The old officer with long white moustaches gave rein to his indignation. "Is it possible that you youngsters should have no more sense than that! Some of you had better wipe the milk off your upper lip before you start to pass judgment on the few poor stragglers of a generation which has done and suffered not a little in its time." His hearers having expressed much compunction the ancient warrior became appeased. But he was not silenced. "I am one of them—one of the stragglers, I mean," he went on patiently. "And what did we do? What have we achieved? He—the great Napoleon—started upon us to emulate the Macedonian Alexander, with a ruck of nations at his back. We opposed empty spaces to French impetuosity, then we offered them an interminable battle so that their army went at last to sleep in its positions lying down on the heaps of its own dead. Then came the wall of fire in Moscow. It toppled down on them.
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and, although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable, and amoral world. Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events. Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
This is a moving story set in the Napoleonic wars of 1812. It shows the grim reality of war as opposed to the beautiful high ideals which some people hold about honor and dignity in war.
* -} Gestalt Psychology Simplified with Examples and Principles {- *
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Thy kingdom come. Let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind
A mighty oak tree standing firm against the storm, As sunlight scatters the shadows of night A river nourishing the land it flows through
«El alma del guerrero» de Joseph Conrad es uno de los textos de su autor que me ha interesado más. Está escrito en forma de narración oral. Nos cuenta la historia de Tomasev, un soldado ruso agradecido a un oficial francés por un favor que le hizo en París que le libró de la prisión. El narrador es un compañero de armas del protagonista: es un relato de un suceso en gran parte conocido de oídas (como se tituló el libro al que pertenece: «El alma del guerrero y otros cuentos de oídas»). Transcurre durante la desastrosa campaña de Napoleón en Rusia en 1812. Exalta la caballerosidad y hombría de bien que debe albergar un alma de guerrero.