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The clamour of praise was loud round the
figure of the weary dancer as she left in a carriage for her dahabîyeh
on the Nile. A low wind whistled round the walls of the great hotel,
blowing chill and bitter between the pillars of the colonnades. The
girl heard the voices float up to her through the night, and once more,... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
And when it happened he never called for
help, because the occurrence simply took his voice away. "It comes from the Nightmare Passage," he decided; "but it's _not_ a
nightmare." It puzzled him. Sometimes, moreover, it came more than once in a single night. He was
pretty sure--not _quite_ positive--that it occupied his... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Through these
chambers, through these darkened corridors, along a passage, sometimes
dangerous, or at least of questionable repute, he must pass to find all
adventures that were _real_. The light--when he pierced far enough to
take the shutters down--was discovery. Tim did not actually think, much
less say, all this. H... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
At first he felt awed, standing motionless just inside the door;
but presently, recovering equilibrium, he moved cautiously on tiptoe
towards the gigantic desk where important papers were piled in untidy
patches. These he did not touch; but beside them his quick eye noted
the jagged piece of iron shell his father broug... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
It was _how_ he
got here that caused the faint surprise, apparently. He no longer
swaggered, however, but walked carefully, and half on tiptoe, holding
the ivory handle of the cane with a kind of affectionate respect. And
as he advanced, the light closed softly up behind him, obliterating the
way by which he had come. ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Tim knew him perfectly: the
knee-breeches of shining satin, the gleaming buckles on the shoes, the
neat dark stockings, the lace and ruffles about neck and wrists, the
coloured waistcoat opening so widely--all the details of the picture
over father's mantelpiece, where it hung between two Crimean bayonets,
were reprodu... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
He was acclaimed a hero for his promptitude. After many days, when
the damage was repaired, and nerves had settled down once more into
the calm routine of country life, he told the story to his wife--the
entire story. He told the adventure of his imaginative boyhood with
it. She asked to see the old family cane. And it... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
He was in some one else's room. He had really no right
to be there. It was in the nature of an unwarrantable intrusion; and
while he unpacked he kept looking over his shoulder as though some one
were watching him from the corners. Any moment, it seemed, he would
hear a step in the passage, a knock would come at the doo... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Surely
mere physical fatigue could not produce a world so black, an outlook so
dismal, a cowardice that struck with such sudden hopelessness at the
very roots of life? For, normally, he was cheerful and strong, full
of the tides of healthy living; and this appalling lassitude swept
the very basis of his personality int... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
This way is easiest and best...."
VIII
CAIN'S ATONEMENT
So many thousands to-day have deliberately put Self aside, and are
ready to yield their lives for an ideal, that it is not surprising a
few of them should have registered experiences of a novel order. For
to step aside from Self is to enter a larger world, ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
He flung it back into the opposing
trench. The rapidity of thought is hard to realise. In that second and a
half Smith was aware of many things: He saved his cousin's life
unquestionably; unquestionably also Jones seized the opportunity that
otherwise was his cousin's. But it was neither of these reflections
that fille... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The swiftness of that leap, however, was not so swift but that he could
easily have used his spear. Indeed, he gripped it strongly. His skill,
his strength, his aim--he knew them well enough. But hate and love,
fastening upon his heart, held all his muscles still. He hesitated. He
was no murderer, yet he paused. He hea... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
But a hornet sitting directly in his path was a very different
matter. He realised in a flash that he was poorly clothed--in a word,
that he was practically half naked. From a distance he examined this intrusion of the devil. It was calm
and very still. It was wonderfully made, both before and behind. Its
wings were fo... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
For Mullins, though depraved,
perhaps, was an honest man, abhorring parsons and making no secret of
his opinions--whence the bitter feeling. All men, except those very big ones who are supermen, have something
astonishingly despicable in them. The despicable thing in Milligan
