₦airaland Forum

Reelmii:
See his face..he dey look like say them lie for him head

Goodluck don turn badluck

Factcheck0001:
y don't u blame tinubu now?
At least that's an easy escape route?

Since all Igbos are angels, thank God this boy was caught if not tinubu n Fulani go suffer for your hand

delishpot:
The average Nigeria male is a rapist and a pedophile. I keep saying it but people just insult me as if I lie.

Brendaniel:
I don't think both the boy and girl are Igbos....

Factcheck0001:
he can't b Igbo now since Igbos are angels

He's Fulani or Yoruba sent by tinubu

enemyofprogress:
you sound like a rapist

ayodaisi:
You want to enjoy what your parents are doing every night, continue

Spandau:
fortnight had elapsed since the evening which we have described. Claudius, worn out with the heavy cares of state, to which he always devoted a conscientious, if somewhat bewildered, attention, had fallen into ill health, which was increased by his unhappy intemperance. Unwilling at all times to allow himself a holiday, even in his advancing years, he had at last been persuaded to visit Sinuessa, near the mouth of the River Vulturnus, in the hope that its charming climate and healing waters might restore him to his usual strength. He had there enjoyed a few days of quiet, during which his suspicions had been lulled to sleep by the incessant assiduities of Agrippina. His children had accompanied him, and Agrippina had been forced to conceal the furious jealousy with which she witnessed the signs of affection which he began to lavish upon them. She did not dare to delay any longer the terrible crime which she had for some time meditated. She stood on the edge of a precipice. There was peril in every day’s procrastination. What if Pallas, whose scruples she had witnessed, should feel an impulse of repentance—should fling himself at his master’s feet, confess all, and hurry her to execution, as Narcissus had hurried Messalina? The weak mind of Claudius was easily stirred to suspicions. He had already shown marked signs of uneasiness. Halotus, Xenophon, Locusta—they knew all. Could so frightful a secret be kept? Might not any whisper or any accident reveal it? If she would end this harassing uncertainty and reap the glittering reward of crime, there must be no delay.

She had intended to carry out the fatal deed at Sinuessa, but Claudius felt restless; and as a few days of country air had refreshed his health and spirits, he hurried back to Rome on October 13, A.D. 54. She felt that, if she was not prompt, Narcissus, the vigilant guardian of his master, might return, and the opportunity might slip away for ever.

They had scarcely reached the Palace when she bade Acerronia to summon Halotus to her presence as secretly as possible.

The eunuch entered—a wrinkled and evil specimen of humanity, who had grown grey in the household of Claudius.

‘The Emperor,’ she said, ‘is far from well. His appetite needs to be enticed by the most delicate kinds of food. You will see that his tastes are consulted in the supper of this evening.’

‘Madam,’ said the slave, ‘there is nothing of which the noble Claudius is fonder than boletus mushrooms. They are scarce, but a small dish of them has been procured.’

‘Let them be brought here, that I may see them.’

Halotus returned in a few moments, followed by a slave, who set the mushrooms before her on a silver dish, and retired. They were few in number, but one was peculiarly fine.

‘I will consult the physician Xenophon, whether they will suit the Emperor’s health,’ said Agrippina. ‘He is in attendance.’

Passing into an adjoining room, which was empty, she hastily drew from her bosom the little box which Locusta had given her, and sprinkled the yellow flakes and powder among the sporules on the pink inner surface of the mushroom. Then returning she said,

‘Halotus, this dainty must be reserved for the table of the Emperor alone, and I design this mushroom particularly for him. He will be pleased at the care which I have taken to stimulate his appetite. And if I have reason to be satisfied with you, your freedom is secured—your fortune made.’

The eunuch bowed; but as he left the room he thrust his tongue into his cheek, and his wrinkled face bore an ugly smile.

The evening came. The supper party was small, for Claudius still longed for quiet, and had been glad, in the retirement of Sinuessa, to lay aside the superb state of the imperial household. Usually when he was at Rome the hall was crowded with guests; but on this day he had desired that only a few friends should be present. At the sigma, or semicircular table at which he reclined, there were no others except Agrippina, who was next to him, Pallas, Octavia, and Nero. Burrus, the commander of the Prætorian camp, was in attendance, and Seneca, Nero’s tutor; but they were at another sigma, with one or two distinguished senators who had been asked to meet them.

