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    Heart of Darkness
    Heart of Darkness
    Heart of Darkness
    Ebook122 pages2 hours

    Heart of Darkness

    By Joseph Conrad

    3.5/5

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    The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

    The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublisher s11838
    Release dateJun 25, 2014
    ISBN9786050309737
    Author

    Joseph Conrad

    Polish author Joseph Conrad is considered to be one of the greatest English-language novelists, a remarkable achievement considering English was not his first language. Conrad’s literary works often featured a nautical setting, reflecting the influences of his early career in the Merchant Navy, and his depictions of the struggles of the human spirit in a cold, indifferent world are best exemplified in such seminal works as Heart of Darkness, Lord JimM, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, and Typhoon. Regarded as a forerunner of modernist literature, Conrad’s writing style and characters have influenced such distinguished writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and George Orwell, among many others. Many of Conrad’s novels have been adapted for film, most notably Heart of Darkness, which served as the inspiration and foundation for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now.

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    Reviews for Heart of Darkness

    3.5/5

    6,043 ratings139 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I was expecting a little more out of this. Overall, I felt it was a little lackluster. I needed more meat to the story, it lacked...... something that I can't quite verbalize. Heart of Darkness describes one captain's journey up the Congo River into the "heart of Africa." It's dark, brooding, and ominous; nothing goes according to plan. The narrator upon arriving at his African destination; has a strange fascination with a man named Kurtz, an English brute with odd ways who is no longer in control of all his faculties. Marlow, the captain, is in awe at the darkness that lurks in the jungle and in men's hearts. Sigh. I'm not doing a very good job describing it because I couldn't really get into it.
    • 5/5
      This book is so very well written that many aspects of it seem to me to verge on perfection. It springs to mind a hundred times in discussing writing craft, in discussing what a story should do, how framing can work, or indeed, when contemplating John Gardner's theory that novellas at their best have a "glassy perfection". This book manages to be an experience as well as a literary work, and the effect of its final pages is profound, worthwhile, and haunting.
    • 4/5
      One of the finest novels of the twentieth century, "Heart of Darkness" is a moody masterpiece following a man's journey down the Congo in search of a Captain Kurtz. I saw the loose film adaptation "Apocalypse Now" before reading "Heart of Darkness" and feared seeing "Apocalypse Now" would detrimentally affect my reading experience. I need not have worried as the two are different enough to ensure the Congo's Kurtz was still full of surprises.
    • 5/5
      Strange and excellent. Conrad's use of the language is masterful. Full of incredible symbolism, and a very powerful anti-colonial screed.
    • 2/5
      This was pretty boring. The reader was fantastic but I just never could get into the story. Not my cup of tea.
    • 4/5
      The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much - Heart of Darkness

      This is a book that is difficult to rate. On the one hand, it is very hard to read. The perspective of the book is a person listening to another person telling the story, which means that almost all paragraphs are in quotes, which can and will get confusing if the narrator starts quoting people, and gets worse once he starts quoting people who are quoting people themselves. Add to that the slightly chaotic narration, the long sentences and paragraphs, and an almost complete lack of chapters (the book is structured into only 3 chapters), and then add some jumps in causality in the narration for good measure, and you have a recipe for headaches.

      On the other hand, the book has a good story. It has no clear antagonist, all characters except for the narrator are in one way or another unlikeable idiots, brutal savages (and I am talking about the white people, not the natives). It is hard to like any of them, and, strangely, the character who is probably the worst of the lot was the one I liked best, just because he was honest about his actions and did not try to hide behind concepts like "bringing the civilization to these people". He was brutal, yes. He was (probably) racist, yes. But they all are. He seems to show an awareness of his actions, of the wrongness of it, in the end, while all the others remain focussed on their personal political and material gain.

      I am not a big fan of books that are considered "classics". They usually do not interest me, and being forced to read them by your teachers will probably not improve your view of the books. I am not sure if I liked this book, and that in itself is an achievement on the part of this book: I am unable to give it a personal rating compared to my other books, because it is so different.

      There are many people who have liked the book. There are many who have hated it. I cannot recommend it, because I know that many people will not like it. Some would say that these people "don't get it", but that would be wrong as well. You need a special interest in the topics of the book, or a special connection to the book itself, to properly enjoy it. But I also would not discourage anyone to read it either.