came uppermost now. He fairly chuckled. He ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
His course lay some twenty miles into the desert behind
El-Chobak and towards the limestone hills of Guebel Haidi, and he went
alone, carrying lunch and tea, for it was the weekly holiday of Friday,
and the men were not at work. The accident was ordinary enough. On his way back in the heat of early
afternoon his pony s... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The utter futility of his tiny strength against the power of
the universe appalled him. And then he knew. The merciless sun was on
the way, already rising. Its return was like the presage of execution
to him.... It came. With true horror he watched the marvellous swift dawn break
over the sandy sea. The eastern sky glo... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
He peered forth into
the thick darkness of the dropping night, shading his eyes against the
streaming pane to screen the firelight in an attempt to see if another
climber--perhaps a climber in distress--were visible. The surroundings
were desolate and savage, well named the Devil's Saddle. Black-faced
precipices, strea... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
These impressions,
however, were but momentary and passing, due doubtless to the condition
of his nerves and to the semi-shock of the dramatic, even theatrical
entrance. Delane's senses, in this wild setting, were guilty of
exaggeration. For now, while helping the man remove his cloak, speaking
naturally of shelter, fo... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
"Ah, then you have known accidents," Delane replied with outer
calmness, as he lit his pipe, trying in vain to keep his hand as steady
as his voice. "You have been in one perhaps. The effect, I have been
told, is----"
The power and sweetness in that resonant voice took his breath away as
he heard it break in upon his ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
"I called to you ... but called to you in play," thought whispered
somewhere deep below the level of any speech, yet not so low that the
audacious sound of it did not crash above the elements outside; "for
... till now ... you have been to me but a ... coated bogy ... that my
brain disowned with laughter ... and my hea... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
sighed across the sea of wailing branches, echoing down
the dark abyss below. "God give you rest at last!" For he saw a princely, nay, an imperial Being, homeless for ever,
and for ever wandering, hunted as by keen remorseless winds about a
universe that held no corner for his feet, his majesty unworshipped,
his reign ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
At the
parting of the ways its angles delayed it for a moment, undecided which
way to take. It wobbled. And upon that moment's wobbling hung tragic
issues--issues of life and death. Unknowing (yet assuredly not unknown), it chose the trough. It swung
light-heartedly into the tearing sluice. It whirled with the gush of
... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The other, intended for the reception of genuine
cases of spiritual distress and out-of-the-way afflictions of a psychic
nature, was entirely draped and furnished in a soothing deep green,
calculated to induce calmness and repose of mind. And this room was the
one in which Dr. Silence interviewed the majority of his "q... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Silence as
he advanced to greet him, yet vibrations alive with currents and
discharges betraying the perturbed and disordered condition of his mind
and brain. There was evidently something wholly out of the usual in
the state of his thoughts. Yet, though strange, it was not altogether
distressing; it was not the impres... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
This much was to my advantage; I learned none of
that deceitful rubbish taught in schools, and so had nothing to unlearn
when I awakened to my true love--mathematics, higher mathematics and
higher geometry. These, however, I seemed to know instinctively. It was
like the memory of what I had deeply studied before; the p... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
It is only some of the
results--what you would call the symptoms of my disease--that I can
give you, and even these must often appear absurd contradictions and
impossible paradoxes. "I can only tell you, Dr. Silence"--his manner became exceedingly
impressive--"that I reached sometimes a point of view whence all the
gre... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
He
still held tightly to the arms as though they could keep him in the
world of sanity and three measurements, and only now and again released
his left hand in order to mop his face. He looked very thin and white
and oddly unsubstantial, and he stared about him as though he saw into
this other space he had been talking... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The
_Tannhäuser_ March started again, this time at a tremendous pace that
made it sound like a rapid two-step as though the instruments played
against time. But the brief interruption gave Dr. Silence a moment in which to
collect his scattering thoughts, and before the band had got through
