The great comfort of the society of great folks is, that they do not trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller persons do, but take you for what you are – a man kindly and good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a good raconteur, or a very handsome man (and in ’15 some of the Browns were – but I am speaking of five-and-thirty years ago), or an excellent gourmand and judge of wines – or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your ease as a fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a knight’s lady than about the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe herself: and Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enters and leaves a room, with her daughters, the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith d’Arc, with much less pretension and in much simpler capotes and what-do-you-call-’ems, than Lady de Mogyns or Mrs Shindy, who quit an assembly in a whirlwind as it were, with trumpets and alarums like a stage king and queen.
But my pen can run no further, for my paper is out, and it is time to dress for dinner.
* Mr Brown’s MS here contains a name of such prodigious dignity out of the ‘P-r-age,’ that we really do not dare to print it.
Joseph Conrad
[1857–1924]
Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Berdyczów, Poland, into a family of landowning aristocrats. His father, a political activist and man of letters, had translated Shakespeare and Victor Hugo from English and French into Polish. As a supporter of Polish independence from Russia and a member of the National Committee of the underground movement, Conrad’s father was arrested by Russian police in 1862 and the family was exiled to Vologda in Russia.
When he was seven years old, just shortly after their arrival in Russia, Conrad’s mother died. On account of his father’s grief and failing health, father and son were allowed to return to Poland. Soon after, his father died and Conrad, aged eleven, passed into the care of his uncle. This early experience of the pressures politics bring to bear on personal life helped to make Conrad’s writing different from that of many of his Western contemporaries, whose own experience of political pressure was not felt until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
During these difficult and often solitary years Conrad sought refuge in books. He developed a fascination for tales of sea life and in 1874 he joined the crew of a French ship on a voyage that took him to the West Indies and Central America. The enclosed community of the ship was, to Conrad, a microcosm of the moral world, and his observation of it during his years at sea was to give him a profound understanding of human psychology.
In 1878, with virtually no knowledge of the English language, Conrad travelled to England. He joined a British ship and sailed extensively in the Far East. Then in 1886, having sailed exclusively on British ships for eight years, Conrad was made a British subject and qualified as a Master Mariner. That same year, he wrote his first story, The Black Mate, which he entered for a competition in the magazine Tit-Bits. In 1888 Conrad received his first command as Captain on a river steamer in the Belgian Congo. His experience of the brutality of imperialism had a profound effect on him and was later to be the inspiration for one of his most admired works, Heart of Darkness. The trip, however, took its toll and in 1894 Conrad retired from the sea.
Settling in London, Conrad began to write and by 1896 had published two novels set in the Far East, Almayer’s Folly and An Outcast of the Islands. Both novels brought him critical acclaim from, among others, Henry James, Ford Madox Ford, H. G. Wells and Stephen Crane. In 1896 he married Jessie George and they had two sons, Borys and John. The family lived in a series of rented homes in the secluded countryside of Essex and Kent while Conrad wrote.
In the work that followed, most notably The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ (1898), Lord Jim (1900), Heart of Darkness (1902), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907) and Under Western Eyes (1911), Conrad was to transform the English novel in both style and content. He abandoned the stability given by the single narrator in favour of the shifting perspective brought by several, and while his exploration of moral issues put him in the English tradition, he held the very untraditional concept of the novel as a fusion of history, psychology, sociology and poetry.
Despite his continuing critical success, Conrad was never a ‘popular’ writer and only one of his later novels, Chance (1914), brought him public acclaim. Although many praised his gift for the English language, others found his prose stiff and ornate, and as a result Conrad made little money from his writing. However, his work undoubtedly remains central to the development of the English novel.
Conrad found a ‘home’ in England which went some way to mirroring his first ‘home’ of the sea. International in flavour, full of high and low argot, forever restless, this was the England that Conrad loved. It was as if the whole world lived in London, as is made clear in the following passage from The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’. The ship (the Narcissus) arrives in the capital and the whole heterogeneous mix that is contemporary London is laid before us.
From The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’
A week afterwards the Narcissus entered the chops of the Channel.
