For some time Conrad had had the idea of writing a pendent volume to “The Mirror of the Sea,” and the unfinished article, “Legends,” on which he was at work the day before he died, was, he told me, to have formed part of such a book. And I suspect that ‘The Torrens,” “Christmas Day at Sea,” “Ocean Travel,” “Outside Literature.” and part, at least, of “Geography and Some Explorers,”
would also have been incorporated in this book, and therefore I have placed them all together at the beginning of the volume. They form, as it were, the shadowy nucleus of projected work.
“Geography and Some Explorers,” the second longest essay in this collection, was written as a general introduction to a serial work called “Countries of the World.” It appeared as ‘The Romance of Travel” in the first number, February, 1924, and was reprinted under its proper title in The National Geographic Magazine, March, 1924. In this fascinating essay, Conrad, after discussing the feats of some of the early navigators and explorers, gives a memorable account of a passage he made in 1888 (when in command of the Otago) through the Torres Straits on a voyage from Sydney to Mauritius.
“ The Torrens: A Personal Tribute,” was published in The Blue Peter, October, 1923. In the early ‘nineties Conrad had been chief officer of this ship — he joined her on November 2, 1891, and left her on October 15,1893 — and he made two journeys from England to Australia and back in that capacity. For her he always retained a warm affection, and when, in the September Blue Peter of 1923, there was issued a coloured illustration of the Torrens, he willingly consented to give a personal remembrance of her in the next number. The last words, in which he describes her end upon the shores of the Mediterranean, posses a rare and pensive beauty, which I recover in the following paragraphs:
“But in the end her body of iron and wood, so fair to look upon, had to be broken up — I hope with fitting reverence; and as I sit here, thirty years, almost to a day, since I last set eyes on her, I love to think that her perfect form found a merciful end on shores of the Sunlit Sea of my boyhood’s dreams, and that her fine spirit has returned to dwell in the regions of the great winds, the inspirers and companions of her swift, renowned, sea-tossed life which I, too, have been permitted to share for a little while.”
“Christmas Day at Sea” was published in the London Daily Mail on December 24,1923. It was concerned largely with an episode on one Christmas Day during Conrad’s first voyage to Australian in the Duke of Sutherland in 1879, where he served as an A.B.
“Ocean Travel” made its first appearance in the London Evening News of May 15,1923, where it was named “My Hotel in Mid-Atlantic.” It was written during Conrad’s voyage to America in the Tuseania in the spring of that year, and was posted to me the moment he arrived in New York. It compares the old and the new life at sea, and needless to say, the vote of affection in given for the old.
“Outside Literature,” short essay dealing with the subject of notices to mariners, appeared under the title “Notices to Mariners” in the Manchester Guardian of December 4, 1922, and under its proper title in the American Bookman of February, 1923.
“Legends,” as I have mentioned, was the last article Conrad ever wrote; it was left unfinished upon his desk. It tells, with a strain of melancholy, of the breed of seamen who have disappeared with the disappearance of sailing ships, and was printed, less than a fortnight after Conrad’s death, in the London Daily Mail of August 15, 1924.
Next follow two essays which have the war at sea as background. “The Unlighted Coasf recalls Conrad’s experiences in the North Sea during his ten days’ cruise in the Ready in 1917 — a full account of this cruise is to be found in Captain Sutherland’s “At Sea with Joseph Conrad” — and was written for the Admirably. For some reason or other they never used it and it first saw the light in the London Times of August 18,1925.
The Dover Patrol,” written at the request of the late Lord Northcliffe, was published in the London Timeso July 27,1921, the day on which the Prince of Wales unveiled the Dover Patrol Memorial. It is glowing tribute to “the physical endurance, the inborn seamanship, the matter-of-fact, industrious, indefatigable enthusiasm” of the men who guarded unsleepingly and at extreme hazard the entrance to the Channel.
