Status Updates From A Conrad Argosy

Necessity, they say, is mother of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions.

It would not have been prudent to talk in daytime; and I could not have stood the excitement of that queer sense of whispering to myself.

The rush of the sailors into the seething 'tween-deck was like a splash of cold water into a boiling cauldron. The commotion sank for a moment.

...and the coal dust on his eyelids, like the black penciling of a make-up, enhanced the liquid brilliance of the whites, giving to his youthful face something of a feminine, exotic and fascinating aspect.

...and the coal dust on his eyelids, like the black penciling of a make-up, enhanced the liquid brillianceof the whites, giving to his youthful face something of a feminine, exotic and fascinating aspect.

...and the coal dust on his eyelids, like the black penciling of a make-up, enhanced the liquid brillianceof the whites, giving to his youthful face something of a feminine, exotic and fascinatingaspect.

The China seas north and south are narrow seas. They are seas full of every-day, eloquent facts, such as islands, sand-banks, reefs, swift and changable currents- tangled facts that nevertheless speak to a seaman in clear and definite language.

An angry hug from Gaspar Ruiz was enough to crush the life out of a giant...

'...though my thoughts were of love then, and therefore enchanting, the sight of that house always affected me disagreeably, especially in the moonlight...'

There dwelt, then, in his soul no fierceness corresponding to the vigour of his body.

A revolutionary war raises many strange characters out of the obscurity which is the common lot of humble lives in an undisturbed state of society.

He shuddered. It was in his character to shrink from scandal, much more than from mere death.

It looked as if it would be a long passage. The south-east trades, light and unsteady, were left behind; and then on the equator and under a low grey sky, the ship, in close heat, floated on a smooth sea that resembled a sheet of ground glass.

A big foaming sea came out of the mist; it made for the ship, roaring wildly, and in its rush it looked as mischievous and discomposing as a madman with an axe.

I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem.

Then silence. They had been talking about Kurtz.

I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.

It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea.

...with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotus flower-

I became aware of a queer sensation, of an absurd delusion,- I seemed somehow to be in the air. I heard all round me like a pent up breath released- as if a thousand giants had simultaneously said Phoo!- and felt a dull concussion which made my ribs ache suddenly. No doubt about it- I was in the air, and my body was describing a short parabola. But short as it was, I had the time to think several thoughts

I became aware of a queer sensation, of an absurd delusion,- I seemed somehow to be in the air. I heard all round me like a pent up breath released- as if a thousand giants had simultaneously said Phoo!- and felt a dull concussion which made my ribs ache suddenly. No doubt about it- I was in the air, and my body was describing a short parabola. but short as it was, I had the time to think several thoughts