What ideas did Joseph Conrad express about fidelity in A Personal Record?

In his preface to A Personal Record, Joseph Conrad articulated his conviction that the temporal world rests upon a few simple, ancient ideas, most notably the idea of Fidelity.1

For Conrad, fidelity serves as a vital barrier that humanity constructs to protect itself against nothingness, corruption, and the pervasive evil that exists both in the world and, unacknowledged, within the individual. He viewed this commitment to fidelity as an essential defense against the moral collapse that occurs when such barriers are broken down and the internal and external forces of evil converge.1