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“Miss Pendered’s ‘Englishman’ possesses that width of observation
and simplicity of purpose which lift it far above the
average.”--_Daily Telegraph._
(W. L. Courtney in his summary of the best book of the year 1899.) MILLS & BOON, Ltd., 49 Rupert Street, London, W.
MILLS & BOON
have just published two ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - The room in the tower, and other stories |
=THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN JACK.= By MAX PEMBERTON. =THE END AND THE BEGINNING.= By COSMO HAMILTON. =WEE MACGREEGOR.= By J. J. B. =PROOFS BEFORE PULPING.= By BARRY PAIN. =THOMAS HENRY.= By W. PETT RIDGE. * Novels of the Plays. MILLS & BOON, Ltd., 49 Rupert Street, London, W.
Typographical errors corrected by the ete... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - The room in the tower, and other stories |
Note: Images of the original pages are available through
HathiTrust Digital Library. See
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008921437
Transcriber’s note:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE
by
E. F. BENSON . . Author of
“Dodo Wonders,” “Miss Mapp,” ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Finally, in these preliminaries, for the last five years before the
war, he had scarcely entered, for the sake of companionship, any
house other than his own and mine. Ours was a friendship dating from
school-days, which he had never suffered to drop entirely, but I doubt
if in those years he spoke except on matters of... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
“Yes, perhaps; but the brain’s tiresomely complicated in its
connections and the joining up of the nerves, you know. Surgery will
have to learn a lot before it fits new brains in. And the brain has got
such a lot of functions. All thinking, all inventing seem to belong to
it, though, as you have seen, the heart can get... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Having once admitted me into the region of his
strange explorations, he seemed to welcome me there. Partly, as he had
said, it clarified his own thought to put it into simple language,
partly, as he subsequently admitted, he was beginning to penetrate
into such lonely fields of knowledge by paths so utterly untrodden,
... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
I had
been witness to a new marvel of science as wonderful perhaps as any
that had ever astounded the beholder, and my nerves--these childish
whimperers--had cried out at the darkness and the profundity. But
the horror diminished, the fascination increased as he quite shortly
told me the history of this phenomenon. He ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Now put your arm
right under her and carry her.”
Her head swung limply back as he lifted her shoulders, and he propped
it up against his knee, where it mutely nodded and bowed, as his leg
moved, as if in silent assent to what we were doing, and the mouth, at
the extremity of which there had gathered a little lather, l... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
The head jerked and raised itself, the lips struggled for utterance,
and suddenly she spoke swiftly and distinctly. “Just when he’d got his razor out,” she said, “I came up behind him,
and put my hand over his face, and bent his neck back over his chair
with all my strength. And I picked up his razor and with one slit-... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
“Bite him, Fungus!”
Fungus, so called because he is the son of Humour and Gustavus
Adolphus, rose from his place on the hearthrug, and with a horse laugh
nuzzled against my leg, which is his way of biting those he loves. Then
the most amiable of bull-dogs, who has a passion for the human race,
lay down on my foot and ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
The charlatan with his new cure for cancer, the
automatic writer with his messages from the dead, the reincarnationist
with his positive assertions that he was Napoleon or a Christian
slave--they are the people who advance knowledge. You have to guess
before you know. Even Darwin saw that when he said you could not
inv... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
“There might be several explanations. You might say that the late
tenants were fanciful, imaginative people, and that the present tenant
is a sensible, matter-of-fact woman. Certainly she seemed to be.”
“Or----” I suggested. He laughed. “Well, you might say--mind, I don’t say so--but you might say that
the--the spirit... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
’Twas in a sack, but the sack was torn, and she saw----
It’s upset her very much, sir. We thought it best to come for you.”
