Some Reminiscences

by Joseph Conrad
A Familiar Preface.

As a general rule we do not want much encouragement to talk about
ourselves; yet this little book is the result of a friendly

suggestion, and even of a little friendly pressure. I defended
myself with some spirit; but, with characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristic tenacity, the

friendly voice insisted: "You know, you really must."
It was not an argument, but I submitted at once. If one must!. . .

You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade
should put his trust, not in the right argument, but in the right

word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power
of sense. I don't say this by way of disparagement. It is

better for mankind to be impressionable than reflective. Nothing
humanely great--great, I mean, as affecting a whole mass of

lives--has come from reflection. On the other hand, you cannot
fail to see the power of mere words; such words as Glory, for

instance, or Pity. I won't mention any more. They are not far
to seek. Shouted with perseverance, with ardour, with

conviction, these two by their sound alone have set whole nations
in motion and upheaved the dry, hard ground on which rests our

whole social fabric. There's "virtue" for you if you like!. . .
Of course the accent must be attended to. The right accent.

That's very important. The capacious lung, the thundering or the
tender vocal chords. Don't talk to me of your Archimedes' lever.

He was an absent-minded person with a mathematical imagination.
Mathematics command all my respect, but I have no use for

engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will
move the world.

What a dream--for a writer! Because written words have their
accent too. Yes! Let me only find the right word! Surely it

must be lying somewhere amongst the wreckage of all the plaints
and all the exultations poured out aloud since the first day when

hope, the undying, came down on earth. It may be there, close
by, disregarded, invisible, quite at hand. But it's no good. I

believe there are men who can lay hold of a needle in a pottle of
hay at the first try. For myself, I have never had such luck.

And then there is that accent. Another difficulty. For who is
going to tell whether the accent is right or wrong till the word

is shouted, and fails to be heard, perhaps, and goes down-wind
leaving the world unmoved. Once upon a time there lived an

Emperor who was a sage and something of a literary man. He
jotted down on ivory tablets thoughts, maxims, reflections which

chance has preserved for the edification of posterity. Amongst
other sayings--I am quoting from memory--I remember this solemn

admonition: "Let all thy words have the accent of heroic truth."
The accent of heroic truth! This is very fine, but I am thinking

that it is an easy matter for an austere Emperor to jot down
grandiose advice. Most of the working truths on this earth are

humble, not heroic: and there have been times in the history of
mankind when the accents of heroic truth have moved it to nothing

but derision.
Nobody will expect to find between the covers of this little book

words of extraordinary potency or accents of irresistible
heroism. However humiliating for my self-esteem, I must confess

that the counsels of Marcus Aurelius are not for me. They are
more fit for a moralist than for an artist. Truth of a modest

sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete,
praise-worthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the

hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one with
one's friends.

"Embroil" is perhaps too strong an expression. I can't imagine
either amongst my enemies or my friends a being so hard up for

something to do as to quarrel with me. "To disappoint one's
friends" would be nearer the mark. Most, almost all, friendships

of the writing period of my life have come to me through my
books; and I know that a novelist lives in his work. He stands

there, the only reality in an invented world, amongst imaginary
things, happenings, and people. Writing about them, he is only

writing about himself. But the disclosure is not complete. He
remains to a certain extent a figure behind the veil; a suspected

rather than a seen presence--a movement and a voice behind the
draperies of fiction. In these personal notes there is no such

veil. And I cannot help thinking of a passage in the "Imitation
of Christ" where the ascetic author, who knew life so profoundly,

says that "there are persons esteemed on their reputation who by
showing themselves destroy the opinion one had of them." This is

the danger incurred by an author of fiction who sets out to talk
about himself without disguise.

While these reminiscent pages were appearing serially I was
remonstrated with for bad economy; as if such writing were a form

of self-indulgence wasting the substance of future volumes. It
seems that I am not sufficientlyliterary. Indeed a man who

never wrote a line for print till he was thirty-six cannot bring
himself to look upon his existence and his experience, upon the

sum of his thoughts, sensations and emotions, upon his memories
and his regrets, and the whole possession of his past, as only so

much material for his hands. Once before, some three years ago,
when I published "The Mirror of the Sea," a volume of impressions

and memories, the same remarks were made to me. Practical
remarks. But, truth to say, I have never understood the kind of

thrift they recommended. I wanted to pay my tribute to the sea,
its ships and its men, to whom I remain indebted for so much

which has gone to make me what I am. That seemed to me the only
shape in which I could offer it to their shades. There could not

be a question in my mind of anything else. It is quite possible
that I am a bad economist; but it is certain that I am

incorrigible.
Having matured in the surroundings and under the special

conditions of sea-life, I have a special piety towards that form
of my past; for its impressions were vivid, its appeal direct,

its demands such as could be responded to with the natural
elation of youth and strength equal to the call. There was

nothing in them to perplex a young conscience. Having broken
away from my origins under a storm of blame from every quarter

which had the merest shadow of right to voice an opinion, removed
by great distances from such natural affections as were still

left to me, and even estranged, in a measure, from them by the
totally unintelligible character of the life which had seduced me

so mysteriously from my allegiance, I may safely say that through
the blind force of circumstances the sea was to be all my world

and the merchant service my only home for a long succession of
years. No wonder then that in my two exclusively sea books, "The

Nigger of the 'Narcissus'" and "The Mirror of the Sea" (and in
the few short sea stories like "Youth" and "Typhoon"), I have

tried with an almost filial regard to render the vibration of
life in the great world of waters, in the hearts of the simple

men who have for ages traversed its solitudes, and also that
something sentient which seems to dwell in ships--the creatures

of their hands and the objects of their care.
One's literary life must turn frequently for sustenance to

memories and seek discourse with the shades; unless one has made
up one's mind to write only in order to reprove mankind for what

it is, or praise it for what it is not, or--generally--to teach
it how to behave. Being neither quarrelsome, nor a flatterer,

nor a sage, I have done none of these things; and I am prepared
to put up serenely with the insignificance which attaches to

persons who are not meddlesome in some way or other. But
resignation is not indifference. I would not like to be left

standing as a mere spectator on the bank of the great stream
carrying onwards so many lives. I would fain claim for myself

the faculty of so much insight as can be expressed in a voice of
sympathy and passion" target="_blank" title="n.同情；怜悯">compassion.

It seems to me that in one, at least, authoritative quarter of
criticism I am suspected of a certain unemotional, grim

acceptance of facts; of what the French would call secheresse du
coeur. Fifteen years of unbroken silence before praise or blame

testify sufficiently to my respect for criticism, that fine