Figures of Earth

Figures of Earth

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Figures of Earth, by James Branch
Cabell, Illustrated by Frank C. Pape
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Title: Figures of Earth
Author: James Branch Cabell
Release Date: March 19, 2004 [eBook #11639]
Language: English
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FIGURES OF EARTH
A Comedy of Appearances
JAMES BRANCH CABELL
Illustrated by Frank C. Papé
1921

"Cascun se mir el jove Manuel, Qu'era del mom lo plus valens dels
pros."

Contents
AUTHOR'S NOTE
A FOREWORD
PART ONE: THE BOOK OF CREDIT

CHAPTER
I
HOW MANUEL LEFT THE MIRE II NIAFER III ASCENT OF
VRAIDEX IV IN THE DOUBTFUL PALACE V THE ETERNAL
AMBUSCADE VI ECONOMICS OF MATH VII THE CROWN OF
WISDOM VIII THE HALO OF HOLINESS IX THE FEATHER OF
LOVE

PART TWO: THE BOOK OF SPENDING
X ALIANORA XI MAGIC OF THE APSARASAS XII ICE AND
IRON XIII WHAT HELMAS DIRECTED XIV THEY DUEL ON
MORVEN XV BANDAGES FOR THE VICTOR
PART THREE: THE BOOK OF CAST ACCOUNTS
XVI FREYDIS XVII MAGIC OF THE IMAGE-MAKERS XVIII
MANUEL CHOOSES XIX THE HEAD OF MISERY XX THE
MONTH OF YEARS XXI TOUCHING REPAYMENT XXII
RETURN OF NIAFER XXIII MANUEL GETS HIS DESIRE XXIV
THREE WOMEN
PART FOUR: THE BOOK OF SURCHARGE
XXV AFFAIRS IN POICTESME XXVI DEALS WITH THE STORK
XXVII THEY COME TO SARGYLL XXVIII HOW MELICENT
WAS WELCOMED XXIX SESPHRA OF THE DREAMS XXX
FAREWELL TO FREYDIS XXXI STATECRAFT XXXII THE
REDEMPTION OF POICTESME
PART FIVE: THE BOOK OF SETTLEMENT
XXXIII NOW MANUEL PROSPERS XXXIV FAREWELL TO
ALIANORA XXXV THE TROUBLING WINDOW XXXVI
EXCURSIONS FROM CONTENT XXXVII OPINIONS OF
HINZELMANN XXXVIII FAREWELL TO SUSKIND XXXIX THE
PASSING OF MANUEL XL COLOPHON: DA CAPO

To
SIX MOST GALLANT CHAMPIONS
Is dedicated this history of a champion: less to repay than to
acknowledge large debts to each of them, collectively at outset, as
hereafter seriatim.

[Illustration]
[Illustration]

Author's Note
Figures of Earth is, with some superficial air of paradox, the one
volume in the long Biography of Dom Manuel's life which deals with
Dom Manuel himself. Most of the matter strictly appropriate to a
Preface you may find, if you so elect, in the Foreword addressed to
Sinclair Lewis. And, in fact, after writing two prefaces to this "Figures
of Earth"--first, in this epistle to Lewis, and, secondly, in the remarks[1]
affixed to the illustrated edition,--I had thought this volume could very
well continue to survive as long as its deficiencies permit, without the
confection of a third preface, until I began a little more carefully to
consider this romance, in the seventh year of its existence.
[Footnote 1: Omitted in this edition since it was not possible to include
all of Frank C. Papé's magnificent illustrations.--THE PUBLISHER]
But now, now, the deficiency which I note in chief (like the superior
officer of a disastrously wrecked crew) lies in the fact that what I had
meant to be the main "point" of "Figures of Earth," while explicitly
enough stated in the book, remains for every practical end
indiscernible.... For I have written many books during the last quarter
of a century. Yet this is the only one of them which began at one
plainly recognizable instant with one plainly recognizable imagining. It
is the only book by me which ever, virtually, came into being, with its
goal set, and with its theme and its contents more or less
pre-determined throughout, between two ticks of the clock.
Egotism here becomes rather unavoidable. At Dumbarton Grange the
library in which I wrote for some twelve years was lighted by three
windows set side by side and opening outward. It was in the instant of
unclosing one of these windows, on a fine afternoon in the spring of
1919, to speak with a woman and a child who were then returning to

the house (with the day's batch of mail from the post office), that, for
no reason at all, I reflected it would be, upon every personal ground,
regrettable if, as the moving window unclosed, that especial woman
and that particular child proved to be figures in the glass, and the
window opened upon nothingness. For that, I believed, was about to
happen. There would be, I knew, revealed beyond that moving