I took the boy’s bicycle and went back to the club-house as fast as I
could turn the wheel. I felt sure I knew what Madge had found, and,
knowing that, realised the shock.... Five minutes later s... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
And then came another and yet
another, and with terror gripping at my heart I perceived that this was
no loosening from without, but from within, for to right and left the
piled soil was falling away with the press of something from below. Faster and faster it poured off the grave, and ever higher at the head
of it ros... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Six thousand feet more when you
have already accomplished twenty-three thousand does not seem much,
but at present no one knows whether the human frame can stand exertion
at such a height. It may affect not the lungs and heart only, but
possibly the brain. Delirious hallucinations may occur. In fact, if I
did not know ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
This man, he averred, was no other than his grandfather, who
had been benighted one winter evening as he passed through the dense
woods below the Ungeheuerhorn, and Chanton supposed that they had
been driven down to these lower altitudes in search of food during
severe winter weather, for otherwise the recorded sights ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
I quaked
at it.”
* * * * *
The snowstorm and the gale increased in violence that night, and I
slept uneasily, plucked again and again from slumber by the fierce
battling of the wind that shook my windows as if with an imperious
demand for admittance. It came in billowy gusts, with stran... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
It must have been but a few seconds that I stood watching her, in
some indescribable catalepsy of terror, while through my brain there
pealed the panic-command of my mind to my stricken limbs “Begone,
begone, while there is time.” Then, recovering the power of my joints
and muscles, I tried to slip behind a tree and hi... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Parkes was not, however, in a fit state to
stand the operation at once; a recuperative week or ten days in bed was
advisable. In these circumstances Symes recommended that he should not
be told at once what lay in front of him. “I can see that he is a nervous fellow,” he said, “and to lie in bed
thinking of what he has... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
But the medium added a
detail which could not conceivably have been thus derived, for Charles
believed it to be incorrect. She said that there was a big piano near
the bow-window, while he was sure that there was not. But oddly enough
I had hired a piano only a week or so ago, and it stood in the place
that she mention... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
The lamp was then turned down,
so that just a ring of flame encircled the wick, but the firelight was
of sufficient brightness, as we tested before the séance began, to
enable us to write and to see what we had written. The red glow of it
illuminated the room, and it was settled that Charles should note by
his watch th... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
The myth of his godhead is rather a late one----”
I shut the book. “Best not to read any more,” I said. “If we know all about Asclepios,
we shall possibly be suggesting things to the medium’s mind. Let’s
see what Machaon can tell us about himself, and we can verify it
afterwards.”
It was therefore with no further kno... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
It looked as if the intelligence (even the
most incredulous will allow me, for the sake of convenience, to call
that intelligence Machaon) that had described this room, and told Mrs.
Forrest that he had work to do here, had finished his task. Machaon had
said, or so my interpretation was, that X-rays would cure Parkes.... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
As for the fishermen of the place, who, in their
export trade, constitute the chief link of movement between Polearn and
the outside world, they would not dream of taking their catch up the
steep lane and so, with six miles farther of travel, to the market at
Penzance. The sea route is shorter and easier, and they deli... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
As they entered some huge black shadow seemed to move away from him,
crawled across the floor and up the wall and out of the broken window. “There he lay a-dying,” said the last of my informants, “and him
that had been a great burly man was withered to a bag o’ skin, for
the critter had drained all the blood from him. ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Dainty and china-white she had always been, and the years had
not aged but only refined her. As we sat and talked after dinner she
spoke of all that had happened in Polearn in that score of years, and
yet somehow the changes of which she spoke seemed but to confirm the
immutability of it all. As the recollection of nam... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Looking
out into the garden I could see in the moonlight the roof of the
shelter, in which for three years I had lived, gleaming with dew. That,
as much as anything, brought back the old days to which I had now
returned, and they seemed of one piece with the present, as if no gap
of more than twenty years sundered them... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
The light was sucked from the sky, the dusk fell in ever
thicker layers. He suddenly became conscious of this. “I must get back as quick as I can,” he said. “It will be dark in a few
minutes, and my servant is out. The lamps will not be lit.”
