Fiction can give us nothing more stimulating than a story by Mr. Joseph Conrad, and The Secret Agent which is dedicated to Mr. Wells, has been heralded by the curious announcement that it is 'based on the inside knowledge of a certain event in the history of active anarchism.' Mr. Conrad excites our curiosity and he does not satisfy

it, but perhaps surmises a s to the limits ofhistory and invention would be relevant only to the hidden technics of his work. Of course this work is extremely interesting, and it breaks fresh ground. Nostromo brought a change of continents, but it was still concerned with romantic adventurers; it would be an ingenious definition of romance that should include the Secret Agent and his companions. We associate Mr. Conrad with memorable experiences of thrilling adventure, ofheroical tension, of the glowing East; we seem to be losing something very precious when he compels us to the grim comedy of anarchism. The Secret Agent absorbs, but it does not exalt, as did the tragedy of Lord Jim or the revelation of 'Youth' ; there is nothing that warms our heart like Captain Mac Whirr or startles our imagination like the defiance of the dying Jew in Nostromo. It is close and fine, but it does not often flash upon us, and it seems that interests are somehow less associated with sympathies than they were. Some very solid, ugly things are described, and if Mr. Conrad's people must always be human, his revolutionaries and their opponents are not engaging. The amiabilities of the anarchists are generally effaced, and they have no very deep enthusiasms. They are strangely wanting in ideals, and, half-desperate as they are, they remain the prey of vanity. Mr. Conrad approaches them with a nimble and even whimsical humour.