s itself. This figure of speech leaves much
to be desired and calls for apology, but in perversity and profusion the
trellis growth of Mr. Conrad's memories, here blossoming before the
delighted reader's eyes, runs like some ardent trumpet vine or Virginia
creeper, spreading hither and thither, redoubling on itself, branching
unexpectedly upon spandrel and espalier, and repeatedly enchanting us
with some delicate criss-cross of mental fibres. One hesitates even to
suggest that there may be admirers of Mr. Conrad who are not familiar
with this picture of his mind--may we call it one of the most remarkable
minds that has ever concerned itself with the setting of English words
horizontally in parallel lines?

The fraternity of gentlemen claiming to have been the first on this
continent to appreciate the vaulting genius of Mr. Conrad grows numerous
indeed; almost as many as the discoverers of O. Henry and the
pallbearers of Ambrose Bierce. It would be amusing to enumerate the list
of those who have assured me (over the sworn secrecy of a table d'hote
white wine) that they read the proof-sheets of "Almayer's Folly" in
1895, etc., etc. For my own part, let me be frank. I do not think I ever
heard of Mr. Conrad before December 2, 1911. On that date, which was one
day short of the seventeenth anniversary of Stevenson's death, a small
club of earnest young men was giving a dinner to Sir Sidney Colvin at
the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. Sir Sidney told us many anecdotes of
R.L.S., and when the evening was far spent I remember that someone asked
him whether there was any writer of to-day in whom he felt the same
passionate interest as in Stevenson, any man now living whose work he
thought would prove a permanent enrichment of English literature. Sir
Sidney Colvin is a scrupulous and sensitive critic, and a sworn enemy of
loose statement; let me not then pretend to quote him exactly; but I
know that the name he mentioned was that of Joseph Conrad, and it was a
new name to me.

Even so, I think it was not until over a year later that first I read
one of Mr. Conrad's books; and I am happy to remember that it was
"Typhoon," which I read at one sitting in the second-class dining saloon
of the _Celtic_, crossing from New York in January, 1913. There was a
very violent westerly gale at the time--a famous shove, Captain Conrad
would call it--and I remember that the barometer went lower than had
ever been recorded before on the western ocean