Under white wings she skimmed low over the blue sea like a great tired bird speeding to its nest. The clouds raced with her mastheads; they rose astern enormous and white, soared to the zenith, flew past, and, falling down the wide curve of the sky, seemed to dash headlong into the sea – the clouds swifter than the ship, more free, but without a home. The coast to welcome her stepped out of space into the sunshine. The lofty headlands trod masterfully into the sea; the wide bays smiled in the light; the shadows of homeless clouds ran along the sunny plains, leaped over valleys, without a check darted up the hills, rolled down the slopes; and the sunshine pursued them with patches of running brightness. On the brows of dark cliffs white lighthouses shone in pillars of light. The Channel glittered like a blue mantle shot with gold and starred by the silver of the capping seas. The Narcissus rushed past the headlands and the bays. Outward-bound vessels crossed her track, lying over, and with their masts stripped for a slogging fight with the hard sou’wester. And, inshore, a string of smoking steamboats waddled, hugging the coast, like migrating and amphibious monsters, distrustful of the restless waves.
At night the headlands retreated, the bays advanced into one unbroken line of gloom. The lights of the earth mingled with the lights of heaven; and above the tossing lanterns of a trawling fleet a great lighthouse shone steadily, like an enormous riding light burning above a vessel of fabulous dimensions. Below its steady glow, the coast, stretching away straight and black, resembled the high side of an indestructible craft riding motionless upon the immortal and unresting sea. The dark land lay alone in the midst of waters, like a mighty ship bestarred with vigilant lights – a ship carrying the burden of millions of lives – a ship freighted with dross and with jewels, with gold and with steel. She towered up immense and strong, guarding priceless traditions and untold suffering, sheltering glorious memories and base forgetfulness, ignoble virtues and splendid transgressions. A great ship! For ages had the ocean battered in vain her enduring sides; she was there when the world was vaster and darker, when the sea was great and mysterious, and ready to surrender the prize of fame to audacious men. A ship mother of fleets and nations! The great flagship of the race; stronger than the storms! and anchored in the open sea.
The Narcissus, heeling over to off-shore gusts, rounded the South Foreland, passed through the Downs, and, in tow, entered the river. Shorn of the glory of her white wings, she wound obediently after the tug through the maze of invisible channels. As she passed them the red-painted light-vessels, swung at their moorings, seemed for an instant to sail with great speed in the rush of tide, and the next moment were left hopelessly behind. The big buoys on the tails of banks slipped past her sides very low, and, dropping in her wake, tugged at their chains like fierce watchdogs. The reach narrowed; from both sides the land approached the ship. She went steadily up the river. On the riverside slopes the houses appeared in groups – seemed to stream down the declivities at a run to see her pass, and, checked by the mud of the foreshore, crowded on the banks. Farther on, the tall factory chimneys appeared in insolent bands and watched her go by, like a straggling crowd of slim giants, swaggering and upright under the black plummets of smoke, cavalierly aslant. She swept round the bends; an impure breeze shrieked a welcome between her stripped spars; and the land, closing in, stepped between the ship and the sea.
A low cloud hung before her – a great opalescent and tremulous cloud, that seemed to rise from the steaming brows of millions of men. Long drifts of smoky vapours soiled it with livid trails; it throbbed to the beat of millions of hearts, and from it came an immense and lamentable murmur – the murmur of millions of lips praying, cursing, sighing, jeering – the undying murmur of folly, regret, and hope exhaled by the crowds of the anxious earth. The Narcissus entered the cloud; the shadows deepened; on all sides there was the clang of iron, the sound of mighty blows, shrieks, yells. Black barges drifted stealthily on the murky stream. A mad jumble of begrimed walls loomed up vaguely in the smoke, bewildering and mournful, like a vision of disaster. The tugs backed and filled in the stream, to hold the ship at the dock gates; from her bows two lines went through the air whistling, and struck at the land viciously, like a pair of snakes. A bridge broke in two before her, as if by enchantment; big hydraulic capstans began to turn all by themselves, as though animated by a mysterious and unholy spell. She moved through a narrow lane of water between two low walls of granite, and men with check-ropes in their hands kept pace with her, walking on the broad flagstones. A group waited impatiently on each side of the vanished bridge: rough heavy men in caps; sallow-faced men in high hats; two bareheaded women; ragged children, fascinated, and with wide eyes. A cart coming at a jerky trot pulled up sharply. One of the women screamed at the silent ship – ‘Hallo, Jack!’ without looking at any one in particular, and all hands looked at her from the forecastle head. – ‘Stand clear! Stand clear of that rope!’ cried the dockmen, bending over stone posts. The crowd murmured, stamped where they stood. – ‘Let go your quarter-checks! Let go!’ sang out a ruddy-faced old man on the quay. The ropes splashed heavily falling in the water, and the Narcissus entered the dock.
