{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_67820/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_67820","id":"gutenberg_67820","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67820","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Machen, Arthur, 1863-1947"],"text":"[Illustration: ARTHUR MACHEN\n\n_After the Hoppe photograph_]\n\n\n\n\n                                 ARTHUR\n                                 MACHEN\n\n                           _Weaver of Fantasy_\n\n                          WILLIAM FRANCIS GEKLE\n\n                            MILLBROOK, N. Y.\n                            ROUND TABLE PRESS\n                                  1949\n\n                           COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY\n                          WILLIAM FRANCIS GEKLE\n\n     _All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in\n      any form, except by a reviewer, without the permission of the\n                                author._\n\n                            ROUND TABLE PRESS\n                            MILLBROOK, N. Y.\n\n             _Manufactured in the United States of America._\n\n\n\n\n                                   for\n                                  VERNE\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIt was, I suppose, during the closing months of the First World War\nthat an urbane and witty gentleman, writing in the Confederate city of\nRichmond, set down these words in the course of one of his interminable,\nand witty and urbane, monologues: \u201cI wonder if you are familiar with that\nuncanny genius whom the London directory prosaically lists as Arthur\nMachen?\u201d\n\nSince there was no reply, as indeed none was expected, the amiable\nCharteris chatted on about Arthur Machen and, oddly enough, Robert W.\nChambers, for some moments, and then he concluded with this statement....\n\u201cBut here in a secluded library is no place to speak of the thirty years\u2019\nneglect that has been accorded Mr. Arthur Machen; it is the sort of crime\nthat ought to be discussed in the Biblical manner, from the house-top....\u201d\n\nThat thirty years\u2019 neglect has almost doubled\u2014and indeed one might say\nwith perfect truth that Arthur Machen has suffered a lifetime of neglect,\n_and_, in perfect truth, it must be added that the loss has been the\nworld\u2019s which so blindly accorded neglect to the uncanny genius of Arthur\nMachen.\n\nThis is the sort of crime, as Mr. James Branch Cabell suggested back in\n1918, that ought to be discussed in the Biblical manner\u2014and it is my\nintention to do so.\n\nAt this point there will be voices raised in protest ... dim voices\ntrained to the librarian\u2019s whisper, voices that echo in the vaults of\nuniversity libraries and in the reading rooms of Memorial Collections.\nThere will be other voices\u2014the amiable, all-inclusive voice of the\nanthologist and the rasping roar of the reprint editor. There will be\nthe excited exclamations of the cultists and the happy burblings of the\nbibliographers as they pounce upon another Machen item. And of course we\nmay expect to hear the calm and cultured tones of the collectors, the\nexcavators and the discoverers, who have pointed with smug satisfaction\nto their rows of faded bindings and their \u201cobscure little pamphlets.\u201d As\nfor the horror boys, happy with their harpies and hieroglyphs and wild\nhallucinations, they will probably croak and sibilate in unholy glee and\nrush down to start their presses\u2014reprinting madly all they can find of\nthe magical tales of that wonderful Welshman, Arthur Machen.\n\nIt will appear that I anticipate a renewed interest in the works of\nArthur Machen. I do. It may even become apparent that I expect the\npublication of this book to work the miracle\u2014to right the wrong of sixty\nyears of neglect. I do. Nor is this to be attributed to egotism, nor to\na vast respect for my powers of persuasion. A number of literary men, of\nsmall stature and great, have written well and passionately of Arthur\nMachen, only to have their effusions produce a magnificent calm. It\nis simply that there are signs and portents (of which more anon) that\nthe time is now. And then of course there is always the bare hope that\nmy admiration for Arthur Machen and my enthusiasm for his work may be\ncontagious enough to result in another Arthurian revival. That would be\nan event to rival a genuine miracle at Glastonbury itself.\n\nI spoke of the voices that will be raised in praise and recognition\nof Arthur Machen. It may occur to some that there was bitterness in\nwhat I said, and in the way I spoke of collectors and cultists, and of\nbibliographers and bibliophiles, and of anthologists and of the zealots\nof the pulp press. I daresay it is true that I am inclined to be bitter\nover the neglect accorded Arthur Machen. Of course the blame for that\nneglect cannot be fixed or fastened\u2014but it must rest somewhere between\nthe publishers of limited editions and the reprinters of almost unlimited\neditions, between the alpha and the omega, and the buying and reading\npublic. That covers a lot of territory. One cannot indict the publishing\nworld from top, literally, to bottom, literally. One cannot indict, to\nparaphrase a much quoted statement of Edmund Burke\u2019s, an entire reading\npublic. One can, to make a concrete proposal, attempt to do something\nabout it.\n\nThe interest shown in the prospectus announcing this book has been\ngratifying, but it does not, to my mind at least, dismiss the charge of\nneglect. It merely indicates that there are others who bear witness to\nthe crime and who wish to see justice done.\n\nThe book has been announced as a critical survey\u2014and it will be that.\nMany of the stories, written in that decade of the delicate decadents,\nwill be re-examined and re-evaluated. Mr. Machen will sometimes be spoken\nof as a \u201cGothick novelist\u201d\u2014a thing he has said he is not. The stories\nof the \u201cGreat War,\u201d as he called it, are seen in a new perspective, as\nanyone must know who has re-read them, especially _The Terror_, in the\npast few years.\n\nMany of Machen\u2019s articles and essays, and such works as _Hieroglyphics_\nand _Doctor Stiggins_, offer food for thought to those who may think,\nfor example, that Mr. James Farrell has settled literary criteria, once\nand for all, in his book, of a few years ago, _The League of Frightened\nPhilistines_.\n\nThis book is, then, the result of some twenty years preparation; at least\nhalf of them spent in planning to \u201cdo something about it.\u201d The book has\ngrown slowly, with many interruptions before, during and since the war.\nThe opening chapter or Prologue, called \u201cConversation Piece,\u201d was written\na dozen or so years ago. It was scheduled for publication in one of the\nephemeral magazines of the day. This particular one proved to be more\nephemeral than most ... to paraphrase a rather famous line, \u201cit sank from\nsight before it was set.\u201d However, the piece is here presented as it was\nwritten some twelve years back. I believe now, as I did then, that there\nwas need for a book about Arthur Machen. I hope this book will fill that\nneed.\n\nAt least one chapter, the ninth, may seem to some a philippic, a\npotpourri of purely personal preferences and prejudices, having little\nto do with Arthur Machen and his works. Needless to say, I believe it\nextremely relevant.\n\n                                                                  \u2014W.F.G.\n\n\n\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\n\nI cannot recall whether it was James Branch Cabell or Vincent Starrett\nwho first directed me to the works of Arthur Machen. I am deeply grateful\nto both, not only for this, but for their encouraging letters concerning\nmy book.\n\nTo Montgomery Evans and Paul Jordan-Smith for their enthusiasm and\ninterest, their intimate sketches of Machen, and for facts not available\nelsewhere. To Carl Van Vechten and Robert Hillyer for their articles on\nMachen, parts of which are quoted herein.\n\nTo Joseph Kelly Vodrey and Paul Seybolt for their informative and helpful\nletters, and to Nathan Van Patten whose bibliographical labors lightened\nmy own. To Meyer Berger for his notes on the Mons affair, and to\n_Harper\u2019s Bazaar_ for permission to quote from them. To the late Alfred\nGoldsmith and his delightful reminiscences of Machen. To all of these I\nam deeply grateful.\n\nTo Alfred A. Knopf for permission to quote from the Machen books bearing\nthe Borzoi imprint, and for having published them in the first place. To\nRobert McBride & Co. for permission to quote from _The Terror_, and to\nDodd, Mead & Co. for permission to quote from _More Authors and I_.\n\nTo Hilary Machen for his courtesy in handling my proofs at Amersham and,\nfinally, to Arthur Machen for the \u2018plenary blessing\u2019 he gave this book.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    PREFACE\n\n    PROLOGUE: Conversation Piece                 1\n\n    CHAPTER\n\n      One: Far Off Things                       14\n\n      Two: The London Adventure                 37\n\n      Three: The Weaver of Fantasy              58\n\n      Four: A Noble Profession                  72\n\n      Five: The Legend of a Legend              90\n\n      Six: The Yellow Books                    112\n\n      Seven: Machen\u2019s Magic                    128\n\n      Eight: The Pattern                       144\n\n      Nine: The Veritable Realists             161\n\n      Ten: Things Near and Far                 178\n\n    EPILOGUE                                   197\n\n    BIBLIOGRAPHY                               199\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n    FRONTISPIECE\n      _Drawing made from the Hoppe Photograph_\n\n    SOME MACHEN ITEMS\n      _A photograph showing one of the famous Knopf\n       Yellow Books and several title pages_           facing page 112\n\n    THE MACHENS IN LONDON\n      _A photograph taken in London in 1937,\n       Courtesy of Mr. Montgomery Evans_               facing page 178\n\n\n\n\n_Prologue_\n\nCONVERSATION PIECE\n\n\n\u201cAnd what,\u201d asked the younger man, \u201care they?\u201d He pointed to a long\nrow of books plainly bound in yellow with faded blue and almost\nindecipherable titles. The Host felt a warmer glow than the brandy alone\ncould have produced. \u201cThey are,\u201d he said reverently, \u201cmy Machens.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour whats?\u201d asked the younger man absently. He had caught sight of a\npromising looking volume, enticingly entitled _Aphrodite_, on a lower\nshelf. The Host intercepted the glance, recognized the symptoms of\nfailing interest and, with skill born of experience, drew his chair\nbefore the _Aphrodite_ and pulled out a lapfull of the yellow books.\n\nThe younger man, not too obviously disappointed, concentrated on his\nsmall globular glass of _Asbach Uralt_. \u201cWho,\u201d he asked in tones that\nmatched his look, \u201cis Machen?\u201d\n\n\u201cArthur Machen,\u201d began the Host in a voice that matched _his_ look, \u201che\nis the ... he\u2019s, well ... look!\u201d He gestured to the shelves. \u201cFifteen\nbooks, and there are more, and you\u2019ve never even heard of him. Fifteen of\nthe most wonderful books in the English language, and you ask who he is!\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the young man with pardonable irritation, \u201cjust who is he?\u201d\n\nThe Host settled back in his chair, fighting hard for composure and\ncoherence. \u201cArthur Machen,\u201d he began again, and with every evidence of\na strong determination to speak calmly, \u201cis the man who has written\nmore fine things than any dozen living authors you may care to mention.\nThat may strike you as a rather broad and rash statement, but I am in\na mood to shoot the works. And there are others, Highly Connected and\nWell Thought Of Persons, who have indicated much the same opinion.\nArthur Machen has been appreciated by some of our best known composers\nof \u2018literary appreciations.\u2019 Unfortunately, this sort of praising is\noften akin to, and almost as effective as, burying. To the popular mind,\na writer who has been appreciated by a duly accredited appreciator is a\npet of the pedants, a delight of the dilettantes and nothing more. And,\nindeed, the titles found on some of the books containing these little\nessays in literary appreciation are often suggestive of archeological\nexploration rather than of due honor to a living author. I have in mind,\nspecifically, two books whose titles seem to connote research into a\nparticularly distant past. _Buried Caesars_ and _Excavations_, those two\nbooks you see there; they would tell you in a much more literary style,\nand with considerable technical flourish, just who and what Arthur Machen\nwas and is. But I am not minded to ask you to read them at present.\n\n\u201cI think,\u201d resumed the Host generously gesturing toward the decanter\nand his friend\u2019s glass, \u201cthat the time has come for a new and revised\nestimate of Arthur Machen. Would that I had the time, talent and/or\nthe temerity to undertake the task! Let us, meanwhile, acknowledge but\npass by these appreciators of Machen, at least for the moment. He has\nattracted the attention and been subject to the discussion of Vincent\nStarrett, Carl Van Vechten, James Branch Cabell and others. He has even\nattracted the notice of such literary titans as Tiffany Thayer and Burton\nRascoe. He has been crowned by that arbiter elegantiarum of American\nmanners, morals and mentality, Walter Winchell, who once described Arthur\nMachen as \u2018tops among the literati.\u2019 This last, I fear, is not a critical\nestimate per se, but an indication of a vogue in certain quarters.\n\n\u201cDespite the fact that Mr. Machen has been \u2018discovered\u2019 by at least two\nof our most indefatigable bolster-uppers of literary reputations and\nrevealers-of-lights-under-baskets; despite his having been exhumed and\nplaced on exhibition upon a platform built for two, Machen remains yet to\nbe properly appreciated and honored by a wider public. Perhaps he never\nwill be, and perhaps it is best so. Machen once wrote that if a great\nbook is really popular it is sure to owe its popularity to entirely wrong\nreasons. And I, for one, tremble to think of what Hollywood might do to\nMachen.\u201d The Host paused briefly for replenishment.\n\n\u201cFar too often these appreciations have degenerated into what I have in\nmy more bitter moments mentally called _Match-Machen_. An execrable pun,\nI grant you, but concerning a matter that is, to my mind, as offensive.\nI refer to the practice of certain appreciators who, in the execution of\ntheir self-appointed duties find it, for some reason or other, necessary\nto devise improbable genealogies to demonstrate their own wide literary\nknowledge and their conception of the subject of their labors. We find,\nfor example, _Mr. X_ in the act of appreciating a book by _Mr. Y_.\n\n\u201cHow does he go about it? Why, he merely tells you that _Mr. Y_ is the\nliterary son of _A_ out of _B_, whose maternal grandmother was _C_, and\nwhose second-cousin is _D_. Another trick is to pretend that _Mr. Y\u2019s_\nwork is a play ... with music by _R_, scenery by _S_, costumes by _T_\nand lyrics by _W_. In short, you come away without the slightest notion\nabout _Mr. Y_. But you have learned that _Mr. X_ knows a great deal,\napparently, about the doings of _Messrs. A, B, C, D, R, S, T and W_. Do\nyou follow me?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut slightly,\u201d confessed the younger man with that candor born of brandy.\n\n\u201cI will try to make myself clear,\u201d said the Host selecting a volume from\nthe shelves.\n\n\u201cHere we have an essay about a man called, let us say Blank. The author\nof this little essay will tell you that a passage of Blank\u2019s prose\nsuggests one of the more poignant episodes out of de Maupassant, set to\nmusic by Tchaikowski against a background of Gaugain\u2019s Tahitian belles.\nHave you any idea what Blank\u2019s prose is like?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said the young man morosely.\n\n\u201cGood! Listen then to this. It is Vincent Starrett on Machen: \u2018Joris Karl\nHuysmans, in a thoroughly good translation, perhaps remotely suggests\nMachen, both are debtors to Baudelaire.\u2019 Now, does that tell you anything\nabout Machen?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, it does not!\u201d said the young man. \u201cBut then, neither have you!\u201d\n\n\u201cQuite true,\u201d nodded the Host affably. \u201cI am often carried away. But we\nhave ably demonstrated my contention.\u201d The younger man looked decidedly\nrestless. \u201cUm!\u201d\n\n\u201cKnow then,\u201d said the Host relishing the sound of his voice, \u201cthat Arthur\nMachen, born in 1863, the son of a Welsh clergyman, first swam into the\npublic ken early in the last decade of the last century\u2014a fact which the\npublic largely failed to appreciate until some years later. His earlier\nworks were translations of the _Heptameron_, the _Memoirs of Casanova_,\nand several other large and, I should think, rather dull old works. But\nthe most important were two remarkably unique books called _The Anatomy\nof Tobacco_ and _The Chronicle of Clemendy_.\n\n\u201cMost of Machen\u2019s best work was written before 1901\u2014and in that year he\ntemporarily deserted literature for the stage. Machen\u2019s most productive\nperiod then, from 1890 to 1901, affords a curious and striking contrast\nwith what was assumed to be the important literature and the important\nliterary group of the time. The 1890\u2019s in England were celebrated,\nalthough few people grow festive about it now, for the Yellow Book Boys,\nthat delightful coterie of delicate decadents who glorified the carnation\nand the pansy. But after the maddest music had died away, and the\nreddest wine had been drunk, Cynara and Dorian fluttered to the shelves\nand Oscar and Hubert and Adelbert retired into a certain pastel-shaded\nobscurity from which they emerge from time to time as a new volume of\nmemoirs is published. The period still commands a certain amount of\nacademic attention\u2014and yet the best books of that period were written\nnot by these \u2018Men of the Nineties,\u2019 but by Arthur Machen. A chap named\nMuddiman, whose book you see there, wrote his history of these fellows\nand mentions Machen but briefly: \u2018Arthur Machen, in those days, belonged\nto the short story writers with Hubert Crackanthorpe, who was the great\nimaginative prose writer of the group.\u2019 Alas, poor Hubert! Who knows him\nnow! Holbrook Jackson and Richard Le Gallienne ignore Machen completely.\nAnd perhaps rightly so. Machen was not of the group, nor of the period.\nBut here I wish to digress briefly....\n\n\u201cThese delicate contemporaries of Machen derived from the French\nSymbolistes, who derived from Mallarme and Baudelaire, both of whom were\nadmittedly influenced by Poe. It has been said that Machen was also\ninfluenced by Poe. The difference, if you will credit me, is that Poe\u2019s\ninfluence, in as far as it exists, came to Machen direct. When it came to\nthe others of the group it had been filtered through Gallic gravel and\nSymbolistic sand.\n\n\u201cSo much for Machen\u2019s literary history. No one could possibly tell it\nbetter than he has in _Things Near and Far_ and _Far Off Things_\u2014his two\nautobiographical collections. Nor is any literary history as simply told.\nIt is not one of your tremendous collections of anecdotes concerning\n\u2018literary figures of the day.\u2019 It is the story of a lonely man who\nwanted, more than anything else, to write. And then\u2014you must read Machen.\nAll of him. I know of no other writer whose entire output can be so\nheartily recommended.\n\n\u201cYou will realize, as you read, that when people use such names as Poe,\nStevenson, Blackwood, and Henry James, they are but vaguely gesturing\nin the general direction of Machen\u2019s own weird landscape. It is a land\nas strange as the misty mid-region of Weir where lies the dank tarn of\nAuber, the measureless caverns where runs the sacred river Alph. But\nit is like none of these. The young man of Gwent has created his own\nlandscape, a strange country spread out under a sky that glows as if\ngreat furnace doors had been opened, bordered by tall grey mountains,\ntraversed by streams that coil their esses through silent woods. It is\nmy fancy to think I have a picture of that country, painted by another\ngenius. You see that Van Gogh hanging there?\u201d The Host indicated a large\nframed print of writhing cypresses under a swirling sky. \u201cOn quiet\nNovember nights I sit here and look into it, half expecting to see young\nMeyrick or Lucian Taylor come down the hillside.\n\n\u201cIt is curious to go over some of these former estimates of Arthur\nMachen. One first reads them through in a fine enthusiasm at finding\nsomeone else who has read Machen and found him good. But even those who\npraise him the most, fail to express, or even to hint at the \u2018quiddity\u2019\nof Machen. They seem to find him so far beyond their powers to praise\nthat they often resort to picayunish criticism. Thus we find Vincent\nStarrett mildly complaining about an absence of cloud descriptions in\nMachen. Or about a lack of humor. True, you\u2019ll find no Maxfield Parrish\nsky castles, no James Gould Fletcher touches, no rotogravure alto-cirrus\nformations. But if ever a man could imply clouds without using the very\nword, Machen can. And although Machen has not yet introduced a pair of\njolly grave-diggers to coax us back into our seats or cajole us into\ncombing back our bristling hair, you will find he has humor.\n\n\u201cThere does exist, however, a problem in classifying Machen\u2014it seems\nto exist only a necessary evil. Essentially, I suppose, Machen is what\nmight be called a Gothic novelist. He has been linked so often with the\nrecognized practitioners of the Gothic style and tradition. You\u2019ll find\nno ivy-covered ruins, no deserted abbeys, no ravens, no baying mastiffs,\nnot even a sinister monk\u2014and we must rule out those jolly tosspots, the\nmonks of Abergavenny. I daresay Machen would prefer to be known as a\nSilurist. His ruins are those of an older time, older even than the ruins\nof the golden city of the Roman legions.\n\n\u201cVincent Starrett calls Machen the Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin\u2014making\nhim sound rather like a Messalinaen Lady Novelist. Mr. Van Vechten too,\nat least in his decadent novel _Peter Whiffle_, seizes upon Mr. Machen\nfrom much the same viewpoint, and makes Machen an asset in the character\nof his precious Peter. And all too frequently, in discussing Machen, the\nspirit of Baudelaire raises its ugly head. Novelist of Sin, forsooth!\n\u2018Evil, be thou my good!\u2019 What rot! And there are those, apparently, who\nwould classify some of Machen\u2019s tales as \u2018erotica.\u2019 Baudelaire, bosh! As\nwell point out the resemblance between a lane in Gwent and a lupanar in\nParis! No\u2014Machen is neither a Gothic novelist nor a writer of delectable\nindelicacies. Machen\u2019s tag must be sought for in hieroglyphics of his own\ndevising.\n\n\u201cThe \u2018quiddity\u2019 of Machen, the one quality that pervades all his work,\nis that of \u2018ecstasy.\u2019 It is not the ecstasy of the lyric lady-novelist.\nMr. Starrett seems to think it is a technical device, since he finds it\nis \u2018due in no small degree to his beautiful English style.\u2019 Mr. Machen\u2019s\nown idea of this quality is that it is \u2018a removal from the common life.\u2019\nAnd that brings me to _Hieroglyphics_, a book that should be a text-book\nin all our Universities. But perhaps not\u2014no, surely not. Because in\nthis book of Machen\u2019s you will find set forth, once and for all, the\ndifference between reading matter and fine literature. And such a book\ncannot fail to make enemies, nor to create false ideas even among its\nfriends. Mr. Starrett says: \u2018It is Arthur Machen\u2019s theory of literature\nand life, brilliantly exposited by that cyclical mode of discoursing that\nwas affected by Coleridge. In it he suggests the admirable doctrine of\nJames Branch Cabell that fine literature must be, in effect, an allegory\nand not the careful history of particular persons.\u2019 Mr. Cabell, who is,\naccording to Mr. Starrett, Machen\u2019s literary son, set forth his literary\ncredo in _Beyond Life_ some seventeen years after the publication of\n_Hieroglyphics_. In it, Mr. Cabell expresses admirably, and with his\nfamed urbanity, many of the truths he learned at his father\u2019s knee. One\nis as pleased with Cabell\u2019s literary progenitor as with his prose.\n\n\u201cJust one more quotation. It is my favorite quotation to end quotations\nabout literary credos or the mechanics of creation. Mr. Machen, in _The\nThree Impostors_ says: \u2018... I will give you the task of a literary man in\na phrase. He has got to do simply this\u2014to invent a wonderful story, and\nto tell it in a wonderful manner.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn his novels, _The Three Impostors_, _The Hill of Dreams_, _The\nSecret Glory_, _The Terror_, _The Great Return_, and in many of his\nshorter stories: _The Great God Pan_, _The White People_, in all his\ncreative work, Machen has shown himself the master of his own precept.\nIn _Hieroglyphics_ Machen noted the difference between reading matter\nthat related facts about a character or a group of characters, and fine\nliterature that symbolizes certain eternal and essential elements in\nhuman nature by means of incidents. You will find, then, that these\nwonderful stories are not merely startlingly original conceptions of\nheroes and heroines taking part in unusual events. That many of these\nplots and inventions are uncanny and fantastic does not place them in the\n\u2018thriller\u2019 class\u2014having nothing more to say than the latest detective\nstory. It would be absurd to think of _The Great God Pan_, for example,\nas merely a story about the discovery that Pan is not dead, or that\nPriapic cults may still flourish. No, it\u2019s not so simple as that. There\nare other elements present, and chiefest of these is that quality of\necstasy. There are symbols and representations of a higher order, no\ncheap mysticism, no spiritualistic clap-trap. And finally there is in\nthese stories an element of something that prompts belief.\n\n\u201c_The Great God Pan_ is a story much more improbable, more fantastic than\n_Frankenstein_ or _The Strange Case of M. Valdemar_. And it is not a\nmere pseudo-scientific story\u2014it is believable. You do not believe that?\nYet Machen wrote a story more fantastic still. A story with no possible\nexplanation, scientific or otherwise, in short, nothing less than\nmiraculous vision could have explained it. And that story was, and still\nis, widely accepted as true. The tale of the _Bowmen_ at Mons, a simply\nwritten story, no flourishes, no elaborate atmosphere; yet with that\nquality of ecstasy, that quiddity of Machenism, has won belief. Quite\nrecently, in a shop, I came across a volume that was an anthology of\nMyths, mysteries, visions and the like, and in it appeared the story of\nthe Bowmen. It was not Machen\u2019s story, however, and there was no mention\nwhatever of Arthur Machen. It had been set down as an authentic legend,\ndocumented and sworn to by this one and that one who claimed to have been\nthere. I daresay it will, in time, join such distinguished company as\nthe Walls of Jericho and Joshua\u2019s obedient sun.\n\n\u201cYes, you must read Machen. All of him. It has been implied that there is\na sameness about Machen\u2019s work. But do not imagine that you will read the\nsame story, told and retold. You will come to realize that there is in\nMachen a definite pattern. He has said that most men, as well as writers,\nare men of one idea. And most writers create tales that are variations on\none theme, that a common pattern, like the pattern of an Eastern carpet,\nruns through them all. And Machen\u2019s pattern? You will see, when you read\nhim, that literature \u2018began with charms, incantations, spells, songs of\nmystery, chants of religious ecstasy, the Bacchic chorus, the Rune, the\nMass.\u2019 And Machen has taken as his symbol and pattern the devices and\nsigns of ecstasy, of the removal from the common life. The dance\u2014the\nmaze\u2014the spiral\u2014the wheel\u2014the vine, and wine, these are the outward signs\nof ecstasy, the patterns of Machen.\n\n\u201cOne book in particular you must read\u2014_The Hill of Dreams_, without\na doubt one of the finest novels ever written. From the first grand\nsentence a spell is laid upon you. It has never failed to thrill me\u2014it is\nlike the master theme of a symphony\u2014it is as magical as the opening notes\nof the _Good Friday_ music in _Parsifal_. But there\u2014I have fallen into\nthe ways of those whom I have derided. And I have kept you quite later\nthan I intended.\u201d\n\nThe Host rose, stretched, and poured out a brace of nightcaps. The\nyounger man, who had listened patiently to this lengthy monologue,\ngratefully accepted his brandy, sipped rather too avidly, for listening\nis also a thirsty business, and said, \u201cWhy do you suppose Arthur Machen\nis so little known? I mean, he sounds marvelous\u2014but, after all, people\ncan\u2019t help it if they don\u2019t know about him.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat,\u201d responded the Host sadly, \u201cis one of the Mysteries of Mysteries.\nPerhaps Machen writes too \u2018circumvolantly\u2019 as Cabell says, for our\ncritics. Or perhaps, as Van Vechten says, \u2018one only takes from a work of\nart what one brings to it\u2014and how few readers can bring to Machen the\nrequisite qualities.\u2019 Perhaps our critics are more apt to be impressed\nby clever young men who go about swimming classical streams, fishing for\ntarpon, or fighting in the fashionable war of the moment. The general\npublic, unfortunately, knows Machen, if at all, through the inclusion\nof several of his stories in anthologies of mystery and horror stories.\nWhich is about on a par with using Shelley\u2019s _Indian Serenade_ as a\nfiller in a pulp confession magazine.\n\n\u201cA short time ago in London there was a dinner party in celebration of\nthe seventy-fifth birthday of a writer. The guest of honor made the\ncustomary speech\u2014but it was such a speech as has seldom been heard from\na feted author. It was tragic, it could have been, and should have been,\nbitter\u2014but all was gently said. After toiling in the fields of literature\nfor over forty-two years, after having produced eighteen volumes of rare\nquality, he had earned but \u00a3635. That man was Arthur Machen.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is still living?\u201d asked the young man.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d replied the Host gravely. \u201cI should like to make a pilgrimage\nto his home. But you must go. Take these with you. Read them. I fear\nI have told you little about Arthur Machen. Nor am I the only one has\nconfessed such a feeling of inadequacy to cope with Machen. But I find\ncomfort in what a very capable writer once said of another remarkable\nwriter of Gothic Tales. It will be, I promise you, my final quotation of\nthe evening. Dorothy Canfield once wrote, in a preface to _Seven Gothic\nTales_: \u2018The person who has set his teeth into a kind of fruit new to him\nis usually as eager as he is unable to tell you how it tastes. It is not\nenough for him to be munching away on it with relish. No, he must twist\nhis tongue trying to get its strange new flavor into words, which never\nyet had any power to capture colors or tastes.\u2019 And now, mind the step\ngoing out. It\u2019s rather darkish.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter One_\n\nFAR OFF THINGS\n\n\n1\n\nOne might devote a great amount of time and give a great deal of thought\nto the opening paragraph of a book about Arthur Machen. It is not merely\nthat one is faced with the usual problem of where to begin: in Caerleon\nor London, in Richmond, Virginia or Newark, New Jersey or, for that\nmatter, wherever one first heard of or first read Arthur Machen. Nor is\nit simply a matter of how to begin: with a quotation\u2014there are a number\nof very appropriate quotations\u2014or with a review of a controversy raging\nin the London newspapers in 1915, or with a few paragraphs taken from\n_Peter Whiffle_, a rather outr\u00e9 novel published in New York some years\nago. Nor is it even a matter of when to begin: with the Nineties, the\nTwenties, or only yesterday. The problem is one of selection, for one\nmight pick up the line of the legend of Arthur Machen anywhere along the\ncourse of the last three quarters of a century. More than that, it is\nalso a matter of the personal history of almost anyone who might attempt\nthe task.\n\nMost people will remember, I think, when it was and how it was, they\nfirst became acquainted with the work of Machen. And in most cases, I\nbelieve, it will be a rather strong and vivid memory. Whether one was\nintroduced to Machen by Cabell or Starrett or Van Vechten, or made the\ndiscovery for one\u2019s self becomes a matter of some importance, at least to\nthose who have come to know Machen and who regard him, as I do, as one of\nthe greatest living writers in English literature. Yet it might seem that\nthese personal recollections and this high regard, however deeply felt,\nare not quite reason enough for a book about such a man, nor significant\nenough to serve as an introduction to such a book.\n\nOf course there are facts and figures. Many a book gets under way with\nan impressive array of figures, or with the clever juxtaposition of two\nfacts which, by their very contrast, seem to promise an unrelenting\ninterest and an unrelaxing grasp upon the reader, or it may start out\nwith a simple statement of fact. Such figures as, for example, these:\nArthur Machen\u2019s works have appeared in anthologies which run to fabulous\nnumbers of copies, and one of his stories has been published in an\nedition limited to two copies. Or a juxtaposition of facts, as for\nexample: Arthur Machen has been praised by Oscar Wilde, the arbiter\nelegantiarum of the 1890\u2019s, and by Walter Winchell, equally arbiter\nelegantiarum of the 1930\u2019s.\n\nOr a simple statement of fact, supplied, stiffly and on crackly paper\nby the British Ministry of Information: \u201cArthur Machen, the Welsh\nnovelist, was born in Caerleon-on-Usk in 1863.\u201d His Majesty\u2019s Ministry\nor representative thereof, concludes with the intelligence that further\ninformation may be found in a certain book which may be obtained from a\ncertain publisher.\n\nBe it said, then, and to the everlasting glory of His Majesty\u2019s Ministry\nof Information, that Arthur Machen _was_ born at Caerleon-on-Usk. And in\nthe year 1863. A long time back.\n\n\n2\n\nSomerset Maugham once wrote something about the unhappy accidents of\nbirth that often place a man amid scenes that must seem forever strange,\nand among men who must seem forever strangers. When such a person,\nafter years of painful adolescence, dramatic conflict, moving tragedy\nand innumerable vicissitudes, finally arrives by some happy accident at\nsome other spot upon this planet he feels, in the words of more than one\nsympathetic novelist, that he has \u201ccome home.\u201d And then, presumably,\nthe conflict and the tragedy and the vicissitudes begin all over again.\nIn actual life writers, and artists of other sorts, are particularly\nsusceptible to this form of cosmic accident\u2014or at least many of them\nprefer to think so. It is, somehow, heartening to meet one who was\npleased with the place of his birth.\n\n\u201cI shall always,\u201d wrote Arthur Machen, \u201cesteem it as the greatest piece\nof fortune that has fallen to me, that I was born in that noble, fallen\nCaerleon-on-Usk, in the heart of Gwent.... For the older I grow the\nmore firmly am I convinced that anything which I may have accomplished\nin literature is due to the fact that when my eyes were first opened in\nearliest childhood they saw before them the vision of an enchanted land.\u201d\n\nThere is no doubt that the simple fact that Arthur Machen was born in\nCaerleon-on-Usk has had a tremendous influence upon his style, his\nthinking, his writing, his philosophy and his life.\n\nCaerleon-on-Usk, lying within the fabled land of Gwent and close to the\nWelsh border, would have fascinated Arthur Machen even if he had not been\nborn there\u2014just as it must fascinate everyone who has ever read Machen\nand anyone who ever will read him. \u201cLittle, white Caerleon,\u201d he calls it,\nan island in the green meadows by the river, was once the headquarters of\nthe Second Augustan Legion, one of the farthest outposts of the sprawling\nRoman Empire. The Romans originally called it Isca Silurum, evidently\nfor its situation on the river Usk. Later Latin writers called it Urbs\nLegionem, a translation of the Welsh Caer-Leon.\n\nCaerleon knew the hardened legionnaires, the men who crossed the Channel\nother conquerors failed to cross. It knew the tread of men who followed\nthe eagles, and it knew the patricians who came with the Pax Romana in\nthe wake of the legions. Caerleon knew also the gallant companions of\nthe Round Table, for it was, in those times, a seat of Arthur the King,\nand many a summons brought the knightly riders within its walls and many\na quest sent them off across the meadows where the river wound in great\nesses toward the dark forests hanging along the mountainside. Nennius\nplaces the scene of at least one of Arthur\u2019s battles at Cairlion. As for\nGwent, it is now called Monmouthshire, but in those days it formed the\neastern division of the kingdom of South Wales, and some identify it\nas one of the three divisions of Essyllwg, the country of the Silures.\nCaerleon itself is the very stuff of legend, and yet it exists today, as\nit did in the middle nineteenth century, a small and sleepy town not far\nfrom the equally legendary Severn.\n\nIn this place and in the year 1863, Arthur Machen was born\u2014the son of a\nclergyman who had the poor \u201cliving\u201d of Llanddewi Rectory. His father was\nJohn Edward Jones, who afterwards added his wife\u2019s surname to his own,\nso that his son\u2019s full signature became Arthur Llewelyn Jones Machen.\nDaniel Jones, Machen\u2019s grandfather, was Vicar of Caerleon-on-Usk and his\ngreat grandfather was David Jones, Curate of St. Fagans, Glamorgan. It is\nnot the present writer\u2019s intention to compose a biography, \u201cfictionized\u201d\nor otherwise, of Arthur Machen. There will be none of your happy little\nphrases about what the \u201clittle Arthur\u201d did, or what the \u201cyoung Machen\u201d\nor the \u201cboy Machen\u201d thought. Nor will the reader be asked to \u201cimagine\nthe young Arthur growing up amid the storied stones of Caerleon,\u201d or to\nbelieve that \u201cundoubtedly the young Arthur was influenced by the wild\nWelsh countryside,\u201d or even to \u201cassume that the boy Machen made many\ntrips to the legendary shrines in and about Caerleon.\u201d\n\nSuch a biography may one day be written, but one cannot refrain from\nhoping that it will not be. Machen has written his own biography in at\nleast three of his books, and perhaps in all of them. The two frankly\nautobiographical books, _Far Off Things_ and _Things Near and Far_ tell\nmost of the facts of his early life ... and they tell them with more\nmeaning than even the most skilled and sympathetic biographer could.\nHis novel, _The Hill of Dreams_, does more with the material suggested\nin these notes of a lifetime than the most gifted novelist of our day\ncould attempt. The story of Lucian Taylor and his adventures, mental and\nphysical, mystical and spiritual, in the invented town of Caermaen, _is_\nthe story of Arthur Machen, beautifully told as no one else could tell\nit. To these books the reader is referred and, fair warning, he will be\nreferred to them again and again!\n\nTo be sure, Machen _did_ make those little trips about the legendary town\nin which he lived; he _was_ inspired by the storied stones of Caerleon\nand he _was_ influenced by the wild Welsh countryside. He was an only\nchild and he lived in that solitude which is so often the lot of an only\nchild. He often accompanied his father on his \u201cparish calls\u201d and thus he\ncame to know every farm and every lane, every hill and every valley in\nthe heart of Gwent along the roads that led from the rectory at Llanddewi.\n\nWhen he was eleven he went away to school, passing each term as a sort of\n\u201cinterlude among strangers\u201d until he could come home again to Caerleon.\nWas he happy or unhappy at school? Was he fond of games or of mooning\nabout\u2014the two alternatives, apparently, of English public school life?\nThat story is told in _The Hill of Dreams_ and again in _The Secret\nGlory_. Machen\u2019s schooldays were the schooldays of Lucian Taylor and\nAmbrose Meyrick ... to their stories we must again refer the reader. For\nconjecture and invention are beyond the scope of this study and Arthur\nMachen is seventeen when he really enters into our particular field.\n\nFor in his seventeenth year Arthur Machen went up to London. There was\na very practical purpose behind this first visit to London\u2014he was to\ncome up before the examiners for entrance into the Royal College of\nSurgeons. Whether or not the actual purpose of this visit was of great\nimportance to Machen is one of the conjectural matters upon which we\nshall not speculate. The matter had been arranged and decided by family\nand friends\u2014it was the necessary preliminary to a career in medicine or\nin surgery. Machen prepared for it by walking some three or four miles\nseveral times a week to the Pontypool Road Station to obtain copies of\nthe London papers. These he studied with great care, devoting special\nattention to the theatrical pages. Not that he had ever given any\nparticular thought to the stage or to the theater, or that he was, in\nthe phrase of today, \u201cstage-struck\u201d; it was simply that the theater was\ntypical of what London was, and of what Caerleon was not. At any rate, on\na day in June 1880, he went up to London with his father. And thus began\nThe London Adventure.\n\n\n3\n\nThe examiners found something Machen already knew\u2014he had no head for\nfigures, either arithmetical or anatomical. And apparently Machen had\nnot the interest or the ability to acquire, within a period of time\nagreeable to the examiners, a proficiency in either. It must not be\nassumed, however, that Arthur Machen had already decided upon a career in\nletters, to be pursued amid the pleasures of London. He had not. Years\nlater Machen wrote that he had no idea, when first he went to London, of\na career in literature. Indeed, he had _never_ thought of it as a career,\nbut as a destiny.\n\nHowever, he had not been in London a month before he began to write.\nThere is nothing particularly prophetic about this, nor anything\nespecially startling. Most young men, at one time or another, try to\nwrite. And usually their creative efforts are turned in the direction of\nthe epic, the heroic, the classic. A young man, trying to write, almost\nnever permits himself to indulge in a fancy for the light essay, the\nbrief episode. It is epic or it is nothing, usually the latter. Doubtless\nthe Freudians have an explanation for this. It would be, one supposes, a\nvery long and very complicated explanation.\n\nMachen had his own explanation\u2014for his own case. He attributes it to his\nCeltic blood. Not that Machen thought the Celt, or the Welsh Celt at any\nrate, had contributed much to the world\u2019s literature. Indeed, Machen had\nadvanced the idea that \u201call impartial judges will allow that if Welsh\nliterature were annihilated ... the loss to the world\u2019s grand roll of\nmasterpieces would be insignificant.\u201d Yet he concedes a certain literary\nfeeling that does not exist in the Anglo-Saxon ... an appreciative\nrather than creative faculty, lacking, perhaps, in the critical spirit\nbut still, a delight in the noble phrase ... the music of words. And\nso\u2014Machen tried, as a young man will, to write.\n\nHe wrote verses, of course. \u201cEvery literary career,\u201d says Machen, \u201cwhich\nis to be concerned with the imaginative side of literature begins with\nthe writing of verses.\u201d So Machen confirms, some sixty years before\nit was conceived, the opinion expressed above. He had written verses\nbefore, while still at the Hereford Cathedral School. They were concerned\nsomewhat with matters derived from the _Mabinogion_ and were probably\ncomposed in the heroic manner. This set of verses was, as is the custom,\nrejected.\n\nHe filled notebooks with \u201chorrible rubbish\u2014rubbish that had rhymes to\nit.\u201d Much of what he wrote was greatly influenced by Swinburne\u2019s _Songs\nBefore Sunrise_. \u201cInfluenced\u201d seems a mild sort of word to set alongside\nMachen\u2019s own \u201ccataclysmic.\u201d At any rate, writing what he describes\nvariously as rubbish and drivel, Machen tried, at the same time, to pass\nhis examinations for the Royal College of Surgeons. His examiners now\narrived at their decision regarding Machen\u2019s arithmetical ability and the\ncareer as a surgeon came to a close. Machen returned to Caerleon and the\nwriting continued, mostly, of course, after the family had retired for\nthe night.\n\n\n4\n\nA printer named Jones, who lived in the cathedral town of Hereford,\none day received in the post a manuscript accompanied by a request to\nprint one hundred copies of the poem. It was a poem. The title of the\npoem, _Eleusinia_, probably conveyed nothing to Mr. Jones, stationer,\nbookseller and printer of Hereford. As he struggled with the text,\nwritten in a large sprawling hand on both sides of ordinary letter\npaper, Mr. Jones might have wondered what our young people were coming\nto. Certainly the subject matter of the poem was vastly different from\nthe Bibles, Prayer Books and Pitman\u2019s Shorthand Manuals with which his\nshelves were stocked.\n\nFortunately for Mr. Jones, the poet pretended no knowledge of\nbook-making. He specified no typographical niceties, he pleaded for no\nornaments, he indicated no preference in paper or in binding. His one\nmodest request, that the Greek phrase _Oudeis Muomenos Odureta_ to appear\non the title page, be set in Greek type, was withdrawn when Mr. Jones\nwrote him that Greek type would be extra. And so the phrase appeared in\nEnglish, and with a typographical error, at no extra charge.\n\nMr. Jones presumably knew the young poet\u2014remembered him as a purchaser\nof letter paper and note books. The Llanddewi Rectory address was, in\na way, reassuring. His bill would probably be paid, but Mr. Jones must\nhave thought the usual thoughts about \u201cminister\u2019s sons.