Except Halotus and Pallas, there was not one person in the room who had the least suspicion of the tragedy which was about to be enacted. Yet there fell on all the guests one of those unaccountable spells of silence and depression which are so often the prelude to great calamities. At the lower table, indeed, Burrus tried to enliven the guests with the narrative of scenes which he had witnessed in Germany and Britain in days of active service, and told once more how he had received the wound which disabled his left hand. But to these stories they listened with polite apathy, nor could they be roused from their languor by the studied impromptus of Seneca. At the upper table Nero, startled by a few vague words which his mother had dropped early in the day, was timid and restless. The young Octavia—she was but fourteen years old—was habitually taciturn in the presence of her husband, Nero, who even in these early days had conceived an aversion, which he was not always able to conceal, for the bride who had been forced upon him by his mother’s ambition. Claudius talked but little, for he was intent, as usual, on the pleasures of the table, and all conversation with him soon became impossible, as he drained goblet after goblet of Massic wine. Agrippina alone affected cheerfulness as she congratulated the Emperor on his improving health, and praised the wisdom which had at last induced him to yield to her loving entreaties, and to take a much-needed holiday.

‘And now, Cæsar,’ she said, ‘I have a little surprise for you. There is, I know, nothing which you like better than these rare boleti. They are entirely for ourselves. I shall take some; the rest are for you, especially this—the finest I could procure.’

With her own white and jewelled hand she took from the dish the fatal mushroom, and handed it to her husband. He greedily ate the dainty, and thanked her. Not long after he looked wildly round him, tried in vain to speak, rose from the table, and, staggering, fell back into the arms of the treacherous Halotus.

The unfortunate Emperor was carried out of the triclinium by his attendants. Such an end of the banquet was common enough after he had sat long over the wine, but that he should be removed so suddenly before the supper was half over was an unwonted circumstance.

The slaves had carried him into the adjoining Nymphæum, a room adorned with rare plants, and were splashing his face with the water of the fountain. Xenophon was summoned, and gave orders that he should be at once conveyed to his chamber. The guests caught one last glimpse of his senseless form as the slaves hurriedly carried it back through the dining-hall.

Spandau:
I once heard a Frenchman say, 'My wife could do without me, but I couldn't do without her;' but, as a rule, the Frenchman who has had the good fortune of marrying an intelligent wife becomes so dependent on her, so much under her influence, that no general rule should be drawn from the remark. When a man and wife have lived happily together, I find, from my personal observations, that when one has gone, it is generally the woman who can better do without the man than the reverse.

Of course, the question is very complex, and one which I would rather ask than answer. If sexes could do one without the other, and resolved to do it for fifty years, the world would put up its shutters. May not the question resolve itself into the following: Of old bachelors and old maids, which are the happier?

Even this question is not a fair one, because it must be admitted that society, which is very lenient over the peccadilloes of unmarried men, frowns unmercifully over those of unmarried women. Shall we then say, Of old bachelors and old maids, who have led monachal lives,[Pg 29] which have been the happier, and would be the more ready to decline matrimony if the opportunity were again offered to them? Now, can you answer the question more easily? Well, if you can, I can't, and if you have anything to say on the subject I shall be glad to hear it.

Personally, I think the question practically amounts to this: Which would you rather be, a man or a woman?

Now, this is a question which my readers will find difficulty in answering, and even in speaking about, with authority, as each of them has only had the experiences of one sex.

Before answering it, we must indeed talk it over with some very intimate and trustworthy friends of the other sex, and compare their sentiments and sensations with our own. We must recall to our minds all the observations which we have made on the lives of men and women whom we have known. Let us not follow the example of the woman who would be a man 'because men are free,' and the man who would be a woman 'because women are admired,' for the reason that all men are not free, and women are far from being all admired.

