i> the first period of his work is - closed. On the possible results of that popularity, their effect on the - artist and on the whole world of men, one must offer, here at any rate, no - prophecy. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p> - To any reader who cares, seriously, to study the art of Joseph Conrad, no - better advice could be offered than that he should begin with the reading - of the two volumes that have been omitted from the preceding list. <i>Some - Reminiscences</i> and <i>The Mirror of the Sea</i> demand consideration on - the threshold of any survey of this author’s work, because <span - class="pagenum">22</span><a name="link022" id="link022"></a>they reveal, - from a personal, wilful and completely anarchistic angle, the - individuality that can only be discovered, afterwards, objectively, in the - process of creation. - </p> - <p> - In both these books Conrad is, quite simply, himself for anyone who cares - to read. They are books dictated by no sense of precedent nor form nor - fashion. They are books of their own kind, even more than are the novels. - <i>Some Reminiscences</i> has only <i>Tristram Shandy</i> for its rival in - the business of getting everything done without moving a step forward. <i>The - Mirror of the Sea</i> has no rival at all. - </p> - <p> - We may suppose that the author did really intend to write his - reminiscences when he began. He found a moment that would make, a good - starting-point, a moment in the writing of his first book, <i>Almayer’s - Folly</i>, at the conclusion or, more truly, cessation of <i>Some - Reminiscences</i>, that moment is still hanging in mid-air, the writing of - <i>Almayer</i> has not proceeded two lines farther down the stage, the - maid-servant, is still standing in the doorway, the hands of <span - class="pagenum">23</span><a name="link023" id="link023"></a>the clock have - covered five minutes of the dial. What has occurred is simply that the - fascination of the subject has been too strong. It is of the very essence - of Conrad’s art that one thing so powerfully suggests to him another that - to start him on anything at all is a tragedy, because life is so short. - His reminiscences would be easy enough to command would they only not take - on a life of their own and shout at their unfortunate author: “Ah! yes. - I’m interesting, of course, but don’t you remember...?” - </p> - <p> - The whole adventure of writing his first book is crowded with incident, - not because he considers it a wonderful book or himself a marvellous - figure, but simply because any incident in the world must, in his eyes, be - crowded about with other incidents. There is the pen one wrote the book - with, that pen that belonged to poor old Captain B———— - of the <i>Nonsuch</i> who... or there is the window just behind the - writing-table that looked out into the river, that river that reminds one - of the year ‘88 when... - </p> - <p> - In the course of his thrilling voyage of <span class="pagenum">24</span><a - name="link024" id="link024"></a>discovery we are, by a kind of most - blessed miracle, told something of Mr Nicholas B. and of the author’s own - most fascinating uncle. We even, by an extension of the miracle, learn - something of Conrad as ship’s officer (this the merest glimpse) and as a - visitor to his uncle’s house in Poland. - </p> - <p> - So by chance are these miraculous facts and glimpses that we catch at them - with eager, extended hands, praying, imploring them to stay; indeed those - glimpses may seem to us the more wonderful in that they have been, by us, - only partially realised. - </p> - <p> - Nevertheless, in spite of its eager incoherence, at the same time both - breathless, and, by the virtue of its author’s style, solemn, we do - obtain, in addition to our glimpses of Poland and the sea, one or two - revelations of Conrad himself. Our revelations come to us partly through - our impression of his own zest for life, a zest always ironical, often - sceptical, but always eager and driven by a throbbing impulse of vitality. - Partly also through certain deliberate utterances. He tells us: <span - class="pagenum">25</span><a name="link025" id="link025"></a>"Those who - read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a - few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It - rests, notably, amongst others, on the idea of Fidelity. At a time when - nothing which is not revolutionary in some way or other can expect to - attract much attention I have not been revolutionary in my writings.” - (Page 20.) - </p> - <p> - Or again: - </p> - <p> - “All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger - from which a philosophical mind should be free.” (Page 21.) - </p> - <p> - Or again: - </p> - <p> - “Even before the most seductive reveries I have remained mindful of that - sobriety of interior life, that asceticism of sentiment, in which alone - the naked form of truth, such as one conceives it, such as one feels it, - can be rendered without shame.” (Page 194.) - </p> - <p> - This simplicity, this fidelity, this hatred of self-assertion and - self-satisfaction, this sobriety—these qualities do give some - implication of the colour of the work that will <span class="pagenum">26</span><a - name="link026" id="link026"></a>arise from them; and when to these - qualities we add that before-mentioned zest and vigour we must have some - true conception of the nature of the work that he was to do. - </p> - <p> - It is for this that <i>Some Reminiscences</i> is valuable. To read it as a - detached work, to expect from it the amiable facetiousness of a book of - modern memories or the heavy authoritative coherence of the <i>My - Autobiography</i> or <i>My Life</i> of some eminent scientist or - theologian, is to be most grievously disappointed. - </p> - <p> - If the beginning is bewilderment the end is an impression of crowding, - disordered life, of a tapestry richly dark, with figures woven into the - very thread of it and yet starting to life with an individuality all their - own. No book reveals more clearly the reasons both of Conrad’s faults and - of his merits. No book of his is more likely by reason of its honesty and - simplicity to win him true friends. As a work of art there is almost - everything to be said against it, except that it has that supreme gift - that remains, at the end, almost all that we ask of any work of <span - class="pagenum">27</span><a name="link027" id="link027"></a>art, - overwhelming vitality. But it is formless, ragged, incoherent, - inconclusive, a fragment of eager, vivid, turbulent reminiscence poured - into a friend’s ear in a moment of sudden confidence. That may or may not - be the best way to conduct reminiscences; the book remains a supremely - intimate, engaging and enlightening introduction to its author. - </p> - <p> - With <i>The Mirror of the Sea</i> we are on very different ground. As I - have already said, this is Conrad’s happiest book—indeed, with the - possible exception of <i>The Nigger of the Narcissus</i>, his only happy - book. He is happy because he is able, for a moment, to forget his - distrust, his dread, his inherent ironical pessimism. He is here - permitting himself the whole range of his enthusiasm and admiration, and - behind that enthusiasm there is a quiet, sure confidence that is strangely - at variance with the distrust of his later novels. - </p> - <p> - The book seems at first sight to be a collection of almost haphazard - papers, with such titles as <i>Landfalls and Departures</i>, <span - class="pagenum">28</span><a name="link028" id="link028"></a><i>Overdue and - Missing, Rulers of East and West, The Nursery of the Craft</i>. No reader - however, can conclude it without having conveyed to him a strangely - binding impression of Unity. He has been led, it will seem to him, mto the - very heart of the company of those who know the Sea as she really is, he - has been made free of a great order. - </p> - <p> - The foundation of his intimacy springs from three sources—the - majesty, power and cruelty of the Sea herself, the homely reality of the - lives of the men who serve her, the vibrating, beautiful life of the ships - that sail upon her. This is the Trilogy that holds in its hands the whole - life and pageant of the sea; it is because Conrad holds all three elements - in exact and perfect balance that this book has its unique value, its - power both of realism, for this is the life of man, and of romance, which - is the life of the sea. - </p> - <p> - Conrad’s attitude to the Sea herself, in this book, is one of lyrical and - passionate worship. He sees, with all the vivid accuracy of his realism, - her deceits, her <span class="pagenum">29</span><a name="link029" id="link029"></a>cruelties, her inhuman disregard of the lives of men, - but, finally, her glory is enough for him. He will write of her like this: - </p> - <p> - “The sea—this truth must be confessed—has no generosity. No - display of manly qualities—courage, hardihood, endurance, - faithfulness—has ever been known to touch its irresponsible - consciousness of power. The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a - savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation. He cannot brook the slightest - appearance of defiance, and has remained the irreconcilable enemy of ships - and men ever since ships and men had the unheard-of audacity to go afloat - together in the face of his frown... the most amazing wonder of the deep - is its unfathomable cruelty.” - </p> - <p> - Nevertheless she holds him her most willing slave and he is that because - he believes that she alone in all the world is worthy to indulge this - cruelty. She positively “brings it off,” this assertion of her right, and - once he is assured of that, he will yield absolute obedience. In this - worship of the Sea and the winds that rouse her he allows himself a <span - class="pagenum">30</span><a name="link030" id="link030"></a>lyrical - freedom that he was afterwards to check. He was never again, not even in - <i>Typhoon</i> and <i>Youth</i>, to write with such free and spontaneous - lyricism as in his famous passage about the “West Wind.” - </p> - <p> - <i>The Mirror of the Sea</i> forms then the best possible introduction to - Conrad’s work, because it attests, more magnificently and more confidently - than anything else that he has written, his faith and his devotion. It - presents also, however, in its treatment of the second element of his - subject, the men on the ships, many early sketches of the characters whom - he, both before and afterwards, developed so fully in his novels. About - these same men there are certain characteristics to be noticed, - characteristics that must be treated more fully in a later analysis of - Conrad’s creative power, but that nevertheless demand some mention here as - witnesses of the emotions, the humours, the passions that he, most - naturally, observes. It is, in the first place, to be marked that almost - all the men upon the sea, from “poor Captain B————, - who used <span class="pagenum">31</span><a name="link031" id="link031"></a>to - suffer from sick headaches, in his young days, every time he was - approaching a coast,” to the dramatic Dominic (“from the slow, - imperturbable gravity of that broad-chested man you would think he had - never smiled in his life”), are silent and thoughtful. Granted this - silence, Conrad in his half-mournful, half-humorous survey, is instantly - attracted by any possible contrast. Captain B———- dying - in his home, with two grave, elderly women sitting beside him in the quiet - room, “his eyes resting fondly upon the faces in the room, upon the - pictures on the wall, upon all the familiar objects of that home whose - abiding and clear image must have flashed often on his memory in times of - stress and anxiety at sea”—“poor P————,” - with “his cheery temper, his admiration for the jokes in <i>Punch</i>, his - little oddities—like his strange passion for borrowing - looking-glasses, for instance”—that captain who “did everything with - an air which put your attention on the alert and raised your expectations, - but the result somehow was always on stereotyped <span class="pagenum">32</span><a - name="link032" id="link032"></a>lines, unsuggestive, empty of any lesson - that one could lay to heart”—that other captain in whom “through a - touch of self-seeking that modest artist of solid merit became untrue to - his temperament”—here are little sketches for those portraits that - afterwards we are to know so well, Marlowe, Captain M’Whirr, Captain - Lingard, Captain Mitchell and many others. Here we may fancy that his eye - lingers as though in the mere enumeration of little oddities and - contrasted qualities he sees such themes, such subjects, such “cases” that - it is hard, almost beyond discipline, to leave them. Nevertheless they - have to be left. He has obtained his broader contrast by his juxtaposition - of the curious muddled jumble of the human life against the broad, august - power of the Sea—that is all that his present subject demands, that - is his theme and his picture. - </p> - <p> - Not all his theme, however; there remains the third element in it, the - soul of the ship. It is, perhaps, after all, with the life of the ship - that <i>The Mirror of The Sea</i>, ultimately, has most to do. <span - class="pagenum">33</span><a name="link033" id="link033"></a>As other men - write of the woman they have loved, so does Conrad write of his ships. He - sees them, in this book that is so especially dedicated to their pride and - beauty, coloured with a fine glow of romance, but nevertheless he realises - them with all the accurate detail of a technician who describes his craft. - You may learn of the raising and letting go of an anchor, and he will tell - the journalists of their crime in speaking of “casting” an anchor when the - true technicality is “brought up”—“to an anchor” understood. In the - chapter on “Yachts” he provides as much technical detail as any book of - instruction need demand and then suddenly there come these sentences—“the - art of handling slips is finer, perhaps, than the art of handling men.”... - “A ship is a creature which we have brought into the world, as it were on - purpose to keep us up to mark.” - </p> - <p> - Indeed it is the ship that gives that final impression of unity, of which - I have already spoken, to the book. She grows, as it were, from her birth, - in no ordered sequence of <span class="pagenum">34</span><a name="link034" id="link034"></a>events, but admitting us ever more closely into her - intimacy, telling us, at first shyly, afterwards more boldly, little - things about herself, confiding to us her trials, appealing sometimes to - our admiration, indulging sometimes our humour. Conrad is tender to her as - he is to nothing human. He watches her shy, new, in the dock, “her - reputation all to make yet in the talk of the seamen who were to share - their life with her.”