The Human Chord
First published 1910 · 177 pages · about 3 hours to read
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About this book
It was an innocent enough advertisement but curious. "WANTED, by Retired Clergyman, Secretarial Assistant with courage and imagination. Tenor voice and some knowledge of Hebrew essential; single; unworldly. Apply Philip Skale . . . '
Robert Spinrobin applied. Later, struggling to keep pace with his new employer as they strode across the steep valleys around Skale's isolated house, he was swept up in the sheer enthusiasm and urgency of the man. But a thin trickle of fear warned him that he was embarking on the greatest adventure of his life.
Was it possible that Philip Skale had discovered some hidden power of sound which held the entire universe in its pulses? Could it be that the uttering of a word, a name, the Name above all names, might suddenly unlock the secrets of life and death?
No single voice was capable of it. Four voices were needed a human chord in perfect harmony. So Philip Skale had gathered the four of them together into his household Mrs. Mawle, the alto; Skale's niece Miriam, the soprano; Spinrobin; and Skale himself, whose rich bass would complete the chord.
But suppose it didn't. Suppose, when the great hour came, something went wrong, and what was summoned was not God but the Devil, not a new creation but the destruction of all created things.
Spinrobin, on the verge of finding unhoped-for happiness, seemed alone in realising the possibility of awesome danger.
Quotes
“Inside him somewhere stretched immense playgrounds, compared to which the hay-fields and lawns of his father's estate seemed trivial: plains without horizon, seas deep enough to float the planets like corks, and "such tremendous forests" with "trees like tall pointed hilltops."”
Chapter I “His imagination conceived and bore--worlds; but nothing in these worlds became alive until he discovered its true and living name. The name was the breath of life; and, sooner or later, he invariably found it.”
Chapter I “Treeless and desolate hills rose on all sides. A few tumbled-down cottages of grey stone lay scattered upon the lower slopes among patches of shabby and forlorn cultivation.”
Chapter II “Wood, stone, metal, skins, fibers, membranes, every rapidly vibrating substance, all have in them the potentialities of musical sound.”
Chapter II “"I never guessed that in this world--" he stammered; then, instead of completing the sentence, held her more tightly to him and let his face sink deeper into the garden of her hair.”
Chapter II
Passages chosen with AI from the book's public-domain text on Project Gutenberg.
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