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diff --git a/old/67820-0.txt b/old/67820-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d8d22b3..0000000 --- a/old/67820-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6954 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Arthur Machen: Weaver of Fantasy, by -William Francis Gekle - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Arthur Machen: Weaver of Fantasy - -Author: William Francis Gekle - -Release Date: April 12, 2022 [eBook #67820] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images - made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARTHUR MACHEN: WEAVER OF -FANTASY *** - - - - - - -[Illustration: ARTHUR MACHEN - -_After the Hoppe photograph_] - - - - - ARTHUR - MACHEN - - _Weaver of Fantasy_ - - WILLIAM FRANCIS GEKLE - - MILLBROOK, N. Y. - ROUND TABLE PRESS - 1949 - - COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY - WILLIAM FRANCIS GEKLE - - _All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in - any form, except by a reviewer, without the permission of the - author._ - - ROUND TABLE PRESS - MILLBROOK, N. Y. - - _Manufactured in the United States of America._ - - - - - for - VERNE - - - - -PREFACE - - -It was, I suppose, during the closing months of the First World War -that an urbane and witty gentleman, writing in the Confederate city of -Richmond, set down these words in the course of one of his interminable, -and witty and urbane, monologues: “I wonder if you are familiar with that -uncanny genius whom the London directory prosaically lists as Arthur -Machen?” - -Since there was no reply, as indeed none was expected, the amiable -Charteris chatted on about Arthur Machen and, oddly enough, Robert W. -Chambers, for some moments, and then he concluded with this statement.... -“But here in a secluded library is no place to speak of the thirty years’ -neglect that has been accorded Mr. Arthur Machen; it is the sort of crime -that ought to be discussed in the Biblical manner, from the house-top....” - -That thirty years’ neglect has almost doubled—and indeed one might say -with perfect truth that Arthur Machen has suffered a lifetime of neglect, -_and_, in perfect truth, it must be added that the loss has been the -world’s which so blindly accorded neglect to the uncanny genius of Arthur -Machen. - -This is the sort of crime, as Mr. James Branch Cabell suggested back in -1918, that ought to be discussed in the Biblical manner—and it is my -intention to do so. - -At this point there will be voices raised in protest ... dim voices -trained to the librarian’s whisper, voices that echo in the vaults of -university libraries and in the reading rooms of Memorial Collections. -There will be other voices—the amiable, all-inclusive voice of the -anthologist and the rasping roar of the reprint editor. There will be -the excited exclamations of the cultists and the happy burblings of the -bibliographers as they pounce upon another Machen item. And of course we -may expect to hear the calm and cultured tones of the collectors, the -excavators and the discoverers, who have pointed with smug satisfaction -to their rows of faded bindings and their “obscure little pamphlets.” As -for the horror boys, happy with their harpies and hieroglyphs and wild -hallucinations, they will probably croak and sibilate in unholy glee and -rush down to start their presses—reprinting madly all they can find of -the magical tales of that wonderful Welshman, Arthur Machen. - -It will appear that I anticipate a renewed interest in the works of -Arthur Machen. I do. It may even become apparent that I expect the -publication of this book to work the miracle—to right the wrong of sixty -years of neglect. I do. Nor is this to be attributed to egotism, nor to -a vast respect for my powers of persuasion. A number of literary men, of -small stature and great, have written well and passionately of Arthur -Machen, only to have their effusions produce a magnificent calm. It -is simply that there are signs and portents (of which more anon) that -the time is now. And then of course there is always the bare hope that -my admiration for Arthur Machen and my enthusiasm for his work may be -contagious enough to result in another Arthurian revival. That would be -an event to rival a genuine miracle at Glastonbury itself. - -I spoke of the voices that will be raised in praise and recognition -of Arthur Machen. It may occur to some that there was bitterness in -what I said, and in the way I spoke of collectors and cultists, and of -bibliographers and bibliophiles, and of anthologists and of the zealots -of the pulp press. I daresay it is true that I am inclined to be bitter -over the neglect accorded Arthur Machen. Of course the blame for that -neglect cannot be fixed or fastened—but it must rest somewhere between -the publishers of limited editions and the reprinters of almost unlimited -editions, between the alpha and the omega, and the buying and reading -public. That covers a lot of territory. One cannot indict the publishing -world from top, literally, to bottom, literally. One cannot indict, to -paraphrase a much quoted statement of Edmund Burke’s, an entire reading -public. One can, to make a concrete proposal, attempt to do something -about it. - -The interest shown in the prospectus announcing this book has been -gratifying, but it does not, to my mind at least, dismiss the charge of -neglect. It merely indicates that there are others who bear witness to -the crime and who wish to see justice done. - -The book has been announced as a critical survey—and it will be that. -Many of the stories, written in that decade of the delicate decadents, -will be re-examined and re-evaluated. Mr. Machen will sometimes be spoken -of as a “Gothick novelist”—a thing he has said he is not. The stories -of the “Great War,” as he called it, are seen in a new perspective, as -anyone must know who has re-read them, especially _The Terror_, in the -past few years. - -Many of Machen’s articles and essays, and such works as _Hieroglyphics_ -and _Doctor Stiggins_, offer food for thought to those who may think, -for example, that Mr. James Farrell has settled literary criteria, once -and for all, in his book, of a few years ago, _The League of Frightened -Philistines_. - -This book is, then, the result of some twenty years preparation; at least -half of them spent in planning to “do something about it.” The book has -grown slowly, with many interruptions before, during and since the war. -The opening chapter or Prologue, called “Conversation Piece,” was written -a dozen or so years ago. It was scheduled for publication in one of the -ephemeral magazines of the day. This particular one proved to be more -ephemeral than most ... to paraphrase a rather famous line, “it sank from -sight before it was set.” However, the piece is here presented as it was -written some twelve years back. I believe now, as I did then, that there -was need for a book about Arthur Machen. I hope this book will fill that -need. - -At least one chapter, the ninth, may seem to some a philippic, a -potpourri of purely personal preferences and prejudices, having little -to do with Arthur Machen and his works. Needless to say, I believe it -extremely relevant. - - —W.F.G. - - - - -ACKNOWLEDGMENTS - - -I cannot recall whether it was James Branch Cabell or Vincent Starrett -who first directed me to the works of Arthur Machen. I am deeply grateful -to both, not only for this, but for their encouraging letters concerning -my book. - -To Montgomery Evans and Paul Jordan-Smith for their enthusiasm and -interest, their intimate sketches of Machen, and for facts not available -elsewhere. To Carl Van Vechten and Robert Hillyer for their articles on -Machen, parts of which are quoted herein. - -To Joseph Kelly Vodrey and Paul Seybolt for their informative and helpful -letters, and to Nathan Van Patten whose bibliographical labors lightened -my own. To Meyer Berger for his notes on the Mons affair, and to -_Harper’s Bazaar_ for permission to quote from them. To the late Alfred -Goldsmith and his delightful reminiscences of Machen. To all of these I -am deeply grateful. - -To Alfred A. Knopf for permission to quote from the Machen books bearing -the Borzoi imprint, and for having published them in the first place. To -Robert McBride & Co. for permission to quote from _The Terror_, and to -Dodd, Mead & Co. for permission to quote from _More Authors and I_. - -To Hilary Machen for his courtesy in handling my proofs at Amersham and, -finally, to Arthur Machen for the ‘plenary blessing’ he gave this book. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PREFACE - - PROLOGUE: Conversation Piece 1 - - CHAPTER - - One: Far Off Things 14 - - Two: The London Adventure 37 - - Three: The Weaver of Fantasy 58 - - Four: A Noble Profession 72 - - Five: The Legend of a Legend 90 - - Six: The Yellow Books 112 - - Seven: Machen’s Magic 128 - - Eight: The Pattern 144 - - Nine: The Veritable Realists 161 - - Ten: Things Near and Far 178 - - EPILOGUE 197 - - BIBLIOGRAPHY 199 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - FRONTISPIECE - _Drawing made from the Hoppe Photograph_ - - SOME MACHEN ITEMS - _A photograph showing one of the famous Knopf - Yellow Books and several title pages_ facing page 112 - - THE MACHENS IN LONDON - _A photograph taken in London in 1937, - Courtesy of Mr. Montgomery Evans_ facing page 178 - - - - -_Prologue_ - -CONVERSATION PIECE - - -“And what,” asked the younger man, “are they?” He pointed to a long -row of books plainly bound in yellow with faded blue and almost -indecipherable titles. The Host felt a warmer glow than the brandy alone -could have produced. “They are,” he said reverently, “my Machens.” - -“Your whats?” asked the younger man absently. He had caught sight of a -promising looking volume, enticingly entitled _Aphrodite_, on a lower -shelf. The Host intercepted the glance, recognized the symptoms of -failing interest and, with skill born of experience, drew his chair -before the _Aphrodite_ and pulled out a lapfull of the yellow books. - -The younger man, not too obviously disappointed, concentrated on his -small globular glass of _Asbach Uralt_. “Who,” he asked in tones that -matched his look, “is Machen?” - -“Arthur Machen,” began the Host in a voice that matched _his_ look, “he -is the ... he’s, well ... look!” He gestured to the shelves. “Fifteen -books, and there are more, and you’ve never even heard of him. Fifteen of -the most wonderful books in the English language, and you ask who he is!” - -“Well,” said the young man with pardonable irritation, “just who is he?” - -The Host settled back in his chair, fighting hard for composure and -coherence. “Arthur Machen,” he began again, and with every evidence of -a strong determination to speak calmly, “is the man who has written -more fine things than any dozen living authors you may care to mention. -That may strike you as a rather broad and rash statement, but I am in -a mood to shoot the works. And there are others, Highly Connected and -Well Thought Of Persons, who have indicated much the same opinion. -Arthur Machen has been appreciated by some of our best known composers -of ‘literary appreciations.’ Unfortunately, this sort of praising is -often akin to, and almost as effective as, burying. To the popular mind, -a writer who has been appreciated by a duly accredited appreciator is a -pet of the pedants, a delight of the dilettantes and nothing more. And, -indeed, the titles found on some of the books containing these little -essays in literary appreciation are often suggestive of archeological -exploration rather than of due honor to a living author. I have in mind, -specifically, two books whose titles seem to connote research into a -particularly distant past. _Buried Caesars_ and _Excavations_, those two -books you see there; they would tell you in a much more literary style, -and with considerable technical flourish, just who and what Arthur Machen -was and is. But I am not minded to ask you to read them at present. - -“I think,” resumed the Host generously gesturing toward the decanter -and his friend’s glass, “that the time has come for a new and revised -estimate of Arthur Machen. Would that I had the time, talent and/or -the temerity to undertake the task! Let us, meanwhile, acknowledge but -pass by these appreciators of Machen, at least for the moment. He has -attracted the attention and been subject to the discussion of Vincent -Starrett, Carl Van Vechten, James Branch Cabell and others. He has even -attracted the notice of such literary titans as Tiffany Thayer and Burton -Rascoe. He has been crowned by that arbiter elegantiarum of American -manners, morals and mentality, Walter Winchell, who once described Arthur -Machen as ‘tops among the literati.’ This last, I fear, is not a critical -estimate per se, but an indication of a vogue in certain quarters. - -“Despite the fact that Mr. Machen has been ‘discovered’ by at least two -of our most indefatigable bolster-uppers of literary reputations and -revealers-of-lights-under-baskets; despite his having been exhumed and -placed on exhibition upon a platform built for two, Machen remains yet to -be properly appreciated and honored by a wider public. Perhaps he never -will be, and perhaps it is best so. Machen once wrote that if a great -book is really popular it is sure to owe its popularity to entirely wrong -reasons. And I, for one, tremble to think of what Hollywood might do to -Machen.” The Host paused briefly for replenishment. - -“Far too often these appreciations have degenerated into what I have in -my more bitter moments mentally called _Match-Machen_. An execrable pun, -I grant you, but concerning a matter that is, to my mind, as offensive. -I refer to the practice of certain appreciators who, in the execution of -their self-appointed duties find it, for some reason or other, necessary -to devise improbable genealogies to demonstrate their own wide literary -knowledge and their conception of the subject of their labors. We find, -for example, _Mr. X_ in the act of appreciating a book by _Mr. Y_. - -“How does he go about it? Why, he merely tells you that _Mr. Y_ is the -literary son of _A_ out of _B_, whose maternal grandmother was _C_, and -whose second-cousin is _D_. Another trick is to pretend that _Mr. Y’s_ -work is a play ... with music by _R_, scenery by _S_, costumes by _T_ -and lyrics by _W_. In short, you come away without the slightest notion -about _Mr. Y_. But you have learned that _Mr. X_ knows a great deal, -apparently, about the doings of _Messrs. A, B, C, D, R, S, T and W_. Do -you follow me?” - -“But slightly,” confessed the younger man with that candor born of brandy. - -“I will try to make myself clear,” said the Host selecting a volume from -the shelves. - -“Here we have an essay about a man called, let us say Blank. The author -of this little essay will tell you that a passage of Blank’s prose -suggests one of the more poignant episodes out of de Maupassant, set to -music by Tchaikowski against a background of Gaugain’s Tahitian belles. -Have you any idea what Blank’s prose is like?” - -“No,” said the young man morosely. - -“Good! Listen then to this. It is Vincent Starrett on Machen: ‘Joris Karl -Huysmans, in a thoroughly good translation, perhaps remotely suggests -Machen, both are debtors to Baudelaire.’ Now, does that tell you anything -about Machen?” - -“No, it does not!” said the young man. “But then, neither have you!” - -“Quite true,” nodded the Host affably. “I am often carried away. But we -have ably demonstrated my contention.” The younger man looked decidedly -restless. “Um!” - -“Know then,” said the Host relishing the sound of his voice, “that Arthur -Machen, born in 1863, the son of a Welsh clergyman, first swam into the -public ken early in the last decade of the last century—a fact which the -public largely failed to appreciate until some years later. His earlier -works were translations of the _Heptameron_, the _Memoirs of Casanova_, -and several other large and, I should think, rather dull old works. But -the most important were two remarkably unique books called _The Anatomy -of Tobacco_ and _The Chronicle of Clemendy_. - -“Most of Machen’s best work was written before 1901—and in that year he -temporarily deserted literature for the stage. Machen’s most productive -period then, from 1890 to 1901, affords a curious and striking contrast -with what was assumed to be the important literature and the important -literary group of the time. The 1890’s in England were celebrated, -although few people grow festive about it now, for the Yellow Book Boys, -that delightful coterie of delicate decadents who glorified the carnation -and the pansy. But after the maddest music had died away, and the -reddest wine had been drunk, Cynara and Dorian fluttered to the shelves -and Oscar and Hubert and Adelbert retired into a certain pastel-shaded -obscurity from which they emerge from time to time as a new volume of -memoirs is published. The period still commands a certain amount of -academic attention—and yet the best books of that period were written -not by these ‘Men of the Nineties,’ but by Arthur Machen. A chap named -Muddiman, whose book you see there, wrote his history of these fellows -and mentions Machen but briefly: ‘Arthur Machen, in those days, belonged -to the short story writers with Hubert Crackanthorpe, who was the great -imaginative prose writer of the group.’ Alas, poor Hubert! Who knows him -now! Holbrook Jackson and Richard Le Gallienne ignore Machen completely. -And perhaps rightly so. Machen was not of the group, nor of the period. -But here I wish to digress briefly.... - -“These delicate contemporaries of Machen derived from the French -Symbolistes, who derived from Mallarme and Baudelaire, both of whom were -admittedly influenced by Poe. It has been said that Machen was also -influenced by Poe. The difference, if you will credit me, is that Poe’s -influence, in as far as it exists, came to Machen direct. When it came to -the others of the group it had been filtered through Gallic gravel and -Symbolistic sand. - -“So much for Machen’s literary history. No one could possibly tell it -better than he has in _Things Near and Far_ and _Far Off Things_—his two -autobiographical collections. Nor is any literary history as simply told. -It is not one of your tremendous collections of anecdotes concerning -‘literary figures of the day.’ It is the story of a lonely man who -wanted, more than anything else, to write. And then—you must read Machen. -All of him. I know of no other writer whose entire output can be so -heartily recommended. - -“You will realize, as you read, that when people use such names as Poe, -Stevenson, Blackwood, and Henry James, they are but vaguely gesturing -in the general direction of Machen’s own weird landscape. It is a land -as strange as the misty mid-region of Weir where lies the dank tarn of -Auber, the measureless caverns where runs the sacred river Alph. But -it is like none of these. The young man of Gwent has created his own -landscape, a strange country spread out under a sky that glows as if -great furnace doors had been opened, bordered by tall grey mountains, -traversed by streams that coil their esses through silent woods. It is -my fancy to think I have a picture of that country, painted by another -genius. You see that Van Gogh hanging there?” The Host indicated a large -framed print of writhing cypresses under a swirling sky. “On quiet -November nights I sit here and look into it, half expecting to see young -Meyrick or Lucian Taylor come down the hillside. - -“It is curious to go over some of these former estimates of Arthur -Machen. One first reads them through in a fine enthusiasm at finding -someone else who has read Machen and found him good. But even those who -praise him the most, fail to express, or even to hint at the ‘quiddity’ -of Machen. They seem to find him so far beyond their powers to praise -that they often resort to picayunish criticism. Thus we find Vincent -Starrett mildly complaining about an absence of cloud descriptions in -Machen. Or about a lack of humor. True, you’ll find no Maxfield Parrish -sky castles, no James Gould Fletcher touches, no rotogravure alto-cirrus -formations. But if ever a man could imply clouds without using the very -word, Machen can. And although Machen has not yet introduced a pair of -jolly grave-diggers to coax us back into our seats or cajole us into -combing back our bristling hair, you will find he has humor. - -“There does exist, however, a problem in classifying Machen—it seems -to exist only a necessary evil. Essentially, I suppose, Machen is what -might be called a Gothic novelist. He has been linked so often with the -recognized practitioners of the Gothic style and tradition. You’ll find -no ivy-covered ruins, no deserted abbeys, no ravens, no baying mastiffs, -not even a sinister monk—and we must rule out those jolly tosspots, the -monks of Abergavenny. I daresay Machen would prefer to be known as a -Silurist. His ruins are those of an older time, older even than the ruins -of the golden city of the Roman legions. - -“Vincent Starrett calls Machen the Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin—making -him sound rather like a Messalinaen Lady Novelist. Mr. Van Vechten too, -at least in his decadent novel _Peter Whiffle_, seizes upon Mr. Machen -from much the same viewpoint, and makes Machen an asset in the character -of his precious Peter. And all too frequently, in discussing Machen, the -spirit of Baudelaire raises its ugly head. Novelist of Sin, forsooth! -‘Evil, be thou my good!’ What rot! And there are those, apparently, who -would classify some of Machen’s tales as ‘erotica.’ Baudelaire, bosh! As -well point out the resemblance between a lane in Gwent and a lupanar in -Paris! No—Machen is neither a Gothic novelist nor a writer of delectable -indelicacies. Machen’s tag must be sought for in hieroglyphics of his own -devising. - -“The ‘quiddity’ of Machen, the one quality that pervades all his work, -is that of ‘ecstasy.’ It is not the ecstasy of the lyric lady-novelist. -Mr. Starrett seems to think it is a technical device, since he finds it -is ‘due in no small degree to his beautiful English style.’ Mr. Machen’s -own idea of this quality is that it is ‘a removal from the common life.’ -And that brings me to _Hieroglyphics_, a book that should be a text-book -in all our Universities. But perhaps not—no, surely not. Because in -this book of Machen’s you will find set forth, once and for all, the -difference between reading matter and fine literature. And such a book -cannot fail to make enemies, nor to create false ideas even among its -friends. Mr. Starrett says: ‘It is Arthur Machen’s theory of literature -and life, brilliantly exposited by that cyclical mode of discoursing that -was affected by Coleridge. In it he suggests the admirable doctrine of -James Branch Cabell that fine literature must be, in effect, an allegory -and not the careful history of particular persons.’ Mr. Cabell, who is, -according to Mr. Starrett, Machen’s literary son, set forth his literary -credo in _Beyond Life_ some seventeen years after the publication of -_Hieroglyphics_. In it, Mr. Cabell expresses admirably, and with his -famed urbanity, many of the truths he learned at his father’s knee. One -is as pleased with Cabell’s literary progenitor as with his prose. - -“Just one more quotation. It is my favorite quotation to end quotations -about literary credos or the mechanics of creation. Mr. Machen, in _The -Three Impostors_ says: ‘... I will give you the task of a literary man in -a phrase. He has got to do simply this—to invent a wonderful story, and -to tell it in a wonderful manner.’ - -“In his novels, _The Three Impostors_, _The Hill of Dreams_, _The -Secret Glory_, _The Terror_, _The Great Return_, and in many of his -shorter stories: _The Great God Pan_, _The White People_, in all his -creative work, Machen has shown himself the master of his own precept. -In _Hieroglyphics_ Machen noted the difference between reading matter -that related facts about a character or a group of characters, and fine -literature that symbolizes certain eternal and essential elements in -human nature by means of incidents. You will find, then, that these -wonderful stories are not merely startlingly original conceptions of -heroes and heroines taking part in unusual events. That many of these -plots and inventions are uncanny and fantastic does not place them in the -‘thriller’ class—having nothing more to say than the latest detective -story. It would be absurd to think of _The Great God Pan_, for example, -as merely a story about the discovery that Pan is not dead, or that -Priapic cults may still flourish. No, it’s not so simple as that. There -are other elements present, and chiefest of these is that quality of -ecstasy. There are symbols and representations of a higher order, no -cheap mysticism, no spiritualistic clap-trap. And finally there is in -these stories an element of something that prompts belief. - -“_The Great God Pan_ is a story much more improbable, more fantastic than -_Frankenstein_ or _The Strange Case of M. Valdemar_. And it is not a -mere pseudo-scientific story—it is believable. You do not believe that? -Yet Machen wrote a story more fantastic still. A story with no possible -explanation, scientific or otherwise, in short, nothing less than -miraculous vision could have explained it. And that story was, and still -is, widely accepted as true. The tale of the _Bowmen_ at Mons, a simply -written story, no flourishes, no elaborate atmosphere; yet with that -quality of ecstasy, that quiddity of Machenism, has won belief. Quite -recently, in a shop, I came across a volume that was an anthology of -Myths, mysteries, visions and the like, and in it appeared the story of -the Bowmen. It was not Machen’s story, however, and there was no mention -whatever of Arthur Machen. It had been set down as an authentic legend, -documented and sworn to by this one and that one who claimed to have been -there. I daresay it will, in time, join such distinguished company as -the Walls of Jericho and Joshua’s obedient sun. - -“Yes, you must read Machen. All of him. It has been implied that there is -a sameness about Machen’s work. But do not imagine that you will read the -same story, told and retold. You will come to realize that there is in -Machen a definite pattern. He has said that most men, as well as writers, -are men of one idea. And most writers create tales that are variations on -one theme, that a common pattern, like the pattern of an Eastern carpet, -runs through them all. And Machen’s pattern? You will see, when you read -him, that literature ‘began with charms, incantations, spells, songs of -mystery, chants of religious ecstasy, the Bacchic chorus, the Rune, the -Mass.’ And Machen has taken as his symbol and pattern the devices and -signs of ecstasy, of the removal from the common life. The dance—the -maze—the spiral—the wheel—the vine, and wine, these are the outward signs -of ecstasy, the patterns of Machen. - -“One book in particular you must read—_The Hill of Dreams_, without -a doubt one of the finest novels ever written. From the first grand -sentence a spell is laid upon you. It has never failed to thrill me—it is -like the master theme of a symphony—it is as magical as the opening notes -of the _Good Friday_ music in _Parsifal_. But there—I have fallen into -the ways of those whom I have derided. And I have kept you quite later -than I intended.” - -The Host rose, stretched, and poured out a brace of nightcaps. The -younger man, who had listened patiently to this lengthy monologue, -gratefully accepted his brandy, sipped rather too avidly, for listening -is also a thirsty business, and said, “Why do you suppose Arthur Machen -is so little known? I mean, he sounds marvelous—but, after all, people -can’t help it if they don’t know about him.” - -“That,” responded the Host sadly, “is one of the Mysteries of Mysteries. -Perhaps Machen writes too ‘circumvolantly’ as Cabell says, for our -critics. Or perhaps, as Van Vechten says, ‘one only takes from a work of -art what one brings to it—and how few readers can bring to Machen the -requisite qualities.’ Perhaps our critics are more apt to be impressed -by clever young men who go about swimming classical streams, fishing for -tarpon, or fighting in the fashionable war of the moment. The general -public, unfortunately, knows Machen, if at all, through the inclusion -of several of his stories in anthologies of mystery and horror stories. -Which is about on a par with using Shelley’s _Indian Serenade_ as a -filler in a pulp confession magazine. - -“A short time ago in London there was a dinner party in celebration of -the seventy-fifth birthday of a writer. The guest of honor made the -customary speech—but it was such a speech as has seldom been heard from -a feted author. It was tragic, it could have been, and should have been, -bitter—but all was gently said. After toiling in the fields of literature -for over forty-two years, after having produced eighteen volumes of rare -quality, he had earned but £635. That man was Arthur Machen.” - -“He is still living?” asked the young man. - -“Yes,” replied the Host gravely. “I should like to make a pilgrimage -to his home. But you must go. Take these with you. Read them. I fear -I have told you little about Arthur Machen. Nor am I the only one has -confessed such a feeling of inadequacy to cope with Machen. But I find -comfort in what a very capable writer once said of another remarkable -writer of Gothic Tales. It will be, I promise you, my final quotation of -the evening. Dorothy Canfield once wrote, in a preface to _Seven Gothic -Tales_: ‘The person who has set his teeth into a kind of fruit new to him -is usually as eager as he is unable to tell you how it tastes. It is not -enough for him to be munching away on it with relish. No, he must twist -his tongue trying to get its strange new flavor into words, which never -yet had any power to capture colors or tastes.’ And now, mind the step -going out. It’s rather darkish.” - - - - -_Chapter One_ - -FAR OFF THINGS - - -1 - -One might devote a great amount of time and give a great deal of thought -to the opening paragraph of a book about Arthur Machen. It is not merely -that one is faced with the usual problem of where to begin: in Caerleon -or London, in Richmond, Virginia or Newark, New Jersey or, for that -matter, wherever one first heard of or first read Arthur Machen. Nor is -it simply a matter of how to begin: with a quotation—there are a number -of very appropriate quotations—or with a review of a controversy raging -in the London newspapers in 1915, or with a few paragraphs taken from -_Peter Whiffle_, a rather outré novel published in New York some years -ago. Nor is it even a matter of when to begin: with the Nineties, the -Twenties, or only yesterday. The problem is one of selection, for one -might pick up the line of the legend of Arthur Machen anywhere along the -course of the last three quarters of a century. More than that, it is -also a matter of the personal history of almost anyone who might attempt -the task. - -Most people will remember, I think, when it was and how it was, they -first became acquainted with the work of Machen. And in most cases, I -believe, it will be a rather strong and vivid memory. Whether one was -introduced to Machen by Cabell or Starrett or Van Vechten, or made the -discovery for one’s self becomes a matter of some importance, at least to -those who have come to know Machen and who regard him, as I do, as one of -the greatest living writers in English literature. Yet it might seem that -these personal recollections and this high regard, however deeply felt, -are not quite reason enough for a book about such a man, nor significant -enough to serve as an introduction to such a book. - -Of course there are facts and figures. Many a book gets under way with -an impressive array of figures, or with the clever juxtaposition of two -facts which, by their very contrast, seem to promise an unrelenting -interest and an unrelaxing grasp upon the reader, or it may start out -with a simple statement of fact. Such figures as, for example, these: -Arthur Machen’s works have appeared in anthologies which run to fabulous -numbers of copies, and one of his stories has been published in an -edition limited to two copies. Or a juxtaposition of facts, as for -example: Arthur Machen has been praised by Oscar Wilde, the arbiter -elegantiarum of the 1890’s, and by Walter Winchell, equally arbiter -elegantiarum of the 1930’s. - -Or a simple statement of fact, supplied, stiffly and on crackly paper -by the British Ministry of Information: “Arthur Machen, the Welsh -novelist, was born in Caerleon-on-Usk in 1863.” His Majesty’s Ministry -or representative thereof, concludes with the intelligence that further -information may be found in a certain book which may be obtained from a -certain publisher. - -Be it said, then, and to the everlasting glory of His Majesty’s Ministry -of Information, that Arthur Machen _was_ born at Caerleon-on-Usk. And in -the year 1863. A long time back. - - -2 - -Somerset Maugham once wrote something about the unhappy accidents of -birth that often place a man amid scenes that must seem forever strange, -and among men who must seem forever strangers. When such a person, -after years of painful adolescence, dramatic conflict, moving tragedy -and innumerable vicissitudes, finally arrives by some happy accident at -some other spot upon this planet he feels, in the words of more than one -sympathetic novelist, that he has “come home.” And then, presumably, -the conflict and the tragedy and the vicissitudes begin all over again. -In actual life writers, and artists of other sorts, are particularly -susceptible to this form of cosmic accident—or at least many of them -prefer to think so. It is, somehow, heartening to meet one who was -pleased with the place of his birth. - -“I shall always,” wrote Arthur Machen, “esteem it as the greatest piece -of fortune that has fallen to me, that I was born in that noble, fallen -Caerleon-on-Usk, in the heart of Gwent.... For the older I grow the -more firmly am I convinced that anything which I may have accomplished -in literature is due to the fact that when my eyes were first opened in -earliest childhood they saw before them the vision of an enchanted land.” - -There is no doubt that the simple fact that Arthur Machen was born in -Caerleon-on-Usk has had a tremendous influence upon his style, his -thinking, his writing, his philosophy and his life. - -Caerleon-on-Usk, lying within the fabled land of Gwent and close to the -Welsh border, would have fascinated Arthur Machen even if he had not been -born there—just as it must fascinate everyone who has ever read Machen -and anyone who ever will read him. “Little, white Caerleon,” he calls it, -an island in the green meadows by the river, was once the headquarters of -the Second Augustan Legion, one of the farthest outposts of the sprawling -Roman Empire. The Romans originally called it Isca Silurum, evidently -for its situation on the river Usk. Later Latin writers called it Urbs -Legionem, a translation of the Welsh Caer-Leon. - -Caerleon