Joseph Conrad: A Short Study of His Intellectual and Emotional Attitude Toward His Work and of the Chief Characteristics of His NovelsRussell & Russell, 1915 - 111 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
action adventure æsthetic Almayer's Folly artist attitude audacity avarice become Captain character chronology compression Conrad's books consists Costaguana crisis criticism death despair discover effect egoism emotional English episodes evanescent evil existence feeling fellowship fiction forces forecastle fusion Gould Heart of Darkness Henry James honour hope human ideal instance intellectual intimacy irony JOSEPH CONRAD kind Lena less lives Lord Jim man's Marlow meaning melodrama method Mikulin mood moral mystery Narcissus nature Nigger Nostromo novel outcast past Patna perhaps Personal Record phase philosophy physical present purpose race raconteur Razumov reader reflection Ricardo sailors San Tomé score secret sense ship short story silver single social solidarity soul spectacle spirit stand substance tale temperament things thrill tion told tragedy tragic True Romance Trunnion truth turn Typhoon universe unresting Victory vision voice Western Eyes whole words Youth
Popular passages
Page 84 - ... My task which I am trying to achieve is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand — and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.
Page 107 - Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.
Page 77 - To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes in the light of a sincere mood.
Page 63 - She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness.
Page 78 - It is evident that he who, rightly or wrongly, holds by the convictions expressed above cannot be faithful to any one of the temporary formulas of his craft. The enduring part of them- the truth which each only imperfectly veils - should abide with him as the most precious of his possessions, but they all: Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, even the unofficial sentimentalism...
Page 87 - And that's the end. He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, forgotten, unforgiven, and excessively romantic. Not in the wildest days of his boyish visions could he have seen the alluring shape of such an extraordinary success ! For it may very well be that in the short moment of his last proud and unflinching glance, he had beheld the face of that opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had come veiled to his side.
Page 88 - Now he is no more, there are days when the reality of his existence comes to me with an immense, with an overwhelming force; and yet upon my honour there are moments, too when he passes from my eyes like a disembodied spirit astray amongst the passions of this earth, ready to surrender himself faithfully to the claim of his own world of shades.
Page 27 - A victim of the disillusioned weariness which is the retribution met'ed out to intellectual audacity, the brilliant Don Martin Decoud, weighted by the bars of San Tome silver, disappeared without a trace, swallowed up in the immense indifference of things.
Page 84 - A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.
Page 66 - I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more— the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort— to death...