\u201d As for the\npoet\u2014he preferred anonymity, the comparative anonymity of \u201cBy a Former\nMember of the H.C.S.\u201d For when a sixteen page pamphlet bearing the\ntitle _Eleusinia_ and concerning itself with the Eleusian Mysteries, is\npublished by a Former Member of the Hereford Cathedral School it must be\nadmitted that such anonymity is, at best, comparative. Generations of\nreaders of novels about English public schools will realize that every\nother former member of the H.C.S. would know at once that the book could\nhave been written by none other than \u201cold Machen.\u201d\n\nOf course the edition of one hundred copies guaranteed that the anonymity\nwould still remain comparative\u2014especially since it seemed unlikely that\nthe former membership of the H.C.S. at large would be interested enough\nin poetry to purchase sixteen pages of it ... and without wrappers! It is\nnot known, exactly, what happened to ninety-nine copies of _Eleusinia_.\nHenry Danielson in his _Arthur Machen: A Bibliography_ (1923) says that\nhis collation was taken from what is probably the only copy extant.\n\nThe text of this first work of Arthur Machen is, naturally, as little\nknown to the general reader as a transcription of the Rosetta Stone\n... and so it is likely to remain. What is it about? Machen says of\nit, \u201cthis is a horrible production.\u201d He wrote it, he adds, by turning\nan encyclopedia article on _Eleusis_ into verse, \u201csome of it blank,\nsome of it rhymed, all of it bad.\u201d This is Machen\u2019s estimate of it in\nthe notes he wrote for Danielson\u2019s _Bibliography_. Nathan Van Patten\nlists, _Beneath the Barley. A Note on the Origins of Eleusinia_ (1931).\nWhether this explains the poem or the mysteries is known only to those\nwho have seen one of the twenty-five copies that were printed. However,\nin a letter written in 1945, Machen says: \u201cIt is less than nothing, but\nperhaps it might have suggested the entertaining question\u2014\u2018Here is a boy\nof seventeen who is interested in the Eleusian Mysteries: what the devil\nwill happen to him?\u2019\u201d\n\nWell, Machen\u2019s poem was published, and whatever he may have thought of\nit in 1923 or in 1945, his relations, in 1884, thought well enough of it\nto decide that journalism was the career for Arthur. It is amazing, in a\nway, that a pleasant little group in a country rectory should decide over\na little pamphlet written \u201cabout\u201d the pagan rites at Eleusis, that their\nyouthful relative was destined for a career in journalism. Of course,\nrelatives are proud of one\u2019s books and equally proud of one\u2019s pamphlets,\neven if they do not read them. And so, perhaps, the rector and his family\nnever bothered too much about the contents of the rarest Machen item\nof them all. Doubtless more than one of the ninety-nine copies slowly\ndisintegrates in a Welsh garret to this very day.\n\n\n5\n\nIn the summer of 1881 Machen was back in London in quest of a career.\nThis one too, although it had nothing to do with figures, did not quite\ncome off. For some time he had thought about journalism as his relatives\nadvised, but he did not actually follow their advice until some years\nlater. Meanwhile, he lived in an old red-brick Georgian house in Turnham\nGreen where he wrote furiously in one manner or another. That Celtic\nappreciation of the fine phrase and the glorious sound of words was\nstrong within him, for almost everything he read struck a responsive\nchord, and he would begin at once to compose an epic in the manner of the\nauthor or the book he was currently reading.\n\nThus there was a long heroic poem in the manner of William Morris, whose\n_Earthly Paradise_ he had just purchased with his tea and tobacco money.\nThen there were innumerable verses in the manner of Robert Herrick. Now\nand then there would be a strong Swinburnian resurgence. And while all\nthis furious creation was going on he worked in what was called the\n\u201ceditorial\u201d department of a publishing house.\n\nThere are many tasks a literary man might do in serving his\napprenticeship and Machen did most of them\u2014or most of the ones current\nin the \u2019Eighties. He had assisted in the \u201cgrangerizing\u201d of many old and\nodd volumes and he had composed \u201cShakespearean\u201d calendars, selecting\nappropriate quotations from \u201cThe Bard\u201d for each of the three hundred and\nsixty-five days. These and other more or less literary matters occupied\nhis days and earned for him the sum of about a pound a week. At Turnham\nGreen he wrote feverishly and planned prodigiously and read ravenously\n... and almost every book he came upon set him off on another venture of\nhis own.\n\nThere are some writers, and there are certain casts of mind, requiring\nexercises of this sort. It is rather odd that these should turn out to\nbe the more imaginative writers after all. Yet it does seem that they\nhave to work out for themselves theories of composition and devote much\nof their time and talent and energy to perfecting the technicalities\nof the trade of writing. Poe, of course, comes to mind, and Coleridge\nand Hawthorne. They first developed theories, seemingly so rigid. They\ndevised formulae, seemingly so mechanical. And then they created tales\nand poems, not from their observations and experience, based not on\nfacts, but on fancy. And they composed them, apparently, with little\nregard for the formulae and systems of their own devising. They seem to\nleap from the frankly imitative to the fearlessly imaginative, without\never taking any of the intermediate steps they themselves had postulated,\nor calling into use any of the technical and mechanical aids with which\nthey had practiced their trade.\n\nMachen in 1881 might recognize and respond to a pattern or formula in\nSwinburne, in Burton, in Morris, in Herrick, in Stevenson, in Balzac, in\nRabelais. This is not to imply that Machen merely developed a style \u201cin\nthe manner of Swinburne,\u201d or of Stevenson or of any of them. To each of\nthese he brought something of Machen\u2014and as he learned his craft, the\ntechnical tricks, the automatic alliterations and the polished phrasing\nwere fused into something, a way of writing, no one else has ever had, no\none but Arthur Machen.\n\nMeanwhile Machen discovered that he disliked his labours at the\npublishing house in Chandos Street. The business of composing cultural\ncalendars to be hung in London kitchens and country parlours did not\ninterest him, nor did he see why it should interest anyone. He therefore\nresigned his position\u2014and in the face of a raise to twenty-four shillings\na week! He then became, of all things, tutor to a group of children,\nteaching them, of all things, mathematics! His head for figures seems to\nhave improved considerably for, on going over the Euclid he was supposed\nto pass along to his charges, he found that it did make sense of a sort.\n\nHe had moved from Turnham Green to Clarendon Road\u2014a street destined to\nbecome, one day, as well known as Baker Street, Cheyne Row and many\nanother London street of literary fame. Machen was already existing on\nthat famous and fantastic diet of \u201cgreen tea, stale bread and great\nquantities of tobacco.\u201d Fortunately, at first, his tutorial position\nentitled him to dinner with his pupils. Later his pupils changed, and\nwith them his menu. The noon hour was spent in wandering about Turnham\nGreen or Holland Park, with a pause for biscuit and beer at a convenient\ntavern.\n\nThese wanderings became a habit, and through the spring of 1883\nMachen went further afield into the green suburbs to the north and\nwest of the city. It was on these lonely outings that he first began\nto formulate one of his literary theories\u2014that \u201cin literature no\nimaginative effects are achieved through logical predetermination.\u201d\nNow this theory\u2014so demonstrably true in his own case\u2014was arrived at by\nno logical predetermination but by sheer pedestrianism. It came about\non these solitary walks when, as so often happened, the roads that led\nso invitingly to green and open country plunged suddenly into a row of\nhorribly new brick houses or, more startling still, a vast and sprawling\ncemetery.\n\nTo the countryman, whose ideal landscape proceeds logically from\nvalley to hill, from stream to pond, from crossroads to village, from\nfence to house and stile to pasture, these monstrous outcroppings of\ncivilization, these sudden and terrible interruptions of what was and\nshould have continued to be a pleasant prospect, are more horrible even\nthan a factory belching smoke from seven stacks.\n\nAnd so these pleasant saunters that so often ended before a hideous row\nof red-brick houses, the quiet lanes that terminated abruptly before\na vast pile of bricks and boards, created in Machen the beginnings of\nthat doctrine of the strange and terrifying things that lie so close to\nthe surface of the quiet and the commonplace. The hideous face at the\nwindow in a story written years later is but a reflection of the sudden\napparition of a raw, new suburb at the end of a quiet lane leading north\nout of London.\n\nFor the present these were but things seen and felt, they sank quietly\nbelow the surface and floated deep down in the well of the unconscious.\nTutoring and Turnham Green and the twisting roads of Notting Hill were\nsufficient unto the days. The nights in his small room in Clarendon Road\nwere more urgent\u2014more filled with magic. For here there was not the\nsudden sight of a street hastily hacked into a hillside, nor the mounds\nand monuments of a cemetery, but great books and greater magic flowing\nfrom the majesty of Gothic cathedrals or the Arthurian romances or the\nDivine Comedy. He read by night, lighting candles when the gas meter\nclicked off, and passed for a time into the \u201cMiddle Ages, walking in\nthe silvery light with the Masters of the Sentences, with the Angelic\nDoctor, listening to the high interminable argument of the Schools.\u201d Out\nof these books and studies, and a great deal out of Burton\u2019s _Anatomy of\nMelancholy_ came a book that was to be called _The Anatomy of Tobacco_.\n\nThe book was sent to a publisher who, as it happened, liked it and who\nwas prepared to publish it, after \u201ccertain preliminaries\u201d were attended\nto. These preliminaries entailed a visit to Caerleon and called for\nanother conference in the parlour at the Rectory. The family and the\nrelations, remembering the pamphlet of a few years ago and encouraged by\nthe news that the new book would contain many times more than sixteen\npages, attended to the preliminaries.\n\nIn due course, in the year 1884, George Redway of London published _The\nAnatomy of Tobacco_. And a very handsome book it was, in its cream\nparchment boards and brick-red lettering on the spine. The author of\nthis study of smoking, \u201cMethodized, Divided, and Considered after a New\nFashion\u201d was one \u201cLeolinus Silurensis, Professor of Fumical Philosophy in\nthe University of Brentford,\u201d in whom we may recognize our old friend,\nthe former Member of the Hereford Cathedral School.\n\nThis is the book Machen calls \u201cThe Anatomy of Tankards\u201d in his _Far\nOff Things_. There you may read the whys and the wherefores of this\namazing composition, and the devious means by which Burton and tobacco\nand divers other curious books entered into its making. So convincing\nis his account of his investigations and research into the matter of\ntaverns and tankards and such matters that quite a few collectors have\nspent considerable time, and were prepared to spend considerable sums,\nto acquire a copy of _The Anatomy of Tankards_. Meanwhile, Machen\nhad quitted the six-by-ten room in the Clarendon Road and returned\nto Caerleon and a normal diet. Throughout the winter of 1884 he had\nworked on the proofs of the _Anatomy_ and then upon an assignment from\nRedway for another book. This was a translation of the _Heptameron_ of\nMarguerite of Navarre. Machen blithely undertook the task, despite his\nown sworn statement that upon leaving Hereford School he could not have\nconjugated the simplest, and most popular, of French verbs.\n\nThe merrie and delightsome tales of the French Marguerite occupied him\nthrough winter and spring in Gwent. Once more he walked in the deep lanes\nabout Caerleon and alternately missed London and revelled in the luxury\nof not being in Clarendon Road. By the time June came to Caerleon he had\nsent off the last batch of his translation and Redway had written him\nand offered him a job. It did not seem too hard a thing to return to\nClarendon Road with a job, a real one, in the City. He was to catalogue\nbooks\u2014and such books! There were books on Alchemy and Magic, on Mysteries\nand Ancient Worship, on the occult sciences and Rosicrucians and all\nsorts of wonderful and baleful and mystic and incredible matters.\n\nMachen became the cataloguer of these curious volumes\u2014and he came\nvery close to being that wonderful phenomena of the twentieth\ncentury: a publisher\u2019s advertising man! As a matter of fact, Machen\ndid achieve something few, if any, publisher\u2019s advertising men have\naccomplished\u2014either before or since. Two of his catalogues have become\nhighly prized collector\u2019s items. They were published in 1887 and 1888\nrespectively.\n\nWorking in a book-filled garret in Catherine Street, Machen produced one\ncatalogue which pops up from time to time in Machen bibliographies: _The\nLiterature of Occultism and Archeology_. Then it occurred to him to\nparaphrase a chapter in _Don Quixote_, the one in which the Curate and\nthe Barber examine the Knight\u2019s library. This chapter was written in a\nmanner calculated to entice the wary or unwary book collector into buying\nthe books discussed. The catalogue was issued under the title _A Chapter\nfrom the Book Called The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha_.\nThe other catalogue, issued in the following year, bore the title\n_Thesaurus Incantatus, The Enchanted Treasure or, The Spagyric Quest of\nBeroaldus Cosmopolita_.\n\nIt will do little good to look for copies of these catalogues. Vincent\nStarret, the fortunate possessor of at least one of them, in his\ncollection of Machen\u2019s tales, _The Shining Pyramid_ (Covici-Fried,\nChicago, 1923) has included two pieces called _The Priest and the Barber_\nand _The Spagyric Quest of Beroaldus Cosmopolita_. These are taken, of\ncourse, from the catalogues in question. As to whether you will find the\nStarret volumes readily available\u2014well, they are worth the search.\n\nWell then, here was Machen in a hot-bed of the occult and the devilish,\nsurrounded by books of all sorts, especially the strange, the weird\nand the curious. His room in the Clarendon Road held as many books as\nit could accommodate along with its occupant\u2014the overflow was stacked\nbetween the rungs of a ladder on the landing outside. He was busy with\nnotebooks once more, and writing furiously as ever\u2014but in despair rather\nthan the fine frenzy and high spirits of a few years before. For now\nhe was deep in Rabelais and Balzac\u2014and these books cast a spell upon\nhim. They were warm, glowing books in which life was full and rich and\nlusty\u2014there were great eaters and drinkers and lovers in those days. They\noffered too great a contrast to the cold, lonely room in Clarendon Road\nand the diet of tea, tobacco and bread.\n\nMachen was under the spell of a landscape bathed in a warm sun, with\nruins standing close to roads, and wine flowing from vineyard to bottle\nto parched throats all within a few yards of enchanted space. This was a\ncontrast indeed to the deep lanes of Gwent, the lonely ruins that stood\nin the shade and shadow of great hills and forests, and although Machen\nhad spoken glowingly of the greenish-yellow cider of that land, still, he\nrather favored, in his mind at least, the wines of Touraine.\n\nBy night there was this magic of old books and by day there were the\nold books of magic, for the garret in Catherine Street was crowded with\nold and odd books of every sort, a collection that \u201crepresented that\ninclination of the human mind which may be a survival from the rites of\nthe black swamp and the cave.\u201d These studies did induce a frame of mind\nthat might tend toward the strange and unusual. Living in this strange\nmixture of a glowing, gargantuan landscape and the dark labyrinths of the\nmediaeval mind, Machen tried, and sometimes desperately tried, to write.\n\n\u201cA man has no business to write,\u201d said Machen many years later,\n\u201cunless he has something in his heart, which, he feels cries out to be\nexpressed.\u201d And he had nothing to say\u2014had only the urge to write, the\nvice of writing for writing\u2019s sake\u2014_cacoethes scribendi_\u2014he called it!\nBut then Machen has had time to reconsider his pronouncement of 1923,\nand to revise his opinion regarding men who wrote\u2014and why they write.\n\nIn a \u201cLondon Letter\u201d to the _New York Times Book Section_, Herbert W.\nHorwill wrote, in September 1935: \u201cA curious literary problem is posed by\nthat veteran author, Arthur Machen, in John o\u2019 London\u2019s Weekly. Imagine\na man marooned on a desert island, and certain that he would remain\nthere for the rest of his life. Imagine, moreover, that he possessed the\nliterary faculty, and had salvaged pens, ink and paper from the wreck or\nelse had devised home-made substitutes for them. Would such a man write,\nknowing that whatever he wrote would never be seen by any eye but his own?\n\n\u201cMr. Machen tells us that he once heard this question discussed among a\ngroup of friends. Some answered yes and some no, and, when pipes were\nknocked out for the night, the problem was no nearer solution, though,\nto the best of his recollection, the ayes were in the majority. He voted\nwith them himself, and, after further reflection, he still believes\nhe was right. The hypothetical Crusoe might have no better implements\navailable than quills of parrots\u2019 feathers, paper made out of the bark of\nthe guru tree and ink obtained by macerating the root of a certain plant.\nBut, granted his possession of the literary faculty, he would possess\nalso the literary impulse. He would write because he liked writing, apart\nfrom whatever fate might be in store for the thing written. The true\nspring of imaginative literature, Mr. Machen reminds us, is the delight\nof the creator in creation.\u201d\n\nIn the desert island of Clarendon Road, all through the summer of 1885,\nMachen wrote. He wrote because he had to, because he was under the spell\nof a master of gargantuan languages, because he was enamoured of the\nsound of words and because he had an ear for the rich and rolling phrase.\nAnd, of course, he wrote because he had the literary impulse. The pound\na week he was paid by Redway could not afford him the rich living, the\npleasures of Touraine. But then, after despair and after much almost\npointless scribbling, he came at last upon the idea for the Great Romance.\n\nIt was to be a book in which Rabelais and Gwent were mingled ... and\nthus began the \u201cHistory of the Nine Joyous Journeys ... in which were\ncontained the amorous inventions and fanciful tales of Master Gervase\nPerrot, Gent.\u201d Machen had prepared for this great undertaking by\npurchasing his ruled quarto paper, his pen points and his penholders.\nQuite possibly he envisioned a plaque on the door of his little cell\nat 23 Clarendon Road, announcing that Here Had the Great Romance been\nWritten! There was, however, this difficulty\u2014the vision of the great\nromance declined to be more specific. There were no hints as to plot, no\nguidance as to characters. He began, at any rate, a Prologue, written in\na flowing and flowery 17th Century manner.\n\nBut now his cataloguing in Catherine Street had come to an end, and\nwith it his pound or thereabouts per week. Nevertheless, he wrote on,\neven though he knew that his composition of the Great Romance might\nbe abruptly terminated some three or four days in the future. Then,\npresumably, he would return to Caerleon, in all probability on foot. As\nit happened, he returned hurriedly by train. Just as he had come to the\nend of his tea and tobacco and rent money, he had word that his mother\nwas dying. Aunt Maria thoughtfully sent his fare with the summons.\n\nLater, he returned to the \u201cgreat romance,\u201d writing once more in the\nfamiliar room in the rectory where the fire burned and the winds howled\ndown from Twyn Barlwyn and tossed the branches and beat upon the door.\nHe wrote late into the morning, long after his father had knocked out\nhis last pipe and gone upstairs. So passed the winter of 1885. Through\nthe days he walked in the lovely Gwentian hills and looked down upon the\nwhite farm houses standing in the midst of encircling trees. At night\nhe worked in that room where he had, as a boy, first read de Quincy and\nScott and the other writers who had helped to bring about the \u201crenascence\nof wonder.\u201d And in the following year he was alone. His father died that\nspring.\n\nThis was the John Edward Jones whose homecoming from Jesus College,\nOxford, is described in the opening pages of _Things Near and Far_. Now\nMachen was more truly alone than ever. His father had been to him a good\ncompanion in his earliest rambles about the countryside. It had been his\nfather\u2019s hope that Arthur might one day return to Gwent to live, buy a\nsmall newspaper and settle down to a quiet career in country journalism.\n\nThere were certain inheritances that might help, when they came through.\nFor Machen\u2019s father seldom thought of the good these inheritances would\ndo for him in his struggle to make ends meet at Llanddewi Rectory. But\nnow he had gone and then, ironically, the long-lived Scottish relations\nwent too, and the Scottish lawyers began to look through family Bibles\nfor the next of kin.\n\nThrough these and other circumstances Machen at length came into\nmoney\u2014smallish amounts which, shrewdly invested or even conservatively\ninvested, might have stretched themselves out for a score or more years.\nThis economic policy did not suggest itself or, if it did, was quietly\nignored. The simple expedient of living modestly and comfortably, and\ndipping into a box for coins, when coins were required, seemed much the\nbetter plan.\n\nIn 1887 Machen returned to London, to live in Bedford Place, and to\narrange for the publication of the Great Romance, now called _The\nChronicle of Clemendy_. This was accomplished, with perhaps a deeper\nplunge into the box of coins, and the book was published that year. It\nwas printed at Carbonnek, \u201cfor the society of Pantagruelists.\u201d And it\ndid, apparently, quite well. The nine joyous journeys and the merry monks\nof Abergavenny pleased Machen and his fellow Pantagruelists\u2014which, in the\nyear 1888 or 1948, is almost as much as can be asked of any book.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Two_\n\nTHE LONDON ADVENTURE\n\n\n1\n\nIn the late 1880\u2019s Arthur Machen had, as he said, \u201cRabelais on the\nbrain.\u201d He had been for some years under the spell of the gargantuan\ntales and of Balzac\u2019s _Contes Drolatiques_\u2014and perhaps even more under\nthe spell, literarily if not literally, of the Holy Bottle and the magic\nof Touraine and whatever it is about the land of France that so beguiles\nthe young of the Anglo-Saxon peoples.\n\nIt was under the Rabelaisian influence that Machen had written his \u201cgreat\nRomance,\u201d _The Chronicle of Clemendy_, and made his translation of the\n_Heptameron_. And finally he had undertaken to translate and publish an\neven more difficult and bizarre book\u2014_Le Moyen de Parvenir_ by Beroalde\nde Verville.\n\nThis book, rather highly prized by collectors of at least two sorts,\nis incredibly dull. No fault of Machen\u2019s certainly, although he might\nhave permitted it to remain untranslated. Still, he was at the stage and\nof an age when this sort of thing had an appeal. And so he translated\nand published it in not one, but two editions. There was a large paper\nedition and an \u201cordinary\u201d edition\u2014both preceded by a very small edition\n(four copies) of a portion of the book under the title _The Way to\nAttain_.\n\nNow of course every Machen bibliography lists this title, and many a\nMachenite has wished he might obtain a copy. Actually, it is one of\nthe least important of Machen\u2019s works. For this is merely a portion\nof _Le Moyen de Parvenir_\u2014and very probably not an important part at\nthat. Bibliographers, bibliophiles and bibliomaniacs are at liberty to\ngo quietly mad in their quest for this queer little item. For queer it\nis\u2014Machen himself cannot quite explain its existence. The four copies\nwere issued in 1889, presumably by the Dryden Press who were to publish\nthe complete work. A dispute over something or other arose and the\nproject was dropped\u2014at least by the Dryden Press. All four copies,\napparently, are in the safe-keeping of Danielson, or they were at one\ntime.\n\nThe other two editions were privately printed at Carbonnek in 1890 under\nthe title of _Fantastic Tales_. There have been other editions, de luxe\nif not luxurious, for what is sometimes known as \u201cthe trade.\u201d It may be\nassumed that the writer holds no very high opinion of this work. But then\nneither does Machen. He has described the book as being somewhat like a\ncathedral constructed entirely of gargoyles\u2014as plain a warning as any\never given by an author regarding one of his works.\n\nThis fantastic collection of \u201cdiscourses ... on Reformation politics\n... many tales, some pointless, a few amusing\u201d while it may provide\npuzzles, pleasure and profit for bibliophiles, is important only in\nthat it marks the finish of the Rabelaisian influence upon Machen. Not\nthat this influence was ever \u201cRabelaisian\u201d in the usual sense ... it\nwas rather like that of various French poets and novelists of several\ngenerations over still other generations of English and American writers.\nDuring certain periods our younger writers and \u201cintellectuals\u201d would have\nVerlaine on the brain, or Baudelaire in their bonnets, but eventually\nthey would go back to writing stark novels about Sussex or Sauk Center,\nor Wales or Wisconsin or the moors of the Missouri.\n\nThe extent of this enthusiasm and the depth of this influence may be\nestimated from the following rhapsody delivered by Ambrose Meyrick in\n_The Secret Glory_. \u201cLet me celebrate, above all, the little red wine.\nNot in any mortal vineyard did its father grape ripen; it was not\nnourished by the warmth of the visible sun, nor were the rains that\nmade it swell common waters from the skies above us. Not even in the\nChinonnais, earth sacred though that be, was the press made that caused\nits juices to be poured into the _cuve_, nor was the humming of its\nfermentation heard in any of the good cellars of the lower Touraine.\nBut in that region which Keats celebrates when he sings the \u2018Mermaid\nTavern\u2019 was this juice engendered\u2014the vineyard lay low down in the south,\namong the starry plains where is the _Terra Turonensis Celestis_, that\nunimaginable country which Rabelais beheld in his vision where mighty\nGargantua drinks from inexhaustible vats eternally, where Pantagruel is\nathirst for evermore, though he be satisfied continually. There, in the\nland of the Crowned Immortal Tosspots was that wine of ours vintaged,\nred with the rays of the Dog-star, made magical by the influence of\nVenus, fertilised by the happy aspect of Mercury. O rare, super-abundant\nand most excellent juice, fruit of all fortunate stars, by thee were we\ntranslated, exalted into the fellowship of that Tavern of which the old\npoet writes: _Mihi est propositum in Taberna mori!_\u201d\n\nWell, it was quite a thing while it lasted ... but the Rabelaisian vein\npetered out and Machen began to perceive that he was of Caerleon-on-Usk\nand not a townsman of Tours or a citizen of Chinon, and that the old\ngrey manor-houses and the white farms of Gwent had their beauty and\nsignificance, though they were not castles in Touraine.\n\nMeanwhile he was back at his old trade of cataloguing. He had switched\nemployers for, when York Street would yield little more than a pound a\nweek, Leicester Square would give thirty shillings. So back he went to\ncataloguing ancient books. Not that he was much good at it, nor that\nhe preferred it above all other forms of employment. As a matter of\nfact he rather disapproved of the whole business and issued what almost\namounts to a Manifesto to Collectors: \u201cI don\u2019t care two-pence,\u201d he wrote,\n\u201cwhether a book is in the first edition or in the tenth; nay, if the\ntenth is the best edition, I would rather have it ... the only question\nbeing: is the book worth reading or not?\u201d\n\nNevertheless, cataloguing seems to have been a rather flourishing trade\nat the time, and a profitable practice\u2014for the publisher at any rate. For\nthis was a remarkably literate era, and publishers pandered profitably\nto the popular taste ... they were busily at work discovering rare\nbooks, improving some with plates borrowed from others, issuing new and\nenlarged editions at the drop of a folio, and discovering the pleasures\nand profits to be derived from making translations\u2014particularly from\nthe French. In the same building occupied by Machen\u2019s employers were\nthe offices of Vizatelly, the publisher who was even then bringing\nout translations of Zola\u2019s works. At about the same time Machen was\nworking there, Havelock Ellis was editing the Mermaid Tavern Series of\nElizabethan Dramatists for Vizatelly. Ellis notes in his _Autobiography_\nthat he was paid the sum of three guineas per volume\u2014an amount he\nconsidered rather small. This may indeed have been a small amount\u2014but he\nhad a better deal of it than Machen who was asked, at about this time, to\ndo a translation of the memoirs of Casanova.\n\nThe manner in which this undertaking came about was rather curious and\nvery casual. One of the Brothers for whom he worked, and whom he does not\notherwise identify in _Things Near and Far_, came to him one day with\nan old volume and asked Machen to translate from the place marked with\na slip of paper. Machen set to work and about a year later he completed\nhis translation of the twelve volumes of _Casanova\u2019s Memoirs_. The place\nmarked fell in about the fifth volume, and Machen simply translated\nthrough to the twelfth, began again at the first and worked through to\nthe place in the fifth volume\u2014which was \u201cwhere he came in\u201d as one says at\nthe movies.\n\nThis monumental work, and the best translation to date of the _Memoirs_,\nwas thrown in, as it were, with the cataloguing at thirty shillings a\nweek. Machen simply remarks that he believes the cost to the firm to\nhave been \u201cstrictly moderate.\u201d Much more moderate than the three guineas\nper volume paid to Ellis for his editing. However, Machen was eventually\noffered an opportunity of profiting from his work. A few years later\nwhen the translation was about to be published, Machen was granted the\nprivilege of investing a thousand pounds in the venture. One of the\nBrothers suggested that, as he was now an _interested_ party, he might\nwish to revise the manuscript.\n\nOf course publishing was not quite the same game it is today ... there\nwere publishers then who were, if not actually unscrupulous, a trifle\ncareless in their accounting and possibly slightly unethical. Vizatelly\nwas prosecuted and jailed as a result of his translations of Zola. Machen\nhas remarked upon the irony of the situation\u2014for even while Vizatelly\nwas in jail, charged with circulating obscene literature, Zola was\nbeing well received on his trip through England. When Vizatelly died\nshortly thereafter the Mermaid Tavern series was taken over by another\npublisher without so much as a by-your-leave. Ellis\u2019 name was removed\nfrom the volumes, and that, apparently, settled that. Ellis treated the\naffair with a silence he knew would not be taken as a sign of contempt.\nOne gathers that publishers in those days were not very thin-skinned.\nHowever, in his autobiographical sketches describing these events, Machen\noffers not the slightest criticism of the Brothers but he did, shortly\nthereafter, quit the publishing business.\n\n\n2\n\nFor almost a decade Machen had been in London, and for most of that time\nhe had been writing. But he had written rather imitatively; he had, as\nhe says, \u201cbeen wearing costume in literature. The rich, figured English\nof the earlier 17th Century had a peculiar attraction....\u201d Whether\nthis was unnatural affectation or natural affinity, he wrote in this\nfashion\u2014essays, verse, tales, epistols dedicatory. He even kept, for many\nyears, a diary written in this manner. _The Anatomy of Tobacco_ was an\n\u201cexercise in the antique,\u201d the _Chronicle_ tried to be mediaeval, _Le\nMoyen_ was in the ancient mode, the _Heptameron_ a mere finger-exercise\nin the composition of a period piece. At this point Machen decided to\nwrite in the modern manner.\n\nIn 1890 Machen began to make an approach to journalism. His Welsh\nrelations were probably gratified when his pieces and stories began to\nappear in the Globe and the St. James Gazette. He was still a long way\nfrom adopting journalism as a profession or career, but he had decided to\ndo some writing in \u201cthe modern manner\u201d and the papers seemed to offer an\noutlet.\n\nJournalism was then, as it is now, a wonderfully agitated world in which\neditors knew what their readers wanted and were determined to see that\nthey got it\u2014whether they liked it or not. Oddly enough, an editor\u2019s\nstaff never seems to have this happy faculty of knowing what the readers\nwant, but they do know what their editors want\u2014and so everyone is mildly\nunhappy about it excepting the editors\u2014and it is questionable whether an\neditor is ever really happy, or ever deserves to be.\n\nAt any rate Machen wrote, on an average, about as much drivel as the\naverage journalist must, and about as many silly stories as most\njournalists have to. Of course it was not as bad as it might have been,\nor as bad as it became later, for, according to Machen, editors in the\n1890\u2019s presumed a certain standard of education and culture in their\nreaders. This tendency has been overcome, however, and along with certain\nother technical improvements the press as it existed during Machen\u2019s time\nwas much as it is today.\n\nHis success at writing for the Globe and an acceptance by the St. James\nGazette started him on short stories. These appeared mostly in the\nGazette whose rate of payment was commendably higher than the Globe\u2019s.\nThe connection did not last too long for one of the stories created quite\na stir.\n\nReading it now one wonders at that, and when one remembers a few of the\ntales that were to flourish in the decade to follow, Machen\u2019s little\nstory of _The Double Return_ seems harmless enough. The tale is rather\nreminiscent of _The Guardsman_\u2014you will remember the success of the Lunts\nin that play on the stage and on the screen. Machen\u2019s tale lacked the\namorousness or even the intent of _The Guardsman_, it merely told of a\nman returning home after three weeks in the country.\n\n\u201cBack so soon?\u201d asked his wife.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve been in the country for three weeks,\u201d said he, rather put out.\n\n\u201cI know,\u201d she said, \u201cbut you returned last night.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed not, I spent last night at Plymouth on my way back from the\ncountry,\u201d said the husband.\n\nWhereupon his wife accused him of being playful and showed him his\ncigarette case he had left behind him when he left the house this very\nmorning. Well, the husband had lost the cigarette case in the country\nsome days before, and he _had_ spent the night in Plymouth on his way\nback to London, and so he couldn\u2019t have returned on the previous night.\nThere had been a man at his hotel or inn who rather resembled him and so\non. The upshot of it all was that shortly thereafter the husband went to\nAmerica, which seems to have been the thing to do in such cases. A rather\nharmless little story, not even a boudoir scene or a hint of one. But\n_The Double Return_ aroused as much interest in the nineties as the most\ndaring double entendre might today.\n\nOscar Wilde, no amateur at arousing the public, said to Machen, \u201cAre you\nthe author of that story that fluttered the dovecotes? I thought it very\ngood.\u201d Well, flutter the dovecotes it did, and one did not flutter the\ndovecotes with impunity, at least so far as the St. James Gazette was\nconcerned. Machen no longer appeared in its august pages. This may or may\nnot have caused Machen concern. He was also doing stories for some of the\n\u201csociety\u201d papers and wrote in this same year _The Lost Club_, so very\nsimilar to Stevenson\u2019s story of the Suicide Club, _A Wonderful Woman_ and\nothers.\n\nThe year 1890 happens to be a year of some significance generally, for it\nopens the decade of the delicate decadents, sometimes known as the Yellow\nBook Boys.\n\nAmong the many books that have been written about the Eighteen Nineties\nis a small and, on the whole, less pretentious volume than most. This\nis Bernard Muddiman\u2019s _Men of the Nineties_. In it one finds this brief\nmention of Machen: \u201cArthur Machen, in those days, belonged to the short\nstory writers with Hubert Crackanthorpe, who was the great imaginative\nprose writer of the group.\u201d\n\nAlas, poor Hubert! Who knows him today as a great imaginative prose\nwriter? Who, for that matter, knows poor Hubert at all, save for those\nwho may look into the bound volumes of the Yellow Book to be found\noccasionally in the Public Library (under the somewhat bewildering though\naccurate classification of \u201cMagazines\u201d)?\n\nThe 1890\u2019s was perhaps the most widely and well publicized decade in\nhistory, surpassing, in this respect at least, the \u2019Twenties of our own\ncentury. The 1890\u2019s spawned geniuses where the 1920\u2019s only discovered\ngenius. The analogy between these decades can be carried to even greater\nlengths and indeed it will be, in a later chapter, for the \u2019Twenties also\nrediscovered Arthur Machen.\n\nBut for all poor Muddiman\u2019s eulogy of Hubert in his slender volume\neulogizing the men of the Nineties, the late Mr. Crackanthorpe was _not_\nthe great imaginative prose writer of the group. Nor was the prolific\nHenry Harland, whose contributions to the Yellow Book were in the New\nStyle\u2014with French phrases popping up half a dozen to the page and\nFrench women putting in appearance among the good English spinneys, and\nrepresentative members of the New Woman being forthright and outspoken\nfor all their \u201cflutter of curls at the brow\u201d and garden hats and \u201cmerry\npeals of laughter.\u201d Mr. Harland sprinkled his prose with French phrases,\ngiving them a naughty air (just as, in the Twenties, French phrases\nwere used to give novels a sophisticated air) and his heroes were made\n\u201cinteresting\u201d rather than solid or adventurous or empire building. They,\nthe \u201cinteresting\u201d chaps, thought of women as \u201chandsome\u201d or \u201cgood-looking\u201d\nrather than beautiful or lovely. Such words were reserved for inanimate\nthings\u2014things animal, vegetable or mineral, but never the feminine. They\nfurther thought of women in terms of \u201cwhat a _woman_ she is!\u201d Like that,\nwith an air of invincible surprise. No, it was not Hubert, nor yet Henry,\nwho was the great imaginative prose writer of the group\u2014it was Arthur\nMachen. But then Muddiman may have been right after all, for Machen was\nnot truly of the group of writers who practiced the purple phrase, who\nwrote in pastels and who composed pastiches in praise of practically\nnothing.\n\nIt may come as something of a surprise to many admirers of Machen to know\nthat he was a contemporary of the Yellow Book crowd. Perhaps it will\ncome as something of a relief to know that Machen was not a member of\nthe group, despite the fact that his first book of stories appeared in\nthis period, issuing from the Bodley Head with a title page by Beardsley.\nMachen never wrote for the Yellow Book. But for that matter, neither did\nWilde. Still, yellow bookery was rampant at the time and since it is\nsometimes said that a man is the product of his age, it might be well to\nskirt along the well travelled path trod by the delicate decadents, their\ncritics and appraisers and appreciators.\n\nOsburt Burdett, Holbrook Jackson, Richard LeGallienne and other more\ntalented and serious students have gone over the period with admirable\nthoroughness. The magnifying glass has been placed over every one of\nBeardsley\u2019s drawings and even the most moribund of the minor poets has\nbeen the subject of at least one monograph. Still, it will be interesting\nto review briefly what has been said of the men of the Nineties, if only\nbecause it may be applied, with certain changes and reservations, to the\nTwenties and, for that matter, to the period which we are about to enter.\nFor the birth of the Atomic Age, for all its violent and destructive\ndebut, cannot have been more shocking, in some respects, than the impact\nof the coterie of the green carnation upon the Victorianism of the\nNineties.\n\nThe group known as the Yellow Book boys, or the men of the Nineties,\nor the delicate decadents were, as Donald Davidson has remarked,\n\u201ctime-conscious\u201d to an intense degree. They were nearing the end of a\ncentury, just as the men of the Twenties lived through the end of an\nepoch and the men of the Forties enter a new one. There is still, you\nsee, this strange analogy between the \u201cTragic Generation\u201d as the men of\nthe Nineties called themselves, and the \u201cLost Generation\u201d as the men of\nthe Twenties called themselves. Whether or not there will be a continuing\nanalogy between the three decades is an interesting speculation, but\nquite beyond the scope of this study. Or is it?\n\nThe men of the Nineties were time-conscious to an intense degree and\nthey were self-conscious to an even greater degree. Being young men, for\none thing, and acutely aware of the Victorianism of their Victorian age\nfor another, and rather preoccupied with the importance of being earnest\nand alive in the closing years of a century for still another, they were\nrather more self-conscious than most young men.\n\nNow it is an odd thing, when one considers it, that the young and\nself-conscious members of the Anglo-Saxon races, in whatever age,\ndiscover in themselves a remarkable affinity and a positive predilection\nfor the culture and customs of France. This happens time and again, and\nwhenever it does happen it is accompanied by a profound contempt for the\nAnglo-Saxonishness of their Anglo-Saxon contemporaries and compatriots.\nNo doubt there are excellent reasons for this. It is a strange thing, but\nit is by no means unusual, since it has happened with something very much\nlike regularity ever since William the Norman crossed the Channel\u2014and\nperhaps even before that.\n\nThe Saxon nobles who set themselves apart from the peasantry were\nprobably the first to adopt the manners and language of the Norman court.\nAlmost any intrigue current at the time, or for the next few centuries,\nseemed the more likely to succeed if it acquired a dash of the Gallic.\nEven in that most English of all English periods, the age of Elizabeth,\nthe young blades and the intellectuals felt the more dashing and,\npresumably, the more intellectual for a smattering of French oaths and a\nshort time spent in the courts or chateaux of France, or the alleys and\nmarketplaces of Paris.\n\nWell, then, the men of the Nineties acquired their smattering of French\nand their translations of Baudelaire and Verlaine and felt the better for\nthem ... much as our men of the Twenties rode the cattle-boats to the\nLeft Bank and wrote the \u201conly American literature\u201d of their day. Little\nmagazines sprang up in the Nineties, verse grew steadily more _libre_,\nand there was little difference, spiritually at any rate, between the\nBodley Head in 1890 and the Shakespeare Head in 1920 or thereabouts.\nAnother lost, tragic generation of self-conscious Anglo-Saxons had \u201cfound\nthemselves\u201d\u2014and France.\n\n\n3\n\nTo return to the Nineties. There were those, even then, who suspected\nthat something was up in the state of English literature. Grave and\nscholarly men analyzed the state of affairs and speculated on causes\nand results. If the young men were pleased with themselves there were\nothers who were not. There was a certain looseness of thinking and of\nphrasing that was not universally approved. The burden of such critical\nattitudes is a familiar one\u2014it is the one that attends all new movements\nin literature, following change as the night follows the day.\n\nThe first and best expressed of these critical appraisals appeared in,\nof all places, the first volume of the _Yellow Book_ itself. Advocating\n\u201cReticence in Literature,\u201d Arthur Waugh wrote: \u201cDuring the last quarter\nof a century ... the English man of letters has been indulging, with\nan entirely new freedom, his national birthright of outspokenness, and\nduring the last twelve months there have been no uncertain indications\nthat this freedom of speech is degenerating into license which some of us\ncannot but view with regret and apprehension.\u201d A familiar note, an old\nrefrain!\n\n\u201cThe writers and the critics of contemporary literature have, it would\nseem, alike lost their heads; they have gone out into the byways and\nhedges in search of the new thing, and have brought into the study and\nsubjected to the microscope mean objects of the roadside, whose analysis\nmay be of value to science but is absolutely foreign to art.\u201d\n\nMr. Waugh then proceeds to make the point that every great productive\nperiod of literature has been the result of some internal or external\nrevulsion of feeling, some current of ideas. The great periods of\nproductivity had been those when the national mind had been directed to\nsome vast movement of emancipation, the discovery of new countries, the\ndefeat of old enemies, the opening of fresh possibilities. But, Waugh\nremonstrates, the past quarter of a century had been sterile of important\nimprovements, there had been no new territories and no new knowledge.\nBecause of this sterility the minds of writers had been thrown back upon\nthemselves and the most characteristic literature of the day had become\nintrospective.\n\n\u201cFollowing one course,\u201d says Waugh, \u201cit has betaken itself to that\nanalytical fiction which we associate primarily with America; following\nanother course, it has sought for subject matter in the discussing of\npassions and sensations, common, doubtless, to every age of mankind,\ninteresting and necessary, too, in their way, but passions and sensations\nhitherto disassociated with literature.