"Conrad, Joseph - A Personal Record" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

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 recommend. 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 toward 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 onward so many lives. I would fain claim for myself the
faculty of so much insight as can be expressed in a voice of