ation and in the earnest belief that ironic treatment alone would
enable me to say all I felt I would have to say in scorn as well as in
pity. It is one of the minor satisfactions of my writing life that
having taken that resolve I did manage, it seems to me, to carry it
right through to the end. As to the personages whom the absolute
necessity of the case--Mrs. Verloc's case--brings out in front of the
London background, from them, too, I obtained those little satisfactions
which really count for so much against the mass of oppressive doubts
that haunt so persistently on every attempt at creative work. For
instance, of Mr. Vladimir himself (who was fair game for a caricatural
presentation) I was gratified to hear that an experienced man of the
world had said "that Conrad must have been in touch with that sphere or
else has an excellent intuition of things," because Mr. Vladimir was
"not only possible in detail but quite right in essentials." Then a
visitor from America informed me that all sorts of revolutionary
refugees in New York would have it that the book was written by somebody
who knew a lot about them. This seemed to me a very high compliment,
considering that, as a matter of hard fact, I had seen even less of
their kind than the omniscient friend who gave me the first suggestion
for the novel. I have no doubt, however, that there had been moments
during the writing of the book when I was an extreme revolutionist, I
won't say more convinced than they but certainly cherishing a more
concentrated purpose than any of them had ever done in the whole course
of his life. I don't say this to boast. I was simply attending to my
business. In the matter of all my books I have always attended to my
business. I have attended to it with complete self-surrender. And this
statement, too, is not a boast. I could not have done otherwise. It
would have bored me too much to make-believe.

The suggestions for certain personages of the tale, both law-abiding and
lawless, came from various sources which, perhaps, here and there, some
reader may have recognized. They are not very recondite. But I am not
concerned here to legitimize any of those people, and even as to my
general view of the moral reactions as between the criminal and the
police all I will venture to say is that it seems to me to be at least
arguable.

The twelve years that have elapsed since the publication of the book
have not changed my attitude. I do not regret ha