Notes on My Books

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But the tale remained. It was first fixed in print in the _Cornhill
Magazine_, being my first appearance in a serial of any kind; and I have
lived long enough to see it most agreeably guyed by Mr. Max Beerbohm in
a volume of parodies entitled "A Christmas Garland," where I found
myself in very good company. I was immensely gratified. I began to
believe in my public existence. I have much to thank The Lagoon for.

My next effort in short story writing was a departure--I mean a
departure from the Malay Archipelago. Without premeditation, without
sorrow, without rejoicing and almost without noticing it, I stepped into
the very different atmosphere of An Outpost of Progress. I found there a
different moral attitude. I seemed able to capture new reactions, new
suggestions, and even new rhythms for my paragraphs. For a moment I
fancied myself a new man--a most exciting illusion. It clung to me for
some time, monstrous, half conviction and half hope as to its body with
an iridescent tail of dreams and with a changeable head like a plastic
mask. It was only later that I perceived that in common with the rest of
men nothing could deliver me from my fatal consistency. We cannot escape
from ourselves.

An Outpost of Progress is the lightest part of the loot I carried off
from Central Africa, the main portion being of course The Heart of
Darkness. Other men have found a lot of quite different things there and
I have the comfortable conviction that what I took would not have been
of much use to anybody else. And it must be said that it was but a very
small amount of plunder. All of it could go into one's breast pocket
when folded neatly. As for the story itself it is true enough in its
essentials. The sustained invention of a really telling lie demands a
talent which I do not possess.

The Idiots is such an obviously derivative piece of work that it is
impossible for me to say anything about it here. The suggestion of it
was not mental but visual: the actual idiots. It was after an interval
of long groping amongst vague impulses and hesitations which ended in
the production of "The Nigger" that I turned to my third short story in
the order of time, the first in this volume: Karain: A Memory.

Reading it after many years Karain produced on me the effect of
something seen through a pair of glasses from a rather advantageous
position. In that story I had not gone back to the Archipelago, I had
only turned for another look at it. I admit that I was absorbed by the
distant view, so absorbed that I didn't notice then that the _motif_ of
the story is almost identical with the _motif_ of The Lagoon. However,
the idea at the back is very different; but the story is mainly made
memorable to me by the fact that it was my first contribution to
_Blackwood's Magazine_ and that it led to my personal acquaintance with
Mr. William Blackwood whose guarded appreciation I felt nevertheless to
be genuine, and prized accordingly. Karain was begun on a sudden impulse
only three days after I wrote the last line of "The Nigger," and the
recollection of its difficulties is mixed up with the worries of the
unfinished Return, the last pages of which I took up again at the time;
the only instance in my life when I made an attempt to write with both
hands at once as it were.

Indeed my innermost feeling, now, is that The Return is a left-handed
production. Looking through that story lately I had the material
impression of sitting under a large and expensive umbrella in the loud
drumming of a furious rain-shower. It was very distracting. In the
general uproar one could hear every individual drop strike on the stout
and distended silk. Mentally, the reading rendered me dumb for the
remainder of the day, not exactly with astonishment but with a sort of
dismal wonder. I don't want to talk disrespectfully of any pages of
mine. Psychologically there were no doubt good reasons for my attempt;
and it was worth while, if only to see of what excesses I was capable in
that sort of virtuosity. In this connection I should like to confess my
surprise on finding that notwithstanding all its apparatus of analysis
the story consists for the most part of physical impressions;
impressions of sound and sight, railway station, streets, a trotting
horse, reflections in mirrors and so on, rendered as if for their own
sake and combined with a sublimated description of a desirable middle
class town-residence which somehow manages to produce a sinister effect.
For the rest any kind word about The Return (and there have been such
words said at different times) awakens in me the liveliest gratitude,
for I know how much the writing of that fantasy has cost me in sheer
toil, in temper and in disillusion.

J. C.

LORD JIM

When this novel first appeared in book form a notion got about that I
had been bolted away with. Some reviewers maintained that the work
starting as a short story had got beyond the writer's control. One or
two discovered 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 expected 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 tropics and in the temperate
zone, to sit up half the night "swapping yarns." This, however, is but
one yarn, yet with interruptions affording some measure of relief; and
in regard to the listeners' endurance, the postulate must be accepted
that the story _was_ interesting. It is the necessary preliminary
assumption. If I hadn't believed 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 all 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 thought was of
a short story, concerned only with the pilgrim ship episode; nothing
more. And that was a legitimate 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 was 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-written deliberately. When 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 in public life, in private life,
and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works. As a
matter of principle I will have no favourites; but I don't go so far as
to feel grieved and annoyed by the preference some people give to my
"Lord Jim." I won't even say that I "fail to understand...." No! But
once I had occasion to be puzzled and surprised.

