In the same way, in “Under Western Eyes” we get Conrad’s view of politics; in a book written in the days of the Tsardom, we learn that a Siberian refugee who devotes his life to the overthrow of this hideous tyranny is an odious and unspeakable creature, and that a woman of means who helps him is a gawk and a bundle of scandals. It is a picture of social revolutionists of a sort you may pick up at any tea-table where the wives of legation attachés shrug their delicate white shoulders and prattle snobbish wit. Published in 1911, this book is a prophecy of the White Terror, that combination of holy knavery and romantic reaction which has made Poland the curse of Europe. But the proper place to study Conrad is at sea. And we find that, just as Meredith takes the British caste system to be God, just as O. Henry takes the Standard Oil Company to be God, so Conrad takes the capitalist ownership and control of marine transportation. Analyzing the stories in the light of economic science, we find the stealthy Nemesis revealed as organized greed exploiting unorganized ignorance. Take that most fascinating of sea tales, one of the great imaginative feats of literature: take “Youth.” A young man puts out to sea in an old tub of a vessel, and the old tub goes to pieces beneath his feet. One after another comes a procession of calamities; but he is young, and what does he care for troubles and dangers? The ship goes down in the end, but it is all a glory and a thrill to Youth, which laughs at the stealthy Nemesis and lives to tackle it again. When we are young we read this, and our hearts are lifted up, and we know ourselves to be gods. But with maturing years and understanding, we come back to it, and what do we find? The cruel power which we took to be Nature, the perils of the deep, turns out to be nothing more romantic than the practice of marine insurance! If you own a ship and it becomes old and unseaworthy, you would in the ordinary course of events not trust a valuable cargo and a score of human lives to that ship. But finding that you can insure both ship and cargo, and get more money by sinking her than by selling her for junk, you continue to send her out until she falls to pieces; and Youth, deliberately kept in ignorance by capitalist control of schools and colleges, thinks it glory and wonder to sail out and fight a losing battle with “Nature.”