PURNELL
STATIOHERY COifAJIY
SACRAMENTO
m^m
LORD JIM
LORD JIM
A ROMANCE
BY
JOSEPH CONRAD
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
19^3
J
COPYRIGHT, 1899 AND I9OO, B'/
JOSEPH CONRAD
PRINTED IX THE UNITED STATES
AT
:he country life press, garden city, n. t
MR. AND MRS. G. F. W. HOPE
WITH GRATEFUL AFFFXTION
AFTER MANY YEARS
OF
FRIENDSHIP
JOSEPH CONRAD
THE ARTIST PHILOSOPHER
By WILLIAM McFEE
It was Francis Grierson, some years ago, in a brief ar-
ticle in the New Age, who first called attention to the
very remarkable qualities of a book called "The Nigger of
the I^arcissus/^ just then published by Heinemann at a
shilling. It was a slim, scarlet, easily held book, de-
signed to read in bed, pack in a grip, lend to a friend,
or slip in the pocket against a rail journey in the middle
of the day, when the morning paper had been read and
the evening journals were not yet on the stands. It may
have been by design that this article came out just at
that moment, for Heinemann was an admirable tactician.
Bad literature was abhorrent to him, as may be seen by
the books bearing his imprimatur; but he doubtless saw
no reason why a man who published fine books should not
let it get about, or should refrain from mentioning it in
a friendly way. It may be remarked that a number of
English publishers at that time were in the habit of is-
suing books in a manner that can only be described as
virtuously surreptitious. They did good by stealth. It
would not do to say that any house ever published a book
without informing its shipping department, but it
amounted to that in the long run. Mr. Heinemann was
not that sort of publisher. Francis G-rierson's article
appeared in the Neiv Age; the slim red book appeared in
the bookstores; and a new light shone before the present
vii
viii JOSEPH COXEAD
writer. For the first time in his life he became aware
of the existence of a writer named Conrad.
It was an extraordinary experience. It was also a very
chastening one. For the present writer had not only
written but published a book of his own^ dealing with the
sea and with seamen. He had grown up in a genuine tra-
dition of the mercantile marine. Sea captains had been
so close to him all his life that he accepted them as part
of the surrounding landscape. A long period of literary
and artistic gestation in Chelsea had somewhat alienated
him from the rich humanity of his seafaring relatives.
And here in ^'The Xigger of the Xarcissus^' he found
them again transfigured to heroic dimensions, like the
sombre and enormous shadows of grown-ups on the
nursery wall.
It was in Glasgow on an evening in late summer that
the present writer walked along Sauchiehall Street and,
turning down Eadnor and Finniestonn streets, entered
the Queen^s Dock, where his ship lay. "The Xigger of
ihe Xarcissus'' was under his arm. The rays of the set-
ting sun still threw a twilight and roseate glamour over
the interminable ridge of the Hills of Old Kilpatrick;
and with the story of the "Xigger^^ yet vibrating in his
brain, he made his way up the gangway and descended the
short ladder to the iron deck of the elderly freighter. It
is not too much to say that he regarded her shapely old
hull and comfortable quarters with profound affection.
Built some fifteen years before for the nine-knot Austra-
lian trade, she was now relegated to the shorter voyages
to the Mediterranean. We had been a long time to-
gether, commander, mates, engineers, including the don-
key man, the carpenter, and the engine-storekeeper. The
last three were much more like the characters in a dream
play than quick active seamen. The donkeyman was a
Turk and lived in a sort of solitarv and immaculate re-
THE AETIST PHILOSOPHER ix
tirement in a three-cornered cabin in the forecastle. The
carpenter was a ]N'orwegian^ and haunted the steering-
house aft^ where he shut himself up and fashioned models
of fabulous sailing ships. The storekeeper, who owned
to the entirely inadequate name of Frank Freshwater,
was a willing and diminutive Englishman with a large
nose and an immense militar}^ moustache. He was known
to speak to both donkeyman and Chips, and in fact may
h aye been created for the sole purpose of communicating
between them ; but even that degree of loquacity dried
up on nearing Glasgow. He was the sad proprietor of
a ferocious virago who would appear on the quay with
miraculous promptitude the moment the gangway slid
over, and wait relentlessly for him to appear. He never
did appear, it is necessary to add. The whole ship^s
company became enthusiastic sporting accessories to the
fact of poor old Freshwater's unobtrusive escape, while
some hardened married man goaded the virago to par-
oxysms of absurd rage, until the dock policeman walked
stolidly in our direction, preening his moustache.