A friend of mine returning from Italy had talked with a lady there who
did not like the book. I regretted that, of course, but what surprised
me was the ground of her dislike. "You know," she said, "it is all so
morbid."

The pronouncement gave me food for an hour's anxious thought. Finally I
arrived at the conclusion that, making due allowances for the subject
itself being rather foreign to women's normal sensibilities, the lady
could not have been an Italian. I wonder whether she was European at
all? In any case, no Latin temperament would have perceived anything
morbid in the acute consciousness of lost honour. Such a consciousness
may be wrong, or it may be right, or it may be condemned as artificial;
and, perhaps, my Jim is not a type of wide commonness. But I can safely
assure my readers that he is not the product of coldly perverted
thinking. He's not a figure of Northern Mists either. One sunny morning
in the commonplace surroundings of an Eastern roadstead, I saw his form
pass by--appealing--significant--under a cloud--perfectly silent. Which
is as it should be. It was for me, with all the sympathy of which I was
capable, to seek fit words for his meaning. He was "one of us."

J. C.

June, 1917.

YOUTH

The three stories in this volume lay no claim to unity of artistic
purpose. The only bond between them is that of the time in which they
were written. They belong to the period immediately following the
publication of "The Nigger of the _Narcissus_," and preceding the first
conception of "Nostromo," two books which, it seems to me, stand apart
and by themselves in the body of my work. It is also the period during
which I contributed to _Maga_; a period dominated by "Lord Jim" and
associated in my grateful memory with the late Mr. William Blackwood's
encouraging and helpful kindness.

"Youth" was not my first contribution to _Maga_. It was the second. But
that story marks the first appearance in the world of the man Marlow,
with whom my relations have grown very intimate in the course of years.
The origins of that gentleman (nobody as far as I know had ever hinted
that he was anything but that)--his origins have been the subject of
some literary speculation of, I am glad to say, a friendly nature.

One would think that I am the proper person to throw a light on the
matter; but in truth I find that it isn't so easy. It is pleasant to
remember that nobody had charged him with fraudulent purposes or looked
down on him as a charlatan; but apart from that he was supposed to be
all sorts of things: a clever screen, a mere device, a "personator," a
familiar spirit, a whispering "daemon." I myself have been suspected of
a meditated plan for his capture.

That is not so. I made no plans. The man Marlow and I came together in
the casual manner of those health-resort acquaintances which sometimes
ripen into friendships. This one has ripened. For all his assertiveness
in matters of opinion he is not an intrusive person. He haunts my hours
of solitude, when, in silence, we lay our heads together in great
comfort and harmony; but as we part at the end of a tale I am never sure
that it may not be for the last time. Yet I don't think that either of
us would care much to survive the other. In his case, at any rate, his
occupation would be gone and he would suffer from that extinction,
because I suspect him of some vanity. I don't mean vanity in the
Solomonian sense. Of all my people he's the one that has never been a
vexation to my spirit. A most discreet, understanding man....

Even before appearing in book-form "Youth" was very well received. It
lies on me to confess at last, and this is as good a place for it as
another, that I have been all my life--all my two lives--the spoiled
adopted child of Great Britain and even of the Empire; for it was
Australia that gave me my first command. I break out into this
declaration not because of a lurking tendency to megalomania, but, on
the contrary, as a man who has no very notable illusions about himself.
I follow the instinct of vain-glory and humility natural to all mankind.
For it can hardly be denied that it is not their own deserts that men
are most proud of, but rather of their prodigious luck, of their
marvellous fortune: of that in their lives for which thanks and
sacrifices must be offered on the altars of the inscrutable gods.

Heart of Darkness also received a certain amount of notice from the
first; and of its origins this much may be said: it is well known that
curious men go prying into all sorts of places (where they have no
business) and come out of them with all kinds of spoil. This story, and
one other, not in this volume, are all the spoil I brought out from the
centre of Africa, where, really, I had no sort of business. More
ambitious in its scope and longer in the telling, Heart of Darkness is
quite as authentic in fundamentals as Youth. It is, obviously, written
in another mood. I won't characterize the mood precisely, but anybody
can see that it is anything but the mood of wistful regret, of
reminiscent tenderness.

One more remark may be added. Youth is a feat of memory. It is a record
of experience; but that experience, in its facts, in its inwardness and
in its outward colouring, begins and ends in myself. Heart of Darkness
is experience, too; but it is experience pushed a little (and only very
little) beyond the actual facts of the case for the perfectly
legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it home to the minds and
bosoms of the readers. There it was no longer a matter of sincere
colouring. It was like another art altogether. That sombre theme had to
be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued
vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear
after the last note had been struck.