He stepped out with extraordinary briskness for one who shambled and
could s... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
He had bought from her uncle the little
farmhouse where he had lodged, adding to its modest accommodation a
studio and a bedroom above it, and there he had seen the flicker of
what had never been love, die out, and over the cold ashes of its
embers the poisonous lichen of hatred spread fast. Early in their
married life... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Body and limbs were no more than bones over which
the wrinkled skin was stretched, but her face bulged monstrously with
layers of fat. He would give her whatever he had about him, and if
it was not enough, she would plant herself there, grinning at him
and wheedling him, or with screams and curses threatening him with
... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Beside her to-night were the wrecked
remains of a chair, and the first sight that he caught of her was to
show her feeding the fire with the broken pieces of it. It had been too
troublesome to bring fresh logs from the store of wood; to break up a
chair was the easier task. She stirred and sat more upright, then reache... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
At
that a sudden misgiving made his breath to catch in his throat, as he
pictured to himself some maniac blast falling on the house and crashing
in the walls that now trembled and shuddered. Supposing the whole
house fell, even if he escaped with his life from the toppling ruin,
what would his life be worth? There woul... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
High rose the smoky flame, and banging
the door, he leaped down the stairs to set light to the pile below and
be gone from the house. Yet, whatever monstrous miracle his eye had
assured him of, it could not be that she still lived and had left the
place where she lay, for she had ceased to breathe when the noose was
ti... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
When,
on seeing that, I rang Archie up on the telephone, I was told that
he had already left London, and he wrote to me a few days later from
Lincote--the place in Hampshire, which he had inherited from his
cousin--saying that he had nothing to tell me about the breaking off
of his engagement beyond the fact that it wa... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
In the waiting-room was a girl of about twelve,
with a hand nursing a rueful face, and from time to time she stifled
a sob of pain or apprehension. I was just wondering whether it would
be a breach of waiting-room etiquette to attempt to administer comfort
or supply diversion, when the door opened and in came Lady Rork... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Yet I suppose that even those call out the splendour of fortitude
or endurance. Even when one looks on a struggle which one knows is
hopeless, it warms the heart to see it.”
The gleam that shone from her paled, her arms dropped, and she moved
on. Then, soft of voice and soft of eye, she spoke again. “Such a sad thing ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
For two days we had them working, but the crack seemed
to extend right to the foundations of the dam, and before it could be
repaired all the water in the lake would have to be drawn off. I was
just leaving for town, when the foreman came up to the house to tell me
that they had found something there. In the ooze and m... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
And standing there I heard her rise, and drearily
wondered what she would say and knew how useless it would be. And then
I heard the whisper of her dress on the carpet and the noise of the
door opening and shutting, and when I turned I found that I was alone
in the room. Presently I let myself out of the house.”
There... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
If you use
planchette for six months, I am told, most careful doctors will
conscientiously certify you as insane. She’s got five months more
before she goes to Bedlam.”
“Does it work?” I asked. “Yes, it says most interesting things,” said Margaret. “It says things
that never entered my head. We’ll try it to-night.”
“... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Looking up from the paper, I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed on mine, and
even before she spoke I knew what her thought was. “Did you come home by the empty cottage?” she asked. “Yes: why?”
“Still empty?” she said in a low voice. “Or--or anything else?”
I did not want to tell her just what I had seen--or what, at any rate,... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Hugh, to whom I had
told the odd impressions I had received there, gave them a reception as
flippant as that which he had accorded to the memories of the night,
and he was still being humorous about them when we came to the door of
the house. “A psychic disturbance, old boy,” he said. “Like a cold in the head. Hullo, t... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Hugh sprang to his feet. “Margaret, wake up,” he said, “something is coming!”
The door opened, and there moved in the figure of a man. He stood just
within the door, his head bent forward, and he turned it from side to
side, peering, it would seem, with eyes staring and infinitely sad,
into every corner of the room. “... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
“It is clear that the moment I came into
connection with that card, it became invisible. I’m invisible myself
(of course to the grosser sense), and everything I hold becomes
invisible. Most interesting! That accounts for the sudden appearances
of small objects at a séance. The spirit has been holding them, and as
long ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
At present----”
“Lor’!” said Mrs. Inglis, “I declare I can almost hear his voice, poor
little fellow. Husky it was, as if he would do better by clearing his
throat. I suppose I’d best be making a black bow to my cap. His lawyers
and what not will be here presently.”
