half-French. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz;
and by-and-by I learned that, most appropriately, the International
Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the
making of a report, for its future guidance. And he had written it too.
I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence,
but too high-strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had
found time for! But this must have been before his--let us say--nerves,
went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending
with unspeakable rites, which--as far as I reluctantly gathered
from what I heard at various times--were offered up to him--do you
understand?--to Mr. Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful piece
of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later
information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument
that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must
necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural
beings--we approach them with the might as of a deity,' and so on, and
so on. 'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good
practically unbounded,' &c., &c. From that point he soared and took me
with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember,
you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an
august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the
unbounded power of eloquence--of words--of burning noble words. There
were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases,
unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently
much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of
a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to
every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying,
like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!'
The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that
valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to
himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet'
(he called it), as it was sure to have in the future a good influence
upon his career. I had full information about all these things, and,
besides, as it turned out, I was to have the care of his memory. I've
done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it, if I
choose, for an everlasting rest in the d