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THE KING OF ALSANDER

by

JAMES ELROY FLECKER







London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Ruskin House 40 Museum Street, W.C.
1915




DEDICATION

_To_

J.N. MAVROGORDATO

           This Romance,
of which he never despaired in the Rough
      Is dedicated in the Ripe




CONTENTS



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:
with a digression on the shocking
treatment the latter's followers receive
from the hands of English novelists

Chapter VII. The Society for the Advancement of Alsander

Chapter VIII. How Norman failed to pass
a qualifying examination for the post
of King of Alsander, and was whipped:
together with a digression on the excellence
of whipping

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: an
episode in the style of the worst writers

Chapter XVII. Battle

Chapter XVIII. The Poet visits Blaindon
once more, and takes John Gaffekin to
the seashore, where a miracle occurs



PREFACE

_Here is a tale all romance--a tale such as only a Poet can write for
you, O appreciative and generous Public--a tale of madmen, kings,
scholars, grocers, consuls, and Jews: a tale with two heroines, both of
an extreme and indescribable beauty: a tale of the South and of
sunshine, wherein will be found disguises, mysteries, conspiracies,
fights, at least_ one _good whipping, and plenty of blood and love and
absurdity: a very old sort of tale: a tale as joyously improbable as
life itself._

_But if I know you aright, appreciative and generous Public, you look
for more than this in these tragic days of social unrest, and you will
be most dissatisfied with my efforts to please you. For you a king is a
shadow, a madman a person to be shut up, a scholar a fool, a grocer a
tradesman, a consul an inferior grade of diplomatic officer, and a Jew a
Jew. You will demand to know what panacea is preached in this novel as a
sovran remedy for the dismal state of affairs in England. With what hope
do I delude the groaning poor: with what sarcasm insult the insulting
rich? What is the meaning of my apparent joyousness? What has grim
iron-banging England to do with sunshine, dancing, adventure and, above
all, with Poets?_

_In support of my reputation let me hasten to observe that in my efforts
to please a generous and appreciative Public I have not failed to insert
several passages of a high moral tone. Grave matters of ethics are
frequently discussed in the course of my story, and the earnest inquirer
may learn much from this book concerning the aim, purpose and origin of
his existence. To Government and its problems I have given particular
attention, and the observant reader may draw from these subtle pages a
complete theory of the Fallacy of the Picturesque. Only I implore the
public to forgive the Poet his proverbial licence, to remember that
truth is still truth, though clad in harlequin raiment, and thought
still thought, though hinted and not explained._

_Farewell, then, my King of Alsander. Ride out into the world and
conquer. Behind you--a merry and a mocking phantom--my youth rides out
for ever!_

_Beyrouth,_ _Syria_, 1913.






THE KING OF ALSANDER




CHAPTER I

BLAINDON

     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 the
soil, whose sweet native note had never been troubled by the sinister
depravities, the heartless affectations of urban existence; and I
believe myself that his pathetic and modest ideal could have been
actually realized had he inhabited, as perhaps he did, the peaceful
village of Blaindon. This secluded hamlet lies some ten miles from the
sea, in an undulating, but not terrible, country--a land of woodland and
meadow, of butter