"THE UNCROWNED KING" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wright Harold Bell)

floor of the desert for a soft, cool carpet of velvet grass all
inwrought with blossoms that filled the air with fragrance. Over
his head, tall trees gently shook their glistening, shadowy
leaves, while sweet voiced birds of rare and wondrous plumage
flitted from bough to bough. Across a sky of deepest blue,
fleets of fairy cloud ships, light as feathery down,
floated--floated--drifting lazily, as though, piloted only by
the wind, their pilot slept. All about him, as he walked,
multitudes of sunlight and shadow fairies danced gaily hand in
hand. And over the shimmering surface of the Sea a thousand
thousand fairy waves ran joyously, one after the other, from the
sky line to the pebbly beach, making liquid music clearer and
softer than the softest of clear toned bells.
And there it was, in that wondrously beautiful place, the
Outer-Edge-Of-Things, that the Pilgrim found, fashioned of
sheerest white, with lofty dome, towering spires, and piercing
minarets lifting out of the living green, the Temple of Truth.
In reverent awe the Pilgrim stood before the sacred object
of his Pilgrimage.
At last, with earnest step, the worshiper approached the
holy edifice. But when he would have passed through the high
arched door, his way was barred by one whose garments were white
even as the whiteness of the Temple, whose eyes were clear even
as the skies, and whose face shone even as the shining Beautiful
Sea.
The Pilgrim, hesitating, spoke: "You are?"
The other answered in a voice that was even as the soft
wind that stirred the leaves of the forest: "I am Thyself."
Then the Pilgrim--"And your office?"
"I am the appointed Keeper of the Temple of Truth; save by
my permission none may enter here."
Cried the Pilgrim eagerly: "But I? I may enter? Surely I
have fulfilled The Law! Surely I have paid The Price!"
"What law have you fulfilled? What price have you paid?"
gently asked he in the garments of white.
Proudly now the other answered: "I have accomplished alone
the long journey through the Desert of Facts. Alone I have
endured the days under the sky of brass; alone I have borne the
awful solitude of the nights. I was not drawn aside by the
lovely scenes that tempted me. I was not turned back by the
dreadful Shapes that threatened me. And so I have attained the
Outer-Edge-Of-Things."
"You have indeed fulfilled The, Law" said he of the shining
face. "And The Price?"
The Pilgrim answered sadly: "I left behind all things
dearest to the heart of man--Wealth of Traditions inherited from
the Long Ago, Holy Prejudices painfully gathered through the
ages of the past, Sacred Opinions, Customs, Favors and Honors of
the World that is, in the times that are."
"You have indeed paid The Price," said the soft voice of