half a bar, he had flung forw... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
And John had answered truthfully: "Oh, they just said things. But
the theatre's always full--and that's the only test." And just now, as he crossed the crowded Circus to catch his 'bus, it
chanced that his mind (having glimpsed an advertisement) was full of
this particular Play, or, rather, of the effect it had produce... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
"Well, _what_ do you think?" her mother asked sharply. "You're always
thinking something queer." "I think," the child continued dreamily, "that Daddy's already here." She paused, then added with a child's impossible conviction, "I'm sure
he is. I _feel_ him." There was an extraordinary laugh. Sir James Epiphany laughed... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
The motor-horns even had a muffled sound,
and heavy drays and wagons used the wide streets; there were fewer
taxicabs about, or else they flew by noiselessly. Yet no straw was
down; the expense prohibited that. And towards morning, very early, the
mother decided to watch alone. She had been a trained nurse before her
m... | Blackwood, Algernon - Day and Night Stories |
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Geetu Melwani and the Online
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FOUR WEIRD TALES
BY
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
INCLUDING:
"The Insanity of Jones"
"The Man Who Found Out"
"The Glamour of the Snow" and
"Sand"
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
These stories first appeared in Bl... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
In common with others who lead a strictly impersonal life, he possessed
the quality of utter bravery, and was always ready to face any
combination of circumstances, no matter how terrible, because he saw in
them the just working-out of past causes he had himself set in motion
which could not be dodged or modified. And ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
His head
was almost entirely bald, and over his turn-down collar his great neck
folded in two distinct reddish collops of flesh. His hands were big and
his fingers almost massive in thickness. He was an excellent business man, of sane judgment and firm will,
without enough imagination to confuse his course of action by... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
A moment of flame and vision rushed over him, and for one single
second--one merciless second of clear sight--he saw the Manager as the
tall dark man of his evil dreams, and the knowledge that he had suffered
at his hands some awful injury in the past crashed through his mind like
the report of a cannon. It all flashed... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
And, as they went, the pedestrians and
traffic grew less and less, and they soon passed the Mansion House and
the deserted space in front of the Royal Exchange, and so on down
Fenchurch Street and within sight of the Tower of London, rising dim and
shadowy in the smoky air. Jones remembered all this perfectly well, and... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
"Remain close by my side, and remember to utter no cry," whispered the
voice of his guide, and as the clerk turned to reply he saw his face was
stern to whiteness and even shone a little in the darkness. The room they entered seemed at first to be pitchy black, but gradually
the secretary perceived a faint reddish glow... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
The wind came crying out of the wood
again. * * * * *
Jones shivered and stared about him. He shook himself violently and
rubbed his eyes. The room was dark, the fire was out; he felt cold and
stiff. He got up out of his armchair, still trembling, and lit the gas. Outside the wind was howling, ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He noticed, too, that he was sometimes followed by a certain individual
in the streets, a careless-looking sort of man, who never came face to
face with him, or actually ran into him, but who was always in his train
or omnibus, and whose eye he often caught observing him over the top of
his newspaper, and who on one oc... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Jones put the pistol to his temple and
once more pressed the trigger with his finger. But this time there was no report. Only a little dead click answered the
pressure, for the secretary had forgotten that the pistol had only six
chambers, and that he had used them all. He threw the useless weapon
on to the floor, laug... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
And he continued at great length and in glowing language to describe the
species of vivid dream that had come to him at intervals since earliest
childhood, showing in detail how he discovered these very Tablets of the
Gods, and proclaimed their splendid contents--whose precise nature was
always, however, withheld from ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
The vision never once failed me. It led me straight to the place like a
star in the heavens. I found--the Tablets of the Gods." Dr. Laidlaw caught his breath, and steadied himself on the back of a
chair. The words fell like particles of ice upon his heart. For the
