Three John Silence Stories

Three John Silence Stories

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Title: Three John Silence Stories
Author: Algernon Blackwood
Release Date: January 7, 2004 [EBook #10624]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Three John Silence Stories
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

To M.L.W. The Original of John Silence
and
My Companion in Many Adventures

Contents
Case I: A Psychical Invasion
Case II: Ancient Sorceries
Case III: The Nemesis of Fire

CASE I: A PSYCHICAL INVASION
I
"And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particular
case?" asked Dr. John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at
the Swedish lady in the chair facing him.
"Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism--"
"Oh, please--that dreadful word!" he interrupted, holding up a finger
with a gesture of impatience.
"Well, then," she laughed, "your wonderful clairvoyant gift and your
trained psychic knowledge of the processes by which a personality may
be disintegrated and destroyed--these strange studies you've been
experimenting with all these years--"
"If it's only a case of multiple personality I must really cry off,"
interrupted the doctor again hastily, a bored expression in his eyes.
"It's not that; now, please, be serious, for I want your help," she said;

"and if I choose my words poorly you must be patient with my
ignorance. The case I know will interest you, and no one else could
deal with it so well. In fact, no ordinary professional man could deal
with it at all, for I know of no treatment nor medicine that can restore a
lost sense of humour!"
"You begin to interest me with your 'case,'" he replied, and made
himself comfortable to listen.
Mrs. Sivendson drew a sigh of contentment as she watched him go to
the tube and heard him tell the servant he was not to be disturbed.
"I believe you have read my thoughts already," she said; "your intuitive
knowledge of what goes on in other people's minds is positively
uncanny."
Her friend shook his head and smiled as he drew his chair up to a
convenient position and prepared to listen attentively to what she had to
say. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorb the
real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed, for by
this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the living
thoughts that lay behind the broken words.
By his friends John Silence was regarded as an eccentric, because he
was rich by accident, and by choice--a doctor. That a man of
independent means should devote his time to doctoring, chiefly
doctoring folk who could not pay, passed their comprehension entirely.
The native nobility of a soul whose first desire was to help those who
could not help themselves, puzzled them. After that, it irritated them,
and, greatly to his own satisfaction, they left him to his own devices.
Dr. Silence was a free-lance, though, among doctors, having neither
consulting-room, bookkeeper, nor professional manner. He took no fees,
being at heart a genuine philanthropist, yet at the same time did no
harm to his fellow-practitioners, because he only accepted
unremunerative cases, and cases that interested him for some very
special reason. He argued that the rich could pay, and the very poor
could avail themselves of organised charity, but that a very large class

of ill-paid, self-respecting workers, often followers of the arts, could
not afford the price of a week's comforts merely to be told to travel.
And it was these he desired to help: cases often requiring special and
patient study--things no doctor can give for a guinea, and that no one
would dream of expecting him to give.
But there was another side to his personality and practice, and one with
which we are now more directly concerned; for the cases that especially
appealed to him were of no ordinary kind, but rather of that intangible,
elusive, and difficult nature best described as psychical afflictions; and,
though he would have been the last person himself to approve of the
title, it was beyond question that he was known more or less generally
as the "Psychic Doctor."
In order to grapple with cases of this peculiar kind, he had submitted
himself to a long and severe training, at once physical, mental, and
spiritual. What precisely this training had been, or where undergone, no
one