\u201d\n\nIt will be noted that Waugh attributes a certain regrettable trend to\nAmerican sources, but then he later says that the tendency for literary\nfrankness had its origins in Swinburne. Despite the accuracy of many\npoints made by Waugh, it must be noted that the world in 1890 was not\nquite the uneventful place it seemed to him. There had been, it is true,\nno wars of any consequence for a fortnight or two, no Armada threatened,\nno European paranoiac gazed balefully across the Channel and regicide\nwas, for that moment, happily unthought of. Such things were, so long as\nVictoria sat on the throne, unthinkable\u2014especially the latter.\n\nBut Darwin\u2019s _Origin of the Species_ had been written some years\nbefore, and Karl Marx, who also had something of a London adventure,\nhad written a book with the stodgy title _Das Kapital_, and the Webbs\nand the Socialists and the Fabians were quietly preparing their various\nideologies. Things were brewing, even though under the surface, and\nno one paid them much heed, least of all the \u201cirresponsibles\u201d of the\nNineties.\n\nThese things meant little to Waugh, apparently, and seemed of no\nparticular consequence. They seemed of even less consequence to the\ndelicate decadents who were staging a well publicized literary rebellion\nof their own. It is not our intention to go further into the matter nor\nto list the peculiarities of these practitioners of pastel prose, nor to\nrelate the peccadillos of its precocious and precious poets. We content\nourselves with observing that Arthur Machen had little to do with them,\neither as individuals or as a group.\n\n\n4\n\nFrom that day in June 1880 when he first walked in the Strand with his\nfather, Arthur Machen was fascinated by London. He did not always love\nthe city, nor was he ever moved to apostrophise London as young writers\nhave frequently written of Paris. Anyone who reads _Things Near and\nFar_ and _Far Off Things_ will wonder, perhaps, why he returned to the\ncity time and again, and why he spent so much of his life there. One\nis appalled by the dismal history of those years, by the portrayal of\nthe lonely days spent in damp basements and musty garrets pouring over\nold books for the endless catalogues, and by the lonelier nights in\nthat small room in the Clarendon Road. The long walks through obscure\nquarters of London and the endless explorations of the suburbs were\noften the last refuge of desperation and depression. The encounters and\nexperiences with publishers and employers were disillusioning enough, the\nfriendlessness of London was an even greater hardship. You will find all\nof this in these two books of sketches and reminiscences\u2014but they are\nonly incidentally there. For though Machen plainly states his loneliness\nand relates the hardships and disillusionments he endured, he neither\nemphasizes nor dramatizes them, and if this seems to us a sad story it is\nmerely that we are appalled by it, and not because Machen has said, \u201cSee\nhow wretched were my days, how lonely my nights!\u201d\n\nWhy then had Machen come to London, again and again? Why had this shy and\nretiring scribbler left the orchards and fields of Gwent, the pleasant\nrectory in Caerleon, to live in the great stone city on the Thames?\nPerhaps it was because his Welsh blood stirred within him and drove him\nto see the White Tower under which, centuries ago, they had buried the\nhead of Bran, facing to the sea to guard against invasion. Perhaps it\nwas to see the city that had been a city even before the legions came,\nthe city fortified by King Llud, brother to Caesar\u2019s great opponent,\nCassibelaunus, for whom the city was called Caer Llud and later Caer\nLondon and then Londinium and Londres by the foreigners; that king who\nwas buried at the gates still called Ludgate in his honor. Or perhaps\nit was because in London one could walk into a book shop and ask for\nSwinburne\u2019s _Songs Before Sunrise_ as casually as one might walk into the\nHanbury Arms in Caerleon and ask for ale.\n\nFor London was first and always a fascinating city to Machen. It is\napparent in every page of his books. This countryman who could never\nforget his beloved country, delighted in the twistings and turnings of\nthe streets and roads that led through London and eventually emerged from\nstraggling suburbs into open fields. He notes with pleasure the streets\nwhose crossings and corners he knew in the \u2019eighties and \u2019nineties; he\nmisses them when, thirty years later, they have been absorbed by some\ngreat block of buildings. He remembers the facades, if such edifices\ncould be dignified by the term, of the raw, red-brick villas that were\nthen springing up all about London. He remembers the restaurants and even\nthe menus, the taverns and the dwellings in the older sections of London,\nand the queer individuals and even queerer incidents he encountered over\nseveral decades.\n\nLondon was for many years (and perhaps it still is) a city in which\nanything might happen. Strange encounters, mysterious strangers\u2014these\nseemed to abound in the backwaters and byways of London. The city became\nto Machen a sort of Stevensonian Bagdad-on-the-Thames ... and he found in\nits streets and lanes, its Inns and Courts, the materials that went into\n_The Three Impostors_, _The London Adventure_, _A Fragment of Life_ and\nmany another story.\n\nThis was true of Machen, and it was true of other writers in that\ndecade. Despite the great calm postulated by Waugh, and in spite of the\ntremendous vacuum in which Waugh and other eminent Victorians fondly\nbelieved England and the world existed, there were great things stirring\n... and the stirring was mostly centered about London. Being neither\npamphleteers nor journalists, the writers of that day did not boil and\nbubble nor forecast trouble as they might today. To be sure, there was\nconsiderable pother about the New Woman, and the New This and That. But\nfor the most part they did not try to portray their times. The poets were\nquite unaware of the peasants and \u201cbourgeoise\u201d was merely an epithet to\nbe tossed at an unsympathetic critic on one of the more conservative\njournals. Time-conscious they most certainly were, but they aimed only\nslightly this side eternity. The delicate decadents, the most prolific\nand the best publicized group of that time, scarcely bothered to mention\nthe undercurrents, but their very activity, their prodigious outpourings,\nwere one of the manifestations of the stirrings beneath the surface. Then\ntoo, there was but one Shaw for every score of sonnetteers, one Wells for\nevery dozen dilettante novelists, one Machen for every daring dramatist\nof the moment.\n\nThe beginnings of social-conscience and the vanguard of scientific\nthought were there, obscured for the moment by the lurid vapors given off\nby the writers of the purple phrase. There was, in short, a renascence of\nwonder, not another revival of mediaevalism or of neo-Gothicism, but of\nthe wonder of things that existed behind the veil and seethed beneath the\nsurface.\n\nThis was reflected as much by the lack of reticence in literature as\nin the development of new kinds of fiction ... fiction looking to new\nhorizons. Shaw had already begun to puncture the balloons of Victorian\ncomplacency, Wells was writing of things that might come, things beyond\nour time and beyond our world. Machen began to postulate the existence\nof things behind the veil of common appearances. If Wells looked\nforward, Machen looked backward. He created a past as strange and as\nfearful as the future on some Wellsian planet. He was interested in the\nstrange sciences of yesterday as Wells was in the sciences of tomorrow.\nMachen had read the treatises on alchemy, occult sciences, hypnotism,\nspiritualism\u2014and in all of these he found a grain of truth. Alchemy,\nespecially, interested him. The search for the basic power of the\nuniverse, the power and the ability to transform metals ... he could not\ndismiss completely the possibility. Machen was no scientist but he had,\nlike Wells, a vast respect for the potentialities of science, and a keen\ninstinct regarding probabilities. These men, at least, were not bringing\nin \u201cthe mean objects of the roadside\u201d and subjecting them to the cold\nstare of the microscope.\n\nCertainly we cannot afford to overlook the development of the detective\nstory by Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes was presented not as a member\nof the existing force of law and order but as a radical departure from\nit. Holmes substituted cerebration for mere procedure. There was then, in\nLondon in the nineties, a small band of adventurers ... men who ventured\nto hold new beliefs, who sought for adventure in social as well as\nscientific fields, who looked forward (or backward) for strange worlds\nto visit. Note how they title their tales\u2014each chapter, each episode is\ncaptioned in the Stevensonian manner as \u201cThe Adventure of the Speckled\nBand\u201d or \u201cThe Novel of the Black Seal.\u201d They searched farther afield than\nParis for their magic\u2014to the South Seas, to India, to the very Poles\nthemselves\u2014even to America.\n\nWhatever was new and strange was usable. About this time London began to\nhear tales of the Mormons, and of the band called the Destroying Angels.\nStevenson had them in mind when he wrote _The Dynamiters_, Doyle used\nthem for his _Study in Scarlet_, and Machen used them as the genesis of\nan episode of _The Three Impostors_.\n\nWonder was in the air\u2014whether it was expressed by a minor poet in terms\nof languishing eroticism or by Sherlock Holmes in the cataloguing of\nendless varieties of cigar ash. Something was stirring and it stirred\nmost vigorously in London. Behind the facade of London lurked who knew\nwhat marvels or horrors. Behind the faces of Londoners lurked who knew\nwhat good or evil? London was filled with groups and clubs in search\nof the unusual. There were suicide clubs, freak clubs, cults of the\nhorrible, Hellfire clubs and many others. Man, wondering about his future\nand his world, wonders also about himself. The word psychology was used\nhardly at all, but men were becoming aware of their minds and its quirks.\nWho was there among a group, a club, who might not have been another\nJekyll?\n\nThis, then, was London in the 90\u2019s ... a city on the threshold of still\nanother century. Machen could not have forgotten that it had been Caer\nLlud, that the Romans had been there, and before them the Cymry. The very\nstones might burst into bloom, the pavements might ripple and surge and\nbecome as soft under foot as turf, the fogs and vapors of its chimney\npots might become clouds of fragrance as in an orchard, or of incense as\nin a great cathedral.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Three_\n\nTHE WEAVER OF FANTASY\n\n\n1\n\nIn 1890, although he had begun to write in the modern manner and had\neven \u201cfluttered the dovecotes\u201d and startled the readers of the _St.\nJames Gazette_ with his stories, the Rabelaisian enthusiasm was still\nupon Machen. It had, it is true, abated somewhat of late, but when his\ntranslation of _Le Moyen de Parvenir_ came from the bindery, all brave in\nblue and cream and gilt lettering, Machen still felt the spell strongly\nenough to set out, finally, for Touraine.\n\nActually, he had already determined to leave London before _Fantastic\nTales_ came out. He had been living in Soho Street in two rooms where\ntook place the grim battle of the fleas. London seemed to pall and to\npale after that and he arranged to take a cottage in the Chiltern Hills.\nHe had already written some of the tales in his most famous manner; _The\nShining Pyramid_, _The Iron Maid_ among them; the idea of _The Great\nGod Pan_ had been born and the country seemed the place to allow it to\nmature. There were certain alterations and repairs to be made on the\ncottage and he decided to go to France in the interim. It seemed, one\nmust suppose, the thing to do\u2014when one has a handsome set of new volumes\none has translated from the French.\n\nMuch has been said herein, and sometimes somewhat slightingly, of the\namazing effect of La Belle France upon the literate Anglo-Saxon. It has\nbeen intimated that Paris has always been something of an occupational\ndisease among writers and minor poets. And here is Machen, off to France,\nlike any puerile poetaster upon the publication of his first \u201cslender\nvolume.\u201d To those who feel some word of explanation is due, some apology\nfor an opinion seemingly shattered, it will be noted that Machen went to\nthe South of France, to the countryside\u2014and not to the northern cities\nand carefully manicured meadows and pompadoured pleasure-grounds of the\nBois.\n\nMoreover, and this is important, Machen went to a land that never was.\nFor when he arrived at last in the land of Rabelais, of Beroalde, of\nBalzac\u2014he was greatly disappointed. \u201cThe fact was,\u201d he says, \u201cthat I\nhad taken for granted Dore\u2019s wonderful illustrations.\u201d He had supposed\nthat the enchanted heights, the profound and somber valleys, the airy\nabysses of these amazing plates had reprinted, as faithfully at least as\na Chamber of Commerce brochure, the veritable scenery of Touraine.\n\nThe actuality was, alas! pitifully inadequate. Nevertheless Machen did\nwhat all sensible tourists do when the lands of enchantment fail to\nlive up to the four-color posters\u2014he visited the local taverns. This\nhas always seemed to offer consolation and compensation in such cases.\nAt any rate, the \u201cFaisan d\u2019Or\u201d and \u201cLe Caveau de Rabelais\u201d provided\nnoteworthy compensation for Dore. It took Machen a few days to get over\nhis disappointment\u2014but it was not too long before he could sit at his\nlittle table in the courtyard at the Faisan and say to himself, \u201cThis\nnight I have had as much good red wine as ever I could drink.\u201d And this\nwas one of the great moments of his visit to Touraine. It encouraged him,\nmoreover, and despite his disappointment over Dore, to return to Touraine\nevery summer for the next ten years or so.\n\nThe landscape of Touraine and the vintages of the Vouvray pleased Machen,\nas Paris pleased the poetasters and absinthe appealed (in theory at\nleast) to the young men who burned with a \u201chard gem-like flame\u201d and who\nwore their passions and their shoes to tatters in their feverish quest\nfor _la vie_. He discovered that there are, here and there, gardens that\naddress the heart and spirit and not the florist\u2014as Poe well knew.\n\nIn the autumn of 1890 Machen returned to London and, the cottage in the\nChilterns still lacking thatch or drains or some other matters, he took\nrooms in Guilford Street. Now it was in Guilford Street, by one account,\nthat he was struck by the idea for _The Great God Pan_. It was, he says,\non a dark and foggy afternoon, and with no delay he proceeded to lay\nout the story. In another place, however, he relates that it was in the\nsummer of 1890 that he wrote the first chapter of _The Great God Pan_.\nWhichever it was, the tale was completed before he went to his cottage\nin the country. It appeared in _The Whirlwind, Vol. ii_ for 1890, which\nalso carried _A Wonderful Woman_, _The Lost Club_ and an almost entirely\nunknown item\u2014_An Underground Adventure_. Another story, _The Red Hand_,\nis of this period for it appeared in the Christmas number of _Chapman\u2019s\nMagazine_ under the title, _The Telling of a Mystery_. These matters\nattended to, Machen retired to the Chilterns early in 1891.\n\nOf his stay in the country we know remarkably little. He spent two years\nthere and, when he returned to London in 1893, he reported that he had\n\u201cfound it nothing.\u201d However that may be, he did accomplish a certain\namount of work. He wrote a number of his best stories there and completed\ntwo books which he promptly destroyed. The contents of these books have\nnot been entirely lost however, for much of what was in them came to\nlight another day. At any rate, it was in the Chilterns that he wrote\n_The Inmost Light_.\n\nThis famous story was written to a special commission, one of the few\nhe received in his life. His stories for the _Globe_ and _St. James\nGazette_ had attracted, as has been noted, considerable attention, and a\nMiss Bradden wrote Machen, asking him to contribute a tale to an annual\nshe was getting out. _The Inmost Light_ was written for Miss Bradden and\npacked off to her from the cottage in the hills. The affrighted lady\nreturned it after what must have been one of the most rapid readings on\nrecord.\n\nAt any rate, in 1894, when \u201cyellow bookery was at its yellowest,\u201d John\nLane of the Bodley Head published these two tales under the title _The\nGreat God Pan_ as Volume V of the Keynote Series. There was a title\npage decoration by Aubrey Beardsley\u2014this, and the imprint of the Bodley\nHead, indicated that the book was, as one might say today, \u201caimed at a\nparticular market.\u201d Presumably it hit the mark, for the tale achieved a\nfame that has lasted to this day. For this is the best known of Machen\u2019s\nstories and\u2014even though Machen deprecatingly remarks that the book had\n\u201cmade a storm in a tiny tot\u2019s tea cup\u201d\u2014there was a considerable tempest\naroused. _The Manchester Guardian_ went on record as feeling that Machen\nhad \u201csucceeded only in being ridiculous.\u201d _The Lady\u2019s Pictorial_ found\nit \u201cgruesome, ghastly and dull.\u201d The _Westminster Gazette_ decided that\nit was \u201can incoherent nightmare of sex.\u201d Nevertheless, the book was well\nreceived and gained considerably more of a readership for Machen than\nhad his previously published exercises in the antique. One wonders what\nthe Boston reviewers thought of it\u2014for the book was published by Roberts\nBrothers of Boston in the same year.\n\nThe _Manchester Guardian\u2019s_ reviewer, a staunch fellow with advanced\nideas, had refrained from saying more about _The Great God Pan_ \u201cfor\nfear of giving such a work advertisement.\u201d This did not prove to be\nparticularly effective for the Bodley Head was compelled to bring out\na second edition in 1895. There were other editions: Grant Richards\nincluded the tale in _The House of Souls_ in 1906, and again in 1913. It\nwas translated into the French in 1901, and reissued again by Simpkins,\nMarshall in 1916. Knopf brought it out in 1924, and the story has been\nincluded in numerous anthologies.\n\nThe story of _The Great God Pan_ is simple enough\u2014but it has the touch\nof magic. There is a doctor with strange theories and strange knowledge.\nHe performs an operation on the brain of a simple country girl\u2014an\noperation which permits her to see, for a moment, the great god Pan, with\nresults that were in accordance with the ancient and traditional legends\nconcerning what might follow such a vision.\n\nOf course we are all prone, today, to interpret literature according to\nour own lights, and we employ, with facility if not always felicity\u2014the\ngreat gift of hind-sight. We may, in 1948, judge the tale neither\nas startling nor as horrifying as any one of a score or more pulp\nmasterpieces. We may find Machen\u2019s doctor not too much unlike Stevenson\u2019s\nDr. Jekyll or Wells\u2019s Dr. Moreau.\n\nIt may even be that _The Great God Pan_ doesn\u2019t stir us a bit\u2014although\nthat cannot be credited. But in 1894 the story was an amazing one\u2014and\neven the comfortably righteous reviewer on the _Manchester Guardian_\nmight have pondered, in the depths of the night, this passage: \u201cSuppose\nthat an electrician of today were suddenly to perceive that he and his\nfriends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking them for the\nfoundations of the world; suppose that such a man saw uppermost space\nlie open before the current, and words of man flash forth to the sun\nand beyond the sun into the system beyond, and the voices of articulate\nspeaking men echo in the waste void that bounds our thought.\u201d\n\nWell, our young Manchester guardian of the public welfare very probably\ncried, \u201cBosh!\u201d\u2014and went resolutely back to sleep.\n\nMachen, having written it, couldn\u2019t sleep on it. In 1924, in a book\ncalled _The London Adventure_, Machen quotes the above passage and says,\n\u201cIt seems to me that the passage from _The Great God Pan_ is a distinct\nprophecy of \u2018wireless\u2019; and what would logic have said to it, in 1890,\nwhen that chapter was written?\u201d\n\nAnd what, for that matter, says logic in 1948\u2014for we have perceived\nagain, in another way, that we have been playing with pebbles and\nmistaking them for the foundations of the world. For now we think not\nonly of sending sound to the outermost reaches of space\u2014but man himself,\nand at speeds greater than the speed of sound.\n\nThere is another thought that might have bothered the young man of\nManchester. A character in the story has quoted Oswaldus Crollius, \u201cIn\nevery grain of wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star.\u201d Now in 1894\nthe reviewer, any reviewer, even the Bostonian, would have muttered\nsomething about \u201cmuddled mysticism\u201d and skipped over the sage utterance\nof Oswaldus to get along into the \u201cincoherent nightmare of sex.\u201d What\nMachen thought of this in \u201994 we do not know\u2014but in 1923 or thereabouts\nhe wrote that he thought this a wonderful saying; \u201ca declaration, I\nsuppose that all nature is one, manifested under many forms; and so far\nas I can gather, modern science is rapidly coming around to the view\nof this obscure speculator of the XVII century; and, in fact, to the\ndoctrine of the Alchemists.\u201d\n\nNow this was a brave thing to say\u2014even in 1923. The muddled mysticisms\nof the \u201990\u2019s is today\u2019s theorum\u2014as has been amply demonstrated. The most\nfantastic fable or the most ingenious fiction of one decade may become\nthe newest discovery in the laboratory of today.\n\n\n2\n\nThe sojourn in the Chilterns was not as unproductive as Machen has\nimplied. He had written perhaps more than we shall ever know\u2014most of his\nstories lived with him for years before they were written, and a book or\ntwo destroyed did not cease to exist. Many of his best tales were born\nand others matured in the Chiltern cottage. Still, two years in the\ncountry seemed quite enough.\n\nWhen Machen returned to London in 1893 he was a man of property or, if\nnot property in the Galsworthian sense, of substance in his own. For the\nvarious legacies from deceased Scottish relations that might have meant\nso much a few years earlier, had been coming through and accumulating,\nand there were now between three and four thousand pounds in the bank.\nThe days of Clarendon Road, of green tea and stale bread and tobacco,\nwere over and there were rooms in Great Russel Street and later in Gray\u2019s\nInn. There was Benedictine in the buffet and a growing circle of friends\nand companions.\n\nThe possession of several thousand pounds presented problems\u2014at least\nthe semi-important one of how to invest it. After looking about for\na \u201cgood thing,\u201d in a characteristically casual way, Machen thought\nof the Brothers\u2014that courteous pair under whose benevolent auspices\nhe had translated Casanova in a basement. They had, as Machen knew,\na proposition now and then, and he thought perhaps they might have\nsuggestions. They had, as it happened, an excellent one. The _Memoirs\nof Casanova_, which he had translated some years before, was about to\nbe published. A thousand pounds invested in the project might be a good\nthing indeed. Machen had at least that much confidence in the Brothers,\nor in his own work\u2014at any rate, he invested. It was then that one of the\nBrothers, the more benevolent of the two no doubt, suggested that he\nmight, since he was now financially interested, wish to polish up here\nand there.\n\nMachen was content, however, to limit his contribution to the\ntranslation and the thousand pounds, and let him polish who so desired.\n\nThe monumental memoirs came out in 1894. Machen\u2019s translation was the\nfirst in the English language and, I believe, the only complete one to\nthis day. So it is likely to remain until some unsuspecting scholar may\nonce more be imposed upon, or some highly solvent professor or richly\nsubsidized fellow undertakes the task.\n\n\n3\n\nMrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny to her friends and Scheherezade to\nher husband, shared or perhaps inspired her husband\u2019s view of London as\na fabulous Bagdad of the West, a city of encounters in which all things\nwere probable\u2014even such things as might rival the tales of the Arabian\nNights Entertainment.\n\nStevenson, that prince of story tellers, who knew as well as any man\nhow to invent marvelous tales and to tell them in a marvelous manner,\noccupied himself and Fanny during an illness by creating _The Dynamiter_.\nThe book was published in 1885 and came to Machen\u2019s attention at some\ntime before or during his retreat to the Chilterns.\n\nMachen had been under the Stevensonian influence for some years. In 1890\nhe published a story, _The Lost Club_, which exhibits marked family\nresemblance to one of the early adventures in the _New Arabian Nights_.\nAt any rate the _Three Impostors_, Machen\u2019s next book, is derived from\nStevenson\u2019s _Dynamiter_, and was written somewhere in this period when\n_The Great God Pan_ was creating a stir. The manuscript was sent, late in\nthe winter of 1894, to Heinemann who expressed interest, enthusiasm, and\nthen, unaccountably, regrets. The reader in the publisher\u2019s office had\nbeen wonderfully encouraging and gloriously flattering. It was better,\nsaid Heinemann excitedly, than Stevenson\u2019s best. Even a man as modest\nas Machen marveled at his artistry\u2014and marveled still more when, early\nin 1895, the House of Heinemann returned his manuscript with the usual\nregrets and the usual phrase about being unable to use the enclosed\nmanuscript.\n\nAnd so, later that year, _The Three Impostors_ was issued by John Lane,\nonce again in the Keynote Series and once again with the title page\ndecoration by Beardsley. It failed, Machen says, to set Fleet Street\nafire\u2014but it is, of course, one of his best stories.\n\nOnce again, as with so many of Machen\u2019s stories, there were those who\nwrote to inquire whether there was not some foundation of fact, some\nbasis of truth upon which the tale had been built. So willing are men to\nsuspend their disbelief! People were forever asking him if his stories\nwere not based upon some legend current in his part of the country and,\nof course, there were those who were willing to relate incidents and\noccurrences which closely paralleled the fantastic fictions of Machen\u2019s\ninventions.\n\n_The Three Impostors_ combined a number of popular elements. There\nwas, first of all, a portrait of America, or the American West, as\nrugged and rough and uncouth as any Briton could desire. It rivaled\nand even surpassed, in some respects, Stevenson\u2019s Western episode in\n_The Dynamiter_. The Stevenson story had also served as a model for the\nMormon episode in Conan Doyle\u2019s _A Study in Scarlet_. The resemblances\nhere are even more marked than in Machen\u2019s tale. As a matter of fact,\nChristopher Morley has suggested (in the Saturday Review late in 1947)\nthat Doyle found the Mormon episode in his occiput following a reading\nof _The Dynamiter_ on a rainy evening in 1885. However this may be, _The\nThree Impostors_ is a remarkable and absorbing story, even if it did not\ndo as well as _The Great God Pan_\u2014but it has done remarkably well in the\nfifty-odd years since it was written.\n\nBack in 1923 Knopf published _The Three Impostors_ in the famous\nyellow binding, and again in 1930 in a Borzoi Pocket Edition. In his\nintroduction to the latter book Machen wrote:\n\n\u201cIn the course of a quarter of a century, I have received a good many\nletters of serious enquiry about _The Three Impostors_. My correspondents\nask me in various terms and turns of phrase whether there is any\nfoundation for the strange circumstances and tales narrated in the\nbook.... I began to get them pretty soon after _The Three Impostors_\nwas published in 1895. Then, on the whole, I was rather displeased\nthan pleased at the question.... I was strongly inclined to resent the\nimplication that I had embroidered rather than invented.\u201d\n\nMachen pointed out that the events described in his book not only did not\nhappen, but could not have happened. That, at least, was his attitude\njust after he had written the book. In later years he changed his mind,\nfor in the Nineteen-twenties he wrote, \u201cI have had experiences which\ndebar me from returning the absolute negative of earlier years....\nThese experiences of mine were trifling enough, but they suggest the\npossibility of far greater things and far more extraordinary things for\nthose with the necessary qualifications.... I am inclined to urge that\nthe things which I have known may suggest the probable existence of a\nworld very far and remote from the world of common experience.\n\n\u201cIt may turn out after all that the weavers of fantasy are the veritable\nrealists.\u201d\n\n\n4\n\nJust why _The Three Impostors_, certainly not the most sensational story\npublished in that sensational year, should have inspired such widespread\nbelief, or at least so much willing suspension of disbelief, is not too\ndifficult to understand. The story concerns itself largely with matters\nhaving to do with superstitions and, even if the superstitions involved\nwere not familiar ones, they had something of the common quality of all\nsuperstitions based on folk-lore.\n\nThe story is told through a series of episodes, in the manner made\npopular by Stevenson and Doyle. Certain episodes are represented as being\ntaken from the journals of some of the characters concerned; others\nare set forth in lengthy interviews with still other interested (and\ninteresting) characters. The story is not overburdened with machinery and\ntechnical tricks, it manages to hang together without evident strain.\n\nSome of the episodes could stand by themselves as tales in the Gothic\ngenre\u2014indeed, some of them have so appeared in anthologies and\ncollections. It is in the telling of these tales that Machen\u2019s skill as\na story teller becomes evident. There is no one manner, but several, and\neach is peculiarly Machen\u2019s own\u2014with clever overtones and undertones of\nparody and satire. The satire, be it noted, is directed always at the\nmanner and never the matter of the tale.\n\nAs for the subject matter, _The Three Impostors_ concerns the Little\nPeople and strange powers that have persisted until this very day and\nother speculations. If we accept, as did William Gregg, F.R.S., who\nfigures in one of the stories, the theory that much of the folk-lore of\nthe world is but exaggeration of things that really happened, we are well\non our way to accepting _The Three Impostors_ as wholeheartedly as did\nthe people who wrote Machen such curious letters back in 1895. Such is\nMachen\u2019s magic, moreover, that we are easily persuaded into accepting\nalmost anything.\n\n_The Three Impostors_ also introduces one of the most engaging figures\nin English literature. Mr. Dyson is not as well known, perhaps, as Henry\nRyecroft or Stephen Daedalus or Charteris, but he has, it may be, as fine\na future as they.\n\nMr. Dyson (if he had a first name, I cannot recall ever having read\nit) is a \u201cman of letters\u201d who, in pursuit of his quiet profession (the\nchase of the phrase, he called it) does a great deal of wandering about\nodd quarters of London. He stumbles into and out of the most amazing\nadventures, none of which appreciably affect his composure and seldom\nindeed is he startled out of his pompous pedantry.\n\nDyson\u2019s companion in adventure and the recipient of his pronouncements\nis a Mr. Charles Phillips. Phillips is somewhat younger than Dyson, but\nthey shared a certain gravity of character and pomposity of manner that\nmade them mutually acceptable. They met frequently in each other\u2019s rooms\nor in the tobacco shop in Queen Street where \u201ctheir talk robbed the\ntobacconist\u2019s profit of half its charm.\u201d Dyson exalted the claims of pure\nimagination, while Phillips insisted that all literature ought to have a\nscientific basis.\n\nThis precious pair, who shared silence as amiably as they conversed,\nwander sedately enough through the astonishing episodes involving the\nYoung Man With Spectacles, Miss Lally, the sinister Mr. Davis and others.\nThey are encountered in several other tales of this period. Dyson is\nactually an old acquaintance. He first made his bow, and a very courtly\ngesture it was, in _The Red Hand_ or _The Shining Pyramid_, whichever\ntale, in truth, came first; but it is in _The Three Impostors_ that we\nreally came to know him. We shall meet again.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Four_\n\nA NOBLE PROFESSION\n\n    \u201c_I reflected, then, on my want of prospects, and I determined\n    to embark in literature._\u201d\n\n    \u201c_Really, that was strange. You seem in pretty comfortable\n    circumstances, though._\u201d\n\n    \u201c_Though! what a satire upon a noble profession!_\u201d\n\n\n1\n\nThis bit of dialogue takes place in one of those chance encounters with\nwhich several of Machen\u2019s tales begins. It might well have ensued between\nMachen and some compatriot of far-off Gwent as they met in a London\nstreet early in that daringly decadent decade.\n\nFor Machen, having served an apprenticeship in grangerizing and\ncataloguing, having composed calendars and made translations \u201con the\nhouse\u201d and having written a story that fluttered the dovecotes and\npublished a book that stirred up a tempest in a tiny tot\u2019s teacup, was\ndefinitely a literary man\u2014or at least he pursued the practice of letters.\nHe had cause, in later years, to give the choice more serious thought\nthan he had in the 90\u2019s. He had cause to reflect upon it, but never did\nhe regret the choice\u2014if choice it was. For if ever a man\u2019s destiny lay in\nthe art and the practice of letters, that man was Machen. And of course\nhe knew this\u2014he knew it in the lonely room in Clarendon Road and in the\ndownstairs parlor at Llanddewi. And he knew it years later when, in\ncomputing his earnings for twenty-odd years labor, he found the sum to be\nnot in excess of \u00a3635. And of course he knew it even when he wondered, as\nhe some times did, if he had failed in his art.\n\nMachen had in him, besides the seeds of his destiny, more than a bit\nof that delightful fellow Dyson whom he created somewhat to his own\nimage and likeness. Dyson, you will recall, was \u201ca man of letters, and\nan unhappy instance of talents misapplied. With gifts that might have\nplaced him in the flower of his youth among the most favored of Bentley\u2019s\nfavorite novelists, he had chosen to be perverse; he was, it is true,\nfamiliar with scholastic logic but he knew nothing of the logic of life\nand he flattered himself with the title of artist, when he was in fact\nbut an idle and curious spectator of other men\u2019s endeavors. Amongst many\ndelusions, he cherished one most fondly, that he was a strenuous worker,\nand it was with a gesture of supreme weariness that he would enter his\nfavorite resort, a small tobacco shop in Great Queen Street, and proclaim\nto anyone who cared to listen that he had seen the rising and setting of\ntwo successive suns.\u201d\n\nBut this isn\u2019t Machen! Of course it isn\u2019t! Nor am I suggesting that Dyson\nis a portrait of the artist as a young man. But if you will recall for\na moment Machen\u2019s obvious fondness for his creature, Dyson, his almost\npaternal acceptance of Dyson\u2019s pomposities and his benevolent air in\nsetting down Dyson\u2019s latest preposterous formula, you will realize, I\nthink, that Machen was the model, and that he rather relished poking a\nbit of fun at himself, his younger self at any rate.\n\nWell then, early in the 90\u2019s Machen had his trip abroad and his cottage\nin the country and his gradually accumulated legacies. And now he was, at\nlast, about to have his rooms in Grays Inn and his summers in the south\nof France. He was indeed a man of letters!\n\n\n2\n\n_The Three Impostors_, even though it failed to set Fleet Street afire,\ndid add to Machen\u2019s stature. It gave him something of a reputation\nin certain quarters which, if not exactly fashionable at the moment,\nwere not on the side of the Philistines. The failure, if it was one,\nof _The Three Impostors_ Machen attributes to a contemporary crisis in\nliterary circles. \u201cThere were,\u201d he says mildly, \u201cscandals in \u201995\u2014which\nhad made people impatient with reading matter that was not obviously and\nobtrusively \u2018healthy.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe several tales or episodes that make up _The Three Impostors_, while\nthey may be neither obviously \u201chealthy\u201d nor obtrusively \u201chealthy,\u201d\nwere much less unwholesome than most of the literature that was then\ncirculating in London. Based for the most part on early Celtic folk-lore\nand legends of the Welsh border, they developed the theme of primitive\nraces, of \u201clittle people\u201d who have, in some out of the way places,\nmanaged to survive to the present day.\n\nThe nature of the tales does indeed tend toward the horrific and even\nthe \u201cunhealthy,\u201d but the manner of their telling and the presence of the\nalmost \u201cdeadpan\u201d Dyson in most of these episodes results in a rather\ncurious blend of pedantry and unpleasantness. Moreover, so faithfully did\nMachen follow a Stevensonian pattern that even the Marquis of Queensbury,\nhad he not been otherwise occupied at the moment, could have taken no\noffense. It would seem, then, that it was this almost sedate treatment\nthat failed to set the bookstalls ablaze. A less restrained publisher\nthan John Lane would have had Beardsley do the illustrations for the\nbook\u2014with quite predictable results. There are those, Grant Richards and\nGeorge Bernard Shaw among them, who suggest that Lane was rather afraid\nof Beardsley\u2014and not without reason. For Beardsley was an unpredictable\nand vindictive chap. He was once criticized for having drawn a Pierrot\nfor a cover design of the \u201cSavoy\u201d\u2014it was not the sort of thing, he was\ntold, that would appeal to the British public.\n\nA sketch of John Bull was substituted, accepted and sent out to\nsubscribers. It was then discovered that Beardsley had taken his revenge\nby subtly indicating that John Bull was in a condition in which no Briton\nwould willingly appear in public. For such sophomoric shenanigans Lane\nhad given Beardsley the sack. There was never any question of Beardsley\nillustrating _The Three Impostors_, nor could there be any question of\nthe result. Nevertheless _The Three Impostors_ rates perhaps third among\nMachen\u2019s works, and has been frequently reprinted.\n\nThe story did cause publishers, from time to time, to ask Machen if he\nhad something else in \u201cthe manner of _The Three Impostors_.\u201d This was not\nas flattering to the author\u2019s vanity as might seem. Having gone through\nthe tale once Machen had no wish to \u201cre-cook the cabbage which was\nalready boiled to death.\u201d Nevertheless, one doesn\u2019t speak thus bluntly\nto publishers\u2014even when they solicitously seek manuscripts. There was\nanother and, on the whole, very attractive proposition. Two gentlemen,\nobviously with an eye for such things, proposed a new weekly paper for\nwhich, they further proposed, Mr. Machen and a Mr. Wells should do a\nseries of stories\u2014and in their familiar manner, of course. Thus Mr.\nMachen was to do a series of horror stories in the manner of _The Three\nImpostors_ and Mr. Wells was to do stories in the manner of _The Time\nMachine_.\n\n_The Time Machine_ had appeared about the same time as _The Great God\nPan_. While Machen\u2019s story was stirring up its teacup tempest, a young\ngentleman named H. G. Wells had made a very real, and a most deserved\nsensation with a book called _The Time Machine_. Mr. Wells had written\nhis story at a time when he was living from hand to mouth as a journalist\nat lodgings in Kent. And so the new paper, to be called the _Unicorn_,\nwas to feature the works of these two young men who had recently created\nsomething new and exciting and not, as was too often the case in those\ndays, unfit for general circulation.\n\nMachen admitted that he was cheered and elated at the prospect ... until\nhe began to re-cook the cabbage. Possibly Mr. Wells felt the same way,\nfor the _Unicorn_ ceased to exist before a single one of Machen\u2019s tales\n(he wrote four of them) appeared in it, while Mr. Wells contributed but\none story, called _The Cone_.\n\nMachen realized that the Stevensonian had been done to a turn\u2014and so\nhe had done with it\u2014there would now be something new. He had already\nwritten _The Shining Pyramid_ for _The Unknown World_, edited by his\nfriend A. E. Waite, and one or two other tales\u2014but now, once again\u2014and\nthis time there was no doubt about it\u2014_The Great Romance_.\n\nOnce again there was the question\u2014what was it to be about? Machen labored\nmightily over the beginnings of this new book. He sat at his Japanese\nbureau in his rooms at Grays Inn, he roamed the deserted streets and\nsquares of Bloomsbury and pondered at great length the problem\u2014what would\nit be like?\n\nI suppose Dyson would have sympathized deeply with these soul searchings\nand solitary soliloquies\u2014for Dyson, too, had often wondered what his\nbooks would be like, and Dyson had _his_ Japanese bureau. At any rate,\nand before too long, Machen had the idea. His book would be \u201ca Robinson\nCrusoe of the mind\u201d ... and for such a book, Machen had traveled well.\n\n\n3\n\nMachen had at last decided, and for the second time in his life, to write\nthe Great Romance. The first time it had turned out to be _The Chronicle\nof Clemendy_, that light-hearted collection of tales having nothing\nwhatever to do with the Great Romance he had decided to write, and having\nnothing in it of the loneliness of his life in London. This time it\nbecame _The Hill of Dreams_, and one knows in reading it that this also\nis not the Great Romance: for Machen could not have decided to write _The\nHill of Dreams_ any more than he could have decided to write a \u201cRobinson\nCrusoe\u201d of the soul\u2014even though he tells us that this is precisely what\nhe had decided to do. It is perhaps a coincidence, and a very fortunate\none, that the book did turn out to be just that.\n\nMachen was, as we have seen, a very careful man with his models. He could\nwrite in the manner of Thomas Browne, or Robert Herrick, or William\nMorris, or Robert Stevenson, and very carefully did he cultivate their\nmanner. When he had perfected the manner, and made use of it, the design\nwas there but the substance had altered. However meticulously he might\nlabor perfecting the model, making no conscious effort to improve upon\nit, he could not prevent a transmutation from taking place. This is\napparent even in _The Three Impostors_ for, even though the pattern is\nrecognizable, and even though it is studied and carefully contrived,\nthere are elements, so strong is the triumph of mind over manner, that\nmake it peculiarly Machen\u2019s own and not Stevenson\u2019s.\n\nThe new book, Machen says, was born in a phrase encountered in Charles\nWhibley\u2019s introduction to _Tristram Shandy_. Whibley described the work\nas being \u201ca picaresque of the mind.\u201d And so Machen said to himself,\u201cI\nwill write a Robinson Crusoe of the soul.\u201d This was no mere decision;\nit was, rather, a demonstration of the fact that there is an affinity\nof the mind, some minds, for an idea, some ideas. _The Hill of Dreams_,\nthe picaresque of the mind, the Crusoe of the soul, was at the heart\nof Machen\u2019s Great Romance. It responded to a phrase for which it had a\nnatural affinity and so the Great Romance, _The Hill of Dreams_, was born.\n\n\u201cIt was,\u201d wrote Machen, \u201cto represent loneliness not of body on a desert\nisland, but loneliness of soul and mind and spirit in the midst of\nmyriads and myriads of men. I had some practical experience of this\nstate to help me: not altogether in vain had I been constrained in\nClarendon Road and to have my habitation in the tents of Notting Hill\nGate. I immediately marked down all these old experiences as a valuable\nasset in the undertaking of my task: I knew what it was to live on a\nlittle in a little room, what it meant to pass day after day, week after\nweek, month after month through the _inextricabilis terror_ of the London\nstreets, to tread a grey labyrinth whose path had no issue, no escape,\nno end. I had known as a mere lad how terrible it was on a gloomy winter\nevening to go out because a little room had become intolerable, to go out\nwalking through those multitudinous streets, to see the light of kindly\nfires leaping on the walls, to see friendly faces welcoming father, or\nhusband, or brother, to hear laughter or a song sounding from within,\nperhaps to catch half glimpses of the faces of the lovers as they looked\nout, happy, into the dark night. All this had been my daily practice and\nhabit for a long while: I was qualified then, in a measure, to describe\nthe fate of a Robinson Crusoe cast on the desert island of the tremendous\nand terrible London.\u201d\n\nThe writing of this book occupied Machen from the autumn of 1895 to the\nspring of 1897. It went very slowly. For one thing, Machen discovered\nthat the style he had so carefully cultivated for the telling of the\nimprobable tale of _The Three Impostors_ had to be just as carefully\ndestroyed and every mannerism eradicated. He had become fluent in the\nStevensonian vein\u2014now he found himself writing with uncertainty, nothing\nflowed easily and naturally. His pen could not keep pace with his mind\nand his mind was racing rapidly through the garden of Avallaunius in\nfar-off Gwent. For _The Hill of Dreams_ was to be about, if it was about\nanything, a boy\u2019s wanderings and imaginings in a mysterious place he had\nfound, or dreamed he had found, in the Roman ruins near Caerleon.\n\nChapters were written and rewritten, his day\u2019s output varied from\nperhaps three lines to three folios. At last the book was finished in\nthe spring of 1897. He had been at it, quite steadily, for almost two\nyears, with a summer in Brittany in 1896, most of which he spent thinking\nof the book lying untouched in his room in London. In March 1897 Grant\nRichards wrote him to ask for his next manuscript. Mr. Richards, a new\npublisher, and anxious, no doubt, to get off on the right foot, wanted\nsomething \u201cin the manner of _The Three Impostors_.