knew the hardened legionnaires, the men who crossed the Channel -other conquerors failed to cross. It knew the tread of men who followed -the eagles, and it knew the patricians who came with the Pax Romana in -the wake of the legions. Caerleon knew also the gallant companions of -the Round Table, for it was, in those times, a seat of Arthur the King, -and many a summons brought the knightly riders within its walls and many -a quest sent them off across the meadows where the river wound in great -esses toward the dark forests hanging along the mountainside. Nennius -places the scene of at least one of Arthur’s battles at Cairlion. As for -Gwent, it is now called Monmouthshire, but in those days it formed the -eastern division of the kingdom of South Wales, and some identify it -as one of the three divisions of Essyllwg, the country of the Silures. -Caerleon itself is the very stuff of legend, and yet it exists today, as -it did in the middle nineteenth century, a small and sleepy town not far -from the equally legendary Severn. - -In this place and in the year 1863, Arthur Machen was born—the son of a -clergyman who had the poor “living” of Llanddewi Rectory. His father was -John Edward Jones, who afterwards added his wife’s surname to his own, -so that his son’s full signature became Arthur Llewelyn Jones Machen. -Daniel Jones, Machen’s grandfather, was Vicar of Caerleon-on-Usk and his -great grandfather was David Jones, Curate of St. Fagans, Glamorgan. It is -not the present writer’s intention to compose a biography, “fictionized” -or otherwise, of Arthur Machen. There will be none of your happy little -phrases about what the “little Arthur” did, or what the “young Machen” -or the “boy Machen” thought. Nor will the reader be asked to “imagine -the young Arthur growing up amid the storied stones of Caerleon,” or to -believe that “undoubtedly the young Arthur was influenced by the wild -Welsh countryside,” or even to “assume that the boy Machen made many -trips to the legendary shrines in and about Caerleon.” - -Such a biography may one day be written, but one cannot refrain from -hoping that it will not be. Machen has written his own biography in at -least three of his books, and perhaps in all of them. The two frankly -autobiographical books, _Far Off Things_ and _Things Near and Far_ tell -most of the facts of his early life ... and they tell them with more -meaning than even the most skilled and sympathetic biographer could. -His novel, _The Hill of Dreams_, does more with the material suggested -in these notes of a lifetime than the most gifted novelist of our day -could attempt. The story of Lucian Taylor and his adventures, mental and -physical, mystical and spiritual, in the invented town of Caermaen, _is_ -the story of Arthur Machen, beautifully told as no one else could tell -it. To these books the reader is referred and, fair warning, he will be -referred to them again and again! - -To be sure, Machen _did_ make those little trips about the legendary town -in which he lived; he _was_ inspired by the storied stones of Caerleon -and he _was_ influenced by the wild Welsh countryside. He was an only -child and he lived in that solitude which is so often the lot of an only -child. He often accompanied his father on his “parish calls” and thus he -came to know every farm and every lane, every hill and every valley in -the heart of Gwent along the roads that led from the rectory at Llanddewi. - -When he was eleven he went away to school, passing each term as a sort of -“interlude among strangers” until he could come home again to Caerleon. -Was he happy or unhappy at school? Was he fond of games or of mooning -about—the two alternatives, apparently, of English public school life? -That story is told in _The Hill of Dreams_ and again in _The Secret -Glory_. Machen’s schooldays were the schooldays of Lucian Taylor and -Ambrose Meyrick ... to their stories we must again refer the reader. For -conjecture and invention are beyond the scope of this study and Arthur -Machen is seventeen when he really enters into our particular field. - -For in his seventeenth year Arthur Machen went up to London. There was -a very practical purpose behind this first visit to London—he was to -come up before the examiners for entrance into the Royal College of -Surgeons. Whether or not the actual purpose of this visit was of great -importance to Machen is one of the conjectural matters upon which we -shall not speculate. The matter had been arranged and decided by family -and friends—it was the necessary preliminary to a career in medicine or -in surgery. Machen prepared for it by walking some three or four miles -several times a week to the Pontypool Road Station to obtain copies of -the London papers. These he studied with great care, devoting special -attention to the theatrical pages. Not that he had ever given any -particular thought to the stage or to the theater, or that he was, in -the phrase of today, “stage-struck”; it was simply that the theater was -typical of what London was, and of what Caerleon was not. At any rate, on -a day in June 1880, he went up to London with his father. And thus began -The London Adventure. - - -3 - -The examiners found something Machen already knew—he had no head for -figures, either arithmetical or anatomical. And apparently Machen had -not the interest or the ability to acquire, within a period of time -agreeable to the examiners, a proficiency in either. It must not be -assumed, however, that Arthur Machen had already decided upon a career in -letters, to be pursued amid the pleasures of London. He had not. Years -later Machen wrote that he had no idea, when first he went to London, of -a career in literature. Indeed, he had _never_ thought of it as a career, -but as a destiny. - -However, he had not been in London a month before he began to write. -There is nothing particularly prophetic about