The stony shores ran away right and left in straight lines, enclosing a sombre and rectangular pool. Brick walls rose high above the water – soulless walls, staring through hundreds of windows as troubled and dull as the eyes of over-fed brutes. At their base monstrous iron cranes crouched, with chains hanging from their long necks, balancing cruel-looking hooks over the decks of lifeless ships. A noise of wheels rolling over stones, the thump of heavy things falling, the racket of feverish winches, the grinding of strained chains, floated on the air. Between high buildings the dust of all the continents soared in short flights; and a penetrating smell of perfumes and dirt, of spices and hides, of things costly and of things filthy, pervaded the space, made for it an atmosphere precious and disgusting. The Narcissus came gently into her berth; the shadows of soulless walls fell upon her, the dust of all the continents leaped upon her deck, and a swarm of strange men, clambering up her sides, took possession of her in the name of the sordid earth. She had ceased to live.
A toff in a black coat and high hat scrambled with agility, came up to the second mate, shook hands, and said: – ‘Hallo, Herbert.’ It was his brother. A lady appeared suddenly. A real lady, in a black dress and with a parasol. She looked extremely elegant in the midst of us, and as strange as if she had fallen there from the sky. Mr Baker touched his cap to her. It was the master’s wife. And very soon the Captain, dressed very smartly and in a white shirt, went with her over the side. We didn’t recognize him at all till, turning on the quay, he called to Mr Baker: – ‘Don’t forget to wind up the chronometers to-morrow morning.’ An underhand lot of seedy-looking chaps with shifty eyes wandered in and out of the forecastle looking for a job – they said. – ‘More likely for something to steal,’ commented Knowles cheerfully. Poor beggars! Who cared? Weren’t we home! But Mr Baker went for one of them who had given him some cheek, and we were delighted. Everything was delightful. – ‘I’ve finished aft, sir,’ called out Mr Creighton. – ‘No water in the well, sir,’ reported for the last time the carpenter, sounding-rod in hand. Mr Baker glanced along the decks at the expectant group of sailors, glanced aloft at the yards. – ‘Ough! That will do, men,’ he grunted. The group broke up. The voyage was ended.
Rolled-up beds went flying over the rail; lashed chests went sliding down the gangway – mighty few of both at that. ‘The rest is having a cruise off the Cape,’ explained Knowles enigmatically to a dock-loafer with whom he had struck a sudden friendship. Men ran, calling to one another, hailing utter strangers to ‘lend a hand with the dunnage,’ then with sudden decorum approached the mate to shake hands before going ashore. – ‘Good-bye, sir,’ they repeated in various tones. Mr Baker grasped hard palms, grunted in a friendly manner at every one, his eyes twinkled. – ‘Take care of your money, Knowles. Ough! Soon get a nice wife if you do.’ The lame man was delighted. – ‘Good-bye, sir,’ said Belfast, with emotion, wringing the mate’s hand, and looked up with swimming eyes. ‘I thought I would take ’im ashore with me,’ he went on plaintively. Mr Baker did not understand, but said kindly: – ‘Take care of yourself, Craik,’ and the bereaved Belfast went over the rail mourning and alone.
