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JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 
 
 BY 
 RUTH M. STAUFFER 
 
 Boston 
 
 The Four Seas Company 
 
 1922 
 
Copyright, 1Q22, by 
 The Four Seas Company 
 
 o^ 
 
 
 The Four Seas Press 
 Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 
 
 AUG -9 "2? 
 
 ©CI.A681497 
 
TO 
 
 LETTIE ETHEL STEWART 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 PART I. The Meaning of Romantic-Realism 
 AND Its Applica,tion to Joseph 
 Conrad ii 
 
 PART II. The Romantic-Realism of Conrad's 
 Method of Plot Construction 
 AND OF Character Development . 30 
 
 PART III. The Romantic-Realism in Conrad's 
 
 Use of Setting 58 
 
 PART IV. The Spirit of Conrad 74 
 
 Appendices 91 
 
JOSEPH CONRAD: 
 HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 
 
PART I 
 
 The Meaning of Romantic-Realism and Its 
 Application to Conrad 
 
 ITERARY formulas are in themselves dead leaves 
 ' blown here and there before the breath of many 
 ics. Vital once, and full of color, they come too soon 
 e mere dried skeletons animated only by passing winds 
 :ontention until there arises the man who can quicken 
 n to new birth. "Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, 
 1 the unofficial sentimenalism" through the medium 
 'the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of 
 less usage" become recreated when a new artist, — 
 ither he be writer of verse or of prose matters little, — 
 
 given the world once more to see "the truth of life." 
 h is the genius of Joseph Conrad, 
 low after Conrad's twenty-six years of literary 
 vity, critics are practically unanimous in granting him 
 lace in the highest rank of novelists. Galsworthy's 
 ute in 1908 when The Secret Agent had added the 
 :h to the list of Conrad's published works, has become 
 
 of the best know critical dicta of the decade: "The 
 ting of these ten books," he said, "is probably the only 
 ting of the last twelve years that will enrich the 
 'lish language." Ford Hueffer goes so far as to de- 
 ll 
 
12 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 clare, "Literature and Conrad are to me interchange 
 terms." Mr. J. M. Robertson begins an article^ 
 Conrad in the North American Review of Septem 
 1918, with the statement: "Conrad, I suppose, wouk 
 a vote of literary men be generally given the hig 
 place in fiction in our day." No less enthusiastic is^ 
 estimate placed upon Joseph Conrad's work by the f 
 most critics in England, America, and France. 
 
 Yet in spite of the high esteem in which all thougbl 
 critics hold him, these same men are puzzled to know 
 to pigeon-hole him. They acclaim his distinction, 
 originality, but they disagree among themselves whe: 
 he is to be labeled Realist or Romanticist. William LI 
 Phelps decides: "Now, there is nothing romantic al 
 Conrad except his medium — the sea." Gilbert de Vor 
 in one of the most recent articles on Conrad asks : "1' 
 vient done cette accusation de realism excessif qui II 
 longtemps poursuivi et qu' il retrouvait sous la plum^ 
 tant de critiques?" At one of these two extremes n 
 critics range themselves. 
 
 There are those, however, who see in Conrad's v^ 
 a union of these two schools that swayed the literatun 
 the past century. Mr. Richard Curie, Conrad's offt 
 biographer, says in his book, Joseph Conrad: A SU 
 "It is indeed strangely appropriate that the man who| 
 led one of the most wandering and one of the hai 
 lives of our time should have written the most re 
 tically-romantic novels of our age." 
 
 When we come to examine the meanings that 
 accrued to these two terms in the course of lite 
 debate, we conclude that in Conrad's work the empl 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 13 
 
 ,is to lie the otiher way: he is rather a Romantic- 
 ist than a writer of ^'realistically-romantic novels,"— 
 setter still, there is almost equal balance between the 
 Joseph Conrad employs Realism or Romanticism 
 oth whenever either or both may be needed to create 
 impression of actuality. In fact, Mr. Curie himself 
 le latter part of his book reverses his own emphasis, 
 says in Chapter XI, '1 do not think I am exaggerating 
 n I say that Conrad ranks with the great romantic 
 ists of modern times," and again, "For it is as a 
 ist that Conrad is most impressive . . . The spirit 
 lis work is reaUstic in a rare and curious manner, 
 it is a realism which includes romance as one of its 
 f assets." One of the best brief discussions of the 
 lantic-Realism of Conrad's art appears in the little 
 ^me on Conrad by Hugh Walpole. The FoUetts have 
 marized the secret of Joseph Conrad's originality and 
 :'er in an article on his work that was published in 
 Alantic Monthly in 191 7: 
 
 [f Mr. Joseph Conrad appears at first glimpse as a 
 lancer, — and it is certain to many readers he does, — 
 explanation is simply that he is a deeper realist than 
 ommonly perceived." 
 
 /hat is Romanticism? What is Realism? The mind 
 :he world is perpetually demanding exact definitions 
 all abstractions. It would be wearisome even to 
 merate the books an4 essays that have been written 
 11 languages to define these two terms. A full exam- 
 ion of every one of these is out of place here. Each 
 
14 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 critic has chosen some definite phase as the differentic 
 factor between Romanticism and ReaUsm. But a s; 
 of the work of the artists themselves, who are creai 
 not defining, will reveal that the distinctions under! 
 the Romantic and the Realistic are of three kind 
 difference in subject matter; a difference in method ;i 
 lastly, a difference in the spirit of the writer.* I 
 
 Literary tradition has come to accept certain e\i 
 and circumstances in life as pertaining wholly toj 
 province of the Romantic writer, and it has deci 
 that they are as rigorously to be shunned by the Rei 
 
 Romance, in the first place, deals with the unfamii 
 To satisfy this love of the strange and the remote,] 
 Romanticists of the late eighteenth and early seventy 
 centuries turned first of all to the Middle Ages for s) 
 and for setting in an attempt to recreate the atmospj 
 of the past. In modern times any unknown plac' 
 region will do as well as the Middle Ages. The Rei 
 on the other hand, endeavors to portray those conditt' 
 happenings, and people with which he is familiar in (t 
 life, and which most of us associate with the humdj 
 and the commonplace. Then, again, Romance revelj 
 the supernatural, the weird, the ghostly. The Realist; 
 have nothing to do with anything so fantastical; he ■ 
 fines himself to the facts that common sense acc( 
 This Romantic love of strangeness predicates natui 
 a fondness for adventure where curiosity and enthusit 
 may be satisfied in the excitement of stirring events. 
 
 * See Appendix V.f "A Brief Summary of the Definition 
 Romanticism and Realism." and also Appendix VI, "Bibliogr 
 on Romanticism and Realism." 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 15 
 
 i Realist is interested in the meaning of the everyday 
 tions of ordinary people, in the representation of the 
 ual incidents of contemporary hfe. If he should ever 
 :roduce shipwrecks, revolutions, murders, suicides, into 
 5 plots, or permit sailors, anarchists, savages, heroes, 
 enter his pages, it would be only in order that he might 
 bisect their symptoms and reactions according to the 
 tablished impartial attitude of scientific investigation,— 
 ver that he might carry his readers away with the 
 amour of the adventure per se, as the Romancer loves 
 
 do. 
 
 In his search for individuality of experience the Ro- 
 anticist turns to the lonely places of the earth, to Nature 
 
 its freest form. He seeks the elemental; the vast 
 ^eep of sky and ocean, the winds and the tempests, the 
 ountains and the stars become to him the embodiment 
 
 the wonder of the world in which he finds himself 
 iprisoned. This gives rise to that enthusiasm over 
 ature as setting which we associate with the Romantic 
 hool. On the contrary, the Realist is more interested in 
 e study of environment ; that is, of the social heredity 
 : his characters, of the physical environment only in so 
 ir as it molds them, primarily of the social environment, 
 eluding the industrial, educational, political, religious, 
 id local surroundings. The opportunities which these 
 mditions offer and their influence on the characters, and 
 le latters' control over these circumstances, form the 
 isis of the plot of the realistic novel. 
 
 Between the Romanticist and the Realist there exists 
 distinction more essential, however, than the mere selec- 
 on of subject matter; that is, the individuality of the 
 
i6 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 method in which each treats the given material. In t 
 first place, the Romanticist creates through his imagin 
 tion in broad outlines, suggestive rather than specific 
 whereas the Realist must adopt the scientific method. I 
 observes, analyzes, experiments, synthesizes proved fac 
 not hypotheses. He uses reason rather than imaglnatic 
 He psychologizes rather than interprets. The Real; 
 gives us the untouched negative; the Romanticist t 
 idealized picture. To the Realist, as Zola says, 
 
 "Imagination is no longer the predominating quality 
 of the novelist. . . . Since imagination is no longer 
 the ruling quality of the novelist, what, then, is to 
 replace it? There must always be a ruling quality. 
 Today the ruling characteristic of the novelist is the 
 sense of reality. . . . The sense of reality is to feel 
 nature and to be able to picture her as she is. 
 ... In the same way that they formerly said of a 
 novelist, 'He has imagination,' I demand that they 
 should say today, 'He has a sense of reality.' This 
 will be grander and more just praise. The ability to 
 see is less common, even, than creative power." 
 
 The traditional view, therefore, is that the Romantici 
 constructs through his imagination and an instinctive pa 
 ception of the fitness of things; a Realist, through H 
 observation and his reason. 
 
 Now, in the second place, in order to create excitemei 
 and wonder, the Romanticist builds up a plot full of su 
 pense, surprise, and contrast, beginning with a definii 
 provocative incident and culminating in a thrillin 
 climax; such a plot as Ben Jonson defines in his di: 
 cussion of the laws of the drama : 
 
 "The fable is called the imitation of one entire and 
 perfect action, whose parts are so joined and knit 
 together, as nothing in the structure can be changed, 
 or taken away, without impairing or troubling the 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 17 
 
 whole, of which there is a proportionable magnitude, 
 in the numbers," 
 
 1 definition which he Hfted bodily from Aristotle's 
 Poetics. 
 
 But the Realist may go so far as not to have any 
 plot at all in this usually accepted meaning of the word. 
 De Maupassant says : 
 
 "After the literary schools which have sought to 
 give us a deformed, superhuman, poetic, tender, 
 charming, or superb vision of life, there has come a 
 realistic or naturalistic school, which professes to 
 show us the truth, and nothing but the truth. 
 . . . The incidents are disposed and graduated to the 
 climax and the termination, which is the crowning 
 decisive event, satisfying all the curiosity awakened 
 at the beginning, barring any further interest, and 
 terminating so completely the story told that we no 
 longer desire to know what will happen to the per- 
 sonages who charmed our interest. . . , The novelist, 
 on the other hand, who professes to give us an exact 
 image of life ought carefully to avoid any concatena- 
 tion of events that seem exceptional. His object is 
 not to tell a story, to amuse us, to touch our pity, 
 but to compel us to think, and to understand the deep, 
 I hidden meaning of events. Through having seen 
 ■ and meditated, he looks at the universe, things, facts, 
 and men, in a manner peculiar to himself, the result 
 of the combined effect of observation and reflection. 
 He seeks to impart to us this personal vision of the 
 world by reproducing it in his book. In order to 
 move us as he himself has been moved by the spec- 
 tacle of life, he must reproduce it before our eyes 
 with scrupulous accuracy. He will have, then, to 
 compose his work so skilfully, with such apparent 
 simplicity, as to conceal his plot and render it impos- 
 sible to discover his intentions . . . One can under- 
 stand how such a manner of composition, so different 
 from the old method, apparent to all eyes, often 
 bewilders the critics, and that they do not discover 
 the fine, secret, almost invisible threads employed by 
 certain modern artists in place of the single thread 
 which was called the 'plot'." 
 
i8 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 In regard to setting, also, there is a difference in treat- 
 ment. Instead of the detailed and sometimes photo- 
 graphic description of surroundings and explanations of: 
 environmental conditions which the Realist assembles, we 
 find in the works of the Romanticist a more pictorial 
 description of place setting, and especially of Nature, in 
 broader masses of color, of light, of shadow, of sound, 
 aiming at the creation of an emotional tone and producing: 
 a subtle artistic effect. The Romanticist looks for beauty 
 in all things. Sometimes his treatment of setting may be; 
 symbolic. 
 
 The broader method of the Romanticist appears again 
 in his portrayal of the dramatis personae of his stories. 
 Instead of characters analyzed in careful detail which iti 
 is the chief aim of all Realists to create, we see in Ro- 
 mantic fiction vaguer outlines, characters less specialized] 
 and less complex, — types, in fact, rather than individuals. 
 
 Subject matter, method of treatment, — these are two: 
 essential differences between the Romanticist and the; 
 Realist. But these are not all. There exists a third 
 factor which is the fundamental distinction, for out oi. 
 it these first arise; that is, a divergency in the attitudes 
 of each towards life. This proceeds from the spirit of 
 the man himself. ' Both are seekers for truth. But the 
 Realist finds the truth in facing the facts of life as he 
 can observe them with complete impartiality and disillu- 
 sionment. He strives to attain an impersonal, objective 
 point of view; he puts sympathy outside the pale. His 
 purpose, in so far as he will avow a purpose, is altruistic 
 because he believes that the exact revelation of life as it 
 is, based on scientific evidence obtained from his own 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 19 
 
 experience, is in itself moral; the universal as revealed 
 through the specific is his aim, and knowledge rather than 
 wisdom his goal. "We teach the bitter science of life, 
 we give the high lesson of reality," says Zola. 
 
 The Romanticist cannot rest content with such practical 
 didacticism. Life to him is not "a bitter science"; it is 
 a glorious art. As Stevenson says, 
 
 "The great creative writer shows us the realization 
 and apotheosis of the day-dreams of common men. 
 His stories may be nourished with the realities of 
 life, but their true mark is to satisfy the nameless 
 longings of the reader, and to obey the ideal laws of 
 the day-dream. . . . Fiction is to the grown man what 
 play is to the child; it is there that he changes the 
 atmosphere and the tenor of his life; and when the 
 game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in 
 it with all his heart, when it pleases him with every 
 turn, when he loves to recall it and dwells upon its 
 recollection with entire delight, fiction is called 
 romance." 
 
 To the writer of romance, then, illusion Is his life- 
 breath, and wonder the blood in his veins. He stands 
 "silent, upon a peak in Darien," looking out over the 
 magnificent spectacle of life, quivering with beauty, with 
 passion, with ardor, life half revealed, half concealed in 
 a flood of the light of mystery. He is eager to explore 
 the mystery ; he pushes on toward the illimitable horizon 
 of life, bafflled now by the inscrutability of fate, now by 
 the pathos of human suffering, at times quieted by the 
 serenity of experience past ; but eternally young in soul, 
 urged on by a "divine discontenjt," he aspires to his vision 
 of the spiritual. 
 
 It has been frequently taken for granted that no man 
 can be both Romanticist and Realist, because, as Clayton 
 
20 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 Hamilton puts it, "the distinction is not external but 
 internal; it dwells in the mind of the novelist; it is a 
 matter for philosophic, not literary investigation." 
 Brander Matthews says of the novelist: "Either he de- 
 lights in the Classic or else he prefers the Romantic ; for 
 him to be an electic is a stark impossibility." 
 
 But is this absolute? May it not be possible for a 
 writer to treat the subject matter of Romance in the 
 method of a realist? May not a genius so combine 
 method and matter with the imagination of a great 
 scientist and the technique of a great artist,— in other 
 words, with the keen perception and broad vision of the 
 seer, — as to create neither Romance nor Reality, but 
 Actuality itself? 
 
 "Perhaps," says a modern writer apropos of ethics, 
 quoted by Neilsen in his Essentials of Poetry, "all theories 
 of practice tend, as they rise to their best, as understood 
 by their worthiest representatives, to identification with 
 each other." And Mr. Neilsen goes on to say, "The 
 supreme artists at their best rise above conflicts and 
 propaganda, and are known, not by the intensity of their 
 partisanship, but by the perfection of their balance. 
 They show the virtues of all the schools; and in them 
 each virtue is not weakened, but supported, by the pre- 
 sence of others which lesser men had supposed to be 
 antagonistic." It is the man who sees in the romantic 
 situations in which the most humdrum daily life abounds 
 the realities of all human experience, who can transcribe 
 them now with the impersonal observation of the scientist, 
 now with the vision of the poet, who best reproduces for 
 us the actuality of human life. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 21 
 
 The Romantic-Realist, then, aims to translate into the 
 medium of fiction life as it actually is. Both the real 
 and the romantic are inherent in all human affairs; and 
 Realism or Romanticism is, after all, a matter of 
 emphasis. 
 
 The Romanticist will look for those conditions or 
 appearances of life which will create for men pure enter- 
 tainment and relaxation by lifting them out of the 
 commonplace and the complex. Man, when he wants to 
 lose himself, demands above all else that "something be 
 doing." A Romanticist, therefore, is interested primarily 
 in happenings; he seeks for "some act or attitude that 
 shall be remarkably striking to the mind's eye," as 
 Stevenson puts it. The most irresistible appeal of ro- 
 mance, Walter Raleigh says, is not to the eye nor to the 
 reason, but to the blood, "to all that dim instinct of 
 danger, mystery and sympathy in things that is man's 
 oldest inheritance — to the superstitions of the heart." 
 The Romanticist finds out the unusual, the heroic, the 
 imaginatively stimulating in the occurrences of daily life, 
 and lays emphasis upon them. He sweeps us on by sheer 
 intensity of action throug^h a series of events with alter- 
 nate checks of mystery, terror, premonition, suspense, to 
 surprise and climax. In this zest for doing we do not 
 pause to weigh the subtleties of motive nor to analyze the 
 niceties of psychological distinctions in character evolu- 
 tion. We know the men and women of the story by their 
 deeds. As to whether they be unalterably scientific pro- 
 ducts of their environment or not, the Romancer does not 
 examine too profoundly. Certain eras, certain physical 
 surroundings, they must belong to in order to make 
 
22, JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 possible the things they do, whether the romance be 
 historical, piratical, or Londonesque. This background 
 may be merely suggested or may be elaborately depicted 
 with all the photographic detail of the most dyed-in-the- 
 wool Realist. Stevenson, for example, is minutely 
 accurate in the description of latitude, longitude, winds, 
 and islands in the account of the voyage of the Farallone, 
 or again in the enumeration of the motley accumulation 
 of ship lumber piled in Attwater's dusty storehouse, or 
 the careful marshalling of details that is a running, 
 commentary to the whole plot of The Wrecker,— thsiti 
 grown-up Treasure Island. 
 
 But this realistic detail, although it plays upon ourt 
 credulity that the extraordinary tale be real, is, after all, 
 incidental, and hardly holds our attention so eager ar^ 
 we to press on to the real business, — the progress oft 
 events. To the Romanticist the world serves only as 
 the }nise en scene for things that happen. At times this^ 
 background is merely pictorial, at times it is fatefully, 
 symbolic ; but it possesses always the glamour of the; 
 unusual or a delightful suggestiveness discovered in the; 
 usual. Into the deeds of men and this picture that frames 
 them, the Romanticist reads the mystery of all human 
 existence. The great Romanticist is gifted with the 
 language of a poet to suggest that mystery, and to unveil 
 what he has found of its meaning. 
 
 It may be that a novelist will choose to lay his emphasis 
 only on aspects such as these, — that which we call 
 Romance. It may be that he will choose to combine or 
 to vary this emphasis with another that more properly 
 belongs to the school of Realism. He may, to be sure, 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 23 
 
 relate the surprising, even the bizarre that faces the world 
 in all parts of the globe,— common places and remote 
 regions;— but he may relate those happenings not as 
 adventures for the sake of entertainment pure and smiple, 
 but as dramas of gradually unfolding motive and char- 
 acter. He will search out the puzzle of individuality, that 
 which makes the study of every Hfe more intriguing than 
 the unraveling of the most involved detective story. He 
 may examine into the effects of environment on a man's 
 character or his destiny without losing any of the artist's 
 appreciation of the beauty or the horror of the environ- 
 ment as background. Ordinary seeming men and women 
 evolve in his hands from the simple, firm outlines to 
 which a career of events alone moulds them into subtly 
 modeled individuals. He may keep the impersonal, un- 
 emotional attitude of the realist, that belongs to the scien- 
 tific investigator, together with the perception of the 
 nobility of life and of the spiritual significance of man 
 that belongs to the philosopher and the poet. And, above 
 all, he may possess that transcendent quality of style 
 which at once reveals and veils the beauty, the glory, the 
 fatality, the mystery of actuality as we know and live it. 
 This is to be a Romantic-Realist. Of such rare union of 
 scientist, seer, and poet is the genius of Joseph Conrad. 
 We have seen that Romantic-Realism arises primarily 
 from a perception of the actual. Now actuality must be 
 realized through experience; that is, through action and 
 observation reassembled and emphasized in the memory, 
 directed and harmonized through the reason, and inter- 
 preted through the imagination. Given judgment and 
 imagination and observation, therefore, it follows that the 
 
24 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 richer the experience and the sharper the memory, th 
 deeper will be the perception of actuality. Fate took 
 hand, it would seem, in schooling Joseph Conrad in thes^ s 
 very qualities. A Polish boy of aristocratic family] 
 trained in home and in university in the best tradition] 
 of the world's literature, he took service as a lad befor 
 the mast on a sailing vessel at Marseilles in 1874; ami 
 after four years of life on the Mediterranean, finally sef 
 foot in his longed-for goal, England. There at the ag'^ 
 of twenty-one he learned that language in which he ha? 
 since been proclaimed the most distinguished artist oi 
 the twentieth century. For twenty years longer he sailed 
 all the seas of the world as common seaman, mate, anc 
 finally Master, in the English Merchant Service. Then 
 after these twenty-five years of toilsome and adventurou 
 sailor's life, he left the sea and wrote his first novel' 
 Almayer's Folly, published in 1895. Since then he ha 
 devoted himself wholly to writing. 
 
