Human Chord

Algernon Blackwood

Description

The assertion that beautiful music shares a mysterious connection with the human soul is not a new one. For thousands of years, ever since our distant ancestors first began making pleasing sounds with whatever rudimentary implements they could lay their hands on, music has been an important part of ritual, ceremony and spiritual life. In The Human Chord, renowned master of the supernatural Algernon Blackwood takes this concept a step further - with engrossing and thought-provoking results.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775560029
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE HUMAN CHORD
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ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
 
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The Human Chord First published in 1910 ISBN 978-1-77556-002-9 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV
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To those who hear.
Chapter I
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I
As a boy he constructed so vividly in imagination that he came to believein the living reality of his creations: for everybody and everything hefound names—real names. Inside him somewhere stretched immenseplaygrounds, compared to which the hay-fields and lawns of his father'sestate seemed trivial: plains without horizon, seas deep enough to floatthe planets like corks, and "such tremendous forests" with "trees liketall pointed hilltops." He had only to close his eyes, drop his thoughtsinwards, sink after them himself, call aloud and—see.
His imagination conceived and bore—worlds; but nothing in these worldsbecame alive until he discovered its true and living name. The name wasthe breath of life; and, sooner or later, he invariably found it.
Once, having terrified his sister by affirming that a little man he hadcreated would come through her window at night and weave a peaked cap forhimself by pulling out all her hairs "that hadn't gone to sleep with therest of her body," he took characteristic measures to protect her fromthe said depredations. He sat up the entire night on the lawn beneathher window to watch, believing firmly that what his imagination had madealive would come to pass.
She did not know this. On the contrary, he told her that the little manhad died suddenly; only, he sat up to make sure. And, for a boy of eight,those cold and haunted hours must have seemed endless from ten o'clock tofour in the morning, when he crept back to his own corner of the nightnursery. He possessed, you see, courage as well as faith and imagination.
Yet the name of the little man was nothing more formidable than "Winky!"
"You might have known he wouldn't hurt you, Teresa," he said. "Any onewith that name would be light as a fly and awf'ly gentle—a regular dickysort of chap!"
"But he'd have pincers," she protested, "or he couldn't pull the hairsout. Like an earwig he'd be. Ugh!"
"Not Winky! Never!" he explained scornfully, jealous of his offspring'sreputation. "He'd do it with his rummy little fingers."
"Then his fingers would have claws at the ends!" she insisted; for noamount of explanation could persuade her that a person named Winky couldbe nice and gentle, even though he were "quicker than a second." Sheadded that his death rejoiced her.
"But I can easily make another—such a nippy little beggar, and twice ashoppy as the first. Only I won't do it," he added magnanimously, "becauseit frightens you."
For to name with him was to create. He had only to run out some distanceinto his big mental prairie, call aloud a name in a certain commandingway, and instantly its owner would run up to claim it. Names describedsouls. To learn the name of a thing or person was to know all about themand make them subservient to his will; and "Winky" could only have been avery soft and furry little person, swift as a shadow, nimble as amouse—just the sort of fellow who would make a conical cap out of agirl's fluffy hair ... and love the mischief of doing it.
And so with all things: names were vital and important. To address beingsby their intimate first names, beings of the opposite sex especially, wasa miniature sacrament; and the story of that premature audacity of Elsawith Lohengrin never failed to touch his sense of awe. "What's in aname?" for him, was a significant question—a question of life or death.For to mispronounce a name was a bad blunder, but to name it wrongly wasto miss it altogether. Such a thing had no real life, or at best avitality that would soon fade. Adam knew that! And he pondered much inhis childhood over the difficulty Adam must have had "discovering" thecorrect appellations for some of the queerer animals....
As he grew older, of course, all this faded a good deal, but he neverquite lost the sense of reality in names—the significance of a truename, the absurdity of a false one, the cruelty of mispronunciation. Oneday in the far future, he knew, some wonderful girl would come into hislife, singing her own true name like music, her whole personalityexpressing it just as her lips framed the consonants and vowels—and hewould love her. His own name, ridiculous and hateful though it was, wouldsing in reply. They would be in harmony together in the literal sense, asnecessary to one another as two notes in the same chord....
