Читать книгу Joseph Conrad - Ford Madox Ford - Страница 4
Оглавление“C’EST TOI QUI DORS DANS L’OMBRE O SACRÉ SOUVENIR”
FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM JOSEPH CONRAD TO THE AUTHOR.
Dear Ford,
Since you wish to quote I have expanded a little the passage in my letter. Of course you will use what you find fit.
I don't think your memory renders me justice as to my attitude to the early E. R. The early E. R. is the only literary business that, in Bacon's phraseology, "came home to my bosom". The mere fact that it was the occasion of you putting on me that gentle but persistent pressure which extracted from the depths of my then despondency the stuff of the "Personal Record" would be enough to make its memory dear. Do you care to be reminded that the editing of the first number was finished in that farmhouse we occupied near Luton. You arrived one evening with your amiable myrmidons and parcels of copy. I shall never forget the cold of that night, the black grates, the guttering candles, the dimmed lamps-and the desperate stillness of that house, where women and children were innocently sleeping, when you sought me out at 2 a.m. in my dismal study to make me concentrate suddenly on a two-page notice of the "Ile des Pinguins". A marvellously successful instance of editorial tyranny! I suppose you were justified. The Number One of the E. R. could not have come out with two blank pages in it. It would have been too sensational. I have forgiven you long ago.
My only grievance against the early E. R. is that it didn't last long enough. If I say that I am curious to see what you will make of this venture it isn't because I have the slightest doubts of your consistency. You have a perfect right to say that you are "rather unchangeable". Unlike the Serpent (which is wise) you will die in your original skin. So I have no doubt that the Review will be truly Fordian-at all costs. But for one of your early men it will be interesting to see what men you will find now and what you will get out of them in these changed times.
I am afraid the source of the Personal Record fount is dried up. No longer the same man. Thanks to your proposal I'd like to do something for his sake or old times-but I daresay I am not worth having now. I'll drop you a line in a day or two. My mind is a blank at this moment.
Yours J. Conrad.