      It is part of the public domain, so it is free. If you are interested, start reading it. You can still shout "this is bullsh*t" and drop it at any point.
    • 5/5
      This book has been recommended to me by a friend and was sitting on my to read list for years. When I saw that most of its reviews are either 5 star or 1 star I was intrigued. The book did not disappoint. Beautiful, evocative, mesmerizing, horrifying, revolting, it describes an abyss of a human soul. A story within a story, narrator's description sets the stage and his story takes you away into then disappearing and now non-existent primal world thus forcing you to see the events through his lenses.
    • 2/5
      I finished Joseph Conrad’s novella, “Heart of Darkness” this morning. I’m really a bit Ho-hum about it, can’t really recommend it.
    • 5/5
      A Journey We All Must Take: When Marlow begins his journey to find the mythical Kurtz in HEART OF DARKNESS, Joseph Conrad dares the reader to accompany Marlow on a voyage less into the physical jungles of darkest Africa and more into the mental labyrinth that human beings erect to protect themselves from the horrors that they themselves build. In this justly famous novella, Conrad depicts a pre-politically correct age when white men thought it only fair and inevitable that they plunder the riches of Africa all the while comforting themselves that they were uplifting the fallen state of a lowly people.

      Conrad uses a twin layer of narratives in order to achieve the needed objectivity that he felt required to place the reader at varying distances from the horror that Kurtz cried out at the end. The opening narrator is unnamed, possibly Conrad himself, who sets the stage by placing the reader at a safe distance from the evils which lay squarely ahead. Through this narrator we get a bird'e eyes view of the true narrator Marlow, who is depicted as somehow different from the four other men on the deck of the Nellie. This difference in physical attributes slowly increases to concomitant differences in perspective, attitude, and general authorial reliability. Marlow is a deeply flawed man who has the disadvantage of viewing the unfolding events from the prejudiced eyes of a white colonial civil servant who is sure that the blacks in Africa are little different from his preconceived notion of uncivilized cannibals. Further, Marlow makes numerous errors of judgment along the way, many of them seemingly insignificant, yet the totality of the reader's perspective is twisted through the equally twisted lens of an unreliable narrator. Conrad's purpose in melding the reader to a flawed narrator was to insure that the reader could never trust what he reads, thereby increasing his sense of unease in that the sense of safety that Marlow feels, first on the deck of the Nellie, and later in the jungle itself, is as flimsy as the signposts that guide Marlow toward his goal.