So he also possessed the mystical vision of the poet. What helacked—such temperaments always do—was the sense of proportion and thecareful balance that adjusts cause and effect. And this it is, no doubt,that makes his adventures such "hard sayings." It becomes difficult todisentangle what actually did happen from what conceivably might havehappened; what he thinks he saw from what positively was .
His early life—to the disgust of his Father, a poor countrysquire—was a distressing failure. He missed all examinations, muddledall chances, and finally, with £50 a year of his own, and no one tocare much what happened to him, settled in London and took any odd jobof a secretarial nature that offered itself. He kept to nothing forlong, being easily dissatisfied, and ever on the look out for the "job"that might conceal the kind of adventure he wanted. Once the work ofthe moment proved barren of this possibility, he wearied of it andsought another. And the search seemed prolonged and hopeless, for theadventure he sought was not a common kind, but something that shouldprovide him with a means of escape from a vulgar and noisy world thatbored him very much indeed. He sought an adventure that should announceto him a new heaven and a new earth; something that should confirm, ifnot actually replace, that inner region of wonder and delight hereveled in as a boy, but which education and conflict with a prosaicage had swept away from his nearer consciousness. He sought, that is,an authoritative adventure of the soul.
To look at, one could have believed that until the age of twenty-five hehad been nameless, and that a committee had then sat upon the subject andselected the sound best suited to describe him: Spinrobin—Robert. For,had he never seen himself, but run into that inner prairie of his andcalled aloud "Robert Spinrobin," an individual exactly resembling himwould surely have pattered up to claim the name.
He was slight, graceful, quick on his feet and generally alert; tooklittle steps that were almost hopping, and when he was in a hurry gavehim the appearance of "spinning" down the pavement or up the stairs;always wore clothes of some fluffy material, with a low collar andbright red tie; had soft pink cheeks, dancing grey eyes and looselyscattered hair, prematurely thin and unquestionably like feathers. Hishands and feet were small and nimble. When he stood in his favoriteattitude with hands plunged deep in his pockets, coat-tails slightlyspread and flapping, head on one side and hair disordered, talking inthat high, twittering, yet very agreeable voice of his, it wasimpossible to avoid the conclusion that here was—well—Spinrobin, BobbySpinrobin, "on the job."
For he took on any "job" that promised adventure of the kind he sought,and the queerer the better. As soon as he found that his presentoccupation led to nothing, he looked about for something new—chiefly inthe newspaper advertisements. Numbers of strange people advertised in thenewspapers, he knew, just as numbers of strange people wrote letters tothem; and Spinny—so he was called by those who loved him—was a diligentstudent of the columns known as "Agony" and "Help wanted." Whereupon itcame about that he was aged twenty-eight, and out of a job, when thethreads of the following occurrence wove into the pattern of his life,and "led to something" of a kind that may well be cause for question andamazement.
The advertisement that formed the bait read as follows:—
"WANTED, by Retired Clergyman, Secretarial Assistant with courage andimagination. Tenor voice and some knowledge of Hebrew essential; single; unworldly . Apply Philip Skale,"—and the address.
Spinrobin swallowed the bait whole. "Unworldly" put the match, and heflamed up. He possessed, it seemed, the other necessary qualifications;for a thin tenor voice, not unmusical, was his, and also a smattering ofHebrew which he had picked up at Cambridge because he liked the fine,high-sounding names of deities and angels to be found in that language.Courage and imagination he lumped in, so to speak, with the rest, and inthe gilt-edged diary he affected he wrote: "Have taken on Skale's oddadvertisement. I like the man's name. The experience may prove anadventure. While there's change, there's hope." For he was very fond ofturning proverbs to his own use by altering them, and the said diary waspacked with absurd misquotations of a similar kind.
II
A singular correspondence followed, in which the advertiser explainedwith reserve that he wanted an assistant to aid him in certainexperiments in sound, that a particular pitch and quality of voice wasnecessary (which he could not decide until, of course, he had heard it),and that the successful applicant must have sufficient courage andimagina