first time the professor had uttered the well-known phr... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
The study of
dementia was, of course, outside his special province as a specialist,
but he knew enough of it to understand how small a matter might be the
actual cause of how great an illusion, and he had been devoured from the
very beginning by a ceaseless and increasing anxiety to know what the
professor had found in... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
His mind seemed to
waver. "No," he muttered presently; "not that way. There are easier and better
ways than that." He took his hat and passed downstairs into the street. 5
It was five o'clock, and the June sun lay hot upon the pavement. He felt
the metal door-knob burn the palm of his hand. "Ah, Laidlaw, this is well... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He crossed to the window and blew carelessly some ashes of burned paper
from the sill, and stood watching them as they floated away lazily over
the tops of the trees. * * * * *
_The Glamour of the Snow_
I
Hibbert, always conscious of two worlds, was in this mountain village
conscious of t... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
There had been an ice carnival, and the last party, tailing up the
snow-slope to the hotel, called him. The Chinese lanterns smoked and
sputtered on the wires; the band had long since gone. The cold was
bitter and the moon came only momentarily between high, driving clouds. From the shed where the people changed from s... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
For in her voice--a low, soft, windy little voice it was, tender and
soothing for all its quiet coldness--there lay some faint reminder of
two others he had known, both long since gone: the voice of the woman he
had loved, and--the voice of his mother. But this time through his dreams there ran no clash of battle. He w... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Some hidden instinct in his pagan soul--heaven knows how he phrased it
even to himself, if he phrased it at all--whispered that with the snow
the girl would be somewhere about, would emerge from her hiding place,
would even look for him. Absolutely unwarranted it was. He laughed while he stood before the
little glass a... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
The man who asked the question watched him go, an expression of anxiety
momentarily in his eyes. "Don't think he heard you," said another, laughing. "You've got to shout
to Hibbert, his mind's so full of his work." "He works too hard," suggested the first, "full of queer ideas and
dreams." But Hibbert's silence was not... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
You're a child of the snow, I
swear. Let me come up--closer--to see your face--and touch your little
hand." Her laughter answered him. "Come on! A little higher. Here we're quite alone together." "It's magnificent," he cried. "But why did you hide away so long? I've
looked and searched for you in vain ever since we ska... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Shrill and wild, with the whistling of the wind past his ears, he caught
its pursuing tones; but in anger now, no longer soft and coaxing. And it
was accompanied; she did not follow alone. It seemed a host of these
flying figures of the snow chased madly just behind him. He felt them
furiously smite his neck and cheeks... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He turned with sudden energy to
the shelf of guide-books, maps and time-tables--possessions he most
valued in the whole room. He was a happy-go-lucky, adventure-loving
soul, careless of common standards, athirst ever for the new and
strange. "That's the best of having a cheap flat," he laughed, "and no ties in
the worl... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
But the voice seemed in the room still--close beside him:
"I am the Sand," he heard, before it died away. * * * * *
And next he realised that the glitter of Paris lay behind him, and a
steamer was taking him with much unnecessary motion across a sparkling
sea towards Alexandria. Gladly he saw ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
With a mental shudder, sometimes he watched the cheap tourist
horde go laughing, chattering past within view of its ancient,
half-closed eyes. It was like defying deity. For, to his stirred imagination the sublimity of the Desert dwarfed
humanity. These people had been wiser to choose another place for the
flaunting of... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Broad
and powerful too. Henriot looked down upon his thick head of hair. The
personality and voice repelled him. Possibly his face, caught unawares,
betrayed this. "Forgive my startling you," said the other apologetically, while the
softer expression danced in for a moment and disorganised the rigid set
of the face. "T... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
But all night long it watched and waited, rising to peer above the
little balcony, and sometimes entering the room and piling up beside his
very pillow. He dreamed of Sand. III
For some days Henriot saw little of the man who came from Birmingham and
