s the literature of great hearts braving the perils
of the darkness. He is imaginatively never so much at home as in the
night, but he is aware not only of the night, but of the stars. Like a
cheer out of the dark comes that wonderful scene in _The Secret Sharer_
in which, at infinite risk, the ship is sailed in close under the
looming land in order that the captain may give the hidden manslayer a
chance of escaping unnoticed to the land. This is a story in which the
"tonalities of the affair" are much more subtle than in _Typhoon_. It is
a study in eccentric human relations--the relations between the captain
and the manslayer who comes naked out of the seas as if from nowhere one
tropical night, and is huddled away with his secrets in the captain's
cabin. It is for the most part a comedy of the abnormal--an ironic fable
of splendid purposeless fears and risks. Towards the end, however, we
lose our concern with nerves and relationships and such things, and our
hearts pause as the moment approaches when the captain ventures his ship
in order to save the interloper's life. That is a moment with all
romance in it. As the ship swerves round into safety just in the nick of
time, we have a story transfigured into the music of the triumphant
soul. Mr. Conrad, as we see in _Freya of the Seven Isles_ and elsewhere,
is not blind to the commonness of tragic ruin--tragic ruin against which
no high-heartedness seems to avail. He is, indeed, inclined rather than
otherwise to represent fate as a monstrous spider, unaccountable, often
maleficent, hard to run away from. But he loves the fantastic comedy of
the high heart which persists in the heroic game against the spider till
the bitter end. His _Youth_ is just such a comedy of the peacockry of
adventure amid the traps and disasters of fate.

All this being so, it may be thought that I have underestimated the
flesh-and-blood qualities in Mr. Conrad's work. I certainly do not want
to give the impression that his men are less than men. They are as manly
men as ever breathed. But Mr. Conrad seldom attempts to give us the
complete synthesis of a man. He deals rather in aspects of personality.
His longer books would hold us better if there were some overmastering
characters in them. In reading such a book as _Under Western Eyes_ we
feel as though we had here a precious alphabet of analysis, but that it
has not been used to spell a magnificent man.

Worse than this, Mr. Conrad's long storie