Mr. Tilly had no sympathy with this suggestion. He ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Though she had been moaning and muttering a long time now, Mr. Tilly
was in no way conscious of the presence of Abibel and Sweet William
and Sapphire and Napoleon. “They ought to be here by now,” he said to
himself. But while he still wondered at their absence, he saw to his amazed
disgust that the medium’s hand, now c... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
As it was, the loudest bangs on the table were only faintly
perceptible. “I’m beginning to understand,” he said. “Oh, Mr. Tilly! Just jump in like a kind good spirit,” she said. “Make
your own test-conditions. Put your hand over my mouth to make sure that
I’m not speaking, and keep hold of the trumpet.”
“And you’ll pr... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
As for the star on the ceiling, though they could
not account for it, they certainly found remains of phosphorescent
paint on the panels of the wall above the chimney-piece, and came
to the conclusion that the star had been produced by some similar
contrivance. So they rejected the whole thing, which was a pity, since,... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
She
was always cheery and jolly; she was interested in everything, and in
music, in gardening, in games of all sorts was a competent performer. Everybody (with one exception) liked her, everybody felt her to bring
with her the tonic of a sunny day. That one exception was Francis
Urcombe; he, though he confessed he did ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
They
did not bite the hands or face, but chose always the neck and throat
for their feeding-ground, and most of us, as the poison spread, assumed
a temporary goitre. Then about the middle of August appeared the first
of those mysterious cases of illness which our local doctor attributed
to the long-continued heat coupl... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
“And all night long, until it
was nearly day, she was fluttering outside, like some terrible bat,
trying to gain admittance. Now put together various things I have told
you.”
He began checking them off on his fingers. “Number one,” he said: “there was an outbreak of disease similar to
that which this boy is suffering ... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
We’re going to the cemetery.”
* * * * *
He carried a pick, a shovel, and a screwdriver when he rejoined me, and
wore round his shoulders a long coil of rope. As we walked, he gave me
the outlines of the ghastly hour that lay before us. “What I have to tell you,” he said, “will seem to y... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Outside the tattoo of wind-driven sleet
was audible on the window-panes, over-scoring now and again the flap
of the flames on the open hearth, and the thought of the chilly blasts
and the snow-covered pavement in Brompton Square, across which, to
skidding taxicabs, the last of his other guests had scurried, made my
pos... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
He was
a man of middle age, in dress-clothes, and his face wore an expression
of intense thought, as if in his mind he was pondering some very
significant matter, and his hand which was resting on his knee clenched
and unclenched itself. Suddenly he looked up and stared me in the face,
and I saw there suspicion and fea... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
Should I not, if that was
the case, be doing a very dangerous thing, by making such a suggestion
to him? Might not the fact of my telling him what I had seen put
the idea into his mind, or, if it was already there, confirm it and
strengthen it? ‘It’s a ticklish matter to play with souls,’ as Browning
says.”
“But it se... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
It was difficult to focus; I did not know whether it was near
the wall or near my chair. It seemed to clear away, anyhow, as I looked
more closely at it. “You see nothing?” asked Anthony. “No: I don’t think so,” said I. “And you?”
“I think I do,” he said, and his eyes followed something which was
invisible to mine. Th... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
If you have been cold and are warmed, it is difficult to
remember what cold was like: if you have been hot and have got cool,
it is difficult to realise what the oppression of heat really meant. Just so, with the passing of that presence, I found myself unable to
recapture the sense of the terror with which, a few mome... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
I won’t be a minute, but I do want so much to be a ghost, and
appear to a friend of mine who is on the look-out for such a visit. If
I find I can’t make myself visible I will come back at once.... Oh,
_thank_ you, your Holiness.”