pushed curiosity to a climax by asking for a compass in the middle o... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
The answers
rose with the quickened pulses in his blood. Moreover, she explained
Richard Vance. It was this woman's power that shone reflected in the
man. She was the one who knew the big, unusual things. Vance merely
echoed the rush of her vital personality. This was the first impression that he got--from the most str... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He would think twice before taking
steps to form acquaintance. "Better not," thought whispered. "Better
leave them alone, this queer couple. They're after things that won't do
you any good." This idea of mischief, almost of danger, in their
purposes was oddly insistent; for what could possibly convey it? But,
while he ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He studied her
intently. She was a woman who had none of the external feminine signals
in either dress or manner, no graces, no little womanly hesitations and
alarms, no daintiness, yet neither anything distinctly masculine. Her
charm was strong, possessing; only he kept forgetting that he was
talking to a--woman; and ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
She carried him far beyond mere outline, however, though afterwards he
recalled the details with difficulty. So much more was suggested than
actually expressed. She contrived to make the general modern scepticism
an evidence of cheap mentality. It was so easy; the depth it affects to
conceal, mere emptiness. "We have t... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
The
soft-footed Arab servants moved across the hall in their white sheets
like eddies of dust the wind stirred from the Libyan dunes. And over
these two strangers close beside him stole a queer, indefinite
alteration. Moods and emotions, nameless as unknown stars, rose through
his soul, trailing dark mists of memory fr... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Hence the
strength of those first impressions that had stormed him. The woman had
belief; however wild and strange, it was sacred to her. The secret of
her influence was--conviction. His attitude shifted several points then. The wonder in him passed over
into awe. The things she knew were real. They were not merely
ima... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He tried to steady his mind upon familiar objects, but wherever he
looked Sand stared him in the face. Outside these trivial walls the
Desert lay listening. It lay waiting too. Vance himself had dropped out
of recognition. He belonged to the world of things to-day. But this
woman and himself stood thousands of years aw... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Even in thought it appalled him. * * * * *
He undressed hurriedly, almost with the child's idea of finding safety
between the sheets. His mind undressed itself as well. The business of
the day laid itself automatically aside; the will sank down; desire grew
inactive. Henriot was exhausted. But,... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He told his
host and hostess about the strangers, though omitting the actual
conversation because they would merely smile in blank miscomprehension. But the moment he described the strong black eyes beneath the level
eyelids, his hostess turned with a start, her interest deeply roused:
"Why, it's that awful Statham wom... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
But there was no sign of levity in him. He told
the actual truth as far as in him lay, yet half ashamed of what he told. And a good deal he left out, too. "She's got a face of the same sort, that Statham horror," his wife said
with a shiver. "Reduce the size, and paint in awful black eyes, and
you've got her exactly--a... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
He decided to offer himself to all they wanted--his pencil too. He would
see--a shiver ran through him at the thought--what they saw, and know
some eddy of that vanished tide of power and splendour the ancient
Egyptian priesthood knew, and that perhaps was even common experience in
the far-off days of dim Atlantis. The... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
To be alone in the Desert meant to be alone with the imaginative picture
of what Vance--he knew it with such strange certainty--hoped to bring
about there. There was absolutely no evidence to justify the grim suspicion. It
seemed indeed far-fetched enough, this connection between the sand and
the purpose of an evil-min... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
They might have been discussing the building of a house, so
naturally followed answer upon question. But the whole body of meaning
in the old Egyptian symbolism rushed over him with a force that shook
his heart. Memory came so marvellously with it. "If the Power floods down into our minds with sufficient strength for
a... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
It might well have lost
him the very assistance he seemed so anxious to obtain. Henriot could not fathom it quite. Only one thing was clear to him. He,
Henriot, was not the only one in danger. They talked for long after that--far into the night. The lights went
