LAND AND WATER 
April 17, 1915 
MONTHLY 
LITERARY REVIEW 
By R. A. SCOTT JAMES 
MR. JOSEPH CONRAD has conferred this 
immeasurable boon upon us ; he, a Pole, with 
the temperament, instinct, and antecedents of 
a Slav, has written great Slavonic literature 
for us (Slavonic, that is, in all but language 
and subject-matter) ; he has written it for us in our language, 
at its best, in terms of things and images that we know, thus 
naturalising amongst us not only himself, but a classic ex- 
ample of literature Slavonic in temper, inspiration, and 
method. His new book contains four short stories : — 
"Within the Tides: Tales." By Joseph Conrad. 
(Dent.) 6s. 
These tales, being slighter, have not the all-compelling, 
concentrated force of the three stories in " Youth," and in 
personal interest they fall short of " 'Twixt Land and Sea." 
Nevertheless, all but the first of the four are as good as 
they could be, for the point is made, the effect attained, the 
thrill, the horror, the mocking tragedy is achieved. And 
the first story only falls short in that the author is long in 
getting to the business. The gist of the tale is all in the 
concluding sections, when the explorer brings the girl, her 
father, and her aunt to his island, knowing that the long- 
lost, mediocre youth — whom the girl has idealised and sought 
— lies dead there. He, the explorer, inflamed by this lovely, 
reserved, conventional girl, deeming himself worthy of her, 
and knowing the worthlessness of the youth whom she seeks, 
confronts her with the other's grave and his own passion ; 
and sees her " in the pose of simple grief — mourning for 
herself," conventionally " surprised " at his passion, and 
offended. " I had nothing to offer to her vanity." Certainly 
Mr. Conrad abhors an anti-climax. 
In the other stories we are in the affair from the start. 
One tells of how an old ship was wrecked for the sake of the 
insurance money, and how grimly everything went awry. 
Another is a gruesome story of 1813, the scene an inn in a 
desolate region in Spain, where an English naval officer 
discovers his comrade's body in a wardrobe, and escapes 
from the horrid contrivance by which the other had been 
done to death. The fourth defies description in a sentence ; 
we are back again in the Eastern atmosphere of " Almayer's 
Folly " ; but Mr. Conrad has grown more cynical, and the 
" good " man who has saved his cargo and his life from 
treacherous assassins, is brought home to a wife green with 
jealousy. 
I have often heard it said that for Mr. Conrad " the 
tale is the thing " ; he is just a teller of tales. In a sense 
he is. The plot, the situation, the climax, are all-important. 
But his tales are much more than narratives. Everyone 
knows that a good ghost story is nothing if it does not 
produce the " feel " of the ghost and the horror itself. What 
the teller of good ghost stories does with the uncanny Mr. 
Conrad can do for the more varied and far more subtle 
realities of life. The persons are real and complex, the 
situation is tense, dramatic, charged with emotion, and the 
scenery enters into the drama and becomes a part of its 
life. What matters in a tale is not the bare incidents, how- 
ever ingeniously contrived, but how you conceive them. 
imagine them, present them to yourself in terms of Ufe and 
feeling. In the long run it is Mr. Conrad's personality that 
matters ; by mastery of language his imagination dominates 
the plot. 
to let these ready-made problems dominate his novels. 
However, the problem is not everything. Mr. Bcresford 
ma}' have used the fashionable situation, but his characters 
arc all his own, they work out their destinies in his way, 
and this book is a powerful conclusion to the trilogy which 
began with " The Early History of Jacob Stahl." 
The novel opens abruptly at the point where Stahl is 
completely convinced that he cannot do anything in life 
without Betty Gale. Marriage is impossible, for a wife from 
whom he had been long separated is still living, and refuses 
to divorce him. To Stahl the situation presents no difiiculties ; 
he needs Betty, she needs him ; the ceremony of marriage is 
a ritual binding only those who fear public opinion. But 
Betty docs fear public opinion. She shrinks from the 
hostility of her selfish relatives at the Rectory ;• she shrinks 
even from the horror of old Mrs. Parmenter, whose partner 
she is in running a boarding establishment." I hate to see 
dead people walking about," says Mr. Shaw. " To Jacob 
she (Mrs. Parmenter) appeared as a dying woman, to Betty 
as the representative of public opinion." 
Betty does run away with Stahl, and joins him in a 
cottage in Cornwall. But her difficulties are not at an end. 
