IS 
LAND & WATER 
October 4, 1917 
Notable Books 
To review a story by Mr. Joseph Conrad is always 
difficult no matter how short it may be. It is packed 
so full of life ; it is so provocative of discussion ; 
you are not satisfied with what he tells you, no matter 
how detailed it may be ; there is always something more you 
want to know. It is like meeting, by chance, an entertammg 
fellow in a lonely resthouse in some out-of-the-way corner 
of the East. You sit up all the night listening and talking ; 
in the morning you go your separate ways, and the rest of 
the da\' you curse yourself for a fool for not raising this ques- 
tion, not a.sking for tliat further fact, or, perhaps, for having 
interrupted just as he was painting a vivid scene. These 
feelings are strongly roused in his newest book, Voulli (Messrs. 
Dent and Sons, 5s' net). It contains three stories : the first 
has as its full headline. Youth : A Nariative. Those who 
know Lord Jim, will be peculiarly interested in this narrative 
because it is exactly the obverse of the main incident of that 
masterpiece. )im. a well brouglit-up young Briton, deserts 
his ship and lier living freight of pilgrims in a moment of 
temptation. Here a crew of Liverpool scallywags, with 
funny old things as officers, stick to a burning ship until 
she blows up, just to save h?r for the underwriters. Why ? 
Mr. Conrad tries to explain. In reading the passage, re- 
member it is not an Englishman who writes, but a son of Poland : 
\Vhat made them do it— what made them obey me when 
1, thinking consciously how fine it was. made them drop 
the bunt of the foresailtwice to try and do it better ? What ? 
They had no professional reputation — no e.xamples.no praise. 
It wasn't a sense of duty : they all knew well enough how to 
shirk, and laze and dodge — \vhen they liad a mind to it 
and mostlv they had. ^Vas it the two pounds ten a month 
that sent tliem there ? They didn't think their pay half good 
enough. No ; it was something in them, something inborn and 
subtle and everlasting. J don't say positively that thecrewof a 
French or German merchantman woiddn't liave done it, but t 
doubt whether it would liave been done in the same \yay. 
There was a completeness in it, something .solid like a principle, 
and masterful like an instinct — a disclosure of something 
secret — of that hidden something, that gift of goodor evil that 
makes racial difference, tliat shapes the fate of nations. 
It is rather a long passage to quote, but we make no apology, 
for this is a riddle that has ever perplexed workers in the wilds. 
What is this secret potency that keeps a Briton true to him- 
self ? It is pleasant to know that this strength Is not of our 
own imagination — not mere self-ccmceit ; that this racial 
driving power does, in truth, exist, otherwise it could not have 
presented itself to Mr. Conrad. Any observant person who 
lives any time in the outer parts of the Empire is aware of 
it. It expresses itself in all kinds of queer ways, and it was the 
knowledge of " this hidden something" that prevented 
such men before the war subscribing to the theory of racial 
decadence. They believed that only the occasion was 
wanted for " the hidden something " to shine forth and be 
revealed to all men. The war has justified this faith. 
Heart of Darkneas, the second story, is a weird tale of the 
Upper Niger. Mr. Conrad's marvellous gift for creating atmos- 
phere has never been used to greater effect. You feel the 
menacing vastness of the inert, slowbreathing mass of impene- 
trable jungle ; you can smell the river mud ; if you have had 
malaria, you will almost anticipate the shivers. The human, 
almost inhuman, beings that dwell there live for you. For 
the present reviewer this story will always have a curious 
personal interest. He was reading it when an air-raid was on, 
and just as out of the Heart of Darknesf;, out of the gloom of 
the jungle, a spear was thrust and the steersman fell dead 
at Marlow's feet, so out of the white invisibility of the moonlit 
sky, the same spear was being thrust, careless whom it pierced. 
It was as though London were in the savagery of Central 
Africa. This story is also notable for the following passage : 
No, I don't like work. T had rather laze about and think o^ 
all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work — no 
man does — but I like what is in the work — the chance to find 
yourself. Your own reality — for yourself, not for others — 
what no other man can ever know. They can only see the 
mere show, and never can tell what it really means. 
