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Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
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Heart of Darkness

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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“The horror! The horror!”

Heart of Darkness is a complex exploration of the attitudes people hold on what constitutes a barbarian versus a civilized society and the attitudes on colonialism and racism that were part and parcel of European imperialism.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness as the sixty-seventh of the hundred best novels in English of the twentieth century.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 6, 2016
ISBN9781365511509
Author

Joseph Conrad

Polish-born Joseph Conrad is regarded as a highly influential author, and his works are seen as a precursor to modernist literature. His often tragic insight into the human condition in novels such as Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent is unrivalled by his contemporaries.

Read more from Joseph Conrad

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Rating: 3.56680014439993 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

5,741 ratings139 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Strange and excellent. Conrad's use of the language is masterful. Full of incredible symbolism, and a very powerful anti-colonial screed.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This was pretty boring. The reader was fantastic but I just never could get into the story. Not my cup of tea.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My favorite book!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Uiteraard een klassieker, maar desondanks zeer intrigerend. Sterk accent op stemming en sfeerschepping: duister, mysterieus.Maar stilistisch meestal grote omhaal van woorden en daardoor niet helemaal geslaagd.Te lezen als ultieme explorie van het innerlijk van de mens in extreme omstandigheden
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Damn good catalyst.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Like most people, I was familiar with Heart of Darkness, both as an acclaimed work of literature and as the inspiration for the remarkable movie Apocolypse Now. For some reason, I recently decided to make an attempt at reading it, despite my concern that it was written at a level beyond my capacity to understand. Upon receipt of the volume from Amazon, I was initially under the impression that I had mistakenly ordered the Cliff's Notes version of the work. I had no idea that the book was essentially a short story, easily readable in 2-3 hours. Even more surprising, was the ease with which I was able to follow and understand the story, though admittedly written in a slightly dense prose. Perhaps this was due to having seen Apocolypse Now and being familiar with the broad outline of the story and having read other works of history on the Belgian Congo. In any event, it was a decent story, filled with some beautifully descriptive language and imagery. I must say, however, that I was not bowled over. Steamship Captain pilots a ragged boat up the Congo, accompanied by colonial agents and support staff (cannibals and other natives) in an attempt to relieve a long stranded station agent (Kurtz) who has "gone native" and become the insane source of worship for the local natives. If you've seen Apocolypse Now, you know the story, just replace the Mekong with the Congo. I go back to my first paragraph in which I related a concern over my ability to understand what is considered a classic work of literature. I fully understood it, but was perhaps not qualified to fully appreciate it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    “Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.”I remember reading this book many years ago when I realised that one of my favourite all-time books, Thomas Kenneally's "The Playmaker", had taken it's inspiration from it and I remember it having a powerful affect on me. Re-reading years later it still has that same affect.Most readers will know the story centres around Marlow and his journey up the Congo River where he meets Kurtz, an agent for the Belgian Government in Africa. Marlow is beguiled with the image of the River Congo and dreams of travelling up it. To fulfil this ambition he takes a job as a riverboat captain with a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. On his travels Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality. The native inhabitants of the region suffer terribly from overwork and ill treatment at the hands of their European overseers. The cruelty and squalor of imperial enterprise contrasts sharply with the majestic jungle that surrounds the white man’s settlements, making them appear to be tiny islands amidst a vast darkness.This novella explores the issues surrounding imperialism. On his journey Marlow encounters scenes of torture, cruelty, and slavery. The men who work for the Company describe what they do as “trade,” and their treatment of native Africans is part of a benevolent project of “civilization.” In contrast Kurtz admits that he takes ivory by force nor does not hide the fact that he rules through violence and intimidation. His perverse honesty leads to his downfall, as his success threatens to expose the evil practices behind European activity in Africa. Africans in this book are mostly objects: Marlow himself refers to his helmsman as a piece of machinery so is not totally blameless on this point. However, the brutal honesty shown by Kurtz as compared with the hypocrisy shown by the other Europeans leads Marlow and thus the reader to begin to sympathize with Kurtz and view the Company with suspicion. The insanity that Kurtz is obviously suffering from is explicit and easy to see whereas that of the European Governments, whilst no doubt there, is much more implicit. In this book therefore, madness is linked to absolute power. Up country Kurtz has no authority to whom he answers to other himself and this comes to over-whelm him whereas it is more of a collective madness shown by the other Europeans.As such this book then becomes an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion in as much Marlow is forced to align himself with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly tyrannical Kurtz. To try and describe either alternative as the lesser of two evils seems to be absolute madness.This is not some rip-roaring read and at times it is hard going but it does challenge some very uncomfortable truths and as such deserves to be regarded rightly as a true classic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is short novel (~100 pages), following an adventure up the Congo to the deepest darkest part of Africa. It is set in the 19th Century when the continent was relatively unknown to European explorers. The main character Marlow is from London, and he narrates his adventure, starting from the time when he decides he wants to explore the continent (being interested in maps from a young age), through his finding a job as a steamboat pilot, and the ensuing voyage. The company employing him has set up stations along the river, with the object of trading and obtaining ivory from the natives. The adventure reaches its finale after he finds the final station and realises what has been going on there.Though this obviously deals with colonialism and imperialism, what is perhaps a more dominant theme is the banality of evil, and the psychology of being in an extreme and often alien environment. Conrad, despite English not being his native language, writes in a finer literary style than many of his contemporary English language novelists of adventure. Indeed, his use of English here being subtly non-native provides some quite expressive and poetic turns of phrase, which in a sense heighten the exotic atmosphere and the sense of strangeness. This is very easy reading, and highly recommendable due to both its depth and its compactness.