Nostromo

"Nostromo" is the most anxiously meditated of the longer novels which
belong to the period following upon the publication of the "Typhoon"
volume of short stories.

I don't mean to say that I became then conscious of any impending change
in my mentality and in my attitude towards the tasks of my writing life.
And perhaps there was never any change, except in that mysterious,
extraneous thing which has nothing to do with the theories of art; a
subtle change in the nature of the inspiration; a phenomenon for which I
can not in any way be held responsible. What, however, did cause me some
concern was that after finishing the last story of the "Typhoon" volume
it seemed somehow that there was nothing more in the world to write
about.

This so strangely negative but disturbing mood lasted some little time;
and then, as with many of my longer stories, the first hint for
"Nostromo" came to me in the shape of a vagrant anecdote completely
destitute of valuable details.

As a matter of fact in 1875 or '6, when very young, in the West Indies
or rather in the Gulf of Mexico, for my contacts with land were short,
few, and fleeting, I heard the story of some man who was supposed to
have stolen single-handed a whole lighter-full of silver, somewhere on
the Tierra Firme seaboard during the troubles of a revolution.

On the face of it this was something of a feat. But I heard no details,
and having no particular interest in crime _qua_ crime I was not likely
to keep that one in my mind. And I forgot it till twenty-six or seven
years afterwards I came upon the very thing in a shabby volume picked up
outside a second-hand book-shop. It was the life story of an American
seaman written by himself with the assistance of a journalist. In the
course of his wanderings that American sailor worked for some months on
board a schooner, the master and owner of which was the thief of whom I
had heard in my very young days. I have no doubt of that because there
could hardly have been two exploits of the peculiar kind in the same
part of the world and both connected with a South American revolution.

The fellow had actually managed to steal a lighter with silver, and
this, it seems only because he was implicitly trusted by his employers,
who must have been singularly poor judges of character. In the sailor's
story he is represented as an unmitigated rascal, a small cheat,
stupidly ferocious, morose, of mean appearance, and altogether unworthy
of the greatness this opportunity had thrust upon him. What was
interesting was that he would boast of it openly.

He used to say: "People think I make a lot of money in this schooner of
mine. But that is nothing. I don't care for