\u201d He got, instead,\n_The Hill of Dreams_. Richards returned the book along with a paternal\nletter pointing out to Machen the error of his ways and urging him not\nto jeopardize his reputation by publishing such a book. Several other\npublishers subsequently did the same and the book remained for years\nas it was, still titled _The Garden of Avallaunius_, and still not\npublished. And then in 1907, after ten years, Grant Richards changed his\nmind and published _The Garden of Avallaunius_, but he insisted also upon\nchanging the title on the plea, perhaps justified, that no one would\nproperly pronounce \u201cAvallaunius.\u201d It may be, however, that _The Garden of\nAvallaunius_ did appear in print before the Richards edition.\n\nIn the summer of 1901 Machen wrote to a friend, a Miss Brooke-Alder: \u201cA\ncertain story, translated from the English and called _Le Grande Dieu\nPan_, is now appearing in a French review. Maeterlinck is extremely\ninterested in it and has sent a message to the author asking him to\nforward any manuscripts in order that they also may be rendered into\nFrench. I am sending a manuscript called _The Garden of Avallaunius_\nwhich I finished four years ago, and if the great man chances to like it,\nI suppose I shall have the curious fate of finding myself a French rather\nthan an English author.\u201d\n\nWhether or not this translation and publication ever took place, I have\nbeen unable to discover. However, the Richards edition of 1907 was the\nfirst of almost half a score that have continued to be largely out of\nprint up until the present time.\n\n\n4\n\nWell, then, the Great Romance was completed in 1897\u2014and they would have\nnone of it. And so it remained for another ten years, more or less, in\none of the spacious compartments of the Japanese bureau.\n\nMachen was, at this time, living the literary life, not quite as it was\nlived by the swish young men who were then breaking into print and whose\nnames appeared in the more sensational evening papers and on court writs,\nbut still, it was the literary life and still\u2014a noble profession.\n\nThe Japanese bureau, its cubbyholes and compartments jammed with notes\nand notebooks and scraps of paper, had yielded up many tales and articles\nthat appeared in this or that journal. Machen had already written _The\nHoly Things_, _Psychology_, _Witchcraft_, _The Rose Garden_, _The\nCeremony_, _Midsummer_ and many other. He was becoming well known as the\nauthor of a number of rather strange, rather clever stories. Sometimes\nthey were called \u201cnasty\u201d or \u201cdisagreeable\u201d stories by outraged critics\nwho were quite likely to view them with an eye jaundiced by too careful\nperusal of _The Yellow Book_. The Keynote Series sold quite well and\nMachen\u2019s _The Great God Pan_ and _The Inmost Light_ in Volume V, _The\nThree Impostors_ and _The Iron Maid_ in Volume XIX had wide circulation.\n_The Memoirs of Casanova_, published in the same year as _Pan_, though\nlimited to a thousand copies, brought him some reputation and recognition\non a more scholarly plane. Still, he made no fortune on these books,\nthen\u2014or ever. And that was beginning to matter. He was even moved, in\n1895, to enter an American short story competition. His entry, _The Red\nHand_, written for the competition, won no prize but it did appear in the\nChristmas issue of _Chapman\u2019s Magazine_ for that year.\n\nIt was a quiet life. He had, in those days, few friends and few\nacquaintances. His life was in reading books and in writing them.\nThat no one seemed to be publishing them was, for the moment, quite\nunimportant. He describes his daily routine in _Things Near and Far_:\n\u201cEvery morning after breakfast I read over what I have written the night\nbefore, correcting here and there and everywhere, generally convinced\nthat the passage which had pleased me so much as I wrote it was, after\nall, not magnificent. I took the bulldog for a walk from twelve to one,\nand another half hour walk in the afternoon. Then two cups of tea without\nmilk or sugar at four, and the rigor of the literary game till seven, and\nagain after dinner till eleven. It was a life of routine, and all its\nadventures, difficulties, defeats and rare triumphs were those of the\nwritten page.\u201d\n\nThis was the literary life far removed from the rarified atmosphere of\nthe Cafe Royale and merry, mad circle of poets and artists of the Dowson,\nBeardsley, Conder, Crackenthorpe set who were usually contemplating Soho\nor suicide or both. It was the literary life of a recluse, of a Dyson, or\nof the brilliant monologist of _Hieroglyphics_. In the course of these\nlong and thoughtful evenings when the pen scratched and the bulldog\ndozed and page followed page into the cubbyholes or into oblivion,\nMachen formulated many of the theories of art and literature which were\nexpounded by the recluse of Barnsbury. Writing of this period some years\nlater Machen says that literature \u201cis one of the many ways of escaping\nfrom life, to be classified with Alpine Climbing, Chess, Methylated\nSpirit and Prussic Acid.\u201d But this was written in 1915 or thereabouts, in\n1897 he was less inclined to a mellow cynicism. For it was then not only\nan escape from life, but a means, perhaps \u201cthe only means of realizing\nand shewing life, or, at least certain aspects of life.\u201d\n\nThis preoccupation with literature extended even to his employment,\nfor through 1898 Machen worked on the staff of \u201cLiterature,\u201d a weekly\npaper published by the Times. This seems to have been not too happy an\nassociation, for he says he had been harassed and worried for a whole\nyear in the office of \u201cLiterature,\u201d and that he was in high spirits in\nMay 1899 when he was released from this bondage.\n\nBesides, there were a great many important things to be done. There was,\nof course, another Great Romance. Like its predecessors this one did not\nquite come off, or it was never quite finished. What there was of it was\neventually published as _The White People_. There were other irons on\nthe hearth, and one of these had been heated and re-heated many times\nbefore; but it was never quite forged or beaten into shape.\n\nThis is the story we know as _A Fragment of Life_. It is, in its present\nstate, a mere fragment of a great work. Machen had lived with the idea\nfor ten years or more, for the story was born in another tale published\nin the Globe or the Gazette or some other paper in 1890 under the title\n_The Resurrection of the Dead_, which was not quite what Machen intended\nwhen he originally called it _Resurrectio Mortuorum_.\n\nThis story is about a man who one day recovered his \u201cancestral\nconsciousness.\u201d The idea had long fascinated Machen, perhaps because he\nwas forever on the verge of recovering his own \u201cancestral consciousness,\u201d\nor perhaps because he had never quite lost it. At any rate, it was always\nclose to him, it greatly influenced his daily life because he never\nbecame used to the contrast between \u201craw London suburbs and the old gray\nhouses under the forest near the river\u201d in Gwent.\n\nThis, and _The White People_, seemed to have been of the greatest\nimportance to him. Neither was finished in that century\u2014nor were they\never completely finished. Yet in this time he wrote and completed one\nof the best of his books, and one of the finest books of our time.\n_Hieroglyphics_ was finished in 1899 and it joined the fragments and the\nbeginnings of the Great Romances that had been written and put aside in\nthat repository of Great Romances\u2014the Japanese bureau.\n\nOf _Hieroglyphics_ we shall have much to say later, for it is of greater\nsignificance in this twentieth century than in the nineteenth century in\nwhich it was written.\n\n\n5\n\nNow we are come to the end of the year 1899\u2014the turn of the century.\nThis was, as has been previously noted, an intensely time-conscious\nera. The birth of the twentieth century was awaited with perhaps more\ninterest and excitement than had attended similar events in the past.\nFor one thing, everyone was conscious of the enlightenment of their age,\nprogress was almost as much a byword in the Nineties as it became in\nthe Nineteen-Twenties and the early Nineteen-Forties. And, of course,\nthere was the minor satisfaction of knowing that it was quite likely\nto be the only turn of the century within the memory of living man.\nProphets of doom had their say and their day along with those who\nproclaimed new glory and new heights and new horizons. It was, to be\nsure, a well-heralded and eagerly awaited event. That a mere clock should\nunemotionally tick so momentous a second!\n\nThe more memorable men of the notorious Nineties were, for the most part,\neither dead or dying, visibly decaying or decently interred. They passed,\nmost of them, mercifully before the significant second struck.\n\nThis was a year of great significance in the life of Arthur Machen. For\nin this year \u201ca great sorrow which had long been threatened fell upon me;\nI was once more alone.\u201d And in another place, he writes, \u201c... and then my\nlife was dashed into fragments. I ceased to write. I travelled.\u201d\n\nAgain and again he refers to this event, in his two autobiographical\nbooks and in several of the forewords and prefaces he later wrote for\nre-issues of his earlier books. Always the references are veiled in\nmystery or followed by a recital of strange experiences and a cloud of\nmysticism that conceals, as it was intended, the shattering event.\n\nWhat was this event? There are a few who know, but they are not likely\nto reveal what they know. As recently as 1947, less than a year before\nhe died, Machen wrote in a letter, \u201cEven now it is painful to recall. I\nwould rather you did not refer to it.\u201d\n\nSince this is not intended as a biography, nor a Life, we shall not\npursue the matter. There is this much more to be said, that may give some\nclue to the events of the year 1900. Machen wrote in _Things Near and\nFar_,\n\n\u201cI can set down the facts, or rather such of them as I remember, but I\nam quite confident that I am not, in the real sense of the word, telling\nthe truth; that is, I am not giving any sense of the very extraordinary\natmosphere in which I lived in the year 1900, of the curious and\nindescribable impression which the events of these days made upon me; the\nsense that everything had altered, that everything was very strange, that\nI lived in daily intercourse with people who would have been impossible,\nunimaginable, a year before; that the figure of the world was changed\nutterly for me\u2014of all this I can give no true picture dealing as I am\nwith what I called facts. I maintained long ago in _Hieroglyphics_ that\nfacts as facts do not signify anything or communicate anything; and I\nam sure that I was right, when I confess that, as a purveyor of exact\ninformation, I can make nothing of the year 1900. But avoiding the facts,\nI have got a great deal nearer the truth in the last Chapter of _The\nSecret Glory_, which describes the doings and feelings of two young\npeople who are paying their first visit to London. _I_ never bolted up to\ntown with the house master\u2019s red haired parlour maid; but truth must be\ntold in figures.\u201d\n\n\n6\n\nBack in 1880, while his family were making plans for him, plans involving\nthe Royal College of Surgeons, Machen used to walk to the Pontypool Road\nstation to pick up the London papers. On his way back he would rest for\nawhile, (it was an eight mile walk) under the hedges and turn to the\ntheatrical pages which seemed to him by far the most interesting parts of\nthe paper, and the stage the most fascinating part of the Fabulous City\nof the West. And so, in a sense, he followed the bright lights to London,\nand then, having arrived there, set to work in the dark caves (HERE DWELL\nPUBLISHERS) of Chandos Street, Leicester Square and Catharine Street.\n\nThere is not the slightest bit of evidence that Machen ever thought\nlongingly of footlights and grease paint or, for that matter, that he\never even thought of them at all after he arrived in London. Yet here\nin 1901 he dons buskins or whatever and prepares to tread the boards,\nand in a travelling company. His first engagements were with the Benson\nShakesperean Company and with them he travelled the length and breadth of\nEngland for several season. He seems to have enjoyed it all tremendously,\nalthough it does not seem to have affected or influenced his later work.\nAs a matter of fact, with the exception of a brief chapter and a half in\none of his autobiographical books, he does not refer to his career on the\nstage at any great length. Sufficient unto the days....\n\nAnd then one day, perhaps when the trees were beginning to put forth,\nMachen resumed the London Adventure. In 1902, and without fanfare of any\nsort, Grant Richards brought out a remarkable book with a strange title.\nIt was called _Hieroglyphics_, and it was subtitled _A Note Upon Ecstasy\nin Literature_, by Arthur Machen. The book was born, as so many books\nare, while the author was reviewing books for a weekly journal. It was\nwritten in the happy period following his release from \u201cthe detestable\noffice life\u201d and as a perfectly normal reaction against it, and it\nremains to this day one of the best, and the least known and the most\nsadly neglected books of English criticism.\n\nA noted publisher once told Machen that _Hieroglyphics_ had \u201cinfluenced\nthe whole standpoint of English literary criticism.\u201d One wishes it had!\nAt any rate, Machen read proofs of the book while playing in \u201cThe Varsity\nBelle,\u201d and he read reviews of it while playing in \u201cPaolo and Francesca.\u201d\nAnd then, when _Hieroglyphics_ seemed unlikely to set Fleet Street afire,\nor even to start a small blaze in one of the University debating clubs,\nMachen began once more to write and to publish.\n\nHis old friend, A. E. Waite, a distinguished writer in the field of the\noccult and the mystic, began to publish Machen\u2019s stories. Waite, who\nwas also manager for Horlick\u2019s Malted Milk, had managed to persuade\nthe malted milk magnate to sponsor or subsidize a magazine. This was\ncertainly the strangest commercial venture on record, for the magazine\npublished material concerning the occult and mystical topics that\nappealed to Waite. Horlick was, presumably, happy to see his name on the\ncover and on the masthead of the magazine. It was in this esoteric little\njournal that some of Machen\u2019s work first appeared ... _The White People_,\n_A Fragment of Life_ and, at long last, _The Garden of Avallaunius_.\n\nMachen remarks, somewhere, that he did not know that the sale of Malted\nMilk was unfavorably affected by the publication of these tales. As a\nmatter of fact, the stories were quite well received. Such things get\naround and, in 1906, Grant Richards collected the best of them, plus\n_Pan_, _The Inmost Light_, _The Red Hand_ and published them in a book\ncalled _The House of Souls_. Richards had changed his mind about Machen,\nbut apparently with reservations, for in 1906 another Machen book, _Dr.\nStiggins_, appeared, but under the device of a little-known publisher.\nThis book is, in effect, an amplification of some views set forth in the\nPreface to _The House of Souls_. Mr. Richards wouldn\u2019t touch this, but he\ndid bring out _The Hill of Dreams_ in the following year.\n\nAnd then there was another change in Machen\u2019s life. He fell into\njournalism ... something that had once been devoutly wished for by the\ndear, dead folk of Caerleon.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Five_\n\nTHE LEGEND OF A LEGEND\n\n\n1\n\nWhen the Allied armies achieved the break-through at Saint Lo some few\nyears ago in that war we call Second, our armored columns fanned out\nover the Brittany peninsula and thrust deep into the river valleys of\nFrance. Most of us watched the drive for Paris, shook our heads over that\nnasty business at Avranches, and breathed more freely when Paris fell.\nFrom then on it was largely a matter of following, as closely as the\nsecurity blackout permitted, Patton\u2019s progress toward the Rhine and the\nstar-shaped forts at Metz.\n\nFew of us were then aware of the column under Hodges that began first to\nprobe, then to thrust northward into Belgium. At the time it was briefly\nnoted that our push to the Belgian border was even more rapid than the\nGerman drive southward in 1940. And so our entry into and beyond Mons\npassed almost unnoticed. Even the Germans were not too well aware of it,\napparently, for it was outside Mons, you will recall, that German tanks\nwere waved on by American MPs and obligingly clanked into bivouac areas\nwith the General Shermans and the half-tracks of the American First Army.\n\nThere were, if I remember correctly, and I am sure that I do, one or two\nreferences to the Angel of Mons incident of the last war, but these were\nmerely notes in passing. The mere mention of Mons meant Machen to me, and\nI suppose that, like many another Machenite, I waited with something like\nbated breath for a sign of some sort, or a sequel to the legend that had\nbeen born just thirty years ago that very month of September.\n\nAnd, I suppose, devout Machenites the world over re-read in that\nSeptember of 1944, the invented tale of the wonderful Welshman, the\ntale that was at first called simply, _The Bowmen_ and which came to be\ncalled, by popular demand, _The Angels of Mons_.\n\nIt was one of the strangest stories of that first World War and a story\npure and simple it was. But it so captured and fired the imagination\nof all Englishmen, and of the world, that people were unwilling for it\nto remain merely a magical tale by a Welshman writing strange tales in\nthe city of London. People must have their miracles, and so Machen\u2019s\ninvention of the Bowmen became one of the hallowed legends of the war.\nYou may remember the story, for you must have heard it, in one version or\nanother, even if you had never even heard of Arthur Machen.\n\n_It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand_, the tale begins.\nThe English were in danger of annihilation. At a particularly important\npoint in the line the German guns had thundered and shrieked all morning.\nFinally, their numbers greatly reduced, the English saw a tremendous\nhost moving against them. German infantry\u2014as far as the eye could see.\nWell\u2014the English fought on. One of the riflemen, who happened to know\nLatin and other useless things, recalled a motto he had once seen in\na restaurant, _Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius_, which motto he said,\nuttered or shouted. As he did so he felt \u201csomething between a shudder\nand a shock\u201d and behold! the roar of battle died down to a gentle murmur\nand a great voice and a shout louder than the thunder cried, \u201cArray,\nArray, Array!\u201d This was followed by other battlecries in English and in\nFrench\u2014cries to Saint George. And then he saw, \u201cbeyond the trench, a\nlong line of shapes, with a shining about them. They were like men who\ndrew the bow,\u201d and their arrows flew toward the German host. Who, as it\nhappened, were stopped in their tracks.\n\nNow this invention served its purpose, no less than any inspirational\ntale or legend or truth or half-truth. But it became a matter of great\ncontroversy because, as it happened, Arthur Machen, when questioned about\nit, blithely revealed that there was not an ounce of truth in it. The\nstory was pure invention, a piece of fiction which was not, he added,\nentirely to his satisfaction as a writer.\n\nThis discrediting of a miracle soon got abroad, and there was a great\nhue and cry and indeed a notable hullabaloo about the matter. Machen was\ntaken to task ... the clergy thundered against him and many a pulpit\nwas pounded by many a pudgy ecclesiastical fist. Gentle ladies began to\nproduce \u201cevidence\u201d that the event had actually taken place\u2014that they had\nhad it from a soldier who was there. A great many witnesses, once or\ntwice removed, were found and quoted. The controversy grew and with it\nthe legend.\n\nAs for Machen, he finally wrote a preface to a new American edition\nto _The Bowmen_, now called _The Angels of Mons_, published by G. P.\nPutnam\u2019s Sons in 1915. In it he wrote:\n\n\u201cThis was in last August, or to be more precise, in the last Sunday of\nlast August. There were terrible things to be read on that hot Sunday\nmorning between meat and mass. It was in the _Weekly Dispatch_ that I saw\nthe awful account of the retreat from Mons. I no longer recollect the\ndetails, but I have not forgotten the impression that was then made in my\nmind. I seemed to see a furnace of torment and death and agony and terror\nseven times heated, and in the midst of the burning was the British\nArmy. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it and yet aureoled in it,\nscattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred and forever glorious.\nSo I saw our men with a shining about them, so I took these thoughts with\nme to church, and, I am sorry to say, was making up a story in my head\nwhile the Deacon was singing the Gospel.\u201d Well\u2014that is the genesis of\n_The Bowmen_ or, if you insist, _The Angels of Mons_.\n\nIt was murmured and hinted and suggested and whispered in all sorts\nof quarters, Machen says, that before he wrote the tale he had \u201cheard\nsomething.\u201d The most decorative of these whisperings was this: \u201cI\nknow for a fact that the whole thing was given him in typescript by a\nlady-in-waiting.\u201d And, presumably, as is the custom with all popular\nlegends, most everyone had a cousin or a brother-in-law who had been\nthere. By the time the story had been reprinted in parish periodicals and\nspread by word of pulpit, it began to seem to Machen that he had failed\nin the art of letters. There began to be variations on the theme\u2014such\nas one in which the German dead were found to be punctured with arrow\nwounds. The occultists next had a go at it, then the scientists began to\ntalk learnedly of \u201cmass hallucination.\u201d\n\nThe legend was then translated into several languages including, at any\nrate, the French. The shining figure of St. George became, variously,\nSt. Michael the Archangel and St. Joan of Arc. The Germans, for security\nreasons no doubt, offered no opinion or explanation of their abrupt\nhalt or of the tale. However, as Machen observes, \u201cOther versions of\nthe story appeared in which a cloud interposed between the attacking\nGermans and the defending British. In some examples the cloud served to\nconceal our men from the advancing enemy; in others, it disclosed shining\nshapes which frightened the horses of the pursuing German cavalry. St.\nGeorge, it will be noted, has disappeared\u2014he persisted some time longer\nin certain Roman Catholic variants\u2014and there are no more bowmen, no\nmore arrows. But so far angels are not mentioned; yet they are ready to\nappear, and I think I have detected the machine which brought them into\nthe story.\n\n\u201cIn _The Bowmen_ my imagined soldier saw \u2018a long line of shapes, with a\nshining about them.\u2019 And Mr. A. P. Sinnett, writing in the May (1915)\nissue of _The Occult Review_, reporting what he had heard, states that\n\u2018those who could see said they saw \u2018a row of shining beings\u2019 between\nthe two armies.\u2019 Now I conjecture that the word \u2018shining\u2019 is the link\nbetween my tale and the derivative from it. In the popular view shining\nand benevolent supernatural beings are angels and nothing else, and so, I\nbelieve, the Bowmen of my story have become \u2018the Angels of Mons.\u2019 In this\nshape they have been received with respect and credence everywhere, or\nalmost everywhere.\u201d\n\nPamphlets were published, as is usual in such cases. The Theosophists\npublished an \u201canswer to Mr. Arthur Machen.\u201d Another worker in the\nfield collected \u201cnumerous Confirmations, Testimonies, Evidences of the\nWounded\u201d and other materials in an \u201cauthentic record\u201d of the event. The\nfurore died out after the war and the Angels of Mons rested in legend\nwith only sporadic appearances in the pages of the Sunday supplements.\nWithin a few years the legend had graduated to the sphere of science or\npseudo-scientific study.\n\n\n2\n\nIn 1930 there was published in London a book called _The Mystery and\nLore of Apparitions, with Some Account of Ghosts, Spectres, Phantoms and\nBoggerts in Early Times_ by Harold Shaylor, an investigator in various\nfields of the marvelous.\n\nThe Frontispiece of this comfortably plump volume is \u201cfrom a Drawing\nby A. Forestier, reproduced by kind permission from the Illustrated\nLondon News.\u201d The sketch shows eight or nine soldiers in a trench in\nthe foreground firing at advancing hordes of Germans. To the right and\nstanding above the parapet of the trench are three gigantic bowmen,\nhelmeted and with swords at their sides, launching arrows (visible in the\nsketch) at the Germans. A fourth bow and part of an arm are visible at\nthe extreme right. The Germans are falling in great numbers, at least one\nis visibly pierced by an arrow.\n\nWithin the book, among the many marvels, we find this:\n\n\u201cConsiderable discussion took place in the Press during the autumn of\n1914 and the early part of 1915, with respect to the phenomena said to\nhave been seen at the Battle of Mons.\n\n\u201cThe publications of these stories brought forth many others of a similar\ncharacter, the veracity of which appears to be unquestioned, and it will\nbe found interesting to compare them with some of the accounts of phantom\narmies told in the preceding pages\u201d (of Mr. Shaylor\u2019s collection).\n\nThere follows then a story told by a non-commissioned officer who was\nin the retreat from Mons on or about August 28th, 1914. The weather was\nhot and clear and, between eight and nine in the evening, this officer\nwas with a group of others on guard duty. An officer came up and asked\nif they had seen anything \u201cstartling.\u201d Two men were sent forward to\nsee if they could discover what the officer meant. They returned with\nnothing untoward to report. The officer then came back and, \u201ctaking me\nand some others a few yards away, showed us the sky. I could see quite\nplainly in mid-air,\u201d says the non-commissioned officer, \u201ca strange light\nwhich seemed to be quite distinctly outlined and was not a reflection\nof the moon, nor were there any clouds in the neighborhood. The light\nbecame brighter and I could see quite distinctly three shapes, one in\nthe center having what looked like outspread wings, the other two were\nnot so large, but were quite plainly distinct from the center one. They\nappeared to have a long, loose, hanging garment of a golden tint and they\nwere above the German line facing us. We stood watching them for about\nthree-quarters of an hour. All the men with me saw them, and other men\ncame up from groups who also told us they had seen the same thing. I\nremember the day, because it was a day of terrible anxiety for us. Later\non the Uhlans attacked us and we drove them back with heavy losses.\nIt was after this engagement, when we were dog-tired, that the vision\nappeared to us.\u201d\n\nThus the story of the non-commissioned officer as told to Mr. Thompson.\nAnother account of spectral figures is recounted by a private of the\nLancashire Fusiliers. He is supposed to have given an account of his\nexperience to a Sister in a hospital. \u201cIt\u2019s true, Sister, we all saw it.\nFirst there was a sort of yellow mist like, sort of rising before the\nGermans as they came to the top of the hill. Come on like a solid wall\nthey did. The next minute comes this funny cloud of light and when it\nclears off, there\u2019s a tall man with yellow hair in golden armour, on a\nwhite horse, holding up his sword and his mouth open. The men knew it was\nSt. George. Hadn\u2019t they seen him with his sword on every \u2018quid\u2019 they\u2019d\never seen?\u201d\n\nThus the Lancashire Fusilier in Mr. Thompson\u2019s 1930 account. Machen\nencountered him just as the Putnam edition was on the presses in 1915.\nIn a Postscript to that edition of _The Bowmen_, Machen refers to an\narticle called _The Angelic Leaders_ written by a Miss Phyllis Campbell.\nMiss Campbell relates that she was a nurse in France where there came\ninto her care a Lancashire Fusilier (the same one presumably, mentioned\nby Thompson). He said he had seen St. George on a white horse, leading\nthe British at Vitry-le-Francaise, when the Allies turned. His story was\ncorroborated by a wounded R.F.A. man who was present. The R.F.A. man said\nhe saw a tall man with yellow hair, in golden armour, on a white horse,\nholding his sword up, and his mouth open (as if, comments Machen, he was\nsaying, \u201cCome on, boys! I\u2019ll put the kybosh on the devils!\u201d) This figure\nwas bareheaded and the R.F.A. man and the Fusilier knew that he was St.\nGeorge, because he was exactly like the figure of St. George on the\nsovereigns. \u201cHadn\u2019t they seen him with his sword on every \u2018quid\u2019 they\u2019d\never had?\u201d\n\nThe difference between having a quid and seeing one may be significant.\nAt any rate, Machen makes a rather telling point concerning his\nLancashire Fusilier. The soldiers are said to have known it was St.\nGeorge by his exact likeness to the figure on the sovereign. This\nstrikes Machen as being odd because the apparition is described as being\nbareheaded and in armour while the St. George on the sovereign or quid is\njust the reverse, since he is quite naked except for a short cape flying\nfrom the shoulders and a helmet. So\u2014the evidence of the quid they\u2019d\neither had or seen scarcely presents sufficient identification of the\nsaint.\n\nA final vision is presented in C. J. Thompson\u2019s book\u2014this one by a\nsoldier in an artillery battery in a letter dated June 26th, 1915. He\ndescribes a being like an angel with outstretched wings surrounded by\na luminous cloud which appeared between the advancing Germans and the\nBritish. The artillery man further states, \u201cwith regard to the stories\nwhich you have heard about angels and spirits, they may be right but of\ncourse you must remember that trench work is mind-straining as well as\nnerve-racking and that may account for a lot of these stories.\u201d\n\nAnd indeed, Mr. Thompson ascribes most of these visitations, visions and\nmiracles to nerve strain or mass hallucination.\n\nIt will be noted that the legend had, by this time, divorced itself\ncompletely from its creator. Mr. Thompson makes no mention of Arthur\nMachen, either as the reporter or creator of this astonishing event. Nor\ndo Thompson\u2019s _Acknowledgments_ or _Index_ contain any mention of Machen,\nArthur; or of his published works. Of course the tale of _The Bowmen_ was\nfirst published in a newspaper, the London _Evening News_ for September\n29, 1914, for which paper Machen was then a reporter. Mr. Machen may have\nbeen included in Mr. Thompson\u2019s inclusive word \u201cPress.\u201d\n\n\n3\n\nHowever, the curious turnings and twistings of legend are not yet\nfinished. The miracles of 1915 became the mass hallucinations of 1930,\nand the creator of the slight story of _The Bowmen_ had been quite\nforgotten in the furore attending each of them. But by far the most\ncurious circumstance in the whole curious affair is contained in the\nmost recent, to my knowledge, mention of the Mons legend. It occurs in\nan article by Meyer Berger, entitled _Legends of the War_, published in\n_Harper\u2019s Bazaar_ in January, 1944.\n\nMr. Berger is an extremely competent correspondent for the _New York\nTimes_. As a matter of fact, it was out of respect for Mr. Berger\u2019s worth\nas a correspondent that I saved from salvage the magazine in which his\narticle appeared. Early in the spring of 1944 I was cleaning out the\nwinter\u2019s accumulation of magazines and newspapers and readying them for\nthe next paper pick-up. The baroque _Bazaar_ is not, usually, to my\ntaste, but seeing Berger\u2019s name over an article I placed the magazine to\none side and took it up to read some nights later.\n\nThe article concerns _legends_ of the war. Mr. Berger remarks, sensibly,\nthat war nurtures in the soldier some dormant sense that opens the door\nto superstition, to mysticism, and to visions of the supernatural. He\nthen outlines the various legends of the White Lady on various fronts,\nthe Christ in Flanders legend and, of course, the Angel of Mons. Mr.\nBerger uses the singular, and so one supposes, there is an Angel of Mons\nlegend as well.\n\nMr. Berger outlines the legend briefly, explaining that there was no\nearthly reason for the Jerries to have stopped the pursuit, but stop they\ndid\u2014and the wherefore of this astonishing halt forms the basis for the\nstory.\n\n\u201cArthur Machen said later,\u201d continues the Berger article, \u201cthat he\nconceived the legend of the Angel of Mons as he daydreamed in church over\nthe news of the German\u2019s miraculous halt.\u201d This is not quite what Machen\nsaid, of course. Machen explained that he conceived the story of the\nBowmen as he brooded in church over the news of the British _retreat_.\nBerger goes on to relate that when Machen\u2019s story appeared in the London\n_Evening News_ as fiction it was, to his (Machen\u2019s) astonishment, taken\nup and spread all over the world as something that actually happened.\n\u201cThere is no reason,\u201d remarks Berger, \u201cto question his explanation.\u201d\n\nOn the other hand Berger spoke in France with Tommies who swore that,\nMachen or no Machen, they saw the Angel at Mons, though not as he\ndescribed it in his piece. \u201cThe Machen story said that when the British\nwere hardest pressed at Mons, there appeared in the heavens, above\nthe battlefield, an unusual cloud formation. This changed into a giant\nlikeness of St. George, flanked by rows of medieval English bowmen whose\nflights of arrows killed virtually all the German horde. When the bodies\nwere examined there was no sign of a wound.\u201d\n\nWhatever this may be, it is _not_ the Machen story. Machen has no cloud,\nno giant St. George ... only \u201ca long line of shapes with a shining about\nthem.\u201d Mr. Berger also talked with a Sergeant Coombs of the King\u2019s Royal\nRifles at an English base hospital in Trouville. Coombs swore he had seen\nthe Angel of Mons and Berger had reason to believe him, \u201cif only because\nhe wore the Mons Star.\u201d Coombs describes \u201ca kind of triple cloud\u201d ... a\nlarge center cloud with two clouds at either side. They had no particular\nshape at first but they gradually became a great angel ... \u201cthe two\nsmaller clouds were enormous wings, and the angel spread its wings as if\nit were signalling the jerries to stop where they were.\u201d\n\nThis seraphic semaphore is a refinement that had not previously\nappeared in any of the many versions of the legend. One of the legend\u2019s\nvariations, writes Berger, \u201chas a faintly humorous side.\u201d It appeared in\nthe _North American Review_ in August, 1915.\n\n\u201cIt told of a soldier, hard-pressed with the rest at Mons and ready to\ndrop, who found himself murmuring, \u2018Adest Anglis Sanctus Georgius.\u2019 He\nknew no Latin and he didn\u2019t know what moved him to the utterance. Even\nas it came to his lips, he recalled that he had seen it lettered on a\nplate in a vegetarian restaurant in London, before he was called up\nto service. It means, roughly, \u2018May St. George be a present help to\nEngland.\u2019 Something like an electric shock convulsed the soldier and\nhis shock-packed ears dimly heard men around him shouting, \u2018St. George\nfor Merrie England.\u2019 From that point, the story followed the Machen\npattern\u2014archers appeared in the sky and the Germans dropped by thousands.\u201d\n\nNow this version, with the \u201cfaintly humorous side,\u201d which appeared\naccording to Mr. Berger in the _North American Review_ in August,\n1915, _is_ the Machen story. Whether or not the North American Review\nversion was written by Machen I have been unable to discover. There\nare differences, of course, even in the very condensed portion offered\nby Berger. The _North American\u2019s_ soldier knew no Latin ... he merely\nrecited, incorrectly at that, and at a very propitious moment, a motto\nhe had seen in a vegetarian restaurant. Machen\u2019s soldier, although he\nhad apparently patronized that very same vegetarian restaurant, did know\nLatin \u201cand other useless things.\u201d\n\nAnd so the legend of the legend of the Angel or Angels of Mons continues\nto grow out of Arthur Machen\u2019s tale of _The Bowmen_.\n\n\n4\n\nIn 1915, possibly because he was then writing _Far Off Things_ and was\nin a mood reminiscent, Arthur Machen declared that he had failed in the\nart of literature. Most good writers have felt, at one time or another,\na similar sense of failure\u2014or at least of mild frustration. Presumably\nthey have a particular instance in mind, certainly Machen had his. It was\nsimply because his tale of the Bowmen had been accepted as truth.\n\nNow it may seem to many a triumph of art that one\u2019s work is held to be\nso life-like and so real that it is generally accepted as the truth, the\nwhole truth and nothing but the truth. Our realists, for example, are\nsaid to feel that way. They consider the verdict of veracity the highest\ncritical success. They have mirrored life and that, so help them, was\nwhat they had set out to do!\n\nMachen felt differently about it. His invention, his creation, was not\nonly accepted as being true, but his inventiveness and creativeness\nwere denied him. His magic had been judged mere journalism and that, to\nMachen, or to any other creative artist, meant failure. However this may\nbe, Machen did not fail in his other legends of the war. Possibly because\nhe called some of them legends\u2014perhaps because the public felt their\n\u201cwilling suspension of disbelief\u201d already supported too great a load\u2014at\nany rate Machen\u2019s further inventions were permitted to remain inventions\nand he was accorded a considerable, if not fanatical, amount of praise.\n\nThese other tales, _The Soldier\u2019s Rest_, _The Monstrance_, _The Dazzling\nLight_, had in them the very elements that should have appealed to those\nwho make legends of inventions. They offered much in the way of tradition\nblended with mysticism, a mixture that should have drawn credence from a\nmuch less tradition-loving people than the British. Perhaps there was too\nmuch mysticism in these tales\u2014anything less subtle than a warrior saint\nmight not appeal to the Church Militant.\n\nBut surely _Drake\u2019s Drum_, or the tale called _Munitions of War_ had\nthe stuff of legend in them, and tradition too. Layed on, as a matter\nof fact, with the trowel. _Drake\u2019s Drum_ should have become one of the\nglorious legends of the sea-girt Britons, the race of mariners. This is\nthe tale that relates the events that took place off Scapa Flow, when the\nBritish Navy awaited the German High Fleet in November, 1918 to accept\ntheir surrender. There were rumours that the Germans might possibly fight\nand the crews of the British ships stood at \u201cBattle Stations.\u201d Then, as\nthe first German ship appeared through the mist, a drum began to beat in\nthe \u201cRoyal Oak.\u201d And it beat and it rolled from then until the entire\nGerman Fleet was encircled and helpless. Of course the unauthorized\ndrumming was investigated, but with all hands at Battle Stations, and\nespecially upon such a momentous occasion, it was hardly possible, and\nhighly improper, that there might be anyone aboard ship with the time and\nthe inclination to beat a drum. However, neither drum nor drummer were\nlocated and there was no choice but to believe that what everyone had\nbeen hearing was Drake\u2019s Drum\u2014\u201cthe audible manifestation of the spirit\nof the Great Sea Captain, present at this hour of tremendous victory of\nBritain on the Sea.\u201d\n\nNow this is certainly a tale that should have appealed to the Britons, as\nindeed it did, but they refused to raise it to the status of a legend.\nThen too, the story appeared in 1919, by which time England had less\nurgent need of legends. In any case, the perfidious Teutons had by that\ntime scuttled their ships at Scapa Flow.\n\n_Munitions of War_, a story published in 1915, also has the stuff of\nlegend, but somehow it never caught, never quite made the grade. Oh, it\nwas successful enough as a story, but it never became a legend. Which,\non the whole, pleased its creator. It tells of a traveller who went to a\nseaport in the West of England and how he was awakened in the night to\nhear vast oaths and burly voices heaving and ho-ing as they loaded ships.\nThe language used by these stevedores had an other-century quality and\nthe watcher in the night could only conclude that these men had loaded\nNelson\u2019s ships before Trafalgar. Had this story been written in 1942\nor 1943 instead of 1915 it might have been printed in the \u201cWelders and\nSteam-Fitters Gazette,\u201d or some other house organ, and it may even have\nbeen legendized by England\u2019s defense workers and winners of the coveted\n\u201cE\u201d award\u2014or its British equivalent.\n\n\n5\n\nOne of the longest, and by far the best, of Machen\u2019s stories of the war\nperiod is one that made no appeal whatever to the legend-loving instincts\nof a people at war but which contained, as we may see in this post-war\nyear of \u201948, something of the nature of prophecy.\n\n_The Terror_ was first published in 1917. It was obviously inspired by\nthe reception accorded the tale of the Bowmen combined with more of\nMachen\u2019s creative magic. In the opening chapter Machen refers to the\nrumours and legends current in the early years of the war\u2014the Bowmen,\nand the Russians who traveled through Britain by night on their way to\nsome great push or other. These absurdities, Machen points out, depended\nupon the newspaper for their dissemination. The events described in _The\nTerror_ had been held in strictest secrecy and no word had been given to\nthe Press. For reasons of security all events connected with the Terror\nhad been hushed up.\n\nHowever, continued Machen, in a \u201cnow-it-can-be-told manner,\u201d these were\nthe reasons why \u201calmost two years of war had been completed before the\nmotionless English line began to stir.\u201d The story of the Terror is, then,\npurported to be the secret of the long inactivity of the British Army.\n\nThings were happening all over England ... very strange things. An\nairman had been killed under mysterious circumstances. The circumstances\nappeared to have been obvious enough\u2014he seemed to have been attacked by\na flock of birds, a rather mysterious matter in itself. There were other\nhappenings here and there, and rumors of many more. After a few strange\nevents had been reported in local papers there were no further accounts,\nand sometimes there was no local paper thereafter. Few people would have\nconnected these events in any case. An airman is killed. A child chases\na butterfly and is seen alive no more. There are strange stories about\nmunitions works and fiery clouds and bees and horses and dogs. But none\nof these may be written up in the papers.\n\nWell, at long last and with Machen\u2019s usual circumambience and magic the\nstory reveals that the mysterious deaths and strange events are being\ncaused by animals\u2014by cows and sheep and dogs and horses and bees and\nbirds and moths. The explanation? Machen writes\u2014\n\n\u201c... The source of the great revolt of the beasts is to be sought in a\nmuch subtler region of inquiry. I believe that the subjects revolted\nbecause the king abdicated. Man has dominated beasts throughout the ages,\nthe spiritual has reigned over the rational through the peculiar quality\nand grace of spirituality that men possess, that makes a man to be that\nwhich he is. And while he maintained this power and grace, I think it\nis pretty clear that between him and the animals there was a certain\ntreaty and alliance. There was supremacy on the one hand, and submission\non the other.... \u2018Spiritual\u2019 signifies the royal prerogative of man,\ndifferentiating him from the beast. For long ages he had been putting\noff this royal robe ... he had declared, again and again, that he is not\nspiritual, but rational, that is, the equal of the beasts over whom he\nwas once sovereign. He has vowed that he is not Orpheus but Caliban. But\nthe beasts ... perceived that the throne was vacant\u2014not even friendship\nwas possible between them and the self-deposed monarch. If he were not\nking he was a sham, an impostor, a thing to be destroyed.\u201d\n\nBut before these mysteries are resolved there is much talk of German\nspies, of mysterious rays, of all sorts of things that attempt to link\nthe chain of horrors with the Germans. And in the course of these\nattempts to implicate the Germans in the Terror, Machen creates several\nhypotheses which seemed the very stuff of fiction in 1917\u2014but which in\nour time must seem like prophecy.\n\nIt was in 1944 that the Viking Press issued a volume of its Portable\nLibrary devoted to _Six Novels of the Supernatural_. Machen\u2019s tale of\n_The Terror_ was one of the six. Thus it happens that I re-read _The\nTerror_ at about the time our forces were capturing the platforms\nfrom which the robot bombs were launched at London. Now _The Terror_\nhas always pleased me as a tale, a diversion and, as with most of\nMachen\u2019s magic, something to think about when the world is quiet and\nmysterious\u2014say a midnight in October, or three o\u2019clock of an August\nafternoon. Nothing is inconceivable at such times, I think, and anything\ncan happen\u2014or seem to happen. A long, long look at a tree or a hedge or\na hillside might give rise to disturbing thoughts\u2014and one often finds\noneself looking hastily away before something actually _does_ happen.\n\nBut to return to _The Terror_. I had read it several times before and\nI thought I knew it quite well. But reading it in 1944 it seemed quite\nnew. I had not remembered some things, perhaps because they seemed only\nincidental to the plot. They were the sort of thing one skipped over\nrapidly to see what would happen next, or when and where the Terror would\nstrike again.\n\nWell along into the story a Mr. Merrit, one of Machen\u2019s more talkative\ncharacters, is explaining to a group of friends that \u201cthe Terror\u201d is all\npart of a German plot, that there are, indeed, Germans established in\nEngland who are doing these things. And this, according to Merrit, is how\nit was done:\n\n\u201cThe scheme had been prepared years before, some thought soon after\nthe Franco-Prussian War. Moltke had seen that the invasion of England\npresented very great difficulties. The matter was constantly in\ndiscussion in the inner military and high political circles, and the\ngeneral trend of opinion in these quarters was that at the best, the\ninvasion of England would involve Germany in the gravest difficulties,\nand leave France in a position of the _tertius gaudens_. This was the\nstate of affairs when a very high Prussian personage was approached by\nthe Swedish professor, Huvelius.