      The goal is Kurtz, a trader who set out to civilize the blacks into accepting a white version of civilization, but Marlow finds out that the reverse happened. The true horror that Kurtz sees is the horror that all would be conquerors find when they discover that the philosophy of racial supremacy which led them into conflict with a people whom they deemed unworthy is shown to be built on straw. Kurtz knows that the only difference between his brutal acts toward the natives and their own similar atrocities toward themselves is no difference at all. As corrupt as Kurtz must have been, in his closing cry of horror, he finds a small measure of redemption and closure. Marlow sees what Kurtz saw, knew what Kurtz did, and heard up close and personal Kurtz's swan song of pain, but Marlow learned nothing of lasting value. All he could think of was to maintain the image of the Kurtz that was: "I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more." The journey that Kurtz took was a horror only because he became what he sought. The journey that Marlow took became a horror only because he learned nothing from what he sought. As you and I read HEART OF DARKNESS, we must decide which journey has the more meaningful signposts.
    • 4/5
      Lush language is the key differentiator of this remarkable polemic against atrocity. The framed narrative distances the author from the views expressed so it is hard to know whether Conrad shared the racism and sexism of Marlow, his protagonist. Taken at face value, the account of white colonists going to collect ivory from a white manager who has ruthlessly suppressed his black suppliers endorses white supremacy but not the ill-treatment of the lesser beings. Marlow objects to Kurtz's abuse of the 'savages' in much the same way that the English of the time protected dogs and horses.
    • 4/5
      Amazingly, I'm reading this for the first time in my 40's. But I can't imagine I would have understood it very well when I was younger. Mr. Conrad makes ample use of Africa as a symbol of darkness but the real darkness doesn't lie in the external world. It has always lain in the depths of the human soul. It doesn't take living in a savage land to find oneself unmoored from goodness and right. Anytime external restraints are lifted is the time when man must grapple with his own soul and what he can do and what he will do. Mr. Conrad's capturing of that truth and all the horror of that truth is masterful.
    • 1/5
      Didn't like it the first time. Didn't like it the second time.
    • 4/5
      A little adventure on a tramp steamer through the Congo.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written but a tad over-rated
    • 2/5
      This book definitely put forth some very interesting notions, and Conrad clearly can deftly weave his words and create well-crafted sentences. But I found some parts... a lot of parts, something of a chore to read, and despite my careful reading, I still ended up with only a rough sketch of what I supposed it was about. Perhaps that's what's the charm, perhaps I have a limited understanding, I don't know. Perhaps I should pick this back up in a few years and see if it clicks for me then, but for the moment, I can't hold a very high opinion of this novella and can only thank Conrad for making it 100 pages.
    • 4/5
      Wow - what a book. It's short - 117 pages, and I wanted it to be longer. I was savoring every page. The descriptions were amazing.I was a little worried after reading 7-8 pages, it was very bleh. But as soon as Marlow started to get into his story, it was wonderful.This story is told to the narrator, who is on a boat with Marlow, sitting on the Thames, waiting for the tide to turn. As they are waiting, Marlow tells his story about going up the Congo River, and his meeting with Kurtz, an agent of the company, renowned for finding so much ivory.I had to read aloud this passage when I came across it:He was a lank, bony, yellow-faced man, with big intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald as the palm of my hand; but his hair in falling seemed to have stuck to his chin, and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist.And this short book is filled with this! Turn the page, and it is filled with a description of the river, It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect.This book is more about the narrative and the symbolism than the story. It starts out with Marlow musing about how the Romans found England to be when they first arrived - dark and uncivilized. And then segues into his trip up the Congo. And ends with him visiting Kurtz' fiance.I didn't realize at first that Apocalypse Now was based on Heart of Darkness. I first saw that movie when I was 16, and I sat through it twice in the movie theatre, and that movie was about 2.5 hours long! In reading this, it's obvious Kurtz is the same. They talk about his method "being unsound" and his last words were, "the horror, the horror." The Dennis Hopper character is the same in the book too. It was sometimes hard to not have Marlon Brando and Dennis Hopper in my head.Overall, I give it 4 stars - 1/2 star off for slow start and slow ending, and 1/2 star off for a little less story than I would like.
    • 3/5
      This book is racist and sexist, but it's extremely interesting to think about.I could write a lot about it, but I'm reading it for class and have done plenty of that. Just wanted to record that I've read it recently.
    • 4/5
      The copy I read had a fantastic introduction, and contained footnotes referring to Conrad's own trip to the Congo, showing how much of this is autobiographical. I would recommend this version to anyone who, like me, read it own a whim with no real knowledge of how influential this writing was at the time.In fact, my fictional reading of this subject is quite expansive, but my factual knowledge is poor. Reading this copy enabled me to be whisked away on a story and yet pad out my limited knowledge.Marlowe is a sympathetic character, born of his time and yet forward-thinking, as is, I guess, Conrad. The images of unexplored Africa as a blank area on maps is exciting, and goes some way to explaining the intrepidation and fear that led these very male explorers to give the impressions that they did of such a peaceful, country.Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      "Mr Kurtz, he dead!" This novel is full of enticing and harrowing sentences like that. I found the novel dark and brutal, and Conrad's prose style led me along as if through the dense foliage of the Congo. Only when I finished the book did I start to wonder about everything that it said; whilst reading I was taken in by the mesmeric quality of some of the description. Reading 'Heart of Darkness' was not an enjoyable experience, but it was a disturbing one, which is something far rarer.
    • 4/5
      Despite being a mere 100 pages long, parts of this book were as frustrating to slog through as the African jungle. Nevertheless, I'm glad I made it to through the wilderness to the palpable "horror" at the end. A book so deliciously overwrought with symbolism, I almost wish I had to write a paper on it.
    • 3/5
      I resolved to read this. I did so. The horror, the horror.
    • 4/5
      Conrad's Heart of Darkness explores the dark heart that lies within each of us and the extraordinary lengths of depravity we are willing to go to. This is mirrored in the "dark continent" of Africa in which Marlowe, our narrator for most of the story, travels as well as in the darkness within Kurtz and, to an extent, all of us. The story also left me pondering the darkness that lies within each of us and whether showing that was the purpose of opening and closing the story in London with Marlowe telling shipmates about his trip to Africa. Are any of us really better than Kurtz?
    • 4/5
      Great setting, atmosphere and feel for the time - sick natives just being left to die in a clearing, the long, enforced stay at the colonial trading post in the middle of the jungle, chugging along on a dodgy steamboat trying to steer clear of the unfathomable tree line passing by at a snail's pace - all threaded with a slow build up of tension. I need to read it again when I get the chance because I didn't quite feel the awe and mystery that was supposed to surround the feted ivory trader/agent, Kurtz.
    • 5/5