I have interviewed on the subject many men and many women, and I have found an enormous majority of women who would elect to be men, and only a very small minority of men who would elect to be women. Conclusion: most people would elect to be men.[Pg 30]

I am a man, and if I were to be born again and asked to make a choice, I would elect to be a man; but the reason may be that I possess many failings of which I am aware, and also a few qualities which the most imperfect of us must necessarily possess who are not absolute objects of perdition.

For let us say at once that sex suits character.

I love freedom and hate conventionalities; I am a man of action, and must always be up and doing. I do not believe that I am in any way tyrannical, yet I like to lead and have my own way. If the position of first fiddle is engaged, I decline to form part of the orchestra. Most of these characteristics are failings, perhaps even faults, but I possess them, and I cannot help possessing them, and they naturally induce me to prefer being a man.

I have made my confession, let my readers make theirs instead of taking me to task. I hate to feel protected, to be petted, but I would love to protect and pet a beloved one, whom I would think weaker than myself. I am a born fighter, and I don't care for smooth paths, unless I can make them smooth myself for my own use and also for the use of those who walk through life by my side.

But, leaving aside personal characteristics which would lead me to elect to be a man, there are many reasons which would cause me to make that choice quite independent of my character. Nature has given women beauty of face and figure, but there she stopped, and to[Pg 31] make her pay for that gift she has handicapped her in every possible way.

And when I consider that there are in this world more ugly women than beautiful ones, and that an ugly woman is the abomination of desolation, an anomaly, a freak, I altogether fail to see why ninety women out of a hundred should return thanks for being women. I have no hesitation in saying that the woman who is not beautiful has no raison d'être, and that only a few beautiful women are happy to be alive after they are forty.

Women have terrible grievances, many of which society and legislation (that is to say, in the second case, man) ought to redress. But the greatest grievances of women are, to my mind, against nature. These grievances cannot and will never be redressed.

In love woman has an unfair position. She gets old when a man of the same age remains young. In every race she is handicapped out of any chance of winning or even getting a dead heat. For these reasons especially I should elect to be a man.

Ah, what a pity we cannot decide our fate in every phase of life! in which case I would elect to be a beautiful woman from twenty to thirty, a brilliant officer from thirty to forty, a celebrated painter from forty to fifty, a famous poet or novelist from fifty to sixty, Prime Minister of England or President of the United States from sixty to seventy, and a Cardinal for the rest of my life.


.

delishpot:
The average Nigeria male is a rapist and a pedophile. I keep saying it but people just insult me as if I lie.

Spandau:
This north and south motion of the sun may be noted more directly in another way. Seen from any given place on the earth, each star rises and sets at the same points of the horizon always, and has the same course in the sky; but the rising and setting points of the sun, which on about the 21st of March are due east and west, travel daily further north, and the sun mounts daily higher in northern skies until about the 20th of June; then he returns towards the south, passing the east and west points again about September 23, and reaches his furthest point south about December 21. (The dates vary slightly owing to Leap Year). The dates on which the sun reaches his furthest north and furthest south points in this yearly journey are called the “solstices,” because his motion seems to be checked, and he pauses or [Pg 12]“stands” before reversing his direction; the dates on which he passes the midway point are the “equinoxes,” because at those points he is on the equator, and makes day and night equal all over the earth.

The time taken by the sun to pass from one vernal (spring) equinox to another is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds. Since this slow motion along the zodiac is from west to east, contrary to the rapid east to west motion which he shares with all the stars, he takes a little longer to complete a daily revolution than they do; and if we reckon a solar day as consisting of 24 hours, a “sidereal” (or star) day is equal to 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds.

