An Artist’s Impression

Abstract

The soul of Conrad is embodied for ever in his books, but there was a formality when he spoke of himself there — an unconscious bit of formal sea manners where a captain must always remember he is captain first, or the result of the deliberation with which he used the English language, or perhaps of the mature age at which he began to give us his confidences when so expert a psychologist could gauge all its effects on us. Whatever the reason I was not prepared for the exquisite quality of that personality as a human being — its humour, gaiety, irony and tenderness — when, after long years as a reader, I became a friend. We crossed to America together last year in the Anchor liner Tuscania, from Glasgow, and her captain being my brother the ‘Brassbounder’, and an old friend of Conrad’s,¹ the voyage was very memorable to me. It was the first time J.C. had been on a large modern liner, and the handling of her had his close attention. There was a heavy head wind against us as we cleared from Moville after taking Irish emigrants aboard, and with a pitch-dark night it was not easy getting under way again. I remember Conrad peering from the ship’s high bridge and telling me we were the height of a full-rigged ship from the sea and all these decks were like an immense spread of canvas catching the wind. My brother, proud of his ship, tried artfully to trap Conrad into an admiration for her, but the mere size of modern liners gave him no pleasure.

‘The Soul of Conrad: an Artist’s Impression’, Manchester Guardian Weekly, vol. XI, no. 6(8 Aug. 1924) pp. 124–5.