\u201d\n\nProfessor Huvelius, according to Merrit (or Machen) was an extraordinary\nman. He was personally an amiable individual who gave every penny he\nowned to the poor, who dissipated his salary on charity and kindness. He\nstarved himself in order to help the needy. And he wrote a book called\n_De Facinore Humane_, which book proved the infinite corruption of the\nhuman race.\n\nThe amiable Professor preached a cynical philosophy, the main tenets of\nwhich have a familiar sound. He held that human misery was due, by and\nlarge, to the mistaken notion that man was naturally well-disposed and\nkindly. Murderers, thieves and other abominable creatures are created\nby the false pretense and foolish credence of human virtue. And he goes\non to say that kings and the rulers of people could decrease the sum\nof human misery to a vast extent by acting on the doctrine of human\nwickedness.\n\n\u201cWar,\u201d says the mild Professor, \u201cwhich is one of the worst of evils, will\nalways continue to exist. But a wise king will desire a brief rather than\na lengthy war, a short evil rather than a long evil. And this not from\nthe benignity of his heart towards his enemies, for we have seen that the\nhuman heart is naturally malignant, but because he desires to conquer,\nand to conquer easily, without a great expenditure of men or of treasure,\nknowing that if he can accomplish this feat his people will love him and\nhis crown will be secure. So he will wage brief victorious wars, and not\nonly spare his own nation, but the nation of the enemy, since in a short\nwar the loss is less on both sides than in a long war. And so from evil\nwill come good.\u201d\n\nThis philosophy sounds more and more familiar as Merrit goes on to\nexpound what he knows of the works of \u201cProfessor Huvelius.\u201d The wise\nruler will assume that the enemy is infinitely corruptible and infinitely\nstupid, since all men are so. The ruler then makes friends in the very\ncouncil of his enemy and among the people of his enemy, bribing the\nwealthy and offering opportunity for still greater wealth, and winning\nthe poor by swelling words. \u201cFor,\u201d says the Professor, \u201cit is the wealthy\nwho are greedy of wealth, while the people can be gained by talking to\nthem of liberty, their unknown god.\u201d\n\nAt any rate, this Huvelius sold his plan to the Germans. His philosophy\ntoo, apparently, and presumably he donated the moneys thus obtained to\nhis favorite charity. The Germans accordingly proceeded to buy lands in\ncertain suitable places in England, secret excavations were made and in\na short time there was a subterranean Germany in the heart of England.\nThe Germans, having made themselves as secure as Crusoes, waited for \u201cthe\nDay.\u201d\n\nThis, then, was the plot outlined by Machen as he carefully prepared\nthe background for his story. It seemed not too incredible in 1915 as\nhe worked on the book, for there were rumors even then of emplacements\nready for guns discovered by British troops in Belgium and in France, and\ncertain caves along the Aisne seemed to have been made ready for cannon.\n\nNow all this imagining in 1915 and 1917 comes pretty close to the events\nof 1940. Whether the Germans had read Huvelius or Machen in the years of\nthe Long Armistice, or confined their reading to _Mein Kampf_, which\nseems the more likely, they had certainly covered the ground from Eben\nEmael to Quisling.\n\nAt any rate, _The Terror_ is first rate reading at any time, and\ncertainly a Machen \u201cmust.\u201d It is too lengthy to be included in the usual\nbibliography\u2014but it is readily available in Viking\u2019s \u201cSix Novels of the\nSupernatural.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Six_\n\nTHE YELLOW BOOKS\n\n\n1\n\nIt would be unflattering indeed to imply that Arthur Machen\u2019s books\nwere quickly discarded by their owners, or that they had ever crowded,\nin any considerable numbers, the shelves of the second-hand book shops.\nNevertheless it is a fact that for some years, especially in the late\nTwenties and early Thirties, the shelves, counters and sidewalk tables of\nFourth Avenue were high-lighted for browsers by the bindings that blazed\nforth the magic of Machen.\n\n[Illustration: SOME MACHEN ITEMS: Showing one of the famous Knopf \u201cYellow\nBooks,\u201d title pages of Knopf edition and Pocket Book, Putnam\u2019s 1915\nedition of \u201cThe Bowmen\u201d and several rare items.]\n\nMr. Alfred Knopf who undertook in the Twenties to introduce, or to\nreintroduce, Arthur Machen to American readers elected, perhaps for\nobvious reasons, to issue the odd-sized books in a bright yellow binding.\nFor this, as well as for his work in bringing Machen across the Atlantic,\nMr. Knopf is to be thanked; but whoever designed the books, having\nspecified an unmistakable color for the cloth binding, decided also upon\na dark blue paper label with gold lettering\u2014a combination that became, in\na reasonably short time, completely indecipherable. There was, however,\nno mistaking a Machen\u2014even when it turned up in the darkest corner of\nthe most unassuming hole-in-the-wall in Fourth Avenue, Twelfth Street\nor lower Lexington Avenue. The adept Arthurian merely looked for the\nunmistakable yellow binding with its dark and indecipherable patch. It\nmust be admitted that the production manager or book designer for Knopf\nplanned better than he knew, for it seemed that time could not dull,\nnor dirt disguise, nor grime diminish the yellow of those bindings.\nThe experienced browser could spot one at thirty feet in the dimmest\ncorner of the dingiest shop, sandwiched though it might be between _V.\nV.\u2019s Eyes_ and _The Conquest of Fear_ or buried under a pile of Edgar\nRice Burroughs\u2019 Martian romances. A recent convert might, for a time,\nrespond to the lure of the yellow only to find, on closer inspection,\nsomething about a eunuch by a man named Pettit, or an early Ben Hecht,\nor some other ordinary book bound in yellow; but in time he learned to\ndistinguish that one especial hue. He came to know it, however faded, for\nit seemed to fade predictably.\n\nThus the yellow books issued by Knopf became the most eagerly\nsought-after books along Fourth Avenue. It was not too long of course,\nbefore they became scarce. Soon they were taken from tables and stacked\nreverently on shelves, and before very long they were behind glass doors\nor in the shelves behind the proprietor\u2019s desk, or even in that holy of\nholies\u2014the back room.\n\nToday they have disappeared from Fourth Avenue. You may find, now\nand then, one of the Martin Secker editions, or perhaps one of the\ndeluxe editions of the Heptameron\u2014or even a set, fabulously priced, of\nthe Caerleon edition. For the most part, however, the book shops are\nMachen-less, a condition that might be remedied, and profitably, by some\nenterprising publisher, or even by Mr. Knopf.\n\nThe House of Knopf, however, seems remarkably disinterested in its\nvaluable property, and a valuable property it is, for not only did the\nseries include almost all of the best of Machen, but almost every volume\ncontained a preface or a foreword written especially for these editions\nby Mr. Machen. These comparatively recent Machen items are worth a volume\nof their own, a proposition warmly advanced by Mr. Joseph Vodrey but\nreceived coolly enough, thus far at least, by Mr. Knopf.\n\n\n2\n\nMachen had first appeared in print in America in 1894 when Roberts of\nBoston published _The Great God Pan_. There were several other Machen\nitems published in this country prior to the Twenties. Dana Estes brought\nout _The Hill of Dreams_ and _The House of Souls_ not long after the\nRichards editions and in similar format. Putnam published _The Bowmen_ in\n1915 while the controversy over the legend was still raging. There were a\nfew others, but the Machen boom was still to come. Mr. Cabell\u2019s tribute\nto Machen in _Beyond Life_, published a few years later, undoubtedly did\nmuch to create a body of readers eager for Machen.\n\nJust how and when Mr. Alfred Knopf became interested in Machen as\na literary property I do not know, one does not with impunity ask\npublishers why they seek out certain authors. Certainly Mr. Knopf was of\nthe opinion that the Twenties was ripe for Machen\u2014anyone who remembers\nthat era would, even today, vindicate Mr. Knopf\u2019s judgment. Yet somehow,\nMachen did not catch on as well as might have been expected. Or perhaps\nhe did\u2014for the Twenties. For this was certainly a prolific period,\ngenius was hailed weekly and books sold by the thousands. Perhaps\nMachen\u2019s books did sell quite well by the standards of the Twenties.\nThe Knopf printings seem to have been exhausted within a remarkably\nshort time and very rapidly disappeared from book stores until their\nreappearance on second-hand stalls in the Thirties. Arthur Machen is not\nremembered too well as one who was popular in the Twenties, but then all\ntoo few of the writers of the Twenties are remembered at all.\n\nWho were they? Critics and commentators of the times hailed book after\nbook, they acclaimed name after name\u2014but most of those names are seldom\nmentioned in the current revival of interest in the Twenties. The \u201cbest\nseller\u201d lists of the day hardly indicate that John Dos Passos, Cabell,\nVan Vechten, etc., etc., were what all America was reading. Scott\nFitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis and one or two others are notable exceptions,\nbut the real best-sellers of the time would sound unfamiliar even to\nstudents of that era. Most people were reading _The Sheik_, _If Winter\nComes_, _Black Oxen_, _The Green Hat_ and _So Big_. Zane Grey and Ibanez\nwere more widely read than Sinclair Lewis, even though _Main Street_ had\ncreated a stir. There were outlines of history and of philosophy and even\nthe \u201cart\u201d of thinking was popularized. There were books about China and\nAfrica and India\u2014and some of them even became the centers of controversy.\nStorms raged over books whose very titles are unremembered today, while\nthe books we now consider \u201ctypical\u201d of the Twenties sold slowly\u2014and in\nsmall editions. One discovers that Eleanor Wylie, Ellen Glasgow, Floyd\nDell, E. E. Cummings and most of the others who, even though they\nwere hailed on alternate Tuesdays and Sundays as \u201cnew stars of great\nmagnitude in the literary firmament,\u201d were not too widely read, despite\nthe assistance some of them received from the newly formed book clubs.\nNor are they recalled nowadays with even fond recollection by very many.\nIt is, therefore, not surprising that Arthur Machen remains one of the\nmore obscure writers of the American Twenties, as well as of the English\nNineties.\n\nInterest in Arthur Machen was stirring even before the Twenties, but it\nwas principally among writers and literary people. James Branch Cabell,\nwhose _Beyond Life_ was first published in 1919, was perhaps the first to\nmention in print the name of Arthur Machen and something of his work. In\none of his lengthy monologues, speaking through the amiable and erudite\nCharteris, he says, \u201cI wonder if you are familiar with that uncanny\ngenius whom the London directory prosaically lists as Arthur Machen? If\nso, you may remember that in his maddening volume _Hieroglyphics_ Mr.\nMachen circumvolantly approaches to the doctrine I have just voiced\u2014that\nall enduring art must be an allegory. No doubt, he does not word this\naxiom quite explicitly: but then Mr. Machen very rarely expresses\noutright that which his wizardry suggests.\u201d\n\nIt was about this time that Starrett discovered Arthur Machen, perhaps\nthrough Cabell whose work he was among the first to praise. Starrett it\nwas, along with Paul Jordan-Smith, who tried to popularize Arthur Machen\neven before the famous Knopf \u201cyellow books\u201d were issued. A small group\ngathered about Starrett and Jordan-Smith to try to prove to publishers\nthat Machen _was_ important and that his books _were_ being collected.\nIn 1919 Smith wrote to several publishers about Machen, but they were\nnot interested. The group then made every effort to have Machen\u2019s first\neditions rise from nothing to ridiculous heights.\n\nThey succeeded all too well in this, for as Jordan-Smith says, \u201cThere\nwere only a few of us then, but we seemed to be many, for we were bidding\nagainst one another in a hundred shops all over Britain. We did not\nexpect the publishers to enter the rare book field. We merely wanted them\nto publish new books and reprint old ones by Machen. Instead they made\nlimited editions and spoiled the whole business.\u201d\n\nMr. Starrett, who is one of the most enthusiastic of Machen\u2019s admirers,\nfinally did something about it on his own. In 1923 he published, with\nhis friend Covici, a collection of Arthur Machen\u2019s stories and essays\nunder the title _The Shining Pyramid_. This book was published in an\nedition limited to 875 copies. It contained, besides the title story, a\nnumber of pieces that had not previously been published in book form, and\nmany of which have not since been reprinted. This is one of the better\ncollections of Machen material which deserves reprinting today. In the\nfollowing year Starrett published another collection under the title _The\nGlorious Mystery_. This, too, contained much new material and much that\nhas not appeared elsewhere.\n\nAt the same time, perhaps even before Starrett was preparing to publish\nhis collections, Alfred Knopf became interested in Arthur Machen and\nwrote him with an offer to publish anything of his he could find.\nApparently Knopf\u2019s negotiations coincided, in point of time at any rate,\nwith Starrett\u2019s plans. In 1925 Machen published in London a collection\ncalled _The Shining Pyramid_. The book was published simultaneously in\nNew York by Alfred Knopf. It contained an introduction in which Machen\nwrote: \u201c_The Shining Pyramid_ is the result of a collaboration. Two years\nago an American man of letters, full of industry, rummaged in old papers,\nmagazines and manuscripts owing their origin to me, and produced as a\nresult of his labors a volume published at Chicago, called _The Shining\nPyramid_. The American gentleman, I may say, did not disturb my peace by\nconsulting me as to the content of the book in question. Then, in 1924,\npleased, I suppose, with the results of his toils, he rummaged a little\nmore, and, using the same methods, produced a second volume of scraps\nand odds and ends from my workshop. This book he entitled _The Glorious\nMystery_.\u201d\n\nKnopf had, by this time, published quite a number of Machen\u2019s earlier\nbooks. Three books were published in 1922, four in 1923, four in 1924 and\nfour in 1925, of which _The Shining Pyramid_, with its introduction, was\none. The \u201cyellow books\u201d were finding their way to the more discriminating\nand discerning readers in America.\n\nThe publication of two books bearing the same title, one issuing from\nChicago, the other from London and New York, stirred up a controversy.\nHow far this went and how it terminated is not public knowledge. In\nApril of 1924 Knopf circulated to the trade a letter on the Alfred A.\nKnopf-Arthur Machen versus Covici-McGee-Vincent Starrett controversy.\nAccording to Paul Jordan-Smith the whole thing was the result of a\nmisunderstanding. \u201cThis much I know. Starrett had been given the\nmanuscripts of two or more books to get published as he could, at a\ntime when publishers were shy of Machen. Years ago I saw them and at\nleast one letter advising Starrett to do what he thought best about\npublishing them. Then Knopf came along with an offer to publish anything\nof Machen\u2019s he could find. How Machen answered this I do not know, but\nhe did give the rights to Knopf. But in the meantime Starrett had made\narrangements with Covici, his Chicago friend and former book seller. It\nwas unfortunate, and I fancy Machen\u2019s poverty and Knopf\u2019s established\nposition made Machen want to transfer to him. Both were rather bitter.\nBut as I recall the matter over the years I was impressed with the fact\nthat both had acted in good faith until Knopf\u2019s money made Machen jump. I\nthink he would not have embarrassed Starrett if he had not been utterly\nlacking in money and had not had two small children to feed.\u201d\n\nApparently the whole matter was settled amiably, for one of the\nsubsequent Knopf editions is dedicated to Vincent Starrett. The\n\u201ccontroversy,\u201d such as it was, is not a matter to be revived, nor is it\nmy intention to do so. Machen, and all who know him, owe too much to both\nMr. Knopf and Mr. Starrett.\n\nAnother early worker in the Machen field was Carl Van Vechten. Besides\nmaking Machen a sort of intellectual \u201cprop\u201d for his precious _Peter\nWhiffle_, Mr. Van Vechten wrote some of the earliest appreciations of\nMachen. I must confess that there was a time when V. V.\u2019s eyes seemed\nto me a trifle jaundiced in his estimate of Machen, and there was\na time when I rather hotly resented the implications of the title\n_Excavations_. But time mellows most of us, Machenites especially, and\nI have come to regard and to welcome Mr. Van Vechten as a trail-blazer.\nIt is true that I cannot accept some of his estimates of Machen, and I\ndare say I have often thought that he liked Arthur Machen for all the\nwrong reasons. However, let the student of Machen the Silurist decide\nfor himself. _Excavations_, containing reprints of Van Vechten\u2019s earlier\nreviews and articles, was published by the alert Mr. Knopf in 1926.\n\nVincent Starrett\u2019s study of Machen is, I think, more in sympathy, or\nat least more to my taste. The title of the book in which his essay\non Machen appears is _Buried Caesars_\u2014it enraged me no less than\n_Excavations_, and at one time I regarded these books as two voices in a\nchorus that had come not only to praise Machen but to bury him in rather\nextravagant prose.\n\n\n3\n\nThere has been little news of Arthur Machen or about Arthur Machen since\nthe late 1920\u2019s. He enjoyed a certain popularity for perhaps five years,\na popularity that lingered much longer in more literary circles. For\nthe most part Machen had disappeared from the world of literary figures\njust as his books had disappeared from the bookshops. That he is still\nread today we know, and we know too, that he has been slowly gaining\nnew readers through the years. In 1933 Machen published his last novel,\n_The Green Round_. This has not yet been published in this country,\nalthough it is scheduled for publication this year by August Derleth\u2019s\n\u201cArkham House.\u201d In 1936 there were published in London two collections\nof his stories, most of which were reprints of earlier stories with\nthe addition of some new pieces. These books are _The Children of the\nPool_, published by Hutchinson, and _The Cosy Room_, published by Rich\nand Cowan. Within the past few years Machen\u2019s stories have appeared in\nanthologies put together by Dorothy Sayers, Somerset Maughan, Phillip Van\nDoren Stern, Will Cuppy and, of all people, Boris Karloff!\n\nAugust Derleth, the youthful sage of Sac Prarie, has been more active\nthan anyone else in recent years in his efforts to spread the magic of\nMachen. Back in 1937, in the November issue of Ben Abramson\u2019s \u201cReading\nand Collecting,\u201d Derleth published an article on Machen, to which\nwas appended a bibliography by Nathan Van Patten. Derleth\u2019s article,\nthe first to appear in almost a decade, followed the pattern of most\nprevious articles about Machen. But Derleth has gone beyond prose. He\nhas, from time to time, included Machen\u2019s more macabre pieces in his\nvarious collections of supernatural stories. He has also published, or is\nplanning to publish, reprints of several Machen books.\n\nThe late H. P. Lovecraft was an admirer of Arthur Machen\u2019s work and a\nforemost exponent of the Machen manner in modern fiction. It is difficult\nto apply the epithet \u201cpulp writer\u201d to Lovecraft, but that is, after all,\nwhat he was. Recent appraisals of his work, and the publication in book\nform of his stories, have done much to raise him out of this category. It\nwas Lovecraft who introduced Machen to August Derleth and to who knows\nhow many thousands of other readers. In his essay, recently republished\nby Ben Abramson, _Supernatural Horror in Literature_, Lovecraft supplies\none of the most up-to-date, if perhaps one-sided, appraisals of Arthur\nMachen\u2019s work. Lovecraft concentrates his attention, naturally enough, on\nMachen\u2019s tales of horror and the supernatural. The result is a valuable\npiece of Machenania but one that should be approached only by an adept.\nThe chance reader or the casual reader would receive a rather specialized\nview of Machen.\n\n\n4\n\nMore than one observer of the literary scene has drawn the obvious\nparallel between the 1890\u2019s in England and the 1920\u2019s in our own country.\nBoth periods were characterized by a sharp break with tradition. In both\nperiods the younger writers found themselves voluntary exiles from their\nown country and both groups selected the same European city as the scene\nof their exile. There are other parallels, ... the flood of \u201clittle\u201d\nmagazines, the cultivation of the \u201ccontinental\u201d attitude, the revival of\nthe art for art\u2019s sake tradition and a general letting down of the bars\nonce again. Mr. Waugh, the 1890 Mr. Waugh, might well have written his\n_Reticence in Literature_ for the benefit of the new generation of bold,\nbad, young intellectuals.\n\nPeter Munro Jack, writing in Malcolm Cowley\u2019s symposium _After the\nGenteel Tradition_, called this the \u201cJames Branch Cabell Period,\u201d and\nAlfred Kazin, in _On Native Ground_, refers to the writers of the\nTwenties as \u201cThe Exquisites,\u201d while \u201cAll the Lost Generations\u201d seems to\nhim a suitable chapter heading to cover a brief history of the Twenties.\n\nMr. Jack credits it all to Cabell\u2019s _Jurgen_ and to novels by Carl Van\nVechten and Eleanor Wylie. \u201cThese books,\u201d says Mr. Jack, \u201cbrought to\nour shores the very spirit of Rabelais and Voltaire, Balzac, Anatole\nFrance and Horace Walpole, Pater, Wilde, Machen, Max Beerbohm and Aldous\nHuxley ... and converted a barbarous literature over-night into an\nairy dance of verve, irony and Gallic sophistication.\u201d Mr. Kazin also\nbegins with _Jurgen_, which apparently ushered in \u201ca vogue of elaborate\ndecadence and enthusiasm, very wicked, world-weary and ornate.\u201d Kazin\ngoes on to indicate that \u201cjust as the pale, imitative exoticism of the\nlate Nineties had marked not merely the beginnings of revolt against\nthe old parochialism but a leisure-class psychology in an America that\nhad finally attained a leisure class, so that the new literature of\nsophistication that came in with the James Branch Cabell School was\nfundamentally the ambitious baroque luxury of a period that had finally\nobtained a self-conscious splendor of its own.\u201d\n\nMr. Kazin writes from the vantage point of 1942, and anything can happen\nto a critic, a book, or a period in a dozen or more years. Hindsight\nused to be considered superior, in some ways, to foresight\u2014but such is\nthe condition of the world today that this is no longer particularly\ntrue. Mr. Kazin, writing in the heyday of the four evangelists of modern\nAmerican fiction\u2014Don Passos, Hemingway, Farrell and Steinbeck, looks\nback upon the era of \u201cbaroque luxury\u201d and \u201cself-conscious splendor\u201d\nwith anything but nostalgia. Malcolm Cowley, contributing an essay on\nDos Passos to his own symposium, an essay which preceded Kazin\u2019s book\nby five years, and to which Mr. Kazin is somewhat indebted, remarks\nthat Dos Passos had entered college in those olden baroque days, \u201cat\nthe beginning of a period which was later known as that of the Harvard\naesthetes.\u201d This is noted with an almost, but not quite, imperceptible\ntouch of pride\u2014or of snobbishness. These young Cantabrians, our boy Dos\nPassos among them, are reported to have acted in a manner befitting the\nElizabethans, or least the men of the Nineties, or any other generation\nthat felt it was living in a Golden Age. They read, Dos Passos still\namong them, Pater and _The Hill of Dreams_, and they explored the\nslums of Boston\u2014which must have seemed to them at least as romantic as\nCheapside or Houndsditch.\n\nAt any rate Machen was accepted and more or less widely hailed as one\nof the more important importations by some of the little magazines\nthat began to spring up at this time. \u201cThe Reviewer,\u201d one of the most\nimportant of the new journals, published Machen along with Ellen Glasgow,\nJoseph Hergesheimer, Ernest Boyd, Ronald Firbank, Ben Ray Redman, Edwin\nMuir and others. His public and enthusiastic acceptance by Van Vechten,\nthat inveterate organizer of torchlight parades, was quite enough to\nlaunch Machen successfully with the intellectuals who, in those halcyon\ndays, had scarcely an ideology among them.\n\nIt has been said that the writers of this period, motivated no doubt\nby the cynicism they either created or absorbed, or both, tended to\nescape from this world they never made and produced in the process of\nescaping some of the most exciting and readable books ever written in\nAmerica. Of course neither Mr. Cowley nor Mr. Kazin draws exactly these\nconclusions\u2014they are rather scornful of the Twenties and of the books\nproduced in the Twenties.\n\nThey are both, Mr. Kazin more than Mr. Cowley since he came in later, in\nrather a hurry to get on to the Thirties when the Four Horsemen of the\nApocryphal were beginning to gallop madly down the back-country lanes and\nthrough the congested streets of cities and the back-yards of milltowns.\nNevertheless it must be apparent to even the most ideological reader of\nthese weighty volumes that, for all their efforts at deprecating the\nself-conscious splendor of the period, both Mr. Cowley and Mr. Kazin\nmanage to make the Twenties sound vastly more entertaining than the dull\nperiod to follow, when the leftist interpretation of literature placed\nblack Marx against every novel that showed signs of having been written\nfor the sheer pleasure of writing, or the desire to create a character or\nto tell a story.\n\nThis seems to be the great fault that is found, by such men as\nthese, with the novels of that era. They were not so judged in the\nNineteen-Twenties. The sentiments expressed by Arthur Machen in\n_Hieroglyphics_, and echoed in Cabell\u2019s _Beyond Life_, were rather widely\naccepted at the time, not only by a large portion of the reading public,\nbut also by members of the more critical profession. Dyson, however\nmuch he may have fussed with his pipes and his pencils, his notes and\nhis notions, expressed what was the literary credo of the day; \u201cI will\ngive you the task of a literary man in a nutshell\u2014to create a wonderful\nstory and to tell it in a wonderful manner.\u201d And so Cabell and Wylie and\nFitzgerald and Hume and Wilder and many others created wonderful stories.\nIn this time of man and to this manner of writing Machen was admirably\nsuited.\n\nPeople who found New York in the Twenties as fabulous a city as Machen\nand Stevenson found London in their day, were delighted with the\nyellow-bound books that came out under the Borzoi imprint. For many a\nspeakeasy in the mid-Forties, or in the Village, offered possibilities as\nextraordinary as Stevenson\u2019s _Suicide Club_ or _The Lost Club_ of Machen.\nIndeed there are undoubtedly those who can recall when their favorite\nhaunt disappeared over-night and then, as if by magic, reappeared in the\nbrownstone house across the street. The city parks, as yet uninhabited\nby muggers, were magical places after midnight and lonely as the sunken\nlanes of Avalon. Those who delighted in the doings of Dyson and the\nadventures of the Young Man in Spectacles were enchanted by the curious\nbyways of London, and they shared the satirical views of the dyspeptic\nDoctor Stiggins and the Hermit of Barnsbury. It pleased immense numbers\nof people who tired of Dreiser to find, in _Hieroglyphics_, this perfect\nreflection of their own attitude: \u201cImagine having to spend twenty years\nwith _such_ people.\u201d\n\nThe crash in the fall of 1929 was followed by a stunned silence\u2014and\npresently one began to hear the hoof beats of the four frightening\nHorsemen and the voices of the economical evangelists crying, and\nwreaking, havoc.\n\nThe realists began to be heard because realism seemed to be what people\nwanted\u2014politically, at any rate. The polemics disguised as novels began\nto appear in greater and ever-increasing numbers. It has since become\nobvious that realism of this sort was a one-way street to despair\u2014and it\nwas the realists, not the now-silent \u201cromanticists,\u201d who were called,\nin their own time, \u201cThe Irresponsibles.\u201d But with the rise of the\nproletarian novel, the heroic mill-hand and the long, dreary lines of the\nunemployed, the period came to an end. Machen, along with the others,\nceased to be read except by those who re-read him, or discovered him in\nthe dusty bookshops where the yellow binding gleamed from the darkest\ncorner.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Seven_\n\nMACHEN\u2019S MAGIC\n\n\n1\n\nOf recent years there has been a tendency to regard the novel as\nsomething it has become rather than what it should be. Most novels\nthat do not fall neatly into one of several categories created by the\ncritics and reviewers are judged to be poor novels indeed. As a matter of\nfact, the whole of fiction, as well as of poetry, has come to be judged\naccording to standards which, while they may be excellent standards when\napplied to journalism or the so-called \u201cdocumentary,\u201d serve fiction\nrather poorly. It has become the custom to label all stories, novels\nand poetry that may fall outside the special categories set up by such\nstandards as \u201cescapist.\u201d It is a convenient enough classification, and\nit is an apt enough description, but the word has come to be used in a\nrather derogatory sense.\n\nNow it may be demonstrated by an application of these very standards\nthat almost every one of the world\u2019s great books, and every one of the\nworld\u2019s heroic poems, is \u201cescapist.\u201d And that is, after all, what they\nwere intended to be. But we are concerned with the telling of a story\nand the manner of its telling. To tell a wonderful story in a wonderful\nmanner, this, says Arthur Machen, is the function of the writer. There\nis another equally fine description of the writer\u2019s task, this time by\nJames Branch Cabell, another story teller of some eminence.\n\nThere is in almost all great stories a certain magic that becomes\napparent from the first sentence. One picks up _Moby Dick_ and reads:\n\u201cCall me Ishmael.\u201d There is a quality of strangeness in the name and\nabruptness of introduction that serves to set a mood, a mood that\npersists through the entire book. Many of Poe\u2019s stories have this same\nstrangeness and this same quality. One finds it too, in many of Machen\u2019s\nstories. The opening sentence, for example of _The Hill of Dreams_: \u201cThe\nsky glowed as if great furnace doors had been opened.\u201d\n\nThe magic of Machen depends as much upon his style as it does upon\nthe magical things of which he writes. His finest stories appeal to\nan essential and basic desire for \u201cescape\u201d from the common life. They\ndepend for their effect upon that willing suspension of disbelief of\nwhich Coleridge wrote (and for which Coleridge is known by far too many\nwho would turn its meaning to their own uses), a suspension of disbelief\nwhich it is Mr. Machen\u2019s happy fortune to bring about almost at will.\n\nAnd yet, apparently, there is much more to it than the mere suspension\nof disbelief\u2014it is rather a desire to accept such matters as may be set\nforth, whether or not they challenge belief\u2014simply because they make an\nappeal to _instinctive belief_. One doesn\u2019t have to try very hard to\nbelieve in the existence of certain powers, especially those which cannot\nbe, or have not yet been, explained as any known existing force. From\nthis point onward the development of a story by Machen may hinge upon\nthe manner of telling as well as upon the selection of the materials for\nthe tale. There must be no fumbling of the matter, no crude effects, no\ncreaky props, no bolstering up by the shabby tricks and melodramatic\nartifices of the penny dreadfuls. Machen\u2019s magic is very simply achieved.\nIn each of his tales an improbable, but not implausible, theme is stated;\nusually one that is based upon something involving an instinctive belief,\nfor example: the existence of \u201clittle people,\u201d the continuance of some\nancient power under certain circumstances, and in explaining certain\noccurrences or events for which no rational explanation exists. Folk\ntales, superstitions, local legends and mythology, most of these embody\ncertain elements in which most of us have at least an instinctive belief.\nThen, too, a great deal of Mr. Machen\u2019s own particular magic is achieved\nthrough his ability to see things and to present things that are \u201cremoved\nfrom the common life.\u201d\n\nMost of Machen\u2019s characters are not unusual people, they are not\nespecially \u201cpeculiar\u201d in any accepted sense except as they may be\naffected by certain occurrences in the earlier development of the story.\nFor example, the young man in _The Novel of the White Powder_, the boy\nin _The Novel of the Black Seal_, and the Vaughan girl in _The Great God\nPan_. But for the most part his characters are, or were, very ordinary\npeople; ordinary, that is, in the sense that Dyson and Phillips, and even\nLucian Taylor, are quite ordinary people. Indeed the very ordinariness of\nsome of these people becomes the starting point of an entire sequence of\nextraordinary events. Just as it was the ordinary qualities of a young\nmarried couple visiting relatives of a Sunday night in a dull, stodgy,\nrespectable suburb of London that resulted in the strange story called _A\nFragment of Life_.\n\nMachen\u2019s characters are completely believable, whatever events may occur,\nsimply because of their very ordinary qualities. Lucian Taylor, the\n\u201chero\u201d of _The Hill of Dreams_, an introvert we would call him today,\nwas a normal school boy who did not conform too well to the rigors of\nthe Public School System, and whose solitary home life conditioned him\nto react as he did to the strangeness of his environment and to succumb\nto the influences, real or imagined, of the Roman ruins near his home.\nTo the development of such a simple and ordinary character, in this\nparticular story, must be added one very important magical element\u2014the\ninfluence of landscape upon character.\n\nFor the peculiar potency of Machen\u2019s magic owes much, if not most of its\nforce, to landscape and to the subtle influence of the weird topography\nof his stories. Many of Machen\u2019s most telling effects are achieved\nthrough the mere portrayal of a brooding landscape, the sombre background\nof mountains, the deep, rutted lanes that run along between head-high\nhedges, solitary hilltops shimmering in heat waves, old grey houses that\nsit somberly at the edge of the forest and rivers that coil in slow esses\nthrough forests and skirt the walls of mountains. There is no doubt that\nthe wild Welsh countryside had this effect upon Machen himself.\n\nMachen\u2019s first book, it will be remembered, was written by one \u201cLeolinus\nSilurensis\u201d\u2014and Machen frequently calls himself a \u201cSilurist.\u201d For Gwent,\nin the old days, the days before Arthur and before the Romans, was the\nhome of the Silures, one of the three great tribes in this last corner\nof the West. The Silures seem to have been more Iberian than Celtic\u2014they\ndwelled in the Black Mountains and along the estuary of the Severn. It\nwas, then, this dark and ancient land that formed the background of\nMachen\u2019s life and most of his work. Machen explains, and illustrates, the\ninfluence of his homeland in _Far Off Things_:\n\n\u201cThis, then, was my process: to invent a story which would recreate\nthose vague impressions of wonder and awe and mystery that I myself had\nreceived from the form and shape of the land of my boyhood and youth;\nand as I thought over this and meditated on the futility\u2014or comparative\nfutility\u2014of the plot however ingenious, which did not exist to express\nemotions of one kind or another, it struck me that it might be possible\nto reverse the process. Could one describe hills and valleys, woods and\nrivers, sunrise and sunset, buried temples and mouldering Roman walls so\nthat a story should be suggested to the reader? Not, of course, a story\nof material incidents, not a story with a plot in the ordinary sense of\nthe term, but an interior tale of the soul and its emotions; could such a\ntale be suggested in the way I have indicated? Such is to be the plan of\nthe great book which is not yet written.\u201d\n\nBut of course this book was written, not once but over and over again.\nOne finds its content in almost everything Machen ever wrote. One\ndiscovers too, the influence of landscape upon Machen and his work. One\nnotes the feeling for landscape as much in his work as in the work of\nPoe or Coleridge or Hawthorne. One day, no doubt, a learned scholar\nwill write a lengthy monograph upon what might be called _The Influence\nof Landscape Upon the Creative Imagination_. There are already many\nfootnotes available for such a work.\n\nMachen recognized this influence, it became apparent to him as he walked\nin the land of the Silures and as he read in the evenings in the drawing\nroom at Llandewi. This snug, old fashioned \u201cparlour\u201d in the Rectory was\nthe treasure house of the Machens. Here were their china and silver,\nand here the books gathered by the Rector and his forebears. It was\nhere that Arthur Machen, on his vacations from school at Hereford,\ndiscovered the wonders of Waverly and DeQuincy. Here, too, was Parker\u2019s\n_Glossary of Gothic Architecture_. This book initiated Machen into the\nspirit of Gothic and, as he says, \u201cthat is one of the most magical of\nall initiations.\u201d Gothic meant to Arthur Machen \u201cthe art of the supreme\nexaltation, of the inebriation of the body and soul and spirit. It is\nnot resigned to dwell calmly, stoically, austerely on the level plains\nof this earthy life, since its joy is in this, that it has stormed the\nbattlements of heaven. And so its far-lifted vaults and its spires rush\nupward, and its pinnacles are like a wood of springing trees. And its\nhard stones, its strong based pillars break out as it were into song,\nthey blossom as the rose; all the secrets of the garden and the field and\nthe wood have been delivered unto them.\u201d\n\nMachen early developed this sense of wonder in the land. In his reading\nhe discovered, in the age of Coleridge and Wordsworth, the \u201crenaissance\nof wonder.\u201d His taste for Scott and DeQuincy and Coleridge and Poe and\nHawthorne and Parker; his taste, in short, for the \u201cGothic,\u201d supports\nand explains this. For landscape and its influence are important\nelements in that which we have come to call \u201cGothic\u201d ... and it is this\nGothic-ness that is also one of the elements in Machen\u2019s magic.\n\n\n2\n\nAnd then of course there is the final test of the story-teller\u2019s magic.\nMr. Machen\u2019s inventions have frequently been taken for truth. The tale\nof the Bowmen at Mons is the classic example. Machen has told how he\nreceived letters following the publication of some of his books\u2014letters\nin which the writers sought explanations of the stories, letters which\nwere undoubtedly prompted by a belief in some basic truth on which they\nsuspected the story had been built.\n\nMany years ago Vincent Starrett wrote, in his preface to the Chicago\nedition of _The Shining Pyramid_, that there were three Machens\u2014Machen\nthe Saint, Machen the Sorcerer and Machen the Critic. It is, of course,\nMachen the Sorcerer whose work is most popular, or shall we say, the\nbest known. Machen himself once wrote: \u201cSorcery and Sanctity, these are\nthe only true realities.\u201d We might interpret these to mean religion and\nscience\u2014although it is doubtful if all of the admirers of Arthur Machen\nmake this interpretation. At any rate it is the works of Machen the\nSorcerer that have been most widely anthologized. These are the stories\none finds classified under such headings as \u201csupernatural stories, tales\nof terror, horror stories\u201d and the like.\n\nLet us admit that supernatural fiction, supernatural tales, have quite\na respectable lineage. It must not be imagined, as some intellectuals\ndo, that the tale of terror is something to which only the readers of\npulp magazines are addicted. The supernatural tale has been the subject\nof several excellent studies. One has only to mention the work of such\nadmirable scholars as Dorothy Scarborough, Edith Birkhead, Montague\nSummers and Eino Railo.\n\nIt has been said by some of these scholarly investigators that almost\nevery English writer of any importance has, at one time or another,\nwritten at least one story or novel that fits somewhere into one of these\ncategories. And then, of course, the scholarly investigators proceed to\ngive reasons for the interest in such stories, and they point out that\nthe interest as well as the belief in such matters is always in direct\nproportion to the ruggedness of the terrain. And they also list, as\nevidence of the extent of their research, the means whereby the best\neffects may be achieved in this particular field. Basically these have to\ndo with landscape, architecture, antiquity and a whole collection of odds\nand ends, of props and stage settings that form the background for the\nvenerable school of Gothic literature started many years ago by Horace\nWalpole in _The Castle of Otranto_.\n\nOne thing all of these tales have in common is, naturally enough,\nstrangeness. A strangeness in landscape, a strangeness in character.\nBasically too, one supposes, these stories are written about, and because\nof, men\u2019s fears. That is why they are called ghost stories, or horror\nstories, or tales of terror. This fear is not merely a fear of the\ndead returned, but of the past. For these stories concern themselves,\neven when not with actual ghosts, with past glories, past powers, past\ncivilizations, and ancient ceremonies.\n\nIt is not that man seeks to frighten himself that he reads these stories\nand is fascinated by them. Psychologists, of one sort or another, have\nsaid that the popularity of ghost stories and mystery novels can be\ntraced to a desire to enjoy vicariously the precarious situations in\nwhich characters in these tales find themselves; and that by substituting\nthemselves for the characters involved the readers may obtain a certain\nstimulation which is lacking in their humdrum, calm and civilized lives.\nThis, it seems to me, is not particularly true. It is rather because the\npast _is_ the past\u2014simply that and nothing more. For the past is the\none thing man can never alter, although it has become fashionable for\nus to try even that. The present is here, the future is attainable and\nforseeable and it may even be influenced. The past is unattainable and\nwill always remain so, therefore man remains fascinated by it. The more\nshrouded in the mists of time and of antiquity, the more fascinating. Man\ndoes not read of the past to frighten himself any more than he drinks\nin order to experience a hang-over. Nor does the average reader of\nsupernatural stories identify himself with primitive men\u2019s fears any more\nthan he identifies himself with the abstract forces for good or evil when\nreading detective stories. Man is a curious creature and his curiosity\nleads him into strange places. His curiosity concerning his amazing\ncuriosity leads him to even stranger conclusions.\n\nThis preoccupation with the Past is part of man\u2019s eternal preoccupation\nwith Time; is now, and always shall be, world without end; from the\ndays of the early Greeks, who knew that Chronos was the father of\ngreat Jupiter himself\u2014the parent of the father of the Gods. Many years\nago J. W. Dunne wrote a strange and tantalizing book, _An Experiment\nwith Time_, a book much remarked by critics and book reviewers in the\npractice of their trade, but seldom quoted beyond a mere mention of its\ntitle. This is an extraordinary book, perhaps out-dated now, in this\nage of the supersonic and the expanding universe and the expanding ego.\nNevertheless, H. G. Wells and Kipling have been influenced by it; and\nmany another creator of the marvelous and the wonderful. One may read\nmany strange and wonderful books, one may even read strong and powerful\nand significant books\u2014but one never forgets such books and plays written\nabout the Time theme as _The Time Machine_ and _Berkeley Square_,\nPriestley\u2019s _I Have Been Here Before_, Ford Madox Ford\u2019s _Ladies Whose\nBright Eyes_ and many others.\n\n\n3\n\nThe magic of Machen is due no less to his wonderful style than to his\nwonderful material. In these days when one can scarcely speak of style\nwithout being considered stuffy and perhaps even pedantic, to praise a\nwriter for his style is almost to damn him with faint praise. This is\nundoubtedly because we have had no stylists for the last several decades,\nfor which, on the whole, we may well be grateful! It is possible that\nstylists fell into disrepute because so many of them, in the past,\nconcealed a tremendous vacuum and a cavernous nothingness beneath and\nbehind a facile facade of fluency.\n\nYet Arthur Machen has a distinctive style, the perfection of which,\nwhile it appeals to the pedantic and soothes the scholarly, must be\napparent even to the readers of those horrendous anthologies which have\nreprinted Machen while the scholars were busily interring him in their\nfascinating mausoleums. This matter of style is rather a tricky one. It\nis the sort of thing of which one might say, as some have, and when all\ndefinitions fail, \u201cEither one has it, or\u2014one hasn\u2019t!\u201d However feelingly\nand with whatever academic finality this axiom may be delivered\u2014style\nis obviously more than that, and more than the man. More, too, than\nwords and a certain way of putting them together, and much more than a\nmere choice of words or dexterity in manipulating them. We have come to\nthink that many of these things _do_ constitute style. Indeed, a certain\npublisher recently hailed a new book (one of his own, of course) as being\nin the \u201ctradition of the English Stylists.