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38 - Centaur by Algernon Blackwood · Centaur

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty eight of The Centaur by Alginnon Blackwood. This
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  Speaker 1: Liberal Box recording is in the public domain. Read by
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  Speaker 1: yoganand The Centaur, Chapter thirty eight. The litter of disordered
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  Speaker 1: note books, filled to the covers with fragments of such
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  Speaker 1: beauty that they almost seem to burn with the light
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  Speaker 1: of their own lies at this moment before me on
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  Speaker 1: my desk. I still hear the rushing torrent of his
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  Speaker 1: language across a spotted tablecloth in that dark restaurant corner.
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  Speaker 1: But the incohorance seems only to increase with my best
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  Speaker 1: efforts to combine the two. Go home and dream it,
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  Speaker 1: as he said at last, when I ventured a question
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  Speaker 1: here and there toward the end of the recital, you'll
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  Speaker 1: see it best that way, in sleep, get clear away
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  Speaker 1: from me and my surface physical consciousness. Perhaps it will
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  Speaker 1: come to you. Then. There remains, however, to record the
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  Speaker 1: manner of his exit from that great garden of the
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  Speaker 1: Earth's fair youth. And he tells it most simply, or
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  Speaker 1: perhaps it is that I understand it better. For suddenly,
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  Speaker 1: the midst of all the joy and splendor that he
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  Speaker 1: tasted there came unbidden a strengthening of the tie that
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  Speaker 1: held him to his outer, lesser state. A wave of
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  Speaker 1: pity and compassion searched in upon him from the depths.
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  Speaker 1: He saw the struggling millions in the prisons and cageous
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  Speaker 1: civilization builds. He felt with them. No happiness he understood
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  Speaker 1: could be complete that did not also include them all,
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  Speaker 1: and he longed to tell them. The thought and the
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  Speaker 1: desire tore across him burningly. If only I can get
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  Speaker 1: this back to them, passed through him like a flame,
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  Speaker 1: I say, the world be bringing it again to simple things.
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  Speaker 1: I only got to tell it, and all will understand
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  Speaker 1: at once and follow. And with the birth of the
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  Speaker 1: desire there ran a deep, convulsive sound, like music through
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  Speaker 1: the greater consciousness that held him close. Those moods that
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  Speaker 1: were the gods throng gloriously about him, almost pressing forwards
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  Speaker 1: into actual sight. He might have lingered where he was
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  Speaker 1: for centuries or forever, but the thought pulled him back,
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  Speaker 1: the desire to share his knowledge with the world, the
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  Speaker 1: passion to heal and save and rescue. And instantly, in
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  Speaker 1: the twinkling of an eyelid, the earwel closed its gates
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  Speaker 1: of horn and ivory behind him, an immense dark shudder
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  Speaker 1: dropped noiselessly with the speed of lightning across his mind.
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  Speaker 1: He stood without He found himself near the tumbled down
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  Speaker 1: stone huts of a hamlet that he recognized. He staggered,
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  Speaker 1: rubbed his eyes instead. A forest of beech trees shook
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  Speaker 1: below him in a violent wind. He saw the branches tossing.
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  Speaker 1: A Caucasian saddle horse beside him nosed a sack that
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  Speaker 1: spilt its flower on the ground at his feet. He
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  Speaker 1: heard the animal's noisy breathing. He noted the sliding movement
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  Speaker 1: of the spilt flower before it finally settled, And some
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  Speaker 1: fifty yards beyond him, down the slopes, he saw a
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  Speaker 1: human figure running. It was his georgean guide. The man,
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  Speaker 1: half stooping, caught the woolen bastleg that had fallen from
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  Speaker 1: his head. O'Malley watched the man complete the gesture, still running,
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  Speaker 1: he replaced the cap upon his head, and, coming up
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  Speaker 1: to his ears with the wind, where the words of
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  Speaker 1: a broken French sentence that he also recognized. Disjointed by terror,
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  Speaker 1: it completed an interrupted phrase, one of them is close
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  Speaker 1: upon us. Hide your eyes, save yourself. They come from
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  Speaker 1: the mountains They are old as the Stone's run. No
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  Speaker 1: other living being was in sight the end of chapter
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  Speaker 1: thirty eight