The Collected Novels of Algernon Blackwood (11 Titles in One Edition). Algernon Blackwood
that world of darkness had come to pass. The animal stared alternately at the window and the door.
For another minute the stillness held supreme. Then, from the silent reaches beyond, this new sound came suddenly close, dropping down through leagues of night. It began with a faint roar in the chimney; a tree outside uttered a soft, rushing cry; a thousand leaves, instead of one, rattled on the wall.
A Messenger, running headlong through the darkness, was calling aloud a warning as it ran, for all to understand who could. And, among the few who were awake and understood, 'Paul and his four-footed companion were certainly the first.
A sudden movement of the vast fabric of darkness came next. That scaffolding of shadows trembled, as though the same moment it would fall and let in—Light. In front of the bow window the muslin curtain that so long had hung motionless, now bellied out slowly into the room. The movement, mysterious and suggestive, claimed attention significantly. Paul and Smoke, watching it, exchanged glances. Then, with a long, sighing sound, it floated back again to its original position. It hung down straight and still as before.
But in that moment something had entered the room. Borne by this messenger of the coming storm, this stray Wind had left its warning—and was gone!
Smoke leapt softly down and padded over to sniff the curtain, and having done so, blinked up at Paul with eloquent eyes, and sat back to wait and—wash! No apparatus of speech ever said more plainly 'Look out! Something's coming! Better be prepared as I am!'
And something did come—almost the same minute. The forces that had so Jong been trying to upset the tent of darkness, did upset it, and from one uplifted corner there rushed down upon the world a blue-white sheet of light that was utterly gorgeous. For one instant trees, moor, hill leaped into vivid outline. The hands that held the sheet of brilliance shook it from the four corners, and all the sky shook with it; and, immediately after, the scaffolding of night fell with a prodigious crash, as the true storm, following upon its herald, descended with a hundred thunders and the roar of ten hundred trumpets.
The true wind rushed headlong into the room and extinguished both candles. Smoke rubbed against Paul's feet in the darkness, thoroughly aroused; but Paul himself stood still, as the thrill and splendour of it all entered his heart and filled him with delight. Thunder, lightning, wind—all passed mysteriously into his blood till he was almost conscious of a desire to add the sound of his own voice and shout aloud. The excitement of the elemental forces swept into himself. He understood now the signs of preparation that had been going forward in him during the day.
Splendid sensations, the most splendid he ever knew, raced to and fro in his being, till it almost seemed as if his consciousness transferred itself to the tempest. Surely, that great wind tore out of his heart, that lightning sprang from his brain, that river of rain washed, not merely out of the sky, but out of himself. The edges of his personality became fluid and melted off into the very nature of the elements. 'Now,' he exclaimed aloud, pacing to and fro while Smoke followed him in the darkness and tried to play with the bows on his pumps, 'had I but the means of expression, what a message I could give to the world, of beauty, splendour, power!' He laughed in his excitement. 'If only the strings of my poor instrument had been tuned!'
Sighing a little to himself at the thought, he went to the window. The first fury of the storm had passed; there was a sudden deep lull broken only by the rushing drip of rain; he smelt the wet foliage and soaking grass. Close to the window, it chanced, there was a dead tree, and in its leafless branches, outlined sharply by the lightning against the black sky, he traced what seemed the huge letters of some elemental alphabet; and at that moment, the returning wind passed through them like a hand on giant strings. It drew forth a wonderful sound in response, a sound that pierced as a two-edged sword to the centre of his being. It was a true singing wind—a Wind of Inspiration.
And, as he heard it, the great wave that fought for utterance rose within him and began to force and tear its way out in spite of everything. Words came pouring through him—like the stammering of torn strings upon a fiddle—clipped wings trying to fly—sparks streaming towards flame yet never achieving it. Similes and metaphors rushed, mixed and headlong, through his mind. In a moment he had dashed across the floor; the candles were again alight; and Paul, pencil in hand, was sitting at the table before a sheet of blank foolscap, the storm crashing about him, and Smoke watching him calmly with eyes full of expectant wonder.
And then was enacted a little drama—tragedy if ever there was one—that must often enough take place in the secret places of the world's houses, where the dumb poet seeks to transfer his genuine passion into the measure of halting and inadequate verse. Poignantly dramatic the spectacle must be, though never witnessed mercifully by an audience of more than one. Paul wrote fast, setting the words down almost as they came. It was that little passionate Wind of Inspiration that was the cause of all the trouble. Smoke jumped up on the table to watch the motion of the pencil across the paper. For some reason he hardly thought it worth while to play with it:
The Winds of Inspiration blow,
Yet pass me ever by;
And songs God taught me long ago,
Unuttered burn and—die.
He read the verse over, and with an impatient motion altered 'burn 'into 'fade.' Then he shook his head and continued:
From all the far blue hills of heaven
The dews of beauty rain;
Yet unto me no drops are given
To quench the ancient pain.
He scratched out 'ancient' and wrote over the top 'undying.' Then he scratched out 'undying 'and put 'ancient' back in its place. This time Smoke stretched out a long black paw with a velvet end to it and gave the pencil a deliberate dab. Paul either ignored, or did not notice it; but Smoke left the paw thrust forward upon the paper so as to be ready for the next dab.
I know the passion of the night,
Full of all days unborn,—
Full of the yearning of the light
For one undying Morn.
Smoke caught the tip of the pencil with a swift and accurate stroke, and the 'M' of ' Morn' was provided with an irregular tail Paul had not intended. Very quickly, however, without further interruption, he wrote on to the end.
Above the embers of my heart,
Waiting the Living Breath;
The sparks fly listlessly apart—
Then circle to their death.
Dead sparks that gathered ne'er to flame,
Nor felt the kiss of fire!
Dead thoughts that never found the name
To spell their deep desire!
Is then this instrument so poor
That it may never sound
Songs that must pass for evermore
Unuttered and uncrowned?
O soul that fain would'st steal heaven's fire,
Who clipped thy golden wings?
Who made so passionate a lyre,
Then never tuned the strings?
The Winds of Inspiration blow,
Yet pass me ever by;
And songs God taught me long ago,
Lost in the silence—die.
He rose from the table with a gesture of abrupt impatience and read the entire effusion through from beginning to end. First he laughed, then he sighed. He wondered for a moment how it was that so little of his passion had crept into the poor words. He crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the drawer; and then, blowing out the candles, moved over to the big arm-chair and dropped down into it. Again, as he sat there, his thoughts fell to dramatising his mood. He imagined that region within himself where all might come true, and all yearnings find adequate