out, and the armed patrol, pacing to and fro outside the i... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
There may be truth in
it, or they may be merely self-suggested vision due to an artificial
exaltation of their minds. I'm interested--perhaps against my better
judgment. Yet I'll see the adventure out--because I _must_." This was the attitude he told himself to take. Whether it was the real
one, or merely adopted to wa... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
For a moment the stream of movement seemed to pause and look up into his
face, then instantly went on again upon its swift career. It was like
the procession of a river to the sea. The valley emptied itself to make
way for what was coming. The approach, moreover, had already begun. Conscious that he was trembling, he s... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Of himself, as Felix Henriot, indeed, he hardly seemed
aware. He was some one else. Or, rather, he was himself at a stage he
had known once far, far away in a remote pre-existence. He watched
himself from dim summits of a Past, of which no further details were as
yet recoverable. Pencil and sketching-block lay ready to... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
Grandly the figures moved across the valley bed. The powers of the
heavenly bodies once more joined them. They moved to the measure of a
cosmic dance, whose rhythm was creative. The Universe partnered them. There was this transfiguration of all common, external things. He
realised that appearances were visible letters ... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
It built sudden ramparts
to the stars that chambered the thing he witnessed behind walls no
centuries could ever bring down crumbling into dust. He himself, in some curious fashion, lay just outside, viewing it apart. As from a pinnacle, he peered within--peered down with straining eyes
into the vast picture-gallery Me... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
A fragment of old Egypt had returned--a little portion of
that vast Body of Belief that once was Egypt. Evoked by the worship of
one human heart, passionately sincere, the Ka of Egypt stepped back to
visit the material it once informed--the Sand. Yet only a portion came. Henriot clearly realised that. It stretched
fort... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
It came quickly towards him, yet unsteadily, and with a
hurry that was ugly. Vance was on the way to fetch him. And the
horror of the man's approach struck him like a hammer in the face. He closed his eyes, sinking back to hide. But, before he swooned, there reached him the clatter of the
murderer's tread as he began t... | Blackwood, Algernon - Four Weird Tales |
JOHN SILENCE
Physician Extraordinary
BY
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
AUTHOR OF
“THE LISTENER” “THE EMPTY HOUSE” ETC. BOSTON
JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY
1909
TO
M. L. W.
THE ORIGINAL OF JOHN SILENCE
AND
MY COMPANION IN MANY ADVENTURES
CONTENTS
CASE I
PAGE
A PSYCHICAL ... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
“Learn how to _think_,” he would have expressed it, “and you have
learned to tap power at its source.”
To look at--he was now past forty--he was sparely built, with speaking
brown eyes in which shone the light of knowledge and self-confidence,
while at the same time they made one think of that wondrous gentleness
seen... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
Mrs. Pender had round
eyes like a child’s, and she greeted him with an effusiveness that
barely concealed her emotion, yet strove to appear naturally cordial. Evidently she had been looking out for his arrival, and had outrun the
servant girl. She was a little breathless. “I hope you’ve not been kept waiting--I think i... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
Besides which, I feel sure from all
I’ve heard, that you are really a soul-doctor, are you not, more than a
healer merely of the body?”
“You think of me too highly,” returned the other; “though I prefer
cases, as you know, in which the spirit is disturbed first, the body
afterwards.”
“I understand, yes. Well, I have ... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
Probably, too, my laughter killed
all other emotions.”
“And how long did you take getting downstairs?”
“I was just coming to that I see you know all my ‘symptoms’ in advance,
as it were; for, of course, I thought I should never get to the bottom. Each step seemed to take five minutes, and crossing the narrow hall at
... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
In the first place, I am very familiar with the workings
of this extraordinary drug, this drug which has had the chance effect
of opening you up to the forces of another region; and, in the second,
I have a firm belief in the reality of super-sensuous occurrences as
well as considerable knowledge of psychic processes a... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
The room, you understand, was not full of a chorus of
notes; but when I concentrated my mind upon a colour, I heard, as well
as saw, it.”
“That is a known, though rarely-obtained, effect of _Cannabis indica_,”
observed the doctor. “And it provoked laughter again, did it?”