And the principal bond between all of us there on that
ship was a very honest liking for the Chief. The Turk
once said to the present ^yriter who was second engineer
at the time, ''Ze cheef, ee iz my fazzer' — and was so
prostrated with that display of dramatic and emotional
volubility that he did not speak again for a fortnight —
anless he talked to himself. To Frank Freshwater the
Chief presented another and equally admirable facet :
^*^One of the truest men who ever stood in shoe-leather."
Frank^s estimate is quoted because it was a very accurate
description. The Chief was just that. And as the
present writer came aboard with ^"^The Nigger of the
Narcissus" under his arm, he beheld the burly form of
the Chief, standing by the door of the port alleyway,
stripped to the waist, his large, pale, hairy arms folded,
X JOSEPH COXBAD
his bosom screened from view by his patriarchal beard,
smoking a cigarette in the end of a long black holder.
"Well/' said he, taking the holder from his lips and
looking down at the great curve of his abdomen, "did
you have a good time ?"
Simple words, expressing* a simple kindly considera-
tion; yet by virtue of the magical tale just read, the
present writer saw those words in a new and enchanting
light. He saw perhaps for the first time in his literary
life the true function of dialogue as a resonant and
plangent element through which the forms and charac-
ters of men can be projected upon the retina of the reader.
He became aware of a more subtle music in the very shape
and timbre of the long-familiar phrases. And behind the
amiable superior and valuable shipmate he suddenly saw
that quiet, attentive, bearded man as a character in a book,
the unconscious victim of a future work of art.
This is a great stride in life — to get behind the switch-
board, as one may say, and see even for a brief illuminat-
ing moment the various resistances and insulations, the
connection to earth, without which one's impact upon
humanity is a floating foolish pose. The author who
does this for you is for ever memorable, quite apart from
his intrinsic value to the public.
I said, "Yes, I had a good time.'' And I added with
a curious feeling of diffident exultation, "I have a book
here I would like you to read. It seems to me rather
good."
He took it and at once made that faint and somewhat
vague gesture which invariably accompanied a gentle
murmur of apology about his glasses. Turning to the
low door leading to his room, we passed in. There was
no dynamo on that ship, and a study-lamp with a brown
shade stood on a little desk by the settee. Adjusting a
pair of spectacles on his nose^ the Chief opened the book
THE AETIST PHILOSOPHER xi
and began to read the title-page. He stood there — a re-
markable nude figure with his shining bald head and
venerable beard — holding the volume at arm^s length
and looking down through his glasses with severe atten-
tion. The first page and the second were read and
turned, and he never moved.
So I left him and went round to my cabin on the star-
board side. The ship was moving under the coal-tips
early next morning, and it was due to this that some time
after midnight I was still about, and noticed the light
still burning in his room. I went in. He was standing
there turning the last immortal pages. He had put on
an old patrol coat and had buttoned it absently over his
beard. I have often thought that Conrad must have met
him somewhere: he is so exactly presented in "Heart of
Darkness^^ as the amiable engineer of the river boat who
put his beard in a bag to keep it clean. The discerning
will recall that person's bald head, whose hair — Conrad
whimsically observes — had fallen to his chin, where it
had prospered. He lowered his head and looked at me
over his glasses as I made some professional remark,
and laid the book down.
"A funny thing,^^ he observed in his quiet precise
voice. "This nigger says a girl chucked the third en-
gineer of a Rennie boat for him.^^ He stroked his beard
with a broad powerful palm. "You know, / was third of
a Rennie boat in my young days.'^ He meditated for a
moment and added, "That book makes you feel, some-
how.''
A notable reflection.