... “She looked modest to me. I imagined her - diffident, lying very quiet, with her side nestling shyly against the - wharf to which she was made fast with very new lines, intimidated by the - company of her tried and experienced bisters already familiar with all the - violences of the ocean and the exacting love of men.” - </p> - <p> - Her friend stands there on the quay and bids her be of good courage; he - salutes her grace and spirit—he echoes, with all the implied irony - of contrast, his companion’s “Ships are all right....” - </p> - <p> - He explains the many kinds of ships that there are—the rogues, the - wickedly malicious, <span class="pagenum">35</span><a name="link035" id="link035"></a>the sly, the benevolent, the proud, the adventurous, the - staid, the decorous. For even the worst of these he has indulgences that - he would never offer to the soul of man. He cannot be severe before such a - world of fine spirits. - </p> - <p> - Finally, in the episode of the <i>Tremolino</i> and her tragic end (an end - that has in it a suggestion of that later story, <i>Freya of the Seven - Inlands</i>), in that sinister adventure of Dominic and the vile Caesar, - he shows us, in miniature, what it is that he intends to do with all this - material. He gives us the soul of the <i>Tremolino</i>, the soul of - Dominic, the soul of the sea upon which they are voyaging. Without ever - deserting the realism upon which he builds his foundations he raises upon - it his house of romance. - </p> - <p> - This book remains by far the easiest, the kindest, the most friendly of - all his books. He has been troubled here by no questions of form, of - creation, of development, whether of character or of incident. - </p> - <p> - It is the best of all possible prologues to his more creative work. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - II—THE NOVELIST - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N <span - class="pagenum">36</span><a name="link036" id="link036"></a>discussing the - art of any novelist as distinct from the poet or essayist there are three - special questions that we may ask—as to the Theme, as to the Form, - as to the creation of Character. - </p> - <p> - It is possible to discuss these three questions in terms that can be - applied, in no fashion whatever, to the poem or the essay, although the - novel may often more truly belong to the essay or the poem to the novel, - as, for instance, <i>The Ring and the Book</i> and <i>Aurora Leigh</i> - bear witness. All such questions of ultimate classes and divisions are - vain, but these three divisions of Theme, Form and Character do cover many - of the questions that are to be asked about any novelist simply in his - position as novelist <span class="pagenum">37</span><a name="link037" id="link037"></a>and nothing else. That Joseph Conrad is, in his art, most - truly poet as well as novelist no reader of his work will deny. I wish, in - this chapter, to consider him simply as a novelist—that is, as a - narrator of the histories of certain human beings, with his attitude to - those histories. - </p> - <p> - Concerning the form of the novel the English novelists, until the - seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century, worried themselves but - slightly. If they considered the matter they chuckled over their - deliberate freedom, as did Sterne and Fielding. Scott considered - story-telling a jolly business in which one was, also, happily able to - make a fine living, but he never contemplated the matter with any respect. - Jane Austen, who had as much form as any modern novelist, was quite - unaware of her happy possession. The mid-Victorians gloriously abandoned - themselves to the rich independence of shilling numbers, a fashion which - forbade Form as completely as the manners of the time forbade frankness. A - new period began at the end of the fifties; <span class="pagenum">38</span><a - name="link038" id="link038"></a>but no one in 1861 was aware that a novel - called <i>Evan Harrington</i> was of any special importance; it made no - more stir than did <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> in the early nineties, although - the wonderful <i>Richard Feverel</i> had already preceded it. - </p> - <p> - With the coming of George Meredith and Thomas Hardy the Form of the novel, - springing straight from the shores of France, where <i>Madame Bovary</i> - and <i>Une Vie</i> showed what might be done by taking trouble, grew into - a question of considerable import. Robert Louis Stevenson showed how - important it was to say things agreeably, even when you had not very much - to say. Henry James showed that there was so much to say about everything - that you could not possibly get to the end of it, and Rudyard Kipling - showed that the great thing was to see things as they were. At the - beginning of the nineties everyone was immensely busied over the way that - things were done. <i>The Yellow Book</i> sprang into a bright existence, - flamed, and died. “Art for Art’s sake” was slain by the trial of Oscar - Wilde in 1895. - </p> - <p> - <span class="pagenum">39</span><a name="link039" id="link039"></a>Mr - Wells, in addition to fantastic romances, wrote stories about shop - assistants and knew something about biology. The Fabian Society made - socialism entertaining. Mr Bernard Shaw foreshadowed a new period and the - Boer War completed an old one. - </p> - <p> - Of the whole question of Conrad’s place in the history of the English - novel and his influence upon it I wish to speak in a later chapter. I - would simply say here that if he was borne in upon the wind of the French - influence he was himself, in later years, one of the chief agents in its - destruction, but, beginning to write in English as he did in the time of - <i>The Yellow Book</i>, passing through all the realistic reaction that - followed the collapse of aestheticism, seeing the old period washed away - by the storm of the Boer War, he had, especially prepared for him, a new - stage upon which to labour. The time and the season were ideal for the - work that he had to do. - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p> - <span class="pagenum">40</span><a name="link040" id="link040"></a>The form - in which Conrad has chosen to develop his narratives is the question which - must always come first in any consideration of him as a novelist; the - question of his form is the ground upon which he has been most frequently - attacked. - </p> - <p> - His difficulties in this matter have all arisen, as I have already - suggested, from his absorbing interest in life. Let us imagine, for an - instant, an imaginary case. He has teen in some foreign port a quarrel - between two seamen. One has “knifed” the other, and the quarrel has been - watched, with complete indifference, by a young girl and a bibulous old - wastrel who is obviously a relation both of hers and of the stricken - seaman. The author sees here a case for his art and, wishing to give us - the matter with the greatest possible truth and accuracy, he begins, <i>oratio - recta</i>, by the narration of a little barber whose shop is just over the - spot where the quarrel took place and whose lodgers the old man and the - girl are. He <span class="pagenum">41</span><a name="link041" id="link041"></a>describes - the little barber and is, at once, amazed by the interesting facts that he - discovers about the man. Seen standing in his doorway he is the most - ordinary little figure, but once investigate his case and you find a - strange contrast between his melancholy romanticism and the flashing - fanaticism of his love for the young girl who lodges with him. That leads - one back, through many years, to the moment of his first meeting with the - bibulous old man, and for a witness of that wo must hunt out a villainous - old woman who keeps a drinking saloon in another part of the town. This - old woman, now so drink-sodden and degraded, had once a history of her - own. Once she was... - </p> - <p> - And so the matter continues. It is not so much a deliberate evocation of - the most difficult of methods, this maimer of narration, as a poignant - witness to Conrad’s own breathless surprise at his discoveries. Mr Henry - James, speaking of this enforced collection of oratorical witnesses, says: - “It places Mr Conrad absolutely alone as a <span class="pagenum">42</span><a - name="link042" id="link042"></a>votary of the way to do a thing that shall - make it undergo most doing,” and his amazement at Conrad’s patient pursuit - of unneeded difficulties may seem to us the stranger if we consider that - in <i>What Maisie Knew</i> and <i>The Awkward Age</i> he has practised - almost precisely the same form himself. Indeed beside the intricate but - masterly form of <i>The Awkward Age</i> the duplicate narration of <i>Chance</i> - seems child’s play. Mr Henry James makes the mistake of speaking as though - Conrad had quite deliberately chosen the form of narration that was most - difficult to him, simply for the fun of overcoming the difficulties, the - truth being that he has chosen the easiest, the form of narration brought - straight from the sea and the ships that he adored, the form of narration - used by the Ancient Mariner and all the seamen before and alter him. - Conrad must have his direct narrator, because that is the way in which - stories in the past had generally come to him. He wishes to deny the - effect of that direct and simple honesty that had always seemed so - attractive to <span class="pagenum">43</span><a name="link043" id="link043"></a>him. - He must have it by word of mouth, because it is by word of mouth that he - himself has always demanded it, and if one witness is not enough for the - truth of it then must he have two or three. - </p> - <p> - Consider for a moment the form of three of his most important novels: <i>Lord - Jim, Nostromo</i> and <i>Chance</i>. It is possible that <i>Lord Jim</i> - was conceived originally as a sketch of character, derived by the author - from one scene that was, in all probability, an actual reminiscence. - Certainly, when the book is finished, one scene beyond all others remains - with the reader; the scene of the inquiry into the loss of the <i>Patna</i>, - or rather the vision of Jim and his appalling companions waiting outside - for the inquiry to begin. Simply in the contemplation of these four men - Conrad has his desired contrast; the skipper of the <i>Patna</i>: “He made - me think of a trained baby elephant walking on hind-legs. He was - extravagantly gorgeous too—got up in a. soiled sleeping-suit, bright - green and deep orange vertical stripes, with a pair of ragged straw - slippers <span class="pagenum">44</span><a name="link044" id="link044"></a>on - his bare feet, and somebody’s cast-off pith hat, very dirty and two sizes - too small for him, tied up with a manilla rope-yarn on the top of his big - head.” There are also two other “no-account chaps with him”—a sallow - faced mean little chap with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a - blue flannel coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick, with - drooping grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty - imbecility, and, with these three, Jim, “clean-limbed, clean-faced, firm - on his feet, as promising a boy as the sun ever shone on.” Here are these - four, in the same box, condemned for ever by all right-thinking men. That - boy in the same box as those obscene scoundrels! At once the artist has - fastened on to his subject, it bristles with active, vital possibilities - and discoveries. We, the observers, share the artist’s thrill. We watch - our author dart upon a subject with the excitement of adventurers - discovering a gold mine. How much will it yield? How deep will it go? We - are thrilled with the suspense. <span class="pagenum">45</span><a - name="link045" id="link045"></a>Conrad, having discovered his subject, - must, for the satisfaction of that honour which is his most deeply - cherished virtue, prove to us his authenticity. “I was not there myself,” - he tells us, “but I can show you someone who was.” He introduces us to a - first-hand witness, Marlowe or another. “Now tell your story.” He has at - once the atmosphere in which he is happiest, and so, having his audience - clustered about him, unlimited time at everyone’s disposal, whiskies and - cigars without stint, he lets himself go. He is bothered now by no - question but the thorough investigation of his discovery. What had Jim - done that he should be in such a case? We must have the story of the loss - of the <i>Patna</i>, that marvellous journey across the waters, all the - world of the pilgrims, the obscene captain and Jim’s fine, chivalrous - soul. Marlowe is inexhaustible. He has so much to say and so many fine - words in which to say it. At present, so absorbed are we, so successful is - he, that we are completely held. The illusion is perfect. We come to the - inquiry. <span class="pagenum">46</span><a name="link046" id="link046"></a>One - of the judges is Captain Brierley. “What! not know Captain Brierley! Ah! - but I must tell you! Most extraordinary thing!” - </p> - <p> - The world grows around us; a world that can contain the captain of the <i>Patna</i>, - Brierley and Jim at the same time! The subject before us seems now so rich - that we are expecting to see it burst, at any moment, in the author’s - hands, but so long as that first visualised scene is the centre of the - episode, so long as the experience hovers round that inquiry and the - Esplanade outside it, we are held, breathless and believing. We believe - even in the eloquent Marlowe. Then the moment passes. Every possible probe - into its heart has been made. We are satisfied. - </p> - <p> - There follows then the sequel, and here at once the weakness of the method - is apparent. The author having created his narrator must continue with - him. Marlowe is there, untired, eager, waiting to begin again. But the - trouble is that we are do longer assured now of the truth and <span - class="pagenum">47</span><a name="link047" id="link047"></a>reality of his - story. He saw—we cannot for an instant doubt it—that group on - the Esplanade; all that he could tell us about that we, breathlessly, - awaited. But now we are uncertain whether he is not inventing a romantic - sequel. He must go on—that is the truly terrible thing about Marlowe—and - at the moment when we question his authenticity we are suspicious of his - very existence, ready to be irritated by his flow of words demanding - something more authentic than that voice that is now only dimly heard. The - author himself perhaps feels this; he duplicates, he even trebles his - narrators and with each fresh agent raises a fresh crop of facts, - contrasts, halts and histories. That then is the peril of the method. - Whilst we believe we are completely held, but let the authenticity waver - for a moment and the danger of disaster is more excessive than with any - other possible form of narration. Create your authority and we have at - once someone at whom we may throw stones if we are not beguiled, Marlowe - has certainly been compelled to <span class="pagenum">48</span><a - name="link048" id="link048"></a>face, at moments in his career, an angry, - irritated audience. - </p> - <p> - <i>Nostromo</i> is, for the reason that we never lose our confidence in - the narrator, a triumphant vindication of these methods. That is not to - deny that <i>Nostromo</i> is extremely contused in places, but it is a - confusion that arises rather from Conrad’s