Finally, what will be the effect of the work of Joseph Conrad upon the
English novel of the future? Does this Romantic-Realism that he has
provided for us show any signs of influencing that future? I think that
it does. In the work of all of the more interesting younger English
novelists--in the work of Mr E. M. Forster, Mr D. H. Lawrence, Mr J.
D. Beresford, Mr W. L. George, Mr Frank Swinnerton, Mr Gilbert Cannan,
Miss Viola Meynell, Mr Brett Young--this influence is to be detected.
Even with such avowed realists as Mr Beresford, Mr George and Mr
Swinnerton the realism is of a nature very different from the realism
of even ten years ago, as can be seen at once by comparing so recent a
novel as Mr Swinnerton's _On the Staircase_ with Mr Arnold Bennett's
_Sacred and Profane Love_, or Mr Galsworthy's _Man of Property_--and Mr
E. M. Forster is a romantic-realist of most curious originality, whose
_Longest Journey_ and _Howard's End_ may possibly provide the historian
of English literature with dates as important as the publication
of _Almayer's Folly_ in 1895. The answer to this question does not
properly belong to this essay.
It is, at any rate, certain that neither the old romance nor the old
realism can return. We have been shown in _Nostromo_ something that has
the colour of _Treasure Island_ and the reality of _New Grub Street_.
If, on the one hand, the pessimists lament that the English novel is
dead, that everything that can be done has been done, there is, surely,
on the other hand, some justification for the optimists who believe
that at few periods in English literature has the novel shown more
signs of a thrilling and original future.
For signs of the possible development of Conrad himself one may glance
for a moment at his last novel, _Victory_.
The conclusion of _Chance_ and the last volume of short stories had
shown that there was some danger lest romance should divorce him,
ultimately, from reality. _Victory_, splendid tale though it is,
does not entirely reassure us. The theme of the book is the pursuit
of almost helpless uprightness and innocence by almost helpless evil
and malignancy; that is to say that the strength and virtue of Heyst
and Lena are as elemental and independent of human will and effort as
the villainy and slime of Mr Jones and Ricardo. Conrad has here then
returned to his old early demonstration that nature is too strong
for man and I feel as though, in this book, he had intended the
whole affair to be blown, finally, sky-high by some natural volcanic
eruption. He prepares for that eruption and when, for some reason or
another, that elemental catastrophe is prevented he consoles himself
by strewing the beach of his island with the battered corpses of his
characters. It is in such a wanton conclusion, following as it does
immediately upon the finest, strongest and most beautiful thing in the
whole of Conrad--the last conversation between Heyst and Lena--that we
see this above-mentioned divorce from reality. We see it again in the
more fantastic characteristics of Mr Jones and Ricardo, in the presence
of the Orang-Outang, and in other smaller and less important effects.
At the same time his realism, when he pleases, as in the arrival of the
boat of the thirst-maddened trio on the island beach, is as magnificent
in its austerity and truth as ever it was.
Will he allow his imagination to carry him wildly into fantasy and
incredibility? He has not, during these last years, exerted the
discipline and restraint that were once his law.
Nevertheless, at the last, when one looks back over twenty years, from
the _Almayer's Folly_ of 1895 to the _Victory_ of 1915, one realises
that it was, for the English novel, no mean nor insignificant fortune
that brought the author of those books to our shores to give a fresh
impetus to the progress of our literature and to enrich our lives with
a new world of character and high adventure.