And as time went on it became a habit of the present
writer to experiment on his shipmates by noting their
reactions to the works of Conrad. The point to remem-
ber is that, neglecting certain easily explained failures,
men reacted in direct ratio to their integrity of charac-
xii JOSEPH CONRAD
ter. The cunning, the avaricious, and the ignoble are
not admirers of Conrad. There is something in the
-tyle and the spirit which reaches surely and inexorably
down into a man^s moral resources and sounds them for
him. To those who in the jargon of the red-blooded
fraternity want a story, it is to be feared our author does
not appeal. This was exemplified by "Typhoon'^ which
was tried upon a naval reserve officer, a brisk efficient
resourceful young man with an acute "examination brain. ^^
His criticism was brief and emphatic. "You could write
the whole story on a couple of sheets of foolscap,^^ he
grumbled. "There's nothing to it; too far-fetched as
well.^^ He shut the book with a sudden snap of lingers
and thumb, and passed it back, promptly forgetting the
whole affair. He is neither cunning, avaricious, nor ig-
noble, but he is afflicted with the modern conception of
efficiency. For him romance lies in the past of high-
waymen, knights in shining armour, and Machiavellian
cardinals of inconceivable obliquity.
To a writer who has indulged his humour by watching
seafaring folk in their reactions as mentioned above, the
collected prefaces which Conrad has written for the Sun
Dial edition of his works, under the title of "Xotes of
My Books,'^ have a very special interest. They tell with
a direct and disarming candour the authentic origin of
the tales. The troublesome enthusiast who is for ever
seeking the fiction which is "founded on fact'' will get
small comfort here, for here are the facts. It is the
penalty of success in the fictional art to illumine the ob-
scure experiences of worthy members of the public and
convince them that such and such an affair "actually
happened." These folk are very timid at trying their
wings. They dread leaving the solid earth behind. It
is a positive comfort to them to feel that the things which
have touched their hearts are only the bright shadows
THE AETIST PHILOSOPHEE xiii
of the hard actualities under their feet. The chief en-
gineer to whom I presented "Lord Jim^^ (not the beloved
and bearded personality described above), was an inter-
esting variant of this. A hard-]:)itten portly individual,
an excellent officer, and well read withal, he deprecated in
its entirety the Conradian philosophy and literary method.
Yes, he knew the story out East, as did everybody else
A ship called the Jeddah, it was, which ran over a sunken
derelict and broke her back. The officers left her. Who
wouldn^t? A million chances to one against her lasting
ten minutes. Conrad had idealized the mate Jim, that
was all.
. That was the word he used: "idealized.^^ He was a
blunt Englishman, with his emotions planted almost
inaccessibly deep down among his racial prejudices. He
objected really to anybody's discussing the fundamental
motives of man. It was not the thing to do. Possibly
the slight imponderable irony which almost always creeps
into Conrad's descriptions of seagoing engineers, was
responsible for my friend's irritation. Leaving out the
worthy Solomon Eout in "Typhoon/' Conrad seems to
have been something less than fortunate in his engineer
types. ...
At the other end of the scale the present writer pre-
serves a most lively memory of his introduction to
^^Youth" by the third mate of a beef ship running into
London Eiver. An alert and cheerful college boy who
had been through the hard gruelling of an apprenticeship
in sail, he was at that stage of the twenties when one is
equally interesting to the women of thirty, the men of
forty, and the mothers of fifty. And it was he who, as
we were passing the watch below in friendly comparison
of books read, suddenly lighted up all over his fresh ruddy
features and said in a glow of delicious enthusiasm, "I
say, haven't you read 'Youlh'? 2»Iy word, but you must
iiv JOSEPH CONRAD
read ^"outhM It's ripping! The finest tale I ever read
in my life I"
And he stuck to it in spite of anything the others
might say. He had heen caught by the extraordinary
glamour of the thing, the superb simplicity of the narra-
tive, the cumulative power of the finale. He would never
be the same being again after reading that tale. Here
we have an achievement for which there is no adequate
name save genius.
Other books there are of Conrad's which enshrine no
memories of a shipmate's admiration or dislike. There
is ^^Xostromo^' for instance, that little-read masterpiece
of creative literature. Ordered from London during the
war, and read while voyaging between Port Said and
Saloniki, this ''tale of a seaboard" made the monotonous
business of naval transport seem a dim and ridiculous
fragment of unreality. The huge size of the canvas,
the sweep and surge of the narrative, the sudden reveal-
ing phrases, the balanced cadence of the sentences, the
single harp notes calling to some obscure emotion of the
soul — all these made their appeal and created an im-
perishable memory.