 That not even the slightest detail of all the crowdef 
 impressions of those twenty-five years at sea escape 
 Conrad's observation, his novels are standing proof. HI 
 has an astonishing memory not only for what he himsell 
 has passed through, but for the experiences of others 01 
 which he has heard. His unique autobiography, A Per 
 sonal Record, reveals these two gifts on every page 
 Witness the accurate detail and imaginative re-creatioi 
 of his account of how his granduncle ate a dog, a tal 
 told him, long before, when he was a Httle boy; of tha 
 day in his walking trip through the Alps which proved t( 
 be the turning point in his life; of his first sight of th' 
 British flag on a ship in the harbor of Marseilles. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 25 
 
 : It is only the person of limited experience who denies 
 ht presence in everyday life of romantic situations and 
 iensational incidents. A writer who aims at the presen- 
 ation of all life, therefore, is justified in including much 
 hat in its bald statement may be called sensational, even 
 urid. Romance, sometimes melodrama, is the matter of 
 ivery moment of existence. A citizen of a conservative 
 Eastern city has only to read any San Francisco news- 
 )aper to be convinced of this. For instance, one after- 
 loon, with pencil in hand, I glanced casually 
 hrough a newspaper which had already that morning 
 >een read for world news. Call it the Daily Occidental: 
 rou remember what Stevenson says of it — "This was a 
 )aper (I know not if it be so still) that stood out alone 
 Lmong its brethren in the West ; the others, down to their 
 mallest item, were defaced with capitals, head lines, 
 lUitrations, swaggering misquotations, and the shoddy 
 )icturesque and unpathetic pathos of the Harry Millers : 
 he Occidental alone appeared to be written by a dull, 
 ane. Christian gentleman, singly desirous of communi- 
 :ating knowledge." Without either minute or industrious 
 earch I jotted down the following items. The mere 
 enumeration of them reads like the headlines of movie 
 hockers ! I omit the daily long list of births and deaths, 
 engagements, elopements, marriages, and the usual West- 
 ern array of divorces. There were tales of heroism of 
 oldiers and of nurses in the daily business of war. 
 rhere were articles about an insane woman, an embezzle- 
 nent, a suicide, a murder, a trial for poisoning. There 
 vas a story of the arrest of a released prisoner for petty 
 heft one minute after he had finished serving his former 
 
26 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 sentence, side by side with the account of a woman wh| 
 gave her blood in transfusion to save the hfe of an irj 
 jured man. I read of the explosion of bombs at a railwai 
 station, of anarchy in Russia, of civil war in Costa Ric? 
 I was fascinated by the story of a quest for "untoli 
 wealth." Read a paragraph or two of the unembellishe 
 newspaper narrative of this last event: 
 
 "Men have heeded the call of lost sapphires, and 
 within the week the little eighty-ton schooner 
 "Casco," that carried Robert Louis Stevenson to the 
 islands of romance, will poke her nose through the 
 Golden Gate and head for the frozen northland . . . 
 
 "Many centuries ago when China was young, there 
 was a great war. The most powerful king led his 
 armies to battle and vanquished the other armies. 
 Then he died. 
 
 "The king had been noted for his fondness of 
 sapphires. His subjects, worshipping his memory, 
 made annual pilgrimages to his tomb, and each de- 
 posited at the burial place one or two sapphires. 
 That insured the pilgrim's speedy entry into the 
 happy hereafter. 
 
 "Centuries passed, as is their wont. A natural 
 disaster swept away the tomb, and nothing remained 
 except the legend. Then the glacier that had covered 
 the tomb wore away, and an adventurer that traveled 
 the North found the treasure. 
 
 "The man carried away all the sapphires he could 
 carry. He planned to return for the rest, but he died 
 too soon. 
 
 "The men of the "Casco" have a map, they say, 
 that directs them to a spot beyond the beyond, far 
 north in Northern Siberia, where lie heaps and heaps 
 of sapphires that the worshippers laid at the tomb 
 of the 'Great One'." 
 
 How will those thirty men come out of that adventure. 
 How will those thirty lonely souls react upon each other 
 What a Conrad tale lies hidden there! 
 
 Well, here you have in one morning's paper, heape 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM V 
 
 romiscuously together, love, joy, tragedy, suffering, self- 
 icrifice, heroism and depravity, insanity and crime, revo- 
 ition and anarchy, adventure and buried treasure. This 
 
 the material out of which Joseph Conrad has built his 
 ories : a search for buried gold, the explosion of a bomb, 
 le plotting of anarchists and spies, a revolution in Costa 
 .ica and another in Spain, shipwrecks and pirates, canni- 
 alism and savagery, murder, love, beauty, fate, self- 
 Peking, and heroism. 
 
 Yet such events as these, which lie at the heart of all 
 Romance, become in the hands of Conrad not in the least 
 lere exciting adventures in the circumstantial objective 
 ense, but adventures far more tense and intricate, ad- 
 entures of the spirit. Every story which he has written 
 ; a psychological study of the soul of a man or a woman, 
 better than any other writer, Conrad has succeeded in 
 onveying to us the sense of the profound mystery that 
 /raps every human being, that perception we all have 
 f "man's incapacity for self-realization," that puzzled 
 ympathy with man's suffering, that recognition of the 
 rony of fate, of the inscrutability of nature, of the eternal 
 lutability of all things ; and finally our baffled realization 
 hat at the end, even, nothing is clear. Such is life in 
 ctuality, and such is life in Conrad's tales. 
 
 With the poetic imagination of the Romanticist and the 
 ninute observation of the Realist, Conrad assembles into 
 in impersonal study of motives, conduct, and character 
 hat is at once as restrained and as passionate as life 
 tself, those incongruous and startling incidents, or those 
 ipparently matter-of-fact occurrences which side by side 
 hrong past us in daily existence. On the significance 
 
28 JOSEPH CONRAD j 
 
 of these happenings Conrad fixes our attention, alwJ 
 with the high purpose of presenting Hfe as it actually is/ 
 In the famous artistic creed, written in 1905, and no 
 published as the Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissil 
 Conrad has unflinchingly and clearly proclaimed his belii 
 m this fundamental verity of all true art in fiction. T\\ 
 very conjunction of words in the title to this book t 
 which, he says, he is willing to stand or fall, is emblemat: 
 of Conrad's vision of life. He says in part: 
 
 ''A work that aspires, however humbly, to the con- 
 dition of art should carry its justification in every 
 line. And art itself may be defined as a single- 
 minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice 
 m.l f yj^^ble "diverse, by bringing to light the truth, 
 manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. 
 '.^ 1 \l artist then, like the thinker or the scientist, 
 seeks the truth and makes his appeal. . But the 
 artist appeals to that part of our being which is a gift 
 and not an acquisition— and. therefore, more perma- 
 nently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for 
 delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery sur- 
 rounding our lives: to our sense of pity and beauty 
 and pain: to the latent feeling of fellowship with all 
 creation— and to the subtle but invincible conviction 
 of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of 
 innumerable hearts to the solidarity in dreams in 
 joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope in 
 fear, which binds men to each other, which binds' all 
 humanity— the dead to the living and the living to the 
 unborn. ... To snatch in a moment of courage, from 
 the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life 
 IS only the beginning of the task. The task ap- 
 proached in tenderness and faith is to hold up 
 unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the 
 rescued fragment before all eyes in the light of a 
 sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its color 
 Its form; and through its movement, its lorm and its 
 color, reveal the substance of its truth— disclose its 
 inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the 
 core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded 
 attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortun- 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 29 
 
 1 ate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of 
 sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret 
 or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts 
 of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable soli- 
 darity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, 
 in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to 
 each other and all mankind to the visible world." 
 
 This is the Summum Bonum of literary endeavor. It 
 'mot be confined within the narrow Hmits of ReaHsm 
 of Romance. There is no term which fully compre- 
 ids its whole import. If it were permissible, we might 
 smpt to coin a word, Aletheism (Greek, 'AXi^Oeta, 
 th) the truth of life; that would best express it. But 
 :n the most philological of invented words is awkward ; 
 1 instead we must substitute the circumlocution Ro- 
 ntic-Realism. 
 n what ways, then, has Conrad fulfilled his own creed? 
 
PART II 
 
 The Romantic-Realism of Method in Plot and 
 Character Development 
 
 ONE of the most individual of the many distincti^ 
 things about Conrad is his method of presentii' 
 his stories. It has irritated some critics, pleased other 
 puzzled them all. Many times objected to, it has bee 
 more often defended, especially by the later writers aboi 
 Conrad who have come to see that the intricacy of h' 
 method is the expression of the man himself. Hem! 
 James has said that it seems to him that Conrad ht 
 deliberately set himself the problem of doing a thing i| 
 the hardest way possible for pure pleasure in the difficultj 
 of the task. Certain it is that a Conrad story seldoj 
 presents itself as a straightforward narrative in the ol 
 comfortable chronological sequence of cause and effec 
 ditto, ditto, to the climax of events, which, the formuU 
 propone, should be usually, — in stories of adventure (| 
 mystery, always, — as surprising as possible, and deco 
 ously saved until the very end of the tale. In oth( 
 words, we have grown used to the cut-and-dried plot q 
 incident that fulfills all expectations and leaves character 
 and situations settled forever afterwards. 
 
 But Conrad does not often construct his stories in th| 
 conventional way. He has been accused of having no plJ 
 
 30 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 33 
 
 a certain situation, as in Lord Jim. for example, and 
 ■adually we learn how he came to be where he is; or 
 e stop in the middle of an episode to pick up the tnreads 
 E past events that will account for the state of mmd 
 r the actions which are to follow, as in Under Western 
 yes or Nostromo or Victory; ox we face an unaccount- 
 ble condition of affairs and are forced to go back to 
 race out little by little how it came to be, as m I he 
 lianer of the Narcissus or Heart of Darkness. 
 
 A man's previous history may be only implied until 
 ite in the book when it becomes necessary to reveal the 
 :,hole story in order to explain the effect of his person- 
 lity on others, and lead us to see how he alone could 
 ie the agent in succeeding events. Dr. Monyghams 
 tory for example, is not told until nearly three hundred 
 Ind fifty pages of the novel in which he .s one of the 
 mportant characters have been read. Often, it is to be 
 admitted, these sudden pauses in the rapid development 
 ,f events is irritating. We are out of patience with the 
 ong exposition of Sotillo's maneuvers in the middle of 
 -he most tense situation in Nostromo. Sometimes these 
 mterruptions appear wholly irrelevant, as when we stop 
 to listen to the past history of the Chief Inspector or 
 read a description of the most minor characters who do 
 nothing in the story but form the partners in an insignifi- 
 cant game of cards, or read a picture of the previous 
 Police Commissioners of London in The Secret Agent. 
 It is difficult to restrain our impatience when Marlow 
 digresses from the story of Lord Jim to give us the biog- 
 raphies of such unimportant personages as little Bob 
 Stanton or Chester and Captain Robinson, picturesque 
 
34 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 as they are. Mr. Conrad's enthusiasm over the detal 
 of conversation as well as over the actuality of the bac|l 
 ground figures, leads him into over-emphasis on whJ« 
 amounts to a quite banal conversation between There? s 
 and Monsieur George in one of his latest booki^ 
 The Arrow of Gold. We even have to stop to learn whi 
 It IS that Therese does not recognize a brougham wheP 
 she sees one. Such minute detail, realistic though it U^ 
 has degenerated into a mannerism. j 
 
 - Since Conrad's object is to make the story known a^" 
 It would be m actuality, it is necessary that the events b^ 
 retold after they have happened. In order to do thi^ 
 -Conrad uses a mouthpiece. The most famous is ol 
 course, Marlow. As to whether Marlow is to be identi f 
 fied with Conrad himself, much has been written Mari 
 ow, whether he be Conrad in person or not, is symbolic: ^ 
 We know real facts about him: that he is a retired see ^ 
 captam of middle age, for he joined the service when he 1' 
 was "just twenty," and "it was twenty-two years ago' 
 that he has "sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion 'a 
 straight back, an ascetic aspect," that his experiences^^ 
 have made him somewhat cynical, vastly conscious of the 
 irony of life, but unabatingly interested in all humanjp 
 beings. He tells their stories in his own desultory in- 
 volved, and unending way, impersonally aloof "in the pose 
 of a meditating Buddha." He has an immitigable curi- 
 osity and we hear again when he is in a reminiscent f 
 mood the discoveries of that curiosity. In the new pre-'™ 
 face to Lord Jhn which first appeared in an article in 
 The Bookman, Conrad answers the objection that no 
 one could believe that one man could talk for interminable 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 35 
 
 lOurs like Marlow and hold his audience. "After think- 
 ng it over for something like sixteen years I am not so 
 ure about that," he writes. *'Men have been known both 
 n the tropics and in the temperate zone, to sit up half 
 he night * swapping yarns' . . . As to the mere physical 
 )Ossibility we all know that some speeches in Parliament 
 lave taken nearer six hours than three in delivery; 
 vihereas all that part of the book which is Marlow's 
 larrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less 
 han three hours." 
 
 Marlow holds his readers as he holds his hearers. 
 Phrough his mind we come to understand Lord Jim, 
 "lora de Barral, the officers of the "Judea." The young 
 nate wiho tells the tale of Falk or the young captain of 
 rhe Secret Sharer might well be Marlow. We cannot 
 lelp but feel that Mills, the inscrutable, "with his pene- 
 ration" in The Arrow of Gold is only Marlow under a 
 lew name and in a different body. But Mills, "the burly, 
 he rustic," is not so convincing as the lean and worn 
 barlow, nor does he tell us the tale as he saw it happen. 
 
 Sometimes Marlow relates the story as a firsthand ex- 
 )erience of his own, sometimes as others have told it to 
 lim, even, as in Chance, as others have learned it from 
 »thers who have told it to him ; so that we get that most 
 ubtle play of mind on mind, the uttermost refinement of 
 he narrative point of view, like the cross Hghts of a 
 nultiple reflector. Many of the stories are told in the 
 mpersonal third person of the author, as are Nostromo 
 nd The Secret Agent and most of the short stories ; some 
 ti the first person, when they are confessedly reminis- 
 ences of Conrad himself, as Almayer's Folly, and, we 
 
36 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 feel sure, The Shadow Line; or in the first person by 
 one of the dramatis personse, as The Arrow of Gold. In 
 Under Western Eyes the point of view is more labored. 
 The story is told in the first person by the English teacher 
 of languages, partly as firsthand experiences of his own, 
 partly as direct transcribing of Razumov's journal, partly 
 as resume of portions of the journal. But the effect is 
 not always convincing. In any case, Conrad, as I have 
 said, is anxious to avoid the traditional novelist's om 
 niscience. Even in tales of the third person like 
 Nostromo, much of the narrative is told by Captain 
 Mitchell. Conrad even goes so far as to resort to literary 
 devices. In the same novel it is through Martin Decoud's 
 letters to his sister (one of them written under circum- 
 stances preposterous even to our indulgent credulity) 
 that we learn what has been happening. The diary of 
 Razumov in Under Western Eyes, the pages of Kurtz' 
 manuscript in Heart of Darkness, the letters of Captain 
 MacWhirr, Solomon Rout, and Jukes in Typhoon, the 
 reminiscences of Monsieur George in The Arrow of Gold; 
 are other examples of this device. 
 
 In this later novel Conrad has attempted to disarm the 
 critics by writing a straightforward story, but his innate 
 propensity to retrogressive narrative gets the better of 
 him even here. The situation, the place, the time, and the 
 characters are carefully explained to the reader in a pre- 
 paratory "Note," and the subsequent events in so far as 
 they are known (observe the Conradian reservation), in a 
 second note at the end. In spite of all this elaborate pre- 
 hminary explanation, however, we progress in the story in 
 the customary elliptical manner. We stop and mark time 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 37 
 
 while Blunt tells Dona Rita's past history, or while Rita 
 herself recounts in fuller detail what we have already 
 learned briefly of iher childhood days, — the epoch in her 
 life that furnishes the key 'to the whole story of her actions. 
 
 Sometimes the preliminary narrative is definitely sym- 
 bolic as is the Prelude in Nostromo. Sometimes the con- 
 clusion is told us long before the whole thread of the plot 
 has been unraveled. Twice in Nostromo, more than a 
 hundred pages before the end, we are carried forward, 
 and then go back to learn the events that completed the 
 crisis in the story at which we had been halted. In Under 
 Western Eyes the whole of the second and third parts 
 happens after the larger portion of the fourth part. By 
 the time we have reached Part IV we have, of course, 
 surmised the facts we are to learn in it. Again in The 
 Rescue, although the unfolding of the plot is for the most 
 part simple and direct, Conrad has several times resorted 
 to retroaction to interpret a present situation. At the end 
 of the story the explanation of the stroke of fate by which 
 Lingard, the indomitable, ihas been transformed into the 
 crushed and dazed figure which arouses in us, as in young 
 Carter, solicitude and compassion, involves a succession 
 of steps backward through the preceding thirty-six hours. 
 
 This retrospective method of narration is startling until 
 we realize that Conrad has been trusting to our intuition 
 of the denouement. In fact, we should be stupid indeed 
 if we did not perceive the inevitable outcome of what 
 has passed before our eyes, for we have had sign after 
 sign laid before us. Here again Conrad departs from 
 the strictness of realistic method to sound the romantic 
 note of forewarning. Not a single one of his stories is 
 
38 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 constructed without it. Time and time again we are told 
 of the "something ominous," or meet a "startled pause" i 
 in the trend of events. It may be a premonition, as it is 
 sometimes in daily life, like Marlow's uneasiness on be- t 
 ginning his voyage to the heart of darkness ; it may be * 
 a prediction like that of Captain Giles about the dangers ' 
 of the Gulf of Siam to the young captain in The Shadow j 
 Line; it may be an incident that should have served for I 
 a portent as the narrator realizes too late, such as ! 
 Monsieur George's strange encounter with the comic ' 
 Mephistophelean Ortega; it may be mere superstition, as 
 when the rats left the "Judea" after it was supposed that 
 she was at last in ship-shape condition. In some stories 
 Conrad himself deliberately hints of events to come, as 
 often in Nostromo. Frequently the forewarnings are 
 symbolic. This is true of the descriptions of setting, 
 notably in Almayers Folly, Heart of Darkness, The 
 Secret Agent, Nostromo. Even the title may be a symbol, 
 as in The Arrow of Gold. The characters themselves 
 may openly declare the symbolism, as do both Rita and 
 Monsieur George of the arrow, piercing yet golden, and 
 finally vanished forever. The name of Lingard's brig is 
 symbolic of the lightning flash of beauty and of passion 
 with the thunderbolts of fate that is woven in golden 
 threads throughout the- setting in The Rescue. 
 
 When after nights of fruitless agony, Razumov wakes 
 to gaze on the lamp in his study and finds it burned out, 
 he calls it in bitter forecast, "the extinguished beacon 
 of his labors, a cold object of brass and porcelain, among 
 the scattered pages of his notes and small piles of books — 
 a mere litter of blackened paper — dead matter — without 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 39 
 
 gnificance or interest." With Russian mysticism, as he 
 2turns from his confession, dripping wet from the 
 lunder-storm that has passed over him, he mutters in 
 nswer ito the sohcitude of his landlord, "Yes, I am 
 ashed clean/' Many seemingly chance remarks of the 
 haracters prove to be symbolic premonitions of events. 
 )ne of the most conscious of these is Seiiora's Teresa's 
 urse on Nostromo when he refuses to go for a priest 
 s she lies dying. 
 
 Sometimes these forecasts are ironical as well as sym- 
 olic. But usually it is not until the story is well 
 dvanced that we become aware of the pregnancy of these 
 rief statements. A great part of the intensity of the 
 risis in The Secret Agent arises from the ironic prevision 
 f what is to happen. 'The excellent husband of Winnie 
 /"erloc saw no writing on the wall." And later, "Mr. 
 /erloc wallowed on his back. But he longed for a more 
 )erfect rest— for sleep — for a few hours of delicious 
 orgetfulness. That would come later." In how differ- 
 nt a way from what he had meant was that fateful 
 entence fulfilled ! 
 
 In some of the tales, and particularly in the later books, 
 his dramatic forewarning, ironic or symbolic or both, 
 )ecomes the motif of the story and occurs again and again 
 ke a varied refrain. In Nostromo the theme of the evil 
 nfluence of the San Tome silver mine that enslaved and 
 leadened all, is sounded in the Prelude, and reechoes 
 hroughout the long story until the book closes on the 
 5ame note when we hear Linda's "true cry of love and 
 ^rief that seemed to ring aloud from Punta Mala to 
 \zuera and away to the bright line of the horizon, over- 
 
40 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 hung by a big white cloud shining Hke a mass of soU(| 
 silver." In Chance the dominant note is struck in thr||, 
 title and sounds again and again throughout the story 
 In The Arrow of Gold we hear from the beginning tdp 
 the end the theme of the symbolism of Rita in whom i 
 ''something of the women of all time," whose face "drevi 
 irresistibly one's gaze to itself by an indefinable quality jr 
 of charm beyond all analysis and made you think of re 
 mote races, of strange generations, of the faces of womeri 
 sculptured on immemorial monuments and of those lyin^|ii 
 unsung in their tombs." Rita herself says, "I am as ok 
 as the world." 
 
