American nights entertainment
those words crossed Garnett’s lips, _An Outcast of the Islands_ was
merely a matter of time. All the same, he had to live. Shortly, he was
marrying, and at suitable intervals Boris and John were added to the
family unit. Capel House was a Kentish cottage but there were rates
to pay. For some years the pension provided by the Civil List was an
affair of serious importance. There is a man or two now living and a
man or two now dead who could throw light on this phase of J. C.’s
special problem. Conrad’s present American publisher dropped in one
day on the late William Heinemann in London, with his usual question
of what, or more accurately whom, Heinemann had got. The reply was: A
comparatively new writer who would some day be as important as Kipling.
However, it appeared that in order to attain this importance he would
have to live. ‘Suppose,’ suggested Heinemann, with every aspect of
intense earnestness, ‘you and I back him. He has a novel he wants to
do. I think if we both put in ten pounds--fifty dollars--a month----.’
For a moment it seemed as if this blithe proposal might terminate the
interview. And, after all, a publisher, who has to foot the cost of a
book anyway on what is often the slenderest chance, might well draw
back before the prospect of investing $50 a month for a year or two as
a preliminary to risking as much more. But it was done. In the end, J.
C. told them frankly that he could not give them the book. He had got
seven-eighths of the way through and he was unable to bring the story
out. Stuck for an ending would be the other way of stating the case.
The two, Heinemann and Frank N. Doubleday, accepted this disappointment
with a most commendable calmness. J. C. went on to write other things,
_The Nigger of the Narcissus_, _Lord Jim_, since so widely hailed and
at the time so little heeded and so immensely unlucrative; _Nostromo_.
James B. Pinker (you knew Pinker, the author’s agent) handled the
stuff. In the American phrase, Pinker ‘grubstaked’ Conrad; and among
long-term investments of the very highest grade J. C. has been one of
the very best in the world. Ah, yes! He has! No one who ever invested
in Conrad and held on, held ‘for the rise,’ has ever lost a penny--or
failed to make an enormous per cent. Why, take Heinemann and F. N.
D. They, in effect, bought at away below par twenty-year bonds that
matured and were paid off at par. For after twenty years J. C. picked
up the all-but-finished novel, put it through in triumphant fashion and
gave it to them under the title of _The Rescue_. By that time, he was
made. He was selling in America practically seventeen times as many
copies as when they put their money in--maybe more. And any publisher
in America or England would, by then, have given his upper and lower
teeth to possess Conrad. The Civil List was at liberty to take care of
someone else and lucky if it found another half so rewarding.
“Do I give the impression that this result was brought about in the
least meteorically? That would be inexcusable on my part. Let me see:
There were _Almayer’s Folly_ and _An Outcast of the Islands_ and _The
Nigger_ and _Lord Jim_ and _Nostromo_ and _The Secret Agent_ and _Under
Western Eyes_. Seven novels, not counting the two he wrote with Ford
Madox Hueffer and four or five books of short stories. I am speaking
now of the nineteen years that lay between Conrad’s first book and his
novel, _Chance_; and I am avoiding all exaggeration when I tell you
flatly that in all those nineteen years not one single book--not the
succession of all those books--made enough money for the reasonable
needs of himself and his family. Oh, I don’t say that he was entirely
dependent on these books and the far-sightedness of men like those
investors I have mentioned. W. E. Henley serialised _The Nigger_; in
America, the North American Review serialised _Under Western Eyes_;
there was a bit of money, now and again from the magazine sale of one
of the short-stories, no doubt. I stick to my point: The income from
the books was not enough. By the way, he also wrote in those years the
two autobiographical books, _The Mirror of the Sea_ and _A Personal
Record_. H’m. The American publishers of _A Personal Record_ printed it
from type. You know; print a few and throw the type away.
“_Chance_ was published in 1914 and sold 20,000 copies in England and
the long ordeal was over.
iv
“One ordeal, that is. Ordeals, as such, are never over. After the trial
by water, the trial by fire; and you are not to suppose that because
one has survived the trial of the spirit he will therefore triumph
easily over the trials of the flesh. Not at all. What is the malady of
rheumatism beside the torture of shyness? And Conrad has always been
distinctly shy. His American publisher, for a long time, did not meet
him; J. C. backed out of it, until, finally, a perfectly reasonable
impatience seized upon Mr. Doubleday, who said to himself, in a mild
tone: ‘Confound it all. This sort of thing has got to stop.’ And
that sort of thing did stop. J. C. at length was induced to come to a
London hotel and shake hands--about all he did do, in fact, for at once
a severe attack of shyness set in. For quite a while that interview
went--very badly? Goodness knows it did not even go badly; it simply
did not go at all. But then, as he knew Conrad was planning a new
book, Mr. Doubleday asked a few questions natural to a person who has
something at stake in a prospective venture. J. C. answered with entire
willingness, began explaining what he had in mind and--pouf! Where was
that shyness any longer? They parted as very good friends and have
remained such ever since. So it came about that at last J. C. visited
America as the guest of Mr. Doubleday. As you can imagine, lecture
bureaus, societies and every sort of outfit had been after J. C. for
years to speak in public. He had always turned down such offers, but
before coming to America he explained to Mr. Doubleday that he should
like to tell a few people, not more than a dozen, over the luncheon
table of his Congo experience, and then read to them from his story,
_Heart of Darkness_, the same affair as it came out in fiction. ‘If I
am able to interest those few,’ J. C. went on, ‘perhaps I might try
the same thing with a larger number, say fifty or even a hundred; I
don’t think I could ever address more than a hundred.’ You see, he
knew himself. He is the kind of man who is at his best in an intimate
surrounding. Perhaps you have noticed the very special quality of
intimacy achieved in his stories under practically all conditions.