And there is a point it is pertinent to make here, in
view of this new volume of "Xotes on Life and Letters'^ :
that it is doing Conrad a disservice to characterize him as
''a sea writer.'^ One does not call Turner a sea painter.
The highest genius does not shackle itself with such very
trivial restrictions. Some of the finest of Conrad's tales
have nothing whatever to do with the sea, notably "Heart
of Darkness," 'Xnder Western Eyes," and "An Outcast
of the Islands." If it be not misunderstood, the present
writer would like to say that going to sea will have had
very little influence upon the final verdict of posterity
upon Conrad's work. His philosophy is his own and
fundamentally antagonistic to the ideas of most sea-
THE AETIST PHILOSOPHER xv
farers. His technical method is provoking to seamen,
who have a very different fashion of telling a tale — as
different in fact as the average ship master is from Charlie
Marlow. There is^, as Conrad himself remarks, nothing
speculative in a sailor's mentality. The meaning of his
story is on the outside. Conrad is entirely speculative.
He tells the story almost in absence of mind. He will
bring you right up to a moment of almost unendurable
dramatic intensity and then devote half a dozen pages
to depicting the psychological phenomena attendant upon
it. We who are gathered here consider the labour justi-
fied by the unique results. The red-blooded folk whose
conception of drama is as rudimentary as the struggle
to enter a crowded subway train, are naively infuriated
when deprived of their precious story. There are classes
of novel readers who will not have Conrad at any price.
They lack patience and are not compensated by any per-
fection of prose diction which may inadvertently come
under their notice. For them the donkeyman, the car-
penter, and storekeeper, mentioned earlier in this essay,
were simply taciturn nonentities. For us they are a bi-
zarre trinity of lonely souls floating in mysterious prox-
imity through a universe of ironical destinies. For us
they are the indistinct shadows of men like Axel Heyst,
Captain Mac Whirr, and Falk.
The present writer feels a special debt of gratitude for
these "Notes on Life and Letters'' since they include a
number of fugitive pieces, occasional contributions to
reviews, which he missed at the time, owing to being in
some distant harbour. There is the very indignant di-
gression, for example, upon the loss of the Titanic. And
it is worthy of note that when he deigns to speak of his
contemporaries, Conrad is exasperatingly unaware of the
existence of the gods in the best-selling universe. He
has much to say, on the coi.trar}^, of Henry James, of
xvi JOSEIII COXEAD
Dostoyevsky, and of Anatole France. These articles are
exactly w'hat one would expect from the author: urbane
and dignified criticism of one artist by another. Conrad
has been honoured similarly by H. G. Wells, whose re-
view of "Almayer's Folly'^ and "An Outcast of the Is-
lands^^ was a masterpiece of critical insight..
Yet one returns again to the Prefaces. One has here
the feeling of being shown round the studio by the master.
This, he seems to say, is exactly how it was done. He
deprecates gently, and one hopes sincerely, the formidable
accretion of legendary romanticism which has collected
about his career. We are to believe that these people in
his books never actually existed — they are the magnificent
fabrications of the author's brain. A hint here, a whis-
pered conversation there, a newspaper yarn over yonder
— and lo ! fifteen years later Willems or Talk or Eazumov
or Xostromo emerges from obscurity and assumes an en-
igmatic attitude of having existed since the dawTi of time.
This will be very disappointing to those prosaic enthu-
•siasts who like to hear that all great characters in fiction
have their originals in history. And the present writer
must confess he had weakly imagined that "The Secret
Agent'' was the happy result of a long-past familiarity
with the strange folk who hang around legations and live
in disreputable lodgings off Greek Street or the Yaux-
hall Bridge Eoad.
And yet of what avail are these prying speculations?