These are very elementary facts, but they are the fundamental facts of astronomy, and without recollecting and holding them clearly in mind we cannot understand Dante’s allusions, nor see the fitness of any astronomical system, ancient or modern. To those who have only read about astronomy in books, and have not watched the skies, they may be puzzling, and I would beg these readers to make a few simple observations for themselves, as this will help them more than any written explanation can ever do to see the heavens with Dante’s eyes. To appreciate the connected movement of the whole sky, some bright stars near the Pole should first be watched, such as the Great Bear and Cassiopeia, or for those in the southern hemisphere the Southern Cross, Canopus, Achernar. Their motions should be compared with those of bright stars near the equator, such as Orion, Virgo, or Aquila. The constellations of the zodiac should be studied, and notes made of the seasons at which each disappears in the rays of the sun.[Pg 13]

The sun’s north and south movements can be easily recognized by noting at what points of the horizon he rises or sets at different times of the year; and the different heights to which he rises in the sky are most simply observed by marking the length of the shadow of some tree or pole at midday. Or if some rough kind of gnomon[2] be made, even a flat piece of wood, laid on a sunny window-sill, with a long nail driven vertically into it, the movement and varying length of the shadow, from hour to hour, and from day to day, will make one realize vividly the diurnal and the seasonal movement of the sun. This device, in one form or another, was probably the first astronomical instrument invented, and by its means ancient astronomers in many lands solved important problems.

It is not necessary to explain that the daily apparent movements are caused in reality by the earth’s rotation on her axis, and the yearly apparent movements by her revolution round the sun. These are the book-learned facts which for the most part obscure our perception of the very things on which they are based. I would ask the reader to do his best, for the moment, to forget them.

The movements of the moon among the stars are much more easily observed than those of the sun, since we can see the stars at the same time, and her revolution is much more rapid. She also is apparently carried round with the daily east to west movement, and she also has a west to east motion of her own, but so fast that it takes her round the star sphere in one month, instead of one year. This revolution also takes place in the zodiac. She is first visible as a fine crescent, just following the [Pg 14]sun, in the west, after he has set; next night she is markedly further from the sun, on her eastward course, and is a larger crescent; she continues increasing her distance from the sun and the size of her disc, until, as full moon, she is rising in the east when the sun sets opposite her in the west, and setting when the sun rises. After this, she begins to wane, and, still travelling in the same direction, rises later and later at night, and sets in the day; she draws gradually nearer to the sun on the western side, till at last, as a fine crescent with the horns turned in the other direction (i.e. always away from the sun), she appears just before the rising sun in the east. Then for a short time she is lost in his rays, till she emerges as a new moon on the sunset side again.

Spandau:
The river's pretty high," yelled Mr. Waterman to Mr. Anderson. "You had better put those dunnage bags on the seat. That buggy of yours is lower than this one."

"All right," came back the cry, almost drowned by the noise of the carriage as it bumped on the rocks at the bottom of the river, the swish of the water and the noise of the horse's hoofs. Each took his dunnage bag on his lap and in the center of the river they had to lift up their feet as the water came into the body of the buggy. It almost seemed that they would be swept down the river. Bob looked at the driver and at Mr. Waterman. Both had a look of unconcern on their faces so Bob felt that things were all right. This turned out to be the case, for five minutes later the horse came out on a sort of sand bar. The driver drove down stream a little and then, putting the whip to the horse, they tore up a steep bank and along a wood road. They had gone only a little distance before they came to an opening where they found Joe and Pierre busy about a fire. The other buggy came up in a moment and everything was dumped out on the side of the road.38 Mr. Waterman had bought a lot of supplies and this was the real reason why the two guides had met them for they were needed to get the stuff back into the camp where they planned to stay for a week or more. After paying off the drivers, the latter turned and drove back.

"Are they going all the way back to Escoumains to-night?" asked Bob.

"Yes," said Mr. Anderson. "They will go back as far as that logging camp we passed about four miles away. There they will give their horses a little grain and as soon as the moon comes up they will be off, and back in Escoumains about midnight. Those little Canadian horses are very strong and can stand a lot of hard work."

Bob, Pud, and Bill stood around watching the guides and the two men as they busied themselves about the fire.

"Let's have supper first," said Mr. Waterman. "Afterwards we'll pack up the stores we have brought in and get them ready to carry so that we can make a real early start and get to our camp in Lac Parent in time for breakfast."