confidence in the reader’s - fore-knowledge of the facts than in a complication of narrations. The - narrations are sometimes complicated—old Captain Mitchell does not - always achieve authenticity—but on the whole, the reader may be said - to be puzzled, simply because he is told so much about some things and so - little about others. - </p> - <p> - But this assurance of the author’s that we must have already learnt the - main facts of the case comes from his own convinced sense of the reality - of it. This time he has no Marlowe. He was there himself. “Of course,” he - says to us, “you know all about that revolution in Sulaco, that revolution - that the Goulds were mixed up with. Well, I happened to be there myself. I - know all <span class="pagenum">49</span><a name="link049" id="link049"></a>the - people concerned, and the central figure was not Gould, nor Mitchell, nor - Monyngham—no, it was a man about whom no one outside the republic - was told a syllable. I knew the man well.... He.. and there we all are.” - </p> - <p> - The method is, in this case, as I have already said, completely - successful. There may be confusions, there may be scenes concerning which - we may be expected to be told much and are, in truth, told nothing at all, - but these confusions and omissions do, in the end, only add to our - conviction of the veracity of it. No one, after a faithful perusal of <i>Nostromo</i>, - can possibly doubt of the existence of Sulaco, of the silver mine, of - Nostromo and Decoud, of Mrs Gould, Antonio, the Viola girls, of old Viola, - Hirsch, Monyngham, Gould, Sotillo, of the death of Viola’s wife, of the - expedition at night in the painter, of Decoud alone on the Isabels, of - Hirsch’s torture, of Captain Mitchell’s watch—here are characters - the most romantic in the world, scenes that would surely, in any other - hands, be fantastic <span class="pagenum">50</span><a name="link050" id="link050"></a>melodrama, and both characters and scenes are absolutely - supported on the foundation of realistic truth. Not for a moment from the - first page to the last do we consciously doubt the author’s word.... Here - the form of narration is vindicated because it is entirely convincing. - </p> - <p> - Not so with the third example, <i>Chance</i>. Here, as with <i>Lord Jim</i>, - we may find one, visualised moment that stands for the whole book and as - in the earlier work we look back and see the degraded officers of the <i>Patna</i> - waiting with Jim on the Esplanade, so our glance back over <i>Chance</i> - reveals to us that moment when the Fynes, from the security of their - comfortable home, watch Flora de Barrel flying down the steps of her - horrible Brighton house as though the Furies pursued her. That desperate - flight is the key of the book. The moment of the chivalrous Captain - Anthony’s rescue of Flora from a world too villainous for her and too - double-faced for him gives the book’s theme, and never in all the stories - that preceded Flora’s has Conrad been so <span class="pagenum">51</span><a - name="link051" id="link051"></a>eager to afford us first-hand witnesses. - We have, in the first place, the unquenchable Marlowe sitting, with fine - phrases at his lips, in a riverside inn. To him enter Powell, who once - served with Captain Anthony; to these two add the little Fynes; there - surely you have enough to secure your alliance. But it is precisely the - number of witnesses that frightens us. Marlowe, unaided, would have been - enough for us, more than enough if we are to consider the author himself - as a possible narrator. But not only does the number frighten us, it - positively hides from us the figures of Captain Anthony and Flora de - Barrel. Both the Knight and the Maiden—as the author names them—are - retiring souls, and our hearts move in sympathy fin them as we contemplate - their timid hesitancy before the voluble inquisitions of Marlowe, young - Powell and the Fynes. Moreover, the intention of this method that it - should secure realistic conviction for the most romantic episodes does not - here achieve its purpose, as we have seen that it did in the first half of - <span class="pagenum">52</span><a name="link052" id="link052"></a><i>Lord - Jim</i> and the whole of <i>Nostromo</i>. We believe most emphatically in - that first narration of young Powell’s about his first chance. We believe - in the first narration of Marlowe, although quite casually he talks like - this: “I do not even think that there was in what he did a conscious and - lofty confidence in himself, a particularly pronounced sense of power - which leads men so often into impossible or equivocal situations.” We - believe in the horrible governess (a fiercely drawn figure). We believe in - Marlowe’s interview with Flora on the pavement outside Anthony’s room. - </p> - <p> - We believe in the whole of the first half of the book, but even here we - are conscious that we would prefer to be closer to the whole thing, that - it would be pleasant to hear Flora and Anthony speak for themselves, that - we resent, a little, Marlowe’s intimacy which prevents, with patronising - complaisance, the intimacy that we, the readers, might have seemed. - Nevertheless we are so far held, we are captured. - </p> - <p> - But when the second half of the book <span class="pagenum">53</span><a - name="link053" id="link053"></a>arrives we can be confident no longer. - Here, as in <i>Lord Jim</i>, it is possible to feel that Conrad, having - surprised, seized upon, mastered his original moment, did not know how to - continue it. The true thing in <i>Lord Jim</i> is the affair of the <i>Patna</i>; - the true thing in <i>Chance</i> is Captain Anthony’s rescue of Flora after - her disaster. But whereas in <i>Lord Jim</i> the sequel to Jim’s cowardice - has its own fine qualities of beauty and imagination, the sequel to - Captain Anthony’s rescue of Flora seems to one listener at any rate a - pitiably unconvincing climax of huddled melodrama. That chapter in <i>Chance</i> - entitled <i>A Moonless Night</i> is, in the first half of it, surely the - worst thing that Conrad ever wrote, save only that one early short story, - <i>The Return</i>. The conclusion of <i>Chance</i> and certain tales in - his volume, <i>Within the Tides</i>, make one wonder whether that alliance - between romance and realism that he has hitherto so wonderfully maintained - is not breaking down before the baleful strength of the former of these - two qualities. - </p> - <p> - <span class="pagenum">54</span><a name="link054" id="link054"></a>It - remains only to be said that when credence so entirely fails, as it must - before the end of <i>Chance</i>, the form of narration in <i>Oratio Recta</i> - is nothing less than maddening. Suddenly we do not believe in Marlowe, in - Powell, in the Fynes: we do not believe even in Anthony and Flora. We are - the angrier because earlier in the evening we were so completely taken in. - It is as though we had given our money to a deserving cause and discovered - a charlatan. - </p> - <p> - I have described at length the form in which the themes of these books are - developed, because it is the form that, here extensively, here quite - unobtrusively, clothes all the novels and tales. We are caught and held by - the skinny finger of the Ancient Mariner. When he has a true tale to tell - us his veritable presence is an added zest to our pleasure. But, if his - presence be not true... - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p> - If we turn to the themes that engage Joseph Conrad’s attention we shall - see that <span class="pagenum">55</span><a name="link055" id="link055"></a>in - almost every case his subjects are concerned with unequal combats—unequal - to his own far-seeing vision, but never to the human souls engaged in - them, and it is this consciousness of the blindness that renders men’s - honesty and heroism of so little account that gives occasion for his - irony. - </p> - <p> - He chooses, in almost every case, the most solid and unimaginative of - human beings for his heroes, and it seems that it is these men alone whom - he can admire. “If a human soul has vision he simply gives the thing up,” - we can hear him say. “He can see at once that the odds are too strong for - him. But these simple souls, with their consciousness of the job before - them and nothing else, with their placid sense of honour and of duty, upon - them you may loosen all heaven’s bolts and lightnings and they will not - quail.” They command his pity, his reverence, his tenderness, almost his - love. But at the end, with an ironic shrug of his shoulders, he says: “You - see. I told you so. He may even think he has won. We know better, you and - I.” <span class="pagenum">56</span><a name="link056" id="link056"></a>The - theme of <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> is a struggle of a weak man against - nature, of <i>The Nigger of the Narcissus</i> the struggle of many simple - men against the presence of death, of <i>Lord Jim</i>, again, the struggle - of a simple man against nature (here the man wins, but only, we feel, at - the cost of truth). <i>Nostromo</i>, the conquest of a child of nature by - the silver mine which stands over him, conscious of its ultimate victory, - from the very first. <i>Chance</i>, the struggle of an absolutely simple - and upright soul against the dishonesties of a world that he does not - understand. <i>Typhoon</i>, the very epitome of Conrad’s themes, is the - struggle of M’Whirr against the storm (here again it is M’Whirr who - apparently wins, but we can hear, in the very last line of the book, the - storm’s confident chuckle of ultimate victory). In <i>Heart of Darkness</i> - the victory is to the forest. In <i>The End of the Tether</i> Captain - Whalley, one of Conrad’s finest figures, is beaten by the very loftiness - of his character. The three tales in <i>‘Twixt Land, and Sea</i> are all - themes of this kind—the struggle of simple, <span class="pagenum">57</span><a - name="link057" id="link057"></a>unimaginative men against forces too - strong for them. In <i>The Secret Agent</i> Winnie Verloc, another simple - character, finds life too much for her and commits suicide. In <i>Under - Western Eyes</i> Razumov, the dreamer, is destroyed by a world that laughs - at the pains and struggles of insignificant individuals. - </p> - <p> - Of Conrad’s philosophy I must speak in another place: here it is enough to - say that it is impossible to imagine him choosing as the character of a - story jolly, independent souls who take life for what it gives them and - leave defeat or victory to the stars. - </p> - <p> - Whatever Conrad’s books are or are not, it may safely be said that they - are never jolly, and his most devoted disciple would, in all probability, - resent any suggestion of a lighter hand or a gentler affection, his art, - nevertheless, is limited by this persistent brooding over the inequality - of life’s battle. His humour, often of a very fine kind, is always - sinister, because his choice of theme forbids light-heartedness. - </p> - <p> - Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy would <span class="pagenum">58</span><a - name="link058" id="link058"></a>have found Marlowe, Jim and Captain - Anthony quite impossibly solemn company—but I do not deny that they - might not have been something the better for a little of it. - </p> - <p> - I have already said that his characters are, for the most part, simple and - unimaginative men, but that does not mean that they are so simple that - there is nothing in them. The first thing of which one is sure in meeting - a number of Conrad’s characters is that they have existences and histories - entirely independent of their introducer’s kind offices. Conrad has met - them, has talked to them, has come to know them, but we are sure not only - that there is very much more that he could tell us about them if he had - time and space, but that even when he had told us all that he knew he - would only have touched on the fringe of their real histories. - </p> - <p> - One of the distinctions between the modern English novel and the - mid-Victorian English novel is that modern characters have but little of - the robust vitality of their <span class="pagenum">59</span><a - name="link059" id="link059"></a>predecessors; the figures in the novel of - to-day fade so easily from the page that endeavours to keep them. - </p> - <p> - In the novels of Mr Henry James we feel at times that the characters fade - before the motives attributed to them, in those of Mr Wells before an - idea, a curse, or a remedy, in those of Mr Bennett before a creeping - wilderness of important insignificances, in those of Mr Galsworthy before - the oppression of social inequalities, in those of Mrs Wharton before the - shadow of Mr Henry James, even in those of Mr Hardy before the omnipotence - of an inevitable God whom, in spite of his inevitability, Mr Hardy himself - is arranging in the background; it may be claimed for the characters of Mr - Conrad that they yield their solidity to no force, no power, not even to - their author’s own determination that they are doomed, in the end, to - defeat. - </p> - <p> - This is not for a moment to say that Joseph Conrad is a finer novelist - than these others, but this quality he has beyond his contemporaries—namely, - the assurance that <span class="pagenum">60</span><a name="link060" id="link060"></a>his characters have their lives and adventures both - before and after the especial cases that he is describing to us. - </p> - <p> - The Russian Tchekov has, in his plays, this gift supremely, so that at the - close of <i>The Three Sisters</i> or <i>The Cherry Orchard</i> we are left - speculating deeply upon “what happened afterwards” to Gayef or Barbara, to - Masha or Epikhadov; with Conrad’s sea captains as with Tchekov’s Russians - we see at once that they are entirely independent of the incidents that we - are told about them. This independence springs partly from the author’s - eager, almost naïve curiosity. It is impossible for him to introduce us to - any officer on his ship without whispering to us in an aside details about - his life, his wife and family on shore. By so doing he forges an extra - link in his chain of circumstantial evidence, but we do not feel that here - he is deliberately serving his art—it is only that quality already - mentioned, his own astonished delight at the things that he is - discovering. We learn, for instance, about Captain M’Whirr that he wrote - long letters home, <span class="pagenum">61</span><a name="link061" id="link061"></a>beginning always with the words, “My darling Wife,” and - relating in minute detail each successive trip of the <i>Nan-Shan</i>. Mrs - M’Whirr, we learn, was “a pretentious person with a scraggy neck and a - disdainful manner, admittedly lady-like and in the neighbourhood - considered as ‘quite superior.’ The only secret of her life was her abject - terror of the time when her husband would come home to stay for good.” - Also in <i>Typhoon</i> there is the second mate “who never wrote any - letters, did not seem to hope for news from anywhere; and though he had - been heard once to mention West Hartlepool, it was with extreme - bitterness, and only in connection with the extortionate charges of a - boarding-house.” How conscious we are of Jim’s English country parsonage, - of Captain Anthony’s loneliness, of Marlowe’s isolation. By this simple - thread of connection between the land and the ship the whole character - stands, human and convincing, before us. Of the sailors on board the <i>Narcissus</i> - there is not one about whom, after his landing, <span class="pagenum">62</span><a - name="link062" id="link062"></a>we are not curious. There is the skipper, - whose wife comes on board, “A real lady, in a black dress and with a - parasol.”... “Very soon the captain, dressed very smartly and in a white - shirt, went with her over the side. We didn’t recognise him at all....” - And Mr Baker, the chief mate! Is not this little farewell enough to make - us his friends for life? - </p> - <p> - “No one waited for him ashore. Mother died; father and two brothers, - Yarmouth fishermen, drowned together on the Dogger Bank; sister married - and unfriendly. Quite a lady, married to the leading tailor of a little - town, and its leading politician, who did not think his sailor brother - in-law quite respectable enough for him. Quite a lady, quite a lady, he - thought, sitting down for a moment’s rest on the quarter-hatch. Time - enough to go ashore and get a bite, and sup, and a bed somewhere. He - didn’t like to part with a ship. No one to think about then. The darkness - of a misty evening fell, cold and damp, upon the deserted deck; and Mr - Baker sat smoking, thinking of all the successive ships to whom through - many <span class="pagenum">63</span><a name="link063" id="link063"></a>long - years he had given the best of a seaman’s care. And never a command in - sight. Not once!” - </p> - <p> - There are others—the abominable Donkin for instance. “Donkin - entered. They discussed the account... Captain Allistoun said. ‘I give you - a bad discharge,’ he said quietly. Donkin raised his voice: ‘I don’t want - your bloomin’ discharge—keep it. I’m goin’ ter ‘ave a job hashore.’ - He turned to us. ‘No more bloomin’ sea for me,’ he said, aloud. All looked - at him. He had better clothes, had an easy air, appeared more at home than - any of us; he stared with assurance, enjoying the effect of his - declaration.” - </p> - <p> - In how many novels would Donkin’s life have been limited by the part that - he was required to play in the adventures of the <i>Narcissus?</i> As it - is our interest in his progress has been satisfied by a prologue only. Or - there is Charley, the boy of the crew—“As I came up I saw a - red-faced, blowzy woman, in a grey shawl, and with dusty, <span - class="pagenum">64</span><a name="link064" id="link064"></a>fluffy hair, - fall on Charley’s neck. It was his mother. She slobbered over him:—‘Oh, - my boy! my boy!’—‘Leggo me,’ said Charley, ‘leggo, mother!’ I was - passing him at the time, and over the untidy head of the blubbering woman - he gave me a humorous smile and a glance ironic, courageous, and profound, - that seemed to put all my knowledge of life to shame. I nodded and passed - on, but heard him say again, good-naturedly:—‘If you leggo of me - this minyt—ye shall ‘ave a bob for a drink out of my pay.’” - </p> - <p> - But one passes from these men of the sea—from M’Whirr and Baker, - from Lingard and Captain Whalley, from Captain Anthony and Jim, with a - suspicion that the author will not convince us quite so readily with his - men of the land—and that suspicion is never entirely dismissed. - About such men as M’Whirr and Baker he can tell us nothing that we will - not believe. He has such sympathy and understanding for them that they - will, we are assured, deliver up to him their dearest secrets—those - little details, <span class="pagenum">65</span><a name="link065" id="link065"></a>M’Whirr’s wife, Mr Baker’s proud sister, Charley’s - mother, are their dearest secrets. But with the citizens of the other - world—with Stein, Decoud, Gould, Verloc, Razumov, the sinister - Nikita, the little Fynes, even the great Nostromo himself—we cannot - be so confident, simply because their discoverer cannot yield them that - same perfect sympathy. - </p> - <p> - His theory about these men is that they have, all of them, an <i>idée fixe</i>, - that you must search for this patiently, honestly, unsparingly—having - found it, the soul of the man is revealed to you. But is it? Is it not - possible that Decoud or Verloc, feeling the probing finger, offer up - instantly any <i>idée fixe</i> ready to hand because they wish to be left - alone? Decoud himself, for instance—Decoud, the imaginative - journalist in <i>Nostromo</i>, speculating with his ironic mind upon - romantic features, at his heart, apparently cynical and reserved, the - burning passion for the beautiful Antonia. He has yielded enough to - suggest the truth, but the truth itself eludes us. With Verloc again <span - class="pagenum">66</span><a name="link066" id="link066"></a>we have a - quite masterly presentation of the man as Conrad sees him. That first - description of him is wonderful, both in its reality and its significance. - “His eyes were naturally heavy, he had an air of having wallowed, fully - dressed, all day on an unmade bed.” - </p> - <p> - With many novelists that would be quite enough, that we should see the - character as the author sees him, but because, in these histories, we have - the convictions of the extension of the protagonists’ lives beyond the - stated episodes, it is not enough. Because they have lives independent of - the covers of the book we feel that there can be no end to the things that - we should be told about them, and they must be true things. - </p> - <p> - Verloc, for instance, is attached from the first to his <i>idée fixe</i>—namely, - that he should be able to retain, at all costs, his phlegmatic state of - self-indulgence and should not be jockeyed out of it. At the first sign of - threatened change he is terrified to his very soul. Conrad never, for an - instant, allows him to leave this ground upon which he has <span - class="pagenum">67</span><a name="link067" id="link067"></a>placed him. We - see the man tied to his rock of an <i>idée fixe</i>, but he has, - nevertheless, we are assured, another life, other motives, other humours, - other terrors. It is perhaps a direct tribute to the authors reserve power - that we feel, at the book’s close, that we should have been told so much - more. - </p> - <p> - Even with the great Nostromo himself we are not satisfied as we are with - Captain Whalley or Mr Kates. Nostromo is surely, as a picture, the moat - romantically satisfying figure in the English novel since Scott, with the - single exception of Thackeray’s Beatrix—and here I am not forgetting - Captain Silver, David Balfour, Catriona, nor, in our own immediate time, - young Beauchamp or the hero of that amazing and so unjustly obscure - fiction, <i>The Shadow of a Titan</i>. As a picture, Nostromo shines with - a flaming colour, shines, as the whole novel shines, with a glow that is - flung by the contrasted balance of its romance and realism. From that - first vision of him as he rides slowly through the crowds, in his - magnificent dress: “... his hat, a gay sombrero with <span class="pagenum">68</span><a - name="link068" id="link068"></a>a silver cord and tassels. The bright - colours of a Mexican scrape twisted on the mantle, the enormous silver - buttons on the embroidered leather jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons - down the seam of the trousers, the snowy linen, a silk sash with - embroidered ends, the silver plates on headstall and saddle... to that - last moment when—... in the dimly lit room Nostromo rolled his head - slowly on the pillow and opened his eyes, directing at the weird figure - perched by his bedside a glance of enigmatic and mocking scorn. Then his - head rolled back, his eyelids fell, and the Capatos of the Cargadores died - without a word or moan after an hour of immobility, broken by short - shudders testifying to the most atrocious sufferings”—we are - conscious of his superb figure; and after his death we do, indeed, believe - what the last lines of the book assure us—“In that true cry of love - and grief that seemed to ring aloud from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to - the bright line of the horizon, overhung by a big white cloud shining like - a mass of solid silver, the <span class="pagenum">69</span><a - name="link069" id="link069"></a>genius of the magnificent Capatuz de - Cargadores dominated the dark gulf containing his conquests of treasure - and love.” His genius dominates, yes—but it is the genius of a - magnificent picture standing as a frontispiece to the book of his soul. - And that soul is not given us—Nostromo, proud to the last, refuses - to surrender it to us. Why is it that the slender sketch of old Singleton - in <i>The Nigger of the Narcissus</i> gives us the very heart of the man, - so that volumes might tell us more of him indeed, but could not surrender - him to us more truly, and all the fine summoning of Nostromo only leaves - him beyond our grasp? We believe in Nostromo, but we are told about him—we - have not met him. - </p> - <p> - Nevertheless, at another turn of the road, this criticism must seem the - basest ingratitude. When we look back and survey that crowd, so various, - so distinct whether it be they who are busied, before our eyes, with the - daily life of Sulaoo, or the Verloc family (the most poignant scene in the - whole of Conrad’s art—the drive in the <span class="pagenum">70</span><a - name="link070" id="link070"></a>cab of old Mrs Verloc, Winnie and Stevie—compels, - additionally, our gratitude) or that strange gathering, the Haldins, - Nikita, Laspara, Madame de S———, Peter Ivanovitch, - Raznmov, at Geneva, or the highly coloured figures in <i>Romance</i> (a - book fine in some places, astonishingly second-rate in others), Falk or - Amy Foster, Jacobus and his daughter, Jasper and his lover, all those and - so many, many more, what can we do but embrace the world that is offered - to us, accept it as an axiom of life that, of all these figures, some will - be near to us, some more distant? It is, finally, a world that Conrad - offers us, not a series of novels in whose pages we find the same two or - three figures returning to us—old friends with new faces and new - names—but a planet that we know, even as we know the Meredith - planet, the Hardy planet, the James planet. - </p> - <p> - Looking back, we may trace its towns and rivers, its continents and seas, - its mean streets and deep valleys, its country houses, its sordid hovels, - its vast, untamed forests, its deserts and wilderness s. Although each - <span class="pagenum">71</span><a name="link071" id="link071"></a>work, - from, the vast <i>Nostromo</i> to the minutely perfect <i>Secret Share</i>, - has its new theme, its form, its separate heart, the swarming life that he - has created knows no boundary. And in this, surely, creation has - accomplished its noblest work. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - III—THE POET - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE <span - class="pagenum">72</span><a name="link072" id="link072"></a>poet in Conrad - is lyrical as well as philosophic. The lyrical side is absent in certain - of his works, as, for example, <i>The Secret Agent</i>, and <i>Under - Western Eyes</i>, or such short stories as <i>The Informer</i>, or <i>Il - Conde</i>, but the philosophic note sounded poetically, as an instrument - of music as well as a philosophy, is never absent. - </p> - <p> - Three elements in the work of Conrad the poet as distinct from Conrad the - novelist deserve consideration—style, atmosphere and philosophy. In - the matter of style the first point that must strike any constant reader - of the novels is the change that is to be marked between the earlier works - and the later. Here is a descriptive passage from <span class="pagenum">73</span><a - name="link073" id="link073"></a>Conrad’s second novel, <i>An Outcast of - the Islands</i>: - </p> - <p> - “He followed her step by step till at last they both stopped, facing each - other under the big tree of the enclosure. The solitary exile of the - forests great, motionless and solemn in his abandonment, left alone by the - life of ages that had been pushed away from him by those pigmies that - crept at his foot, towered high and straight above their leader. He seemed - to look on, dispassionate and imposing in his lonely greatness, spreading - his branches wide in a gesture of lofty protection, as if to hide them in - the sombre shelter of innumerable leaves; as if moved by the disdainful - compassion of the strong, by the scornful pity of an aged giant, to screen - this struggle of two human hearts from the cold scrutiny of glittering - stars.” - </p> - <p> - And from his latest novel, <i>Chance</i>: - </p> - <p> - “The very sea, with short flashes of foam bursting out here and there in - the gloomy distances, the unchangeable, safe sea sheltering a man from all - passions, except its own anger, seemed queer to the quick <span - class="pagenum">74</span><a name="link074" id="link074"></a>glance he - threw to windward when the already effaced horizon traced no reassuring - limit to the eye. In the expiring diffused twilight, and before the - clouded night dropped its mysterious veil, it was the immensity of space - made visible—almost palpable. Young Powell felt it. He felt it in - the sudden sense of his isolation; the trustworthy, powerful ship of his - first acquaintance reduced to a speck, to something almost - undistinguishable. The mere support for the soles of his two feet before - that unexpected old man becoming so suddenly articulate in a darkening - universe.” - </p> - <p> - It must be remembered that the second of these quotations is the voice of - Marlowe and that therefore it should, in necessity, be the simpler of the - two. Nevertheless, the distinction can very clearly be observed. The first - piece of prose is quite definitely lyrical: it has, it cannot be denied, - something of the “purple patch.” We feel that the prose is too dependent - upon sonorous adjectives, that it has the deliberation of work slightly - affected by the author’s <span class="pagenum">75</span><a name="link075" id="link075"></a>determination that it shall be fine. The rhythm in it, - however, is as deliberate as the rhythm of any poem in English, the - picture evoked as distinct and clear-cut as though it were, in actual - tact, a poem detached from all context and, finally, there is the - inevitable philosophical implication to give the argument to the picture. - Such passages of descriptive prose may be found again and again in the - earlier novels and tales of Conrad, in <i>Almayer’s Folly, Tales of - Unrest, The Nigger of the Narcissus, Typhoon, Youth, Heart of Darkness, - Lord Jim</i>,—prose piled high with sonorous and slow-moving - adjectives, three adjectives to a noun, prose that sounds hike an Eastern - invocation to a deity in whom, nevertheless, the suppliant does not - believe. At its worst, the strain that its sonority places upon movements - and objects of no importance is disastrous. For instance, in the tale - called <i>The Return</i>, there is the following