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