They have their hope and their aim. The hope that
from the reading of these pages there may emerge at last the vision of
a personality; the man behind the books so fundamentally dissimilar
as, for instance, "Almayer's Folly" and "The Secret Agent," and yet a
coherent, justifiable personality both in its origin and in its action.
This is the hope. The immediate aim, closely associated with the hope,
is to give the record of personal memories by presenting faithfully the
feelings and sensations connected with the writing of my first book and
with my first contact with the sea.
In the purposely mingled resonance of this double strain a friend here
and there will perhaps detect a subtle accord.
J. C. K.
A PERSONAL RECORD
I
Books may be written in all sorts of places. Verbal inspiration may
enter the berth of a mariner on board a ship frozen fast in a river in
the middle of a town; and since saints are supposed to look benignantly
on humble believers, I indulge in the pleasant fancy that the shade
of old Flaubert--who imagined himself to be (among other things) a
descendant of Vikings--might have hovered with amused interest over
the docks of a 2,000-ton steamer called the Adowa, on board of which,
gripped by the inclement winter alongside a quay in Rouen, the tenth
chapter of "Almayer's Folly" was begun.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27