Mr Baker, in the sudden peace of the ship, moved about solitary and grunting, trying door handles, peering into dark places, never done – a model chief mate! No one waited for him ashore. Mother dead; father and two brothers, Yarmouth fishermen, drowned together on the Dogger Bank; sister married and unfriendly. Quite a lady. Married to the leading tailor of a little town, and its leading politician, who did not think his sailor brother-in-law quite respectable enough for him. Quite a lady, quite a lady, he thought, sitting down for a moment’s rest on the quarter-hatch. Time enough to go ashore and get a bite and sup, and a bed somewhere. He didn’t like to part with a ship. No one to think about then. The darkness of a misty evening fell, cold and damp, upon the deserted deck; and Mr Baker sat smoking, thinking of all the successive ships to whom through many long years he had given the best of a seaman’s care. And never a command in sight. Not once! – ‘I haven’t somehow the cut of a skipper about me,’ he meditated placidly, while the shipkeeper (who had taken possession of the galley), a wizened old man with bleared eyes, cursed him in whispers for ‘hanging about so.’ – ‘Now, Creighton,’ he pursued the unenvious train of thought, ‘quite a gentleman … swell friends … will get on. Fine young fellow… a little more experience.’ He got up and shook himself. ‘I’ll be back first thing to-morrow morning for the hatches. Don’t you let them touch anything before I come, shipkeeper,’ he called out. Then, at last, he also went ashore – a model chief mate!
The men scattered by the dissolving contact of the land came together once more in the shipping office. – ‘The Narcissus pays off,’ shouted outside a glazed door a brass-bound old fellow, with a crown and the capitals B.T. on his cap. A lot trooped in at once but many were late. The room was large, whitewashed, and bare; a counter surmounted by a brass-wire grating fenced off a third of the dusty space, and behind the grating a pasty-faced clerk, with his hair parted in the middle, had the quick, glittering eyes and the vivacious, jerky movements of a caged bird. Poor Captain Allistoun also in there and sitting before a little table with piles of gold and notes on it, appeared subdued by his captivity. Another Board of Trade bird was perching on a high stool near the door: an old bird that did not mind the chaff of elated sailors. The crew of the Narcissus, broken up into knots, pushed in the corners. They had new shore togs, smart jackets that looked as if they had been shaped with an axe, glossy trousers that seemed made of crumpled sheet-iron, collarless flannel shirts, shiny new boots. They tapped on shoulders, button-holed one another, asked: – ‘Where did you sleep last night?’ whispered gaily, slapped their thighs with bursts of subdued laughter. Most had clean radiant faces; only one or two turned up dishevelled and sad; the two young Norwegians looked tidy, meek, and altogether of a promising material for the kind ladies who patronize the Scandinavian Home. Wamibo, still in his working clothes, dreamed, upright and burly in the middle of the room, and, when Archie came in, woke up for a smile. But the wide-awake clerk called out a name, and the paying-off business began.
One by one they came up to the pay-table to get the wages of their glorious and obscure toil. They swept the money with care into broad palms, rammed it trustfully into trousers’ pockets, or, turning their backs on the table, reckoned with difficulty in the hollow of their stiff hands. – ‘Money right? Sign the release. There – there,’ repeated the clerk impatiently. ‘How stupid those sailors are!’ he thought. Singleton came up, venerable – and uncertain as to daylight; brown drops of tobacco juice hung in his white beard; his hands, that never hesitated in the great light of the open sea, could hardly find the small pile of gold in the profound darkness of the shore. ‘Can’t write?’ said the clerk, shocked. ‘Make a mark then.’ Singleton painfully sketched in a heavy cross, blotted the page. ‘What a disgusting old brute,’ muttered the clerk. Somebody opened the door for him, and the patriarchal seaman passed through unsteadily, without as much as a glance at any of us.
Archie displayed a pocket-book. He was chaffed. Belfast, who looked wild, as though he had already luffed up through a public-house or two, gave signs of emotion and wanted to speak to the captain privately. The master was surprised. They spoke through the wires, and we could hear the captain saying: – ‘I’ve given it up to the Board of Trade.’ ‘I should’ve liked to get something of his,’ mumbled Belfast. ‘But you can’t, my man. It’s given up, locked and sealed, to the Marine Office,’ expostulated the master; and Belfast stood back, with drooping mouth and troubled eyes. In a pause of the business we heard the master and the clerk talking. We caught: ‘James Wait – deceased – found no papers of any kind – no relations – no trace – the Office must hold his wages then.’ Donkin entered. He seemed out of breath, was grave, full of business. He went straight to the desk, talked with animation to the clerk, who thought him an intelligent man. They discussed the account, dropping h’s against one another as if for a wager – very friendly. Captain Allistoun paid. ‘I give you a bad discharge,’ he said quietly. Donkin raised his voice; – ‘I don’t want your bloomin’ discharge – keep it. I’m goin’ ter ’ave a job ashore.’ He turned to us. ‘No more bloomin’ sea fur me,’ he said aloud. All looked at him. He had better clothes, had an easy air, appeared more at home than any of us; he stared with assurance, enjoying the effect of his declaration. ‘Yuss. I ’ave friends well off. That’s more’n you got. But I am a man. Ye’re shipmates for all that. Who’s comin’ fur a drink?’