      I thought for sure I'd hate this, given the racist language and the locale, which doesn't interest me. Instead, it was wonderful. A British man, yachting with friends on the Thames, tells them of a time when he took a job running a rundown boat up the Congo River. The central character to his mind is Kurtz (the character played by Marlon Brando in the film adaptation, "Apocalypse Now"), but to me it was the land and the narrator's reaction to his surroundings. There is a marvelous discourse early on about sailors being basically homebodies, because wherever they go their home is with them and they rarely leave it. And then there are his observations on the cannibals he hires to run the boat - as opposed to the whites on the boat, whom he thinks stupid and incomprehensible. And, of course, there are the words he hears on a dying man's lips: "The horror! The horror!". Just brilliant writing.
    • 4/5
      Am I the only one that hasn't seen Apocalypse Now? Anyways... ahh, Belgian history. Sure, it's racist - that's imperialism. This is Marlow's great seaman's tale in the Congo, heading to uncharted territory in the heart of darkness to find the legendary Kurtz. For all the build-up, though, I found myself wanting more of him. Guess I'll have to watch the damn movie.
    • 4/5
      I had forgotten what a brilliant stylist and craftsman Conrad is. I read this for the Great Books discussion group. It's a challenging book because of the limited -- and perhaps unreliable? -- narrator and the ambiguities and ambivalences: the narrator sees the process and effects of colonialism on both the colonized and the colonizers, and while he dislikes much of it, the framing narrative still has him in business (of some sort). Our facilitator asked if we thought the book was racist: no, we didn't, but we did recognize that it was a product of its time and that is going to be reflected/result in some inherent attitudes. However, the narrator was pretty clearly sympathetic to the Africans. Our facilitator also asked just what is "the horror, horror"? Man's use and abuse of each other? Not surprisingly, light and dark imagery abounds, and needless to say, the darkness is not necessarily without.
    • 2/5
      Heart of Darkness tells the story of Marlow, a sailor, who describes to his shipmates the unusual experience he had traveling upriver in the Congo and the effect it had upon him. Hired by a Belgian trading company as a steamboat captain Marlow's primary mission was to visit and, if necessary, retrieve Kurtz, a successful, idealistic agent who had lost contact with the company and reportedly fallen ill. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters brutality, the racism and lack of compassion in the Company’s stations. The native are forced into the Company’s service, and they suffer from overwork and ill treatment. When Marlowe arrived at his station, he finds that Kurtz has set himself up as a sort of god to the natives he had once wanted to civilize; he has become more savage than even the natives, taking part in bizarre rites and using violence against the locals to inspire fear and obtain more ivory. This novella is, an exploration of hypocrisy and moral confusion. The idealistic Marlow is forced to align himself with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly malevolent, rule-defying and savage Kurtz. I found this a difficult book to wade through. The language is dense, the characters are unsympathetic and racist and at times the plot was just simply boring and plodding. 2 out of 4 stars.
    • 5/5
      Apocalypse Then -- the original one. He puts you into it.
    • 3/5
      Conrad paints a vivid picture of the heart of darkness which is the mind of man.
    • 5/5
      This isn't a book that anyone reads for fun. Its not exactly a lighthearted meditation on the nature of empire, nor is the writing a breeze to slog through. Although technically a "novella," its also a solid work of literature and has loads of symbolism and multiple layers of meaning sandwiched into the story which the reader needs to work to unravel. That said, this is a classic--its a dark and brooding indictment of the futility of empire. Over one hundred years after its original publication, this book continues to provoke debates over its major themes, namely, the nature and logic of the British empire in Africa. Critics charge that this is a fundamentally racist novel and there are plenty of cringe-inducing racial comments over the savagery of the black Africans that Marlow encounters on his trip up the Congo River. We're also made to understand that these same tribes are so savage that they are quite literally beyond the redemptive power of Western [and white and male] civilization. Indeed, Conrad's condemnation of imperial enterprises stems less from the effects of the empire of black Africans and more from the damages it inflicts on the white people caught up in its ruthless expansion. Conrad links the expansion of the empire to madness and we see it most clearly in the character of Kurtz, but also in the inefficiencies, the lack of understanding of the jungle, the callousness with which the colonizers treat the natives, and their pursuit of precious ivory at any cost. The metaphor of darkness surrounds every aspect of this book--the natives are dark, the jungle is dark, the Inner Station is dark. The hearts of the colonizers are also dark, but the most provocative part of this book comes from Conrad's suggestion that the heart of darkness, the capacity for evil, resides deep inside each and everyone of us and we should feel compelled to examine the ways that we personally participate in our own journeys into modern day hearts of darkness.

    Book preview

    Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

    Heart of Darkness

    By

    Joseph Conrad

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER I

    The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

    The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

    The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

    Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns—and even convictions. The Lawyer—the best of old fellows—had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. The Director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more somber every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.

    And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men.

    Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, followed the sea with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled—the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests—and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith—the adventurers and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change; captains, admirals, the dark interlopers of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned generals of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.

    The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.

    And this also, said Marlow suddenly, has been one of the dark places of the earth.

    He was the only man of us who still followed the sea. The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them—the ship; and so is their country—the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But 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.

    His remark did not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently he said, very slow—

    I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago—the other day. . . . Light came out of this river since—you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine—what d'ye call 'em?—trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries,—a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been too—used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here—the very end of the world, a sea the color of lead, a sky the color of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina—and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay—cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death,—death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh yes—he did it. Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much about it either, except afterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by-and-by, if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga—perhaps too much dice, you know—coming out here in the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even, to mend his fortunes. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him,—all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.

    He paused.

    Mind, he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotus-flower—"Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency—the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force—nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those

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