The Shadow Line

The Shadow Line is a classic Joseph Conrad adventure novel about a young sailor quits a ship and ends up, surprisingly, with command of another ship. The story makes interesting commentary on how chance can dictate human life.

 "ONLY the young have such moments. I don't mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privi- lege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.

One closes behind one the little gate of mere boyishness--and enters an enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise. Every turn of the path has its seduction. And it isn't because it is an undiscovered country. One knows well enough that all mankind had streamed that way. It is the charm of universal experience from which one expects an uncommon or personal sensation-- a bit of one's own.

One goes on recognizing the landmarks of the predecessors, excited, amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together--the kicks and the halfpence, as the saying is--the picturesque common lot that holds so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky. Yes. One goes on. And the time, too, goes on--till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must be left be- hind."