\u201d Simply because the writer\nemployed, here and there, a compound-complex sentence, composed with a\ncertain felicity and manufactured of polysyllabic words or those with a\ncertain antique charm. It is felt, then, that a matter of phrases makes a\nFielding\u2014which is no more the case than that the use of a quotation from\nDonne makes a writer one to stand with the Elizabethans.\n\nStyle is, like so many other things, more apparent in the breach than\nin the observance, which comes perilously close to the didactic dictum,\n\u201cEither you have it, or\u2014you haven\u2019t.\u201d But not quite. To be sure, every\nwritten word or group of words has style, even roadsigns, notices of\ntrespass, mayors\u2019 proclamation, editorials in the Daily Worker, even\nsoap operas have style. The most popular writers of pot-boilers have a\nstyle\u2014and many of them have so pronounced a style that they can be and\nhave been recognizably parodied.\n\nIt might be said of a good style that it is one that cannot be parodied.\nAn examination of Machen\u2019s style would indicate that it is, in his case\nat least, quite true. For Machen\u2019s style is a blend of many things; of\nwords with magic connotation, of sentences that create moods, of passages\nthat suggest, subtly and almost unconsciously, the exact atmosphere for\nwhich they were intended. Mr. Machen is a master at evoking the willing\nsuspension of disbelief, and he does it without employing any of the\nstock properties listed by Coleridge and other authorities as having\nthe proper connotative value for the creation of a \u201cGothic\u201d mood or\natmosphere.\n\nWhen all is said and done, however, it must be admitted that Machen\u2019s\nstyle is merely a reflection of his faith in the credo of a literary man\nas set forth by the admirable Dyson. And here, of course, we come to the\ncrux of the matter, and as close as we may to an explanation of Machen\u2019s\nmagic which cannot, after all, be appraised in rational terms. In that\nwonderful book called _Hieroglyphics_ Machen poses a series of questions:\n\n    \u201cExplain, in rational terms, The Quest of the Holy Graal. State\n    whether in your opinion such a vessel ever existed, and if you\n    think it did not, justify your pleasure in reading an account\n    of the search for it.\u201d\n\n    \u201cExplain, logically, your delight in color.\u201d\n\n    \u201cEstimate the value of Westminster Abbey in the avoirdupois\n    measure.\u201d\n\n    \u201cFaery lands forlorn. Draw a map of the district in question,\n    putting in principal towns and naming exports.\u201d\n\nMachen agrees that one cannot express art of any kind in the terms of\nrationalism, and that \u201cIf literature be a kind of dignified reporting, in\nwhich the reporter is at liberty to invent new incidents and leave out\nothers, and to arrange all in the order that pleases him best; then, let\nus have as much \u201ccommon sense\u201d and \u201crationalism\u201d as you please ... but\nif literature is a mysterious ecstasy, the withdrawal from all common\nand ordinary conditions ... [we had better] confess that with its first\nprinciples logic has nothing to do.... For if Rationalism be the truth,\nthen all literature ... is simply lunacy.\u201d\n\n\n4\n\nThere are, sometimes, certain superficial resemblances between the\nworks of imaginative writers that are outside the province and beyond\nthe charge of plagiarism. An age produces a culture, a culture produces\nworks of art, and all the while the individual consciousness, or\nsub-consciousness, feeds upon and is nourished by the raw materials\nand the basic elements of the culture. For in any age there are bound\nto exist certain individuals in whom combinations of common experience\ndevelop along certain lines and who may be expected to react in almost\npredictable patterns to identical stimulae ... just as certain identical\ncombinations of chemical elements may be expected to react in identical\nmanner under identical circumstances. Which is, after all, no major\ndiscovery but merely a restatement of the obvious fact that lies behind\nthe continuity of any culture, or even, on a smaller scale, of any\nliterary movement, or on occasion, of something less significant than a\nliterary movement.\n\nThis fact also lies behind the periodical resurgence of certain ideals of\nculture or revivals of interest in certain abstractions such as realism,\nnaturalism, romanticism and the like. And it explains, in individuals,\nthe influence one writer may have over another, or the appeal of certain\ntypes of material to certain similar individuals.\n\nSuperficial resemblances are a common manifestation of spiritual\nrelationships. Some years ago a rather clever critic of music wrote a\nbook called _Music for the Man Who Enjoys Hamlet_. Now, the resemblance\nbetween people who enjoy Hamlet no doubt extends to a great many things\nother than the stage and Shakespeare and music, and, for all we know,\nit might even be established that such people have a mutual preference\nfor a specific cocktail or a certain brand of cigarette. Our critic did\nnot attempt to prove this, he contented himself with discussing music of\na type to soothe the Hamlet-enjoying intellect. And so the superficial\nresemblances between Poe and Coleridge and DeQuincy extend far beyond a\nneed or addiction, accidental or otherwise, to stimulants of one sort\nor another. The lines that connect and link these individuals, feature\nfor feature, element for element, with an incomplete analogy here, and\na broken chain there, would no doubt resemble a physicist\u2019s laboratory\nmodel of the atomic structure of the very newest isotope of the most\nrecently discovered element.\n\nPerhaps individuals themselves constitute the electrons and protons of\na cultural atom. We might link individuals of a certain sort, the men\nwho enjoy Hamlet, for example, or Poe, DeQuincy, Hawthorne, Coleridge,\nand find isotopes here too\u2014Brockden-Brown, Walter Scott, Tieck, Machen,\nSheil, Stevenson, Wells and so on and so on. And we would find that\nthese elements or individuals had certain affinities, certain properties\nin common. They are not alike merely in that they wrote in a certain\nfashion, or that they wrote about more or less similar ideas, or that the\nmoods they created were more or less identical. There are certain other\nqualities, perhaps insignificant, but revealing.\n\nPoe, like Coleridge, was fond of designing title pages and planning\nmagazines and journals of a very literary sort. We find that Poe and\nColeridge shared a facility for creating exotic and quite unreal\nlocalities. For example Coleridge\u2019s Pleasure Palace of Kubla Khan and\nPoe\u2019s Domain of Arnheim are very similar in conception. The conception\nof tremendous wealth appealed, in a most impractical way, to both Poe\nand Coleridge. And, finally, both shared a great liking for names of\nOriental origin ... there is no distance at all, on the literary map,\nbetween Xanadu and the kingdom by the sea; and the River Alph or one of\nits tributaries, empties into the tarn of Auber. Machen\u2019s own landscape\nis not too far removed. It was first peopled by the dark people who came\nfrom Defrobani, which is to say the City of the Golden Domes, far to the\neast on the shores of Marmora. And Machen\u2019s eternal preoccupation with a\nGreat Romance is akin in many ways to Poe\u2019s grandiose schemes for epic\ncompositions no less than it is to the complete unpublished works of\nColeridge.\n\nThere was magic in these men and in their manner of telling a tale.\nThere was, in each of them, an ability to create that which made its\nstrongest appeal to that love of strangeness in most men\u2019s minds.\n\nDeQuincy, alone in London; Hawthorne, so solemnly settled in Salem,\nColeridge surrounded by blue-stockings and blue lakes; Poe in his erratic\ncourse from salon to saloon ... these men made magic of a sort no realist\ncould ever devise. Machen\u2019s magic is of this sort.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Eight_\n\nTHE PATTERN\n\n\n1\n\nToward the close of the first quarter of this century Mr. Alfred Knopf,\nbeing ready to reissue _The Anatomy of Tobacco_, asked Arthur Machen to\nwrite a new introduction for the volume. The _Anatomy_ had been written\nsome forty-three years before and it seemed time a new edition and a\nnew introduction were called for. The _Anatomy_ is a slight book, and\na rather dull and pretentious one, turned out as a sort of sophomoric\nexercise under the influence of Burton and other pedantic antiquarians.\nMachen had no objection to writing a new introduction to the book of\n\u201cLeolinus Siluriensis\u201d and so he sat down at once to do so.\n\nMost of Machen\u2019s work, and certainly all of the best of it, had already\nbeen written and published ... there was no Great Romance on the fire\njust then. Several years before he had written his memoirs, or come as\nclose to writing them as he ever would. _The Confessions of a Literary\nMan_ appeared serially in the London Evening News through several months\nof 1915. Secker issued the _Confessions_ in 1922 as _Far Off Things_.\nA year later Machen wrote _Things Near and Far_; another two years\nlater came _The London Adventure_. These three books are Machen\u2019s\nautobiography, although it has been said that almost everything he ever\nwrote was, to a great extent, autobiographical. At any rate, Machen\nsaw the books in print and occupied himself with journalism, which he\ndetested, and with thinking over the books he had written which, on the\nwhole, he rather enjoyed. And so when, in the 1920\u2019s, he began the New\nYork Adventure, Machen sat down and wrote not one but a whole series of\nnew introductions. There is no nonsense about these introductions, and no\n\u201cgraceful writing.\u201d The introduction to the new edition of the _Anatomy_\nbegins quite simply:\n\n\u201cIt struck me once, during a long meditation on literature, that every\nman who has written has had but one idea in his head. To the best of my\nrecollection, the particular example in my mind at the time was Edgar\nAllen Poe, who executed a wonderful series of variations on one theme.\u201d\n\nNow this idea had been in Machen\u2019s mind for a great many years. A year or\ntwo before completing his introduction for Mr. Knopf he had been engaged\nin writing a book called _The London Adventure_. The book contains much\nmaterial that is found in neither the _Confessions_ nor in _Things Near\nand Far_. While writing the book he became intrigued with some old note\nbooks he had kept many years before. In reading them he was reminded of a\nstory by Henry James, _The Pattern on the Carpet_, in which is expressed\nthe notion of a man of letters who had written many books and was quite\nsurprised to find that one of his admirers had failed to recognize that\nall these tales of his were variations on one theme; that a common\npattern, like the pattern of an eastern carpet ran through them all.\nIn the story the novelist died suddenly without revealing the nature\nof the pattern. Nor does Henry James, in whose works one might also\ntrace a common pattern. He too leaves it to his readers to discover for\nthemselves the mystery of this one design, latent in a whole shelf of\nbooks.\n\nMachen himself has such a pattern, and such a theme. It occurs again and\nagain in all of his works, in his short stories as well as in his novels:\nin the slightest of his essays as well as in _Hieroglyphics_. This theme\nhe defines in several places quite briefly and simply. It is, he says,\n\u201cThe sense of the eternal mysteries, the eternal beauty hidden beneath\nthe crust of common and commonplace things: hidden and yet burning and\nglowing continuously if you care to look with purged eyes.\u201d\n\nWe have noted, several times over, Machen\u2019s preoccupation with a Great\nRomance. Many years ago he wrote, \u201cThere is a great book that I am hoping\nto write one of these fine days. I have been hoping to write it, I may\nsay, since 1898, or \u201999, and somewhere about the later year I did write\nas many as a dozen pages. The _magnum opus_ so far conducted did not\nwholly displease me, and yet it was not good enough to urge me forward\nin the task. And so it has languished ever since then, and I am afraid\nI have lost the manuscript that contained all that there was of it long\nago. Seriously, of course, it would not have been a great book if it had\nbeen ever so prosperously continued and ended; but it would have been at\nleast a curious book, and even now I feel conscious of warm desire at the\nthought of writing it\u2014some day. For the idea came to me as follows:\n\n\u201cI had been thinking at the old century end of the work that I had done\nin the fifteen years or so before, and it suddenly dawned upon me that\nthis work, pretty good or pretty bad, or as it may be, had all been the\nexpression of one formula, one endeavor. What I had been doing was this:\nI had been inventing tales in which and by which I had tried to realize\nmy boyish impressions of that wonderful magic Gwent.\u201d\n\nNow this great book was not only written but it was rewritten under\nvarious forms, in entirely different ways, and with no surface\nsimilarities at all. For almost sixty years he had written purely to\nplease himself, nor did he hesitate to publish, at his own expense, the\nbooks he wrote for his own pleasure. It was his feeling in this that\nthere was no reason why a beginner should not be willing to pay his own\nway. And yet, as he says, it is a queer pleasure when one does write to\nplease oneself. For, as Machen says,\n\n\u201cI wrote purely to please myself; and what a queer pleasure it was!\nTo write, or to try to write, means involving oneself in endless\ndifficulties, contrarieties, torments, despairs, and yet I wrote on, and\nI suppose for the reason which I have given, the necessity laid upon most\nof us to create another and a fantastic life in order that the life of\nactuality may be endurable.\u201d\n\nIn these excerpts from Machen\u2019s autobiographical sketches one encounters\nover and over again certain keywords: \u2018escape,\u2019 \u2018common life,\u2019 \u2018eternal\nmysteries,\u2019 \u2018removal\u2019 and so on. And these same key words are, of course,\nthe underlying themes of every story he ever wrote. They constitute the\ncriteria by which he judged the literature of past and present as well.\n\n\n2\n\nMachen had been brought up on Scott and Coleridge, Hawthorne and Poe and\nall the authors one would naturally expect a school boy to encounter\nin an English public school in the 1880\u2019s. In addition to these there\nwere the books he found in the rectory at Llanddewi. These included one\nespecially significant book by Parker on Gothic architecture.\n\nWe have already noted that Machen early became aware of the beauty\nof the Gothic and that he was all of his life more or less under its\ninfluence. His conception of the Gothic was not quite the same as Horace\nWalpole\u2019s. It stemmed rather from Parker and from Coleridge, from whom\nhe learned that there is \u201cin the spectacle of external nature something\nmuch more than mere pleasantness or sensuous beauty.\u201d The rugged terrain\nof the land of the Silures would seem to offer little of pleasantness or\nsensuous beauty ... yet it did act upon Machen in much the same way that\nsuch a landscape had acted upon the imagination of such a lyrical poet\nas, for example, Wordsworth.\n\nAs a matter of fact, Machen did not hesitate to refer to Walpole\u2019s \u201csham\nGothic,\u201d and he assumes that Walpole had a sort of \u201cvague idea that there\nwas something in a particular architecture of a particular era which was\nsomehow or other curious and admirable.\u201d Machen further remarks that one\ncannot possibly compare the school of Coleridge in its appreciation of\nnature with the school of Walpole in its appreciation of the Gothic. And\nthen, he poses a question in which there lies the answer to his own and\nto many another writer\u2019s problem. \u201cMay it not be that Coleridge and his\nfellows were but the forerunners of a new doctrine which was not fully\nrevealed to them.\u201d\n\nWe have remarked that Machen employs none of the traditional trappings\nof the Gothic tale. There are no clankings and bumpings and ghosties in\nthe night. There are no ruined castles, no hermits in caves. Instead we\nfind deserted houses in Lambeth and in Clerkenwell, and sometimes the\nhouses are not even deserted. Nor are they occupied by monks or knights\nor old families in whose closets lurk the most deplorable of skeletons.\nThe typical Gothic \u201chero,\u201d either the sardonic Byronic or the melancholy\nManfred type is never encountered. Machen\u2019s heroes, if such they be, are\nrather ordinary young men like Lucian Taylor and Ambrose Meyrick, or\nperhaps you may wish to call the ever-present Dyson and the companionable\nPhillips heroes. There are, of course, sinister characters in Machen.\nMr. Davies, outwardly ordinary, is as black a villain as can be found\nanywhere in the whole school of Otranto. Miss Lally, or Miss Leicester,\nare as horrific in their own quiet way as any harpy or hag encountered in\nthe novels of Radcliff.\n\nArthur Machen is much more closely related in his work to Hawthorne and\nPoe than he is to his English contemporaries and predecessors. As Paul\nElmer More has noted, Hawthorne and Poe are the only two writers in\nAmerica who have won almost universal renown as artists, and that these\ntwo are each, in their own manner, a sovereign in that strange region of\nemotion which we name the weird. Their achievement, as Mr. More points\nout, is not at all like the Gothic novel introduced by Horace Walpole.\nThere is little in them of the revival of medieval superstition and gloom\nwhich marked the rise of romanticism in Europe.\n\nThe unearthly visions of Poe and Hawthorne were not the results of\nliterary whim or unbridled individualism but, according to Mr. More, were\ndeeply rooted in American history. Now this is a rather strange matter,\nfor there is nothing nationalistic in the nature of the work of these\nAmerican writers. It follows a well established tradition, but it is not\nthe tradition of the English school of the Gothic revival. It was greatly\ninfluenced by Germanic mysticism, just as Coleridge was influenced\nby Teutonic theory. These American writers seem to have missed the\ndilettantism that was associated with the Gothic revival in England. In\nthis they are very close to Machen and his work. Both these writers were\ngreatly influenced by their surroundings and by the influence of their\nown native landscape. The personal alchemy of each one transmuted the\nelements of that landscape and created a time and place that never were.\n\nPoe especially, and to a far greater extent, was affected by landscape\nnot only of his native Virginia but of every place he ever visited. Some\nyears ago John Cowper Powys, a visiting, but much more sympathetic than\nusual, Englishman commented upon this aspect of the writings of Poe:\n\n\u201cFor myself, as a traveller for a score of years between all of Edgar\nAllen Poe\u2019s particular cities, and knowing the country round them a good\ndeal better than I know my own, I confess\u2014though it may be because of\na kindred sensibility toward the ghostly, the weird, and the horror\nhinting: I have found even in those districts, though of course far\nmore in the deeper south, elements here and there that correspond with\ndisturbing closeness to the frightening things in his imaginary landscape.\n\n\u201cBut it is not from those pine haunted woods and those morasses and those\ntreacherous estuaries and those Lethean wharfs that the darker vistas and\nmore troubling visions of Poe\u2019s inspirations comes.\n\n\u201cThey are conjured up from the symbols of pre-incarnate tremblings that\nwe all find written on the nerves of our race\u2014though only a few abnormal\nindividuals can render articulate these hieroglyphics of holy terror.\n\n\u201c... We all conceal within us, inherited from an immemorial past, a\nsecret yearning to enjoy by some magical shortcut the hidden potencies of\nnature. A responsive pulse begins to beat irrepressibly within us when\nFaust makes the sign of the Macrocosm, for there is not one among us for\nwhom the idea of forbidden joys and an unnatural power over the forces of\nnature has not got a seductive appeal.\u201d\n\nMachen made this comment in a letter on the subject of the Gothic novel.\n\u201cThe fact is, I believe, that all the Gothic romances are sham Gothic\nromances. I mean that the people who put back their period into the\nmiddle ages, had hardly the faintest notion of what life in the middle\nages, in a Gothic castle was really like. This, let me note, is nothing\nagainst their books as literature or else we should be laughing at a\nhighly esteemed writer for supposing that ninth century life at Elsinore\nhad the remotest resemblance to the life which is depicted in _Hamlet_.\u201d\n\n\n3\n\nThe books of Arthur Machen which have gained the greatest amount of\nattention are, naturally enough, the more sensational stories in which\nhe touches upon themes that approach what is, or what has been in the\npast, forbidden territory. It seems odd that Arthur Machen, whose works\nhave been so generally neglected, should have been scolded on occasion\nby various critics for his use of sexual themes. Actually there is no\nsexuality as such in any of Arthur Machen\u2019s books. It does enter into\nsome of the stories through the medium of mythology, Roman or Celtic,\nand sometimes aboriginal. And yet, such a critic as the gentle A. E.\nHouseman, could write of him, \u201cMixing up religion and sexuality is not a\nthing I am fond of.\u201d Mr. Houseman, had he possessed something of Machen\u2019s\nscholarship, would have perceived that religion and sexuality were not\nmixed up by Arthur Machen but rather by his own Celtic or Teutonic or\nScandinavian ancestors. It is the more surprising, however, that such\nopinions as that expressed by the later great poet have not resulted in\ngreater popularity for at least some of the work of Arthur Machen.\n\nBy far the most important elements in the pattern that runs through\nMachen\u2019s work are the very ones he himself expressed many years ago, \u201cThe\nsense of the eternal mysteries and the eternal beauty hidden beneath the\ncrust of common and commonplace things.\u201d\n\nThe reputation of Arthur Machen undoubtedly rests most securely on a\nsingle book, _Hieroglyphics_, and on perhaps a half dozen of his essays.\nHis definition of what constitutes fine literature is, even today, beyond\ndispute. His thoughts on realism, or naturalism, a movement that was only\njust beginning to be felt in his youth have been admirably expressed in a\npassage in his book _The Secret Glory_.\n\n\u201cOf course, he said, (Ambrose Meyrick) I take realism to mean absolute\nand essential truthfulness of description, as opposed to merely\nconventional treatment. Zola is a realist not\u2014as the imbeciles suppose\nbecause he described\u2014well, rather minutely\u2014many unpleasant sights and\nsounds and smells and emotions, but because he was a poet, a seer;\nbecause, in spite of his pseudo philosophies, his cheap materialisms,\nhe saw the true heart, the reality of things. Take _La Terre_, do you\nthink it is realistic because it describes minutely, and probably\nfaithfully, the event of a cow calving? Not in the least; the local vet\nwho was called in could probably do all that as well or better. It is\nrealistic because it goes behind all the brutality, all the piggeries and\ninhumanities, of those frightful people, and shows us the strange, mad,\ntranscendent passion that lay behind all those things\u2014the wild desire for\nthe land\u2014a longing that burned, that devoured, that inflamed, that drove\nmen to hell and death as would a passion for a goddess who might never be\nattained. Remember how \u2018La Beauce\u2019 is personified, how the earth swells\nand quickens before one, how every clod and morsel of the soil cries for\nits service and its sacrifice and its victims\u2014I call that realism.\n\n\u201cOf course, there may be people who think that if you describe a pigsty\nwell you are a realist, and if you describe an altar well you are\nromantic.... I do not know that the mental processes of Cretins form a\nvery interesting subject for discussion.\u201d\n\nFrank Norris, an early apostle of realism, wrote, while he was still at\ncollege, this analysis of realism and of Zola: \u201cNaturalism, as understood\nby Zola, is but a form of romanticism after all ... the naturalist\ntakes no note of common people, common in so far as their interests,\ntheir lives and the things that occur in them are common, are ordinary.\nTerrible things must happen to the characters of the naturalistic\ntale. They must be twisted from the ordinary, wrenched from the quiet,\nuneventful round of everyday life and flung into the throes of a vast and\nterrible drama that works itself out in unleashed passions, in blood and\nin sudden death.\u201d\n\nThere are many provocative passages on this subject in Machen. Take, for\nexample, these thoughts expressed in Machen\u2019s _The Art of Dickens_:\n\n\u201c... it is not the main point in the finest literature to draw people so\nwell that the reader begins to think that they must be \u2018real\u2019 people,\nand that the author is a sort of journalist with supernatural means of\nfinding all the facts about them.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf we want to go to Margate, it would be idle to take a fairy barque,\nand _simili modo_ it would be but faint praise of a Gothic cathedral to\nsay that it was quite weather proof.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat does it profit a painter to delineate a tree which is very like\na tree, unless it is something much more\u2014unless it is also the symbol\nand the revelation of some great secret of nature? If this were not so,\nthen the camera would be superior of Turner, and the shorthand writer\nwould look down from his desk on poor blind Homer, who talks of gods and\ngoddesses of fairy isles, and giants with one eye in their foreheads.\u201d\n\n\n4\n\nVincent Starrett many years ago made the statement that there was little\nhumor in Arthur Machen\u2019s works. Of humor, in the broadest Mark Twain, or\neven in the gentle Stephen Leacock vein, there is very little. But there\nis in almost all of Machen a wry, dry humor with perhaps a rather bitter\ntaste. There are passages, even in _The Hill of Dreams_ that are as\nhumorous as anything by Leacock. One reads his account of the publishing\nbusiness as it was in his day with a realization that Machen is as much\nat home in satire as in sorcery. His autobiographical books are filled\nwith humor, this time not so bitter. Many of his essays employ humor and\nsatire in generous doses. Shortly after the publication of _The Hill of\nDreams_ and _The House of Souls_ Arthur Machen wrote several essays on\nthe subject of the Holy Graal. These essays, the first of which appeared\nunder the editorship of A. E. Waite, aroused quite a bit of attention and\nresulted in a certain amount of controversy in antiquarian circles. The\nGraal legends through their association with Arthur and Caerleon had been\nof great interest to Machen from his earliest years.\n\nHe knew every legend and every theory in the literature of the Graal. His\nfirst essay was at variance with some of the new theories that were then\nspringing up. Chief among these was the theory that the Graal legends had\ntheir basis in a fertility cult which persisted in Wales right up until\nNorman times. Machen promptly branded this theory as absurd. \u201cLet us\ngrant,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthat the question of fertility, which is the question\nof life, both for ourselves and for our cabbages, is behind everything.\nIf we go far back enough, it is clear that we can do nothing in this\nworld if we are so unlucky as to be dead: and this applies equally to\nthe Phallic hypothesis of the origin of everything, which can be worked\nin very well with the fertility hypothesis. The whole point of a great\nmany of the rites in fertility ceremonies seems to be built about the\nhypothesis that fertility could be enduced by certain ceremonies that\nwere expected to put nature in a mood to be fertile.\u201d And then Machen\nquotes from one of the experts who clung to this hypothesis, \u201cJust as the\nsailor imitates the wind that he desires by whistling for it, so did the\ncountrymen imitate the trees in the wood by making a mock tree called the\nMaypole.\u201d\n\nMachen seems willing enough to accept these theories but he asks,\n\u201cWhat light shall we gain as to the actual emotions and intent of the\nseventeenth or sixteenth century people who danced about the Maypole? I\nventure to say none whatever ... they were not addressing any invocation\nto the woods or anything else. They were being jolly or merry at a\ncertain time of the year in a traditional manner. For all I know, our\nlearned people may decide that the game of marbles was originally a\nreminder to the spheres to keep on rolling. If I am told so, I shall not\ndeny the doctrine, but I shall maintain that the boys who play marbles\non London pavements know nothing of it. Granted this hypothetical origin\nof marbles, it has nothing whatever to do with the game of the twentieth\ncentury.\u201d\n\nThe note books of Arthur Machen, as fragmentarily revealed in _The London\nAdventure_, are as fascinating as are the notebooks of Hawthorne, which\nas a matter of fact they much resemble. For example there are many notes\nconcerned with patterns\u2014and these bear a direct relationship with the\nearlier material in this chapter. Most of the notes concern labyrinths,\nmazes, spirals and whorls. He asks the question: Why was this form common\nto all primitive art? And then, in almost the same place in his note book\none finds the sentence: \u201cLiterature began with charms, incantations,\nspells, songs of mystery, chants of religious ecstasy, the Bachic chorus,\nthe rune, the mass.\u201d This sentence is the basis for _Hieroglyphics_. It\nis, according to Machen, the thesis of the book fairly well summed up in\none sentence.\n\nAnd this same pattern occurs in most of his stories. Among his notes\nwe find this, \u201cThe maze was not only the instrument but the symbol of\necstasy; it was a pictured \u2018inebriation,\u2019 the sign of some age old\nprocess that gave the secret bliss to men, that was symbolized also by\ndancing, by lyrics with their recurring burdens, and their repeated\nmusical phrases: a maze, a dance, a song: three symbols pointing to one\nmystery.\u201d\n\nIt would require a thorough examination of the notebook of Arthur Machen,\nif such a thing were possible, by a man with the skill and scholarship of\na John Livingston Lowes to trace and to tell the complete story of the\npattern in Arthur Machen. Yet here, in brief, and in all his works, the\npattern is everywhere apparent.\n\nThere are, undoubtedly, those who prefer Machen the essayist to Machen\nthe story teller. Certainly his greatest work, _Hieroglyphics_, is\nsufficient reply to those who have tried to dismiss Machen as the creator\nof \u201cshockers\u201d concerned with demonology and sensational horror stories.\nThe delightful pieces that appeared serially in the Lyons Mail and the\nIllustrated News and the London Graphic would please even the Manchester\nGuardian or A. E. Houseman, who once wrote that he found Machen not quite\nto his taste. His essays on the Grail legend are authoritative without\nbeing archeological, witty without being flippant or, what would have\nbeen unbearable, satirical.\n\nAnd yet, in the essays no less than in the stories, the pattern is there\nand is recognizable. One is forever running across a phrase or a notion\none has encountered before\u2014some where, some time, some place\u2014and the\nplace usually turns out to be another Machen essay. For the pattern of\nMachen\u2019s thinking is as obvious as the pattern in the rug; as obvious,\nand as simple, as the definitions supplied in _Hieroglyphics_. The\npattern is, as we know, summed up in the phrase: \u201cremoval from the common\nlife.\u201d It may be simplified further in the one word: \u201cecstasy.\u201d\n\nNow the word \u201cecstasy\u201d has caused some confusion in the minds of\ncertain of Machen\u2019s detractors as well as among his admirers. There was\na tendency, in the Twenties, as well as in the Nineties, to give the\nword \u201cecstasy\u201d a connotation or a meaning similar to that employed by\nthe popular novelists of the time. \u201cEcstasy\u201d seemed to many to be the\n\u201cecstasy\u201d of the pallid, perverted creatures of the Cafe Royale and,\nlater, a sort of Elinor Glynn-ish, sinnish quality. It was a word much\nfavored by the writers of romances, the practitioners of the purple\nphrase. And so we encounter, at times, this \u201cnovelist of ecstasy and sin\u201d\nsort of nonsense.\n\nIt should be pointed out that _Hieroglyphics_, that excellent volume\nof literary criticism having little to do with passion, in or out of\nthe desert, bears the illuminating subtitle: \u201c_A Note Upon Ecstasy in\nLiterature_.\u201d And _this_ ecstasy is of the mind\u2014it is an exultation of\nthe spirit of men. It is, to go back to the more descriptive phrase, the\nremoval from the common life.\n\nThis pattern exists everywhere in Machen, sometimes it is developed by\nthe characters and circumstances in his tales, or again it is carried\nout by argument or analysis in his essays, but always, upon closer\nexamination, the grand design is apparent.\n\nOne may read, for example, the essay called _The Hidden Mystery_ and\nfind that it is almost exactly the same as _The Mystic Speech_. And then\none reads _The Secret Glory_ and finds, once again, the same theories,\nthe same logic, the same figures and the same conclusions, expressed\nand explained as only Machen can set them down. This may send the\ncasual reader, or even the amateur bibliographer, hunting from volume\nto volume with pencil and reading glass, for there seems to be indeed a\nhidden mystery, a mystic speech, a glorious secret in these passages and\nparagraphs.\n\nActually, of course, one is merely becoming aware of the pattern, and one\nis becoming impressed with the simplicity and the one-ness of everything\nMachen ever wrote. Of course there are actual resemblances between the\nessays mentioned and strong connections between them and the book. For\nthe essays were written years before, and one of them was actually\ndelivered as a lecture before the learned Quest Society of London. They\nare all a part of the book that is now known as _The Secret Glory_.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Nine_\n\nTHE VERITABLE REALISTS\n\n\n1\n\nOur modern civilization is, if nothing else, a well-documented one. No\nsooner were we at war than we began to talk about the post-war world.\nOur introduction to the marvels of the post-war world began very shortly\nafter Pearl Harbor. Prophets sprang up in every advertising agency and\nbegan to lead us into the promised land of the push button and the\never-present plastics\u2014where every prospect was pleasantly postwar-ish and\nonly man seemed likely to remain vile, as indeed he proved by brilliantly\ndiscovering how to smash the atom. It was significant that the art of\npropaganda, perfected to the point of art by the original perpetrators\nof the war, should become the means of showing us the wondrous shape of\nthings to come.\n\nSo well indoctrinated were our people, so thoroughly documented had we\nbecome, that it occurred to many to venture opinions on the state of man\nin this almost perfect state of the future. It was obvious, even to the\nprophets, that man would engage in activities other than pushing buttons\nto start and to stop things, to change climate or a record, to launch a\nwar, a ship or a new hydro-electric plant. It seemed obvious, even to\nthe prophets, that there might be malice in this wonderland.\n\nMan, with more leisure than ever before, would undoubtedly manage to stir\nup more trouble than ever before. And while we certainly were not going\nto sell apples on street corners, we knew enough, we said, to look for an\nincrease in crime, a new wave of disillusionment and, most certainly, a\nnew point of view.\n\nWe were quite resigned to these things. We were prepared to usher in a\nbrave new world to the tune of some fantastic Gotterdammerung in the\nBavarian Redoubt. The suicide of the Austrian Corporal was anti-climax\nindeed, since everyone knew, had known for years, that he had it in him.\nThings shuddered to a slow halt in Europe and the post-war world seemed\nabout to be launched with nothing more stupendous in the offing than\nthe truth about V-1, 2 and 3. The atom\u2019s howl at Hiroshima came as the\ncataclysmic climax.\n\nWell, then, once again we had fought in a great war and once again had\nemerged comparatively victorious. Because victors always anticipate\na certain course of events which, we have yet to learn, never follow\nvictory, we had already anticipated the cynicism that was to follow. At\nleast we have learned to anticipate the cynicism, and that of course is\nan achievement. It represents, one must admit, progress. In developing\nand enlarging upon our visions of the push-button world we had not\nneglected to include the conception of push-button wars. This could be\ncalled the crowning cynicism\u2014and a less disillusioned world might well do\nso.\n\nBut it is probable that our cynicism is really not quite so bitter as\nit was the last time, because one isn\u2019t really cynical at discovering\nthat what one never believed in does not exist. At any rate we felt, and\nperhaps we still do, that there was a pattern to be followed. We have had\nsome prior knowledge of the pattern\u2014it was becoming familiar to us. There\nmight be, of course, some slight variations here and there. For example:\nin tracing out the pattern before, our cynicism resulted in an escape\ninto realism\u2014and this time it might result in an escape from realism.\nCynicism in 1947 or 1948 might very well be an isotope of uranium 235,\nwith a few unknown qualities but with a predictably high escape-velocity.\n\nThe post-war era seems to be fairly familiar. The political scene\nconforms in a great many respects\u2014but our reactions do not. That we will\ndo exactly the same thing about exactly the same problem is not only\nunthinkable, it is extremely unlikely. Blunder we very probably will, but\nwe will have found new ways of blundering. After all, we do progress. And\nthis time we can blunder with no more effort than is required to push a\nbutton. It might be argued, then, that it is extremely unimportant to\nponder about the sort of things that will be written in this postwar\nworld\u2014escapist or realist. But that one may predict, in the face of this\nreality, an escape from realism seems at once probable and inevitable\u2014and\nthere are certain indications that seem to favor the inevitable.\n\nSuperficially we might consider that a number of critics and writers\nhave remarked upon certain similarities between the late Forties and\nthe early Twenties. And, so linked have the two decades become, a\nmere mention of the Twenties leads inevitably to a rediscovery of the\nNineties. The Modern Library, which was more than just a publishing\nventure in the 1920\u2019s, began its series of reprints with Oscar Wilde\u2019s\n_Dorian Gray_. One of the first in a recent cycle of films developed\nabout psychological themes was a somewhat sinister version of _Dorian\nGray_. A recent theatrical season featured simultaneous presentations of\na play about the Twenties and of several about the Nineties. Indeed, _The\nImportance of Being Earnest_\u2014a likely title that!\u2014gave fashion its first\nreally fashionable color since before the war. Yellow, said a foremost\nfashion magazine was _The Color_. To be sure, these are only superficial\nsimilarities. That Wilde was revived in the Twenties and in the late\nForties is a manifestation without much meaning in itself. That Yellow\nbecame a favorite color of the season was perhaps no more than a reaction\nto our khaki consciousness of the war years ... but there were other, and\nmore significant, indications.\n\n\n2\n\nThere have been, this past year or so, a number of articles appearing\nin various literary journals, and even of late in the more popular\nmagazines, the burden of which seems to be something between a call for a\nnew estimate of literature and a prediction that such an estimate is in\nthe making. Certainly the recent years, during which more books were read\nby more people than at any time in history, have given practicing writers\nthe wider audience they had, for centuries dreamed about. The writers\nfor small cliques have had every opportunity to expand their cliques.\nThe writers for the masses had such a market as even the most popular\nof them had never imagined. The Big Names ran to bigger printings than\neven a publisher had dreamed of. That we were in the midst of an almost\nworld wide paper shortage seemed at least the most obvious result of this\npromiscuous reading and writing. But what have been its literary effects?\n\nHave the realists gained in favor as they predicted, and had been\npredicting for years, that they would? Have the proletarian novelists\ngrown in stature now that, at long last, the proletariat were not only\nreading but buying books? Have the multitudinous novels about the Common\nMan, the Little Man, the Man in the Street, been widely accepted by the\nCommon Man, the Little Man, the Man in the Street? In this, the Century\nof the Common Man, such a conclusion would seem to have been foregone.\nThe writers for the Common Man, spurred on by the foregone-ness of their\nconclusions, became commoner and commoner\u2014but the Common Man began to\nshow that he had developed a few rather uncommon tastes indeed. Aside\nfrom the comic books, which he consumed by the shipload (and they can\nscarcely be called realistic), he has done all sorts of queer things. He\nhas granted the greatest gift in his power, sales running to a million\nor more, to a book about a lady and an egg, and to a group of the most\noutrageously escapists novels that have ever cluttered up a publisher\u2019s\nlist. Historical novels which were neither good history nor good novels,\nbecame the new opium of the masses. Lusty rogues and busty wenches went\nthrough their amorous routine with a dream of empire in their roving\neyes. The Common Man went in heavily for mediaeval glamour and colonial\nswashbuckling. This may be explained on the always convenient grounds\nthat the popular taste is lamentably lacking in it.\n\nWhat about the intellectuals? They have shown a remarkable predilection\nfor mystery novels with overtones of Kraft-Ebing and undertones of\nFreud. The \u201cpsychological\u201d novel has enjoyed a vogue on a grand scale,\nand most popular novelists have had a shot at it themselves. Several\nnovelists of a generation or two ago have been revived. Henry James has\nbeen the subject of half a dozen serious studies and most of his novels,\nthe less boring ones, have been republished, re-reviewed and hailed as\nmasterpieces by the Sunday reviewers. Trollope, too, has undergone the\nfull treatment. The 1920\u2019s have been rediscovered once again, this time\ncomplete with cartoons and photographs. We may anticipate that Charles\nDickens will shortly become the subject of an intense and enthusiastic\nrevival.\n\nThe _Saturday Review_ has called for new gods. _Life_ magazine demands\nto know whether or not fiction has a future, thinks not. The ladies\u2019\nfashion magazines, progressing rapidly in the opposite direction, present\na gallery of \u201cSignificant writers\u201d with photographs only slightly less\nrococo than their elegantly gowned caryatids, including one precious\nyoung fellow in a checkered weskit and the most engaging bangs.\n\nIn short, the Little Man, having digested an overdose of reading matter,\nseems about to form certain dietary preferences, and they are not going\nto be along the anticipated lines. Now this is not to be greatly\nwondered at. In any period of intense literary activity (and we must use\nthe term very loosely), when, in short, \u201cpublishers will put covers on\nalmost anything,\u201d two things are bound to happen. The more popular novels\nset new records for sales and for bad writing. New writers are rushed\ninto print before they\u2019ve bothered to become good, and old established\nwriters are tempted and inevitably, invariably and immediately succumb to\nthe lure of mass sales. They are tricked into competing on the commonest\npossible grounds with the homesteaders. The more intellectual writers\nfrom their peaks in Darien gaze down upon ever widening horizons and\nfind it difficult to focus upon anything of significance. They, too, are\ntricked into deserting their small, comfortable cliques and finally,\nafter preliminary castings about, fall back upon the reliable old\nrevival, or they hail with delirious delight some new master. Then, when\nthis stage has been reached, a reaction sets in.\n\nThe awesome sight of so very many bad novels shocks even those who had\nsucceeded in shocking themselves into insensibility. The critics are\nappalled by the flood they have helped to loose and, while waiting\nfor the waters to abate, they keep themselves dry and in fairly good\nspirits by chanting a litany composed of the names of Tolstoy, Zola,\nDostoievski, Gorki, Swift, Proust, Stendahl and a number of traditional\nbut largely unreadable masters. Now and again they discover a sort of\nCardiff Giant and exhibit it reverently to the masses. Books are written,\ncritical studies composed, translations arranged for, editions planned.\nCritics, scholars, publishers and others solemnly take part in the usual\nceremonies attendant upon the presentation of a new writer named, let us\nsay, Smerv.\n\nAlois Smerv is, or was, a Montenegran mystic. Comparatively little is\nknown about his work, most of it has never been published, none of it\ncan be readily understood. Nevertheless his name finds its way into\npractically every review devoted to anything but juveniles. Smerv seems\nto have been obsessed by most of the commoner manifestations made famous\nby various Viennese psycho-analysts. It is said that his books, had they\never been published, would have attracted the unfavorable attention\nof the fascist authorities and would undoubtedly have resulted in his\nexpulsion from his homeland or his installation in a concentration\ncamp. This, of course, is pure supposition, all that we know for\ncertain is that Smerv died of acute myopia in 1942 in an obscure town\nin the Balkans. His note books, scrap books, ration books and a mess\nof mss. found their way into the sympathetic hands of an international\nlitterateur\u2014with the inevitable result. This, then, is one of our latest\nliterary idols.