The second of the early influences upon his style is of far greater importance--the influence of the vast, unfettered elements of nature that he had, for so many years, so directly served. If it were not for his remarkable creative gift that had been, from the very first, at its full strength, his early books would stand as purely lyrical evocations of the sea and the forest. It is the poetry of the Old Testament of which we think in many pages of _Almayer’s Folly_ and _An Outcast of the Island_, a poetry that has the rhythm and metre of a spontaneous emotion. He was never again to catch quite the spirit of that first rapture.
He was under the influence of these powers { 079}also in that, at that time, they were too strong for him. We feel with him that he is impotent to express his wonder and praise because he is still so immediately under their sway. His style, in these earlier hooks, has the repetitions and extended phrases of a man who is marking time before the inspired moment comes to him--often the inspiration does not come because he cannot detach himselt with sufficient pause and balance. But in his middle period, in the period of _Youth, Typhoon, Heart of Darkness_ and _Nostromo_, this lyrical impulse can be seen at its perfection, beating, steadily, spontaneously, with the finest freedom and yet disciplined, as it were, by its own will and desire. Compare, for a moment, this passage from _Typhoon_ with that earlier one from _The Outcast of the Islands_ that I quoted above:
“He watched her, battered and solitary, labouring heavily in a wild scene of mountainous black waters lit by the gleam of distant worlds. She moved slowly, breathing into the still core of the hurricane { 080}the excess of her strength in a white cloud of steam, and the deep-toned vibration of the escape was like the defiant trumpeting of a living creature of the sea impatient for the renewal of the contest. It ceased suddenly. The still air moaned. Above Jakes’ head a few stars shone into the pit of black vapours. The inky edge of the cloud-disc frowned upon the ship under the patch of glittering sky. The stars too seemed to look at her intently, as if for the last time, and the cluster of their splendour sat like a diadem on a lowering brow.”