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135 pages

English

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Description

In this quirky and enjoyable fantasy novel, the protagonist decides to make a sudden break from the humdrum routine of his daily life when a disembodied voice directs him to travel to a land called Alsander. Once he arrives, he's hailed as a hero and ascends to the throne.

Sujets

Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)

Fantasy

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 décembre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776593194
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE KING OF ALSANDER
* * *
JAMES ELROY FLECKER

*
The King of Alsander First published in 1914 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-319-4 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-320-0 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Preface Chapter I - Blaindon Chapter II - Alsander Chapter III - En Pension in Alsander Chapter IV - Introducing a Good Beggar and a Bad King Chapter V - Of the Knighting of Norman Price Chapter VI - Concerning Isis and Aphrodite Chapter VII - The Society for the Advancement of Alsander Chapter VIII - How Norman Failed to Pass a Qualifying Examination for the Post of Kingof Alsander, and was Whipped Chapter IX - The Consul Chapter X - Contains the President's Tale and a Debate on the Advantages of Murder Chapter XI - A Visit to Vorza Chapter XII - In Which the Beetles Crawl Chapter XIII - Re-Coronation Chapter XIV - Princess Ianthe Chapter XV - Peronella and the Priest Chapter XVI - The Counter Conspiracy Chapter XVII - Battle Chapter XVIII - The Poet Visits Blaindon Once More, and Takes John Gaffekin to theSeashore Where a Miracle Occurs Endnotes
*
DEDICATION
To
J.N. MAVROGORDATO
This Romance, of which he never despaired in the Rough Is dedicated in the Ripe
Preface
*
Here is a tale all romance—a tale such as only a Poet can write foryou, O appreciative and generous Public—a tale of madmen, kings,scholars, grocers, consuls, and Jews: a tale with two heroines, both ofan extreme and indescribable beauty: a tale of the South and ofsunshine, wherein will be found disguises, mysteries, conspiracies,fights, at least one good whipping, and plenty of blood and love andabsurdity: a very old sort of tale: a tale as joyously improbable aslife itself.
But if I know you aright, appreciative and generous Public, you lookfor more than this in these tragic days of social unrest, and you willbe most dissatisfied with my efforts to please you. For you a king is ashadow, a madman a person to be shut up, a scholar a fool, a grocer atradesman, a consul an inferior grade of diplomatic officer, and a Jew aJew. You will demand to know what panacea is preached in this novel as asovran remedy for the dismal state of affairs in England. With what hopedo I delude the groaning poor: with what sarcasm insult the insultingrich? What is the meaning of my apparent joyousness? What has grimiron-banging England to do with sunshine, dancing, adventure and, aboveall, with Poets?
In support of my reputation let me hasten to observe that in my effortsto please a generous and appreciative Public I have not failed to insertseveral passages of a high moral tone. Grave matters of ethics arefrequently discussed in the course of my story, and the earnest inquirermay learn much from this book concerning the aim, purpose and origin ofhis existence. To Government and its problems I have given particularattention, and the observant reader may draw from these subtle pages acomplete theory of the Fallacy of the Picturesque. Only I implore thepublic to forgive the Poet his proverbial licence, to remember thattruth is still truth, though clad in harlequin raiment, and thoughtstill thought, though hinted and not explained.
Farewell, then, my King of Alsander. Ride out into the world andconquer. Behind you—a merry and a mocking phantom—my youth rides outfor ever!
Beyrouth, Syria , 1913.
Chapter I - Blaindon
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Would that I had a little cot Beside a little hill, In some romantic English spot Where summer's not so very hot And winter not too chill.
J. Williams
The writer of these simple lines, now unhappily dead, was a man of thesoil, whose sweet native note had never been troubled by the sinisterdepravities, the heartless affectations of urban existence; and Ibelieve myself that his pathetic and modest ideal could have beenactually realized had he inhabited, as perhaps he did, the peacefulvillage of Blaindon. This secluded hamlet lies some ten miles from thesea, in an undulating, but not terrible, country—a land of woodland andmeadow, of buttercup and daisy, of tiny streams and verdant dells. Atevening the scene is more tranquil than ever, and the old church spire,standing sentinel above the cold ploughlands, presents a curiously sadappearance, tinged as it is with the melancholy of years. However atthe time when this story opens it was not evening, but afternoon, and avery hot one. The horse in his freedom, like the pig in his confinement,lolled upon the ground, and the thatches rustled with the melodies ofsleep.