“Only the muttering of the cupboard-bookcase ... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
Every word he uttered was calculated; he knew exactly the value
and effect of the emotions he desired to waken in the heart of the
afflicted being before him. “And from certain knowledge I have gained through various experiences,”
he continued calmly, “I can diagnose your case as I said before to be
one of psychical in... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
II
A few days later the humorist and his wife, with minds greatly
relieved, moved into a small furnished house placed at their free
disposal in another part of London; and John Silence, intent upon his
approaching experiment, made ready to spend a night in the empty house
on the top of Putney Hill. Only two rooms were... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
He knew there must be something unusual about
the proceeding, because it was contrary to the habits of his whole
life not to be asleep at this hour on the mat in front of the fire. He
kept looking up into his master’s face, as door after door was tried,
with an expression of intelligent sympathy, but at the same time a... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
After reading a dozen pages, however, he realised that his mind was
really occupied in reviewing the features of Pender’s extraordinary
story, and that it was no longer necessary to steady his imagination
by studying the dull paragraphs detailed in the pages before him. He
laid down his book accordingly, and allowed hi... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
So far there was no actual fear in his manner, but
he was uneasy and anxious, and nothing would induce him to go within
touching distance of the walking cat. Once he made a complete circuit,
but always carefully out of reach; and in the end he returned to his
master’s legs and rubbed vigorously against him. Flame did n... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
His own sudden action and exhibition of energy had served to disperse
it temporarily, yet he felt convinced--the indications were not lacking
even while he sat there making notes--that it still remained near to
him, conditionally if not spatially, and was, as it were, gathering
force for a second attack. And, further, ... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
It
sought to win over the dog to friendliness with them all. The original
Intruder had come back with reinforcements. And at the same time he
further realised that the Intruder was something more than a blindly
acting force, impersonal though destructive. It was a Personality, and
moreover a great personality. And it w... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
It was all so confused and confusing, as though the little room he knew
had become merged and transformed into the dimensions of quite another
chamber, that came to him, with its host of cats and its strange
distances, in a sort of vision. But these changes came about a little later, and at a time when his
attention wa... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
And, as his self-control returned to him, he gradually accomplished
this purpose, even though trembling while he did so. Yet the struggle was severe, and in spite of the freezing chill of the
air, the perspiration poured down his face. Then, by slow degrees, the
dark and dreadful countenance faded, the glamour passed f... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
She was a person of intellect, possessed of a powerful, trained will,
and of consummate audacity, and I am convinced availed herself of the
resources of the lower magic to attain her ends. This goes far to
explain the virulence of the attack upon yourself, and why she is still
able to carry on after death the evil prac... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
For little Vezin was a timid, gentle, sensitive
soul, rarely able to assert himself, tender to man and beast, and
almost constitutionally unable to say No, or to claim many things that
should rightly have been his. His whole scheme of life seemed utterly
remote from anything more exciting than missing a train or losing... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
“Like a cat, you said?” interrupted John Silence, quickly catching him
up. “Yes. At the very start I felt that.” He laughed apologetically. “I
felt as though the warmth and the stillness and the comfort made me
purr. It seemed to be the general mood of the whole place--then.”
The inn, a rambling ancient house, the atm... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
Vezin was very
sensitive to music, knew about it intelligently, and had even ventured,
unknown to his friends, upon the composition of quiet melodies with
low-running chords which he played to himself with the soft pedal when
no one was about. And this music floating up through the trees from an
invisible and doubtless... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
I almost felt as an unwelcome foreign substance
might be expected to feel when it has found its way into the human
system and the whole body organises itself to eject it or to absorb it. The town was doing this very thing to me. “This bizarre notion presented itself forcibly to my mind as I walked
home to the inn, and ... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
First, they paused in
the doorway, peering about the room, and then, after a temporary
inspection, they came in, as it were, sideways, keeping close to the
walls so that he wondered which table they were making for, and at the
last minute making almost a little quick run to their particular seats. And again he thought ... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
All the currents of his life had turned inwards upon himself,
striving to bring to the surface something that lay buried almost
beyond reach, determined to force his recognition of something he had
long forgotten--forgotten years upon years, centuries almost ago. It
seemed as though a window deep within his being would... | Blackwood, Algernon - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary |
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