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Jeremiah 17:9 sums up Marlow's message in Heart of Darkness: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.Who can know it?"Though the book is less gruesome and terrifying than Apocalypse Now,it has a stronger reach for an imagination."...the sea-reach of the Thames..." > ah, how Joseph Conrad lulls us in.If not for the title, we'd feel nice and cozy, sipping our holiday tea by the fireplace. Marlow again tells the story, sounding not as chipperas he did in LORD JIM, leading readers to "...the very end of the world...."There's still the author's trademark racist descriptions of "blacks" andcannibals do not fare as well as in Moby-Dick. No wonder Conrad described Melville as "romantic."Where Melville gives us Cannibal Light,Conrad serves up Cannibals-with-a-Hint.Thanks to both of them for sparring us more.The story feels unfinished without knowing the reasons for the behavior of Kurtz and his descent into madness. Did his base desires and actions propel him or was The Horror in his mind?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the second time I've started this book. I tried to read it in my late teens but could not deal with the brutality toward the Africans by the Europeans. I'm not sure that the "darkness" Conrad refers to is the same "darkness" I see in the book. For me this is about the attitude and actions of the colonists / company men toward the native tribes' people. But I get the feeling that Conrad's contemporary readers (at time of publication) would have been more horrified at the way Kurtz "went native" so to speak.
    One paragraph did really stand out for me and in it Conrad says (paraphrase)who would we be if we didn't have the judgement of our neighbours / friends / family / society around us; if we were completely free of all expectations and only had our own morality to guide us? How many people obey the rules for fear of what society would do to them if who they really are were to show?
    The darkness that will stay in my head is the wholesale destruction of a native society for greed and profit - a destruction that continues today in that area of the world.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Joseph Conrad begins his 1902 novella by having the sub-narrator, Charlie Marlow, talk about the Romans conquest of England centuries before. "And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth." I found this a bit odd. The only thing I could think Conrad (or Marlow) was doing, was to justify invading Africa, since this was not first instance of colonization. That goes along with a doctor telling Marlow he would love "to watch the mental changes, on the spot" of people who travel to Africa. But I'm thinking... what about the Africans? They're the people being kidnapped and murdered and sold into slavery. What about THEIR mental changes? The book is pretty darn racist, but I guess some people still are today, a century plus later. I think Conrad was either ironically OR unconsciously matching the general racist thoughts of early 20th century people. If he went out pointing most reader's inherent racism in 1902, he might have lost a lot of his readers at the start. They wouldn't have finished the book. But it is hard to say what writers were thinking, especially writers so far in the past. I'm not entirely sure that the book is ABOUT even Africa, since the book mainly seems to be about a character named Kurtz (he is the only character actually given a name except for the sub-narrator), even if Kurtz is first met twenty pages near the end. The book seems to say the "wilderness" has affected him (and certainly not stealing large amounts of ivory and using less that savory means to go about doing that). So instead of Africa, the book is about a pretty horrible guy. Maybe that is why the book is so short. The modern library edition I have has an excellent piece by Chinua Achebe who can sum it up better than I can: "..there is a preposterous and perverse kind of arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the breakup of one petty European mind." I'm glad that the modern library edition included Achebe's piece, even if he wasn't entirely complimentary to the book. He is one of the famous Afican writers, after all. The writing was wonderful at times, which is why I guess the book has survived so long. And it's still quite a puzzle.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have a confession to make. I bought this book simply because I loved the cover, which you actually have to see in person to fully appreciate, and because it has deckled edge pages. Shallow, I know. However, after reading Katie's thoughts on it over on her thread, I decided to give it a go sooner rather than later. Lucky me - this is one of those rare books that pull you into its pages and won't release you until you have finished the last word on the final page. Entrancing...riveting...without one misplaced word. A tale of dark adventure..."Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a giant silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of the sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once- somewhere- far away- in another existence perhaps. There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect."
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I ended up sparknoting it because my English teacher expected us to read the entire thing between two classes. Based on that, I didn't think it sounded too great. I know this is a ridiculous claim to make without actually reading the book but I did read parts of it and just couldn't get attached.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Jaysus, this book is a brutal little thing.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Review of the audiobook narrated by Kenneth Branagh:

    If you have to read Heart of Darkness, I heartily recommend letting Kenneth Branagh read it to you. Actually, this is not the firs time I have listened to this book. In high school, I read it out loud to myself, because that was the only way I could make the page-long sentences resolve into meaning for me at the time. While I am one of the best narrators ever, I probably preferred Branagh.