Yes, let us look beneath those thatches and consider the village yokelfor a moment, as with mouth agape and heavy eyelids he takes his meed ofrepose:
Nec partem solido demere de die Spernit; nunc viridi membra sub arbuto Stratus; nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.
But if, here in England, he has no arbute tree, or sacred fountain,whereby to stretch his large, unwieldy limbs, there awaits him,nevertheless, the fireside in winter, the straw of the stable loft forhotter days. Ensconced beneath such lowly roofs as those of littleBlaindon, many a hundred sons of toil have been born, been married andbeen finally dead, after a life spent in working nobly for an ignoblepittance, far away from the wearisome strife of new ideas andendeavours, and all the rumbling of the world's chariot wheels.
I have carefully examined the records in the parish church, thinkingthat they might interest all those who still have faith in the sterlingqualities and bulldog tenacity of our British yeoman class. I discoveredthe interesting fact that only a fifth of the population die before theage of sixty-five; and that the same families seem to have lived here ina state of ceaseless intermarriage for century after century. The Weolkeðings of Saxon days, the Weilcans of the Normans, who are theybut the honest Wilkinses round the corner? No great calamities haveoccurred at Blaindon except an occasional plague; no stirring battleshave there been fought. The place seems to have been forgotten oroverlooked during the Civil Wars. (However, an inhabitant of the townfought at Balaclava, but not in the Heavy Brigade.) Of the prevailinginsanity, I need say nothing; this is the inheritance of all rusticcommunities. That the people of Blaindon are happy and appreciate theircharming home they have proved in the clearest possible way. They havenever left it.
Would that he who looks over the church-yard wall down at the tidy rowsof one-room cottages, whose gardens blaze with nasturtia and reddaisies, could say that no jarring note, no trace of a restlessindividuality, marred the enchanting scene. But, alas! every travelleris bound to remark a peculiarly ugly two-storied erection, whoserectangular bricks render it at once an eyesore and a solecism. Thisbuilding used to be called by the inhabitants Price's bongmash: but thename on its sign was Bon Marché (French for Good Market). Mr Price'sbusiness was at the time this story opens the most flourishing concernin Blaindon. It was carried on chiefly by the indomitable energy of theyounger Price; his father now slept most of the day, not so much onaccount of his advancing years as because he was very tired and a heavyeater. He could trust his son completely. Young Norman Price was one ofthe most envied personages in Blaindon. He was only nineteen; a handsomeand strong young man, and the face he showed a customer wore no servilefrock-coated smirk, but a laugh of real pleasure at being able to supplythe needs of the community. Nearly everything was on sale in hisshop—all groceries, also cloth, garden seeds, papers, books (the leastflourishing part of the trade), and tobacco. Yet his store did not lookat all like other village stores where everything is bought in dirtypennyworths. It was well arranged, and the goods were displayed to goodaccount, more after the tradition, I fear, of American vulgarity than ofBritish honesty. Worse still, Price had actually taken upon himself tocorrupt the adorable simplicity of the villagers and to turn theirthoughts to the enervating fashions of great cities. If a young villagercame in who liked to be thought rather a nut and who fancied him self ina new waistcoat, the young grocer would give him a little elegant andexpensive tobacco to try, explain that he smoked it himself, and thatone smoked less of it than of the commoner sorts, so it came no dearerafter all. He utterly refused to sell cigarettes at ten for a penny, orassorted sweets at three half-pence the quarter. It soon became a markof distinction to be a customer at the Bon Marche, and the firm got areputation for selling "sound articles and no trash."
I have not mentioned, however, the object that would probably mostastonish a gentleman of culture on entering the shop. On the wall hung alarge and fine reproduction of Holbein's portrait of Georg Gisze. Theyoung merchant, robed in delicate silk and velvet, and surrounded bykeys, quadrants, scissors, maps, and ledgers, was obviously meant to bethe tutelary deity of the house; indeed, as a set-off to the flowersthat stand upon the painted table, Norman had placed a large bowl ofcarnations on his counter.
The picture had been a present from his friend, John Gaffekin. If youngPrice appears in this story so strangely different from his father andfrom the other villagers of Blaindon, and indeed from all grocerswhatsoever, we need not accept the explanation of some, that his fatherwas "a deeper man than you'd think" or the asserti