His "Nostromo," for example, in its externals, is
a mere tale of South American turmoil; its materials are those of
"Soldiers of Fortune." But what a difference in method, in point of
approach, in inner content! Davis was content to show the overt act,
scarcely accounting for it at all, and then only in terms of
conventional romance. Conrad penetrates to the motive concealed in it,
the psychological spring and basis of it, the whole fabric of weakness,
habit and aberration underlying it. The one achieved an agreeable
romance, and an agreeable romance only. The other achieves an
extraordinarily brilliant and incisive study of the Latin-American
temperament--a full length exposure of the perverse passions and
incomprehensible ideals which provoke presumably sane men to pursue one
another like wolves, and of the reactions of that incessant pursuit upon
the men themselves, and upon their primary ideas, and upon the
institutions under which they live. I do not say that Conrad is always
exhaustive in his explanations, or that he is accurate.
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