Algernon Blackwood

THE CENTAUR

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

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    TO M. S.-K.   Rare Type of Being: An Intellectual Mystic.

    I

    "We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all."--WILLIAM JAMES, A Pluralistic Universe.   " . . . A man's vision is the great fact about him. Who cares for Carlyle's reasons, or Schopenhauer's, or Spencer's? A philosophy is the expression of a man's intimate character, and all definitions of the Universe are but the deliberately adopted reactions of human characters upon it."--Ibid.

    “THERE are certain persons who, independently of sex or

    comeliness, arouse an instant curiosity concerning themselves. The

    tribe is small, but its members unmistakable. They may possess neither

    fortune, good looks, nor that adroitness of advance-vision which the

    stupid name good luck; yet there is about them this inciting quality

    which proclaims that they have overtaken Fate, set a harness about its

    neck of violence, and hold bit and bridle in steady hands.

    “Most of us, arrested a moment by their presence to snatch the

    definition their peculiarity exacts, are aware that on the heels of

    curiosity follows—envy. They know the very things that we for ever

    seek in vain. And this diagnosis, achieved as it were en passant,

    comes near to the truth, for the hall-mark of such persons is that

    they have found, and come into, their own. There is a sign upon the

    face and in the eyes. Having somehow discovered the `piece’ that makes

    them free of the whole amazing puzzle, they know where they belong

    and, therefore, whither they are bound: more, they are definitely en

    route. The littlenesses of existence that plague the majority pass

    them by.

    “For this reason, if for no other,” continued O’Malley, “I count

    my experience with that man as memorable beyond ordinary. `If for no

    other,’ because from the very beginning there was another. Indeed, it

    was probably his air of unusual bigness, massiveness rather,—head,

    face, eyes, shoulders, especially back and shoulders,—that struck me

    first when I caught sight of him lounging there hugely upon my steamer

    deck at Marseilles, winning my instant attention before he turned and

    the expression on his great face woke more—woke curiosity, interest,

    envy. He wore this very look of certainty that knows, yet with a tinge

    of mild surprise as though he had only recently known. It was less

    than perplexity. A faint astonishment as of a happy child—almost of

    an animal—shone in the large brown eyes–-”

    “You mean that the physical quality caught you first, then the

    psychical?” I asked, keeping him to the point, for his Irish

    imagination was ever apt to race away at a tangent.

    He laughed good-naturedly, acknowledging the check. “I believe

    that to be the truth,” he replied, his face instantly grave again. “It

    was the impression of uncommon bulk that heated my intuition—blessed

    if I know how—leading me to the other. The size of his body did not

    smother, as so often is the case with big people: rather, it revealed.

    At the moment I could conceive no possible connection, of course. Only

    this overwhelming attraction of the man’s personality caught me and I

    longed to make friends. That’s the way with me, as you know,” he

    added, tossing the hair back from his forehead impatiently, “—pretty

    often. First impressions. Old man, I tell you, it was like a

    possession.”

    “I believe you,” I said. For Terence O’Malley all his life had

    never understood half measures.