"Conrad, Joseph - Notes On Life And Letters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

I don't know whether I ought to offer an apology for this
collection which has more to do with life than with letters. Its
appeal is made to orderly minds. This, to be frank about it, is a
process of tidying up, which, from the nature of things, cannot be
regarded as premature. The fact is that I wanted to do it myself
because of a feeling that had nothing to do with the considerations
of worthiness or unworthiness of the small (but unbroken) pieces
collected within the covers of this volume. Of course it may be
said that I might have taken up a broom and used it without saying
anything about it. That, certainly, is one way of tidying up.

But it would have been too much to have expected me to treat all
this matter as removable rubbish. All those things had a place in
my life. Whether any of them deserve to have been picked up and
ranged on the shelf--this shelf--I cannot say, and, frankly, I have
not allowed my mind to dwell on the question. I was afraid of
thinking myself into a mood that would hurt my feelings; for those
pieces of writing, whatever may be the comment on their display,
appertain to the character of the man.

And so here they are, dusted, which was but a decent thing to do,
but in no way polished, extending from the year '98 to the year
'20, a thin array (for such a stretch of time) of really innocent
attitudes: Conrad literary, Conrad political, Conrad reminiscent,
Conrad controversial. Well, yes! A one-man show--or is it merely
the show of one man?

The only thing that will not be found amongst those Figures and
Things that have passed away, will be Conrad EN PANTOUFLES. It is
a constitutional inability. SCHLAFROCK UND PANTOFFELN! Not that!
Never! . . . I don't know whether I dare boast like a certain South
American general who used to say that no emergency of war or peace
had ever found him "with his boots off"; but I may say that
whenever the various periodicals mentioned in this book called on
me to come out and blow the trumpet of personal opinions or strike
the pensive lute that speaks of the past, I always tried to pull on
my boots first. I didn't want to do it, God knows! Their Editors,
to whom I beg to offer my thanks here, made me perform mainly by
kindness but partly by bribery. Well, yes! Bribery? What can you
expect? I never pretended to be better than the people in the next
street, or even in the same street.

This volume (including these embarrassed introductory remarks) is
as near as I shall ever come to DESHABILLE in public; and perhaps
it will do something to help towards a better vision of the man, if
it gives no more than a partial view of a piece of his back, a
little dusty (after the process of tidying up), a little bowed, and
receding from the world not because of weariness or misanthropy but