460. THE INHERITORS. AN EXTRAVAGANT STORY. Heinemann; London, 1901. +McClure, Phillips; New York, 1901. Gregg Press; Boston, 1976. Intro, by Elaine L. Kleiner. 

An analysis of corruption and amorality of various sorts— social, political, economic, emotional— and ultimately an extended character study. An element of science-fiction enters in that two of the leading characters, the movers of corruption, claim to be from the Fourth Dimension— which is a plane of existence around us, but invisible to us. They are the Dimensionists: "the people who were to supersede us. . . a race clear-sighted, eminently practical, incredible [meaning "not credulous"?]; with no ideas, prejudices, or remorse; with no feeling for art and no reverence for life; free from any ethical tradition; callous to pain, weakness, suffering and death. . . the Inheritors. . . the Future." A symbol for cold ruthlessness, they easily attain to power by manipulating the short-sighted, passionate men of the present. The narrator long refuses to accept the Fourth Dimension as literally meant in a mathematico-physical sense, but it seems genuine within the story and would fit in with the contemporary general interest in a fourth dimension. 

*  The book is narrated in Edwardian manner through the personality-eye of Etchingham Granger, a member of a prominent county family. He was once a conscientious writer with ideas, but through his weaknesses he becomes entangled in a complex net of plots and conspiracies. His story is based on two themes, intrigue and moral decay. 

*  Granger meets an extraordinarily beautiful and attractive but utterly cold young woman, who tells him that she is from the Fourth Dimension and is one of a small group that intends to take over. Almost before Granger knows it, she is installed as his sister and is taken up by a long-estranged aunt of great power in society. The Dimensionist becomes an intimate associate of powerful financiers and politicians connected with a very shady promotional scheme to colonize Greenland. This scheme requires official endorsement by the administration before it can become financially profitable. The young woman, who is never assigned a name, and another Dimensionist plan to let the scheme ripen, and then to explode it into enormous scandals, after which they will hold political power. Granger is their useful tool at a crisis moment. 

*  The second theme concerns the corruption of Granger. An impoverished writer, despite his family connections, he is easily persuaded to become a well-paid publicity hack for the Dimensionists and their dupes. He succumbs partly out of ambition and greed, but more because of his infatuation for the woman Dimensionist. He has several chances to denounce her as an impostor, but is always easily diverted. During his thriving days he becomes intimate with the minister Churchill (no connection with the historical Churchills, Randolph or Winston), magnates of the press, and other figures of power. 

*  His crisis comes when the plots of the Dimensionists peak, and he must choose whether to save his friends whom he has misled or to go along with the Dimensionist woman and let his friends be destroyed. There is no real choice, for he has been corrupted, and his Pilate-like inactivity works for the plotters. 

*  As the book ends, he learns that he has become a pariah in his own world and that the Dimensionist woman, who has no more use for him, has cast him aside. His only recompense for moral surrender is the woman's statement that for a brief moment she cared for him a little. 

*  Hie idea and the first draft of the story were Hueffer's; Conrad worked it over, adding material to make it fuller. In aftermath neither author was satisfied with the result. Most critics have been unenthusiastic about The Inheritors, terming it dated and flimsy, but I think that this judgment is too harsh. It is still a pleasant social fairy tale of morality. To some extent it is a roman a clef, with the Greenland project representing King Leopold of Belgium's proposal for developing the Congo, and "Churchill" standing for Joseph Chamberlain.