Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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In fleeting moments these sordid glimpses of that dark and shadow-world still afflicted his outer sight—the nightmare he had left behind. It played like some gloomy memory through a corner of consciousness not yet wholly disentangled from it. Already he burned to share his story with the world…! A few he saw who here and there half turned, touched by a flashing ray—then rushed away into the old blackness as though frightened, not daring to escape. False images thrown outward by the intellect prevented. Stahl he saw … groping; a soft light of yearning in his eyes … a hand outstretched to push the shadows from him, yet ever gathering them instead…. Men he saw by the million, youth still in their hearts, yet slaving in darkened trap-like cages not merely to earn a competency but to pile more gold for things not really wanted; faces of greed round gambling-tables; the pandemonium of Exchanges; even fair women, playing Bridge through all a summer afternoon—the strife and lust and passion for possessions degrading every heart, choking the channels of simplicity…. Over the cities of the world he heard the demon Civilization sing its song of terror and desolation. Its music of destruction shook the nations. He saw the millions dance. And mid the bewildering ugly thunder of that sound few could catch the small sweet voice played by the Earth upon the little Pipes of Pan… the fluting call of Nature to the Simple Life—which is the Inner.