No one moved. There was a silence; a silence of blank faces and stony looks. He waited a moment, smiled bitterly, and went to the door. There he faced round once more. ‘You won’t? You bloomin’ lot of ’ypocrites. No? What ’ave I done to yer? Did I bully yer? Did I ’urt yer? Did I? … You won’t drink? … No! … Then may ye die of thirst, every mother’s son of yer! Not one of yer ’as the sperrit of a bug. Ye’re the scum of the world. Work and starve!’
He went out, and slammed the door with such violence that the old Board of Trade bird nearly fell off his perch.
‘He’s mad,’ declared Archie. ‘No! No! He’s drunk,’ insisted Belfast, lurching about, and in a maudlin tone. Captain Allistoun sat smiling thoughtfully at the cleared pay-table.
Outside, on Tower Hill, they blinked, hesitated clumsily, as if blinded by the strange quality of the hazy light, as if discomposed by the view of so many men; and they who could hear one another in the howl of gales seemed deafened and distracted by the dull roar of the busy earth. – ‘To the Black Horse! To the Black Horse!’ cried some. ‘Let us have a drink together before we part.’ They crossed the road, clinging to one another. Only Charley and Belfast wandered off alone. As I came up I saw a red-faced, blowsy woman, in a grey shawl, and with dusty, fluffy hair, fall on Charley’s neck. It was his mother. She sobbed over him: – ‘Oh, my boy! My boy!’ – ‘Leggo of me,’ said Charley, ‘Leggo, Mother!’ I was passing him at the time, and over the untidy head of the blubbering woman he gave me a humorous smile and a glance ironic, courageous, and profound, that seemed to put all my knowledge of life to shame. I nodded and passed on, but heard him say again, good-naturedly: – ‘If you leggo of me this minyt – ye shall ’ave a bob for a drink out of my pay.’ In the next few steps I came upon Belfast. He caught my arm with tremulous enthusiasm. – ‘I couldn’t go wi’ ‘em,’ he stammered, indicating by a nod our noisy crowd, that drifted slowly along the other sidewalk. ‘When I think of Jimmy… Poor Jim! When I think of him I have no heart for drink. You were his chum, too … but I pulled him out… didn’t I? Short wool he had … Yes. And I stole the blooming pie…. He wouldn’t go…. He wouldn’t go for nobody.’ He burst into tears. ‘I never touched him – never – never!’ he sobbed. ‘He went for me like … like … a lamb.’
I disengaged myself gently. Belfast’s crying fits generally ended in a fight with some one, and I wasn’t anxious to stand the brunt of his inconsolable sorrow. Moreover, two bulky policemen stood near by, looking at us with a disapproving and incorruptible gaze. – ‘So long!’ I said, and went on my way.