\n\n\n3\n\nAnd now we come to the point of conceding that Arthur Machen is not\nand never has been a \u201cnaturalist,\u201d that is, he has never written in\nthe manner which we have come to call naturalism or realism. A great\ndeal of modern American and English fiction over the past forty or\nfifty odd years has been of this sort. It stemmed, following one of the\nperiodical Anglo-Saxon reversions to the Gallic, from Zola, the father\nof naturalism. One need hardly wonder what Machen might say today of\nnaturalism and Zola, he said it some fifty years ago in _Hieroglyphics_\nand again in _The Secret Glory_. And Machen was saying _then_ a great\nmany of the things the critics of today are just beginning to discover.\n\nTo take an excellent example; we have the case of one of our best known\nand most highly regarded novelists; one whose realism has begun to\ntranscend reality so much that his last book has been called an allegory.\nHis characters are so super-real as to be almost \u201carch types,\u201d and they\nmay eventually come to be regarded, unless they are entirely lost in the\nshifting of values, as sketches worthy to stand in a Dickensian gallery\nalong with Micawber and Pickwick.\n\nFor this is assuredly the direction of our drift\u2014we are not only turning\naway from naturalism and realism, we are beginning to wonder why we ever\nturned to them at all. For literature as a removal from the common life,\nor art as an interpretation rather than a portrayal of life, has little\nto do with either naturalism or realism. It may be that, within this very\ndecade, we will decide that the whole trend of the past thirty or forty\nyears has been up a dead-end street inhabited by the dead-end kids of the\nliterary world, whose greatest talent was to shock each other with the\nwords they chalked up on the walls and fences of their realistic little\nslum.\n\nIt has become increasingly obvious, even to the more advanced critics,\nthat there had come to exist but a very narrow line between the\nrealistic-naturalistic novel and the journalism of the day. Not so long\nago it was considered the highest praise to call a novel \u201ca significant\nsocial document.\u201d Now it is becoming more fashionable to refer to a\nnovel as a rather poor novel _as_ a novel, _but_ a significant social\ndocument. We are, it would seem, about half-way round the circle. Mr.\nSinclair Lewis wrote a book a year or two ago which is also a case in\npoint. Although the critics were unanimous in pointing out that it was\na very bad novel, they admitted that it was significant. So too, the\nflood of books about alcoholism, insanity, race prejudice and other\nsocial problems. Most of these books defy honest criticism on almost any\ngrounds, since almost everyone is more or less opposed to the same things\nthese books are against.\n\nOf course these problems do exist, and they are urgent problems indeed;\nbut they do not necessarily constitute the stuff of great or even good\nliterature. Nor should the importance of the problem automatically confer\nimportance or significance upon any writer, good, bad or indifferent, who\nchooses to deal with it. Today\u2019s tabloid may be as raw a slice of life as\ntoday\u2019s top ranking best seller\u2014but no one calls it literature. As for\nthe revolt against \u201cthe genteel tradition,\u201d it was a natural reaction\nagainst stuffiness, Victorian morality and overly \u201cnice\u201d novels\u2014but\nthe course taken by those who rebelled against these things was not\nnecessarily the right one. It was, or soon became, quite as stuffy and\neven more unreal. Still, there is much to be said on the subject, for\nrealism, by which we _can_ mean honesty, cannot be, and should not be,\neliminated entirely as a literary force.\n\nIt cannot be said that Dickens, that eminent Victorian, was not a realist\nor that he was not realistic. No Hemingway he, to be sure, but still,\nno Harold Bell Wright. Nor can we say of many a writer relegated to\noblivion by the realists that they were not realistic. John Galsworthy\nwrote as realistically of the upper-middle classes as John Steinbeck\nwrites of paisanos\u2014and Soames Forsyte is as much a person, a _real_\nperson, as the youth with the acne. Now this is a very close to the heart\nof the matter, for the realists, and the naturalists, have claimed that\nwriters like Galsworthy are not realists\u2014and of course their point would\nbe that Galsworthy wrote of Soames Forsyte and Steinbeck wrote of bums\nand vagrants, of the dispossessed and the youth with the acne.\n\nIt would seem, then, that they quarreled rather with Soames than\nwith Galsworthy\u2014that Soames was, for some reason or other, less real\nthan, for example, an earnest young picket-line marcher. Indeed,\nit has been almost a prime principle, that the realists write of\nthe so-called \u201cunderprivileged,\u201d and all that was needed to earn a\nreputation for a book was a fairly accurate portrayal of life in the\nless-desirable quarters of any city or town. If a few scenes of drunken\nquarrels, beatings by cops (classically called Cossacks) and tableaux\nin which oppressed mill-workers were being violently oppressed, so\nmuch the better. Of course not all realists wrote exclusively about\nthe underprivileged. Many wrote of the upper classes, for this was\nconsidered realism too\u2014but only if the upper classes were portrayed in\nan unfavorable light. So it becomes apparent that almost the whole of\nrealism has been a social rather than a literary movement. For a time,\nand under special conditions, this seemed reasonable enough, but there\nare indications that it is in the process of being rejected as the only\nliterary criterion.\n\n\n4\n\nOf the novelists whose names have formed a sort of literary litany this\npast decade or two: Hemingway, Dos Passos, Farrell, Faulkner, Caldwell\nand Steinbeck\u2014the work of Steinbeck offers most in the way of material\nfor analysis according to the lights of both realists and romanticists.\nFor Steinbeck has been hailed as a great realist, and it was he who\nfirst seems to have transcended reality, and certainly he comes closest\nto approaching the \u201cremoval from the common life\u201d postulated by Machen\nas the prime requisite for the creative writer. _The Grapes of Wrath_\nwas and is a wonderful book\u2014as great a piece of journalism as has been\nproduced in an age that specializes in that peculiar literary form\u2014the\ndocumentary; and it was saved from being mere competent journalism, or\neven inspired journalism, by characterization alone. Here again we must\nlook to Machen for, if not a direct reference to Steinbeck, at least an\napplicable parallel.\n\nFor Steinbeck\u2019s characters, the Joads, the Paisanos, the Hermit with his\ndogs, the bums in _Cannery Row_\u2014these are all figures of such proportion\nand created in such a perspective as that described by Machen in his\nessay on Dickens. Machen points out that Dickens was a symbolist ...\nno such persons as Pickwick or Micawber ever walked the earth. \u201cThey\nare creatures,\u201d says Machen, \u201cof the world of vision, of that other\nworld which is beside us always, which transcends the sight of unpurged\neyes.\u201d And then Machen goes on to define the \u201ctrue realist\u201d as one who\nsymbolizes \u201cby means of phenomena, eternal verities.\u201d\n\nThis deftness of Steinbeck\u2019s in drawing portraits has led him into\ntrouble with his devoted critics for whom, apparently, realism can be\ncarried to extremes. A case in point is the Colonel in _The Moon is\nDown_. This German, if not Nazi, officer, it will be recalled, was quite\na controversial figure back in the war days when the book was published.\nNow the Colonel had every right, actually and literarily, whether as an\nactual person or an imagined one, to act as he did. It may have been a\nnone too happy choice for Steinbeck\u2014he could have given us the Eric Von\nStroheim figure we all expected of him, but he gave us instead the Major\nStanhope type. This was not a very popular choice with the ardent and\narticulate admirers of Mr. Steinbeck\u2019s realism.\n\nThen there was the matter of _Lifeboat_, a motion picture shown during\nthe war. Mr. Steinbeck did the script, or worked on it, or did whatever\nit is established writers do in Hollywood. At any rate Steinbeck was\ntaken to task by at least one film critic and not a few columnists who\nstepped out of their roles long enough to have a look at the films. The\nstory, a Hitchcock natural, involved a group of people thrown together\nin a lifeboat. Among the group was a German submarine officer\u2014perhaps\nthe Captain. The thing that angered the erstwhile admirers, confounded\nthe critics and dismayed the defenders of Democracy, was that the German\nwas portrayed as the most capable man aboard the lifeboat. Not only\ndid he show qualities of leadership which were found to be detestably\nproficient, but other members of the crew, all Allies of one sort or\nanother, were shown to be a confused and sometimes cowardly lot. This\noutrageous invention by a man with a reputation for realism upset the\ncritics and the columnists. No less an authority than the American Sybil\ncried out against the extravagance of the invention in which an officer\nand a seaman was permitted to exercise both authority and seamanship.\nOf course most of these outcries may be attributed to the fact that we\nwere then at war with both the confoundedly charming Colonel and the\nconfoundedly capable Captain.\n\nNevertheless everyone breathed easier when _Cannery Row_ was announced\nas a return to the \u201cearly Steinbeck\u201d even though, by this time, realists\neverywhere had become aware of a chink in the armor, and the left-wing\ncritics took a decidedly dim view of the light-hearted way in which\nSteinbeck\u2019s social outcasts took their social ostracism.\n\nWhen _The Wayward Bus_ rattled onto the literary scene the critics\nscanned the faces of the passengers as eagerly as relatives waiting at\nthe depot. Sure enough\u2014there were cries of recognition from several\ngroups. One crowd hailed the youth with the acne\u2014Johnny had come marching\nhome again to swell the ranks of the realists. Others, remembering the\nColonel and the Captain, recognized at least a lineal descendant in\nthe girl who sat in wine glasses. She was, for a girl who sat in wine\nglasses, sufficiently incredible to belong to the gallery of allegorical\nfigures set up for the specific purpose of puzzling the proletarians.\nAnd so the bus pulled in with apparently the right character for almost\neveryone waiting at the depot.\n\nThis somewhat didactic digression, while it seems to have no direct\nbearing upon either Arthur Machen or his works, is offered in explanation\nof some of the theories expressed in _Hieroglyphics_\u2014under the subtitle,\nif you wish, of _The Ultimate Fate of a Realist_.\n\n\n5\n\nWe have arrived at a point in our literary history (or, if you prefer,\nour social progress, our ideological advancement, our cultural\ndevelopment) when there is need for a new estimate of the task and aims\nof our modern literature or at least the re-establishment of certain\nvalues and standards previously set aside.\n\nWe must once again divorce literature from life, if by that we will\nunderstand that literature is not, and never was supposed to be, a\nmirror held up before our common life. We must discard the so-called\n\u201ctrue-to-life\u201d standard by which our critical attitudes have been\ngoverned for so many years. Above all, we must renounce the propaganda\npsychosis, and we must admit that even good propaganda is never\nliterature and that even great literature is seldom propaganda. We have\nthose, of course, who will rise to point out that such and such a book\nor novel or play was excellent propaganda for such and such a cause\nor event. To which we may answer: it was not so conceived. For the\nglibness with which the word propaganda is used is rivalled only by the\nglibness of the propagandists themselves. To make a case for any work of\nliterature as a bit of effective propaganda for any cause is to distort\nand debase the purpose for which it was created.\n\nThere is much too much to do with literature today that has nothing\nto do with literature at all. We must learn again that the weavers of\nfantasy are, after all, the veritable realists. For it must be admitted\nthat we have at hand ample evidence that this is so.\n\nThere is realism in great literature, but realism alone does not make\ngreat literature. The writer, or observer, who sees an event or an\noccurrence, however rare or moving an event it may be, who is moved to\nwrite about it merely to describe, with minute realism, what he had\nobserved is no more creating literature than the earnest New Englander\nwho writes to the Times or the Globe to report the first robin. But\nArthur Machen has said these things before\u2014and said them better.\n\nYou will find, in the closing pages of _Hieroglyphics_, this passage,\nwhich seems an excellent closing passage for this digressive chapter:\n\n\u201cHave you noticed how many of the greatest writers, so far from desiring\nthat compliment of \u2018fidelity to life,\u2019 do their best to get away from\nlife, to make their books, in ordinary phraseology, \u2018unreal.\u2019 I do not\nknow whether anybody has compared the facts before or made the only\npossible inference from them; but you remember how Rabelais professes\nto derive his book from a little mouldy manuscript, found in a tomb,\nhow Cervantes beginning to _propria persona authoris_, breaks off and\ndiscovers the true history of _Don Quixote_ in the Arabic Manuscript of\nCid Hamet Benengeli, how Hawthorne prologizes with the custom-house at\nSalem, and lights, in an old lumber-room, on the documents telling him\nthe story of _The Scarlet Letter_. _Pickwick_ was the transcript of the\n\u2018Transactions\u2019 or \u2018Papers\u2019 of the Pickwick Club, and Tennyson\u2019s _Morte\nd\u2019Arthur_ shelters itself, in the same way, behind the personality of an\nimaginary writer. There is a very profound significance in all this, and\nyou find a trace of the same instinct in the Greek Tragedies, where the\nfinal scene, the peripeteia, is not shown on the stage, but described by\na \u2018messenger.\u2019 The fact is that the true artist, so far from being the\nimitator of life, endures some of his severest struggles in endeavoring\nto get away from life, and until he can do this he knows that his labor\nis all in vain.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter Ten_\n\nTHINGS NEAR AND FAR\n\n\n1\n\nThe original outline for this book included a chapter to be called\n\u201cHieroglyphics.\u201d This was to be composed largely of what other writers\nhad said or written about Arthur Machen. It seemed a good title and a\nsound enough notion, and certainly there has been enough said and written\nabout Machen to compose a fine chapter indeed.\n\nAnd then it occurred to me that there was a rather cynical note being\nstruck here, that the use of that particular word in such a connection\nmight imply (and I am quite sure that at one time it was meant to imply)\na certain lack of respect for some of the material to be grouped under\nthat heading. Much has been written about Machen, not as much, certainly,\nas one would like to see; and some of it, unfortunately, is the sort of\nthing with which one cannot agree. As, for example, the views of the\nanonymous Manchester guardian, the reviews of some of the early books as\nthey appeared in London newspapers, and the estimates of Miss Dorothy\nScarborough in her otherwise excellent book about the supernatural\nelements in English literature.\n\n[Illustration: THE MACHENS IN LONDON: Photo taken by Holbrook Jackson in\n1937. Left to right, Montgomery Evans, Mr. and Mrs. Machen and Bertram\nRota before whose bookshop photo was taken.]\n\nOn the other hand: one cannot always agree with the idolizers and the\ncultists. These are, at times, even more annoying and sometimes rather\nembarrassing.\n\nThe admirers of Arthur Machen are probably as heterogeneous a collection\nas one is likely to find anywhere outside the membership lists of the\nBook of the Month Club, the Literary Guild and a distinguished After\nShave Club. There are, among the more ardent Arthurians, poets and\npedants, dilettantes and divorcees, men of letters and three-letter\nmen from the universities, reviewers and romanticists, critics and\nconnoisseurs, columnists and collectors of every description\u2014a rare\nassemblage that numbers sincere admirers, warm friends, not a few dreads\nand some drolls. Mr. Machen\u2019s works are known to the Librarians at Yale\nand at Stanford. They are known also to the librarians at Liggetts and\nWalgrens\u2014for recently several anthologies have appeared on the forty-nine\ncent table and several Machen stories have made the grade in the corner\ndrug store through the medium of the quarter pocketbooks. This is passing\nstrange company for a man whose first editions were published in Vigo\nStreet under the Sign of the Bodley Head and whose American triumphs were\nunder the auspices of the aristocratic Borzoi.\n\nMr. Machen\u2019s published works have fared as variously. His stories have\nappeared in anthologies whose sales have run into thousands, and there is\nnoted in Van Patten\u2019s bibliography a small work published in an edition\nof two copies.\n\nHow does one decide upon an edition of two copies? It must be admitted\nthat, to his fervent admirers at least, the peddling of Machen to the\nmillions along with the malteds and lunches at Liggetts is to be\npreferred to the arch-conservativeness that confines a Machen item to a\nvery limited edition of two copies. It may cause shudders to run up and\ndown the arthritic vertebrae of many a venerable Machenite to suggest\nsuch a thing, but I find myself wishing that Winchell would one day give\nMachen \u201cthe works.\u201d And who knows but that he may? With realism and the\nrealists in disorder, if not retreat, in disarray if not utter rout,\nwith realism seen from a rapidly shifting focal point, with reviewers\nsuggesting that the work and the world of our realists may be, after all,\nallegory\u2014who knows but the Sunday Night Sage may not admonish Americans\nfrom coast to coast to demand from their bookseller a copy of _Dog and\nDuck_, or the _Anatomy of Tobacco_ (LSMFT) or even _Hieroglyphics_?\n\nSuch unscholarly suggestions may seem unworthy, may even draw the fire\nof many Machenites who will deeply resent such facetious flippancy\u2014but\nthey are offered merely as an antidote to the equally absurd and equally\nunworthy tactics of some collectors who come to praise and to bury Machen\nin the same devout breath.\n\nI must confess that, while I envy certain men and mausoleums the\npossession of many a Machen item, I am pleased beyond measure to find\n_The Great God Pan_ or _The Cosy Room_ or _The Novel of the White Powder_\nin the gaudiest, grizzliest anthology of horror stories displayed for the\ndelight of the drug store trade.\n\nHowever, to return to the Arthurians, whether of the cultivated or the\ncommon garden variety. The response to a prospectus describing this\nvolume when it was in its projected state was enlightening. There\nwere letters on fine paper bearing the crests of famous colleges and\nlibraries, there were scribbled notes from, obviously, \u201cstfans\u201d in Kansas\nCity, Dallas, Scranton and the Coast. These letters did affect the\nconstruction of this book in one important respect. I determined then to\nadd to the book a bibliography that would direct the reader of Machen to\nthe stories and essays of Machen wherever they may be found. The scholars\nand the specialists know in which vaults the more valuable manuscripts\nare under lock and key. Let them rest in peace. One day, perhaps, they\nwill be released and they will be read as it was intended, by the man who\nwrote them, that they should be. Meanwhile it may be amusing to compile\na list of the unlikely and out of the way corners of literature in which\nthere are mentions of Machen\u2014and to the true Machenite the mere mention\nof Machen is rewarding.\n\nWe\u2019ve wandered from Wilde to Winchell, but there are many more unexpected\nencounters awaiting the ardent Arthurian. For example, Tiffany Thayer,\n_enfant terrible_ of the late Twenties and early Thirties, whose books\nwere rather lurid things, made use of Machen in certain passages. We\nfind, if we dredge deep enough, a passing reference to Machen, and one\nthat might conceivably outrage the true believer.\n\nAn even more strange, and not too flattering, reference is found in one\nof the books of William Seabrooke. Mr. Seabrooke, who visited strange\nplaces and saw strange things, once visited, as a client, and I violate\nno confidence, an asylum. Since Mr. Seabrooke wrote a book about his\nexperiences therein, any hesitation on my part would be a needless\ndelicacy.\n\nMr. Seabrooke\u2019s mention of Machen is even given a title: Self-Portrait\nof a Dementia Praecox Case on First Reading the works of Machen. The\n\u201cself-portrait\u201d follows: \u201cSweet spirits of my own dementia praecox!\nwomb-wailing guide calls reechoing throughout sub-cavernousterraneous!\nfuga, fugae. Corncopios fugalations in depths arbeitung\nverstaltheight.... I have just read _The Hill of Dreams_! By the brazen\nbuttocks of that brimstone bellona who lolls in lakes of lava, never\nin my life have I read or even imagined that such a piece of escapist\nliterature existed. He is superior to Dunsany and to Algernon Blackwood\nwho though almost not an escapist may be classed with them. The book\nis filled with black magic. The man\u2019s powers of psychotic invention\nare almost unbelievable and his familiarity with certain phenomena of\nabnormal psychology is creepy. Are you acquainted with Tchaikovski\u2019s\nscherzi? especially the waltz-scherzo of his Fifth? It moves in this same\nweird, uncanny way. Now I wish I were dead....\u201d\n\nSeabrooke\u2019s d.p. exhibits astonishing lucidity toward the end, is\napparently versed in intellectual small talk, and displays a familiarity\nwith the works of James Joyce as well.\n\nIt is sometimes fascinating to compare different reactions to certain of\nMachen\u2019s tales. Basil Davenport writing in the _Saturday Review_ some\nyears ago noted: \u201c... there are some stories which portray a non-moral\nfall into a moral gulf; someone\u2019s foot quite innocently slips, and there\nis no stopping above the bottom of hell ... that is what makes Mr.\nArthur Machen\u2019s stories supreme of their kind ... and such a story of\nirrational, irresistible temptation as Mr. Machen\u2019s _The White People_\n... about a little girl whose nurse happens to be a witch, and who\nbecomes a devil-worshipper without the least idea of what she is doing.\u201d\nCarl Van Vechten says of this same story: \u201cWas ever a more malignantly\ndepraved story written than _The White People_ (which it might be\nprofitable to compare with Henry James\u2019s _The Turn of the Screw_?).\u201d\n\nMr. Carl Van Vechten\u2019s _Peter Whiffle_ probably did as much to popularize\nArthur Machen in the Twenties as any score of reviewers, but it also\nhad the effect of rarifying Machen and conditioning him for a specific\naudience. It was Mr. Van Vechten\u2019s (or rather, Peter\u2019s) audience more\nthan it was Machen\u2019s. It was this audience, I think, that prompted Walter\nWinchell to report, breathlessly, that Arthur Machen was \u201ctops among the\nliterati.\u201d Peter was a delightfully \u201cnaughty\u201d character\u2014there were so\nmany of them in the Twenties! When he spoke of Machen he was speaking\nmostly about Peter. Nevertheless he was an able press agent. Said Peter,\nin part, and to paraphrase a phrase, we quote:\n\n\u201cIt is a byword of the day that one only takes from a work of art what\none brings to it, and how few readers can bring to Machen the requisite\nqualities, how few readers have gnosis! Machen evokes beauty out of\nhorror, mystery and terror. He suggests the extremes of the terrible,\nthe vicious, the most evil, by never describing them. His very reserve\nconveys the infinity of abomination.... But his expression soars so high,\nthere is such ecstasy in his prose, that we are not meanly thrilled or\nrevolted by his necromancy; rather we are uplifted and exalted by his\nsuggestion of impurity and corruption, which leads us to ponder over the\nmysterious connection between man\u2019s religious and sensual natures.\u201d From\nthis point on Peter\u2019s bizarre rhapsody over Machen includes references to\nso many Florentine painters, Arabian necromancers, Asiatic messiahs and\nFrench Symbolistes that the average Machenite loses sight of his idol in\nthe confusing blaze of intellectual pyrotechnics.\n\n\n2\n\nAnd then we have the testimony of C. Lewis Hind, a sort of literary\njournalist who once saw Machen plain. Mr. Hind did essays and sketches\nof literary people about London and collected them into books called\n_Authors and I_ and _More Authors and I_. He remembers having met\nMachen once at a dinner given for Sir Frank Benson and members of his\nShakespearean Repertoire Company; he also recalls having seen Machen\n\u201cslouching through the interminable corridors of the Evening News.\u201d\n\nAn article on Machen, published in one of his collections, he credits\nto a letter from Vincent Starrett. Mr. Starrett\u2019s enthusiasm apparently\nmoved Hind to do a piece on Mr. Machen. The encounter described in the\narticle was, apparently, a chance encounter of the sort in which Machen\nhimself delighted.\n\nMr. Hind had gone, one evening, to call upon an acquaintance who lived\nin one of the London Inns of Court. While he was peering at the names\ninscribed on the oak door the door was opened\u2014by Arthur Machen! \u201cMy\nfriend was not in, but the author of _Hieroglyphics_ and I had some\ngood, rapid talk. He is an admirable monologist when in the mood (see\n_Hieroglyphics_). For some reason or other I have a vivid recollection\nof that brief encounter\u2014the open door, the snug room beyond, the books\nand a lamp, warmth and stillness, and Arthur Machen standing in the\npassage\u2014smiling and talking, ready to talk but also ready to go back to\nhis folios.\u201d\n\nMachen was, according to Mr. Hind, \u201ca heavily built man, with a large\ngenial, yet brooding, clean-shaven face; a good companion, I think, but\none who keeps many of his thoughts to himself.\u201d Mr. Hind was, in short,\ncharmed and impressed, but he obviously did not consider Arthur Machen a\nV.I.P. It would be interesting to read Machen on Hind.\n\nOne of the most curious estimates of Machen is made by Professor\nCornelius Weygandt in his _A Century of the English Novel_. Professor\nWeygandt admires Machen somewhat for his essays, and classifies him as\na \u201clesser late Victorian\u201d along with Baring-Gould, Quiller-Couch, Marie\nCorelli, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Walter Pater\nand others\u2014a very curious group indeed!\n\nThe professor devotes a full page to Machen, which is not at all bad, and\nwell above the average, for lesser late Victorians! Machen\u2019s great fault,\nthe professor finds, is that he is not a story-teller, he has not taught\nhimself the craft. He has little sense of the creation of character\nand his own life is, obviously, very narrow. As an essayist, however,\nconcedes the Professor, Machen is often a bringer of delight. _The Hill\nof Dreams_, on the other hand, is saved from futility only by some good\nwriting. So sayeth Professor Weygandt.\n\nWagenknecht, in his _Cavalcade of the English Novel_, is much more to\nmy taste than the austere professor. He introduces Machen as \u201cone of\nthe most remarkable examples of sustained devotion to creative work in\nliterary history.\u201d He finds that Machen reveals a gift for breathless\nnarrative to match LeFanu\u2019s, but he feels that this quality is lacking in\nthe book generally regarded as Machen\u2019s masterpiece\u2014_The Hill of Dreams_.\nNevertheless, Wagenknecht considers Machen \u201cimportant,\u201d he rates him with\nBlackwood and de la Mare, and has included Machen\u2019s _The Terror_ in his\ncollection _Six Novels of the Supernatural_ published a few years ago by\nViking.\n\n\n3\n\nThe student of Machen is not content to have read everything Machen has\never written (and there are few who have), he must also read everything\nthat has ever been written about Arthur Machen. He may begin, naturally\nenough, with a study of the period in which Machen first appears.\nThere have been quite a few books written about the Nineties, these\nunaccountably yield but little material on Machen. Richard LeGallienne,\nHolbrook Jackson and Osburt Burdett, whose studies of that period are\nvery carefully written and copiously annotated, scarcely mention Machen\nat all.\n\nOne then moves on to memoirs and biographies of the men who lived and\nwrote in this period, and even consults the critical studies on the whole\nvast subject of English literature. One picks up dozens of such books and\nsoon develops the habit of examining them from the back cover forward,\nfor a glance at the index reveals whether the book is worth while, from\nthis viewpoint, or not. Too often one finds mention of Macaulay, Lord;\nMacCarthy, Desmond; MacLeod, Fiona; even Mackenzie, Compton\u2014but few are\nthe mentions of Machen.\n\nOne finds too that the index of a book can be a very revealing thing\nindeed. We have before us, for example, the memoirs of a Literary Figure\nof, let us say, the 1890\u2019s and the early 1900\u2019s. The index indicates\nthat our man knew everyone worth knowing. We find Shaw and More, Shelley\nand Kelley, Shakespeare, Rossetti and Donne, Keats and Yeats, Whistler\nand Wilde, Moore and Hardy and a generous sprinkling of the nobility. It\nwould seem, from the index, that our man lived a very full and eventful\nlife, that he was close, as they say, to the heart of things.\n\nThe book itself is rather likely to be pretty dull stuff\u2014mostly about\nour man\u2019s preoccupation with his public school and his dislike of games,\nthe amazing and discouraging tenacity with which his great aunt in Bath\nclung to life, the duplicity of publishers and the simply astonishing\nthings that can and do befall an Englishman in Naples, Nice or Florence.\nThroughout the book, however, one encounters reports of what Whistler\nsaid to Pennell or Pater or both; what G.B.S. wrote to the brash American\njournalist and how Lord Lymph responded to a quip tossed out by Lord\nLissom. Hence the index. One can only conclude that reviewers, and\npossibly publishers, read the index more carefully than the book itself.\n\nOccasionally, however, the slow unrewarding progress through the shelves\nof the public library does yield a choice bit or two and these, be it\nnoted, more frequently in books by Americans than by Englishmen.\n\nMr. Grant Richards who wrote in 1895 to Arthur Machen asking if he had\nanything he would care to have published, has written at least two books\nof his experiences as one of England\u2019s most enterprising publishers.\nNeither of them contained a single mention of Arthur Machen although\nRichards published several of Machen\u2019s books, and at a time when Machen\u2019s\nname was certainly an asset to any publisher\u2019s list.\n\nThe index of Richards\u2019 book about A. E. Housman (Oxford, 1942) arouses\nhope. There are three references to Machen. The first of these is\ncontained in a letter from Housman to Richards. The context, in full,\nfollows: \u201cI don\u2019t think Machen ought to drink port on the top of\nBurgundy.\u201d One may wonder, one is tantalized, by the implications of\nthat brief note. Does it imply that Machen did drink port on top of\nBurgundy\u2014or that he merely contemplated doing so or sought advice on the\nadvisability. If he did, were the results memorable, and in what respect?\nDoes it imply that Housman is a purist in these matters? A Tory in\ntippling? Does it hint at \u201can incident\u201d?\n\nAnother reference is even more brief and profoundly unimportant. \u201cWe know\ntoo that Housman read Arthur Machen and Frederick Baron Corvo.\u201d The most\nsignificant entry is this, from another Housman letter: \u201cThanks to you,\nI believe I possess Machen\u2019s complete works. He is always interesting\n(except in the _Evening News_) and to some extent good. Mixing up\nreligion and sexuality is not a thing I am fond of, and in this book the\nWelsh element rather annoys me. The imitation of Rabelais is very clever.\u201d\n\nWe know, at any rate, that Housman read Machen, quite a bit of him. He\nwas not fond of the Welsh, nor of mixing religion and sexuality nor, for\nthat matter, of mixing port and burgundy.\n\nWhat we would like most to know from Mr. Richards, I think, is why it\ntook him ten years to change his mind about _The Hill of Dreams_, and why\nhe changed it when he did. Of this, unfortunately, we have no hint.\n\nThe Machen revival of the Twenties lasted through to the end of the\ndecade and, to some, to the end of an era. Machen appeared at rare\nintervals in public life, preferring the countryside of Wales and the\ncompany of his friends, a great many of them Americans. Paul Jordan-Smith\nand Robert Hillyer and Montgomery Evans have given us sketches of Machen\nthrough this period. For the most part, however, his work was done. In\nthe early Thirties Machen wrote a novel, _The Green Round_. It has not\nyet been published in this country nor is it very well known. Machen says\nit is \u201csorry stuff.\u201d As for _Tom O\u2019Bedlam_, it was an essay \u201cwritten to\norder of an American.\u201d Machen never saw the book in print.\n\nIn 1936 there was a brief revival of interest in Machen occasioned by\nthe publication of two collections of his stories and essays. Hutchinson\nbrought out _The Children of the Pool_ in which there appeared seven\nstories not previously collected. Rich and Cowan brought out a collection\ncalled _The Cosy Room_, consisting of essays and stories collected over\na period from the late 1880\u2019s to the late 1920\u2019s. Each of the pieces\nincluded in this collection is given a date\u2014apparently the year in\nwhich it was written. Some of the dates supplied, presumably by Machen,\ngive rise to bibliographical speculation. Most of these pieces had been\npublished elsewhere although some of them, obviously \u201cthe wreckage of\ndiscarded and abandoned books,\u201d appeared in print for the first time.\n\nThe dust-jacket of Hutchinson\u2019s _Children of the Pool_ carried an\n\u201cAppreciation\u201d of Machen, one of the finest and most admirable I have\never encountered. To find it on, of all places, a dust-jacket! This\nis no publisher\u2019s blurb but an analysis that deserves to be included\nin this or any book about Machen. The author of the following tribute\nis unknown, to me at least: \u201cMr. Machen creates his own world. This\nworld is a fusion of the world that is accepted in every day reality\u2014in\nwhich events and their causes are explicable by traditional and humdrum\ninterpretations\u2014and one that is distinguished not only by the weird\nand extraordinary effects. The author does not try to present a state\nof affairs so topsy-turvy and bizarre that you are intrigued merely by\nits very madness. The supernatural insinuates itself subtly into these\nstories. They have an air of common reality until the author develops\ntheir mystical undercurrents. And in this blending Mr. Machen\u2019s art is\nsupreme. It has an infinite capacity for producing what E. J. O\u2019Brien\ndescribes as \u201ca willing suspension of disbelief\u201d [_this fine phrase\nhas also been attributed to Dr. Canby, Bennet Cerf and, of course,\nSamuel Taylor Coleridge_]. That Mr. Machen\u2019s faculty in this direction\ncan extend beyond the circle of sympathetic readers and convince\nmasses has been proved by the fact that his imaginative treatment of\na very famous occasion was accepted by thousands of men and women as\nliteral description. These stories offer varied excursions into realms\nsimultaneously unfathomable and alluring, and on that account alone they\nare memorable. But there is also Mr. Machen\u2019s craftsmanship, and his\nstyle which is a delight to read. A character in the book says: \u2018A man\nmust know the grammar of his business, whatever it is; the rest, if it is\nto be the first order, must be the work of the hidden flame within.\u2019\u201d\n\nNow and then Machen did an introduction or preface for a book or\ncollection, none of them are of particular importance as Machen\n\u201citems.\u201d In 1937 Hutchinson brought out Philip Sergeant\u2019s _Witches and\nWarlocks_ with a preface by Machen. The book was, according to the\npublisher, suggested to Sergeant by his old friend Arthur Machen. In\nhis introduction Machen quotes some of the theories expressed in _The\nWhite People_ and _The Great God Pan_. He hints, in other words, and in\njustification of his friend\u2019s labours, that there are more things in\nheaven and earth than mere hawks and handsaws.\n\n\n4\n\nIn the years since the publication of the \u201cyellow books\u201d by Knopf and the\nattendant enthusiasm for his works, Arthur Machen has been very little\nin the public eye. The Machen vogue of the 1920\u2019s seemed to exhaust\nitself almost as soon as the Knopf editions were exhausted. The Caerleon\nEdition, published in 1923 by Seeker in London, quickly disappeared, and\nwe entered once again upon a lengthy period of \u201cneglect\u201d.\n\nActually, Machen has not been as neglected as we might suppose. It is\ntrue that he has not been accorded the recognition that is his due, but\nthere are hundreds, possibly thousands, who have never neglected nor\nforgotten Machen. The late Alfred Goldsmith, one of New York\u2019s most\namiable booksellers, wrote me, a year or two ago, that there is and\nalways has been a constant, if small, demand for his books. Ben Abramson\nof the famed Argus Book Shop has his North Wall addicts who are always\neager for Machen items. August Derleth, the one-man wonder of mid-western\npublishing circles, knows the value of a Machen story in a collection\nissuing from Arkham House. A new generation of booksellers on New York\u2019s\nFourth Avenue know Machen by reputation, even though many of them have\nnever seen one of the eagerly sought-after books.\n\nMachen himself went into retirement some years ago. For years there\nwere gatherings at his home in St. John\u2019s Wood, gay parties attended by\nwriters and theatrical people and journalists\u2014and Americans. Machen has\nalways had a tremendous appeal for Americans\u2014possibly because of our\nHawthorne and Poe, and possibly because we managed to avoid the stagy\nschool of the Gothic novelists which he so disliked. And Machen liked\nAmericans, too, as Robert Hillyer related in his _Atlantic_ article.\nIt pleased Machen that the majority of the letters he received about\nhis works were from Americans. On one occasion he told Hillyer he would\nconsider it a compliment to be taken \u201cinto the fold as a fellow American.\u201d\n\nLater, when Machen retired to Wales, there were picnics on the cliffs\noverlooking the sea. Robert Hillyer has given us an amusing account of\none of these festive occasions in his recent article on Machen. With the\ncoming of the war these visits were impossible, of course. Montgomery\nEvans, late of the U. S. Army, member of the Salmagundi Club and resident\nof Greenwich, was the last of Machen\u2019s visitors before the war.\n\nEvans had known Machen since 1923. It was his pleasant practice to give\nparties with the Machens on such American occasions as the Fourth of July\nand Thanksgiving. These parties promoted Anglo-American understanding\nwith \u201cAmerican food and French wine\u201d and such guests as Augustus John,\nHolbrooke Jackson, Tommy Earp and others. Evans happened to be again in\nEngland when World War II broke out. Machen had written an introduction\nfor a book Evans was about to publish. Book and introduction went to the\nbottom of the North Atlantic with the torpedoed _Athenia_ as Evans was\nbound for home when the war was only a few days old.\n\nThroughout the dark years of the war Machen corresponded with his\nAmerican friends\u2014Evans, Jordan-Smith, Goldsmith and others. These were\nunhappy days: Machen\u2019s health was poor, his eyesight was failing rapidly,\nhis son Hilary was in a German prison camp, letters were few and far\nbetween and Machen too old to contrive legends as he had done in the\ndarker days of 1915.\n\nAfter the war Machen was placed on the King\u2019s List\u2014the result of a\nmovement instituted largely through the efforts of Montgomery Evans. In\na letter to Robert Hillyer Machen wrote: \u201cOur gracious Sovereign, King\nGeorge the Fifth, out of his great bounty and kindness, has awarded me a\npension.\u201d\n\nMr. Hillyer\u2019s reflection at this news is worth repeating here: \u201cI had a\nvision of the fine old man in Bardic raiment, receiving a bag of gold\nfrom a mediaeval monarch clad in ermine and silks and with a golden crown\non his head.\u201d\n\nMachen\u2019s Street Fleet days were over now, he no longer appeared, a\nJohnstonian figure, in the streets of London, nor was he ever again to\nimpersonate the great Doctor in pageants. There were occasional articles\nin magazines and one last book, _The Holy Terrors_, published in 1946.\n\nWith the close of the war, correspondence was resumed on a more regular\nschedule. Machen was failing badly, his eyesight was almost gone, his\nhand had lost its grace but his letters were, as Montgomery Evans notes,\n\u201cas charming and Johnstonian as ever.\u201d Hilary had been released from\nthe Germans and returned home. Scarcely had the family been reunited\nat Amersham, however, when another blow fell\u2014Machen\u2019s wife died. This\n\u201cample, easy-going, good natured woman,\u201d as Hillyer describes her, meant\nmuch to Machen and their two children. She was, she must have been, a\nwoman of great understanding and of infinite patience. She accepted\npoverty, hoping always for the recognition she felt was her husband\u2019s\ndue. And of course she knew, as well as he, that what he wrote might\ninterest, at most, comparatively few. After her death Machen declined\nrapidly. His letters had to be written by his son, but the mind that\ncomposed them was still that of \u201cthe greatest master of English prose\nin our time.\u201d Then, in the closing days of the year 1947, in a private\nhospital in Beaconsfield, Arthur Machen died at the age of 84.\n\nMachen\u2019s passing was not unnoticed. _The New York Times_ (Dec. 16, 1947)\nprinted his photograph and an obituary under the heading: \u201cAuthor of the\nStory That Led to \u2018Angel of Mons\u2019 Legend Dies at 84\u2014Won Success at 60.\u201d\nA few other papers in the country carried similar stories\u2014there were no\nbulletins, no eulogies by electronic commentators. Subscribers to the\n_Atlantic Monthly_ probably recalled Robert Hillyer\u2019s article on Machen\nin the May issue. Letters passed between friends expressing regret for\nthere were, as Nathan Van Patten wrote, \u201csome who mourn.\u201d\n\nChief among these, perhaps, are the members of the Arthur Machen Society.\nThis Society was formed early in the spring of 1948 by Nathan Van Patten,\nVincent Starrett, Paul Jordan-Smith, Carl Van Vechten, Montgomery Evans,\nRobert Hillyer (all names that will long be associated with Machen) as\nwell as August Derleth, Joseph Vodrey, Ben Abramson, James T. Babb,\nWilliam P. Wreden, Frederick Coykendall, Cyril Clemens, Gilbert Seldes,\nAshton Stevens and a score of comparative newcomers in the great society\nof the admirers of Arthur Machen.\n\nThis is an informal group which hopes, in the words of its president, Mr.\nVan Patten, to stimulate an interest in Arthur Machen\u2019s work. There is to\nbe an exchange of information and privately printed Machen material, with\npossibly an annual or quarterly publication.\n\nIn the summer of 1948 Alfred Knopf issued _Tales of Horror and the\nSupernatural_, the largest and the best collection of Machen\u2019s stories\never published. Edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, it included a reprint\nof Hillyer\u2019s _Atlantic_ article. The book was reviewed with interest by\nOrville Prescott and John Dickinson Carr in the _Times_. _The Nation\u2019s_\nreviewer thought the atmosphere of the tales did not \u201ccompensate for\nhis failure to explain the inexplicable.\u201d Mr. Knopf\u2019s ad-men, applying\nmodern techniques, exhorted readers to \u201cremember Machen, it rhymes with\ncrackin\u2019.\u201d\n\nThe Arthur Machen Society has already begun to make good its promise to\nstimulate interest in Arthur Machen:\n\nMr. Joseph Kelly Vodrey of Canton, Ohio, a specialist in Machen\nbibliography, has printed and distributed to the members of the Society a\nbooklet: _There Are Some Who Mourn_, written by Nathan Van Patten.\n\nMr. Van Patten, a distinguished professor of bibliography at Stanford\nUniversity and dean of Machenites, has printed a handsome booklet,\nlimited to fifty copies, of Arthur Machen\u2019s _The Gray\u2019s Inn Coffee House_.\n\nThere will be others. At long last something is being done to right the\nwrongs of which Mr. Cabell wrote so many years ago.\n\n\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n\n\nOne might devote a great amount of time and give considerable thought to\nthe final pages of a book about Arthur Machen. It is not easy for anyone\nwho admires Machen to leave off talking or writing about him.\n\nThis book was planned and begun while Arthur Machen still lived. He\nknew of its creation, its aims and its purpose, and he gave the book\nhis \u201cplenary blessings.\u201d The early chapters were sent in galley form to\nAmersham. Machen read the proofs or, his sight failing badly, had them\nread to him by his son Hilary. The proofs were returned with a little\nnote and sometimes with comments or corrections written in the margins.\n\nI have hoped many things for this book\u2014that it would arouse more interest\nin Machen, that it would bring about a great revival of reading his\nbooks. He has been sadly neglected as a writer, we all feel that, and\nyet Machen writes: \u201cI question whether what you call the neglect of my\nwork is due to any fault of publishers or public\u2014the real cause of it,\nI believe, is the fact that I have been interested as a writer in a\nvariety of things which only interest a few people. This is a matter of\nindividual constitution: it is incurable.\u201d\n\nWe who are incurable, and we are not few, can only hope to interest many\npeople in the variety of things about which Arthur Machen wrote.