So we agreed that I should run the risk of his dying in my house, and
promised not to mak... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
At present I shall leave you wondering
why a place that should hold such mournful memories for me, is such a
well-spring. And as I am not for telling you about me, let me enquire
about you. Bring yourself up to date; what have you been doing, and
much more important, what have you been thinking about?”
“My doings have... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
He gave a loud croak of laughter. “That’ll teach them not to insult my friend,” he said. “It must have
been pitched right among their careful puttings. And now I shall read
his ghost-stories.”
I have recorded this athletic incident because better than any analysis
of his attitude towards life and death it conveys just... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
“‘I couldn’t die without seeing you,’ she said. ‘I was sure you would
come. I’ve one thing to say to you. I loved you, and I tried to choke
my love. And for years, my dear, I have been reaping the harvest of
what I did. I tried to kill love, but it was so much stronger than I. And now the harvest is gathered. I have su... | Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic) - Visible and Invisible |
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
by Ambrose Bierce
THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION, 1988
I
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down
into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his
back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It wa... | Bierce, Ambrose - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
No service was too humble for him to
perform in the aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to
undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at
heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much
qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous
dictum that all i... | Bierce, Ambrose - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly
within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He
heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at
his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The
man in the water saw the eye of the man ... | Bierce, Ambrose - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of
ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how
beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is
about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck;
a blinding white light blazes all about him with a s... | Bierce, Ambrose - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
Produced by Paul J. Hollander. HTML version by Al Haines. THE PARENTICIDE CLUB
by
Ambrose Bierce
CONTENTS
My Favorite Murder
Oil of Dog
An Imperfect Conflagration
The Hypnotist
MY FAVORITE MURDER
Having murdered my mother under circumstances of singular atrocity, I
was arrested and put upon my trial,... | Bierce, Ambrose - The Parenticide Club |
"One morning I shouldered my Winchester rifle, and going over to my
uncle's house, near Nigger Head, asked my Aunt Mary, his wife, if he
were at home, adding that I had come to kill him. My aunt replied
with her peculiar smile that so many gentlemen called on that errand
and were afterward carried away without having p... | Bierce, Ambrose - The Parenticide Club |
His posture in the sack and the
distance from the ground at which he hung compelled the ram to operate
upon his lower extremities and the end of his back. Like a plant that
has struck its root into some poisonous mineral, my poor uncle was
dying slowly upward. "After delivering its second blow the ram had not again ret... | Bierce, Ambrose - The Parenticide Club |
Even at that early age I was
passionately fond of children, and as I looked upon this cherub I
could almost find it in my heart to wish that the small, red wound
upon its breast--the work of my dear mother--had not been mortal. It had been my custom to throw the babes into the river which nature
had thoughtfully provid... | Bierce, Ambrose - The Parenticide Club |
It was this last mentioned
accomplishment that won my father's heart and caused him to commit the
only dishonorable act of his life, though possibly he would have
committed more if he had been spared: he tried to conceal that
music-box from me, and declared upon his honor that he had not taken
it, though I know very we... | Bierce, Ambrose - The Parenticide Club |
All this, irrelevant and
egotistic as it may seem, is related by way of accounting for the
meagreness of the light that I am able to throw upon a subject that
has engaged so much of my attention, and concerning which there is so
keen and general a curiosity. With my powers and opportunities,
another person might doubtl... | Bierce, Ambrose - The Parenticide Club |
Wild,
inarticulate screams of rage attested the delivery of the blows;
groans, grunts and gasps their receipt. Nothing more truly military
was ever seen at Gettysburg or Waterloo: the valor of my dear parents
in the hour of danger can never cease to be to me a source of pride
and gratification. At the end of it all two... | Bierce, Ambrose - The Parenticide Club |
DAY AND NIGHT STORIES
BY
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
Author _of_ "Ten Minute Stories," "Julius Le Vallon,"