This was voted a good scheme by the others. Pierre was the guide that was most noticed by the boys. He was a full blooded Montagnais Indian and could not speak a word of English, though he talked French and his own Indian tongue. He was straight as an arrow and moved with the litheness and silence of the real Indian. Though his expression never changed, the boys could see that he missed nothing that went on about him. Joe was a little Frenchman. He could talk a little English and was very proud of that fact.

"The dinnaire is prepair," said he to Bob with a smile.

"Ah, that's the kind of French I can understand," said Pud, as he moved over towards the fire.

"Now be prepared to shout," said Mr. Anderson. "Here's some real trout caught within the hour and cooked as only Joe can cook them."39

He gave each of the boys a whole trout out of the frying pan and this, with bread, butter, prunes and coffee, was their supper. The trout was hot and all three boys stated that they had never tasted anything better in their lives. They all meant it too. At their praise, Joe's face lighted up, for he was proud of his cooking. They formed a real woodsman picture as they sat or squatted around the fire eating their supper without the use of plates or a table. The picture was rather out of harmony, for the Indian and the Frenchman were the typical woodsmen, the two older men hardened fishermen, but even the merest novice could see that the three boys were unused to the woods and their present surroundings.

But, in any case, the scene was not lost on the boys. The bright light cast by the fire on the faces of the men and the dark shadows of the woods formed a contrast that was fascinating to the boys. They could not keep their eyes off Pierre with his silent but speedy movements, and his impassive face, nor from Joe, who formed such a contrast with his animation and gestures, his good-natured talk and his smile. Mr. Waterman and Mr. Anderson sat to the side talking in low tones, and the boys felt that these were two men worthy of their confidence. They looked as though they would be ready for any emergency that might arise. They were startled by a splash in the river. Pierre seemed to vanish as if by magic into the trees on the side towards the river. Though he went with great speed, the boys listened in vain to hear him tearing through the bushes. All ears were tensed but not a sound was heard.

"Pierre will let us know what it is," said Mr. Waterman in a matter-of-fact tone, as he motioned the boys to sit down again. "Don't worry, there's nothing up here to do us much harm. Even the bears run from us and it's necessary to hunt them carefully if you want to see one, though we see traces of them every day."

As they were talking, Pierre came back almost as quickly and silently as he had gone. He sat down by the fire and40 said about three words to Mr. Waterman and relapsed into silence again.

"'Big fish,' he says," translated Mr. Waterman.

"It sounded like a deer to me," said Mr. Anderson.

"We'll look for tracks in the morning before we leave," said Mr. Waterman.

He then turned to Pierre and talked to him in French.

"'No deer. Big fish,' he says," said Mr. Waterman as he turned around.

"Well, if he's sure of it, he's right," said Mr. Anderson. "They have ways of knowing some of these wood matters that seem uncanny to us."

"Well, let's get to bed," said Mr. Waterman.

They all turned to their dunnage bags and got out their sleeping bags. Pierre and Joe had only a blanket and they lay down by the fire, wrapping the blanket around their shoulders but otherwise making no further preparation.

"Is that the way they sleep all the time?" said Bob.

"No, they probably did not want to burden themselves with anything extra, as they have lots to carry to-morrow."

The guides had cut down some boughs and the boys soon had a fine bed ready. They were stretched out looking up at the stars in a very few moments and Bob felt that this was just the beginning of what promised to be a most interesting summer. For some time he lay there, watching lazily the fire as it occasionally threw into relief the green branches of the trees, or made the shadows deeper and more mysterious. It was not long, however, that he lay thus undisturbed, for the gnats, "les moustiques" as the guides called them, began to buzz around and made his life miserable. Over the fire, Bob had not been much bothered by this pest but further away they soon became unbearable.

"Ye gods!" said Pud, as he sat up in his blankets. "I'm getting eaten alive."41

"Let's make a smudge," said Bob. "That will help some."

