The germ of his allusive use of ornaments is probably to be found in the "Goosefest" menu which he concocted at Carl Rollins' Montague Press; when at the bottom of an elaborate bill of fare three of Will Bradley's strutting little figures are set (or laid) flat on their backs in a row, with the legend, "Turn over (not us but the leaf)."
The earliest traceable use of ornaments and punctuation marks that in combination bear directly upon the text thus decorated was in the heading for the first page of The Symbol and the Saint, where a line of parentheses, a cross and three dolphins symbolize the overseas quest of the hero of the tale. This same motif was developed and elaborated later in Joseph Conrad the Man, The Ancient Mariner, and other pieces. His scrapbook shows many unused variations on this theme. The sea and leaping dolphins and palms seem to be his favorite preoccupation.
Probably the most difficult compositions of this kind he has produced are to be found in Conrad's unfinished novel, The Sisters; where in a space the width of the page and one-quarter to one-half inch in depth may be found suggestions of illimitable Russian wheat fields, Paris with its mansard roofs and French roads leading into it, a farewell scene at sunset on a winding Spanish road, etc., each based upon some phrase or paragraph in the story itself.
