The Centaur

The Centaur

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Title: The Centaur
Author: Algernon Blackwood
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THE CENTAUR
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
1911

I
"We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing
the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the
meaning of it all."
--WILLIAM JAMES, A Pluralistic Universe
"... A man's vision is the great fact about him. Who cares for Carlyle's
reasons, or Schopenhauer's, or Spencer's? A philosophy is the
expression of a man's intimate character, and all definitions of the
Universe are but the deliberately adopted reactions of human characters
upon it."
--Ibid

"There are certain persons who, independently of sex or comeliness,
arouse an instant curiosity concerning themselves. The tribe is small,
but its members unmistakable. They may possess neither fortune, good
looks, nor that adroitness of advance-vision which the stupid name
good luck; yet there is about them this inciting quality which proclaims
that they have overtaken Fate, set a harness about its neck of violence,
and hold bit and bridle in steady hands.
"Most of us, arrested a moment by their presence to snatch the
definition their peculiarity exacts, are aware that on the heels of
curiosity follows--envy. They know the very things that we forever
seek in vain. And this diagnosis, achieved as it were en passant, comes
near to the truth, for the hallmark of such persons is that they have
found, and come into, their own. There is a sign upon the face and in
the eyes. Having somehow discovered the 'piece' that makes them free
of the whole amazing puzzle, they know where they belong and,
therefore, whither they are bound: more, they are definitely en route.
The littlenesses of existence that plague the majority pass them by.
"For this reason, if for no other," continued O'Malley, "I count my
experience with that man as memorable beyond ordinary. 'If for no
other,' because from the very beginning there was another. Indeed, it
was probably his air of unusual bigness, massiveness rather,--head, face,
eyes, shoulders, especially back and shoulders,--that struck me first
when I caught sight of him lounging there hugely upon my steamer
deck at Marseilles, winning my instant attention before he turned and
the expression on his great face woke more--woke curiosity, interest,
envy. He wore this very look of certainty that knows, yet with a tinge
of mild surprise as though he had only recently known. It was less than
perplexity. A faint astonishment as of a happy child--almost of an
animal--shone in the large brown eyes--"
"You mean that the physical quality caught you first, then the
psychical?" I asked, keeping him to the point, for his Irish imagination
was ever apt to race away at a tangent.
He laughed good-naturedly, acknowledging the check. "I believe that to
be the truth," he replied, his face instantly grave again. "It was the

impression of uncommon bulk that heated my intuition--blessed if I
know how--leading me to the other. The size of his body did not
smother, as so often is the case with big people: rather, it revealed. At
the moment I could conceive no possible connection, of course. Only
this overwhelming attraction of the man's personality caught me and I
longed to make friends. That's the way with me, as you know," he
added, tossing the hair back from his forehead impatiently,"--pretty
often. First impressions. Old man, I tell you, it was like a possession."
"I believe you," I said. For Terence O'Malley all his life had never
understood half