Joseph Conrad.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19140, 25 October 1927, Page 10

Joseph Conrad.

The unveiling of a memorial to Joseph Conrad at Bishopsbourne, reported in yesterday's cable news, will arouse mixed feelings in most Conrad enthusiasts, since, as one of our critics has acidly remarked, ''it is so ob"viously a less expensive matter to " crown an established reputation with "a handful of bayleaves out of the "garden than to stand Chatterton a "square meal." Except in a relative sense Conrad did not suffer material want in his lifetime, but it is hard to forget that he lived in England and wrote great literature for over twenty years before even the smallest measure of fame was accorded to him. Perhaps Conrad himself was a little to. blame, for as a great writer he showed a lamentable disregard for the conventions. He never lectured in America, he had no views on the .modern girl, he declined a knighthood, and he even refused to allow the Universities of Oxford,' Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Durham to shed their lustre on him. by means of honorary degrees. At the time, no doubt, such conduct was condoned as the gaucherie of a Polish sea-captain unacquainted with English customs, since few could have foreseen that his name would some day be so famous that a prefixed " Sir" or an appended "Hon. LL.D." would be both superfluous and incongruous. Indeed the unveiling of memorials to his memory is also superfluous —at least for a generation Or two —since his real monument was long ago erected by himself in print, and shows no signs yet of weathering.