New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-05-23
Polish Author Self-Revealed
Novelists Prefaces Throw Interesting LIGHT
Upon His Personality and Art

not with Eastern, ideals of culture and
civllization. So he says:
THE other remark which I wish to
make here is also rectification, but
OF less direct kind. 1t has NOTHING
TO do with the medium of expression.
III bears on the matter of nv author
ship IN another way. 1t is not for me
TO criticize nay judges, the more so
because | always felt that | received
more than justice at their hands. But
II seems to me that their unfailingly
interested sympathy has ascribed to
racial and historical influences much
OF what | believe appertains simply to
the individual. Nothing is more for
elgn than what in the literary world is
called Sclavonism to the Polish tenn
permanent with its tradition of self
government, its chivalrous view of
moral restraints and an exaggerated
respect for individual rights; not to
mention the important fact that the
whole Polish mentality, Western in
complexion, had received it's training
from Italy and France, and, historical
~, had always remained, even in re-
hg'ous matters, in sympathy with the
most liberal currents of European
thought
An impartial Jew Of humanity in
all its degrees Of spiendor and misery
together with a special regard for
tbs rights of the unprivileged of this
earth. not on any mystic grounds but
OIL the grounds of simple fellowship
and honorable reciprocity of services,
was the dominant characteristic of the
mental and moral atmosphere of the
houses which sheltered my hazardous
i.ildhood-matters Of calm and deep
conviction both lasting and consistent,
and removed far as possible from that
humanltarianism that seems to be
merely matter of crazy nerves or a
morbid conscience.
cone Of the most sympathetic of my
critics tried to account for certain
characteristics of my work by the fact
OF my being, in his own words, the
sor Of revolutionist No epithct
could be less applicable to man with
such strong sense of responsibility
IN the region Of ideas and action and
so Indifferent to the promptings of
personal ambition as my father. Why
the description revolutionary should
have been applied all through Europe
to the Polish risings of 1881 and 1868
l really cannot understand These
rlslngs were purely revolts against for
eign domination. The Russians them
selves called them 'rebellions,' which.
from their point of view, was the exact
truth. Among the men concerned in
the preliminaries of the 1853 move
ment my father was no more revolu-
tionary than the others, in the sense
of working For the subversion of any
social or political scheme of exist
ence. He was simply patriot in the
sense of man who, believing in the
spirituality of national existence,
could not bear to see that spirit en-
shaved"
Plots Clearly Explained
Conrad's prefaces arc models of sane,
enlightening self-crticism and self-in-
depreciation. He does not pretend to
be guided by sudden fits OF inspiration;
on the contrary, he gives very
straightforward, rational explanation
Of the genesis of his various plots.
One characteristic of his work is per-
severance. In this connection he says:
There is apparently something in
my character which will not allow me
to abandon for good any piece of work
had begun. ! have laid aside many
beginnings. I have laid them aside
with sorrow, with disgust, with rage,
with melancholy and even with self
contempt; but even at the worst had
an uneasy consciousness that l would
have to go back to them"
Here is part Of Conrad's analysis Of
"An Outcast of the Islands";
An Outcast of the Islands is NV
second novel in the absolute sense Of
the word; second in conception, sec
ond IN execution, second, as it were
in its essence; with no hesitation, half
formed plan, vague idea, or the vaguest