She had not merely feared public opinion ; her conscience 
confirmed her fears. It is here that Mr. Beresford breaks 
away entirely from Mr. Shaw. Stahl argues ; but argument 
is nothing to Betty. " I shall be all right if you'll only let 
me alone," she says, evading the earnest arguments that to 
her " wore an air of sophistry." 
" Well," you are coming round to my point of view, anyway," 
he says. 
" I've got to, if I'm to have any peace of mind," said Betty, 
pointing the essetltial he had overlooked. 
Betty Gale is a character whom the reader will not 
easily forget — strong, activej impulsive, honest, lovable. 
The personality of Stahl, too, is drawn with great power ; 
and Mr. Beresford is equally skilful in living in the characters 
of the selfish, respectable people who are such poor supports, 
and Betty's wavering conscience. Mr. Beresford is one of 
the most interesting, suggestive, and impressive novelists 
now writing, and his book is a rare example of fine, animate, 
stimulating fiction. 
"Peter Paraeon: A Tale of Youth." By John 
Palmer. (Seclcer.) 6s. 
We have hitherto known Mr. Palmer as a clever, incisive, 
discriminating critic of literature and drama, and in this 
first novel he shows that he can be no less skilful as a critic 
of life. " Skilful," perhaps, is the word that first comes to 
the lips — the sentences and the chapters are so neatly 
trimmed, the whole story arranged with exquisite precision. 
But he has not refined away the flesh and blood in the process. 
Peter Paragon is a kind of diminutive Faust, and he 
shares that quality with so many modern heroes of fiction ! 
They are nearly all little Fausts, plumbing the depths of 
experience in their cradles, at school, at the university, in 
London, and at length in some happier Margaret's arms. 
Peter plumbs and plumbs all these little depths. 
But, to be fair to Peter, he is a nice boy at school, and in 
love with Miranda ; he is a really spirited, live, original 
undergraduate at Oxford (in an Oxford far more real than 
" Verdant Green's," more interesting even than Mr. Compton 
Mackenzie's) ; he is an eager, masculine adventurer in the 
adult cosmopolis ; and Miranda, at the best, is not merely 
Miranda, but an eternal ideal. Mr. Palmer stands out head 
and shoulders above the other dozens of creators of Peters 
homunculi. 
"The Invisible Event." By J. 
(Sidgwick & Jackson.) 6s. 
D. Beresford. 
Just before I read this book I was examining the preface 
to " Fanny's First Play " (now published by Constable, 
IS. 6d. net), and found Mr. Shaw reiterating: "Is it any 
wonder that I am driven to offer to young people in our 
suburbs the desperate advice : Do something that will get 
you into trouble ? " I do not intend to discuss " Fanny's 
First Play " in these columns ; it was sufficiently discussed 
when the play was produced four years ago. But Mr. Shaw 
has set the problem : How to " combine loss of respect- 
ability " (respectability being in his opinion the besetting 
sin of our age) " with integrity of self-respect and reasonable 
consideration for other people's feelings and interests ? " 
It may seem surprising that such a novelist as Mr. Beresford, 
who has ten times as much interest in human nature as 
Mr. Shaw has, ten times the capacity to make characters 
real and alive, should yet be so hypnotised by his ideas as 
THE "NINETEENTH CENTURY" 
The April number of the " Nineteenth Century " contains a very 
timely article by Sir Harry Johnston. There are few persons who 
understand African administration as Sir Harry understands it, and in 
the past none could have accused him of being an anti-German. But 
he is now urging strongly the necessity of capturing and holding the 
German African colonies, and of refusing to restore them after the 
War. Dr. S. T. Pruen's article, " What the Germans did in East 
Africa," gives a few illuminating facts in this connection. In the 
same number of the Review Sir Francis Piggott discusses neutral 
trading and the acute questions involved in it ; M. Emile Vandervelde 
contributes an important article (in French) on the Belgium of To-day 
and the Belgium of To-morrow. An exceptionally interesting con- 
tribution is that from Mr. Havelock Ellis on " Richard Graves and 
' the Spiritual Quixote.' " 
Messrs. Jarrold & Sons have supplied a much felt want in their 
weekly publication " Foreign Opinion," the first issue of which appeared 
the latter end of March. It is valuable to be able to read the various 
opinions by well-known foreign writers as to the different phases of 
the war and of the various attitudes with which it is regarded when 
looked at through foreign eyes. The first number contains articles 
by Von der Goltz, Max Lenz, Theodore Woolsey, Gabriel Hanotaux, 
Count Reventlow. and Ramiro de Maeztu. A feature of the number is 
the " Comment and Caricature." 
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