 Because of this use of an ever-recurrent theme anc 
 of many premonitions, Conrad may be thought definitel) 
 to renounce all attempt to surprise or mystify his readers 
 Yet there are episodes in all of his stories which puzzh 
 us as much as the actors themselves, others which keef 
 us in breathless suspense, others which confound us with 
 their unexpectedness. Who can ever forget that tens(|l 
 situation in Nostromo when Decoud and the capataz dc 
 cargadores, crossing the gulf with the treasure, in the 
 blackness of the night as if "launched into space," are^ 
 projected suddenly into that startling adventure with 
 Hirsh and Sotillo's fleet? The strain is almost as severej( 
 on us as on the composure of the actors themselves 
 The Secret Sharer is one tense question from beginning!}] 
 to end. Will he be discovered? We shudder at everyu 
 narrow escape. The suspense and mystery of the first 
 part of The Secret Agent is spoiled only for those wholtl 
 have been so unfortunate as to have read beforehand a;ci 
 book review that reveals the whole plot. In The Arrown 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 41 
 
 f Gold we are as taken aback as Monsieur George to 
 hd when he turns around in what he supposed an empty 
 Dom, "a woman's dress on a chair, other articles of 
 pparel scattered about." The sudden explosion of the 
 oal in the hold of the "J^dea" when "everybody was on 
 le broad grin" after their successful quenching of the 
 re, leaves our eyes like saucers, and our mouths open 
 )o. The unexpected climax of Big Brierley's history, 
 i Lord Jim, is as astonishing as it was to those who knew 
 im in real life. We are as horror-struck as the young 
 aptain in The Shadow Line to make the fateful discovery 
 lat there is no quinine on his fever-ridden ship. 
 
 Often this suspense in which we have been held tense 
 hd the sudden crash of the unexpected are accompanied 
 y a terror that is Homeric in its minuteness of horrible 
 etail. Impressed upon our memory by the very horror 
 f it is the scene of finding Hirsh's body in Nostromo, 
 r the uncanny burial of James Wait in The Nigger of the 
 larcissus, or the gruesome description of the mangled 
 emains of Ste^vie in The Secret Agent. 
 
 Sometimes the mystery of the plot is solved for us, 
 s in The Secret Agent or Talk. ^ More often it is a 
 lystery of character which is left forever baffling. The 
 olution lies in our own ability to read between the lines 
 if what is told us. Such is the mystery of The Arrow 
 f Gold; such, too, is the mystery of The Heart of Dark- 
 less. It is interesting to contrast with the latter a story 
 ailed Out There by Grant Watson in which everything 
 hat Conrad only implies is elaborately made clear; the 
 ontrast serves to show the power of Conrad's method 
 tf repression. 
 
42 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 This same repression appears also as condensation o 
 
 narrative; and in this respect Conrad's tales are unlike th'| 
 
 romantic stories of adventure in which each new deec 
 
 of the hero is detailed at full length. How many dhap 
 
 ters might Scott or even Stevenson have made of this on( 
 
 brief sentence that falls in the heart of the novel ! I 
 
 i 
 "One evening I found myself weary, heartsore, my , 
 brain still dazed and with awe in my heart entering ' 
 Marseilles by way of the railway station, after many [ 
 adventures, one more disagreeable than another, in- 
 volving privations, great exertions, a lot of difficulties 
 with all sorts of people who looked upon me evidently jij 
 more as a discreditable vagabond deserving the atten- 
 tion of gendarmes than a respectable (if crazy) young 
 gentleman attended by a guardian angel of his own." 
 
 We never hear any more of this part of his adventures-; 
 it has no bearing on the main theme. Anyway, it hac 
 all been told before in the story of "The Tremolino" ir 
 The Mirror of the Sea. 
 
 This restraint in selection is governed by the theme o:" 
 the story and by the dominant traits of the charactersf 
 To Conrad these two become one. The motivation o 
 the characters is the theme of the story. Nothing arise? J 
 in the course of events which is not the outcome o: 
 character; for in Conrad, in the same sense as is true ir 
 Shakespeare, character is destiny, plus that inexplicabk 
 something, call it accident or pure fate, that the grea' 
 creative writers of all time have seen unfolding befon 
 their eyes in human life. Each of Conrad's tales becomes " 
 then, an adventure of a soul, that new kind of adventunf' 
 which Ernest Rhys speaks of in his essay on Romance 
 'Tt may even be said that today we have widened th( 
 avenues of imagination, instead of closing them, as man) 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 43 
 
 Dple suppose ; for we have learned to find in new areas, 
 d in the more intimate regions of psychology, spiritual 
 ventures which are more real than anything told in 
 '. romances of chivalry." Almost inevitably the out- 
 ne of the adventure is tragedy, for Conrad sees as 
 : irony of life that the predominating quality of a man's 
 iracter is invariably the one that fate chooses to try. 
 
 times man is triumphant, at times the victor is fate: 
 stromo's colossal belief in his own incorruptibihty and' 
 
 eager desire to uphold his reputation for absolute 
 stworthiness prove in the end the means to his undoing, 
 rd Jim eating his heart out with a sense of his lost 
 lor, Kurtz avid of power, Heyst determined to be the 
 ptical onlooker, Razumov unfaithful to the supreme 
 fidence imposed in him, Captain MacWhirr un- 
 uainted with imaginative fear, are all of them drawn 
 ) the mesh of circumstance that chance weaves around 
 11 to put to the proof that particular quality. Conrad's 
 1 and women are "haunted by a fixed idea," to use 
 own phrase. It is Conrad's object to discover "a 
 plete singleness of motive behind the varied mani- 
 ations of a consistent character." Every link in the 
 es of happenings is chosen to fix our attention upon 
 temperamental uniqueness that constitutes the indi- 
 lal. 
 
 very story thus becomes the history of one being 
 md which are grouped the other personages of the 
 , to further or obstruct the life of the protagonist, 
 i Jim, Almayer's Folly, The End of the Tether, Talk, 
 th, Heart of Darkness, center around one figure 
 se personality is the focus of the whole story. Be- 
 
^ JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 cause of the intimacy of human relationships, most of t 
 novels draw close within the circle of the hfe of t|^ 
 chief character that one other human bemg as markec 
 individual as himself. These are the women whose p. ^ 
 sonality involves the fate of the men. Wmnie VerL 
 Lena Natalie Haldin, Nina, Dona Rita, Edith Trave 
 are inseparable from the articulated pattern of the pi 
 In such masterpieces as The Nigger of the Narcissus a 
 Nostromo this narrowed character focus has expanc 
 to include the whole character groups, so vital and' 
 real that the book takes on epic proportions. We 
 moving in a world of human beings as various and 
 crowded as the real universe. We are as convinced 
 their actuality as we are of that of the people we km. 
 y All of Conrad's characters have in them that univ 
 sality which we call type; but it is the type arising fr 
 established careers or environments rather than fi 
 personality itself. The largest class of these typee| 
 men of the sea: sailors, mates, captains; adventurers 
 derelicts. Men of the land, too, are there: anarchi 
 plotters of revolutions and of bomb outrages ; occasion 
 financiers, men of the world of society. And amj 
 them we meet the women, fewer in number, all witj 
 certain mysterious quality in their taciturnity, whe' j, 
 they be savage or cockney, women respectably bourge- 
 or picaresque. But it is in the minor characters (j 
 that we find pure type in Conrad ; and that is in those .^ 
 are needed to fill in the background, like the S( .^ 
 Americans in Nostromo or the Chinamen in Typhoor^ 
 the lesser revolutionists in Under Western Eyes. Se\ 
 photographic portraits of individuals in the crowd s 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 45 
 
 suggest the milieu in which the story is to move ; but 
 [r the most part these minor personages are a back- 
 Dund mass which our imaginations are to conjure up 
 )m the selected types given us. * It is not for type that 
 .nrad is seeking, but for the individual.^ It is m the, 
 liviuahty of personaUty that his interest hes. To 
 irch out the intimate motives and the inexpressible 
 :rets of each man or woman who moves through those 
 'xumstances in which it has pleased hfe to place them 
 the problem of his tales ; only in this respect can Conrad 
 
 called a writer of problem novels. He never preaches, 
 e puts before us as some one else has seen it the 
 tions of another human being, and lets us create with 
 m the thoughts, the motives, the resolves which led to 
 ose actions. 
 For this reason, too, then, he needs an interpreter. It 
 
 only by glimpses that we comprehend other people, 
 his is true even of those whom we know best and flatter 
 irselves that we understand most thoroughly,— those 
 hom we say we can read like a book. How much more 
 ■ this true of those whom we know only casually! 
 isual impressions, disconnected incidents at occasional 
 eetings only, reported conversations, supposed motives, 
 lust be put together to form our estimate of the man 
 imself. Our own imagination and reason must fit the 
 -agments, large or small, symmetrical or irregular, into 
 ie mosaic of the whole until the completed design stand 
 bvealed. There are bound to be some blank spaces in 
 le end, some still remaining mystery that blurs the colors 
 nd the clear outlines. 
 
 The history of others can be reflected only through the 
 
46 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 
 medium of another personality. To create the y^y 
 simihtude of this medium is Conrad's object. Therefo 
 we find almost always when we are introduced to ear 
 important character the indirect method of expositu' 
 proceeding by degrees to the direct. We hear of So-an 
 So first in a casual way: that it is Mrs. Gould, the on 
 English woman in Sulaco, who has given old Giorg 
 Viola his Bible in Italian ; or that it is Captain Mitchell 
 capataz de cargadores to whom all the Europeans ; 
 Sulaco owe their preservation in the recent revolution,- 1 
 "Nostromo, a man absolutely above reproach/* the meil 
 sight of whose black whiskers and white teeth was enough 
 to quell all the town leperos. Marlow tells the authc 
 that there was only one of Mrs. Fyne's girl-friends whon 
 he had conversed with at all, and proceeds to narrate the 
 accidental and unusual meeting. "Her arched eyebrow 
 frowned above her blanched face. . . . She looke( 
 unhappy." Slowly we comprehend that this rude an' 
 bitter girl is the heroine around the riddle of whose per 
 sonality is to revolve this strange tale of Chance. Mil 
 who has seen Dofia Rita only twice, can already say a 
 her : "I am not an easy enthusiast where women are cor 
 cerned, but she was without doubt the most admirabl 
 find of his amongst all the priceless items he had accumu 
 lated in that house — the most admirable." 
 
 I When we are at length introduced to the^ character t. 
 talk with him or to observe him in person, we receive 
 first of all, a general impression of physical appearance 
 it may be only of the most notable traits of dress or o 
 feature. Mrs. Gould is the only lady present at tb 
 ceremony of the turning of the first sod for the Nations 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 47 
 
 intral Railway of Costaguana, and we know her at once 
 
 we read, "Mrs. Gould's appearance was made youthful 
 
 the mobile intelligence of her face." Gradually we 
 
 irn to know that she is a little lady with a low laugh 
 
 d gray eyes, "her little face attractively overweighted 
 
 great coils of hair, whose mere parting seemed to 
 
 eathe upon you the fragrance of frankness and gener- 
 
 ity." But before this we have come to perceive her 
 
 v^acity, her charm, and her sympathetic influence on 
 
 who know her. It is not until he has been taking an 
 
 tive part in the story that has progressed nearly a 
 
 indred and fifty pages that we see what Nostromo 
 
 ^lly looks like. True to this point of view, Razumov's 
 
 pearance is not described to us until the narrator of 
 
 e story, the language teacher, meets him in person when 
 
 e tale is already half told. 
 
 Sometimes, on the contrary, the method is frankly 
 ect. Almayer's Folly and Lord Jim, for example, open 
 th a picture of the hero and an explanation of what he 
 doing; then the narrative goes back immediately to a 
 ief summary of his past life, and there begins the long 
 )ry of what has led him to where he now is. The 
 ginnings of // Conde and of Typhoon are excellent 
 amples of this method of Conrad's. In these stories 
 observe first the hero's appearance, and then we 
 rn briefly his biography up to the day when the story 
 ^ins. The stage directions are completed; the action 
 1 begin. 
 
 Conrad uses both methods, then: he begins at once 
 
 th a fairly full description of the character, followed 
 
 a bit of biography and an explanation of his psy- 
 
48 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 chology; or he leads us slowly to an acquaintance wi 
 the body and soul of the man himself. In the earlic 
 novels he more frequently employs the first method wi 
 special stress on the most striking qualities, emphasiz; 
 in the rest of the story by constant reiteration, and 
 vealed by every incident in the series of events. In 1 
 later books, however, he is more inclined to use the cum! 
 lative method, sometimes, in fact, carrying it almost 
 an extreme, as in The Arrow of Gold, in which t, 
 portrait of Rita is pieced together item by item until 
 are well into the story before we are sure of what s; 
 really is like, — if we are ever wholly sure! 
 
 As the story progresses, the impression that the chs 
 acter makes tends to be simplified into one marked trcj 
 It may be the same that first acquaintance gave us;: 
 may have shifted to another emphasis. The charac 
 has come to have for all with whom it is associated 
 the other characters, narrator and reader — one sign 
 cance. In order to crystallize this impression. Com 
 resorts to the Homeric emphasis of descriptive epith 
 These are woven in and out through the narrative 1 
 recurrent patterns in a design. We learn to love M 
 Gould's "little head and shining coils of hair" ; the beai 
 ful Antonia appears always as "a tall grave girl" w, 
 "full red lips"; Charles Gould in his "imperturba 
 calm" is "the impenetrability of the embodied Goi 
 Concession." Nostromo appears in everyone's eyes, 
 eluding his own, as "a man for whom the value of I 
 seems to consist in personal prestige." In The Nigti 
 of the Narcissus Donkin's "bat-like ears," his "shi, 
 eyes, and yellow hatchet-face" are emblematic of his 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 49 
 
 ience among the crew. The derelict shade of Jorgensen 
 the tragic anticipation of what destiny has in store for 
 ingard. It is the bitter irony of Razumov's fate "to 
 spire confidence" in every one with whom he comes 
 to contact, most tragically of all in "clear-eyed" Natalie 
 aldin. Winnie Verloc's "philosophy consisted in not 
 king notice of the inside facts"; she "felt profoundly 
 lat things do not stand much looking into" ; she was 
 :onfirmed in her instinctive conviction that things don't 
 ar looking into much"; she was aware that "it did not 
 and looking into much." In fact, in some of the later 
 3oks, these epithetical phrases degenerate into mere 
 itahwords. Winnie later in the novel becomes ironically 
 he widow of Mr. Verloc." Ossipon is "the robust 
 •ssipon" ; Verloc is "the heavy-lidded." In The Arrow 
 f Gold Blunt is tagged in three phrases, two of them 
 f his own invention: he is "the fatal Mr. Blunt," 
 Americain, CathoHque et gentilhomme," "who lived by 
 3 sword." Rita in the same novel is the tawny-haired, 
 le sapphire-eyed, for "the tawny halo of her unruly hair" 
 ad her "darkly-brilliant blue glance" shine resplendent 
 irough all the pages of Monsieur George's reminiscences. 
 In the portraits of minor characters this exaggeration 
 f t)he significant attribute stands out as a caricature 
 f the man, — unforgettable, decisive and comic. Such is 
 le steward in The Shadow Line "with his face of an 
 nhappy goat"; the comic-opera General Montero in 
 ostromo, the abominable and fatuous Ortega. In 
 '^nder Western Eyes the artificiality of the famous 
 ladame de S — is emphasized by her ghastly painted 
 lask of a face, her gleaming false teeth, and fantastically 
 
50 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 shining black eyes. No less grotesque in appearance ij 
 her scared, sallow- faced companion and even the hug€|[l 
 Peter Ivanovitch himself. In The Secret Agent the un-)! 
 wieldy bulk of Michaelis is emphasized in every phrase^ 
 as when he "uncrossed his thick legs, similar to bolsters.*! 
 
 It is indeed in descriptions of fat men that Conrac- 
 derives a sardonic amusement from this over-emphasis o\\ 
 the grotesque. There is this same Michaelis, "round likt 
 a tub" ; Mr. Verloc, "undemonstrative and burly in i\ 
 fat-pig style," with podgy hands and a gross neck; ancj 
 Sir Ethelred, "expanded, enormous and weighty," — three; 
 exaggeratedly fat men in one book ! More unforgettable 
 is. the obese captain of the Patna, like "*a trained bab) 
 elephant walking on hind legs," and the manager of thet 
 Eldorado Exploring Expedition in Heart of DarknesS\ 
 who "carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short, 
 legs," and the terrible revolutionist Nikita surnamec( 
 Necator whose squeaky voice and balloon-like stomacH 
 are in burlesque contrast to his sinister deeds of violences 
 
 But it is only the unpleasant characters whom Conraci 
 lashes with these cutting realistic phrases. His portraits, 
 can be as attractive as the persons themselves. There is 
 Lord Jim "clean-limbed, clear-faced, firm on his feet, as 
 promising a boy as the sun ever shone on," the type ol 
 fine, dependable, honest, and courageous youngster, whosi 
 appearance so mysteriously and terribly belied what he' 
 stood accused of. There is Powell in Chance. "Th^ 
 red tint of his clear-cut face with trim short blaclj 
 whiskers under a cap of curly iron-gray hair was the onlj 
 warm spot in the dinginess of that room cooled by the 
 cheerless tablecloth." 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 51 
 
 But a man who has Uved long enough to have acquired 
 hat complexity of experience which shapes him as an 
 adividual worth the investigation of this novehst, is 
 eldom in point of fact a being to be described in terms 
 f the beautiful. He may be picturesque, he may be 
 l.ttractive in his virility, he will probably be interesting, 
 •ut he does not usually impress one sesthetically. A 
 oung man may be handsome and good to look upon like 
 
 ord Jim ; but in youth that is generally to be taken for 
 rranted. Grown men are too marked by time and endur- 
 nce to present that color, serenity, and grace of human 
 ontour and feature that are the essence of beauty, 
 lence it is that in the descriptions of men Conrad uses 
 he uncompromising method of the Realist; and reserves 
 he suggestiveness and poetry of the Romantic style for 
 iescriptions of nature and of women. He turns for 
 eauty to women in the bloom of youth or of love. How 
 nany of them there are, after all ! Emilia Gould, 
 Vntonia Avellanos, Linda Viola, and her sister Giselle, 
 
 lora de Barral, Natalie Haldin, that magnificent young 
 ^irl, the niece of Hermann in Falk, even fair-haired Edith 
 Travers, the "representative woman," Nina, Almayer's 
 lalf-breed daughter, and last and most haunting, Doiia 
 lita, ''the harmonized sweetness and daring of whose 
 ace" holds every man and woman in thrall with its fate- 
 "ul beauty. She is not pretty. She is worse, as Mills 
 ells her. She has the symbolic power of a Mona Lisa 
 is she sits "tenderly amiable yet somehow distant, among 
 ier cushions, with an immemorial seriousness in her long, 
 .haded eyes, and her fugitive smile hovering about but 
 
52 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 never settling on her lips." "Man is a strange animal," 
 writes Monsieur George long afterwards. 
 
 "I didn't care what I said. All I wanted was to 
 keep her in her pose, excited and still, sitting up with 
 her hair loose, softly glowing, and the dark brown fur 
 making a wonderful contrast with the white lace on 
 her breast. All I was thinking of was that she was 
 adorable and too lovely for words! I cared for noth- 
 ing but that sublimely aesthetic impression. It 
 summed up all life, all joy, all poetry! It had a 
 divine strain." 
 
 Here is the symbolic essence of romance. 
 
 As perfect is this lyric on Giselle from Nostromo. 
 
 "Coppery glints rippled to and fro on the wealth of 
 her gold hair. Her smooth forehead had the soft, 
 pure sheen of a priceless pearl in the splendor of the 
 sunset, mingling the gloom of starry spaces, the 
 purple of the sea, and the crimson of the sky in mag- 
 nificent stillness." 
 
 It is her voice that best expresses the woman, her 
 character and her soul. Each man surrenders to its^ 
 magic. To Nostromo Giselle speaks "in a voice that re 
 called to him the song of running water, the tinkling of 
 a silver bell." The music of Rita's voice thrills and 
 fascinates as men listen to its "warm waves" "with 
 ripple of badinage," and "its even, mysterious quality 
 Heyst is enchanted by Lena's voice. Woman expresses 
 to Conrad with her voice the 
 
 "Wisdom of the heart, which, having no concern 
 with the erection or demolition of theories any more 
 than with the defence of prejudices, has no random 
 words at its command. The words it pronounces 
 have the value of acts of integrity, tolerance and 
 compassion." 
 
 1 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 53 
 
 In their veiled gaze, the inscrutability of their smile, the 
 abstraction of their quietude, all of Conrad's women are 
 emblematic of the mystery of "the incarnation of the 
 feminine," for women and the sea are "the two mistresses 
 of life's values, — the iUimitable greatness of the one, and 
 the unfathomable seduction of the other working their 
 immemorial spells from generation to generation," in 
 "that beautiful world of their own" where men must 
 help them stay lest theirs get worse. 
 
 Portraiture is one vehicle of character revelation. It 
 is the expression in technique of that article of Conrad's 
 artistic creed which Ford Madox Huefifer has summar- 
 ized as "Never comment : state." The first article of that 
 creed, however, Mr. Huefifer says may be epigramatized 
 as "Never state: present." And this is how Conrad 
 renders character through the plot of the story. Every 
 action, every conversation, every recoUective remark, 
 brings us one step nearer to an understanding of the man 
 or woman created before us. The chain of happenings 
 is the unfolding of the character of the dramatis personae. 
 
