Faulty and erring as we are, we always rise from
Mr. Conrad's books purged and, for the moment, strengthened.
Apparent in him are that manly and honourable virtue, that strict
saline truth and scrupulous regard for life, that liberation from
cant, which seem to be inbred in those who have suffered the
exacting discipline of the hostile sea. Certainly Conrad cannot be
called a writer who has neglected the tragic side of things. Yet in
his "Notes on Life and Letters," we find this:
What one feels so hopelessly barren in declared pessimism is
just its arrogance. It seems as if the discovery made by many
men at various times that there is much evil in the world were
a source of proud and unholy joy unto some of the modern
writers. That frame of mind is not the proper one in which to
approach seriously the art of fiction.... To be hopeful in an
artistic sense it is not necessary to think that the world is
good. It is enough to believe that there is no impossibility of
its being made so.... I would ask that in his dealings with
mankind he [the writer] should be capable of giving a tender
recognition to their obscure virtues. I would not have him
impatient with their small failings and scornful of their
errors.
We fear that our mild protest is rather mixed and muddled. But what
we darkly feel is this: that no author "belongs," or "understands,"
or is "definitely an artist" who merely makes the phantoms of his
imagination paltry or ridiculous.
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