"The Wave," etc. [Illustration]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
681 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY E. P. DUTTON & CO. Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Occasionally
there came strong reversions, when he ached with longing, yearning,
hope; when he loved her again; remembered passionately each detail of
the far-off courtship days in the forbidden rectory garden beyond the
small, white garden gate. Or was it merely the image and the memory he
loved "again"? He hardly kne... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
And, when the time-table was laid before him, he
examined it without intelligence, then looked up suddenly into the
maid's face with a question about flowers. Were there flowers to be had
in the village anywhere? What kind of flowers? "Oh, a bouquet or a"--he
hesitated, searching for a word that tried to present itself... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The familiar perfumes rushed at
him--dead leaves and mossy earth and ferns and dock leaves, bringing
the bewildering currents of strong emotion in him all together as in
a rising wave. He saw, then, the crumbling wall, the cedars topping
it with spreading branches, the chimneys of the rectory. On his right
bulked the o... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Be that as it might, he knew at any rate that a lunatic was not to
be listened to, whereas an idiot--well, the one he fell in love with
certainly had the secret of some instinctual knowledge that was not
only joy, but a kind of sheer natural joy. Probably it was that sheer
natural joy of living that reason argues to be... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
"Like a wild
animal," he said, "you come out in the dusk----"
"To play with my kind," she answered in a flash, throwing him a glance
of invitation that made his blood go dancing. He leaned against the statue a moment, asking himself why this young
Cinderella of a parvenu family delighted him when all the London
beauti... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
It seemed the last line of some
delicious runic verse:
"In the _heart_ of the _wood_--dwell _I_...."
And it flashed across him: That living, moving, inhabited pine wood
was her thought. It was thus she saw it. Her nature flung back to a
life she understood, a life that needed, claimed her. The ostentatious
and artifi... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
And the sudden contrast caused a shock that put a blank, perhaps,
upon his mind, so that he lost the standard of remembered things. For
it was no longer merely a particular adventure; it seemed a habit
and a natural joy resumed. It was not new. He knew the momentum of
an accustomed happiness, mislaid, it may be, but ce... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Even when the wildest abandon approached the heat of orgy,
when the recklessness appeared excess--there hid that marvellous touch
of loveliness which makes the natural sacred. There was coherence,
purpose, the fulfilling of an exquisite law: there was worship. The
form it took, haply, was strange as well as riotous, ye... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Generations of careful breeding, mate cautiously selecting mate,
laid the polish of caste upon their hands and faces where gleamed
ridiculous, untaught jewels--rings, bracelets, necklaces hanging
absurdly from every possible angle. "But--they are dressed up--for fun," he exclaimed, more to himself than
to the girl in s... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
"Rubbish," he said, and tried to catch her by the waist. "It's safer in the house--my room--or yours----" She broke off again. "There it is--don't you hear? It's a footstep!" Her face was whiter
than the moon. "I tell you it's the wind in the branches," he repeated gruffly. "Oh,
come on, _do_. We were just getting joll... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
And the stars. D'you think they
swing on wires? What raised the enormous stones of ancient Egypt? D'you
really believe it was heaped-up sand and ropes and clumsy leverage
and all our weary and laborious mechanical contrivances? Bah! It was
levitation. It was the powers of the air. Believe in those powers,
and gravity b... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Only--here
was the reality that caused the sense of shock--the expression on
his altered features was genuine. _That_ was not assumed. There was
something new and alien in him, something cold and difficult to human
life, something alert and swift and cruel, of another element than
earth. A strange, rapacious grandeur h... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
There was another pause. The pause, however, was intentional. It was not vacuity of mind or absence of ideas that caused it. There
was another subject, an unfinished subject that each member of the
group was still considering. Only no one cared to begin about it
till at last, unable to resist the strain any longer, Pal... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
For
what he loved must worship where he worshipped, and the majesty of
those tremendous effigies had fired his imagination to the creative
point where expression was imperative. Then suddenly, at the very moment of delicious capture, the dream
turned horrible, becoming awful with the nightmare touch. The sky lost