passage:— - </p> - <p> - “He saw her shoulder touch the lintel of the door. She swayed as if dazed. - There was <span class="pagenum">76</span><a name="link076" id="link076"></a>less - than a second of suspense while they both felt as if poised on the very - edge of moral annihilation, ready to fall into some devouring nowhere. - Then almost simultaneously he shouted, ‘Come back,’ and she let go the - handle of the door. She turned round in peaceful desperation like one who - has deliberately thrown away the last chance of life; and for a moment the - room she faced appeared terrible, and dark, and safe—like a grave.” - </p> - <p> - The situation here simply will not bear the weight of the words—“moral - annihilation,” “devouring nowhere,” “peaceful desperation,” “last chance - of life,” “terrible,” “like a grave.” That he shouted gives a final touch - of ludicrous exaggeration to the whole passage. - </p> - <p> - Often, in the earlier books, Conrad’s style has the awkward over-emphasis - of a writer who is still acquiring the language that he is using, like a - foreigner who shouts to us because he thinks that thus we shall understand - him more easily. But there is also, in this earlier style, the marked - effect of <span class="pagenum">77</span><a name="link077" id="link077"></a>two - influences. One influence is that of the French language and especially of - the author of <i>Madame Bovary</i>. When we recollect that Conrad - hesitated at the beginning of his career as to whether he would write in - French or English, we can understand this French inflection. Flaubert’s - effect on his style is quite unmistakable. This is a sentence of - Flaubert’s: “Toutes ses velléités de dénigrement l’envanouissaiont sous la - poésie du rôle qui l’envahissait; et entrainée vers l’homme par l’illusion - du personnage elle tâcha de se figurer sa vie, cette vie retentissante, - extraordinaire, splendide...” and this a sentence of Conrad’s: “Her hands - slipped slowly off Lingard’s shoulders and her arms tell by her side, - listless, discouraged, as if to her—to her, the savage, violent and - ignorant creature—had been revealed clearly in that moment the - tremendous fact of our isolation, of the loneliness, impenetrable and - transparent, elusive and everlasting.” - </p> - <p> - Conrad’s sentence reads like a direct translation from the French, It is - probable, <span class="pagenum">78</span><a name="link078" id="link078"></a>however, - that his debt to Flaubert and the French language can be very easily - exaggerated, and it does not seem, in any case, to have driven very deeply - into the heart of his form. The influence is mainly to be detected in the - arrangement of words and sentences as though he had in the first years of - his work, used it as a crutch before he could walk alone. - </p> - <p> - The second of the early influences upon his style is of far greater - importance—the influence of the vast, unfettered elements of nature - that he had, for so many years, so directly served. If it were not for his - remarkable creative gift that had been, from the very first, at its full - strength, his early books would stand as purely lyrical evocations of the - sea and the forest. It is the poetry of the Old Testament of which we - think in many pages of <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> and <i>An Outcast of the - Island</i>, a poetry that has the rhythm and metre of a spontaneous - emotion. He was never again to catch quite the spirit of that first - rapture. - </p> - <p> - He was under the influence of these powers <span class="pagenum">79</span><a - name="link079" id="link079"></a>also in that, at that time, they were too - strong for him. We feel with him that he is impotent to express his wonder - and praise because he is still so immediately under their sway. His style, - in these earlier hooks, has the repetitions and extended phrases of a man - who is marking time before the inspired moment comes to him—often - the inspiration does not come because he cannot detach himselt with - sufficient pause and balance. But in his middle period, in the period of - <i>Youth, Typhoon, Heart of Darkness</i> and <i>Nostromo</i>, this lyrical - impulse can be seen at its perfection, beating, steadily, spontaneously, - with the finest freedom and yet disciplined, as it were, by its own will - and desire. Compare, for a moment, this passage from <i>Typhoon</i> with - that earlier one from <i>The Outcast of the Islands</i> that I quoted - above: - </p> - <p> - “He watched her, battered and solitary, labouring heavily in a wild scene - of mountainous black waters lit by the gleam of distant worlds. She moved - slowly, breathing into the still core of the hurricane <span - class="pagenum">80</span><a name="link080" id="link080"></a>the excess of - her strength in a white cloud of steam, and the deep-toned vibration of - the escape was like the defiant trumpeting of a living creature of the sea - impatient for the renewal of the contest. It ceased suddenly. The still - air moaned. Above Jakes’ head a few stars shone into the pit of black - vapours. The inky edge of the cloud-disc frowned upon the ship under the - patch of glittering sky. The stars too seemed to look at her intently, as - if for the last time, and the cluster of their splendour sat like a diadem - on a lowering brow.” - </p> - <p> - That is poet’s work, and poet’s work at its finest. Instead of impressing - us, as the earlier piece of prose, with the fact that the author has made - the very most of a rather thin moment—feels, indeed, himself that it - is thin—we are here under the influence of something that can have - no limits to the splendours that it contains. The work is thick, as though - it had been wrought by the finest workman out of the heart of the finest - material—and yet it remains, through all its discipline, - spontaneous. - </p> - <p> - These three tales, <i>Typhoon, Youth</i> and <span class="pagenum">81</span><a - name="link081" id="link081"></a><i>Heart of Darkness</i>, stand by - themselves as the final expression of Conrad’s lyrical gift. We may - remember such characters as M’Whirr, Kurtz, Marlowe, but they are figures - as the old seneschal in <i>The Eve of St Agnes</i> or the Ancient Mariner - himself are figures. They are as surely complete poems, wrought and - finished in the true spirit of poetry, as Whitman’s <i>When Lilac first on - the Door yard bloomed</i> or Keats’ <i>Nightingale.</i> Their author was - never again to succeed so completely in combining the free spirit of his - enthusiasm with the disciplined restraint of the true artist. - </p> - <p> - The third period of his style shows him cool and clear-headed as to the - things that he intends to do. He is now the slightly ironic, artist whose - business is to get things on to paper in the clearest possible way. He is - conscious that in the past he has been at the mercy of sonorous and - high-sounding adjectives. He will use them still, but only to show them - that they are at his mercy. Marlowe, his appointed minister, is older—he - must look back now on the colours of <span class="pagenum">82</span><a - name="link082" id="link082"></a><i>Youth</i> with an indulgent smile. And - when Marlowe is absent, in such novels as <i>The Secret Agent</i> and <i>Under - Western Eyes</i>, in such a volume of stories as <i>A Set of Six</i>, the - lyrical beat in the style is utterly abandoned—we are led forward by - sentences as grave, as assured, and sometimes as ponderous as a city - policeman. Nevertheless, in that passage from <i>Chance</i> quoted at the - beginning of the chapter, although we may be far from the undisciplined - enthusiasm of <i>An Outcast of the Islands</i>, the lyrical impulse still - remains. Yes, it is there, but—“Young Powell felt it.” In that - magical storm that was <i>Typhoon</i> God alone can share our terror and - demand our courage; in the later experience young Powell is our companion. - </p> - <h3> - II. - </h3> - <p> - The question of style devolves here directly into the question of - atmosphere. There may roughly be said to be four classes of novelists in - the matter of atmosphere. There is the novelist who, intent upon his <span - class="pagenum">83</span><a name="link083" id="link083"></a>daily bread or - game of golf, has no desire to be worried by such a perplexing business. - He produces stories that might without loss play the whole of their action - in the waiting-room of an English railway station. There is the novelist - who thinks that atmosphere matters immensely, who works hard to produce it - and <i>does</i> produce it in thick slabs. There are the novelists whose - theme, characters and background react so admirably that the atmosphere is - provided simply by that reaction—and there, finally, it is left, put - into no relation with other atmospheres, serving no further purpose than - the immediate one of stating the facts. Of this school are the realists - and, in our own day, Mr Arnold Bennett’s Brighton background in <i>Hilda - Lessways</i> or Mrs Wharton’s New York background in <i>The House of Mirth</i> - offer most successful examples of such realistic work. The fourth class - provides us with the novelists who wish to place their atmosphere in - relation with the rest of life. Our imagination is awakened, insensibly, - by the contemplation of some scene and is thence <span class="pagenum">84</span><a - name="link084" id="link084"></a>extended to the whole vista, of life, from - birth to death; although the scene may actually be as remote or as - conlined as space can make it, its potential limits are boundless, its - progression is extended beyond all possibilities of definition. Such a - moment is the death of Bazarov in <i>Fathers and Children</i>, the - searching of Dmitri in <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i>, the scene at the - theatre in <i>The Ring and the Book</i>, the London meeting between - Beauchamp and René in <i>Beauchamp’s Career</i>. It is not only that these - scenes are “done” to the full extent of their “doing,” it is also that - they have behind them the lyrical impulse that ignites them with all the - emotion and beauty in the history of the world; Turgeniev, Dostoievsky, - Browning, Meredith were amongst the greatest of the poets. Conrad, at his - highest moments, is also of that company. - </p> - <p> - But it is not enough to say that this potential atmosphere is simply - lyrical. Mr Chesterton, in his breathless <i>Victorian Age in Literature</i>, - has named this element Glamour. <span class="pagenum">85</span><a - name="link085" id="link085"></a>In writing of the novels by George Eliot - he says: “Indeed there is almost every element of literature, except a - certain indescribable thing called <i>Glamour</i>, which was the whole - stock-in-trade of the Brontes, which we feel in Dickens when Quilp - clambers, and rotten wood by the desolate river; and even in Thackeray, - when Edmond wanders like some swarthy crow about the dismal avenues of - Castlewood.” Now’ this matter of <i>Glamour</i> is not all, because - Dickens, for instance, is not at all potential. His pictures of Quilp or - the house of the Dedloeks or Jonas Chuzzlewit’s escape after the murder do - not put us into touch with other worlds—but we may say, at any rate, - that when, in a novel atmosphere <i>is</i> potential it is certain also to - have glamour. - </p> - <p> - The potential qualities of Conrad’s atmosphere are amongst his very - strongest gifts and, it we investigate the matter, we see that it is his - union of Romance and Realism that gives such results. Of almost no - important scene in his novels is it possible to define the boundaries. In - <i>The Outcast <span class="pagenum">86</span><a name="link086" id="link086"></a>of the Islands</i>, when Willems is exiled by Captain - Lingard, the terror of that forest has at its heart not only the actual - terror of that immediate scene, minutely and realistically described—it - has also the terror of all our knowledge of loneliness, desolation, the - power of something stronger than ourselves. In <i>Lord Jim</i> the - contrast of Jim with the officers of the <i>Patna</i> is a contrast not - only immediately vital and realised to the very fringe of the captain’s - gay and soiled pyjamas, but also potential to the very limits of our - ultimate conception of the eternal contrast between good and evil, - degradation and vigour, ugliness and beauty. In <i>The Nigger of the - Narcissus</i> the death of the negro, James Wait, immediately affects the - lives of a number of very ordinary human beings whose friends and - intimates we have become—but that shadow that traps the feet of the - negro, that alarms the souls of Donkin, of Belfast, of Singleton, of the - boy Charlie, creeps also to our sides and envelops for us far more than - that single voyage of the <i>Narcissus</i>. <span class="pagenum">87</span><a - name="link087" id="link087"></a>When Winnie Verloc, her old mother and the - boy Stevie, take their journey in the cab it does not seem ludicrous to us - that the tears of “that large female in a dark, dusty wig, and ancient - silk dress festooned with dingy white cotton lace” should move us as - though Mrs Verloc were our nearest friend. That mournful but courageous - journey remains in our mind as an intimate companion of our own mournful - and courageous experiences. Such examples might be multiplied quite - indefinitely. - </p> - <p> - He has always secured his atmosphere by his own eager curiosity about - significant detail, but his detail is significant, not because he wishes - to impress his reader with the realism of his picture, but rather because - he s, like a very small boy in a strange house, pursuing the most romantic - adventures for his own pleasure and excitement only. We may hear, with - many novelists, the click of satisfaction with which they drive another - nail into the framework that supports their picture. “Now see how firmly - it stands,” they say. “That last nail settled it.” But <span - class="pagenum">88</span><a name="link088" id="link088"></a>Conrad is - utterly unconscious as to his readers’ later credulity—he is too - completely held by his own amazing discoveries. Sometimes, as in <i>The - Return</i>, when no vision is granted to him, it is as though he were - banging on a brass tray with all his strength so that no one should - perceive his own grievous disappointment at his failure. But, in his real - discoveries, how the atmosphere piles itself up, around and about him, how - we follow at his heels, penetrating the darkness, trusting to his courage, - finding ourselves suddenly blinded by the blaze of Aladdin’s cave! If he - is tracing the tragedy of Willems and Almayer, a tragedy that has for its - natural background the gorgeous, heavy splendour of those unending - forests, he sees details that belong to the austerest and most sharply - disciplined realism. We see Lakamba, asleep under the moon, slapping - himself in his dreams to keep off the mosquitoes; a bluebottle comes - buzzing into the verandah above the dirty plates of a half-finished meal - and defies Lingard and Almayer, so <span class="pagenum">89</span><a - name="link089" id="link089"></a>that they are like men disheartened by - some tremendous