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Some Reminiscences-Part17_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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criticisms. Far be from me the intention to mislead an attentive



public into the belief that there is no criticism at sea. That

would be dishonest, and even impolite. Everything can be found



at sea, according to the spirit of your quest--strife, peace,

romance, naturalism of the most pronounced kind, ideals, boredom,



disgust, inspiration--and every conceivable opportunity,

including the opportunity to make a fool of yourself--exactly as



in the pursuit of literature. But the quarter-deck criticism is

somewhat different from literarycriticism. This much they have



in common, that before the one and the other the answering back,

as a general rule, does not pay.



Yes, you find criticism at sea, and even appreciation--I tell you

everything is to be found on salt water--criticism generally



impromptu, and always viva voce, which is the outward, obvious

difference from the literary operation of that kind, with



consequent freshness and vigour which may be lacking in the

printed word. With appreciation, which comes at the end, when



the critic and the criticised are about to part, it is otherwise.

The sea appreciation of one's humbletalents has the permanency



of the written word, seldom the charm of variety, is formal in

its phrasing. There the literary master has the superiority,



though he, too, can in effect but say--and often says it in the

very phrase--"I can highly recommend." Only usually he uses the



word "We," there being some occult virtue in the first person

plural, which makes it specially fit for critical and royal



declarations. I have a small handful of these sea appreciations,

signed by various masters, yellowing slowly in my writing-table's



left-hand drawer, rustling under my reverent touch, like a

handful of dry leaves plucked for a tender memento from the tree



of knowledge. Strange! It seems that it is for these few bits

of paper, headed by the names of a few ships and signed by the



names of a few Scots and English shipmasters, that I have faced

the astonished indignations, the mockeries and the reproaches of



a sort hard to bear for a boy of fifteen; that I have been

charged with the want of patriotism, the want of sense, and the



want of heart too; that I went through agonies of self-conflict

and shed secret tears not a few, and had the beauties of the



Furca Pass spoiled for me, and have been called an "incorrigible

Don Quixote," in allusion to the book-born madness of the knight.



For that spoil! They rustle, those bits of paper--some dozen of

them in all. In that faint, ghostly sound there live the



memories of twenty years, the voices of rough men now no more,

the strong voice of the everlasting winds, and the whisper of a



mysterious spell, the murmur of the great sea, which must have

somehow reached my inlandcradle and entered my unconscious ear,



like that formula of Mohammedan faith the Mussulman father

whispers into the ear of his new-born infant, making him one of



the faithful almost with his first breath. I do not know whether

I have been a good seaman, but I know I have been a very faithful



one. And after all there is that handful of "characters" from

various ships to prove that all these years have not been



altogether a dream. There they are, brief, and monotonous in

tone, but as suggestive bits of writing to me as any inspired






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