The “Memorandum on the Scheme for Fitting Out a Sailing Ship” is here first printed. Written in 1919 for the Holt Steamship Company, who had proposed to fit out a sailing ship for the training of boys destined for the Mercantile Marine, it is an example of Conrad’s intense and practical interest in such subjects. It is exactly what it purports to be — a memorandum, precise, technical, full of
his accumulated experience and long-pondered ideas. Nothing came of the scheme: as Mr. Lawrence Holt wrote to me, it was “abandoned owing to the depression of trade which set in soon after my conversation with Mr. Conrad.” The document from then to now has been in Mr. Holt’s possession, and cordial thanks are due to him for his permission to use it here.
“The Loss of the Daigonaf is a further example of Conrad’s interest in questions of seamanship. Indeed, I print it solely for that reason, because, in itself, it but refers to the contents of an article from another pen. It appeared, as a letter to the editor, in the London Mercury of December, 1921, and was called forth by a paper in the September issue entitled “A True Story: Log and Record of the Wreck of the Snip Dalgonaro Liverpool, bound from Callao to Taltal.” This paper described the wreck of the barque Loire, which happened in October, 1913; and Conrad’s letter, while correcting some obvious mistakes in the narrative as printed, is a testimony to the gallantry and efficiency of the officers and crew.
The essay calied “Travel” was written, I am proud to think, out of friendship for myself and formed the preface to a book by me, “Into the East: Notes on Burma and Malaya,” 1923. The effort to finish “The Rover” held up the writing of this preface for about a year, but it seems to me that in its evocation of the great travellers of old and of times that have gone for ever it reaches the highest beauty and distinction. Let me quote one paragraph:
“And those things, which stand as if imperishable in the pages of old books of travel, are all blown away; have vanished as utterly as the smoke of the travellers’ camp fires in the icy night air of the Gobi Desert, as the smell of incense burned in the temples of strange gods, as the voices of Asiatic statesmen speculating with the cruel wisdom of past ages on matters of peace and war.”
“Stephen Crane,” the longest and most elaborate essay in the book, was written as an introduction to Mr. Thomas Beer’s “Stephen Crane, a Study in American Letters,” 1923. Conrad, as in generally known, was a close friend of Crane during the last years of that meteoric life, when Crane was frequently a neighbour of his in southern England. In all, he wrote three essays on Crane and his
work. One appeared in “Notes on Life and Letters,” two are printed in this volume, and all breathe a spirit of affectionate admiration. This essay is a study in biographical sidelights and is undoubtedly the most personal and the most delightful of all reminiscences of Crane.
The short essay. “His War Book,” which follows, was composed specifically as a preface to a new edition of Crane’s best-known work, “The Red Badge of Courage” — the new edition came out at last in 1925 — and it gives clear indication of Conrad’s feeling for the artist who could observe so truly and create with such economy.
“John Galsworthy,” as I have said, was only accidentally omitted from the previous volume of Conrad’s essays. It was composed as a review of “A Man of Property,” contained in a wider study of the author, and was published in the London outlookoi March 31,1906, under the title of “A Middle Class Family.” A few years before he died, Conrad rectified, as far as he could, his oversight by privately printing about fifty copies of this essay, and he would certainly have included it in any future volume of essays.
The next piece, “A Glance at Two Books,” dealing with Galsworthy’s “The Island Pharisees” and Hudson’s “Green Mansions,”
dates from even earlier and was done in 1904. Written obviously in answer to an editorial request, it was, for reasons unknown, never used, and the typescript, being found among Conrad’s papers, was first printed in T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly of August 1, 1925.
A “Preface to his Shorter Tales” was written at the instigation of his American publishers to introduce “The Shorter Tales of Joseph Conrad,” and the essay, like the selection, has never appeared in England. It was one of his last completed pieces — the volume was issued after his death in 1924 — and it throws a reminiscent glance upon the ideas that animated his work and upon his writing life.