failure; the cards with which Lingard tries to build a - house for Almayer’s baby are “a dirty double pack” with which he used to - play Chinese bézique—it bored Almayer but the old seaman delighted - in it, considering it a remarkable product of Chinese genius. The - atmosphere of the terrible final chapters is set against this picture of a - room in which Mrs Willems is waiting for her abominable husband: - </p> - <p> - “Bits of white stuff; rags yellow, pink, blue; rags limp, brilliant and - soiled, trailed on the floor, lay on the desk amongst the sombre covers of - books soiled, greasy, but stiff-backed in virtue, perhaps, of their - European origin. The biggest set of bookshelves was partly hidden by a - petticoat, the waistband of which was caught upon the back of a slender - book pulled a little out of the row so as to make an improvised - clothes-peg. The folding canvas bedstead stood anyhow, parallel to no - wall, as if it had been, in the process of transportation to some remote - place, dropped casually there by tired bearers. And on the tumbled - blankets that <span class="pagenum">90</span><a name="link090" id="link090"></a>lay - in a disordered heap on its edge, Joanna sat.... Through the half-open - shutter a ray of sunlight, a ray merciless and crude, came into the room, - beat in the early morning upon the safe in the far-off corner, then, - travelling against the sun, cut at midday the big desk in two with its - solid and clean-edged brilliance; with its hot brilliance in which a swarm - of flies hovered in dancing flight over some dirty plate forgotten there - amongst yellow papers for many a day!” - </p> - <p> - And this room is set in the very heart of the forests—“the forests - unattainable, enigmatical, for ever beyond reach like the stars of heaven—and - as indifferent.” Had I space I could multiply from every novel and tale - examples of this creation of atmosphere by the juxtaposition of the - lyrical and the realistic—the lyrical pulse beating through - realistic detail ami transforming it. I will, however, select one book, a - supreme example of this effect. What I say about <i>Nostromo</i> may be - proved from any other work of Conrad’s. - </p> - <p> - The theme of <i>Nostromo</i> is the domination <span class="pagenum">91</span><a - name="link091" id="link091"></a>of the silver of the Sulaco mine over the - bodies and souls of the human beings who live near it. The light of the - silver shines over the book. It is typified by “the white head of - Iliguerota rising majestically upon the blue.” Conrad, then, in choosing - his theme, has selected the most romantic possible, the spirit of silver - treasure luring men on desperately to adventure and to death. His - atmosphere, therefore, is, in its highest lights, romantic, even until - that last vision of all of “the bright line of the horizon, overhung by a - big white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver.” Sulaco burns with - colour. We can see, as though we had been there yesterday, those streets - with the coaches, “great family arks swayed on high leathern springs full - of pretty powdered faces in which the eyes looked intensely alive and - black,” the houses, “in the early sunshine, delicate primrose, pale pink, - pale blue,” or, after dark, from Mrs Gould’s balcony “towards the plaza - end of the street the glowing coals in the hazeros of the market women - cooking their <span class="pagenum">92</span><a name="link092" id="link092"></a>evening - meal glowed red along the edge of the pavement. A man appeared without a - sound in the light of a street lamp, showing the coloured inverted - triangle of his broidered poncho, square on his shoulders, hanging to a - point below his knees. From the harbour end of the Calle a horseman walked - his soft-stepping mount, gleaming silver-grey abreast each lamp under the - dark shape of the rider.” Later there is that sinister glimpse of the - plaza, “where a patrol of cavalry rode round and round without penetrating - into the streets which resounded with shouts and the strumming of guitars - issuing from the open doors of pulperias... and above the roofs, next to - the perpendicular lines of the cathedral towers the snowy curve of - Higuerota blocked a large space of darkening blue sky before the windows - of the Intendencia.” In its final created beauty Sulaco is as romantic, as - coloured as one of those cloud-topped, many-towered towns under whose - gates we watch Grimm’s princes and princesses passing—but the detail - of it is <span class="pagenum">93</span><a name="link093" id="link093"></a>built - with careful realism demanded by the “architecture of Manchester or - Birmingham.” We wonder, as Sulaco grows familiar to us, as we realise its - cathedral, its squares and streets and houses, its slums, its wharves, its - sea, its hills and forests, why it is that other novelists have not - created towns for us. - </p> - <p> - Anthony Trollope did, indeed, give us Barchester, but Barchester is a - shadow beside Sulaco. Mr Thomas Hardy’s Wessex map is the most fascinating - document in modern fiction, with the possible exception of Stevenson’s - chart in <i>Treasure Island</i>. Conrad, without any map at all, gives us - a familiarity with a small town on the South American coast that far - excels our knowledge of Barsetshire, Wessex and John Silver’s treasure. If - any attentive reader of <i>Nostromo</i> were put down in Sulaco tomorrow - he would feel as though he had returned to his native town. The detail - that provides this final picture is throughout the book incessant but - never intruding. We do not look back, when the novel is <span - class="pagenum">94</span><a name="link094" id="link094"></a>finished, to - any especial moment of explanation or introduction. We have been led, - quite unconsciously, forward. We are led, at moments of the deepest drama, - through rooms and passages that are only remembered, many hours later, in - retrospect. There is, for instance, the Aristocratic Club, that “extended - to strangers the large hospitality of the cool, big rooms of its historic - quarters in the front part of a house, once a residence of a High official - of the Holy Office. The two wings, shut up, crumbled behind the nailed - doors, and what may be described as a grove of young orange-trees grown in - the unpaved patio concealed the utter ruin of the back part facing the - gate. You turned in from the street, as if entering a secluded orchard, - where you came upon the foot of a disjointed staircase, guarded by a - moss-stained effigy of some saintly bishop, mitred and stalled, and - bearing the indignity of a broken nose meekly, with his fine stone hands - crossed on his breast. The chocolate-coloured faces of servants with mops - of black hair peeped at you from above; the click of billiard balls came - to your ears, and, <span class="pagenum">95</span><a name="link095" id="link095"></a>ascending the steps, you would perhaps see in the first - steps, very stiff upon a straight-backed chair, in a good light, Don Pépé - moving his long moustaches as he spelt his way, at arm’s length, through - an old Sta Marta newspaper. His horse—a strong-hearted but - persevering black brute, with a hammer bead—you would have seen in - the street dozing motionless under an immense saddle, with its nose almost - touching the curbstone of the side-walk!” - </p> - <p> - How perfectly recollected is that passage! Can we not hear the exclamation - of some reader “Yes—those orange-trees! It was just like that when I - was there!” How convinced we are of Conrad’s unimpeachable veracity! How - like him are those remembered details, “the nailed doors,” “the fine stone - hands,” “at arm’s-length”!—and can we not sniff something of the - author’s impatience to let himself go and tell us more about that - “hammer-headed horse” of whose adventures with Don Pépé he must remember - enough to fill a volume! - </p> - <p> - He is able, therefore, upon this foundation <span class="pagenum">96</span><a - name="link096" id="link096"></a>of a minute and scrupulous réalisai to - build as fantastic a building as he pleases without fear of denying Truth. - He does not, in <i>Nostromo</i> at any rate, choose to be fantastic, but - he is romantic, and our final impression of the silver mine and the town - under its white shining shadow is of something both as real and as - beautiful as any vision of Keats or Shelley. But with the colour we - remember also the grim tragedy of the life that has been shown to us. Near - to the cathedral and the little tinkering streets of the guitars were the - last awful struggles of the unhappy Hirsch. We remember Nostromo riding, - with his silver buttons, catching the red flower flung to him out of the - crowd, but we remember also his death and the agony of his defeated pride. - Sotillo, the vainest and most sordid of bandits, is no figure for a fairy - story. - </p> - <p> - Here, then, is the secret of Conrad’s atmosphere. He is the poet, working - through realism, to the poetic vision of life. That intention is at the - heart of his work from the first line of <i>Almayer s Folly</i> to the - last <span class="pagenum">97</span><a name="link097" id="link097"></a>line - of <i>Victory. Nostromo</i> is not simply the history of certain lives - that were concerned in a South American revolution. It <i>is</i> that - history, but it is also a vision, a statement of beauty that has no - country, nor period, and sets no barrier of immediate history or fable for - its interpretation.... - </p> - <p> - When, however, we come finally to the philosophy that lies behind this - creation of character and atmosphere we perceive, beyond question, certain - limitations. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p> - As we have already seen, Conrad is of the firm and resolute conviction - that life is too strong, too clever and too remorseless for the sons of - men. - </p> - <p> - It is as though, from some high window, looking down, he were able to - watch some shore, from whose security men were for ever launching little - cockle-shell boats upon a limitless and angry sea. He observes them, as - they advance with confidence, with determination, each with his own sure - <span class="pagenum">98</span><a name="link098" id="link098"></a>ambition - of nailing victory to his mast; he alone can see that the horizon is - limitless; he can see farther than they—from his height he can - follow their fortunes, their brave struggles, their fortitude to the very - last. He admires that courage, the simplicity of that faith, but his irony - springs from his knowledge of the inevitable end. - </p> - <p> - There are, we may thankfully maintain, other possible views of life, and - it is, surely, Conrad’s harshest limitation that he should never be free - from this certain obsession of the vanity of human struggle. So bound is - he by this that he is driven to choose characters who will prove his - faith. We can remember many fine and courageous characters of his - creation, we can remember no single one who is not foredoomed to defeat. - Jim wins, indeed, his victory, but at the close: “And that’s the end. He - passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, forgotten, unforgiven, - and excessively romantic.... He goes away from a living woman to celebrate - his pitiless wedding with a shadowy ideal of conduct.” <span - class="pagenum">99</span><a name="link099" id="link099"></a>Conrad’s - ironical smile that has watched with tenderness the history of Jim’s - endeavours, proclaims, at the last, that that pursuit has been vain—as - vain as Stein’s butterflies. - </p> - <p> - And, for the rest, as Mr Curle in his study of Conrad has admirably - observed, every character is faced with the enemy for whom he is, by - character, least fitted. Nostromo, whose heart’s desire it is that his - merits should be acclaimed before men, is devoured by the one dragon to - whom human achievements are nothing—lust of treasure. - </p> - <p> - M’Whirr, the most unimaginative of men, is opposed by the most tremendous - of God’s splendid terrors and, although he saves his ship from the storm, - so blind is he to the meaning of the things that he has witnessed that he - might as well have never been born. Captain Brierley, watching the - degradation of a fellow-creature from a security that nothing, it seems, - can threaten, is himself caught by that very degradation.... The Beast in - the Jungle is waiting ever ready to leap—the victim is always in his - power. <span class="pagenum">100</span><a name="link100" id="link100"></a>It - comes from this philosophy of life that the qualities in the human soul - that Conrad most definitely admires are blind courage and obedience to - duty. His men of brain—Marlowe, Decoud, Stein—are melancholy - and ironic: “If you see far enough you must see how hopeless the struggle - is.” The only way to be honestly happy is to have no imagination and, - because Conrad is tender at heart and would have his characters happy, if - possible, he chooses men without imagination. Those are the men of the sea - whom he has known and loved. The men of the land see farther than the men - of the sea and must, therefore, be either fools or knaves. Towards Captain - Anthony, towards Captain Lingard he extends his love and pity. For Verloc, - for Ossipon, for old De Barral he has a disgust that is beyond words. For - the Fynes and their brethren he has contempt. For two women of the land, - Winnie Verloc and Mrs Gould, he reserves his love, and for them alone, but - they have, in their hearts, the simplicity, the honesty of his own sea - captains. <span class="pagenum">101</span><a name="link101" id="link101"></a>This - then is quite simply his philosophy. It has no variation or relief. He - will not permit his characters to escape, he will not himself try to draw - the soul of a man who is stronger than Fate. His ironic melancholy does - not, tor an instant, hamper his interest—that is as keen and acute - as is the absorption of any collector of specimens—but at the end of - it all, as with his own Stein: “He says of him that he is ‘preparing to - leave all this: preparing to leave...’ while he waves his hand sadly at - his butterflies.” - </p> - <p> - Utterly opposed is it from the philosophy of the one English writer whom, - in all other ways, Conrad most obviously resembles—Robert Browning. - As philosophers they have no possible ground of communication, save in the - honesty that is common to both of them. As artists, both in their subjects - and their treatment of their subjects, they are, in many ways, of an - amazing resemblance, although the thorough investigation of that - resemblance would need far more space than I can give it here. Browning’s - <span class="pagenum">102</span><a name="link102" id="link102"></a>interest - in life was derived, on the novelist’s side of him, from his absorption in - the affairs, spiritual and physical, of men and women; on the poet’s side, - in the question again spiritual and physical, that arose from those - affairs. Conrad has not Browning’s clear-eyed realisation of the necessity - of discovering the individual philosophy that belongs to every individual - case—he is too immediately enveloped in his one overwhelming - melancholy analysis. But he has exactly that eager, passionate pursuit of - romance, a romance to be seized only through the most accurate and honest - realism. - </p> - <p> - Browning’s realism was born of his excitement at the number and interest - of his discoveries; he chose, for instance, in <i>Sordello</i> the most - romantic of subjects, and, having made his choice, found that there was - such a world of realistic detail in the case that, in his excitement, he - forgot that the rest of the world did not know quite as much as he did. Is - not this exactly what we may say of <i>Nostromo?