 One incident alone may be a key to the man's whole 
 subsequent conduct. The exasperatingly ludicrous epi- 
 sode of the Siamese flag lays bare before us the character 
 of the sensitive, imaginative Jukes and the stolid, literal- 
 minded Captain MacWhirr. It is what Jim does on 
 board the "Patna" and again in Doramin's campong in 
 Patusan that puts the seal on our knowledge of what his 
 soul is like. It is when Nostromo represses the true 
 story of the treasure and afterwards grows rich slowly 
 that the irony of his self-confident vanity unfolds. It is 
 Dona Rita's visit to Monsieur George's room in his ab- 
 
54 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 sence that reveals without disguise her love for him thatitl 
 we had half doubted till then. It is Lena's supreme actjs 
 that is her victory over Heyst's contemptuous negationj 
 of life. It is as Almayer blots out forever Nina's foot-i 
 steps in the sand that our hearts .are wrung with "the 
 anguish of paternity." It is the "horribly merry" glance 
 of Flora de Barral on that rainy morning when the odious 
 personage came to drag her back to his impossible house-: 
 hold which throws sudden light on her mental state: 
 The tragedy of Emilia Gould cannot be expressed in act; 
 therein lies her wretchedness. There is nothing that she 
 can do. She has no silver mine to look after. We must 
 learn of her unhappiness in one of the rare moments 
 when she admits us into the hidden reserve of hei 
 thoughts. 
 
 . Sometimes Conrad pauses in the story to gather to 
 ^efher himself all these traits of a character that we have 
 been watching unfold before us. But he prefers tq 
 postpone such a summary until we are well acquainted 
 with the men and women themselves, just as in real lif0 
 we may stop at some moment to marshal before us all 
 the known facts in order to comprehend what some one 
 may do next. The revelation of Mrs. Gould, for instance 
 though it occurs a hundred pages from the end of the 
 long book, is really at the climax of the story. For he 
 there is nothing more to be said. She must put on i 
 brave front and face the rest of her life in unspeakinj 
 endurance. The long analysis of Nostromo's character 
 comes at that crisis in his life when he himself pauses 
 to review his past success in order to plan his course in 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 55 
 
 he future, — at the moment when he wakes after his safe 
 wim back to the harbor from the Great Isabel. 
 
 But this use of Romantic block summary is rare. 
 Zonrad prefers, as we have said, the dramatic method of 
 iirect speech and action. Interwoven with this is a 
 )ainstaking, though apparently casual, rendering of ges- 
 ure, pose and facial expression so indicative of mood, 
 )f personality, and of race. The most vivid instances 
 ;hat come to mind are in Lord Jim of the French lieu- 
 enant, Stein, old Egstrom, and of Jim himself. In that 
 ^tudy of physiological reactions on which the Realists 
 3ride themselves, Conrad shows himself a master. In 
 Chance, Under Western Eyes, The Secret Agent, he has 
 :aken particular pains to stress this physiological side of 
 Realism. The most elaborate of the descriptions of this 
 >ort is the terrible analysis of Winnie Verloc just before 
 a^id just after she murders her husband. 
 \. So real are the people of Conrad's imagination that 
 there is not one of them whom we do not feel that he 
 must at some time in his life have met. Conrad tells us 
 himself that Almayer and Lord Jim were actual men of 
 whom he had caught a glimpse, with whom he had talked. 
 When we read in A Personal Record his descriptions of 
 persons whom he knew, we begin to understand his amaz- 
 ing ability to create in fiction Hving beings, for in this 
 book he has revealed to us the keenness of his observation 
 and the graphic power of his memory. This is his de- 
 scription of the real Almayer, written down twenty-five 
 or more years after Conrad saw him, and recollected 
 from memory only, for Conrad says that he never made 
 
56 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 a note of a fact, of an impression, of an anecdote in hi 
 life. 
 
 •'! had seen him for the first time, some four years 
 
 ?f/i?7' V.T ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^ steamer, moored to a 
 rickety little wharf forty miles up, more or less, a 
 Bornean river . The forests above and below and 
 on the opposite bank looked black and dank- wet 
 dripped from the rigging upon the tightly stretched 
 deck awnings, and it was in the middle of a shudder- 
 ing yawn that I caught sight of Almayer. He was 
 nioving across a patch of burned grass, in a blurred 
 shadowy shape with the blurred bulk of a house be- 
 hind him, a low house of mats, bamboos, and palm- 
 leaves, with a high pitched roof of grass. 
 
 "He stepped upon the jetty. He was clad simply 
 m flapping pajamas of cretonne pattern (enormous 
 flowers with yellow petals on a disagreeable blue 
 ground) and a thin cotton singlet with short sleeves 
 His arms, bare to the elbow, were crossed on his 
 chest. His black hair looked as if it had not been 
 cut for a very long time, and a curly wisp of it 
 strayed across his forehead . . . 
 
 "He came quite close to the ship's side and raised 
 a harrassed countenance, round and flat, with that 
 curl of black hair over the forehead and a heavy 
 pained glance." 
 
 This is a real person to whom through his magic comJ 
 mand over words he is introducing the reader. In his' 
 fictitious characters we find this same actuality of descrip^ 
 tion, based, we feel confident, on personal acquaintance 
 interpreted through recollective imagination. Here is one 
 other description which is peculiarly Conradian, the "joll}; 
 skipper of the Patna" as Jim sees him on that fatal night. 
 
 "His skipper had come up noiselessly, in pyjamas 
 and with his sleeping-jacket flung wide open. Red of 
 face, only half awake, the left eye partlv closed, the 
 right staring stupid and glassy, he hung his big head 
 over the chart and scratched his ribs sleepily. There 
 was something obscene in the sight of his naked 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 57 
 
 flesh. His bared breast glistened soft and greasy, as 
 though he had sweated fat in his sleep. He pro- 
 nounced a professional remark in a voice harsh and 
 dead, resembling the rasping sound of a wood-file on 
 the edge of a plank; the fold of his double chin hung 
 like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw. 
 Jim started, and his answer was full of deference; 
 but the odious and fleshy figure, as though seen for 
 the first time in a revealing moment, fixed itself m 
 his memory for ever as the incarnation of everything 
 vile and base that lurks in the world we love: in our 
 hearts we trust for salvation, in the men that sur- 
 round us, in the sights that fill our eyes, in the sounds 
 that fill our ears, and in the air that fills our lungs." 
 
 In that brief paragraph we have the epitome of 
 Zonrad's art :— ReaHstic photographic detail side by side 
 vith the Romantic interpretation of the meaning of things 
 md the yearning for beauty. 
 
PART III 
 
 Romantic-Realism in Conrad's Use of Setting 
 
 ^ I ''HE object of the universe, he would fondly believe! 
 
 -■- is purely spectacular, Conrad writes in A Personal 
 
 Record. He said the same thing earlier in the Preface t4 
 
 The Nigger of the Narcissus: 
 
 "To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands 
 busy about the work of the earth, and compel men 
 entranced by the sight of distant goals to glance for 
 a moment at the surrounding vision of form and 
 color, of sunshine and shadows; to make them pause 
 for a look, a sigh, for a smile — such is the aim, diffi- 
 cult and evanescent, and reserved only for a very 
 few to achieve. But, sometimes, by the deserving 
 and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. 
 And when it is accomplished — behold! — all the truth 
 of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile — 
 and the return to an eternal rest." 
 
 This is war a I'outrance on Stevenson's slogan, "Deat| 
 to the optic nerve." In a letter of a date ten years previ 
 ous to the letter to Henry James, in which he expounded 
 this article of his faith, Stevenson had written more fuU)^ 
 
 "The painter must study more from nature than the 
 man of words. But why? Because literature deals 
 with men's business and passions, which in the game 
 of life, we are irresistibly obliged to study; but 
 painting with relations of light, and color, and signifi- 
 cances, and form, which from the immemorial habit 
 of the race, we pass over with unregarded eye." 
 
 58 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 59 
 
 The chief aim of the noveUst, in Conrad's opinion, is 
 ) make men see these very aspects of life with pene- 
 •ating and imaginative vision. The intermingHng of 
 ght and darkness becomes to him the allegory of the 
 nown and the unknown in human existence. It is his 
 urpose to make men perceive the sharp reality of the 
 irongly illuminated places, crude and ugly though they 
 lay be, and to uplift them by a sense of the mystery 
 f vistas obscured in the half-lights and shadows, or 
 eiled in a mist of beauty and romance. To behold both 
 . to have full vision, to know all the truth of life. 
 
 To see Hfe "in its forms, in its colors, in its lights, in 
 s shadows" is to comprehend one of the great words 
 f all time : Beauty. 
 
 "I, who have never sought in the written word 
 anything else but a form of the Beautiful — I have 
 carried over that article of creed from the decks of 
 ships to the more circumscribed space of my desk, 
 and by that act, I suppose, I have become perma- 
 nently imperfect in the eyes of the ineffable company 
 of esthetes." 
 
 Beauty is the symbol to Conrad of "That which is to 
 e contemplated to all Infinity." Through it men 
 .pproach to understanding of the divine. Little wonder 
 t is then that Conrad's books are flooded with descrip- 
 ions of color, of light, of shadow, of sound, of persons 
 .nd of places, of the land, of the sea, and of the sky. 
 t is as a master of description that his power has been 
 nost unreservedly proclaimed. ^There could be no more .-> . 1 
 lelightful task than selecting beautiful and representative 
 lescriptive passages from his novels and his tales."^ The 
 lifhculty lies in the wealth of choice. 
 
6o JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 As a writer of the sea he stands supreme: — the sc 
 in serene weather, in dead calm, in tempest and in win( 
 He makes us know the cold, the heat, the color, the light 
 of the sea; night and the stars, dawn and the clouds au 
 there; the space and the majesty of the sea, its lonelinesi 
 and its unfathomable mystery are there. We perceive 
 always through the eyes of the men whom it tosses to arii 
 fro as midgets in its power, but whose indomitable huma' 
 spirit it cannot crush. 
 
 This ever-varying sea is the back-drop against whic' 
 move the characters in all of his books ; yet some storie 
 he has chosen to be an expression of a sole aspect c 
 the sea. Typhoon and The Nigger of the Narcissus ai 
 among the most tremendously real as well as poetic d^ 
 scriptions of tempest and gale in prose fiction. Tfii 
 Shadow Line is the sea in an unearthly calm, a Rime c 
 the Ancient Mariner in prose, weird and beautiful, art 
 dreadfully realistic. Youth is a lyric of youth and tfc 
 sea; The End of the Tether of the pathos of old age o 
 the sea. Conrad's pictures are more memorable than thi 
 events or even the characters themselves in many of thegi 
 sea stories. They should be read in their entirety, fc 
 they are woven into the fabric of the plot. 
 
 Boisterous winds and sweeping gales, clear weathej 
 shrouding fog and stifling heat, sunset, moonrise, and till 
 blinding glare of noon fill the pages of Conrad with th' 
 vivid pictorial illusion of great marine paintings. HI; 
 is the art of the etcher, too. The description of thI 
 Thames in Heart of Darkness, The Nigger of tk 
 Narcissus, The Secret Agent; of the harbors in the latte] 
 and in Lord Jim of London streets at night and in t 
 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 6i 
 
 ay light of fog,— might serve as descriptions of 
 histler's etchings. 
 
 These pictures are not flat canvasses. Conrad's skill 
 I the art of language makes real the heat, the cold, the 
 und, the motion, the silence, the space of life itself. 
 As remarkable as his sea pictures are those of the 
 opics and the jungle in Almayer's Folly, An Outcast 
 , the Islands, Heart of Darkness, Youth, Victory, The 
 escue. They are painted from actual experience by an 
 tist of whom might be said the words he wrote of one 
 :• his own characters, "It seems that he had not only a 
 emory but that he also knew how to remember." Sir 
 lUgh CUfford, who had been Governor of the Federated 
 ^alay States and had himself written several books about 
 ;e Malay, declares that Conrad's "absolute creation" 
 I the atmosphere of southern Asia is well-nigh perfect, 
 ivery critic of Conrad lays strong emphasis on this ro- 
 mantic— and realistic— picturing of strange, exotic coun- 
 ties. In fact, it moves one Mr. Curran to remark that 
 lese scenes of Conrad "beget in us a longing to visit 
 ach quaint corners of the earth!" This same reviewer 
 )unds a warning for parents in regard to the Malay 
 lie Almayer's Folly. "This girl Nina, and her Malay 
 )ver," says Mr. Curran, "supply all the amorous and 
 pmantic portions of the story; and, perhaps, it is better 
 p say in passing that one of these scenes may be thought 
 y some parents too ardent for young persons to read." 
 , (It is this same gentle critic, by the way, who is 
 lorrified by the corruption spread throughout the South 
 imerican republic in Nostromo. "The blooming forth 
 if that hardy annual Revolution," he says, "is delightfully 
 
62 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 done, and one cannot rise from the story without feeUnj 
 a strong desire to punch the heads df some of its actoni 
 If what the author writes be true, a few good missioni 
 would not do CathoHcity much harm in the regions soutli 
 of the United States." There is a- naive tribute til 
 Conrad's reaHsm!) i 
 
 In Almayer's Folly, in Heart of Darkness, in Youth 
 the exotic beauty and the rankness of the primeval jungle' 
 the insidious torpor of the tropics, their luxuriance ano 
 their decay, are intertwined with every thread of the 
 story, every incident of the plot, and every thought an( 
 deed of the characters. Single passages can only sugges: 
 the subtle design. It is like fraying out a little threaa 
 of an intricately-patterned web to test the color effect o: 
 the whole. A few sentences can indicate instantly th<i 
 demoralizing influence of the land, as in this short paraj 
 graph from Heart of Darkness : 
 
 "We called at some places with farcical names, 
 where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in 
 a still and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated 
 catacomb; all along the formless coast bordered by 
 dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward 
 off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams of death 
 in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose 
 waters thickened into slime, invaded the contorted 
 mangroves, that seem to writhe at us in the extremity 
 of an impotent despair. Nowhere did we stop long 
 enough to get a particularized impression, but the 
 general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew 
 upon me. It v/as like a weary pilgrimage amongst 
 hints for nightmare." 
 
 When the action rises to passion, this tropical ex-q 
 uberance becomes the fit setting for the flaming ruthlessTJ 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 63 
 
 »ss of love, as in the picture of the forest river on 
 hich Dain Maroola met Nina in the early dawn. 
 
 It is in his use of setting that Conrad's Romantic- 
 ealism is at once apparent. The all pervading atmosphere 
 
 never for the sake of effect alone; it is another of his 
 )mantic methods of foreshadowing events and of 
 ^mbolizing personalities. But this romantic use of 
 ackground is inextricably associated with his realistic 
 udy of the effect of environment on men and women. 
 1 Heart of Darkness, for example, the unmerciful glare 
 the African sun, the impenetrable blackness of the 
 mgle, the dank smell of decayed vegetation, the mysteri- 
 us lure of the impassivity of nature, become first the 
 lenace of the land, and then the spell that draws men to 
 its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and 
 rutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous 
 assions." Through every description runs this alle- 
 orical undertone^ The sordidness and desolation of the 
 2ttlement, and the tangled fecundity of the tropical for- 
 sts are at once the symbol and the instrument of 
 i-lmayer's shuffling incompetence and his hopeless 
 ragedy. The sombre tragedy of The Secret Agent can 
 e enacted only under a grimy sky, in the dirt of London 
 treets, among the "inhospitable accumulations of bricks, 
 lates and stones — things in themselves unlovely and un- 
 riendly to man," where the perpetual fog and rain and 
 lud steep every beautiful thing in their own sodden 
 tmosphere. "And the lofty pretensions of a mankind 
 ppressed by the miserable indignities of the weather 
 ppeared as a colossal and hopeless vanity deserving of 
 corn, wonder and compassion." At one point in this 
 
64 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 book the weather is definitely accessory to the action,' 
 Had not the boat-train been practically empty on account) 
 of the time of the year and the abominable weather; 
 Winnie Verloc might have been noticed by a fellow' 
 passenger, might have been questioned, or might have' 
 found some understanding soul to unburden herself to,* 
 and her fate might have been less tragic. ' 
 
 The general harmony between the setting and the' 
 sinister nature of the plot in this novel becomes in places' 
 manifestly suggestive of what is to come. This is a] 
 matter of style, to be sure. When Winnie Verloc plunges 
 into the street in search of help, we read, 
 
 "She floundered over the doorstep head forward, 
 arms thrown out, like a person falling over the para- 
 pet of a bridge. This entrance into the open air had 
 a foretaste of drowning; a shiny dampness enveloped 
 her, entered her nostrils, clung to her hair." 
 
 Every phrase in the passage connotes her future fate. 
 
 Likewise in Lord Jim choice of words can make us; 
 prescient of the future, as we read of the voyage of th© 
 "Patna" over the burning, still Arabian sea, "Viscous,; 
 stagnant, dead." She passes on "with a slight hiss,' 
 "smouldering in a luminous immensity, as if scorched^ 
 by a flame flicked at her from heaven without pity." 
 
 In Nostromo the careful description in the Prelude ofl 
 the mountains, the coastline, the harbor, and the city,- 
 sky, land and sea, the sinister veil of overh'anging cloud, 
 close in ominously the action of the whole story until, 
 ironically, on human anguish "the moonlight in the offingj 
 closed as if with a colossal bar of silver the entrance ofj 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 65 
 
 he Placid Gulf — the sombre cavern of clouds and still- 
 less in the surf-fretted seaboard." 
 
 In The Arrow of Gold, in striking contrast to the 
 xuberant descriptions of the earlier books, there are only 
 hree descriptions of nature, all of them of the briefest, 
 lardly more than five or six lines long; yet in this novel, 
 00, we realize that the weather is symbolic. This one 
 idventurous year of Monsieur George's life opens and 
 loses on the cold blasts of the mistral that leave him 
 hivering and desolate. 
 
 In his last novel The Rescue Conrad has returned to 
 lis earlier romantic method of evoking through the magic 
 f his style that tropical setting which shapes the destinies 
 f the beings caged within its enchanted bounds. Edith 
 Fravers expresses the symbolism of the background of 
 he story as she looks across the lagoon at the edge of 
 he forest. 
 
 "That great ereetion of enormous solid trunks, 
 dark, rugged columns festooned with writhing creep- 
 ers and steeped in gloom, was so close to the bank 
 that by looking over the side of the ship she could 
 see inverted in the glassy belt of water its massive 
 and black reflection on the reflected sky that gave the 
 impression of a clear blue abyss seen through a trans- 
 parent film. And when she raised her eyes the same 
 abysmal immobility seemed to reign over the whole 
 sun-bathed enlargement of that lagoon which was one 
 of the secret places of the earth. She felt strongly 
 her isolation. She was so much the only being of her 
 kind moving within this mystery that even to herself 
 she looked like an apparation without rights and with- 
 out defense and that must end by surrendering to 
 those forces which seemed to her but the unconscious 
 genius of the place. Hers was the most complete 
 loneliness charged with a catastrophic tension. It lay 
 about her as though she had been set apart within a 
 magic circle. It cut off — but it did not protect." 
 
66 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 Lingard's happiness, like the dazzling color and flaminji 
 light of the islands and seas of the Shore of Refuge, ii 
 swallowed up in an intense black pall that closes in oij 
 the world in such a silence that "one might have fancier 
 oneself come to the end of time." I 
 
 The greatest achievement of all these studies in back! 
 ground is Nostromo. The book leaves us with ai| 
 ineradicable impression of having actually lived in Sulacc 
 With Emilia Gould we have traveled through the ravines 
 and across the plains of Costaguana, over the long, dustjj 
 hot roads at the foot of the snow-covered Sierra, past thd 
 pueblos and the estates, the smooth-walled haciendas, till 
 we turned from the broad Campo to Sulaco itself lyinji 
 in the curve of the hushed Placid Gulf. We have drivej 
 past the harbor with its wooden jetties and moored ship^i 
 through the slums to the custom-house and the new irom 
 roofed railway station, down the Alameda, dotted witt 
 family coaches of the "best families" of Sulaco, over t(i 
 the market-place where in the morning the peasanj 
 women spread their umbrellas over fruit and flow© 
 stands, and in the evening cooked their meals over thi 
 red coals of the brazeros glowing in the dark, pasj 
 churches and cathedral, past shops and cafes, to th| 
 shuttered houses of the residence section where we tasti 
 "the worn-out antiquity of the old town, so characteristiif 
 with its stuccoed houses and barred windows, with th(^ 
 great yellowy- white walls of abandoned convents behinjj 
 the rows of sombre green cypresses." As "the bells o!| 
 the city were striking the hour of Oracion," the carriag 
 has rolled under the old gateway of the Casa Gould, an( 
 like Decoud we turn to contemplate the inner aspect o 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 67 
 
 tie gate. No wonder, we think, that Mrs. Gould loved 
 le patio of her Spanish house as we watch her standing 
 elow the painting of the blue- robed Madonna with the 
 rowned child in her arms, looking down through the 
 iaves and flowers of the rows of shading plants between 
 tie arches on the high balustrade to the paved quadrangle 
 elow where slender bamboo stems drooped over the 
 istern, and the busy life of the Spanish household went 
 3 and fro in sunlight and shadow beneath her quiet gaze. 
 Joth the countryside and the city teem with life. Aris- 
 Dcrats, caballeros, officers, merchants, cargadores, peas- 
 nts, laborers, beggars, burdened Indians, Italians and 
 )ccidentals, and picturesque Spaniards, incorrigible in 
 beir light-heartedness and in their brutality, dancing one 
 lay, rioting the next, fighting tumultuously in violent 
 evolution, placid and passionate by turns, — all throng 
 iast us and around us like a spectacle of life itself. In 
 vhsit other novel is a whole country so convincingly 
 reated ! 
 
