AUTHOR'S NOTE

Of the five stories in this volume, "The Lagoon," the last in order,
is the earliest in date. It is the first short story I ever wrote and
marks, in a manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayan
phase with its special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived in
the same mood which produced "Almayer's Folly" and "An Outcast of the
Islands," it is told in the same breath (with what was left of it, that
is, after the end of "An Outcast"), seen with the same vision, rendered
in the same method--if such a thing as method did exist then in my
conscious relation to this new adventure of writing for print. I
doubt it very much. One does one's work first and theorises about it
afterwards. It is a very amusing and egotistical occupation of no
use whatever to any one and just as likely as not to lead to false
conclusions.

Anybody can see that between the last paragraph of "An Outcast" and
the first of "The Lagoon" there has been no change of pen, figuratively
speaking. It happened also to be literally true. It was the same pen: a
common steel pen. Having been charged with a certain lack of emotional
faculty I am glad to be able to say that on one occasion at least I did
give way to a sentimental impulse. I thought the pen had been a good pen
and that it had done enough for me, and so, with the idea of keeping it
for a sort of memento on which I could look later with tender eyes, I
put it into my waistcoat pocket. Afterwards it used to turn up in all
sorts of places--at the bottom of small drawers, among my studs in
cardboard boxes--till at last it found permanent rest in a large wooden
bowl containing some loose keys, bits of sealing wax, bits of string,
small broken chains, a few buttons, and similar minute wreckage that
washes out of a man's life into such receptacles. I would catch sight of