Monday, April 26, 2010

NBR: Conrad, Briefly


On Tourism ... and Imagination

"An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the big dining-room of the hotel was more than half full of people with a hundred pounds round-the-world tickets in their pockets.  There were married couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the midst of their travels; there were small parties and large parties, and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all thinking, conversing, joking or scowling as was their wont at home; and just as intelligently receptive of new impressions as their trunks upstairs." 
 *****
"The danger, when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought.  The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion."
-- Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

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