"THE UNCROWNED KING" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wright Harold Bell)

deadened by the weight of Things cannot feel Truth. Throats
choked by the dust of Things cannot speak Truth."


CONTENTS

I The Pilgrim and His Pilgrimage
II And the First Voice was the Voice of the Waves
III And the Second Voice was the Voice of the Evening Wind
IV And the Third Voice was the Voice of the Night
V And the Fourth Voice was the Voice of the New Day


CHAPTER I.
The Pilgrim and His Pilgrimage

For many, many, weary months the Pilgrim journeyed in the wide
and pathless Desert of Facts. So many indeed were the months
that the wayworn Pilgrim, himself, came at last to forget their
number.
And always, for the Pilgrim, the sky by day was a sky of
brass, softened not by so much as a wreath of cloud mist.
Always, for him, the hot air was stirred not by so much as the
lift of a wild bird's wing. Never, for him, was the awful
stillness of the night broken by voice of his kind, by foot-fall
of beast, or by rustle of creeping thing. For the toiling
Pilgrim in the vast and pathless Desert of Facts there was no
kindly face, no friendly fire. Only the stars were many--many
and very near.
Day after day, as the Pilgrim labored onward, through the
torturing heat, under the sky of brass, he saw on either hand
lakes of living waters and groves of many palms. And the waters
called him to their healing coolness: the palms beckoned him to
their restful shade and shelter. Night after night, in the
dreadful solitude, frightful Shapes came on silent feet out of
the silent darkness to stare at him with doubtful, questioning,
threatening eyes; drawing back at last, if he stood still, as
silently as they had come, or, if he advanced, vanishing
quickly, only to reappear as silently in another place.
But the Pilgrim knew that the enchanting scenes that lured
him by day were but pictures in the heated air. He knew that the
fearful Shapes that haunted him by night were but creatures of
his own overwrought fancy. And so he journeyed on and ever on,
in the staggering heat, under the sky of brass, in the awful
stillness of the night: on and ever on, through the wide and
pathless waste, until he came at last to the
Outer-Edge-Of-Things--came to the place that is between the
Desert of Facts and the Beautiful Sea, even as it is written in
the Law of the Pilgrimage.
The tired feet of the Traveler left now the rough, hot