The Arrogant Emu

Ever since discovering the “reopen tabs” option, I have a steady ribbon of tabs that I keep open in my firefox.  BLT. My two email addresses.  Facebook. Ravelry, plus whatever knitting pattern I’m working on at the time.  Missionstclare’s calendar of morning and evening prayers, which was how I discovered that the Anglicans apparently commemorate the founder of that university which is just right behind where I live today.  Google Maps, with the address of places that I’ve been thinking of living at. And, for the longest time, The Point of Honor, being a story by Joseph Conrad recommended to me by a friend, which I kept not having time to read and yet being disbarred from closing since, well, I was going to read it.

And now I have read it, but before I close its tab, I wanted to make you all aware of its presence.  I’d never heard of it before, which rather surprised me because of my affection for the author.  And I urge all with similar affection to go and read it directly.  It’s a story about duelling, and despite ending somewhat abruptly, is full of Conrad’s usual relentless, understated insight throughout.  He can be as dry as Dickens:  “That’s amusing,” said the elderly surgeon. Amusing was his favourite word; but the expression of his face when he pronounced it never corresponded. He was a stolid man. “Come in,” he added. “I’ll get ready in a moment.” or as compassionate as Tolstoy:  His fists on his hips, he roared without restraint while they stood before him lank and straight, as unexpected as though they had been shot up with a snap through a trapdoor in the ground. Only four-and-twenty months ago the masters of Europe, they had already the air of antique ghosts, they seemed less substantial in their faded coats than their own narrow shadows falling so black across the white road—the military and grotesque shadows of twenty years of war and conquests. They had the outlandish appearance of two imperturbable bronzes of the religion of the sword. And General D’Hubert, also one of the ex-masters of Europe, laughed at these serious phantoms standing in his way.

Go read it if you need your Conrad fix, your Napoleonic fix, or if you just need to read something thought-provoking between browser crashes.