 The descriptions in Conrad, however poetic they may 
 le, always keep touch with reality through some minute- 
 less of detail in sharp contrast with the previous pictur- 
 squeness of the scene, or through alternate successions 
 •f Romantic and Realistic methods. For example, the 
 erenity of the sunset glow, reflected down the middle of 
 he main thoroughfare of the Eastern port, falls on the 
 Drilliant costumes and brown and yellow faces of the 
 urbaned Indian crowd and on the gay parasols in the 
 low-moving procession of European carriages, touches 
 vith rosy light the dark-blue curve of the quiet bay, and 
 lames fiercely on a prosaic tightly-packed street car 
 
68 JOSEPH CONRAD j 
 
 which "in a red haze of dust navigated cautiously up tl: ' 
 human stream with the incessant blare of its horn, in tlif 
 manner of a steamer groping in a fog." i:i 
 
 As in life, sublime and commonplace mingle. WiP 
 the smouldering hull of their fire-gutted ship cracklir| 
 and roaring beneath them, the crew of the ''J^dea" calml: 
 sit down to an improvised meal of bread and cheese an 
 bottled stout while the blazing sheet of fire shoots tongue 
 of flame behind and above them. In the silence of ttJ 
 sleeping camp on the moonlit plateau high among tl:' 
 peaks of the Sierra where the white Higuerota "soare 
 out of the shadows of rock and earth like a frozen bubb^ 
 under the moon," a pack-mule stamped his forefoj 
 and blew heavily twice. As the furious gale buffets tr| 
 huddled crew of the "Narcissus," 
 
 **a fierce squall seemed to burst asunder the thick 
 mass of sooty vapours; and above the wrack of torn 
 clouds glimpses could be caught of the high moon 
 rushing backwards with frightful speed over the sky, 
 right in the wind's eye. Many hung their heads, 
 muttering that it 'turned their inwards out' to look at 
 it. Soon the clouds closed up, and the world again 
 became a raging, blind darkness that howled, flinging 
 at the lonely ship salt sprays and sleet." 
 
 The sudden impact of the contrast brings you up wit 
 a shock as in this description of the inspired cook of th 
 "Narcissus," when after being carried away on the floo 
 of his religious fervor, we see him through James Wait 
 eyes. 
 
 "The cook's lips moved inaudibly; his face was 
 rapt, his eyes turned up. He seemed to be mentally 
 imploring deck beams, the brass hook of the lamp, i 
 two cockroaches." ! 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 69 
 
 iSometimes the glamour fades entirely and only the 
 jrdid remains, as in the description of Schomberg's 
 ualid and hot hotel, or of the filthy tenement inn that 
 irbored the teeming misery of Russia's slums where fate 
 ^yed a trumpcard in Razumov's deistiny, or in the photo- 
 japhic detail of Verloc's shabby shop. 
 It may be objected that these examples of Realistic 
 itail are all of unpleasant things. But it is for the un- 
 ^asant that Conrad reserves this method; the beautiful 
 'e depicted with the color and suggestiveness of Roman- 
 ^ism, with the mystery, that "fascination of the incom- 
 rehensible" for which all men yearn and which the 
 mple minds of the big children of the sea find in the 
 iges of undiluted, romantic novels of adventure, that 
 if them by the 
 
 "enigmatical disclosure of a resplendent world that 
 exists with the frontier of infamy and filth, within 
 that border of dirt and hunger, of misery and dissipa- 
 tion, that comes down on all sides to the water's edge 
 of the incorruptible ocean, and is the only thing they 
 know of life, the only thing they see of land, — those 
 life-long prisoners of the sea. Mystery!" 
 
 his is that romance which Marlow heard in the low 
 Dice of Kurtz' beloved, which seemed 
 
 "to have the accompaniment of all other sounds, 
 full of mystery, desolation, and sorrow, I had ever 
 heard — the ripple of the river, the soughing of the 
 trees swayed by the wind, the murmurs of wild 
 crowds, the faint ring of incomprehensible words 
 cried from afar, the whisper of a voice speaking from 
 beyond the threshold of an eternal darkness." 
 
 .0 is Romance the core of Reality. 
 Among the romantic qualities of Conrad is his love 
 f color. His descriptions are as colorful as the poems 
 
70 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 of Rossetti and Keats or as luminous as Shelley's, and th 
 language as poetical. Red, blue, gold, silver, blackl 
 purple, gleam in all the pictures like pure color on 
 painter's canvas. He loves the glow of sunset over lan( 
 and sea when "tints of purple, gold and crimson" an 
 "mirrored in the clear water of the harbor," and thi 
 waves toss red sparks on the sandy beaches, whei; 
 mountain and island and coastline lengthen* in softenec 
 outlines, purple-black, against the flaming magnificence o:< 
 the sky. He paints the brilliant blue of the sea, sparkling 
 in sunshine, the gold and silver of the rising moon anc 
 veiling clouds, and the moon's path on the flowing blacV 
 waves. He has Corot's fondness for a point of red ir 
 the picture, whether it be the red of dress or hood, the 
 crimson of a scarf, the bronze gleams of a woman's hairi 
 the glow of a fire burning in the darkness, the glory of c 
 flaming sunset reflected on cloud or on the sails of ships- 
 or the flaming red of the British ensign. 
 
 But an attentive reader of Conrad cannot fail tC( 
 observe that he paints the greater number of his scenes 
 in chiaroscuro. The brilliance of unshaded sunlight 
 gives way to the softer splendor of one focus of 
 light, narrowed in by masses of obscuring blacks! 
 and browns. We find vast shadows, dark laid oml 
 dark, out of which dim shapes emerge in grayishi' 
 gloom, or stand out clearly modeled in sharp gleams^ 
 of yellow and red light : — flame in the night ; shafts' 
 of sunlight across a darkened room or the glow of' 
 a torch in a dim street; lamp or candlelight illuminating' 
 a shadowed face or room or ship's deck in the night; 
 sunset splendor fading to enveloping dusk; the jewelled 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 71 
 
 )ints of the lights of a city along a black horizon line; 
 
 ear patches of sun in the surrounding sombreness of 
 
 irk forest ; indistinct figures silhouetted in the moonlight 
 
 the transparent semi-darkness of a starry night; 
 
 azzling light in a cloudy sky ;. white-crested waves in 
 
 le solid blackness of an inky sea. There are long 
 
 lUeries of such pictures as these. To take only one 
 
 ^cample, there is pure poetry in the description of night 
 
 a the "Narcissus," nights on which Donkin prowled, 
 
 piteful and plotting evil. 
 
 "On clear evenings, the silent ship, under the cold 
 sheen of the dead moon, took on the false aspect of 
 passionless repose resembling the winter of the earth. 
 Under her a long band of gold barred the black disc 
 of the sea. Footsteps echoed on her quiet decks. 
 The moonlight clung to her like a frosted mist and 
 the white sails stood out in dazzling cones as of stain- 
 less snow. In the magnificence of the phantom rays, 
 the ship appeared pure like a vision of ideal beauty, 
 illusive like a tender dream of serene peace. And 
 nothing in her was real, nothing was distinct and 
 solid but the heavy shadows that filled her decks 
 with their unceasing and noiseless stir; the shadows 
 blacker than the night and more restless than the 
 thoughts of men." 
 
 This play of light on shadow is more than mere pic- 
 aresque ornament to the story. . Underlying it is the 
 Jlegory which makes of it a column in the structure of 
 he plot. At times this allegory is implied; but its inner 
 ignificance Conrad has consciously made clear more than 
 tnce. We should understand that in Heart of Darkness 
 he contrast of light and darkness symbolizes the theme 
 )f the story even if Marlow had not taken the trouble to 
 •.xplain in his tone, half grim, half jesting, that he 
 vas sent as "something like an emissary of light" into 
 
72, JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 the land that seemed to beckon with "a treacherous appea 
 to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profounct 
 darkness of its heart." Not alone the sinister gleam oil 
 the silver clouds above the impenetrable obscurity of the 
 Golfo Placido carries an allegorical meaning; we under- 
 stand the sadder human effort of Emilia Gould tc 
 withstand the encroaching darkness of material interests 
 in such an apparently unportentous sentence as this; 
 "Only the sala of the Casa Gould flung out defiantly the 
 blaze of its four windows, the bright appeal of light im 
 the whole dumb obscurity of the street." 
 
 As Almayer watches the yellow triangle of the praui 
 shine brilliantly on the blue of the open sea till it vanishes 
 in the shadow of the headline, we know with him, unmis- 
 takably, that it is the disappearing emblem of his own 
 happiness. The yellow gleam of the riding-light in the 
 fore-rigging burns as a symbolic flame to guide the Secret 
 Sharer to that ship where accident and fate have awaiting 
 him the one narrow ray of light out of his darkness, — the 
 man who will understand and help him. In Under 
 Western Eyes the snow-covered land of Russia stretching 
 vast and white into the obscurity of surrounding night is 
 "like a monstrous blank page awaiting the record of an 
 inconceivable history." To it Razumov likens his own 
 cold, blank existence. What irony lies in the focus ofi 
 light on Mrs. Verloc's wedding ring after she has justi 
 learned the truth of Ste^vie's death, or on the flash of i 
 jewels and gold of the many rings on Mrs. Gould's white 
 hands as she drops them wearily into her lap! 
 
 Life, Conrad says, is altogether "the brilliance of sun- 
 shine together with the unfathomable splendor of the 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 73 
 
 ght." l^here had been no path in his Ufe until he knew 
 3ve for Rita, says Monsieur George in The Arrow of 
 ^old. At the end of Heart of Darkness Marlow had 
 aid the same thing. 
 
 Love and faith alone illumine the impenetrable 
 bscurity of human existence. They shine radiantly in 
 he surrounding darkness. Will they eternally endure? 
 That, too, is inscrutable, says Conrad. To the eyes of 
 nen it would seem that even they can grow dim and fade 
 iway. "But not for long!"* 
 
 * "The Arrow of Gold," page 138. 
 
PART IV 
 
 The Spirit of Conrad 
 
 THE fusion of light and darkness embodies Conrad's 
 attitude toward life. In fact, more than once, he^ 
 puts this parable of life into the mouth of Marlow. Not! 
 only in Heart of Darkness but also in Lord Jim, Marlow 
 uses the figure repeatedly. He reads into the obscuring 
 physical shadows and lights that surround Jim an inter- 
 pretation of the inexplicable that perpetually crosses the 
 light of our understanding of human character and off 
 existence itself. "If there were no dark places, no sha- 
 dows, no half-lights, would men's dim comprehension be 
 illumined in the full radiance that would reveal all?" 
 Conrad seems to question. "But light," he answers,, 
 "comes in flashes only, and in flashes only is revelation i 
 made clear." This is the dominant strain in Conrad: am 
 abiding realization of the mystery that shrouds life. He 
 does not solve the mystery. He presents it as it is. All 
 we can look for are the gleams of understanding that will 
 irradiate the dimness. 
 
 Because Conrad never sentimentalizes over the in- 
 scrutability of life, because he presents it with clear-eyed 
 comprehension of what it involves, he has been accused 
 by his reviewers of being both pessimist and cynic. 
 There is Mr. Mencken, for instance, whose admiration of 
 
 74 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 75 
 
 Conrad is based on what he considers an obvious simi- 
 irity of temperament. He makes Conrad out to have 
 he same misogynic and disillusioned attitude toward Ufe 
 which he has himself attained, and savagely commends 
 lis pessimism. 
 
 "In the midst of futile meliorism, which deceives 
 the more it soothes, he (Conrad) stands out like some 
 sinister skeleton at the feast, regarding the festivities 
 with a flickering and impenetrable grin." 
 
 Vrthur Symons is equally convinced of Conrad's *'sullen 
 ubjective vision." ''Conrad's inexpUcable mind," he says, 
 
 "has created for itself a secret world to live in, 
 some corner stealthily hidden away from view, among 
 impenetrable forests, on the banks of untravelled 
 rivers. From that corner, like a spider in his web, he 
 throws out tentacles into the darkness; he gathers 
 in his spoils, he collects them like a miser, stripping 
 from them their dreams and visions to decorate his 
 web magnificently . . . Beyond and below this 
 obscure realm, beyond and below human nature 
 itself, Conrad is seen through the veil of the persons 
 of his drama, living a hidden, exasperated life." 
 
 Such statements (and there are other critics who 
 iccuse him of this bitter cynicism), would lead the reader 
 to beUeve that Conrad is nothing but a grim Realist, 
 laying bare the inconsistencies, faults, and vices of man- 
 kind with an exultant flash of his dissecting knife as he 
 uncovers each putrid spot. But it is at this point of 
 union with the Realistic school that Conrad steps aside 
 into his own personality. He himself has asserted that 
 all art is revealed through the personality of the artist 
 himself. 
 
 "I know that a novelist lives in his work. He 
 Stands there, the only reality in an invented world, 
 
76 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 among imaginary things, happenings, and people. 
 Writing about them, he is only writing about himself. 
 But the disclosure is not complete. He remains, to 
 a certain extent, a figure behind the veil; a suspected, 
 rather than a seen presence — a movement and a voice 
 behind the draperies of fiction."* 
 
 Conrad's personality, as he reveals it in his books, isj 
 not that of the disillusioned materialist. His stories, tol 
 be sure, lack that exuberance of sheer glory in living that 
 emanates from the hearty spirit of the Romancer. 
 His books are never joyous; they leave you always 
 thoughtful, sometimes even depressed. His is the 
 humor of the serious man. We never find him 
 joining in the merriment, and creating it for others. 
 He stands aside as the observer. His eyes smile, 
 but he seldom laughs outright. The only unreflectively 
 funny incident in any of his books is the landing of 
 Almayer's pony in A Personal Record; but that passage 
 alone is sufficient to refute the assertion that Conrad has 
 no humor. It is a delicious fragment of pure comedy, — 
 and full of sympathy with the pony. But this is the 
 only instance of open drollery in Conrad. The Duel, to 
 be sure, is a comedy tale, but it is fantastic and whimsical 
 rather than broadly funny. His humor is of a kind more 
 subtle than good-natured jollity. In the perception of 
 inexplicable and omnipresent incongruities Conrad sees 
 manifested the all-enveloping mystery of life. 
 
 You may explain a man's character by the careful 
 analysis of his racial heredity and of his physical and 
 social environment. You may see that he reacts accord- 
 ingly to understood psychological laws. Conrad does this 
 
 ♦ "A Personal Record," page 4, 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 17 
 
 in every one of his stories, as I have endeavored to 
 show. Almayer, Kurtz, Razumov, Heyst, Charles Gould, 
 Decoud, Singleton, Donkin— many others— are all formed 
 out of tendencies inherited from their social ancestry 
 and shaped by the forces of their surroundings. Conrad 
 omits no word nor deed nor bit of description which shall 
 make this explicit. Yet character evolution is not so 
 mechanistic as this; it would be too much like putting 
 men and women into the glass jars of a biological labora- 
 tory, labeled as specimens. To such precise scientific 
 reconstruction of human character, there is a power in 
 destiny, which (to paraphrase) declares: ''Hitherto shah 
 thou come, but no further ; and here shall thy proud laws 
 be stayed." We perceive, like Marlow, "how incompre- 
 hensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share 
 with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun." 
 It is this mysterious element in character and in life in 
 which Conrad is absorbed. 
 
 It manifests itself, first of all, in the incalculable. 
 Things turn out so contrary to all expectation. Jim and 
 the officers of the "Patna" had every reason to beheve 
 that the rotten bulkhead would give way any instant; 
 but it held out after all. Almayer thought that he was 
 furthering his plans for a happy future with Nina when 
 he took Dain Maroola as his confederate ; but Nina loved 
 the Malay chief, and Almayer fell in with bitter anguish. 
 Verloc supposed that Steevie would be an innocent, un- 
 scathed tool to his careful plot; but Steevie stumbled. 
 Ned and Charley congratulated themselves that at last 
 the dire spell of the Brute, The Apse Family, was broken; 
 and in the very moment of their exultation the most 
 
78 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 unlooked-for kind of dreadful accident happened. Emiliji 
 Gould joined enthusiastically in her husband's plans t(^ 
 use the San Tome mine as a means to rehabilitate Sulaco 
 and Charles Gould proved its slave, and her happines: 
 was ruined. 
 
 These unexpected turns of fate are the tragic iron) 
 
 of human existence. Destiny lies hid to play her wantor 
 
 tricks in ordering the affairs of men. Chance is he£ 
 
 handmaid. De Barral might just as well have engagec 
 
 a perfectly harmless usual specimen of governess for his 
 
 daughter, but "chance being incalculable" he fell upor 
 
 that vulgar-minded woman who nearly ruined Flora's life 
 
 It was chance that brought Flora and Captain Anthony 
 
 together. It was the supreme chance that young Powell' 
 
 stooped to pick up a coil of rope left lying on the deck; 
 
 by some one's carelessness, and so brought his head down 
 
 to the level of the after skylight at the moment when that 
 
 fatal, senile hand was thrust between the curtains of the 
 
 Captain's cabin. It was chance that left the rope ladder 
 
 hanging over the side of the ship in The Secret Sharer: 
 
 It was chance— or fatality— that led Heyst to Schom-i 
 
 berg's hotel at Bangkok on the night when Zangiacomo's 
 
 Ladies' Orchestra was established there. It was chance 
 
 — or fatality — that Ziemianitch should have been steeped 
 
 in a sodden, drunken sleep so that Razumov could not 
 
 wake him even by a brutal beating. Examples are too 
 
 many to enumerate at length. Things happen by chance. 
 
 It may have been the strange chances in his own career 
 
 that led Conrad to perceive with lucidity the manifest 
 
 part that accident plays in life. The most tremendous 
 
 phenomenon of all the obscure, hidden forces at work 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 79 
 
 a his own life, he says, was the writing of the first page 
 
 )f Almayer's Folly. 
 
 "From the moment I had, in the simplicity of my 
 heart and the amazing ignorance of my mind, written 
 that page, the die was cast. Never had Rubicon been 
 more blindly forded, without invocation to the gods, 
 without fear of men." 
 
 Moreover, he asserts if he had not got to know Almayer 
 Dretty well, it is almost certain there would never have 
 )een a line of his in print. Thus a chance meeting with 
 in unknown foreigner in a remote Malay setdement on 
 :he East Coast turned Conrad from Master Mariner to 
 Master Writer. 
 
 \ Such happenings as these are outside the control or the 
 planning of the men and women whose destinies they 
 shape. Stranger still are the unaccountable acts of men. 
 A man never knows himself when he thinks about him- 
 self ; his deeds are his measure. And fate is sure to put) 
 him to that test which will knock his self-assurance toj 
 atoms. Jim was romantically certain beforehand of his 
 shining courage in face of emergency. Taken unawares, 
 he did the prepesterously inconceivable thing. The fugi- 
 tive in The Secret Sharer had found out suddenly that 
 there lurked in his nature incredible impulses that brought 
 'forth uncalculated action. Falk's abhorrence of himself 
 afterwards could not wipe out for him the fact that he 
 had once eaten human flesh. In the face of temptation 
 Nostromo's incorruptible fidelity crumbled to dusty ashes. 
 Until Haldin startled him in his rooms that winter day, 
 Razumov had not dreamed himself capable of acting a 
 Brutus' part. 
 
 It is Razumov, in fact, who is the most mystically im- 
 
8o JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 pressed with the strangeness of life : the secret places, tl: 
 secret influences over a man's thoughts, the surprises < 
 life, astonishing impulses, mysterious motives of conduo 
 "A man's most open actions have a secret side to then 
 That is interesting and so unfathomable!" he contenc 
 to Haldin. Conrad says of himself that he could no 
 explain his own determined resolve to become an Englis 
 seaman. He could not understand the mysteriousness o 
 his own impulses. 
 
 "I understood no more than the people who called 
 upon me to explain myself. There was no precedent. 
 I verily believe mine was the only case of a boy of 
 my nationality and antecedents taking a, so to speak, 
 standing jump out of his racial surroundings and 
 associations." 
 
 ' Another of the incomprehensible aspects of life ti 
 I which Conrad draws our attention is the disparity be 
 j tween men's deserts and their destinies. Five times ou 
 ' of ten poetic justice is an ideal of the sentimentalist rathe 
 than the experience in reality, he affirms. It is th 
 women and the simple-hearted who suffer most^unfairll 
 in Conrad's books. Emilia Gould, Antonia Avellanoe 
 Linda Viola, Natalie Haldin suffer beyond anything the;, 
 have merited. We leave them to sorrow who have de 
 served great joy. Harmless, half-witted Steevie, the for 
 lorn outcast whom Amy Foster married, and Flora d< 
 Barral, even Dona Rita, are victims of circumstance 
 The men who do wrong usually pay for it, as do Razu 
 mov, and Verloc, and Kurz ; and the villains sometime; 
 meet a fitting end, as do Ric^ardo and Jones. But ever 
 the sinners often pay a heavier penalty in suffering thar 
 their deeds would justly warrant. Doctor Monygham 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 83 
 
 shore-gang' to "the want of responsibility and to a sense 
 )f security." The service of the sea, on the other hand, 
 s "invested with an elemental moral beauty by the abso- 
 ute straight-forwardness of its appeal and by the single- 
 less of its purpose." It protects and consoles men. 
 
 Through sordid and sublime intermingle in the strange 
 cheme of life, though destiny appear incomprehensible 
 md all men weak, though all visible things pass by, and 
 he meaning of nothing shines clear, yet man is a spiritual 
 )eing. Even the weakest is ennobled by glorious 
 ispirations. 
 
 The earliest of these is the glamour of youth. Although 
 'onrad has outgrown any illusions of his own, he under- 
 tands that illusion pervades the beginning of life. 
 Youth and The Shadow Line when read in sequence show 
 low completely Conrad comprehends the magic of youth 
 ind the backward glance of the man who has crossed 
 :hrough experience the shadow line into manhood. 
 Illusion may go ; but once it has been ; and there is nothing 
 equal to the power of it. 
 
 When the disenchantment comes, as come it must, what 
 then? In this practical world a man becomes a man 
 when he puts away childish illusions. "Charles Gould 
 was competent because he had no illusions." When it 
 tomes about that a man has lost the thrill of adventure 
 and the zest for a world seen through the eyes of youth, 
 then he must put his hand to his work. Work is the 
 having power in life, Marlow urges again and again: not 
 just doing something, but real accomplishment which will 
 count as the expression of a man's own personality, work 
 in which he can find himself. "What does the price 
 
84 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 matter if the trick be well done?" It is the spirit i 
 which the work is undertaken that counts, — "an honeii 
 concern for the right way of going to work." Thoug 
 we have to "pick our way in crosslights," we trust the 
 
 "we shall manage yet to go out decently in the end 
 — but not so sure of it after all — and with dashed 
 little help to expect from those we touch elbows with 
 right and left." 
 