After saying so much there remains the last tale of the book, still
untouched. The End of the Tether is a story of sea-life in a rather
special way; and the most intimate thing I can say of it is this: that
having lived that life fully, amongst its men, its thoughts and
sensations, I have found it possible, without the slightest misgiving,
in all sincerity of heart and peace of conscience, to conceive the
existence of Captain Whalley's personality and to relate the manner of
his end. This statement acquires some force from the circumstance that
the pages of that story--a fair half of the book--are also the product
of experience. That experience belongs (like "Youth's") to the time
before I ever thought of putting pen to paper. As to its "reality" that
is for the readers to determine. One had to pick up one's facts here and
there. More skill would have made them more real and the whole
composition more interesting. But here we are approaching the veiled
region of artistic values which it would be improper and indeed
dangerous for me to enter. I have looked over the proofs, have corrected
a misprint or two, have changed a word or two--and that's all. It is not
very likely that I shall ever read The End of the Tether again. No more
need be said. It accords best with my feelings to part from Captain
Whalley in affectionate silence.

J. C.

1917.

TYPHOON

The main characteristic of this volume consists in this, that all the
stories composing it belong not only to the same period but have been
written one after another in the order in which they appear in the book.

The period is that which follows on my connection with _Blackwood's
Magazine_. I had just finished writing The End of the Tether and was
casting about for some subject which could be developed in a shorter
form than the tales in the volume of "Youth" when the instance of a
steamship full of returning coolies from Singapore to some port in
northern China occurred to my recollection. Years before I had heard it
being talked about in the East as a recent occurrence. It was for us
merely one subject of conversation amongst many others of the kind. Men
earning their bread in any very specialized occupation will talk shop,
not only because it is the most vital interest of their lives but also
because they have not much knowledge of other subjects. They have never
had the time to get acquainted with them. Life, for most of us, is not
so much a hard as an exacting taskmaster.

I never met anybody personally concerned in this affair, the interest of
which for us was, of course, not the bad weather but the extraordinary
complication brought into the ship's life at a moment of exceptional
stress by the human element below her deck. Neither was the story itself
ever enlarged upon in my hearing. In that company each of us could
imagine easily what the whole thing was like. The financial difficulty
of it, presenting also a human problem, was solved by a mind much too
simple to be perplexed by anything in the world except men's idle talk
for which it was not adapted.

From the first the mere anecdote, the mere statement I might say, that
such a thing had happened on the high seas, appeared to me a sufficient
subject for meditation. Yet it was but a bit of a sea yarn after all. I
felt that to bring out its deeper significance which was quite apparent
to me, something other, something more was required; a leading motive
that would harmonize all these violent noises, and a point of view that
would put all that elemental fury into its proper place.

What was needed of course was Captain MacWhirr. Directly I perceived him
I could see that he was the man for the situation. I don't mean to say
that I ever saw Captain MacWhirr in the flesh, or had ever come in
contact with his literal mind and his dauntless temperament. MacWhirr is
not an acquaintance of a few hours, or a few weeks, or a few months. He
is the product of twenty years of life. My own life. Conscious invention
had little to do with him. If it is true that Captain MacWhirr never
walked and breathed on this earth (which I find for my part extremely
difficult to believe) I can also assure my readers that he is perfectly
authentic. I may venture to assert the same of every aspect of the
story, while I confess that the particular typhoon of the tale was not a
typhoon of my actual experience.

At its first appearance "Typhoon," the story, was classed by some
critics as a deliberately intended storm-piece. Others picked out
MacWhirr, in whom they perceived a definite symbolic intention. Neither
was exclusively my intention. Both the typhoon and Captain MacWhirr
presented themselves to me as the necessities of the deep conviction
with which I approached the subject of the story. It was their
opportunity. It was also my opportunity, and it would be vain to
discourse about what I made of it in a handful of pages, since the
pages themselves are here, between the covers of this volume, to speak
for themselves.

This is a belated reflection. If it had occurred to me before it would
have perhaps done away with the existence of this Author's Note; for,
indeed, the same remark applies to every story in this volume. None of
them are stories of experience in the absolute sense of the word.
Experience in them is but the canvas of the attempted picture. Each of
them has its more than one intention. With each the question is what the
writer has done with his opportunity; and each answers the question for
itself in words which, if I may say so without undue solemnity, were
written with a conscientious regard for the truth of my own sensations.
And each of those stories, to mean something, must justify itself in its
own way to the conscience of each successive reader.

