The Rescue | Page 4

. . I must believe that in this case I have not been
impudent for I am not conscious of having been bitten.
The truth is that when "The Rescue" was laid aside it was not laid aside
in despair. Several reasons contributed to this abandonment and, no
doubt, the first of them was the growing sense of general difficulty in
the handling of the subject. The contents and the course of the story I
had clearly in my mind. But as to the way of presenting the facts, and
perhaps in a certain measure as to the nature of the facts themselves, I
had many doubts. I mean the telling, representative facts, helpful to
carry on the idea, and, at the same time, of such a nature as not to
demand an elaborate creation of the atmosphere to the detriment of the

action. I did not see how I could avoid becoming wearisome in the
presentation of detail and in the pursuit of clearness. I saw the action
plainly enough. What I had lost for the moment was the sense of the
proper formula of expression, the only formula that would suit. This, of
course, weakened my confidence in the intrinsic worth and in the
possible interest of the story--that is in my invention. But I suspect that
all the trouble was, in reality, the doubt of my prose, the doubt of its
adequacy, of its power to master both the colours and the shades.
It is difficult to describe, exactly as I remember it, the complex state of
my feelings; but those of my readers who take an interest in artistic
perplexities will understand me best when I point out that I dropped
"The Rescue" not to give myself up to idleness, regrets, or dreaming,
but to begin "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'" and to go on with it
without hesitation and without a pause. A comparison of any page of
"The Rescue" with any page of "The Nigger" will furnish an ocular
demonstration of the nature and the inward meaning of this first crisis
of my writing life. For it was a crisis undoubtedly. The laying aside of a
work so far advanced was a very awful decision to take. It was wrung
from me by a sudden conviction that THERE only was the road of
salvation, the clear way out for an uneasy conscience. The finishing of
"The Nigger" brought to my troubled mind the comforting sense of an
accomplished task, and the first consciousness of a certain sort of
mastery which could accomplish something with the aid of propitious
stars. Why I did not return to "The Rescue" at once then, was not for
the reason that I had grown afraid of it. Being able now to assume a
firm attitude I said to myself deliberately: "That thing can wait." At the
same time I was just as certain in my mind that "Youth," a story which
I had then, so to speak, on the tip of my pen, could NOT wait. Neither
could "Heart of Darkness" be put off; for the practical reason that Mr.
Wm. Blackwood having requested me to write something for the No.
M of his magazine I had to stir up at once the subject of that tale which
had been long lying quiescent in my mind, because, obviously, the
venerable Maga at her patriarchal age of 1000 numbers could not be
kept waiting. Then "Lord Jim," with about seventeen pages already
written at odd times, put in his claim which was irresistible. Thus every
stroke of the pen was taking me further away from the abandoned

"Rescue," not without some compunction on my part but with a
gradually diminishing resistance; till at last I let myself go as if
recognising a superior influence against which it was useless to
contend.
The years passed and the pages grew in number, and the long reveries
of which they were the outcome stretched wide between me and the
deserted "Rescue" like the smooth hazy spaces of a dreamy sea. Yet I
never actually lost sight of that dark speck in the misty distance. It had
grown very small but it asserted itself with the appeal of old
associations. It seemed to me that it would be a base thing for me to
slip out of the world leaving it out there all alone, waiting for its
fate--that would never come?
Sentiment, pure sentiment as you see, prompted me in the last instance
to face the pains and hazards of that return. As I moved slowly towards
the abandoned body of the tale it loomed up big amongst the glittering
shallows of the coast, lonely but not forbidding. There was nothing
about it of a grim derelict. It had an air of expectant life. One