rge
spirits, at least for us, their lesser readers. Mystics have spoken of
'The Dark Night of the Soul' as the stage inevitable before the crowning
glory, and to-day some of those who call to us out of great darkness are
among our greatest leaders.

Of such certainly is a living writer, now beginning to be acclaimed as
he deserves, the writer Conrad. In some ways this noble novelist might
stand as the special representative of modern feeling. A Pole by birth
and more than half an Englishman by sympathy, his view of life is as
wide as it is profound and grave. It has all the sternness of temper of
which I have spoken, the determination to look facts in the face
whatever the consequences. Conrad would echo Sartor's noble cry for
Truth--'Truth! though the Heavens crush me for following her;--no
Falsehood! though a whole celestial Lubberland were the price of
Apostasy!' This determination is fierce enough to be taken for cynicism,
but Conrad is far too tender ever to be a cynic. So also does his
pitifulness prevent him from ever falling into the errors of a
Nietzsche, but none the less he has all Nietzsche's ardour for heroism.
That to him is the core of life:--'to face it.' 'Keep on facing it,' so
the old skipper tells the young mate in _Typhoon_. And facing the
mysterious universe, peering into the Darkness with steady alert eyes,
Conrad has at once an endless wistfulness and, or so it seems to me, a
secret unquenchable hope. Doubt certainly he has in plenty. The sea of
which he is always dreaming is terrible and cruel in his eyes as well as
august and ennobling.

But he is sure of one thing: it is through the struggle with it and such
as it that man alone can become Man. It is through facing the horrors of
a dead calm, with a sick crew on board and no medicine, that the young
master of the sailing-vessel in the Pacific crosses successfully the
Shadow Line that divides youth from manhood. And it is through facing
the unleashed fury of the tornado that the old captain of the
'full-powered steam-ship' in _Typhoon_ shows what he has in him,
compassion and kindness as well as shrewd knowledge of men, expert
seamanship, and indomitable heroism. The whole thing is driven home with
a power, an incisiveness, and a delicate irradiating humour which I
should despair of conveying by mere criticism. The book must be read for
itself, and read again and again. It is told, in one way, simply as a
sailor's yarn, but it awakes in us the