The second point on which I wish to offer a remark is the existence (in
the novel) of a person named Schomberg.

That I believe him to be true goes without saying. I am not likely to
offer pinchbeck wares to my public consciously. Schomberg is an old
member of my company. A very subordinate personage in Lord Jim as far
back as the year 1899, he became notably active in a certain short story
of mine published in 1902. Here he appears in a still larger part, true
to life (I hope), but also true to himself. Only, in this instance, his
deeper passions come into play, and thus his grotesque psychology is
completed at last.

I don't pretend to say that this is the entire Teutonic psychology; but
it is indubitably the psychology of a Teuton. My object in mentioning
him here is to bring out the fact that, far from being the incarnation
of recent animosities, he is the creature of my old deep-seated, and, as
it were, impartial conviction.

J. C.




AUTHOR'S NOTE


On approaching the task of writing this Note for Victory, the first
thing I am conscious of is the actual nearness of the book, its nearness
to me personally, to the vanished mood in which it was written, and to