    I mean, his voice is amazing! The editing of this audiobook was unfortunately not perfect. They didn't do a great job with the breathing, but that's pretty easy to tune out. More disconcerting were the constant changes in volume. I would realize that Branagh had gotten very quiet and would be thinking about turning up the volume when suddenly Bam! it would be all extra loud. Do not turn up the volume or it will be REALLY loud. You have been warned.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The longest 100 pages I have ever read. After several abandonments over the years I managed to discipline myself to stick with it. Allegorical and dense prose, dealing with imperialism, exploitation, racism and moral corruption. However, not much actually happens to a handful of characters none of whom I could readily empathise or care for. It was a struggle. That said, having finished it several days ago the story and fundamental imagery has stuck with me. Initially gave this 2 stars but upped it to 3 as there is something about this book that is quite haunting and it probably deserves another read and a better understanding.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I get annoyed at people who call this book racist for 2 reasons.1) The things said by the characters in this book were the truth of how people spoke during that time. If we start trying to erase our past bad behavior, we'll never learn anything in the future. 2) Anyone who's read more than just the book description on the back cover knows that this is a very snarky, very ironic book. Conrad obviously felt exactly the opposite of how the characters treated the Africans in the story. This book tells a story about European colonialism, but its very obvious that the author was showing great condemnation and contempt for it, not supporting it at all.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Beautifully written, but I've read too much about international development to actually feel for the narrator. It's too much of a pity party for him.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The main argument of this story, is that without society's pressure to determine good and evil and an appropriate way to behave, there is the potential to act in a truly evil way. This story is a good analogy to unchecked power as well. The story itself doesn't carry the weight since I watched Apocalypse Now before reading this story. The elements are there and the unchecked aggression and evil are great, but there is a difference between controlling an area for profit, to obtain ivory, and a soldier using natives to butcher an enemy. My perception is a bit tainted because of the order. However, even without the extreme elements, it is a demonstration of how those who have power unchecked can lead to horrible behavior. Favorite Passages:"You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my--' everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible--it was not good for one either--trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land--I mean literally. You can't understand. How could you?--with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums--how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude--utter solitude without a policeman--by the way of silence, utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. p. 123They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him--some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core. p. 200And for a moment it seemed to me as if I was also buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night...p. 170"Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath--"'The horror! The horror!'p. 223
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Better than I remembered it, from my reading as a teen. I'll set myself on Achebe's side, though, when it comes to Heart of Darkness in relation to Africans.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I just finished re-reading “Heart of Darkness,” it’s short, very readable, very dark of course, the protagonist Marlowe (picture Mickey Rourke in a Panama hat) dives pretty deep into the abyss of human nature, give it a shot if you’re not looking for light reading…..
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book lacks any subtlety in its transparent meditation on morality and purpose. Perhaps this book was a bold, groundbreaking novel in its heyday for its bleak observations about human nature and the ways men abuse each other. But the novel reads more as a philosophy dissertation than as the jungle river expedition of its premise. There are numerous scenes where the narrator is so involved with his longwinded diatribes about the way the world works, that the actual world of the book becomes impossibly imperceptible to decipher what is actually happening to the characters. This story is certainly a overhyped classic, and deserves to be best remembered at this point as just the brilliant "Apocalypse Now."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Odd that I've never read this before. Yes, yes, good and evil, light and dark, the souls of man, etc. Brilliant and visionary, but all a bit ponderous for me. Also, the guy who narrates this audio book edition, Scot Brick, he's American evidently and puts on a fairly awful English accent for the entire book. Tedious. Four stars if not for Mr. Brick.

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Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

Copyright © 2014 by Enhanced Ebooks.

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America.

First Printing, 2014. 

Enhanced Ebooks Publishing.

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. First published in 1899. This edition Copyright © 2014 Enhanced Media. All rights reserved.

Joseph Conrad 1857-1924

Table of Contents

HEART OF DARKNESS

I

II

III

IMAGE GALLERY

Heart of Darkness first was published as a three-part serial story in Blackwood’s Magazine

Joseph Conrad based Heart of Darkness on his own experiences in the Congo

Old Belgian river station on the Congo River, 1889

The Roi des Belges (King of the Belgians—French), the Belgian riverboat Conrad commanded on the upper Congo, 1889

Furious debates resulted when Chinua Achebe accused Joseph Conrad of racism in Heart of Darkness

Nowy Świat 47, Warsaw, where three-year-old Conrad lived with his parents in 1861

Conrad's Nałęcz coat-of-arms

Conrad in 1916

Conrad's friend Cunninghame Graham

Monument to Conrad in Vologda, Russia

Plaque commemorating Joseph Conrad–Korzeniowski, Singapore

HEART OF DARKNESS

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

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