The two boys got up and soon had a real smudge throwing out a sickly smoke over their blankets. All this time Bill slept peacefully. It seemed that with his head buried in his blankets he was able to stand the gnats, but the smoke got him. Evidently a good puff got under his blankets, for he woke up suddenly and said in a choked voice,

Spandau:
ONCE knew such a man,” declared Marlow. I don’t believe any of us felt moved to reply. To have indicated, by a syllable or two, a polite interest, would have been fatal. Marlow, in the presence of anything but an aloof skepticism or a cynical reserve, becomes tiresome in his pursuit of metaphysical abstraction. He seems to think it can be caught in the butterfly-net of words.... Now he sat, sucking his pipe (he always cools it before re-filling) and looking attentively at each of us as the sparks of cigars momentarily threw a faint gleam on our faces. At length:

“You all know him, too,” he pronounced. “Chap named Conrad, Joseph Conrad. Teodor Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski. That Polish sailor; writes novels. But he has a master’s ticket. Got blackwater fever or something down at the Congo; he was out East before that. Then he settled in Kent, in a little house, where I once went to see him. Of course you’ve read Lord Jim; I don’t think a lot of it. Give me Victory or Youth, or, best of all, Nostromo——”

“Personally, Marlow, I always look at the end first, to see how it comes out. Since you are beginning in the middle——”

[Pg 67]

“I? I’m not, but Conrad was. Did you ever read Nostromo? Talk about beginning a story in the middle!”

“Well, if you want to talk about that,” sighed a voice. “My impression was, Marlow, that you were undertaking to tell us about a man who knew himself—shall we say?—singularly well.”

“Exactly.” Marlow uttered the word with something that might have been reluctance. He repeated it, “Exactly.” It was time to re-fill his pipe and he made a long job of it. When he had it drawing nicely and began to speak again his voice was veiled, his choice of words was frequently made with a certain hesitation, and we listened without comment or any other interruption than the occasional shifting of a foot on the deck. At least, I can recall nothing; and I know we borrowed our matches by signs—when we thought to borrow them.


JOSEPH CONRAD

ii

“As you have heard something of him, I won’t waste my breath on the bare biographical record,” Marlow informed us. “I believe you all know he was born in the Ukraine in 1857; sixth of December happened to be the day. His father and mother were Polish patriots and Russian exiles and their death left the boy in the hands of his mother’s brother, who used him affectionately and engaged a very capable tutor to fit the young Korzeniowski for the University of Cracow. It is pertinent, I think, that the father had been a man of scholarly tastes and occupation. He had succeeded in translating[Pg 68] Shakespeare into Polish. The legendary figure of a great-uncle, whom, however, the boy had seen, made a great impression. Mr. Nicholas B., as Conrad calls him in his book, A Personal Record, was in the retreat from Moscow and had the strange misfortune to share in eating a Lithuanian dog. Did you ever read Falk? Mr. Nicholas B. transmuted into fiction, I should say. The one had eaten a dog, the other was credited with having eaten human flesh; but the effect is the same. Then there’s that other story, Heart of Darkness—the one all the authorities acclaim as among the half-dozen greatest stories in English. I have heard Conrad narrate the actual incident as it befell him down at the Congo; I have also read, and heard him read aloud, his tale. Very interesting. Let us admit that truth is frequently stranger than fiction; what then? Why truth is so often unintelligible, void of significance, without meaning. Whereas fiction is the real truth—all we can grasp, anyway. How we abuse words! It is facts, or apparent facts, that are stranger than so-called fiction. Not truth! Let us save that word for finer purposes. The conquest of brute facts? Well, maybe.

“This Polish boy I am telling you about had an incomprehensible wish. I understand that nowadays there is no such animal as an incomprehensible wish. All wishes are fulfilled, or something of the sort. The boy’s wish I am speaking of was fulfilled, safe enough, but its comprehensibility is still in doubt. At any rate, he wanted to go to sea. As almost all boys wish urgently to go to sea, this might not appear abnormal. Perhaps, after all the oddity[Pg 69] lay chiefly in the attitude of his uncle and tutor, which was strongly adverse; also, to some extent, in the fact that Poland is (or then was) purely an interior country without ships or the enticing sight of sailors to tempt a boy. A country of farmers. And he left it. He has told in A Personal Record of the last stand made by the tutor and his uncle. The sight of an Englishman in the Alps had the mysterious effect of making the lad more set in his purpose than ever. Why, as I say, is not comprehensible, unless by those serious scientists who exist in Vienna and play jokes on the rest of the world.