Has ever the value of work to the individual been more 
graphically or tersely described in the English language ? 
It is so intensely true, althougli, unfortunately, it is a truth 
that is too often overlooked or ignored if it has not l^een 
mastered in youth, before artificialities and conventions 
obscure in men's minds the realities of life. 
DC ■ * * it « 
Two distinct aspects of the Near East are given in The 
Rise of Nationality in the Balkans, by R. W'. Seton- Watson, 
(Constable los. (id. net) and Home Life in the Balkans, by 
lAicy M. J. Garnett (Metliiien los. 6d. net.). The two are 
complementary, for, while Mr. Seton-W^atson is concerned 
witli a deeply interesting history— which he presents with 
as little bias as is possible in dealing with Balkan matters- 
Miss Garnett, in tletailing the folk-lore and superstitions of 
the various Balkan races, affords insight to the varying cus- 
toms of the people whose history Mr. Seton-W atson has so 
ably summarised. She gives the key to the characters of 
(ireeks, Bulgarians, and Albanians, and from her study of 
the inner lives of the people it is possible to realise how 
truly Mr. Seton- Watson remarks that " in approaching 
Bulgarian history, and above all, the relations of Bulgaria 
and Serbia, it is well to remember that the two nations are 
to-day in very much the same stage of development as Ivngland 
and Scotland in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries." That 
this is well said is evident from even a cursory survey of 
Miss Garnett 's work, which Shows these people as super- 
stitious children of nature, almost devoid of the civilisation 
of which the progress was suspended in Eastern Europe when 
Byzantium fell to the Turk. 
* • * * * > 
Mr. Seton-Watson's historical analysis, to which Miss 
Garnett's work affords such admirable illustration, is not only 
of value to the student of Near Eastern affairs, but also to 
all for whom the Balkan races and their future have the 
slightest interest ; for the book clears up the muddle in which, 
for the average person, Balkan affairs are involve<l. It is, 
in all conscience, a weary enough tangle of wars and intrigues 
of which the author has to tell, but with admirable im- 
partiality he goes down into the causes — mainly the. selfish 
intrigues of the Great Powers — of Balkan discontents and 
feuds, sorts out the little wars between the various States, 
and, bringing his story up to the end of the second Balkan 
war in 1912, sets out the position in which the Hohenzollern 
dynasty found means to bring about the world's greatest war. 
The great value of this work — for it is undoubteclly of great 
value — is that it makes easily accessible a statement of deeds 
and aspirations alike of all the Balkan States, and inciden- 
tally also states the criminal selfishness of the European Powers 
which restricted these little nations at every turn. " The 
maintenance of Turkey had become the fetish of British 
statesmen," and, even more significant with regard to the 
Crimean war — " It was an irony of fa'te that the blackest of 
autocrats and reactionaries should have fought the battle of 
liberty against the Liberal Powers of the West," are sentences 
in this work worth remembering. And, again, " The Great 
Powers, in propping up the Sick Man upon his pillows and in 
blocking, whenever possible, the movement for the liberation 
of the Balkan Christians, had set themselves to fight the stars 
in their courses," 
f" "I* •*• -f* 31* 
An excellent bibliography concludes Mr. Seton-Watsoh's 
work, which clearly points the need for some measure of 
honesty and of at least an attempt at understanding of racial 
ambitions, and the rights of people rather than their governors 
in settling Balkan questions in future. ' 
The Road to Loos, the picture which appears on the opposite 
page, is an excellent example of Captain Handley-Kead's 
exceptional gifts. We see here the wreckage and waste of 
war. It is a pitiful picture, and the strength of it lies in that 
the spectator realises it to be absolutely true to life. This 
power of envisaging a scene is perhaps the main reason that 
makes Cajitain Handley-Read's work stand out so pro- 
minently. This truth has been recognised by the National 
W'av Museum which has bought a number of his drawings. 
But there is not a single picture in this five-guinea Portfolio 
which does not exemplify this exceptional quality. 
i GOGGLES 
i WIND-SCREENS 
J.AWINDOW5 
[ ^^ --c^^ :^ 
"THE ONL.Y ^ 
SAFETY GLASS 
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