Falk--the second story in the volume--offended the delicacy of one
critic at least by certain peculiarities of its subject. But what is the
subject of Falk? I personally do not feel so very certain about it. He
who reads must find out for himself. My intention in writing Falk was
not to shock anybody. As in most of my writings I insist not on the
events but on their effect upon the persons in the tale. But in
everything I have written there is always one invariable intention, and
that is to capture the reader's attention, by securing his interest and
enlisting his sympathies for the matter in hand, whatever it may be,
within the limits of the visible world and within the boundaries of
human emotions.

I may safely say that Falk is absolutely true to my experience of
certain straightforward characters combining a perfectly natural
ruthlessness with a certain amount of moral delicacy. Falk obeys the law
of self-preservation without the slightest misgivings as to right, but
at a crucial turn of that ruthlessly preserved life he will not
condescend to dodge the truth. As he is presented as sensitive enough to
be affected permanently by a certain unusual experience, that experience
had to be set by me before the reader vividly; but it is not the subject
of the tale. If we go by mere facts then the subject is Falk's attempt
to get married; in which the narrator of the tale finds himself
unexpectedly involved both on its ruthless and its delicate side.

Falk shares with one other of my stories (The Return in the "Tales of
Unrest" volume) the distinction of never having been serialized. I think
the copy was shown to the editor of some magazine who rejected it
indignantly on the sole ground that "the girl never says anything." This
is perfectly true. From first to last Hermann's niece utters no word in
the tale--and it is not because she is dumb, but for the simple reason
that whenever she happens to come under the observation of the narrator
she has either no occasion or is too profoundly moved to speak. The
editor, who obviously had read the story, might have perceived that for
himself. Apparently he did not, and I refrained from pointing out the
impossibility to him because, since he did not venture to say that "the
girl" did not live, I felt no concern at his indignation.

All the other stories were serialized. "Typhoon" appeared in the early
numbers of the _Pall Mall Magazine_, then under the direction of the
late Mr. Halkett. It was on that occasion too, that I saw for the first
time my conceptions rendered by an artist in another medium. Mr. Maurice
Greiffenhagen knew how to combine in his illustrations the effect of
his own most distinguished personal vision with an absolute fidelity to
the inspiration of the writer. Amy Foster was published in _The
Illustrated London News_ with a fine drawing of Amy on her day out
giving tea to the children at her home in a hat with a big feather.
To-morrow appeared first in the _Pall Mall Magazine_. Of that story I
will only say that it struck many people by its adaptability to the
stage and that I was induced to dramatize it under the title of "One Day
More"; up to the present my only effort in that direction. I may also
add that each of the four stories on their appearance in book form was
picked out on various grounds as the "best of the lot" by different
critics, who reviewed the volume with a warmth of appreciation and
understanding, a sympathetic insight and a friendliness of expression
for which I cannot be sufficiently grateful.

J. C.

1919.

NOSTROMO

"Nostromo" is the most anxiously meditated of the longer novels which
belong to the period following upon the publication of the "Typhoon"
volume of short stories.

I don't mean to say that I became then conscious of any impending change
in my mentality and in my attitude towards the tasks of my writing life.
And perhaps there was never any change, except in that mysterious,
extraneous thing which has nothing to do with the theories of art; a
subtle change in the nature of the inspiration; a phenomenon for which I
can not in any way be held responsible. What, however, did cause me some
concern was that after finishing the last story of the "Typhoon" volume
it seemed somehow that there was nothing more in the world to write
about.

This so strangely negative but disturbing mood lasted some little time;
and then, as with many of my longer stories, the first hint for
"Nostromo" came to me in the shape of a vagrant anecdote completely
destitute of valuable details.

As a matter of fact in 1875 or '6, when very young, in the West Indies
or rather in the Gulf of Mexico, for my contacts with land were short,
few, and fleeting, I heard the story of some man who was supposed to
have stolen single-handed a whole lighter-full of silver, somewhere on
the Tierra Firme seaboard during the troubles of a revolution.

On the face of it this was something of a feat. But I heard no details,
and having no particular interest in crime _qua_ crime I was not likely
to keep that one in my mind. And I forgot it till twenty-six or seven
years afterwards I came upon the very thing in a shabby volume picked up
outside a second-hand book-shop. It was the life story of an American
seaman written by himself with the assistance of a journalist. In the
course of his wanderings that American sailor worked for some months on
board a schooner, the master and owner of which was the thief of whom I
had heard in my very young days. I have no doubt of that because there
could hardly have been two exploits of the peculiar kind in the same
part of the world and both connected with a South American revolution.

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