Notes on Life and Letters | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price [email protected], from
the 1921 J. M. Dent edition.

Notes on Life & Letters by Joseph Conrad

Contents:
Author's note
PART I--Letters

BOOKS--1905. HENRY JAMES--AN APPRECIATION--1905
ALPHONSE DAUDET--1898 GUY DE MAUPASSANT--1904
ANATOLE FRANCE--1904 TURGENEV--1917 STEPHEN
CRANE--A NOTE WITHOUT DATES--1919 TALES OF THE
SEA--1898 AN OBSERVER IN MALAYA--1898 A HAPPY
WANDERER--1910 THE LIFE BEYOND--1910 THE ASCENDING
EFFORT--1910 THE CENSOR OF PLAYS--AN
APPRECIATION--1907

PART II--Life
AUTOCRACY AND WAR--1905 THE CRIME OF
PARTITION--1919 A NOTE ON THE POLISH PROBLEM--1916
POLAND REVISITED--1915 FIRST NEWS--1918 WELL
DONE--1918 TRADITION--1918 CONFIDENCE--1919
FLIGHT--1917 SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF THE
TITANIC--1912 CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE
INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC--1912
PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS--1914 A FRIENDLY PLACE

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I don't know whether I ought to offer an apology for this collection
which has more to do with life than with letters. Its appeal is made to
orderly minds. This, to be frank about it, is a process of tidying up,
which, from the nature of things, cannot be regarded as premature. The
fact is that I wanted to do it myself because of a feeling that had
nothing to do with the considerations of worthiness or unworthiness of
the small (but unbroken) pieces collected within the covers of this
volume. Of course it may be said that I might have taken up a broom
and used it without saying anything about it. That, certainly, is one way
of tidying up.

But it would have been too much to have expected me to treat all this
matter as removable rubbish. All those things had a place in my life.
Whether any of them deserve to have been picked up and ranged on the
shelf--this shelf--I cannot say, and, frankly, I have not allowed my
mind to dwell on the question. I was afraid of thinking myself into a
mood that would hurt my feelings; for those pieces of writing, whatever
may be the comment on their display, appertain to the character of the
man.
And so here they are, dusted, which was but a decent thing to do, but in
no way polished, extending from the year '98 to the year '20, a thin
array (for such a stretch of time) of really innocent attitudes: Conrad
literary, Conrad political, Conrad reminiscent, Conrad controversial.
Well, yes! A one-man show--or is it merely the show of one man?
The only thing that will not be found amongst those Figures and Things
that have passed away, will be Conrad EN PANTOUFLES. It is a
constitutional inability. SCHLAFROCK UND PANTOFFELN! Not
that! Never! . . . I don't know whether I dare boast like a certain South
American general who used to say that no emergency of war or peace
had ever found him "with his boots off"; but I may say that whenever
the various periodicals mentioned in this book called on me to come
out and blow the trumpet of personal opinions or strike the pensive lute
that speaks of the past, I always tried to pull on my boots first. I didn't
want to do it, God knows! Their Editors, to whom I beg to offer my
thanks here, made me perform mainly by kindness but partly by bribery.
Well, yes! Bribery? What can you expect? I never pretended to be
better than the people in the next street, or even in the same street.
This volume (including these embarrassed introductory remarks) is as
near as I shall ever come to DESHABILLE in public; and perhaps it
will do something to help towards a better vision of the man, if it gives
no more than a partial view of a piece of his back, a little dusty (after
the process of tidying up), a little bowed, and