But at the corner I stopped to take my last look at the crew of the Narcissus. They were swaying irresolute and noisy on the broad flagstones before the Mint. They were bound for the Black Horse, where men, in fur caps, with brutal faces and in shirt sleeves, dispense out of varnished barrels the illusion of strength, mirth, happiness; the illusion of splendour and poetry of life, to the paid-off crews of southern-going ships. From afar I saw them discoursing, with jovial eyes and clumsy gestures, while the sea of life thundered into their ears ceaseless and unheeded. And swaying about there on the white stones, surrounded by the hurry and clamour of men, they appeared to be creatures of another kind – lost, alone, forgetful, and doomed; they were like castaways, like reckless and joyous castaways, like mad castaways making merry in the storm and upon an insecure ledge of a treacherous rock. The roar of the town resembled the roar of topping breakers, merciless and strong, with a loud voice and cruel purpose; but overhead the clouds broke; a flood of sunshine streamed down the walls of grimy houses. The dark knot of seamen drifted in sunshine. To the left of them the trees in Tower Gardens sighed, the stones of the Tower gleaming, seemed to stir in the play of light, as if remembering suddenly all the great joys and sorrows of the past, the fighting prototypes of these men; press-gangs; mutinous cries; the wailing of women by the riverside, and the shouts of men welcoming victories. The sunshine of heaven fell like a gift of grace on the mud of the earth, on the remembering and mute stones, on greed, selfishness; on the anxious faces of forgetful men. And to the right of the dark group the stained front of the Mint, cleansed by the flood of light, stood out for a moment dazzling and white like a marble palace in a fairy tale. The crew of the Narcissus drifted out of sight.
I never saw them again. The sea took some, the steamers took others, the graveyards of the earth will account for the rest. Singleton has no doubt taken with him the long record of his faithful work into the peaceful depths of an hospitable sea. And Donkin, who never did a decent day’s work in his life, no doubt earns his living by discoursing with filthy eloquence upon the right of labour to live. So be it! Let the earth and the sea each have its own.
A gone shipmate, like any other man, is gone for ever; and I never met one of them again. But at times the spring-flood of memory sets with force up the dark River of the Nine Bends. Then on the waters of the forlorn stream drifts a ship – a shadowy ship manned by a crew of Shades. They pass and make a sign, in a shadowy hail. Haven’t we, together and upon the immortal sea, wrung out a meaning from our sinful lives? Good-bye, brothers! You were a good crowd. As good a crowd as ever fisted with wild cries the beating canvas of a heavy foresail; or tossing aloft, invisible in the night, gave back yell for yell to a westerly gale.
Rudyard Kipling
[1865–1936]
Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay. His father, John Lockwood Kipling, was a professor at the School of Art in Lahore. Kipling’s happy childhood came to an abrupt end when, at the age of six, he was sent with his sister to England. He was put into the care of a strict guardian and attended the United Services College, a public school in Devon. These unhappy schoolboy years were later to be recounted in the semi-autobiographical Stalky & Co. (1899).
In 1882, having left school, Kipling went back to India and worked as a journalist in Lahore on the Civil and Military Gazette. Aside from news items, he began to contribute his mildly satirical poetry and short stories. In 1886 his first collection of poems, Departmental Ditties, was published, followed by two collections of short stories, Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) and Soldiers Three (1889). These works were to bring him early recognition back in England. Having spent two years travelling around India, he returned to England, by way of the United States, in 1889.
Settling into the London literary scene, Kipling reissued his India stories and published a new collection, Life’s Handicap (1891). That same year, during a trip undertaken to improve his health, he visited India for the last time. In 1892 he married an American, Caroline Balestier, the sister of Charles Wolcott Balestier, an author-publisher with whom Kipling had worked. Moving with his wife to her home in Vermont, Kipling wrote and published what were to become some of his most celebrated titles, among them Barrack-Room Ballads (1892), a collection of poems written in the ballad tradition, the short stories Many Inventions (1893) and his classic children’s story The Jungle Book (1894), plus its sequel in 1895. This spell in America ended abruptly in 1896 when, following an argument with his brother-in-law, Kipling returned with his family to England.
Thereafter, Kipling remained in England, with spells in South Africa during the winter, where he voiced his support of Britain in the Boer War. His South African experiences, together with his earlier impressions of India, are reflected in his rigidly imperialist views on ‘the white man’s burden’. In fact, though some of his writing showed a sensitivity to the ill-effects of colonialism, much of it displayed his enthusiasm for a ruling order, and Kipling was later to be widely criticized for his jingoistic arrogance towards people ruled by Britain. However, in the days of the British Empire, Kipling’s poetry was hugely admired by many, including Queen Victoria and George V, and although he declined many offers of honours, including a knighthood and the Order of Merit, in 1907 he did accept the Nobel Prize for Literature. Among his celebrated later works were the novel Kim (1901), and for children the Just So Stories (1902) and Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906). His autobiography, Something of Myself, was published in 1937, after his death.