 But action, Conrad avers, is consolatory. "It is tt 
 enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusion 
 Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sens 
 of masteiy over the Fates." It is in putting our be; 
 into that work which "obeys the particular earnestnei 
 of our temperament" that we taste the comfort of a fine 
 illusion — the belief in our own worth. 
 
 With work must be faith, a deliberate belief in trutl 
 Mere principles are not enough ; for they may go to smas 
 in the crucial moment, as Jim and Razumov and tli 
 others found. The restraining influences of ordered s< 
 ciety, "the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunati 
 asylums" are not enough ; for a man must be a man whe 
 they no longer surround him. Therein, Almayer am 
 Wilhelms and Kurtz failed. Lingard reflects "that 
 truth and courage there is found wisdom." Strength li< 
 in holding fast to truth, and truth is goodness. It is ( 
 the spirit. Idealists, like Lena and Emilia Gould, ma 
 be crushed by unconscious or deliberate materialism, bi 
 the victory is theirs, for they have realized the trut' 
 Sincerity, unselfishness, sympaithy, love, are the truth ( 
 life. Courage, endurance, responsibility, fidelity to dut 
 are the ethics on which the solidarity of mankind 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 85 
 
 ounded. It is in the fellowship of these primal virtues 
 hat the strength of mankind lies. 
 
 "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, among others, on the idea of 
 Fidelity." 
 
 5o Conrad declares in his preface to A Personal Record. 
 
 Through the sympathetic understanding of other people, 
 
 Marlow thinks, 
 
 "there springs in us compassion, charity, indigna- 
 tion, the sense of solidarity; and in minds of any 
 largeness an inclination to that indulgence which is 
 next door to affection." 
 
 Because the men of the sea are held in strong bonds 
 by the fellowship of the craft, because they are shut 
 laway from "the vanities and errors of a world which 
 follows no severe rule," by the exacting Ufe of the sea 
 which knits together a ship's company in courage, endur- 
 ance, faith, and loyalty, Conrad finds in sailors the highest 
 type of this fundamental brotherhood of mankind. 
 Sailors more than any other group of men face every 
 moment of their lives the immensity of an unconcerned 
 Nature. All men are equal before it. iTo the seaman 
 the sea is ** the mistress of his existence and more in- 
 scrutable than Destiny." Its ''glittering surface and light- 
 less depths" become to him the symbol of life": At times 
 it is a cruel and relentless monster, heartless in its mali- 
 cious attempts to crush the insignificant atoms who defy 
 its terrible might. The gale torments them, the sun and 
 the stars stare pitilessly aloof. Man is perpetually sur- 
 rounded by "the immense indifference of things." The 
 

 86 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 more honor to him, then, for his indomitable endurance,! 
 and the ardor of his high endeavor. The Dark Powers! 
 "always on the verge of triumph are perpetually foiled by| 
 the steadfastness of men." It is in their steadfast perse- 
 verance and their belief that loyalty, duty, obedience, ser- 
 vice, endure in the race of men, that ahen is knit to ahen, 
 nation to nation in a common kinship of passion, of in- 
 domitability and of aspiration. It might have been of 
 Joseph Conrad's achievement in literature that Mr. 
 Woodberry wrote these words : 
 
 "Idealism ... is in a sense a glorification of the 
 commonplace. Its realism lies in the common lot of 
 men; its distinction is to embrace truth for all, and 
 truth in its universal forms of experience and person- 
 ality, the primary, elementary, equally shared fates, 
 passions, beliefs of the race." 
 
 But small proportion of all that Conrad has written isi 
 devoted to giving us information about his views on these 
 matters. Instead he makes us acquainted with the things 
 themselves through the stories of individual men and 
 women who have upheld or denied them by the manner of 
 their lives. Conrad has twice distinctly denied that he 
 has any direct moral purpose: once, in the ''Preface" to 
 The Nigger of the Narcissus, and again in "A Familiar 
 (' Preface" to A Personal Record. He has no desire, he 
 says, to reprove, to flatter, or to teach mankind. Art, 
 not morality, is his aim. His task is to make men see 
 life. His expression of the great spectacle becomes, then, 
 of supreme importance to him. 
 
 Because he sees actuality, he would make us see it too. 
 It is only through his expression that he can do this. 
 Style thus becomes identical with method. For that 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 87 
 
 cnowledge of life which is objective and intellectual, he 
 ises the method of photographic accuracy of detail, of 
 inalysis, of logical synthesis, which demands keen eyes 
 md impersonal recording— the method of ReaUsm, m 
 Dther words. He gives to his observation precision 
 :hrough the use of concrete words, telling phrases, concise 
 sentences. There is no flowing melody here, but sharp, 
 staccato measures. On the other hand, for that knowledge 
 which is intuitive, not based on fact, knowledge which 
 transcends objective experience— all that knowledge 
 which he himself includes in the great word Mystery !— 
 for this he employs the style of the Romanticist. §}^- 
 bolism shadows it forth, and beauty is its shining light. 
 Therefore he makes use of connotative words, of 
 assonance, of rhythm, of fluent sentences, and of the re- 
 frain of repeated phrases. It is in his metaphors of hght 
 and darkness woven like delicate patterns through the 
 fabric of the tales, but above all in his descriptions of the 
 sea that we hear this subtle and suggestive music. Conrad 
 does not hesitate, indeed, to write pure poetry. The idyll 
 of Nostromo and Giselle, the glory of Monsieur George's 
 love for Rita, the coming of the dawn to Nina and Dain 
 Maroola, the moonrise over the "Patna," are all of them 
 
 lyrics. 
 
 In all that Conrad has written, the outlines of his 
 sharply intense Realism are blurred by the softening 
 shades of his Romanticism, blending like the mingled light 
 and gloom of his own favorite allegory of this tenebrous 
 life of ours. What he said of one of his own characters, 
 he might well have written of himself ; 
 
88 - JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 "He appealed to all sides at once, — to the side 
 turned perpetually to the light of day, and to that 
 side of us, which, like the other hemisphere of the 
 moon, exists stealthily in perpetual darkness, with 
 only a fearful ashy light falling at times on the edge." 
 
 and his own "imperishable reahty" comes to us 
 
 "with a convincing, an irresistible force ... as 
 though in our progress amongst fleeting gleams of 
 light and the sudden revelations of human figures 
 stealing with flickering flames within unfathomable 
 and pellucid depths we had appproached nearer to 
 absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elu- 
 sive, obscure, half submerged, in the silent still 
 waters of mystery." 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 I. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 1920. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF JOSEPH 
 
 CONRAD (1895-1920). By Thomas J. Wise. London: 
 
 . Printed for Private Circulation Only by Richard Clay 
 
 & Sons, Ltd. 1920. 
 This is the most recent bibliography on Conrad, and 
 the most complete. It is compiled primarily for col- 
 lectors of first editions of Conrad's works. 
 
 1917. JOSEPH CONRAD: A CONTRIBUTION TOWARD A 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Compiled by Sara W. Eno, Refer- 
 ence Librarian, Bryn Mawr College, in "Bulletin of 
 Bibliography," Vol. 9, No. 6, April, 1917. 
 This is a very complete bibliography. It contains also 
 a bibliography of book reviews in current periodicals. 
 
 1912. BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF- YOUNGER REPUTATIONS: 
 JOSEPH CONRAD. By Vincent Sanger, in "The 
 Bookman," 35:70, March, 1912. 
 This is not complete, and extends only through the 
 year of its publication, 1912. 
 
 1914. Appendix to Richard Curie's book, JOSEPH CONRAD, 
 
 A STUDY. New York: Doubleday, 1914. 
 This is only a list of Conrad's works up to 1914. 
 
 1915. Appendix to Hugh Walpole's book, JOSEPH CONRAD. 
 
 London: Nisbet & Co., Ltd., 1915. New York: Holt, 
 1915. 
 This also contains only a list of Conrad's works. 
 
 91 
 
92 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 II. CONRAD'S WORKS 
 
 A. Chronological List of Novels and Tales 
 (With Original Editions) 
 
 1895. ALMAYER'S FOLLY: A STORY OF AN EASTERN I 
 
 RIVER. London: Unwin, 1895. N. Y.: Macmillan,, 
 1895. 
 
 1896. AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS I 
 
 London: Unwin, 1896. N. Y.: Appleton, 1896. 1 
 
 1898. THE NIGGER OF THE NARCISSUS: A TALE OF'' 
 THE SEA. London: Heinemann, 1898. N. Y.: Dodd, 
 Mead, 1898 (1897?) under title "Children of the Sea: 
 A Tale of the Forecastle." N. Y.: Doubleday, 1914,,] 
 under English title. 
 (Appeared as a Serial in "The New Review," August 
 to December, 1897.) 
 
 1898. TALES OF UNREST. 
 
 London, Unwin, 1898. N. Y., Scribner, 1898. 
 Contents: KARAIN (1897); THE IDIOTS (1898); AN 
 
 OUTPOST OF PROGRESS; THE RETURN; THE 
 
 LAGOON (1897). 
 See List of Short Stories. 
 
 1900. LORD JIM: A ROMANCE 
 
 London: Blackwood's, 1900. N. Y.: Doubleday, 1900. 
 (Appeared as a serial in "Blackwood's," December, 
 1899 to November, 1900.) 
 
 1901. THE INHERITORS: AN EXTRAVAGANT STORY 
 (In collaboration with Ford Madox Hueffer.) 
 London: Heinemann, 1901. N. Y.: McClure, Phillips, 
 
 1901. 
 
 1902. YOUTH: A NARRATIVE, AND TWO OTHER STOR- 
 
 IES. London: Blackwood's, 1902. N. Y.: McClure, 
 Phillips, 1903. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 93 
 
 1902. YOUTH was published in "Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine" in September, 1898 and then serially in "The 
 Critic" February to May, 1902. 
 
 1899. HEART OF DARKNESS was published serially 
 in "Blackwood's," February to April, 1899. 
 
 1902. THE END OF THE TETHER was published 
 serially in "Blackwood's," July to December, 1902. 
 
 1902. TYPHOON. 
 
 London: Heinemann, 1903. N. Y.: Putnam, 1902. 
 (Appeared as a serial in "Pall Mall" Magazine, 
 
 January to March 1902.) 
 Translated into French by Andr6 Gide in "Revue de 
 
 Paris," March 1, 1918— March 15, 1918. 
 
 1903. FALK: AMY FOSTER: TOMORROW. (Three Stories) 
 N. Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1903. 
 
 See List of Short Stories. 
 
 1903. ROMANCE: A NOVEL. (In collaboration with Ford 
 
 Madox Hueffer.) 
 London: Smith Elder, 1903. N. Y.: McClure, Phillips, 
 1904. 
 
 1904. NOSTROMO: A TALE OF THE SEABOARD. 
 London: Harper, 1904. N. Y. Harper, 1904. 
 (Appeared as a serial in "T. P.'s Weekly," January 
 
 29 to October 7, 1904.) 
 
 1906. THE MIRROR OF THE SEA: MEMORIES AND 
 
 IMPRESSIONS. London: Methuen, 1906. N. Y.: 
 Harper, 1906. 
 (Sections previously printed in "Pall Mall," "The Daily 
 Mail," and "Blackwood's," 1905—1906.) 
 
 1907. THE SECRET ACENT: A SIMPLE TALE. 
 London: Methuen, 1907. N. Y.: Harper, 1907. 
 (Appeared as a serial in "Ridgeway's Weekly," October 
 
 6, 1906 to January 12, 1907.) 
 
 1908. A SET OF SIX: TALES. 
 
 London: Methuen, 1908. N. Y.: McClure, Phillips, 1908. 
 Contents: GASPER RUIZ, THE INFORMER, THE 
 
 BRUTE, (1907). AN ANARCHIST, (1906), THE 
 
 DUEL, (1908), IL CONDE, (1907). 
 See List of Short Stories. 
 
94 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 1909. SOME REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Published serially in "English Review," December' 
 
 1908 to June 1909. 
 1912. Published by Nash, London. 
 1912. N. Y., Harper, under the title A PERSONAI 
 RECORD. 
 
 1911. UNDER WESTERN EYES: A NOVEL. 
 London: Methuen, 1911. N. Y.: Harper, 1911. 
 (Published serially in "English Review," December; 
 
 1910 to October 1911.) 
 
 1912. 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA: TALES. 
 London: Dent, 1912. N. Y.: Doran, 1912. 
 
 Contents: FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES, A SMILE 
 OF FORTUNE, and THE SECRET SHARER. (1910); 
 
 1914. CHANCE: A TALE IN TWO PARTS. 
 London: Methuen, 1914. N. Y.: Doubleday, 1914. 
 (Appeared as a serial in "The New York Herald, 
 
 January 21 to June 30, 1912.) 
 
 1915. VICTORY: AN ISLAND TALE. 
 London: Methuen, 1915. N. Y.: Doubleday, 1915. 
 (The cloth edition published by Doubleday shows oni 
 
 the inside board-covering a map illustrating the 
 approximate scenes of Conrad's stories. The same^ 
 map is in "The Bookman" 41:128.) 
 
 This novel has been dramatized by B. Macdonaldlj 
 Hastings, and presented at the Globe Theatre, Lon- 
 don, with Miss Marie Lohr as Lena. See an un- 
 favorable review of the play, "Collared Conrad" by 
 Gilbert Cannan in "The Nation," April 5, 1919. It 
 has also been produced in the moving pictures. 
 
 1915. WITHIN THE TIDES: TALES. 
 
 London: Dent, 1915. N. Y.: Doubleday, 1916. 
 
 Contents: THE PLANTER OF MALATA, (1914), THE 
 PARTNER, (1911), THE INN OF THE TWO 
 WITCHES, (1913), BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS, 
 (1914). 
 
 See List of Short Stories. 
 
L920. 
 
 I 
 
 HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 95 
 
 917. THE SHADOW LINE: A CONFESSION. 
 
 London: Dent, 1917. N. Y.: Doubleday, 1917. 
 (Published serially in the "English Review," Septem- 
 ber 1916 to March 1917.) 
 
 919. THE ARROW OF GOLD. 
 
 London: Dent, 1919. N. Y.: Doubleday, 1919. 
 (Published as a serial in "Lloyd's Magazine," December 
 1918 to February 1920.) 
 
 THE RESCUE: A ROMANCE OF THE SHALLOWS. 
 
 London: Dent, 1920. N. Y.: Doubleday, 1920. 
 (Published as a serial in "Land and Water" [England], 
 
 January 30 to July 31, 1919; and in "Romance, 
 
 November, 1919 to May, 1920. 
 
 1921. NOTES ON MY BOOKS. 
 
 N. Y.: Doubleday, February, 1921. 
 
 This is a collection of Conrad's notes on the source 
 L and inception of the characters and plot of his stories. 
 
 I These notes are also published as prefatory matter 
 
 I in the Sun-Dial Edition of his works, 1921. 
 
 ^The complete works of Joseph Conrad are now Published 
 in uniform cloth or limp leather (The Deep Sea Limp Leather 
 Edition) editions by Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden 
 City, N. Y. 
 
 The Sun Dial Edition of Conrad's collected works in ten 
 voTumes.was published in 1921 by W. Heinemann, London 
 and by Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, N Y. This 
 edition is limited to 750 copies, the first volume of each/^t 
 signed by the author. The twenty Prefaces give Conrad s 
 comments on the "obscure origins" of his tales. 
 
 B. Alphabetical List of Short Stories 
 
 AMY FOSTER 
 
 Appeared in "The Illustrated London News," December 
 
 14, 21, 28, 1901. 
 Published in FALK, 1903. 
 
96 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 AN ANARCHIST 
 
 In "Harper's Monthly" 113:406, August, 1906. 
 Now published in A SET OF SIX, 1908. 
 
 THE ARISTOCRAT (PRINCE ROMAN) 
 
 In "The Metropolitan," January 1912, under title of TH 
 ARISTOCRAT. 
 
 "Oxford and Cambridge Review," January 1912 und 
 title of PRINCE ROMAN. 
 
 BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS 
 
 Appeared under the title LAUGHING ANNE in "Tl 
 
 Metropolitan," September, 1914. 
 Published in WITHIN THE TIDES, 1915. 
 
 BIG BRIERLY (from LORD JIM) 
 
 In "Living Age," 229:331, May 4, 1901. 
 
 BLACK MATE 
 
 In "London Mail," April 1908. 
 
 THE BRUTE 
 
 In "The Daily Chronicle," December 5, 1906. 
 
 In "McClure's," 30:72, November 1907. Illustrated bt 
 
 four pictures in color by E. L. Blumenschein. 
 Now published in A SET OF SIX, 1908. 
 
 IL CONDE 
 
 In "Cassell's Magazine," August, 1908. 
 
 In "The Canadian Magazine," 41:595, October, 1913. 
 
 Now published in A SET OF SIX, 1915 as IL CONDE. 
 
 THE DUEL, see A POINT OF HONOUR 
 
 THE END OF THE TETHER 
 
 In "Blackwood's" 172:1, 202, 395, 520, 685, 794, July t 
 
 December, 1902. 
 Now published in YOUTH. 
 
 FALK 
 
 Published in FALK, 1903. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 97 
 
 'REYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 
 
 In "The Metropolitan," New York, April, 1912. 
 Published in " 'Twixt Land and Sea," 1912. 
 
 ASPAR RUIZ 
 
 In "Pall Mall Magazine," July to October, 1906. 
 Published in A SET OF SIX. 
 
 [EART OF DARKNESS 
 
 In "Blackwood's," 165:193, 479, 634, February to April, 
 
 1899. 
 In "Living Age," 225:665; 226:21, June to August, 1900. 
 Now published in YOUTH. 
 
 lER CAPTIVITY 
 
 In "Blackwood's," 178:325, September, 1905. 
 
 'HE IDIOTS 
 
 Published in TALES OF UNREST, 1908. 
 
 'HE INFORMER 
 
 In "Harper's Magazine," December, 1906. 
 Published in A SET OF SIX, 1908. 
 
 'HE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES 
 In "Metropolitan," May, 1913. 
 In "Pall Mall," 1913. 
 Now published in WITHIN THE TIDES. 
 
 CARAIN: A MEMORY 
 
 In "Blackwood's," 162:630, November, 1897. 
 In "Living Age," 215:796, December, 1897. 
 Now published in TALES OF UNREST. 
 
 ^HE LAGOON 
 
 In "Cornhill," 75:59, January, 1897. 
 Now published in TALES OF UNREST. 
 
 LN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS 
 In "Cosmopolis," 6:609, 7:1. 
 Now published in TALES OF UNREST. 
 
98 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 THE PARTNER 
 
 In "Harper's Magazine," 123:850, November, 1911. 
 Now pulished in WITHIN THE TIDES. 
 
 THE PLANTER OF MALATA 
 
 In "Metropolitan," June and July, 1914. 
 Published in WITHIN THE TIDES, 1915. 
 
 A POINT OF HONOR (THE DUEL) 
 
 In "Pall Mall Magazine," January to May, 1908. 
 In "The Forum," 40:89, 142, 229, 348, July to October, 19(j 
 Now published under the title THE DUEL in A SET (' 
 SIX. 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 Published in TALES OF UNREST, 1898. 
 
 THE SECRET SHARER 
 
 In "Harper's Magazine," 121:349, 530, August to Septe 
 
 ber, 1910. 
 Now published in 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA. 
 
 A SMILE OF FORTUNE 
 
 In "The London Magazine," February, 1911. 
 Published in 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA, 1912. 
 
 TO-MORROW 
 
 In "Pall Mall," 27:533, August, 1902. 
 
 Now published in FALK. 
 
 Dramatized by Joseph Conrad under the title ONE D.^ 
 
 MORE: A PLAY IN ONE ACT. Published in "T 
 
 English Review," 15:16, August, 1913. 
 (The foot-note states that the play was performed 
 
 1904 by the Stage Society, and also at the Theatre 
 
 rOeuvre, Paris.) 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 In "Blackwood's," 164:309, September, 1898. 
 Now published in YOUTH. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 99 
 
 C. Miscellaneous Writings by Conrad 
 
 98. ALPHONSE DAUDET 
 
 "The Outlook," April 9, 1898. Now in NOTES ON 
 LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 AN OBSERVER IN MALAY 
 
 "The Academy," April 23, 1898. Now in NOTES ON 
 LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 TALES OF THE SEA 
 
 "The Outlook," June 4, 1898. Now in NOTES ON 
 LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 01. "THE INHERITORS" 
 
 Author's letter to the New York Times Supplement 
 in regard to the book, August 24, 1901, p. 603. 
 
 04. ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 "The Speaker," July 16, 1904. Now in NOTES ON 
 LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 
 
 Introduction to "Yvette and Other Stories," trans- 
 lated by Ada Galsworthy. Now in NOTES ON LIFE 
 AND LETTERS. 
 
 05. HENRY JAMES: AN APPRECIATION 
 
 "North American Review," 180:102-108, January, 1905. 
 Reprinted in "North American Review," 203:585, 
 I April 1916. 
 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 THE ART OF FICTION 
 
 "Harper's Weekly," 49 pt. 1: 690, May 1905. 
 
 Now published as the preface to THE NIGGER OF 
 
 THE NARCISSUS. 
 