There seems still to survive in us much of that ghoulish
predilection of the Middle Ages for relics. We will go
to a museum to look with veneration upon the authentic
trinkets of the illustrious dead. So in these "Xotes on
My Books" one must resist the temptation to linger over
the personal revelations with vulgar curiosity. They are
for our information and comfort, but they hold no ano-
dyne for j^ain or elixir of youth whereby we may regain
THE ARTIST PHILOSOPHER xvii
our lost illusions. They must in no case divert our at-
tention from one preface in particular — a preface "set
apart by virtue of its history and intention. It would
be much more just to call it the confession of faith of a
Supreme master of prose. The present writer is unable
to speak of it without emotion. It enshrines in resonant
arid perfect phrases the secret convictions of his heart.
It is the crowning gift of a great artist; and when one
pauses to condense in a few words an adequate compre-
hension of that artistes work, one turns instinctively to
this long-suppressed preface to ^^The Nigger of the Nar-
cissus.^^ As one reads, one recalls. The literary art,
he says,
. . . must strenuously aspire to the plasticity of sculpture, to
the colour of painting, and to the magic suggestiveness of music,
which is the art of arts. And it is only through complete un-
swerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and sub-
stance; it is only through an unremitting, never-discouraged
care for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can
be made to plasticity, to colour and that the light of magic
suggestiveness may be brought to play for an evanescent instant
over the commonplace surface of words : of the old, old words,
worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage.
I And again, of the writer :
He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the
sense of mystery surrounding 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 sol-
idarity 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 together all humanity — the dead to the living and the living
to the unborn.
So he sums it up. Beyond this, in placing the bounds
of the author^s art, it is impossible to go. One is per-
mitted only to add, for the purpose of supplying a fit-
ting conclusion, the final paragraph. The humble and
industrious among us may smile incredulously, yet toil
iviii JOSEPH COXRAD
on with a better heart, when they read that our aim should
be
. . . 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 colour, of sunshine and shadows ; to make them
pause for a look, for a sigh for a smile — such is the aim. dif-
ficult 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 I —
all the truth of life is there : a moment of vision, a sigh, a smik
— and the return to an eternal rest
AUTHOR'S NOTE
When this novel first appeared in book form a notion
gv)t about that I had been bolted away with. Some re-
viewers maintained that the work starting as a short story
had got beyond the writer's control. One or two discov-
ered internal evidence of the fact which seemed to amuse
them. They pointed out the limitations of the narrative
form. They argued that no man could have been ex-
pected to talk all that time, and other men to listen so long.
It was not, they said, very credible.
After thinking it over for something like sixteen years
I am not so sure about that. Men have been known, both
In the tropics and in the temperate zone, to sit up half the
right "swapping yarns." This, however, is but one yarn,
yet with interruptions affording some measure of relief;
and in regard to the listener's endurance, the postulate
must be accepted that the story was interesting. It is
the necessary preliminary assumption. If I hadn't be-
lieved that it was interesting I could never have begun to
write it. As to the mere physical possibility we all know
that some speeches in Parliament have taken nearer six
than three hours in delivery; whereas r.Il that part of the
book which is Marlow's narrative can be read through
aloud, I should say, in less than three hours. Besides —
though I have kept strictly all such insignificant details
out of the tale — ^we may presume that there must have been
refreshments on that night, a glass of mineral water of
some sort to help the narrator on.
But, seriously, the truth of the matter is, that my first
xix
XX AUTHOR'S NOTE
thought was of a short story, concerned only with the pil-
grim ship episode; nothing more. And that was a legiti-
mate conception. After writing a few pages, however, I
became for some reason discontented and I laid them aside
for a time. I didn't take them out of the drawer till the
late Mr. William Blackwood suggested I should give
something again to his magazine.
It was only then that I perceived that the pilgrim ship
episode w^as a good starting-point for a free and wandering
tale; that it was an event, too, which could conceivably
colour the whole "sentiment of existence" in a simple and
sensitive character. But all these preliminary moods
and stirrings of spirit were rather obscure at the time, and
they do not appear clearer to me now after the lapse of so
many years.
The few pages I had laid aside were not without their
weight in the choice of subject. But the whole was re-
WTitten deliberately. TMien I sat down to it I knew it
would be a long book, though I didn't foresee that it would
spread itself over thirteen numbers of "Maga."
I have been asked at times whether this was not the
book of mine I liked best. I am a great foe to favouritism