all i... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
"I mean, rather," he replied earnestly, "that this great creative flood
in him, so curiously focused now upon his Horus-falcon-bird idea, may
result in some act of violence----"
"Which would be madness," she said, looking hard at him. "Which would be disastrous," he corrected her. And then he added
slowly: "Because in... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
"Good thing it's not the Hawk!" And, to the absolute amazement of the throng, this sight was then
apparent. A figure dropped through space. That high, shrill cry again
was heard:
"Feather my soul ... to know thy awful swiftness!" Its singing loveliness touched the heart, its appealing, passionate
sweetness was marvell... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Plitzinger, that is,
saw them, too, but he said firmly that they belonged to the big black
falcons that haunt the Mokattam Hills and roost upon these ridges,
close beside the hotel, at night. Both he and Vera, however, agreed
on one thing: the high, sharp cry in the air above them, wild and
plaintive, was certainly the... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
His _Lives of the Gods_ went into six editions. They
said--the big critics of his day--that he was "a poet who wrote no
poetry, yet lived it passionately in the spirit of old-world, classical
Beauty," and I know he was a wonderful fellow in his way and made the
dons and schoolmasters all sit up. We're proud of him all ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The wood was black as ink all round me, too black to see the
tree-trunks separately, except far below where the village lights came
up twinkling between them, and the only way I kept the path was by the
soft feel of the pine-needles that were thicker than a Brussels carpet. But nothing happened, and no one stirred. The... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
His thick
light hair, not brushed back like the London shop-boys, but parted on
the side, yet untidy for all that, suited him exactly and gave him a
touch of wildness. "Well," he asked, "what would you like to do, Uncle Jim? I'm at your
service, and I've got the whole afternoon till supper at seven-thirty." I told him ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
I think it was "we" he said, but for some reason or other I didn't care
to ask. "Maybe," I answered shortly, trying uncomfortably to recall what
particular capers I had cut. "I guess that's right." And then I added
something about the loneliness, and how deserted all this slope of
mountain was. And he explained that th... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
There seemed some
radical, elemental choice presented to me--to what I used to call my
soul. My soul could take or leave it as it pleased.... I looked at Arthur moving beside me like a shaft of light. What had
come over me? How had our walk and talk and mood, our quite recent
everyday and ordinary view, our normal rela... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
In place of them came--oh, God, I hate to say it, for
only nursery talk can get within a mile of it, and yet what I need is
something simpler even than the words that children use. Under one arm
I carried a whole forest breathing in the wind, and beneath the other
a hundred meadows full of singing streams with golden m... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
But somehow these stunts
of the psychologists and philosophers didn't cut any ice with me just
then, because I'd _experienced_ what they merely _explained_. And
explanation was just a bargain sale. The best things can't be explained
at all. There's no real value in a bargain sale. Arthur had trouble to keep up with me.... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The quiet Nile, sighing with age, passed down towards the sea;
there loomed the menacing Pyramids across the twilight; beneath them,
in monstrous dignity, crouched that Shadow from whose eyes of battered
stone proceeds the nameless thing that contracts the heart, then opens
it again to terror; and everywhere, from towe... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Deepening with every hour into an incalculable splendour, it waited. 2
In the street the foremost riders drew rein, and, two and two abreast,
the long line clattered past the shops and cafés, the railway station
and hotels, stared at by the natives from the busy pavements. The
donkeys stumbled, blinded by the electric... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Below him the lights of Helouan twinkled like the Pleiades reflected in
a pool of water; a hum of queer soft noises rose to his ears; but just
beyond the houses the desert stood at attention, the vastest thing he
had ever known, very stern, yet very comforting, with its peace beyond
all comprehension, its delicate, wil... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The cold,
the darkness, the silence which cannot answer, the stupendous mystery
which is the spell of its inscrutable Presence, had risen about them
in the dusk, and kept them company at a little distance, until the
lights of Helouan had bade it halt. Life which may not, cannot end, had
frightened her. His time, perhap... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
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