 BOOKS 
 
 "The Speaker," July 15. 1905. 
 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 AUTOCRACY AND WAR 
 
 "Fortnightly Review," o. s. 84:1, July, 1905. 
 "Fortnightly Review," n. s. 78:1, July, 1905. 
 "North American Review," 181:33-55, July, 1905. 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
loo JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 i 
 
 1908. Review of Anatole France's L'ISLE DES PENGOUIJ 
 "English Review," 1:188, December, 1908. ' 
 
 1912. SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF Tj 
 
 TITANIC 
 
 "English Review," 11:304, May 1912. 
 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 SOME ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE INQUIRY 
 "English Review," 11:581, July, 1912. 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 1913. ONE DAY MORE (Dramatization of TO-MORROW 
 
 "English Review," 15:16, August, 1913. 
 
 1914. THE LESSON OF THE COLLISION: A MONOGRA 
 
 UPON THE LOSS OF THE "EMPRESS OF IND 
 "The Illustrated London News," June 6, 1914. 
 
 1915. THE SHOCK OF WAR 
 
 "Daily News," March 29, 1915. 
 
 TO POLAND IN WAR-TIME L 
 
 "Daily News," March 31, 1915. 
 
 THE NORTH SEA ON THE EVE OF WAR 
 "Daily News," April 6, 1915. 
 
 MY RETURN TO CRACOW 
 "Daily News," April 9, 1915. 
 
 These four papers are now published in NOTES J 
 LIFE AND LETTERS under the title of POLAI 
 REVISITED. 
 
 1917. THE WARRIOR'S SOUL 
 
 "Land and Water," March 29, 1917. 
 
 1918. MY "LORD JIM" j 
 
 Conrad's answers to the objections against his I 
 of Marlow, and his account of the real Lord .c 
 The preface to the new Sun-Dial edition of LCil 
 JIM. "Bookman," 46:539, January, 1918. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 
 
 :oi 
 
 "MR. CONRAD IS NOT A JEW" 
 
 A letter by Conrad repudiating the statement that 
 
 he is a Jew, and asserting that he is a Roman 
 
 Catholic. 
 
 "The New Republic," 16:109, August 24, 1918. 
 
 "WELL DONE" 
 
 "Daily Mail," August 22, 23, 24, 1918. 
 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 THE FIRST NEWS 
 
 "Reveille," No. I, August, 1918. 
 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 TRADITION 
 
 "Daily Mail," March 18, 1918. 
 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 POLAND: THE CRIME OF PARTITION 
 
 "Fortnightly Review," 111:657-669, May, 1919. 
 Now published under the title of THE CRIME OF 
 ^PARTITION in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 CONFIDENCE 
 
 "Daily Mail," June 30, 1919. 
 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 STEPHEN CRANE: A NOTE WITHOUT DATES 
 "London Mercury," 1:192, December, 1919. 
 "Bookman," 50:529-31, February, 1920. 
 Now in NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 )20. ON POLAND 
 
 "The New York Tribune," April 5, 1920. 
 
 THREE CONRAD NOVELS 
 
 "Dial," 69: 619-630, December, 1920. 
 Now published as prefaces to the three novels: AN 
 OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS, LORD JIM, NOS- 
 TROMO in the Sun-Dial Collected Edition. 
 
 321. FIVE PREFACES 
 
 "London Mercury," 3:493-509, March, 1921, 
 
102 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 III. CRITICISMS OF CONRAD 
 A. Books on Conrad 
 
 1914. JOSEPH CONRAD: A STUDY 
 
 By Richard Curie. Doubleday, Page & Company, 191 
 (This appeared first in part as articles in "The Bool, 
 man," July to October, 1914, 30:662 and 40:99, 187,i 
 This is the first complete book written solely to crit 
 cize and estimate Conrad's work, and it still remain 
 the longest appreciation that has appeared. Ml 
 Curie explains the reasons for Conrad's unpopularit 
 with the majority of the reading public, then pn 
 ceeds to analyze his greatness. The biographic 
 sketch is of the briefest in order that more spac 
 may be given to actual criticism of his work. TW 
 second chapter is given over to elementary synopse 
 of each of Conrad's novels and stories — "spade workl 
 for the uninitiated, Mr. Curie calls it. There is als 
 a bibliography. 
 
 1915. JOSEPH CONRAD: A SHORT STUDY 
 
 By Wilson Follett. Privately printed by Doubleda: 
 Page & Company, 1915. 
 This small volume is one of the best criticisms c^ 
 Conrad yet written. It is a scholarly critique of th 
 purpose, philosophy, style, and method of Conrac 
 Mr. Follett's style is not barrenly lucid, but it i 
 always distinguished. 
 
 1915. JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 By Hugh Walpole. London, Nisbet & Company, Ltd 
 1915. N. Y., Holt, 1915. 
 
 Contains English and American bibliographies o 
 Conrad's novels. 
 
 This, the shortest book about Conrad, is one of th 
 most sympathetic appreciations. After giving 
 short biographical account of Conrad as a necessar 
 prologue to an understanding of his work. Mi 
 Walpole discusses him as Novelist, (that is, as t 
 the Theme, as to the Form, as to the Creation o 
 character), as Poet, and as Romanticist and Realist 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 103 
 
 B. Articles about Conrad 
 First List 
 
 104. Clifford, Hugh. THE GENIUS OF MR. JOSEPH 
 CONRAD. "North American Review," 178:842, June, 
 1904. 
 
 This is one of the most sympathetic of the early reviews. 
 
 )17. Follet, H. F. and W. Follett. CONTEMPORARY 
 NOVELISTS— JOSEPH CONRAD. "The Atlantic," 
 119:233-43, February, 1917. 
 This is based to some extent on Wilson Follett's book 
 on Conrad. It asserts that the realism of Conrad 
 is due to his understanding of the "tragic unfitness 
 of things," especially as revealed in those souls cut 
 off by barriers of race, of spirit, of accident. It is 
 a discussion, also, of Conrad's technique, and of his 
 philosophy. 
 
 508. rialsworthy, John. JOSEPH CONRAD: A DISQUISI- 
 TION. "Fortnightly Review" o. s. 89:627-633, April, 
 1908. "Fortnightly Review" n. s. 83:627. "Living 
 Age," 257: 416, May 16, 1908. 
 This is one of the first and finest appreciations of 
 Conrad. Galsworthy discusses the "certain cosmic 
 spirit" of Conrad's art, and his method of expressing 
 that spirit, and concludes with an ironic explanation 
 of his lack of popularity. This article through its 
 critical enthusiasm did much to win recognition for 
 Conrad. 
 
 911. Hueffer, Ford Madox. THE GENIUS OF JOSEPH 
 CONRAD. "English Review," 10:66-83, December, 
 1911. 
 This is a sympathetic and very enthusiastic apprecia- 
 tion of Conrad's art by his fellow novelist and 
 collaborator. Hueffer acclaims Conrad "the finest 
 of the Elizabethans." This article is especially 
 illuminating in regard to Conrad's method. Hueffer 
 used italicized words in paragraphs from ROMANCE 
 to show that the descriptive phrases are his, the 
 words of action, Conrad's — contrary to the belief of 
 most critics. Conrad's method, he says, is: "Never 
 state: present. Never comment: state." 
 
I04 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 1918. Robertson, J. M. (M.P.). THE NOVELS OF JOSEPH 
 CONRAD. "North American Review," 208: 439-53 
 September, 1918. ' 
 
 This is one of the latest good appreciations of Conrad. 
 After a comparison of Meredith and Conrad, Mr. 
 Robertson proceeds to a discussion of Conrad's 
 method of plot development, of character creation, of 
 treatment of atmosphere, and of his realism and 
 idealism. 
 
 1915. Symons, Arthur. CONRAD. "Forum," 53:579-592 
 May, 1915. ' 
 
 (A review of this article is in "Current Opinion" 
 January, 1918.) 
 
 Symons cannot be disregarded as a critic. Neverthe- 
 less, his article, though thoroughly appreciative of 
 Conrad's genius, leaves the impression that Conrad 
 is more than anything else a cynic. Symons dis- 
 cusses both his philosophy and his technique. 
 1918. de Voisins, Gilbert. JOSEPH CONRAD: MEMOIRE.: 
 "Revue de Paris," pt. 2:5-16, March 1, 1918. 
 
 This critic insists that Conrad is a romancer, not a 
 realist, and admires him especially for his creation 
 of atmosphere. He criticises several books in detail. 
 1918. Follett, Helen Thomas and Wilson. SOME MODERN 
 NOVELISTS: APPRECIATIONS AND ESTIMATES. 
 NO. XII, JOSEPH CONRAD. 
 
 This is the article that appeared in "The Atlantic," 
 February, 1917, somewhat enlarged. 
 
 1920. Hueffer, Ford Madox. THUS TO REVISIT. "English 
 Review," 31:5. "The Dial," 69:52-60, 132- 141, 239- 
 246, July, August, September, 1920. 
 This is a reminiscence by Mr. Hueffer of his collabora- 
 tion with Conrad. It contains a revealing discussion 
 of Conrad's methods. 
 
 Second List 
 
 1912. Bjorkman, E. JOSEPH CONRAD: MASTER OF 
 LITERARY COLOR. (With portrait and bibliogra- 
 phy to 1912.) "Review of Reviews," 445: 557, May, 
 1912. Reprinted in VOICES OF TOMORROW by the 
 same author under heading "General Knights of 
 Modern Literature." M, Kennerly, pub., 1913, 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 105 
 
 This is an excellent summary of the life of Conrad, 
 and analysis of his style. Bjorkman objects to Gals- 
 worthy's statement that to Conrad "nature is first, 
 man second." 
 
 Clifford, Hugh. THE ART OF MR. JOSEPH CONRAD. 
 
 "Spectator," 89:827, November 29, 1902. "Living 
 
 Age," 236:120, January 10, 1903. 
 This is really a book review of YOUTH. It is devoted 
 
 primarily to a discussion of Conrad's power of 
 
 description. 
 
 Colbron, Grace Isabel. JOSEPH CONRAD'S WOMEN. 
 
 "Bookman," 38:476, January, 1914. 
 This is a discussion of the psychology of Conrad's 
 
 women, and of the subordinate place they take in 
 
 his stories. 
 
 Donlin. George Barnard. THE ART OF JOSEPH 
 CONRAD. "Dial," 61:172, September 21, 1916. 
 
 This is really an explanation of the limited circle of 
 Conrad's readers through a discussion of his method, 
 his irony, his philosophy, his style. 
 
 Huneker, James. THE GENIUS OF JOSEPH CON- 
 RAD. "North American," 200:270-179, August, 1914. 
 Reprinted in IVORY APES AND PEACOCKS, Scrib- 
 ner's, 1915. 
 
 This is an appreciation of Conrad as an artist. In 
 these days "Joseph Conrad stands solitary among 
 English novelists as the ideal of a pure and disin- 
 terested artist." 
 
 James, Henry. THE NEW NOVEL, 1914. NOTES ON 
 NOVELISTS, p. 345-353. C. Scribner's Sons. 
 
 This is essentially a discussion of Conrad's method as 
 revealed in CHANCE. It is unfortunately written 
 in Mr. James's most tortuous style. 
 
 Mencken, H. L. JOSEPH CONRAD. In A BOOK OF 
 PREFACES. A. A. Knopf, 1917. 
 
 This is a continuous spluttering of an apparent 
 misogynist. Mr. Mencken likes Conrad because he 
 makes him out to be the same kind of cynic as him- 
 self. There is some wheat in much chaff. The 
 article contains an entertaining criticism of the 
 criticisms of Conrad- 
 
io6 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 1918. Pease, Frank. JOSEPH CONRAD. "Nation," 107:510- 
 13, November 2, 1918. 
 This is a short but well-written and individual dis- 
 cussion of the new type of adventure found in Con- 
 rad's novels and tales. Conrad, Mr. Pease thinks, 
 has "remade adventure." 
 
 1916. Phelps, William Lyon. THE ADVANCE OF THE 
 ENGLISH NOVEL. Published N. Y., Dodd, Mead & 
 Co., 1916. On Conrad, Chapter VIII, pp. 192-209. 
 (Originally appeared as a series of articles in "Book- 
 man," 42:297, May 1916.) 
 This is a criticism in Mr. Phelps' usual entertaining 
 style of the work of Conrad as an artist. After a 
 brief resume of the life of Conrad, Mr. Phelps dis- 
 cusses his style, his method, and his individual 
 books, and incidentally compares Conrad with other 
 writers, notably Stevenson. 
 
 1912. Reynolds, Stephen. JOSEPH CONRAD AND SEA 
 FICTION. "Quarterly Review," 217: 159-180, July, 
 1912. "Living Age," 276:264, February, 1913. 
 This is primarily an appreciation of Conrad's criticism 
 of life and character as revealed in his novels of the 
 sea. Other books, however, are also included in the 
 discussion. 
 
 1916 Freeman, John. THE MODERNS, pp. 243-264. Lon- 
 don, R. Scott, 1916. 
 
 1919 Hall, Leland. JOSEPH CONRAD. Chapter IX, pp. 
 161-179 in ENGLISH LITERATURE DURING THE 
 LAST HALF CENTURY, by J. W. Cuniffe, N. Y. 
 Macmillan Co., 1919. 
 
 1919 Moore, Edward. A NOTE ON MR. CONRAD. "New 
 
 Statesman," 13: 590-2, September 13, 1919. "Living 
 Age," 304:101-4, January 10, 1920. "Current Opinion," 
 67:320-1, December, 1919. (Condensed, with an ex- 
 cellent photograph of Conrad.) 
 This is an interesting discussion of Conrad as a skeptic, 
 and as a psychologist who sees the men and women 
 he has created not as living souls, but as mere 
 laboratory specimens of humanity. 
 
 1920 Gwynn, Stephen. NOVELS OF JOSEPH CONRAD. 
 
 "Edinburgh Review," 231:318-19, April, 1920. 
 This is an analysis of fifteen of Conrad's books, includ- 
 ing a brief discussion of his method and philosophy. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 107 
 
 1921. Jean, Aubry, G. JOSEPH CONRAD'S CONFESSIONS. 
 "Fortnightly Review," 115:782-90, May, 1921. 
 This is a discussion of Conrad's attitude toward his 
 own creative writing and toward life, under phase of 
 a review of the "Author's Notes" printed as prefaces 
 to the collected edition. 
 
 Third List 
 
 1914. Boynton, H. W. JOSEPH CONRAD. "The Nation," 
 
 98:395-7, April 9, 1914. 
 This is the usual type of article, summarizing briefly 
 Conrad's life, and then proceeding to analyze the 
 "esteem" in which he is coming to oe held, through 
 a discussion of his subjects, his method, his style, 
 ^ and his philosophy. 
 
 1912. Cooper, Frederick Tabor. REPRESENTATIVE ENG- 
 LISH STORY TELLERS: JOSEPH CONRAD. "The 
 Bookman," 35:61-70, March, 1912. 
 This is a discussion of (1) the methods of Conrad, and 
 (2) of his works. It begins as an answer to Gals- 
 worthy's statement in his article that Conrad has 
 the "cosmic spirit," that is, that the Universe is 
 always saying, "The little part called man is always 
 smaller than the whole." Mr. Cooper insists that 
 the "vital and tremendous human interest" in Con- 
 rad's books is their most essential spirit. 
 
 1915. Curie, Richard. JOSEPH CONRAD AND VICTORY. 
 
 "Fortnightly Review," 104:670 October, 1915. 
 This is a book review of "Victory," contrasting it pri- 
 marily in regard to method, with "Chance," and pro- 
 ceeding to a discussion of the stages in the evolution 
 of Conrad's method as seen in his other works. 
 
 1911. Curran, E. F. A MASTER OF LANGUAGE. "The 
 Catholic World, 92:769-805, March, 1911. 
 This long appreciation of Conrad is full of enthusiastic 
 but uncritical estimates of characters and books. 
 The author's orthodox Roman Catholicism unexpect- 
 edly and naively colors his remarks. 
 
 1918. Cutler, Frances Wentworth. WHY MARLOW? "Se- 
 wanee Review," 26: 28, January, 1918. 
 This is an analysis of the purpose of Marlow in Con- 
 rad's method of presenting his stories. 
 
io8 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 1919. Gerould, Katherine Fullerton. EIDOLONS OF I 
 ULYSSES. "The Bookman," 49:368, May, 1919. 
 This is an enthusiastic review of "The Arrow of Gold." 
 Mrs. Gerould ranks Conrad with the greatest creative 
 writers of the world. 
 
 1906. Macy, John Albert. JOSEPH CONRAD. "The Atlantic 
 Monthly," 98:697-702, November, 1906. 
 This is the earliest "Atlantic" recognition of Conrad. 
 The author is evidently puzzled by Conrad's origin- 
 ality, which he recognizes, but which he cannot re- 
 frain from disparaging. However, he grants that 
 Conrad is "really important," especially as a "fine 
 writer of sentences." 
 
 1917. Macy, John. KIPLING AND CONRAD. "The Dial," 
 62:441, May 17, 1917. 
 This is a review of THE SHADOW LINE with empha- 
 sis on Conrad's descriptive power. 
 
 1919. Dargan, E. Preston. THE VOYAGES OF CONRAD. 
 "The Dial," 66:638-41, June 28, 1919. 
 This is a somewhat superficial review of Conrad's 
 work to 1919. 
 
 1919. Reilly, Joseph. THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH 
 
 CONRAD. "Catholic World," 109:163-75, May, 1919. 
 Mr. Reilly discusses Conrad's use of setting, and the 
 reality of his characters; also his philosophy of life 
 as revealing his Slavic temperament. 
 
 1920. Seldes, Gilbert. A NOVELIST OF COURAGE. "The 
 
 Dial," 69:52, 132, August, 1920. 
 This is a review of THE RESCUE with a brief dis- 
 cussion of Conrad's style. 
 
 1920. Bellesor, A. LE PREMIER ROMAN DE CONRAD: 
 LA FOLIE ALMAYER. "Revue Politique et Litter- 
 aire" (Revue Bleue), 58:599-603, October, 1920. 
 
 1921 McFee, William. THE SEA— AND CONRAD. "Book- 
 man," 53:102-8, April, 1921. 
 This is a reminiscent commentary of the effect of read- 
 ing Conrad on different types of people, especially 
 on seamen. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 109 
 
 IV. BOOK REVIEWS 
 
 (Partial List Only) 
 
 ALMAYER'S FOLLY 
 
 Academy, 47:502, 1895. 
 Athenaeum, 1895, pt. 1, 671. 
 Bookman, 2:39, August, 1895. 
 
 AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS 
 Academy, 49:525, June 27, 1896. 
 .Athenaeum, 1896, pt. 2:91, July 18, 1896. 
 Bookman, 4:166, October, 1896. 
 N. Y. Times, 1896, September 23, p. 10. 
 Saturday Review, 81:509, May 1916. 
 
 THE ARROW OF GOLD 
 
 Athenaeum, p. 720, August 8, 1919. 
 Bookman, 49:368, May, 1919. (K. F. Gerould) 
 Boston Transcript, p. 8, April 20, 1919. 
 Boston Transcript, p. 11, May 24, 1919. 
 Nation, 108:951, June 14, 1919. 
 New Republic, 19:56, May 10, 1919. 
 N. Y. Times, 24:189, April 13, 1919. 
 Outlook, 122:122, May 21, 1919. 
 
 Publishers' Weekly, 95:1129, April 19, 1919. (F. T. Cooper) 
 Living Age, 302:792-5, September 27, 1919. (S. Colvin) 
 Deux Mondes, 6 per 53:676-85, Octobre 1, 1919. (L. Gillet) 
 Saturday Review, 128:179, August 23, 1919. 
 Spectator, 122:410, September 27, 1919. 
 The Times, London, Literary Supplement, p. 422, August 
 7, 1919. 
 
 CHANCE 
 
 Academy, 86:145, January 31, 1914. (F. T. Cooper) 
 
 Atlantic, 114:530, October, 1914. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1914, 1:88, January 17, 1914. 
 
 Bookman, 39:323, May, 1914. 
 
 Boston Transcript, p. 9, January 31, 1914. 
 
 Boston Transcript, p. 8, March 21, 1914. 
 
 Independent, 78:173, April 27, 1914. 
 
 Literary Digest, 48:1119, May 9, 1914. 
 
 Nation, 98:396, April 9. 1914. 
 
 N. Y. Times, 19:396, April 9, 1914. 
 
no JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 Outlook, 107:45, May 2, 1914. 
 Publishers' Weekly, 85: 1335, April 18, 1914. 
 Review of Reviews, 49: 373, March 1914. 
 Saturday Review, 117:117, January 24, 1914. 
 Spectator, 112:101, January 17, 1914. 
 Springfield Republican, p. 5, April 16, 1914. 
 
 FALK 
 
 Bookman, 18:311, November 1, 1903. (F. T. Cooper) 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1903, October 24, p. 756. 
 N. Y. Tribune Supplement, 1903, September 27, p. 11. 
 Academy, 64:463, May 9, 1903. 
 
 THE INHERITORS 
 
 Academy, 61:93, August 3, 1901. 
 Athenaeum, 1901, pt. 2, p. 151, August 3, 1901. 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1901, July 13, p. 499. 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1901, August 24. (By Conrad 
 himself) 
 
 LORD JIM 
 
 Academy, 59:443, November 10, 1900. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1900 pt. 2:576, November 3, 1900. 
 
 Bookman, 13:187, April, 1901. 
 
 Current Literature, 30:222, February, 1901. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1900, November 10, p. 770. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1900, December 1, pp. 836, 839. 
 
 N. Y. Tribune Supplement, 1900, November 3, p. 10. 
 
 Speaker, n. s., 3, 215. 
 
 THE MIRROR OF THE SEA 
 
 Literary Digest, 33:685, November 10, 1906. 
 
 The Times, London, 5:344, October 12, 1906. 
 
 Nation, 83:374, November 1, 1906. 
 