\n\n\nFINIS\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n    \u201c_I am sure that Bibliography is a capital game, but it is not\n    my game._\u201d\u2014_Arthur Machen_\n\n    \u201c_I don\u2019t care two pence whether a book is in the first edition\n    or in the tenth, nay, if the tenth is the best edition I would\n    rather have it._\u201d\u2014_Arthur Machen_\n\n\nA complete and comprehensive and correct bibliography of the works\nof Arthur Machen would be a wondrous work indeed. It would include\nsuch important matters as colors of cloths and types of bindings, the\nnumber of pages and the presence of prefaces and plates. It would, one\nhopes, clearly indicate such dates as were of importance and many other\nfascinating facts to delight and bedazzle the bibliographer.\n\nThere is no such bibliography of the works of Arthur Machen in existence,\nnor does this one pretend or propose to fill that need. What is also\nneeded, however, and by readers rather than collectors, is a complete\nlisting of the works of Machen, together with notes on their appearance\nin print and clues to their possible location. Such a listing presents\ncertain typographical problems which I have tried to work out without\nhaving to resort to the cabalistic symbols common to certain catalogues\nand all time tables.\n\nIt is my belief that people who like to read Machen like also to read\nabout Machen, therefore I have added a listing of books and articles\nin which there appears more than a mere mention of Arthur Machen.\nFurthermore, since I feel that I have not listed all of these, nor all\nthe Works for that matter, I have provided several blank pages for the\nuse of the eventual owner of this book. Such additional information as\nhe may gather may be entered on these pages under the general heading of\n\u201cNotes.\u201d\n\nThis then is the purpose of the unconventional bibliography that follows:\nto lead and direct the general reader to the work of Arthur Machen, and\nto direct him to certain books and sources in which may be found material\nof interest to the admirers of Arthur Machen.\n\n\n_THE ESSAYS_:\n\nThe Essays of Arthur Machen are listed alphabetically below. Machen was,\nfor many years, a practicing journalist, writing for many papers and\njournals. Obviously not all of his pieces, nor even all of the best of\nhis pieces, have appeared in book form. Obviously, too, it is impossible\nfor anyone to obtain copies of the many papers for which he wrote, or\neven of the various journals and magazines listed herein. This listing is\ntherefore far from being complete\u2014it lists only those pieces which are\navailable, or should be, or have been, in print. Many of these pieces are\nundated, except as having appeared between dates that may be a decade\napart. This is, unfortunately, unavoidable. There is little we can do\nabout it, except to suggest that someone establish a Fellowship for the\nsole purpose of investigating and excavating the complete published works\nof Arthur Machen.\n\n    ADELPHI, FAREWELL! an essay first published in the _LYONS\n    MAIL_, appears also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, London, 1924 and\n    Alfred Knopf, New York, 1924.\n\n    ADVENTURE OF THE LONG LOST BROTHER, an essay first published\n    in the London _GRAPHIC_, appears also in _DREADS AND DROLLS_,\n    Secker, London, 1926 and Knopf, New York, 1927.\n\n    APOSTOLIC IDEAL, THE, an essay, first publication (?), appears\n    in Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Covici-McGee, Chicago,\n    1924.\n\n    APRIL FOOL! an essay first published in the _LYONS MAIL_, also\n    in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    ARS ARTIUM, an essay, first published (?), appears in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    ART OF DICKENS, THE, an essay, first published (1910?), appears\n    in _THE WAVE_, Chicago, 1922. Also in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING\n    PYRAMID_, Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    ART OF UNBELIEF, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_ but\n    rejected. Appears in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    BEFORE WEMBLEY, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_,\n    appears also in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf,\n    1927.\n\n    BOWMEN AND OTHER NOBLE GHOSTS, THE, a group of essays relating\n    to the story, _THE BOWMEN_, appears in the Simpkins, Marshall\n    1915 edition, of which there were two issues, and the Putnam\n    1915 edition.\n\n    CAMPDEN WONDER, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_, also\n    in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    CASANOVA IN LONDON, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, appears\n    in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    CEREMONY ON THE SCAFFOLD, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_,\n    also appears in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf,\n    1927.\n\n    \u201cCHARACTERS,\u201d an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, also appears\n    in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    CHIVALRY, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included in\n    _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    CHRISTMAS MUMMING, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    appears also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    CONCERNING COCKTAILS, an article written for _BOOK NOTES_,\n    London, April, 1928.\n\n    CONJURING TIME, essay, first published (?), appears in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    \u201cCONSOLATUS\u201d AND \u201cCHURCH MEMBER,\u201d an essay, first appearance in\n    Vincent Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    CUSTOM OF THE MANOR, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    DARK AGES, THE, an essay, first appearance (?). Appears in\n    Starrett\u2019s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    DEADLY NEVERGREEN, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_,\n    also included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Seeker, 1926 and Knopf,\n    1927.\n\n    DISSENTING LOGIC, an essay, first appearance (?). Included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    DOG AND DUCK, an essay and a punch made famous by Machen. Also\n    title of a collection of essays originally written for the\n    _LYONS MAIL_. Published by Cape, London, 1924 and Knopf, New\n    York, 1924.\n\n    DOUBLES IN CRIME, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included\n    in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    ECCLESIA ANGELICANA, (I-II), essays first published (?),\n    included in Starrett\u2019s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_,\n    Chicago, 1924.\n\n    EDUCATION AND THE EDUCATED, an essay, first published in\n    Starrett\u2019s _SHINING PYRAMID_, Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923. Also\n    appears in Knopf\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1925.\n\n    ENGLISH AND IRISH, an essay included in Vincent Starrett\u2019s\n    collection, _ET CETERA_, Chicago, 1922.\n\n    EUSTON SQUARE MYSTERY, THE, an essay first published in the\n    _GRAPHIC_, also included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926;\n    Knopf, 1927.\n\n    FAITH AND CONDUCT, an essay first published (?), included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    FALSE PROPHETS, an essay first published (?), included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    FRAGMENTS OF PAPER, an essay first published (?), included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    GRAY\u2019S INN COFFEE HOUSE, THE, an essay by Machen, appeared in\n    \u201cWine and Food,\u201d London, 1938. Published for Members of Arthur\n    Machen Society, by Nathan Van Patten, Stanford, 1949.\n\n    HAPPINESS AND HORROR, an essay first published (?) by Vincent\n    Starrett in _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    HIDDEN MYSTERY, THE, an essay, first appeared in _THE ACADEMY_,\n    London (1907?) Also in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_,\n    Chicago, 1923; _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    HIGHBURY MYSTERY, THE, an essay written for the London\n    _GRAPHIC_ and included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926;\n    Knopf, 1927.\n\n    HOW CLUBS BEGAN, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included\n    in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    HOW THE RICH LIVE, an essay appeared in the _GRAPHIC_ and in\n    _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    HOW TO SPEND CHRISTMAS, an essay first published in the _LYONS\n    MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    IN CONVERTENDO, an essay, first appeared in _THE ACADEMY_,\n    London, 1907. Included in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_,\n    Chicago, 1923 and Knopf, 1925. Part of the book called _THE\n    SECRET GLORY_.\n\n    INGENIOUS MR. BLEE, THE, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    INTOLERANCE, an essay first published (?), included in\n    Starrett\u2019s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    ISLINGTON MYSTERY, THE, an essay included in Starrett\u2019s\n    collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_ and in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich\n    & Cowan, London, 1936. Also in _BLACK CAP_, edited by Cynthia\n    Asquith.\n\n    JULY SPORT, an essay first published in the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    LA DIVE BOUTEILIE, a fragment surviving from Machen\u2019s\n    Rabelaisian period. Included by Starrett in his collection,\n    _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    LAMENT FOR LONDON\u2019S LOST INNS, an essay written for the\n    _GRAPHIC_ and included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and\n    Knopf, 1927.\n\n    LITTLE PEOPLE, THE, an essay, first published in the _GRAPHIC_\n    and included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf,\n    1927.\n\n    MADAM RACHEL, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    MAN FROM NOWHERE, THE, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    MAN WITH THE SILVER STAFF, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_,\n    also included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf,\n    1927.\n\n    MANDATUM NOVISSIMUM, an essay first published (?), included in\n    the Starrett collection, _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    MARCH AND A MORAL, first published in the _LYONS MAIL_, appears\n    also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    MARRIAGE OF PANURGE, an essay, first published (?), appeared in\n    _THE WAVE_, Chicago, 1922.\n\n    MARTINMAS, an essay, first appeared in the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    MATTER OF ROMANCE, an essay, first published (?) in Starrett\u2019s\n    _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    MERRY MONTH OF MAY, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_. Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    MIDSUMMER NIGHT\u2019S DREAM, A, an essay first appearing in the\n    _LYONS MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf,\n    1924.\n\n    MODERNISM, an essay, first published (?) in Starrett\u2019s\n    collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    MORDUCK THE WITCH, an essay first published in the _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    MORE INNS, an essay first published in the _GRAPHIC_, included\n    in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    MORNING LIGHT, THE, an essay, first published (?) included in\n    Starrett collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    MR. LUTTERLOH, an essay first published in the _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    MY MURDERER, an essay, first appearance in London, included in\n    collection by Vincent Starrett, _ET CETERA_, Chicago, 1922.\n\n    MYSTIC SPEECH, THE, an essay, first delivered as a lecture in\n    London, between 1915 and 1920. Included in Knopf\u2019s edition of\n    _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1922.\n\n    NEW LAMPS FOR OLD, an essay, first published (?), included by\n    Starrett in _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    OLD DR. MOUNSEY, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included\n    also in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    ON HOLIDAYS, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, included in\n    _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    ON SIMMEL CAKES, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    ON VALENTINES AND OTHER THINGS, an essay published in _LYONS\n    MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    ONLY WAY, THE, an article, first published (?), appeared also\n    in _PUBLISHERS WEEKLY_, New York, Feb. 16, 1924 and _THE FLYING\n    HORSE_, 1924.\n\n    PAGANISM, an essay included in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING\n    PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923, first publication (?).\n\n    POE, EDGAR ALLEN, an essay, first published (?), included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    POLITE CORRESPONDENCE, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    POOR VICTORIANS, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    POWER OF JARGON, THE, an essay first published in the\n    _GRAPHIC_, included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and\n    Knopf, 1927.\n\n    REALISM AND SYMBOL, an essay first published (?) in Starrett\u2019s\n    _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    ROAST GOOSE, an essay first published in the _LYONS MAIL_, also\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    SAD HAPPY RACE, an essay, reminiscent of Machen\u2019s days on the\n    stage, first published (?), included in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING\n    PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    SANCHO PANZA AT GENEVA, an essay, first published (?), included\n    in Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    SANGRAAL, THE, the title of at least two essays on the Grail,\n    one of them a reply to Alfred Nutt\u2019s \u201cReply to Arthur Machen,\u201d\n    included in Starrett\u2019s _GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924, also\n    in Knopf\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1925.\n\n    SECRET LANGUAGE, A, an essay, part of the book that became _THE\n    SECRET GLORY_, published in whole or part in _THE ACADEMY_\n    (1907?) London, included in Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_,\n    Chicago, 1924.\n\n    SECRET OF THE SANGRAAL, THE, an essay written in 1907, possibly\n    first published by A. E. Waite, included in Knopf\u2019s _THE\n    SHINING PYRAMID_, New York, 1925.\n\n    SEVEN-B, CONEY COURT, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    SIR BENJAMIN, THE BARON, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_,\n    included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927.\n\n    SIR WALTER SCOTT, an essay contributed to W. J. Turner\u2019s\n    collection, _GREAT NAMES_, New York, 1926.\n\n    SIX DOZEN OF PORT, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    SOME FEBRUARY STARS, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    SPLENDID HOLIDAY, THE, an essay, first published (?), included\n    in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    SPLENDOUR, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, included in\n    _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924; Knopf, 1924.\n\n    ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, an essay written for the _LYONS\n    MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, 1924.\n\n    STRANGE CASE OF EMILY WESTON, THE, an essay written for the\n    _GRAPHIC_, included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926;\n    Knopf, 1927.\n\n    STRANGE ROADS, an essay published by The Classic Press, London,\n    1923. Limited Edition, sketches by J. Simpson, R.B.A.\n\n    STUFF AND SCIENCE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924; Knopf, 1924.\n\n    TALK FOR TWELFTH NIGHT, A, an essay written for the _LYONS\n    MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    THOROUGH CHANGE, A, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, THE, an essay, first publication (?)\n    in _THE REVIEWER_, Richmond, Virginia, 1924.\n\n    TREASURE OF THE HUMBLE, an essay, first publication (?), in\n    _THE REVIEWER_, Richmond, Virginia, 1924.\n\n    UNCONSCIOUS MAGIC, an essay, first publication (?) included\n    in _AMONG MY BOOKS_, by H. O. Traill, London, 1898. Also in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    VICE OF COLLECTING, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_,\n    included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    VISION IN THE ABBEY, an essay included in _CENOTAPH_, edited by\n    Moult, published in London by Cape, 1923.\n\n    WHERE ARE THE FOGS OF YESTERYEAR? an essay, written for the\n    _LYONS MAIL_ and included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf,\n    1924.\n\n    WHY NEW YEAR? an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, included\n    also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924.\n\n    WITH THE GODS IN SPRING, an essay, rather an autobiographical\n    sketch, published along with _STRANGE ROADS_ by The Classics\n    Press, London, 1923.\n\n    WORLD TO COME, THE, an essay, first published (?), included in\n    Vincent Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n\n    _THE TALES_:\n\n    The Tales of Arthur Machen including, of course, the novels,\n    in whole and in part, are listed alphabetically below. Their\n    appearance in various papers, journals, editions, collections\n    and anthologies is presented as accurately as possible, in\n    chronological order. It must be admitted that there are some\n    matters on which even the experts differ, and some on which\n    Machen himself differs with the experts. In such cases we have\n    assumed an almost arbitrary attitude.\n\n    ANGELS OF MONS, THE, the tale known also as _THE BOWMEN_, title\n    used in the Simpkin, Marshall, (London) 1915 edition; also the\n    Putnam, New York, 1915 edition.\n\n    AWAKENING: A CHILDREN\u2019S STORY, a tale in the manner of 1915 but\n    written in 1930. Published in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan,\n    London, 1936.\n\n    BOWMEN, THE, the story of the Angels of Mons, first appeared\n    in the London _ILLUSTRATED NEWS_, Sept. 29, 1914. Published by\n    Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., London, 1915; Putnam,\n    New York, 1915; also included in the _NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW_\n    (?); in the collection _PAUSE TO WONDER_, Random House, N. Y.,\n    1945, and _TALES OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL_, Knopf, 1948.\n\n    BRIGHT BOY, THE, a comparatively recent tale, included in\n    _CHILDREN OF THE POOL_, Hutchinson, London, 1936; also _TALES\n    OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL_, Knopf, 1948.\n\n    CANNING WONDER, THE, book-length treatment of the case of\n    Elizabeth Canning. Published first by Chatto & Windus, London,\n    1925; Knopf, 1926.\n\n    CAPITAL LEVY, THE, a tale of the period of World War I, first\n    published in Vincent Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago,\n    1923.\n\n    CEREMONY, THE, fragment of one of the novels, written in 1897,\n    published in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    CHANGE, one of the more recent tales, included in _CHILDREN OF\n    THE POOL_, Hutchinson, London, 1936. Also included in _TERROR\n    BY NIGHT_, Avon Publishing Co., 1947.\n\n    CHILDREN OF THE POOL, title story of collection published by\n    Hutchinson, London, 1936. Also appears in _TALES_, Knopf, 1948.\n\n    CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY, THE, The History of the IX Joyous\n    Journeys; first privately printed in 1888, included in Secker\u2019s\n    New Adelphi Library, Vol. 28; published by Knopf in 1926.\n\n    COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON, a Christmas story included in Rich &\n    Cowan\u2019s collection, _THE COSY ROOM_, 1936.\n\n    COSY ROOM, THE, title story of Rich & Cowan\u2019s collection, 1936.\n    This story is dated 1929. Also appeared in a collection of\n    \u201csuspense\u201d stories edited by Will Cuppy.\n\n    DAZZLING LIGHT, THE, one of the legends of the war written for\n    the London _EVENING NEWS_, also in the 1915 edition of _THE\n    BOWMEN_.\n\n    DOUBLE RETURN, A, one of the earliest tales, appeared first in\n    the _ST. JAMES GAZETTE_, London, 1890; included in _THE COSY\n    ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, 1936.\n\n    DRAKE\u2019S DRUM, one of the legends of the War, written in 1919,\n    first appeared in _THE OUTLOOK_, London, 1919. Included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923 and _THE COSY\n    ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    EXALTED OMEGA, THE, published in Hutchinson\u2019s 1936 collection,\n    _CHILDREN OF THE POOL_, also included in August Derleth\u2019s\n    anthology, _WHO KNOCKS_, Farrar & Rhinehart, New York, 1947.\n\n    FRAGMENT OF LIFE, A, first called _RESURRECTIO MORTUORUM_ and\n    published in a London newspaper in the 1890\u2019s. Re-written\n    and published in _HORLICK\u2019S MAGAZINE_ in 1904; included in\n    _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, Grant Richards, London, 1906, and in\n    _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_ by Knopf, New York, 1922. F. B. Millett,\n    _CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LITERATURE_, (N.Y. 1935) mentions this\n    title with date 1928.\n\n    GARDEN OF AVALLAUNIUS, THE, original title of _THE HILL OF\n    DREAMS_. First published under this title in _HORLICK\u2019S\n    MAGAZINE_, London, 1904, issued by Grant Richards in 1907. May\n    have appeared in a French publication sometime between 1902 and\n    1907.\n\n    GIFT OF TONGUES, THE, a recent title (1927) included in\n    _STRANGE ASSEMBLY_, edited by Gawsworth, London, 1932. Rich &\n    Cowan\u2019s _THE COSY ROOM_, London, 1936.\n\n    GREAT GOD PAN, THE, possibly the most famous of the tales,\n    first published in _WHIRLWIND_, London, 1890. Appeared in John\n    Lane\u2019s _KEYSTONE SERIES_ as Volume V, London, 1894. A second\n    edition in 1895, translated into the French in 1901. Included\n    in _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, Richards, 1906 and reprinted by\n    Richards in 1910. Published by Simpkin, Marshall of London in\n    1916. Included in _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, Knopf, 1922. Included\n    in the _CAERLEON EDITION_, Secker, 1923. Included in The New\n    Adelphi Library, Vol. 24, Secker; also appears in _GREAT TALES\n    OF THE SUPERNATURAL_, Random House, 1941 and _TALES_, Knopf,\n    1948. Roberts Brothers of Boston also published it in 1894.\n\n    GREAT RETURN, THE, written in 1915 and first appeared as a\n    serial in the London _EVENING NEWS_. Published by The Faith\n    Press, London, 1915. Included in the _CAERLEON EDITION_,\n    Secker, 1923. Also in _TALES_, Knopf, 1948.\n\n    GREEN ROUND, THE, a novel published by Benn, London, 1933. Has\n    been announced for publication by August Derleth\u2019s _ARKHAM\n    HOUSE_ for 1950.\n\n    HAPPY CHILDREN, THE, a tale of the War period, included in _THE\n    SHINING PYRAMID_, Knopf, 1925. Also in the _TALES_, Knopf, 1948.\n\n    HILL OF DREAMS, THE, best known novel of Arthur Machen. See\n    also _THE GARDEN OF AVALLAUNIUS_. Published by Grant Richards\n    in London, 1907. Issued by Secker, 1916, reprinted 1922, 1924.\n    Included in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 32, by Secker, Dana\n    Estes, 19-? Also by Knopf, New York, 1922.\n\n    HOLY TERRORS, THE, Machen\u2019s last book, published in England,\n    1946.\n\n    HOLY THINGS, THE, an early tale, written in 1897, included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924, also in Rich\n    & Cowan\u2019s _THE COSY ROOM_, 1936.\n\n    INMOST LIGHT, THE, first appeared with _THE GREAT GOD PAN_ in\n    the Keynote edition, 1894. Included in _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_,\n    Richards, London, 1906. Knopf\u2019s _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, 1922,\n    Knopf\u2019s _TALES_, 1948.\n\n    IRON MAID, THE, an early tale, first appeared in the _ST. JAMES\n    GAZETTE_, 1890, published with _THE THREE IMPOSTORS_ in Keynote\n    Series, Volume XIX, London, 1895. Included in Starrett\u2019s _THE\n    GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    LOST CLUB, THE, a tale in the Stevensonian manner, first\n    appeared in _THE WHIRLWIND_, 1890. Included also in Starrett\u2019s\n    _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923 and _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich\n    & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    MARTYR, THE, a fragment of _THE SECRET GLORY_, first appeared\n    in _THE ACADEMY_, London (1907?). Included in Starrett\u2019s _THE\n    SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    MIDSUMMER, a fragment of one of the Great Romances, written in\n    1897, included in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    MONSTRANCE, THE, another of the legends of the War, probably\n    written for the London _EVENING NEWS_, included in Simpkin,\n    Marshall edition and Putnam\u2019s edition of _THE BOWMEN_, 1915.\n\n    MUNITIONS OF WAR, written in 1915, probably for the London\n    _EVENING NEWS_, included in _THE GHOST BOOK_, Scribners, New\n    York, 1927. Also in _THE COSY ROOM_, London, 1936.\n\n    N, one of the more recent tales, written about 1935. Included\n    in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. Also in\n    _TALES_, Knopf, 1948.\n\n    NATURE, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE COSY\n    ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    NEW CHRISTMAS CAROL, A, a Christmas story written in 1920.\n    Appears under this title in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan,\n    London, 1936. Appears also under the title _SCROOGE: 1920_, in\n    Starrett\u2019s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924.\n\n    NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL, an episode in _THE THREE IMPOSTERS_,\n    sometimes published separately as in Dorothy Sayer\u2019s _OMNIBUS\n    OF CRIME_ (1929); _THE TRAVELERS LIBRARY_, Somerset Maugham\u2019s\n    anthology, Doubleday, Doran, 1933, and Knopf\u2019s _TALES_, 1948.\n\n    NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER, an episode in _THE THREE IMPOSTORS_,\n    sometimes published separately as in _TALES OF HORROR AND THE\n    SUPERNATURAL_, Knopf, 1948.\n\n    OPENING THE DOOR, a story, dated 1931, included in _THE COSY\n    ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. Also in _TRAVELLERS IN\n    TIME_, edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, Doubleday, 1947.\n\n    OUT OF THE EARTH, a story of the \u201cBowmen\u201d period, included\n    in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. Also in\n    Knopf\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1925 and Knopf\u2019s _TALES_, 1948.\n\n    OUT OF THE PICTURE, a tale included in _THE CHILDREN OF THE\n    POOL_, Hutchinson, 1936. Also included in August Derleth\u2019s _THE\n    SLEEPING AND THE DEAD_, Pellegrini & Cudahy, Chicago, 1947.\n\n    PSYCHOLOGY, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE COSY\n    ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    RED HAND, THE, first appeared in _CHAPMAN\u2019S MAGAZINE_ as _THE\n    TELLING OF MYSTERY_, London, 1895. Included in _THE HOUSE OF\n    SOULS_, Grant Richards, London, 1906. Also in Knopf\u2019s _THE\n    HOUSE OF SOULS_, 1922 and 1928.\n\n    RESURRECTIO MORTUORUM, a source of _A FRAGMENT OF LIFE_. First\n    published in a \u201cforgotten paper\u201d in London, 1890.\n\n    ROSE GARDEN, THE, first appearance in the _NEOLITH_, London,\n    1918. Also included in Starrett\u2019s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_,\n    Chicago, 1924. Knopf\u2019s _ORNAMENTS IN JADE_, New York, 1924.\n    Published in a limited edition by Nathan Van Patten, Stanford\n    University. Also included in Gawsworth\u2019s _STRANGE ASSEMBLY_,\n    London, 1932. Included in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan,\n    London, 1936.\n\n    SCROOGE: 1920, a Christmas story included in Starrett\u2019s _THE\n    GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, 1924. See also _A NEW CHRISTMAS CAROL_.\n\n    SECRET GLORY, THE, published by Secker, London, 1922; Knopf,\n    New York, 1922. Two chapters appeared in _THE GYPSY_, London,\n    1915. Other chapters and a number of essays (In Convertendo,\n    The Martyr, The Hidden Mystery) appeared also in _THE ACADEMY_,\n    London, 1906.\n\n    SHINING PYRAMID, THE, a story first published in _THE UNKNOWN\n    WORLD_, London, 1895. Also in Starrett\u2019s 1923 collection, in\n    Secker\u2019s 1925 edition and Knopf\u2019s 1925 collection of that\n    title. Appeared also in _GREAT WEIRD STORIES_, by Neale,\n    Duffield, 1929. Included in Knopf\u2019s _TALES_, 1948.\n\n    SOLDIER\u2019S REST, THE, one of the \u201clegends of the War,\u201d written\n    in 1915 for the London _EVENING NEWS_, included in London and\n    New York editions of _THE BOWMEN_, 1915.\n\n    TELLING OF A MYSTERY, THE, original title of _THE RED HAND_.\n    Appears under that title in _CHAPMAN\u2019S MAGAZINE_, London, 1895.\n\n    TERROR, THE, novel first published serially in the London\n    _EVENING NEWS_ in 1917. Published by Duckworth, London, 1917,\n    and McBride in New York, 1917. Appeared in abbreviated form\n    in the _CENTURY MAGAZINE_. Also included in the _CAERLEON\n    EDITION_, London, 1923. In Viking\u2019s _SIX NOVELS OF THE\n    SUPERNATURAL_, New York, 1946. Also included in Knopf\u2019s\n    _TALES_, 1948.\n\n    THREE IMPOSTORS, THE, published by John Lane, Volume XIX of the\n    Keystone Series, London, 1895; Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1895.\n    Included in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 15, Secker, London.\n    Also by Alfred Knopf, 1922. Pocket Edition, 1928. Caerleon\n    Edition, 1923.\n\n    TORTURE, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE COSY\n    ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    TRANSMUTATIONS, THE, subtitle of _THE THREE IMPOSTORS_.\n\n    TREE OF LIFE, THE, a story included in _THE CHILDREN OF THE\n    POOL_, Hutchinson, London, 1936.\n\n    TURANIANS, THE, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE\n    COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936.\n\n    UNDERGROUND ADVENTURE, AN, an early tale, appeared in _THE\n    WHIRLWIND_, London, 1890.\n\n    WHITE PEOPLE, THE, one of the early tales, first published in\n    _HORLICK\u2019S MAGAZINE_, London, 1899. Included in _THE HOUSE OF\n    SOULS_, Richards, 1906. Knopf\u2019s _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, 1922 and\n    1928. Also in _THE HAUNTED OMNIBUS_, edited by Alexander Laing,\n    1937 and the _TALES_, Knopf, 1948. Caerleon Edition, 1923.\n\n    WITCHCRAFT, a fragment, written in 1897, included in _THE COSY\n    ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, 1936.\n\n    WONDERFUL WOMAN, A, one of the earliest tales, written for _THE\n    WHIRLWIND_, London, 1890, included in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING\n    PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. Also in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan,\n    London, 1936.\n\n\n_TRANSLATIONS_:\n\nThe translations made by Arthur Machen must certainly be listed among\nhis major works, although they are not the most important. All of them\nare from the French, all of them were made early in his career as a\nwriter (and some of them under unusual circumstances). Of these, the\nmost important is his translation of the Memoirs of the redoubtable\nCasanova. The listing that follows is not complete, I am quite sure that\n_Heptameron_ and the _Memoirs_, at least, have appeared in many editions\nof which I have not heard and which may not be credited to Machen.\n\n    CASANOVA, MEMOIRS OF, translation made by Machen as part of\n    his \u201cduties\u201d while working for a London bookseller. Privately\n    published in London, 1894. Also published by L. C. Page,\n    Boston, 1903; Knopf, New York, 1929.\n\n    CASANOVA\u2019S ESCAPE FROM THE LEADS, published in London in 1925\n    and by Knopf, New York, 1925.\n\n    FANTASTIC TALES, Machen\u2019s translation of Beroalde de Verville\u2019s\n    \u201cLe Moyen de Parvenir.\u201d Privately printed at \u201cCarbonnek\u201d (James\n    Wade, London), 1890.\n\n    FORTUNATE LOVERS, THE, described by Machen as a \u201cdrawing room\n    edition\u201d of the _HEPTAMERON_. Published by Redway, London, 1887.\n\n    HEPTAMERON, THE, translation of the memoirs of Marguerite,\n    Queen of Navarre. Privately printed by the Dryden Press, 1886.\n    Issued by Knopf, New York, 1924. There are other editions.\n\n    WAY TO ATTAIN, THE, a portion of Beroalde de Verville\u2019s \u201cLe\n    Moyen de Parvenir\u201d or _FANTASTIC TALES_, published in 1889 by\n    Dryden Press.\n\n    REMARKS UPON HERMODACTYLUS, translated by Machen from the\n    French of Lady Hester Stanhope. Published in 1933.\n\n\n_MISCELLANEOUS_:\n\nThe man of letters, the practicing man of letters that is, finds himself\ndoing all sorts of things in the practice of his trade. Machen was\na working man of letters for most of his eighty-odd years. He wrote\narticles and \u201cleaders\u201d and \u201cturn-overs\u201d and \u201cfills\u201d and many another\njournalistic oddity. He composed calendars and catalogues in his time\nand, I daresay, book reviews. To attempt to collect or to list all of\nthis material would be to display the Machen-mania in its most advanced\nstages.\n\nThis classification seems to me a proper one in which to include, for\nexample, Machen\u2019s first published work, the elusive _Eleusinia_, the\nclassic _Hieroglyphics_, the autobiographical books and the collections\nof his works, certain prefaces and introductions and one or two of the\nbetter known catalogues and \u201cfugitive pieces,\u201d to use a rather pedantic\nterm. I am being, I suppose, rather arbitrary here too, but I do not\nconsider that every \u201cfugitive piece\u201d is worthy of the chase.\n\n    ANATOMY OF TOBACCO, THE, by Leolinus Siluriensis, published by\n    George Redway, London, 1884 and Knopf, New York, 1925.\n\n    CADBY HALL, important mostly as a curiosity, an advertising\n    booklet written for a London Confectioner.\n\n    COLLECTOR\u2019S CRAFT, THE, written as a supplement for a catalogue\n    of rare books issued by First Edition Bookshop, London, 1923.\n    Afterwards reprinted in limited edition as a booklet. Appeared\n    also in _PUBLISHERS WEEKLY_, New York, October, 1923.\n\n    CONFESSIONS OF A LITERARY MAN, articles appeared serially in\n    the London _EVENING NEWS_, March to June, 1915. Published by\n    Secker, 1922 and Knopf, 1922, as _FAR OFF THINGS_.\n\n    DOG AND DUCK, title of a collection of essays and sketches,\n    originally written for the _LYONS MAIL_ and published in 1924\n    by Cape of London and Knopf of New York. Contents listed\n    separately under \u201cEssays.\u201d\n\n    DR. STIGGINS, a book subtitled: His Views and Principles.\n    Published by Griffiths, London, 1906 and Knopf, 1925.\n\n    DREADS AND DROLLS, title of a collection of essays originally\n    written for the London _GRAPHIC_. Published in London by\n    Secker, 1926 and in New York by Knopf, 1927.\n\n    ELEUSINIA: By a Former Member of H.C.S. This is Machen\u2019s first\n    published work, a 16-page poem written when he was seventeen,\n    published at Hereford in 1881. Only one copy known to exist.\n\n    FAR OFF THINGS, one of Machen\u2019s three autobiographical books.\n    Published serially as \u201cConfessions of a Literary Man.\u201d Secker\n    of London issued large paper and ordinary editions in 1922.\n    Later reprinted by Secker in New Adelphi Library, Vol. 2. Also\n    published by Knopf in 1922.\n\n    GLORIOUS MYSTERY, THE, a collection, published in Chicago in\n    1924 by Covici-McGee. Contained material from old newspapers,\n    periodicals and manuscripts. Authorized, according to Vincent\n    Starrett by Machen.\n\n    GRAND TROUVAILLE, THE, subtitled: A Legend of Pentonville.\n    3-page introduction to a catalogue of rare books issued by the\n    First Edition Bookshop of London, 1923. Subsequently issued as\n    a pamphlet in a limited edition.\n\n    HIEROGLYPHICS, a book, subtitled: A Note On Ecstacy in\n    Literature. First published by Grant Richards in London, 1902.\n    Re-issued by Secker in 1910. Published in New York by Knopf,\n    1923. Later included in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 19,\n    Secker, London.\n\n    HOUSE OF SOULS, THE, a collection of Machen\u2019s best-known tales.\n    First Published by Grant Richards in 1906, issued also by Dana\n    Estes. Published in New York by Knopf, 1922, Pocket Edition by\n    Knopf, 1928. London and New York collection differ in contents.\n\n    LONDON ADVENTURE, THE, Machen\u2019s autobiographical account\n    following the pattern set by _FAR OFF THINGS_ and _THINGS NEAR\n    AND FAR_. First published by Secker in London, 1924, Knopf of\n    New York, 1924.\n\n    NOTES AND QUERIES, a collection published by Spurr & Swift,\n    1926.\n\n    ORNAMENTS IN JADE, title of a collection of Machen\u2019s essays and\n    stories published in New York in a limited edition by Knopf,\n    1924.\n\n    PRECIOUS BALMS, a collection of criticisms of the work of\n    Arthur Machen, collected by Machen and published in London in a\n    limited edition in 1924.\n\n    PREFACES, written especially for the Knopf editions in the\n    early 1920s. Most of them are rather autobiographical, all of\n    them are authentic \u201cfirsts\u201d. The Knopf books containing these\n    prefaces are: The Three Impostors, The House of Souls, The Hill\n    of Dreams, Dr. Stiggins, The Anatomy of Tobacco and possibly\n    one or two others. The Introduction to _THE SHINING PYRAMID_,\n    which refers to the Starrett collection of the same name, was\n    presumably written for the London Edition, published in London\n    by Secker, 1925.\n\n    PREFACES: Machen wrote a number of introductions, prefaces\n    and forewords for various books, translations, etc. The\n    professional collector and bibliographer would be inclined, no\n    doubt, to treat these in a different manner. For our purpose we\n    find it sufficient to list them as follows under this heading:\n\n        GHOST SHIP, THE, by Richard Middleton, London, 1912.\n\n        PAGEANT OF ENGLISH LANDSCAPE, G. A. Dewar, London, 1924.\n\n        AFTERGLOW: PASTELS OF GREECE EGYPT, M. S. Buck, London,\n        1924.\n\n        ONE HUNDRED MERRIE AND DELIGHTFUL TALES, translated by R.\n        B. Douglas, Carbonnek, 1924.\n\n        HALT IN THE GARDEN, THE, by Robert Hillyer, London, 1925.\n\n        PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE, THE, by Brillat-Savarin, London, 1925.\n\n        DRAGON OF THE ALCHEMISTS, THE, by Frederic Carter, London,\n        1926.\n\n        MAINLY PLAYERS: BENSONIAN MEMORIES, by Lady Benson, London,\n        1926.\n\n        HUMPHRY CLINKER, by Tobias Smollett, Modern Library, New\n        York, 1929.\n\n        CASANOVA LOVED HER, by Bruno Brunelli, London, 1929.\n\n        OUR FATHER SAN DANIEL, by Gabriel Miro, London, 1930.\n\n        WAY TO SUCCEED, translation of Beroalde de Verville\u2019s _Le\n        Moyen Parvenir_ by Oliver Stonor, London, 1930.\n\n        ABOVE THE RIVER, by John Gawsworth, London, 1931.\n\n        WITCHES AND WARLOCKS, by Philip Seargeant, London, 1936.\n\n    PRIEST AND THE BARBER, THE, introductory matter to a pamphlet\n    written for a bookseller (George Redway) of occult literature.\n    Published 1887. Published in Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_,\n    Chicago, 1923. The pamphlet is also known as Don Quijote De La\n    Mancha.\n\n    SHINING PYRAMID, THE, a collection of stories and essays\n    compiled and published by (A) Vincent Starrett and published by\n    Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923. (B) by Arthur Machen, differing in\n    content, published by Secker in London, 1925 and (C) the same,\n    published by Knopf in New York, 1925.\n\n    SPAGYRIC QUEST OF BEROALDUS COSMOPOLITA, THE, this is an\n    introduction to a catalogue of books on alchemy and magic,\n    published by Wyman & Sons, London, in 1888. Included in\n    Starrett\u2019s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923.\n\n    TALES OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL, a collection of the best\n    known of Machen\u2019s tales, published in 1948 by Knopf. Edited and\n    with an Introduction by Philip Van Doren Stern. Also contains\n    Robert Hillyer\u2019s article on Machen.\n\n    THESAURUS INCANTATUS, title of a pamphlet, issued in 1888,\n    catalogue of books sold by a London firm. Also known as the\n    \u201cSpagyric Quest\u201d see above.\n\n    THINGS NEAR AND FAR, title of one of Machen\u2019s three\n    autobiographical books. Published in London by Secker, 1923,\n    also in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 8; in New York by Knopf,\n    1923.\n\n    TOM O\u2019BEDLAM AND HIS SONG, written for \u201can American gentleman\u201d\n    and published by the Appelicon Press in Westport, Conn., 1930.\n\n    WAR AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, first appeared as articles in the\n    London _EVENING NEWS_, published by Skeffington in London, 1918.\n\n\nMORE ABOUT MACHEN\n\nThe admirers of Arthur Machen, as we have remarked before, will want\nto read as much about him as they possibly can. There are not too many\narticles or studies of Machen available. Standard reference books list\nMachen, of course, but few of them present more than a brief sketch. Many\nstandard critical works mention Machen in connection with his period,\nthe 1890\u2019s, or his genre, the supernatural tale. Book reviews have, of\ncourse, appeared by the hundreds. These might be interesting to read\nagain, but they are unavailable. The general reader, meaning in this\ncase, the admirer of Machen, will wish to check this listing:\n\n\nSPECIFIC\n\n    ARTICLE in \u201cThe Bookman\u201d for July, 1925.\n\n    ARTICLE in \u201cThe Sewannee Review,\u201d July, 1924.\n\n    ARTICLE in \u201cThe Saturday Review of Literature\u201d by Basil\n    Davenport, \u201cThe Devil Is Not Dead,\u201d February 15, 1936.\n\n    ARTICLE in \u201cHarper\u2019s Bazaar\u201d by Meyer Berger, \u201cLegends of The\n    War,\u201d January, 1944.\n\n    ARTICLE by August Derleth in \u201cReading and Collecting,\u201d Ben\n    Abramson\u2019s delightful monthly, Chicago, November, 1937.\n\n    ARTICLE in \u201cAtlantic Monthly\u201d by Robert Hillyer, May, 1947.\n\n    BIBLIOGRAPHY by Henry Danielson, published in London, 1923.\n    Contains sketch of Machen by Savage, notes by Machen.\n\n    BIBLIOGRAPHY by Nathan Van Patten, appended to Derleth\u2019s\n    article in \u201cReading and Collecting,\u201d Chicago, 1937.\n\n    BIBLIOGRAPHY by Nathan Van Patten, published in Kingston,\n    Ontario, Canada, 1928.\n\n    BIBLIOGRAPHY by Paul Jordan-Smith, published in \u201cFor The Love\n    of Books,\u201d Oxford Press, New York, 1934.\n\n    SKETCH of Machen in \u201cMore Authors and I\u201d by C. Lewis Hind,\n    London, 1922 and Dodd, Mead, New York, 1922.\n\n    SKETCH of Machen in \u201cBuried Caesars\u201d by Vincent Starrett,\n    Chicago, 1923.\n\n    SKETCH of Machen in \u201cExcavations\u201d by Carl Van Vechten, Knopf,\n    New York, 1922.\n\n    SKETCH of Machen by Paul Jordan-Smith, in \u201cOn What Strange\n    Altars,\u201d New York, 1924.\n\n    SKETCH of Machen in the Danielson Bibliography, written by\n    Henry Savage, London, 1923.\n\n    SKETCH of Machen by St. John Adcock in \u201cGlory That Was Grub\n    Street\u201d and \u201cGods of Modern Grub Street,\u201d London, New York,\n    192-?\n\n    SKETCH of Machen by Vincent Starrett, appears under title\n    \u201cArthur Machen: Novelist of Ecstacy and Sin,\u201d published along\n    with two poems by Machen, Chicago, 1918. Sketch also appears in\n    \u201cBuried Caesars,\u201d Covici-McGee, 1922.\n\n\nGENERAL\n\n    AFTER THE GENTEEL TRADITION, symposium edited by Malcolm Cowley.\n\n    ASYLUM by William Seabrook, contains material quoted herein.\n\n    AUTHOR HUNTING by Grant Richards, mere mention of Machen.\n\n    BOOKS AND BATTLES, Irene and Allen Cleaton, Boston, 1937.\n\n    BEYOND LIFE by James Branch Cabell, contains Cabell\u2019s famous\n    tribute.\n\n    CAVALCADE OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL by Wagenknecht, contains several\n    passages relating to Machen.\n\n    CENTURY OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL by Cornelius Weygandt, contains a\n    brief study of Machen and his works. Harcourt-Brace, N. Y.\n\n    CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LITERATURE by Fred B. Millett,\n    contains a brief sketch of Machen and a short bibliography.\n    Harcourt-Brace, N. Y.\n\n    CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LITERATURE by Manly and Rickert, brief\n    sketch, bibliographical notes. Numerous references.\n\n    HOUSEMANS by Grant Richards, brief mention of Machen, quoted\n    herein.\n\n    INNOCENCE ABROAD by Emily Clark, Knopf, 1931. The history of\n    \u201cThe Reviewer\u201d (Richmond) to which Machen contributed while it\n    was edited by Cabell, 1924-25.\n\n    LOST CHORDS by Arthur Rickett, contains a parody of Machen,\n    \u201cThe Yellow Creeper,\u201d London, 1895.\n\n    MEN OF THE NINETIES by Bernard Muddiman, brief mention.\n\n    ON NATIVE GROUNDS by Alfred Kazin, mention of Machen in the\n    Twenties.\n\n    ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS by Harold Begbie, an \u201canswer\u201d to _THE\n    BOWMEN_, London, 1915.\n\n    SMOKE RINGS AND ROUNDELAYS, edited by Wilfred Partington,\n    London, 1924. Contains several contributions by Machen.\n\n    SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE by H. P. Lovecraft,\n    Abrahamson, New York, 1945. Studies of most of Machen\u2019s works.\n\n    SUPERNATURAL IN MODERN ENGLISH FICTION by Dorothy Scarborough,\n    New York, 1917.\n\n    OLD GODS FALLING by Malcolm Elwin, mere mention, MacMillan,\n    1939.\n\n    TWENTIETH CENTURY AUTHORS by Kuntz and Haycraft, a sketch and\n    brief bibliography, New York, 19(?)\n\n    MAINLY VICTORIAN by S. M. Ellis, mentions Machen, London, 1925.\n\n    SOME MODERN AUTHORS by S. P. Mais, mentions Machen, 1923.\n\n    WHEN I WAS A CHILD, anthology edited by Edward Wagenknecht,\n    contains portion of Machen\u2019s autobiography under the title:\n    _BOY OF CAERLEON_.\n\n\n\n\nNOTES","title":"Arthur Machen: Weaver of Fantasy","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":61173}