</i> Mr Chesterton has - written of <span class="pagenum">103</span><a name="link103" id="link103"></a>Browning: - “He substituted the street with the green blind for the faded garden of - Watteau, and the ‘blue spirt of a lighted match’ for the monotony of the - evening star.” Conrad has substituted for the lover serenading his - mistress’ window the passion of a middle-aged, faded woman for her idiot - boy, or the elopement of the daughter of a fraudulent speculator with an - elderly, taciturn sea captain. - </p> - <p> - The characters upon whom Robert Browning lavished his affection are - precisely Conrad’s characters. Is not Waring Conrad’s man? - </p> - <p> - And for the rest, is not Mr Sludge own brother to Verloc and old De - Barrel? Bishop Blougram first cousin to the great Personage in <i>The - Secret Agent</i>, Captain Anthony brother to Caponsacchi, Mrs Gould sister - to Pompilia? It is not only that Browning and Conrad both investigate - these characters with the same determination to extract the last word of - truth from the matter, not grimly, but with a thrilling beat of the heart, - it is also that the worlds of these <span class="pagenum">104</span><a - name="link104" id="link104"></a>two poets are the same. How deeply would - Nostromo, Decoud, Gould, Monyngham, the Verlocs, Flora de Barrel, M’Whirr, - Jim have interested Browning! Surely Conrad has witnessed the revelation - of Caliban, of Childe Roland, of James Lee’s wife, of the figures in the - Arezzo tragedy, even of that bishop who ordered his tomb at St Praxed’s - Church, with a strange wonder as though he himself had assisted at these - discoveries! - </p> - <p> - Finally, <i>The Ring and the Book</i>, with its multiplied witnesses, its - statement as a “case” of life, its pursuit of beauty through truth, the - simplicity of the characters of Pompilia, Caponsacchi and the Pope, the - last frantic appeal of Guido, the detail, encrusted thick in the walls of - that superb building—here we can see the highest pinnacle of that - temple that has <i>Chance, Lord Jim, Nostromo</i> amongst its other - turrets, buttresses and towers. - </p> - <p> - Conrad is his own master—he has imitated no one, he has created, as - I have already said, his own planet, but the heights to which Browning - carried Romantic-Realism showed <span class="pagenum">105</span><a - name="link105" id="link105"></a>the author of <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> the - signs of the road that he was to follow. - </p> - <p> - If, as has often been said, Browning was as truly novelist as poet, may we - not now say with equal justice that Conrad is as truly poet as novelist? - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - IV—ROMANCE AND REALISM - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE <span - class="pagenum">106</span><a name="link106" id="link106"></a>terms, - Romance and Realism, have been used of late years very largely as a means - of escape from this business of the creation of character. The purely - romantic novel may now be said to be, in England at any rate, absolutely - dead. Mr Frank Swinnerton, in his study of <i>Robert Louis Stevenson</i>, - said: “Stevenson, reviving the never-very-prosperous romance of England, - created a school which has brought romance to be the sweepings of an old - costume-chest;... if romance is to be conventional in a double sense, if - it spring not from a personal vision of life, but is only a tedious - virtuosity, a pretence, a conscious toy, romance as an art is dead. The - art was jaded when Reade finished his vocifer<span class="pagenum">107</span><a - name="link107" id="link107"></a>ous carpet-beating; but it was not dead. - And if it is dead, Stevenson killed it!” - </p> - <p> - We may differ very considerably from Mr Swinnerton with regard to his - estimate of Stevenson’s present and future literary value without denying - that the date of the publication of <i>St Ives</i> was also the date of - the death of the purely romantic novel. - </p> - <p> - But, surely, here, as Mr Swinnerton himself infers, the term “Romantic” is - used in the limited and truncated idea that has formed, lately the popular - idea of Romance. In exactly the same way the term “Realism” has, recently, - been most foolishly and uncritically handicapped. Romance, in its modern - use, covers everything that is removed from reality: “I like romances,” we - hear the modern reader say, “because they take me away from real life, - which I desire to forget.” In the same way Realism is defined by its - enemies as a photographic enumeration of unimportant facts by an observant - pessimist. “I like realism,” admirers of a certain order of novel <span - class="pagenum">108</span><a name="link108" id="link108"></a>exclaim, - “because it is so like life. It tells me just what I myself see every day—I - know where I am.” - </p> - <p> - Nevertheless, impatient though we may be of these utterly false ideas of - Romance and Realism, a definition of those terms that will satisfy - everyone is almost impossible. I cannot hope to achieve so exclusive an - ambition—I can only say that to myself Realism is the study of life - with all the rational faculties of observation, reason and reminiscence—Romance - is the study of life with the faculties of imagination. I do not mean that - Realism may not be emotional, poetic, even lyrical, but it is based always - upon truth perceived and recorded—-it is the essence ol observation. - In the same way Romance may be, indeed must be, accurate and defined in - its own world, but its spirit is the spirit of imagination, working often - upon observation and sometimes simply upon inspiration. It is, at any - rate, understood here that the word Romance does not, for a moment, imply - a necessary divorce from reality, nor does <span class="pagenum">109</span><a - name="link109" id="link109"></a>Realism imply a detailed and dusty - preference for morbid and unagreeable subjects. It is possible for Romance - to be as honestly and clearly perceptive as Realism, but it is not so easy - for it to be so because imagination is more difficult of discipline than - observation. It is possible for Realism to be as eloquent and potential as - Romance, although it cannot so easily achieve eloquence because of its - fear of deserting truth. Moreover, with regard to the influence of foreign - literature upon the English novel, it may be suggested that the influence - of the French novel, which was at its strongest between the years of 1885 - and 1895, was towards Realism, and that the influence of the Russian - novel, which has certainly been very strongly marked in England during the - last years, is all towards Romantic-Realism. If we wished to know exactly - what is meant by Romantic-Realism, such a novel as <i>The Brothers - Karamazov</i>, such a play as <i>The Cherry Orchard</i> are there before - us, as the best possible examples. We might say, in a word, that <i>Karamazov</i> - has, in the England <span class="pagenum">110</span><a name="link110" id="link110"></a>of 1915, taken the place that was occupied, in 1890, by - <i>Madame Bovary</i>.... - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p> - It is Joseph Conrad whose influence is chiefly responsible for this - development in the English novel. Just as, in the early nineties, Mr Henry - James and Mr Rudyard Kipling, the one potential, the other kinetic, - influenced, beyond all contemporary novelists, the minds of their younger - generation, so to-day, twenty-five years later, do Mr Joseph Conrad and Mr - H. G. Wells, the one potential, the other kinetic, hold that same - position. - </p> - <p> - Joseph Conrad, from the very first, influenced though he was by the French - novel, showed that Realism alone was not enough for him. That is to say - that, in presenting the case of Almayer, it was not enough for him merely - to state as truthfully as possible the facts. Those facts, sordid as they - are, make the story of Almayer’s degradation sufficiently realistic, when - it is merely <span class="pagenum">111</span><a name="link111" id="link111"></a>recorded - and perceived by any observer. But upon these recorded facts Conrad’s - imagination, without for a moment deserting the truth, worked, - beautifying, ennobling it, giving it pity and terror, above all putting it - mto relation with the whole universe, the whole history of the cycle of - life and death. - </p> - <p> - As I have said, the Romantic novel, in its simplest form, was used, very - often, by writers who wished to escape from the business of the creation - of character. It had not been used for that purpose by Sir Walter Scott, - who was, indeed, the first English Romantic-Realist, but it was so used by - his successors, who found a little optimism, a little adventure, a little - colour and a little tradition go a long way towards covering the required - ground. - </p> - <p> - Conrad had, from the first, a poet’s—that is to say, a romantic—mind, - and his determination to use that romance realistically was simply his - determination to justify the full play of his romantic mind in the eyes of - all honest men. <span class="pagenum">112</span><a name="link112" id="link112"></a>In that intention he has absolutely succeeded; he has not - abated one jot of his romance—<i>Nostromo, Lord Jim, Heart of - Darkness</i> are amongst the most romantic things in all our literature—but - the last charge that any critic can make against him is falsification, - whether of facts, of inference or of consequences. - </p> - <p> - The whole history of his development has for its key-stone this - determination to save his romance by his reality, to extend his reality by - his romance. He found in English fiction little that could assist him in - this development; the Russian novelists were to supply him with his clue. - This whole question of Russian influence is difficult to define, but that - Conrad has been influenced by Turgéniev a little and by Dostoievsky very - considerably, cannot be denied. <i>Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The - Possessed, The Brothers Karamazov</i> are romantic realism at the most - astonishing heights that this development of the novel is ever likely to - attain. We will never see again heroes of the Prince Myshkin, Dmitri - Karamazov, <span class="pagenum">113</span><a name="link113" id="link113"></a>Nicolas - Stavrogin build, men so real to us that no change of time or place, age or - sickness can take them from us, men so beautifully lit with the romantic - passion of Dostoievsky’s love of humanity that they seem to warm the whole - world, as we know it, with the fire of their charity. That power of - creating figures typical as well as individual has been denied to Conrad. - Captain Anthony, Nostromo, Jim do not belong to the whole world, nor do - they escape the limitations and confinements that their presentation as - “cases” involves on them. Moreover, Conrad does not love humanity. He - feels pity, tenderness, admiration, but love, except for certain of his - sea heroes, never, and even with his sea heroes it is love built on his - scorn of the land. Dostoievsky scorned no one and nothing; as relentless - in his pursuit of the truth as Stendhal or Flaubert, he found humanity, as - he investigated it, beautiful because of its humanity—Conrad finds - humanity pitiable because of its humanity. - </p> - <p> - Nevertheless he has been influenced by <span class="pagenum">114</span><a - name="link114" id="link114"></a>the Russian writer continuously and - sometimes obviously. In at least one novel, <i>Under Western Eyes</i>, the - influence has led to imitation. For that reason, perhaps, that novel is - the least vital of all his books, and we feel as though Dostoievsky had - given him Razumov to see what he could make of him, and had remained too - overwhelmingly curious an onlooker to allow independent creation. What, - however, Conrad has in common with the creator of Raskolnikov is his - thrilling pursuit of the lives, the hearts, the minutest details of his - characters. Conrad alone of all English novelists shares this zest with - the great Russian. Dostoievsky found his romance in his love of his - fellow-beings, Conrad finds his in his love of beauty, his poet’s cry for - colour, but their realism they find together in the hearts of men—and - they find it not as Flaubert, that they make of it a perfect work of art, - not as Turgéniev, that they may extract from it a flower of poignant - beauty, not as Tolstoi, that they may, from it, found a gospel—simply - they pursue their quest <span class="pagenum">115</span><a name="link115" id="link115"></a>because the breathless interest of the pursuit is - stronger than they. They have, both of them, created characters simply - because characters demanded to be created. We feel that Emma Bovary was - dragged, painfully, arduously, against all the strength of her - determination, out of the shades where she was lurking. Myshkin, the - Karamazovs, and, in their own degree, Nostromo, Almayer, M’Whirr, demanded - that they should be flung upon the page. - </p> - <p> - Instead of seizing upon Romance as a means of avoiding character, he has - triumphantly forced it to aid him in the creation of the lives that, - through him, demand existence. This may be said to be the great thing that - Conrad has done for the English novel—he has brought the zest of - creation back into it; the French novelists used life to perfect their art—the - Russian novelists used art to liberate their passion for life. That at - this moment in Russia the novel has lost that zest, that the work of - Kouprin, Artzybashev, Sologub, Merejkovsky, Andreiev, shows exhaustion and - sterility <span class="pagenum">116</span><a name="link116" id="link116"></a>means - nothing; the stream will soon ran full again. Meanwhile we, in England, - know once more what it is to feel, in the novel, the power behind the - novelist, to be ourselves in the grip of a force that is not afraid of - romance nor ashamed of realism, that cares for life as life and not as a - means of proving the necessity for form, the danger of too many - adjectives, the virtues of the divorce laws or the paradise of free love. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p> - Finally, what will be the effect of the work of Joseph Conrad upon the - English novel of the future? Does this Romantic-Realism that he has - provided for us show any signs of influencing that future? I think that it - does. In the work of all of the more interesting younger English novelists—in - the work of Mr E. M. Forster, Mr D. H. Lawrence, Mr J. D. Beresford, Mr W. - L. George, Mr Frank Swinnerton, Air Gilbert Gannan, Miss Viola Meynell, Mr - Brett Young—this influence is to be detected. <span class="pagenum">117</span><a - name="link117" id="link117"></a>Even with such avowed realists as Mr - Beresford, Mr George and Mr Swinnerton the realism is of a nature very - different from the realism of even ten years ago, as can be seen at once - by comparing so recent a novel as Mr Swinnerton’s <i>On the Staircase</i> - with Mr Arnold Bennett’s <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, or Mr - Galsworthy’s <i>Man of Property</i>—and Mr E. M. Forster is a - romantic-realist of most curious originality, whose <i>Longest Journey</i> - and <i>Howard’s End</i> may possibly provide the historian of English - literature with dates as important as the publication of <i>Almayer’s - Folly</i> in 1895. The answer to this question does not properly belong to - this essay. - </p> - <p> - It is, at any rate, certain that neither the old romance nor the old - realism can return. We have been shown in <i>Nostromo</i> something that - has the colour of <i>Treasure Island</i> and the reality of <i>New Grub - Street</i>. If, on the one hand, the pessimists lament that the English - novel is dead, that everything that can be done has been done, there is, - surely, on the other hand, some justification for the optimists who - believe that at few periods in <span class="pagenum">118</span><a - name="link118" id="link118"></a>English literature has the novel shown - more signs of a thrilling and original future. - </p> - <p> - For signs of the possible development of Conrad himselt one may glance for - a moment at his last novel, <i>Victory</i>. - </p> - <p> - The conclusion of <i>Chance</i> and the last volume of short stories had - shown that there was some danger lest romance should divorce him, - ultimately, from reality. <i>Victory</i>, splendid tale though it is, does - not entirely reassure us. The theme of the book is the pursuit of almost - helpless uprightness and innocence by almost helpless evil and malignancy; - that is to say that the strength and virtue of Heyst and Lena are as - elemental and independent of human will and effort as the villainy and - slime of Mr Jones and Ricardo. Conrad has here then returned to his old - early demonstration that nature is too strong for man and I feel as - though, in this book, he had intended the whole affair to be blown, - finally, sky-high by some natural volcanic eruption. He prepares for that - eruption and when, for some reason or another, that elemental catastrophe - is pre<span class="pagenum">119</span><a name="link119" id="link119"></a>vented - he consoles himself by strewing the beach of his island with the battered - corpses of his characters. It is in such a wanton conclusion, following as - it does immediately upon the finest, strongest and most beautiful thing in - the whole of Conrad—the last conversation between Heyst and Lena—that - we see this above-mentioned divorce from reality. We see it again in the - more fantastic characteristics of Mr Jones and Ricardo, in the presence of - the Orang Outang, and in other smaller and less important effects. At the - same time his realism, when he pleases, as in the arrival of the boat of - the thirst maddened trio on the island beach, is as magnificent in its - austerity and truth as ever it was. - </p> - <p> - Will he allow his imagination to carry him wildly into fantasy and - incredibility? He has not, during these last years, exerted the discipline - and restraint that were once his law. - </p> - <p> - Nevertheless, at the last, when one looks back over twenty years, from the - <i>Almayer’s Folly</i> of 1895 to the <i>Victory</i> of 1915, one <span - class="pagenum">120</span><a name="link120" id="link120"></a>realises that - it was, for the English novel, no mean nor insignificant fortune that - brought the author of those books to our shores to give a fresh impetus to - the progress of our literature and to enrich our lives with a new world of - character and high adventure. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH CONRAD’S PRINCIPAL WRITINGS - </h2> - <p> - [The date is given of the first edition of each hook. New edition - signifies a change of format or transference to a different publisher.] - </p> - <p> - Almayer’s Folly. A Story of an Eastern River (Unwin). 1895. New editions. - (Nash). 1904; (Unwin). 1909, 1914, 1915. - </p> - <p> - An Outcast of the Islands (Unwin). 1896, New edition, 1914. - </p> - <p> - The Nigger of the “Narcissus”: A Tale of the Sea (Heinemann). 1897. New - edition, 1910. - </p> - <p> - Tales of Unrest (Unwin). 1898. New edition, 1909. - </p> - <p> - Lord Jim: A Tale (Blackwood). 1900. New edition, 1914. - </p> - <p> - The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story. By Joseph Conrad and Ford M. Hueffer - (Heinemann). 1901. - </p> - <p> - Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories (Black wood). 1902. - </p> - <p> - Typhoon and Other Stories (Heinemann). 1903. New edition, 1912. - </p> - <p> - Romance: A Novel. By Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer (Smith, Elder). - 1903. New edition (Aelson). 1909. - </p> - <p> - Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (Harder). 1904. The Mirror of the Sea: - Memories and Impressions (Methuen). 1903. New editions, 1913, 1915. The - Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Methuen). 1907. - </p> - <p> - New edition, 1914. - </p> - <p> - A Set of Six: Tales (Methuen). 1908 Under Western Eyes (Methuen). 1911. - New edition, 1915. - </p> - <p> - Some Reminiscences (Nash). 1912. - </p> - <p> - Twixt Land and Sea: Tales (Dent). 1912. New edition, 1914. - </p> - <p> - Chance: A Tale in Two Parts (Methuen). 1914. Within the Tides: Tales - (Dent). 1915. - </p> - <p> - Victory: An Island Tale (Methuen). 1915. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY - </h2> - <p> - <span class="pagenum">123</span><a name="link123" id="link123"></a>Almayer’s - Folly: A Story of an Eastern River (<i>Macmillan</i>). 1895. New editions, - 1912; (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1911. - </p> - <p> - An Outcast of the Islands (<i>Appleton</i>). 1896. New edition (<i>Doubleday</i>). - 1914. - </p> - <p> - Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle (<i>Dodd, Mead</i>). 1897. - New edition, 1912. New edition under English title: “The Nigger of the - ‘Narcissus’” (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1914. - </p> - <p> - Tales of Unrest (<i>Scribner</i>). 1898. - </p> - <p> - Lord Jim (<i>Doubleday</i>) 1900. New edition, 1914. - </p> - <p> - The Inheritors. By Joseph Conrad and Ford M. Hueffer (<i>McClure Co.</i>). - 1901. - </p> - <p> - Typhoon (<i>Putman</i>). 1902. New edition (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1914. - </p> - <p> - Youth, and two Other Stories (<i>McClure Co</i>. Afterwards transferred to - <i>Doubleday</i>). 1903. - </p> - <p> - Falk: Amy Foster: Tomorrow [Three Stories] (<i>McClure Co.</i>). 1903. New - edition (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1914. - </p> - <p> - Romance. By Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer (<i>McClure Co</i>. - Afterwards transferred to <i>Doubleday</i>). 1904. - </p> - <p> - Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (<i>Harper</i>), 1904. <span - class="pagenum">124</span><a name="link124" id="link124"></a>The Mirror of - the Sea: Memories and Impressions (<i>Harper</i>). 1906. - </p> - <p> - The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (<i>Harper</i>). 1907. - </p> - <p> - A Point of Honour: A Military Tale (<i>McClure Co</i>. Afterwards - transferred to <i>Doubleday</i>). 1908. Under Western Eyes: A Novel (<i>Harper</i>). - 1911. - </p> - <p> - A Personal Retold (<i>Harper</i>). 1912. - </p> - <p> - ‘Twist Land and Sea: Tales (<i>Doran</i>). 1912. New edition (<i>Doubleday</i>). - 1911. - </p> - <p> - Chance: A Tale in Two Parts (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1914. - </p> - <p> - A Set of Six [Tales: one, “The Duel.” previously issued as “A Point of - Honour”] (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1915. - </p> - <p> - Victory: An Island Tale (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1915. - </p> - <p> - Within the Tides: Tales (<i>Doubleday</i>). 1916. - </p> - -<p> - <a name="linkindex" id="linkindex"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - INDEX - </h2> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - - - -_Almayer’s Folly_, <a href="#link009">9</a>, <a href="#link012">12</a>, <a - href="#link013">13</a>, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link022">22</a>, <a - href="#link038">38</a>, <a href="#link075">75</a>, <a href="#link119">119</a> - - -Bennett, Arnold, <a href="#link039">39</a>, <a href="#link083">83</a> -Beresford, J. D., <a href="#link116">116</a> -_Brothers Karamazov, The_, <a href="#link109">109</a> -Browning, <a href="#link084">84</a>, <a href="#link101">101</a>, <a - href="#link102">102</a>, <a href="#link103">103</a>, <a href="#link104">104</a> - - -_Chance_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link016">16</a>, <a - href="#link021">21</a>, <a href="#link043">43</a>, <a href="#link033">33</a>, <a - href="#link056">56</a>, <a href="#link119">119</a> -_Cherry Orchard, The_, <a href="#link060">60</a>, <a href="#link109">109</a> -Chesterton, G. K., <a href="#link084">84</a> -Conrad, J., birth, <a href="#link008">8</a>, naturalised, <a href="#link008">8</a> -Curie, R., <a href="#link099">99</a> - - -Dickens, <a href="#link085">85</a> -Dostoievsky, <a href="#link020">20</a>, <a href="#link084">84</a>, <a - href="#link113">113</a>, <a href="#link114">114</a> - - -Eliot, George, <a href="#link085">85</a> -_End of the Tether, The_, <a href="#link056">56</a> -_Evan Harrington_, <a href="#link038">38</a> -_Eve of St Agnes, The_, <a href="#link081">81</a> - - -Flaubert, <a href="#link077">77</a>, <a href="#link114">114</a> -Form, <a href="#link040">40</a> -Forster, E. M., <a href="#link117">117</a> -_Freya of the Seven Islands_, <a href="#link035">35</a> - - -Galsworthy, J., <a href="#link059">59</a> -George, W. L., <a href="#link116">116</a> - - -Hardy, <a href="#link038">38</a>, <a href="#link059">59</a>, <a href="#link093">93</a> -_Heart of Darkness_, <a href="#link017">17</a>, <a href="#link056">56</a>, <a - href="#link075">75</a>, <a href="#link079">79</a>, <a href="#link081">81</a> -Hueffer, F. M., <a href="#link014">14</a> - - -Irony, <a href="#link055">55</a> - - -James, Henry, <a href="#link038">38</a>, <a href="#link041">41</a>, <a - href="#link042">42</a>, <a href="#link059">59</a>, <a href="#link110">110</a> - - -Keats, <a href="#link081">81</a> -Kipling, R., <a href="#link038">38</a>, <a href="#link110">110</a> - - -_Lord Jim_, <a href="#link013">13</a>, <a href="#link016">16</a>, <a - href="#link043">43</a>, <a href="#link056">56</a>, <a href="#link073">73</a>, <a - href="#link080">80</a> -Lyrical impulse, <a href="#link082">82</a> - - -_Madame Bovary_, <a href="#link038">38</a>, <a href="#link077">77</a>,110 -Meredith, <a href="#link038">38</a>, <a href="#link084">84</a> -Method in fiction, <a href="#link041">41</a>, <a href="#link048">48</a>, etc. -Mid-Victorian English novel, <a href="#link058">58</a> -_Mirror of the Sea, The_, <a href="#link016">16</a>, <a href="#link021">21</a>, <a - href="#link027">27</a>, <a href="#link030">30</a>, <a href="#link032">32</a> - - -Nature, <a href="#link078">78</a> -_Nigger of the Narcissus_, The, <a href="#link013">13</a>, <a href="#link015">15</a>. 27, <a - href="#link056">56</a>, <a href="#link063">63</a>, <a href="#link075">75</a>, <a - href="#link086">86</a> -_Nostrcmo_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link018">18</a>, <a - href="#link043">43</a>, <a href="#link049">49</a>, <a href="#link056">56</a>, <a - href="#link079">79</a>, <a href="#link090">90</a>, <a href="#link096">96</a>, <a - href="#link097">97</a>, <a href="#link102">102</a> - - -_Outcast of the Islands, An_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link019">19</a>, <a - href="#link073">73</a>, <a href="#link079">79</a>, <a href="#link082">82</a>, <a - href="#link085">85</a> - - -Philosophy, <a href="#link057">57</a> -Poland, <a href="#link009">9</a>, <a href="#link024">24</a> - - -Realism. 108, <a href="#link110">110</a> -_Return, The_, <a href="#link075">75</a> -_Richard Feverel,_ 38 -_Romance_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link070">70</a> -Romance, <a href="#link108">108</a>. Russian influence, <a href="#link109">109</a>, <a - href="#link112">112</a> - - -Sea, <a href="#link008">8</a>, <a href="#link028">28</a> -_Secret Agent, The_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link019">19</a>, <a - href="#link057">57</a>, <a href="#link072">72</a>, <a href="#link082">82</a>, <a - href="#link103">103</a> -_Secret Sharer, The_, <a href="#link020">20</a> -_Set of Six, A_, <a href="#link020">20</a>, <a href="#link082">82</a> -Shaw, Bernard. 39 -Ships, <a href="#link033">33</a> -_Smile of Fortune, A_, <a href="#link020">20</a> -_Some Réminiscences_, <a href="#link021">21</a>, <a href="#link022">22</a>, <a - href="#link026">26</a> -_Sordello_, <a href="#link102">102</a> -_Spectator, The_, <a href="#link012">12</a> -Stevenson, Robert Louis, <a href="#link038">38</a>, <a href="#link093">93</a> -Style, <a href="#link082">82</a> -Swinnerton, Frink, <a href="#link106">106</a>, <a href="#link107">107</a>, <a - href="#link116">116</a> - - -_Tales of Unrest_, <a href="#link015">15</a>, <a href="#link075">75</a> -Tchekov, <a href="#link060">60</a> -Themes, <a href="#link054">54</a> -Tolstoi, <a href="#link114">114</a> -_T. P.‘s Weekly_, <a href="#link018">18</a> -_Trtmolino_, <a href="#link035">35</a> -Trollope, Anthony, <a href="#link093">93</a> -Turgeniev, <a href="#link020">20</a>, <a href="#link084">84</a>, <a - href="#link114">114</a> -_'Twixt Land and Sea_, <a href="#link020">20</a> 56 -_Typhoon_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link017">17</a>, <a - href="#link030">30</a>, <a href="#link056">56</a>, <a href="#link061">61</a>, <a - href="#link075">75</a>, <a href="#link079">79</a>, <a href="#link080">80</a>, <a - href="#link082">82</a> - - -_Under Western Eyes_, <a href="#link019">19</a>, <a href="#link057">57</a>, <a - href="#link072">72</a>, <a href="#link082">82</a> -_Une Vie_, <a href="#link038">38</a> - - -_Victory_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link118">118</a> - - -Wells, H. G., <a href="#link039">39</a>, <a href="#link059">59</a>, <a - href="#link110">110</a> -Wharton, Mrs, <a href="#link059">59</a>, <a href="#link083">83</a> -Whitman, <a href="#link081">81</a> - - -_Yellow Book, The_, <a href="#link038">38</a> -_Youth_, <a href="#link014">14</a>, <a href="#link017">17</a>, <a href="#link030">30</a>, <a - href="#link073">73</a>, <a href="#link079">79</a>, <a href="#link080">80</a>, <a - href="#link082">82</a> - -</pre> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Joseph Conrad, by Hugh Walpole - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOSEPH CONRAD *** - -***** This file should be named 52453-h.htm or 52453-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/4/5/52453/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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