 Outlook, 84:678, November 17, 1906. 
 
 Academy, 71:393, October 20, 1906. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1906, pt. 2:513, October 27, 1906. 
 
 Spectator, 97:889, December 1, 1906. 
 
 N. Y. Times, Supplement, 1906, November 10, p. 734. 
 
 Outlook (London), 18:480. 
 
 THE NIGGER OF THE NARCISSUS 
 Academy, 53:163, February 5, 1898. 
 Bookman, 8:91, October, 1898. 
 Bookman, 39:563, July, 1914. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM iii 
 
 Book Buyer, 16:350, May, 1898. 
 
 Illustrated London News, 112:50 & 172. 
 
 Nation, 67:53. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1898, May 21, p. 344. 
 
 N. Y. Tribune Supplement, 1898, April 3, p. 17. 
 
 Pall Mall Magazine, 14:428. 
 
 Speaker, 17:83. 
 
 NOSTROMO 
 
 Atlantic, 97:45, January, 1906. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1904, p. 2; 619, November 5, 1904. 
 
 Bookman, 20:217, November, 1904. (F. T. Cooper) 
 
 Dial, 38:126, February 16, 1905. 
 
 Critic, 46:377. 
 
 Independent, 58:557. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1904, October 29, p. 735 and 
 
 December 31, p. 944. 
 Spectator, 93:800. 
 Reader, 5:618, April, 1905. 
 
 NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 N. Y. Times, p. 10, May 8, 1921. 
 
 The Times, London, Literary Supplement, p. 141, March 
 
 3, 1921. 
 The New Statesman, 16:674. (Robert Lynd) 
 Living Age, 309:221-4, April 23, 1921. (Reprint of R. 
 
 Lynd's article.) 
 Current Opinion, 70:819-21, June, 1921. 
 New Republic, vol. 27:25, June 1, 1921. 
 
 NOTES ON MY BOOKS 
 
 Fortnightly Review, May, 1921, pp. 782-790. ("Joseph 
 Conrad's Confessions," by G. Jean-Aubry.) 
 
 A PERSONAL RECORD (SOME REMINISCENCES) 
 
 Athenaeum, 1912, 1:124, February 3. 
 Bookman, London, 42:26, April, 1912. 
 Catholic World, 95:254, May, 1912. 
 Dial, 52:172, March 1, 1912. 
 Independent, 72:678, March 28, 1912. 
 Nation, 94:238, March 7, 1912. 
 N. Y. Times, 17:77, February 18, 1912. 
 North American, 195: 569, April, 1912. 
 Spectator, 109:60, July 13, 1912. 
 
112 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 Athenaeum, p. 15, July 2, 1920. 
 
 Booklist, 16:346, July 1920. 
 
 Boston Transcript, p. 4, May 26, 1920 
 
 Catholic World, 112:394, December, 1920 
 
 Dial. 69:191, August, 1920. (Gilbert Seldes) 
 
 Freeman, 1:454, July, 1920. 
 
 Nation, 110:804, June 12, 1920. 
 
 N. Y. Times, 25:263, May 23, 1920 
 
 Outlook, 125:280, June 9, 1920. 
 
 Weekly Review, 2:604, June 5, 1920 
 
 Weekly Review, 2:629, June 16, 1920 
 
 Spectator, 124:52, July 10, 1920. 
 
 '^^iQoT^"^'^^' London, Literary Supplement, p. 419, July 1] 
 
 Wisconsin Library Bulletin, 16:193, November, 1920. 
 
 ROMANCE 
 
 Academy, 65:469, October 31, 1903. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1903, pt. 2:610, November 7 1903 
 
 Dial, 37:37, July 16, 1904. 
 
 Bookman, 20:544. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1904. May 14, p. 325 
 
 Outlook, N. Y., 77:424-5. 
 
 THE SECRET AGENT 
 
 Academy, 74:413, February 1, 1908. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1907, pt. 2:361, September 28, 1907. 
 
 Albany Review, London, 2:229. 
 
 Bookman, 26:531, January. 1908. (Stewart Edward White) 
 
 Bookman. 26:669. February. 1908. (F. T. Cooper) 
 
 Current Literature, 44:223, February, 1908 
 
 Dial, 43:252. October 16, 1907. 
 
 Independent, 64:105, January 9. 1908. 
 
 Nation. 85: 285, September 26, 1907. 
 
 N. Y. Times, 12:562, September 21. 1907. 
 
 N. Y. Times. 12:655, October 19, 1907. 
 
 Outlook. London. 20:652. 
 
 Outlook. N. Y.. 87:309, October 13. 1907. 
 
 Putnam's. 3:370. December, 1907. 
 
 Spectator, 99:400, September 21. 1907. 
 
 The Times, London, 6:285, September 20, 1907. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 113 
 
 A SET OF SIX 
 
 Athenaeum, 1908, pt. 2:237, August 29, 1908. 
 Boston Transcript, p. 6, January 23, 1915. 
 Catholic World, 100:825, March, 1915. 
 Nation, 100:199, February 18, 1915. 
 N. Y. Times, 20:38, January 31, 1915. 
 Outlook, London, 22:246. 
 
 Publishers' Weekly, 87:480, February, 13. 1915. 
 Spectator, 101:237, August 15. 1908. 
 Springfield Republican, p. 5, April 1, 1915. 
 
 THE SHADOW LINE 
 
 P Athenaeum, p. 253, May, 1917. 
 Bookman, 45:536, July, 1917. 
 Boston Transcript, p. 6, May 5, 1917. 
 Dial, 62:442, May, 1917. (John Macy) 
 Independent, 90:437, June 2, 1917. 
 Literary Digest, 55:36, October 27, 1917. 
 Nation, 104:760, June 28. 1917. (H. W. Boynton) 
 Nation, 105:600, November 29, 1917. 
 New Republic, 11:194, June 16, 1917. 
 N. Y. Times, 22:157, April 22, 1917. 
 North American, 205:949, June, 1917. 
 Outlook, 116:116, May 16, 1917. 
 Review of Reviews, 55:663, June. 1917. 
 Saturday Review. 123:281, March 24, 1917. 
 Spectator, 118:391, March 31, 1917. 
 Springfield Republican, p. 19. May 27. 1917. 
 The Times. London, Literary Supplement, p. 138, March 
 22, 1917. 
 
 TALES OF UNREST 
 
 Academy, 56:66, January, 1899. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1898, pt. 1:564, April 30, 1898. 
 
 Nation, 67:54, July 21, 1898. 
 
 Book Buyer, 16:350, May, 1918. 
 
 Literary World, London, 57:534. 
 
 N. Y. Tribune Supplement, 1898, April 3, p. 17. 
 
 Spectator, 109:815-6, November 16, 1912. 
 
 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 Athenaeum, 1912, 2:446, October 19. 
 
 Bookman. 37:85. March, 1913. 
 
 Boston Transcript, p. 22, January 29, 1913. 
 
114 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 Independent, 74:538, March 6, 1913. 
 Nation, 96:360, April 10, 1913. 
 N. Y. Times, 18:51, February 2, 1913. 
 Outlook, 103:596, March 16, 1913. 
 Review of Reviews, 47:762, June, 1913. 
 Saturday Review, 114:492, October 19, 1912. 
 Spectator, 109:815, November 16, 1912. 
 Springfield Republican, p. 5, February 20, 1913. 
 
 TYPHOON 
 
 Academy, 64:463, May 9, 1903. 
 
 Athenaeum, 1903, pt. 1:558, May 2, 1903. 
 
 Forum, 34:400, January, 1903. 
 
 Harper's Weekly, 46:412, October 4, 1902. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1902, September 20, p. 626. 
 
 N. Y. Tribune Supplement, 1902, September 14, p. 12. 
 
 UNDER WESTERN EYES 
 
 Athenaeum, 1911, 2:183, October 21. 
 
 Bookman, 34:411, December, 1911. 
 
 Current Literature, 52:236, February, 1912. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 16:818, December 10, 1911. 
 
 North American, 194:935, December, 1911. 
 
 Saturday Review, 112:495, October 14, 1911. 
 
 VICTORY 
 
 Athenaeum, 1915, 2:208, September 25. 
 
 Atlantic, 116:511, October, 1915. 
 
 Bookman, 41:322, May, 1915. (Grace I. Colborn.) 
 
 Boston Transcript, p. 24, March 24, 1915. 
 
 Current Opinion, 58:351, May, 1915. 
 
 Dial, 58:383, May 13, 1915. 
 
 Fortnightly, o. s. 104:670, October, 1915 (n. s. 98:670 
 
 (Richard Curie) 
 Literary Digest, 50:885, April 17, 1915. 
 Nation, 100:416, April 15, 1915. 
 New Republic, 2: sup. 6, April 17, 1915. 
 N. Y. Times, 20:109, March 28, 1915. 
 Outlook, 110:44, May 5, 1915. 
 Publishers' Weekly, 87:924, March 20, 1915. 
 Review of Reviews, 51:761, June, 1915. 
 Saturday Review, 120:298, September 25, 1915. 
 Springfield Republican, p. 5. May 13, 1915. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 
 
 WITHIN THE TIDES 
 
 Athenaeum, 1915, 1:211, March 6. 
 
 Boston Transcript, p. 6, January 22 1916 
 
 Dial, 60:216, March 2, 1916. 
 
 Independent, 86:73, April 10, 1916 
 
 Nation, 102:164, February 10, 1916. 
 
 N. Y. Times, 21:17, January 16, 1916 
 
 Publishers' Weekly, 89:642, February 19 1916 
 
 Review of Reviews, 53:377, March 1916 
 
 Saturday Review, 119:311, March 20 1915 
 
 Spectator, 114:338, March 6, 1915. 
 
 Springfield Republican, p. 15, February 20, 1916. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 Academy, 63:606, December 6, 1902. 
 Athenaeum, 1902, pt. 2:824, December 20 1902 
 Nation, N. Y., 76:478, June 11, 1903. 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1902, December 13, p 898 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1903, April 4, p 224 
 Speaker, n. s., 7:442. (John Masefield) 
 Spectator, 89:827, 1902. (H. Clifford) 
 Critic, September, 1903. 
 
 As individual stories: 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1899, June 17, p. 385. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1900, March 3, p. 138. 
 
 N. Y. Times Supplement, 1898, September 18, p. 12. 
 
 115 
 
 [ 
 
ii6 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 V. MISCELLANEOUS 
 A. Brief Articles on the Personality of Conrad 
 
 1904. "The Personality of Conrad." 
 
 Academy, 66:198, February 20, 1904. 
 
 1904. Photograph of Conrad's home "Pent Farm," and bri( 
 comment. Bookman, 19:449, July, 1904. 
 
 1904, Comment on his collaboration with Ford Made 
 Hueffer. Bookman, 19:544, August, 1904. 
 
 1913. How "Almayer's Folly" was written (With small pk 
 
 tographs of his wife and son, and of his home.) 
 Bookman, 38:352, December, 1913. 
 
 1914. "A Sermon in One Man" by Mary Austin. 
 
 Harper's Weekly, 58, pt. 2:20, May 16, 1914. 
 
 1915. Picture of the "Otago," Conrad's first ship, and also 
 
 map illustrating the world of his novels and tale 
 Bookman, 41:129, April, 1915. 
 
 1918. An Account of how Conrad was isolated in Poland 
 the outbreak of the war. Bookman, 46:659, Febr 
 ary, 1918. 
 
 1920. "Conrad in Cracow" (Illustrated) 
 
 Outlook, 124: 382-3, March 3, 1920. 
 
 1920. "Joseph Conrad, Sexagenarian," by E. P. Bendz. 
 English Studies, 51:391-406. 
 
 B. Poems to Conrad 
 
 1908. "Old Ships" by F. Maurice. 
 
 Spectator, 101:734, November 7, 1908. 
 
 1917. "Conrad in Snap-Shots of English Authors" by Richa 
 Butler Glaezner. Bookman, 45:346, June, 1917. 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 117 
 
 C. Portraits of Conrad 
 
 898. Book Buyer, 16:389, June, 1898. 
 
 898. Academy, 55:82, October 15, 1898. 
 
 903. Review of Reviews, 27:630, May, 1903. 
 
 908. Independent, 65:1066, November 5, 1908. 
 
 911. English Review, 9:476, October, 1911. 
 Pencil drawing by Will Rotlienstein. 
 
 912. Current Literature, 52:470, April, 1912. 
 
 913. Bookman, 37:557, May, 1912. 
 
 914. Review of Reviews, 49:373, March 1914. 
 
 914. Current Opinion, 56:374, May, 1914. 
 
 915. Current Opinion, 58:351, May, 1915. 
 
 915. Review of Reviews, 51:761, June, 1915. 
 
 1917. Bookman, 45:637, August, 1917. 
 
 (Photograph of the bust of Conrad by Jo Davidson.) 
 
 L918. Bookman, 46:658, February, 1918. 
 
 (Photograph taken in Poland, October, 1914.) 
 
 1919. Current Opinion, 67:320-1, December, 1919. 
 
 1920. Outlook, 124:382-3, March 3, 1920. 
 
 1920. World's Work, 39:495, March, 1920. 
 
 1921. Current Opinion, 70:819-21, June, 1921. 
 1921. World's Work, 42:189, June, 1921. 
 
ii8 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 VI. ROMANTICISM AND REALISM 
 
 A. A Brief Summary of the Critical Definitions of 
 Romanticism and Realism. 
 
 A resume of the best known critical definitions of 
 Romanticism and Realism will establish the fact that the 
 distinctions between the two have been variously empha- 
 sized as differences in subject matter, in method, in spirit 
 and purpose of the author; but no one literary definition 
 has yet been formulated to comprehend all three phases 
 (See supra, page 5, ff.) 
 
 In his History of English Romanticism in the Eigh- 
 teenth Century, Henry Beers devotes the whole of the' 
 long first chapter to a summary of all preceding defini- 
 tions of Romanticism. He strikes off as his own roughi 
 working definition : "Romanticism, then, means the repro- 
 ^T-'^ii?'' i" "'^^^^^ art of the life and thought of the 
 Middle Ages." Georg Brandes says, "At first Romanti- 
 cism was, in Its essence, merely a spirited defence of 
 localization in literature," and Walter Raleigh draws the 
 same general conclusion: "Romance, in its modern de- 
 velopment, IS largely a question of background. A 
 romantic love-affair might be defined as a love-affair in 
 other than domestic surroundings." The briefest sum- 
 mary of all historical definflitions of this term is mven 
 by Neilsen in Essentials of Poetry: 
 
 "Among the host of definitions that have been 
 Ottered there are three that have been especially per- 
 sistent. Heme, speaking of the Romantic school in 
 Germany, finds the heart of the movement in the 
 return to the Middle Ages. French critics have laid 
 especial stress on the growth of the subjective ele- 
 ment, and speak of the 'rediscovery of the soul' and 
 the 'rebirth of the spiritual.' In England the favorite 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 119 
 
 phrase has been 'the return to Nature,' with a special 
 reference to the increased prominence m the poetry 
 of the time, of direct description of external beauty. 
 
 Mr. Neilsen's own definition he states in the following 
 words : 
 
 "There are three fundamental elements in poetry: 
 imaeination, reason, and the sense of fact . . . Roman- 
 Sm ts the tendency characterized by the Predomm- 
 ance of reason over imagination and the sense of fact. 
 Realism is the tendency characterized by the predom- 
 inance of the sense of fact over imagmation and 
 
 ""^"Emotion, or intensity, does not belong, as a special 
 possession, to one class or school, but is a general 
 source of poetic reality in all.' 
 
 "No single formula can hope to describe arid dis- 
 tinguish two eras or define two tempers of mind, says 
 Raleigh "If I had to choose a single characteristic ot 
 Romance as the most noteworthy, I think I should choose 
 Distance, and should call Romance the Magic of 
 
 Distance." , ^ , ,, , 
 
 We are all familiar with Pater's famous phrase that 
 Romance implies ''the addition of strangeness to beauty, 
 of curiosity to desire." 
 
 It is Mr Woodberry who gives the essence ot this 
 Romantic spirit when he says, ''Romantic art is touched 
 with mystery, it has richness and intricacy of form not 
 fully comprehended, it suggests more than it satisfies, it 
 stirs an unconfined and wandering emotion, it invigorates 
 an adventurous will." . . 
 
 The most famous definition of Realism is given by 
 Emile Zola, the greatest of the Naturalists, in his essays 
 on The Experimental Novel. Zola uses the terms Real- 
 ism and Naturalism as synonyms. He says: "To give 
 your reader a scrap of human life, that is the whole 
 purpose of the naturahstic novel." And again : 
 
120 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 "And this is what constitutes the experimental 
 novel: to possess a knowledge of the mechanism of 
 the phenomena inherent in man, to show the machin- 
 ery of his intellectual and sensory ftianifestations 
 under the influence of heredity and environment, 
 such as physiology shall give them to us, and then 
 finally to exhibit man living in social conditions pro- 
 duced by himself, which he modifies daily, and in the 
 heart of which he himself experiences a continual 
 manifestation." 
 
 ''Experimental science," Zola says in discussing the ex 
 perimental novelist, "has no necessity to worry about the; 
 'why' of things ; it simply explains the 'how'." 
 
 William Dean Howells has put it in its simplest form : 
 "ReaHsm is nothing more and nothing less than the truth- 
 ful treatment of material." The qualifications and aims 
 of the writer of the realistic novel M. Reynier gives as 
 follows : 
 
 "Ce que Ton croit pouvoir exiger d'un romancier 
 realiste: le don de decouvrir dans la masse des de- 
 tails les traits distinctifs et predominants; cette 
 sincerite du veritable observateur qui se soumet abso- 
 lument a son objet; cette curiosite universelle qui se 
 porte sur la variete des hommes, cette large et lib6r- 
 ale sympathie qui les considere tous comme digne 
 d'attention et qui, si elle a des preferences, n'en a que 
 pour ceux qui sont le plus pres de la nature; I'art 
 enfin de degager un individu de la foule, en traduisant 
 en faits visibles ce qu'il y a en lui d'original et 
 d'unique, de le montrer dans son milieu normal, dans 
 son temps et de peindre en lui un peu de ce milieu 
 et de ce temps, de le faire ainsi tout a la fois tres 
 particulier et pourtant representif: de telles qualites 
 ne peuvent evidemment se trouver reunies que chez 
 un fort petit nombre d'ecrivains privil^gies, a une 
 epoque de culture deja avancee." 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson insists that the distinction 
 between Romanticism and Realism is a distinction wholly 
 
HIS ROMANTIC-REALISM 121 
 
 of method. "All representative art, which can be said 
 to live," he says in A Note on Realism, 
 
 "is both realistic and ideal; and the realism about 
 which we quarrel is a matter purely of externals . . . 
 This question of realism, let it be then clearly under- 
 stood, regards not in the least the fundamental truth, 
 but only the technical method, of a work of art." 
 
 And again in a letter discussing this same essay he be- 
 comes even more emphatic: 
 
 "Realism I regard as a mere question of method. 
 . . . Real art, whether ideal or realistic, addresses 
 precisely the same feeling, and seeks the same 
 qualities — significance or charm. And the same — the 
 very same — inspiration is only methodically differen- 
 tiated according as the artist is an arrant realist or 
 an arrant idealist. Each, by his own method, seeks 
 to save and perpetuate the same significance or 
 charm;, the one by suppressing, the other by forcing 
 detail ... I want you to help me to get people to 
 understand that realism is a method, and only 
 methodic in its consequences; when the realist is an 
 artist, that is, and supposing the idealist with whom 
 you compare him to be anything but a "farceur" and 
 a dilettante. The two schools of working do, and 
 should, lead to the choice of different subjects. But 
 that is a consequence, not a cause." 
 
 For other definitions and discussions of Romanticism 
 and Realism consult the works listed in the bibliography 
 in Appendix VI, B. 
 
 B. On Romanticism and Realism 
 
 Henry A. Beers: A History of English Romanticism in the 
 Eighteenth Century (1899). 
 
 Georg Brandes: Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Lit- 
 erature, Vols. IV and V. (1906). 
 
 Ferdinand Brunetiere: Le Roman Naturaliste (1893). 
 
 E. Preston Durban: Stiulies in Balzac, IT. Critical Analysis 
 of Realism, in "Modern Philology," November, 1918. 
 
122 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 Guy de Maupassant: Preface to "Pierre et Jean" (1894) 
 
 Clayton Hamilton: The Art of Fiction, Chapter II. (1918) 
 
 William Dean Howells: Criticism and Fiction (1891). 
 
 Henry James: The Art of Fiction (1888). 
 
 Paul Lenoir: Histoire du Realisme et du Naturalisms (1889). 
 
 Brander Matthews: The Historical Novel: Romance against 
 Romanticism (1901). 
 
 William A. Neilsen: Essentials of Poetry (1912). 
 
 Bliss Perry: A Study of Prose Fiction, Chapters IX, and X. 
 (1902) 
 
 Walter Raleigh: Romance (1915). 
 
 Gustave Reynier: Les Origines du Roman Realfste: Intro- 
 duction (1912). 
 
 Ernest Rhys: Romance (1913). 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson: A Gossip on Romance (1895). 
 A Note on Realism (1883). 
 Victor Hugo's Romances (1895). 
 Letters, Vol. I. 
 
 Daniel Greenleaf Thompson: The Philosophy of Fiction in 
 Literature, Chapter VI. (1890). 
 
 Arthur Waugh: The New Realism, "Fortnightly Review,' 
 105:849, (May, 1916). 
 
 George Woodberry: Heart of Man: A New Defense of Poetry 
 (1899). 
 
 C. H. Conrad Wright: A History of French Literature, Chap- 
 
 te.-x,„. ,m=, 6 15 -»l« 
 
 Emile Zola: Le Roman Experimental (1^893). 
 

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