He inhabits other people’s breasts. A self-conscious tendency as
great as his own or greater excites his friendly compassion. I know
an American novelist, at one time editor of an American magazine and
then in England meeting people and questing material. Several people
were present but Conrad noticed the extreme ill-ease of the American
editor. J. C. got up and came over and sat beside the stranger, who
then lost some of his discomfort and eventually plucked up enough to
say to J. C. that he would like to get some short stories from him.
‘Ah! Short stories,’ J. C. commented with that markedly foreign accent
or intonation. He paused. ‘I do not pick short stories out of my
sleeve.’ It was said with an inflection pleasantly humorous that did
not conceal the seriousness of the fact. He simply wasn’t that kind of
a conjuror. This was not the editor who handled _Victory_. American
editors, according to my impression, are a varied lot. The mixture they
make is a literary cocktail which appears to go to the heads of so many
American authors. I know an American editor who bought a Conrad novel
as a serial when all his--confrères’?--had rejected the story because
of the impossible length. This man printed the 147,000 words without
the sacrifice of one. This was after _Victory_ and as the editor in
question knew nothing of that case, his was an unconscious as well as
a vicarious atonement. But let that pass. We are not concerned with
American editors, and neither, except momentarily, has Conrad been.
His preoccupation has been unbrokenly with the problem of a sufficient
self-knowledge. Must he not know himself better than any other possibly
could? Of course, and for two imperative purposes: In the first place
to write, in the second place, to keep his courage. It is no use being
able to write unless you can keep your courage. Too, the world is
full of brave souls who have bravery and ... nothing else. No gift, I
mean. Nothing in the world is so cheap as courage, so common. But look
you!--if a man undertakes self-examination, his courage goes. The scale
of values is hopelessly deranged and either the self rises to sublime
heights of despair or sinks into a hopeless, sticky complacency. J.
C. is not an unblemished exception to this general law, or deplorable
result--whichever term you prefer. He had gone to revisit Poland and
was there when the Great War unleashed itself. The story of how he got
out of Europe has never been told and, in fact, I don’t see how it can
be. Or, well, why not? What do a few bribes matter, in a good cause?
Some fairly influential persons, including an American Ambassador,
were called upon to extricate Conrad from the extremely troublesome
complications caused by the fact that he, a Pole by race and a
Russian subject by birth, was a naturalised Englishman. The American
Ambassador, appointed in the first place because of his large personal
means, enabling him to support an Ambassadorship in the style to which
it had been accustomed, may have used his private pocketbook; but in
my judgment the matter was one to which he could quite conscientiously
have devoted the public funds. Let that pass, too. They say that J.
C. hates Russians and is frequently irascible. He also understands
Russians, as any disbeliever may discover by reading _Under Western
Eyes_. As for his irascibility, the results of self-examination justify
any reasonable amount of irritation. If it had been one of you who
had written seven-eighths of _The Rescue_ and found himself stuck
for an ending I daresay the detonations would have been terrific. A
volcano can blow its head off but an artist must not be permitted to
let a little steam escape! What sort of a doctrine is that? J. C., of
late years, has lost a good deal of his nervousness. He has written
his _Lord Jim_ long ago. He has accomplished the most satisfactory
definition we possess of the novel--where he calls it ‘a conviction
of our fellowmen’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form
of imagined life clearer than reality.’ I call your attention to the
last three words. If the ‘form of imagined life’ is not clearer to
us than life as we observe it, there is no novel. Now, life is never
clear unless we hold a little fragment of it in front of the mirror of
each one of us, his own heart. Always, then, something different from
what we expected is then clear, recognisable. J. C. has never done
anything else. The story of _The Secret Sharer_, that chap who haunted
the captain’s cabin and persisted in the captain’s thoughts, is the
symbol of all Conrad’s work. I believe he has called it his favourite
story; does anyone need to ask why? Giorgio Viola in _Nostromo_, Mrs.
Gould in the same novel, the nigger in the story of the Narcissus,
Haldin in _Under Western Eyes_, our friend, the anarchist, in _The
Secret Agent_; Captain MacWhirr in _Typhoon_ and Jim in _Lord Jim_;
Axel Heyst in _Victory_; Flora de Barral and others in _Chance_--you
know as well as I do that these are simply persons we encounter and
depreciate or else dismiss as incomprehensible. But Conrad holds them
up to the mirror of his own heart and behold! they are reflected in new