“When he had got clean away, with a sorrowful blessing, he fared to the Mediterranean. He wanted to become not merely a sailor but a British sailor; he knew no English. French, of course, he knew, as befitted a Pole of a good family and some education. It was not so difficult to get berths on Mediterranean vessels. Being in his teens, he was looking for excitement and adventure. This, too, mare nostrum provides. It does not really matter, I take it, where one sows his wild oats, provided only he sows thickly; and the waters of the Mediterranean received a bushel or two from Poland (a strictly agricultural land). One harvests such a crop from the sea uncertainly and at a long interval, but the sea’s return is often curious and beautiful. Fragments, if you like, but of a loveliness not yielded by the soil of the shore; mother-of-pearl’d, glistening. And out of that uncouth time and those bizarre experiences the man Conrad has got back certain pages in The Mirror of the Sea, pages that[Pg 70] we all remember. The Arrow of Gold, also, is the return of those years when he was irregularly employed in smuggling and gun-running out of Marseilles to the loosely-guarded shores of Spain.

“There is a woman in The Arrow of Gold, Rita, you know ... but it is useless to speculate about women. In a preface provided for the new uniform edition of his works, J. C. explains that the slightly demure Antonia Avellanos, in the pages of Nostromo, sprang from the recollection, tenderly cherished, of a young girl, a schoolmate of his back there in Poland. But I would like to know where he got Lena, in Victory. If I were Somerset Maugham and came unexpectedly upon Lena in another man’s novel there would be no limit to my jealousy. One does not expect a sailor to understand women and I cannot for the life of me comprehend how J. C. got in the way of knowing the sex. Perhaps, for some time, he didn’t. Disregarding the mysteries of feminine nature, if he observed any, the youth persisted in his weird determination to become one of the great race of sailors. He shipped on English ships. Richard Curle’s book, Joseph Conrad: A Study, will even tell you just which English ships. For example, the story called Youth with its vessel, the Judæa, harks back to a passage on a hulk called the Palestine. And so on. But what are such things to you and me? I have read Curle’s book and I give you my parole d’honneur that I found it extraordinarily confusing when not simply rhapsodical. I did! As if J. C. were not, in himself, serious enough to require close attention and profound[Pg 71] enough to merit it and pellucid enough to reward our most earnest scrutiny. Along comes Curle and roils up the surface of that clear, deep stream. I have no forgiveness for such a man, upon my word, I have not! May his excellent intentions pave the road to ... but I suppose they do force one to re-read Conrad if only to get straightened out again.

“Anyway, he stuck to ships, this foreign blighter. You will find all that is pertinent diffused through the pages of A Personal Record. Even to the examination in which he passed for his master’s ticket. What was he reading in those years? One would give something to have the tally; but certainly he did not neglect the French masters. Those who find in the earlier books, including The Nigger of the Narcissus, a style ‘too florid,’ or ‘too consciously sonorous’ say it was because J. C. was long in understanding that English prose cannot display the crystal resonance of French. Mind you, I don’t in the least accept their premise; to me, The Nigger of the Narcissus is so perfect that when I came upon it I was seized with a most violent nostalgia. I wanted, in a foolish, incredible way, to be back in the fo’c’s’le or on the deck of a certain squarerigger called the Wayfarer which carried me around Cape Stiff in—how long ago?—in 1909. It seems a century. Youth! The splendid, the immortal time!
.

Sonfethopia:
At 15 years I have not even realized I had a D. Sex was far from my small head. I was still playing cover bottle soccer with my neighbor and sneaking out to play football with my friends.

ChangetheChange:
Result of watching too many ponography

efemena5050:
Na green light from the girl gone wrong be this ......

Nonexisting1:
15 years old already raped someone? At 15, I hadn't pressed a breast sef and I didn't even know where to put dick inside a girl. Chei uwan mmebi. I think he needs therapy and not jail. Something is really wrong somewhere. He must be a product of single mother.