The little not, “Cookery” charming in its playful fancy, was a send-off to his wife’s book, “A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House,” 1922. I include it here for the sake of its association and for the unique quality of its tone.
The next two pieces, both of them letters, give glimpses of
Conrad’s abiding interest in international questions and the affairs of Europe. He was always a student of foreign politics, a student fortified by an impressive historical sense and by a great knowledge of continental problems throughout the centuries and these two letters, with their combined eloquence and hold upon reality, throw light upon an aspect of Conrad’s mind of which few people are aware.
The first letter, an appeal for a free Constantinople under the protection of the Powers, was published in the London Times of November 7,1912, when the Balkman States were at war with Turkey and their armies already within striking distance of her capital.
The second letter, written evidently a few days later to an untraceable correspondent — a typescript only was found — who had criticized his printed observations, is an amplification of the previous letter.
Finally comes ‘The Congo Diary,” a reprint of the diary kept by Conrad in the Congo in 1890, which was first published in The Blue Peter; October, 1925, and then in The Yale Review, January, 1926. This diary calls for its own introduction and a series of explanatory notes, and these will be found with it at the end of the book.
Here, then, are the twenty pieces which compose this volume of “Last Essays.” They show as clearly as did the contents of “Notes on Life and Letters” the rich diversity of Conrad’s mind, his powers of cogent argument, of found memory, and of noble expression. His mastery over his chosen material never flagged and these essays are a last witness to his consummate gifts.
RICHARD CURLE.
GEOGRAPHY AND SOME EXPLORERS
It is safe to say that for the majority of mankind the superiority of geography over geometry lies in the appeal of its figures. It may be an effect of the incorrigible frivolity inherent in human nature, but most of us will agree that a map is more fascinating to look at than a figure in a treatise on conic sections — at any rate for the simple minds which are all the equipment of the majority of the dwellers on this earth.
No doubt a trigonometrical survey may be a romantic undertaking, striding over deserts and leaping over valleys never before trodden by the foot of civilized man; but its accurate operations can never have for us the fascination of the first hazardous steps of a venturesome, often lonely, explorer jotting down by the light of his camp fire the thoughts, the impressions, and the toil of his day.
For a long time yet a few suggestive words grappling with things seen will have the advantage over a long array of precise, no doubt interesting, and even profitable figures. The earth is a stage, and though it may be an advantage, even to the right comprehension of the play, to know its exact configuration, it is the drama of human endeavour that will be the thing, with a ruling passion expressed by outward action marching perhaps blindly to success of failure, which themselves are often undistinguishable from each other at first.
Of all the sciences, geography finds its origin in action, and what is more, in adventurous action of the kind that appeals to sedentary people who like to dream of arduous adventure in the manner of prisoners dreaming behind bars of all the hardships and hazards of liberty dear to the heart of man.
Descriptive geography, like any other kind of science, has been built on the experience of certain phenomena and on experiments prompted by that unappeasable curiosity of men which their intelligence has elevated into a quite respectable passion for acquiring knowledge. Like other sciences it has fought its way to truth through a long errors. It has suffered from the love of the marvellous, from our credulity, from rash and unwarrantable assumptions, from the play of unbridled fancy.
Geography had its phase of circumstantially extravagant speculation which had nothing to do with the pursuit of truth, but has given us a curious glimpse of the mediaeval mind playing in its ponderous childish way with the problems of our earth’s shape, its size, its character, its products, its inhabitants. Cartography was almost as pictorial then as are some modern newspapers. It crowded its map with pictures of strange pageants, strange trees, strange beasts, drawn with amazing precision in the midst of theoretically conceived continents. It delineated imaginary kingdoms of Monomotapa and of Prester John, the regions infested by lions or haunted by unicorns, inhabited by men with reversed feet, or eyes in the middle of their breasts.
All this might have been amusing if the mediaeval gravity in the absurd had not been in itself a wearisome thing. But what of that! Has not the key science of modern chemistry passed through its dishonest phase of Alchemy (a portentous development of the confidence trick), and our knowledge of the starry sky been arrived at through the superstitious idealism of Astrology looking for men’s fate in the depths of the infinite? Mere megalomania on a colossal scale. Yet, solemn fooling for solemn fooling of the scientific order, I prefer the kind that does not lay itself out to thrive on the fears and the cupidities of men.
From that point of view geography is the most blameless of sciences. Its fabulous phase never aimed at cheating simple mortals (who are a multitude) out of their peace of mind or their money. At the most it has enticed some of them away from their homes; to death may be, now and then to a little disputed glory, not seldom to contumely, never to high fortune. The greatest of them all, who has presented modern geography with a new world to work upon, was at one time loaded with chains and thrown into prison. Columbus remains a pathetic figure, not a sufferer in the cause of geography, but a victim of the imperfections of jealous human hearts, accepting his fate with resignation. Among explorers he appears lofty in his troubles and like a man of a kingly nature. His contribution to the knowledge of the earth was certainly royal. And if the discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest
outburst of reckless cruelty and greed known to history we may say this at least for it, that the gold of Mexico and Peru, unlike the gold of alchemists, was really there, palpable, yet, as ever, the most elusive of the Fata Morgana that lure men away from their homes, as a moment of reflection will convince any one. For nothing it more certain than that there will never be enough gold to go round, as the Conquistadores found out by experience.
I suppose it is not very charitable of me, but I must say that to this day I feel a malicious pleasure at the many disappointments of those pertinacious searchers for El Dorado who climbed mountains, pushed through forests, swam rivers, floundered in bogs, without giving a single thought to the science of geography. Not for them the serene joys of scientific research, but infinite toil, in hunger, thirst: sickness, battle; with broken heads, unseemly squabbles, and empty pockets in the end. I cannot help thinking it served them right. It is an ugly tale, which has not much to do with the service of geography. The geographical knowledge of our day is of the kind that would have been beyond the conception of the hardy followers of Cortes and Pizaro; and of that most estimable of Conquerors who was called Cabeza de Vaca, who was high-minded and dealt humanely with the heathen nations whose territories he traversed in search of one more El Dorado. It is said they loved him greatly, but now the very memory of those nations is gone from the earth, while their territories, which they could not take with th
em, are being traversed many times every twenty-four hours by the trains of the Southern Pacific railroad.
The discovery of the New World marks the end of the fabulous geography, and it must be owned that the history of the Conquest contains at least one great moment — I mean a geographically great moment — when Vasco Nunez de Balboa, while crossing the Isthmus of Panama, set his eyes for the first time upon the ocean, the immensity of which he did not suspect, and which in his elation he named the Pacific. It is anything but that; but the privileged Conquistador cannot be blamed for surrendering to his first impression.
The Gulf of Panama, which is what he really saw with that first
glance, is one of the calmest spots on the waters of the globe. Too calm. The old navigators dreaded it as a dangerous region where one might be caught and lie becalmed for weeks with one’s crew dying slowly of thirst under a cloudless sky. The worst of fates, this, to feel yourself die in a long and helpless agony. How much preferable a region of storms where man and ship can at least put up a fight and remain defiant almost to the last.
I must not be understood to mean that a tempest at sea is a delightful experience, but I would rather face the fiercest tempest than a gulf pacific even to deadliness, a prison-house for incautious caravels and a place of torture for their crews. But Balboa was charmed with its serene aspect. He did not know where he was. He probably thought himself within a stone’s throw, as it were, of the Indies and Cathay. Or did he perhaps, like a man touched with grace, have a moment of exalted vision, the awed feeling that what he was looking at was an abyss of waters comparable in its extent to the view of the unfathomable firmament, and sown all over with groups of islands resembling the constellations of the sky?
Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) Page 694