this, nor anything -especially startling. Most young men, at one time or another, try to -write. And usually their creative efforts are turned in the direction of -the epic, the heroic, the classic. A young man, trying to write, almost -never permits himself to indulge in a fancy for the light essay, the -brief episode. It is epic or it is nothing, usually the latter. Doubtless -the Freudians have an explanation for this. It would be, one supposes, a -very long and very complicated explanation. - -Machen had his own explanation—for his own case. He attributes it to his -Celtic blood. Not that Machen thought the Celt, or the Welsh Celt at any -rate, had contributed much to the world’s literature. Indeed, Machen had -advanced the idea that “all impartial judges will allow that if Welsh -literature were annihilated ... the loss to the world’s grand roll of -masterpieces would be insignificant.” Yet he concedes a certain literary -feeling that does not exist in the Anglo-Saxon ... an appreciative -rather than creative faculty, lacking, perhaps, in the critical spirit -but still, a delight in the noble phrase ... the music of words. And -so—Machen tried, as a young man will, to write. - -He wrote verses, of course. “Every literary career,” says Machen, “which -is to be concerned with the imaginative side of literature begins with -the writing of verses.” So Machen confirms, some sixty years before -it was conceived, the opinion expressed above. He had written verses -before, while still at the Hereford Cathedral School. They were concerned -somewhat with matters derived from the _Mabinogion_ and were probably -composed in the heroic manner. This set of verses was, as is the custom, -rejected. - -He filled notebooks with “horrible rubbish—rubbish that had rhymes to -it.” Much of what he wrote was greatly influenced by Swinburne’s _Songs -Before Sunrise_. “Influenced” seems a mild sort of word to set alongside -Machen’s own “cataclysmic.” At any rate, writing what he describes -variously as rubbish and drivel, Machen tried, at the same time, to pass -his examinations for the Royal College of Surgeons. His examiners now -arrived at their decision regarding Machen’s arithmetical ability and the -career as a surgeon came to a close. Machen returned to Caerleon and the -writing continued, mostly, of course, after the family had retired for -the night. - - -4 - -A printer named Jones, who lived in the cathedral town of Hereford, -one day received in the post a manuscript accompanied by a request to -print one hundred copies of the poem. It was a poem. The title of the -poem, _Eleusinia_, probably conveyed nothing to Mr. Jones, stationer, -bookseller and printer of Hereford. As he struggled with the text, -written in a large sprawling hand on both sides of ordinary letter -paper, Mr. Jones might have wondered what our young people were coming -to. Certainly the subject matter of the poem was vastly different from -the Bibles, Prayer Books and Pitman’s Shorthand Manuals with which his -shelves were stocked. - -Fortunately for Mr. Jones, the poet pretended no knowledge of -book-making. He specified no typographical niceties, he pleaded for no -ornaments, he indicated no preference in paper or in binding. His one -modest request, that the Greek phrase _Oudeis Muomenos Odureta_ to appear -on the title page, be set in Greek type, was withdrawn when Mr. Jones -wrote him that Greek type would be extra. And so the phrase appeared in -English, and with a typographical error, at no extra charge. - -Mr. Jones presumably knew the young poet—remembered him as a purchaser -of letter paper and note books. The Llanddewi Rectory address was, in -a way, reassuring. His bill would probably be paid, but Mr. Jones must -have thought the usual thoughts about “minister’s sons.” As for the -poet—he preferred anonymity, the comparative anonymity of “By a Former -Member of the H.C.S.” For when a sixteen page pamphlet bearing the -title _Eleusinia_ and concerning itself with the Eleusian Mysteries, is -published by a Former Member of the Hereford Cathedral School it must be -admitted that such anonymity is, at best, comparative. Generations of -readers of novels about English public schools will realize that every -other former member of the H.C.S. would know at once that the book could -have been written by none other than “old Machen.” - -Of course the edition of one hundred copies guaranteed that the anonymity -would still remain comparative—especially since it seemed unlikely that -the former membership of the H.C.S. at large would be interested enough -in poetry to purchase sixteen pages of it ... and without wrappers! It is -not known, exactly, what happened to ninety-nine copies of _Eleusinia_. -Henry Danielson in his _Arthur Machen: A Bibliography_ (1923) says that -his collation was taken from what is probably the only copy extant. - -The text of this first work of Arthur Machen is, naturally, as little -known to the general reader as a transcription of the Rosetta Stone -... and so it is likely to remain. What is it about? Machen says of -it, “this is a horrible production.” He wrote it, he adds, by turning -an encyclopedia article on _Eleusis_ into verse, “some of it blank, -some of it rhymed, all of it bad.” This is Machen’s estimate of it in -the notes he wrote for Danielson’s _Bibliography_. Nathan Van Patten -lists, _Beneath the Barley. A Note on the Origins of Eleusinia_ (1931). -Whether this explains the poem or the mysteries is known only to those -who have seen one of the twenty-five copies that were printed. However, -in a letter written in 1945, Machen says: “It is less than nothing, but -perhaps it might have suggested the entertaining question—‘Here is a boy -of seventeen who is interested in the Eleusian Mysteries: what the devil -will happen to him?’” - -Well, Machen’s poem was published, and whatever he may have thought of -it in 1923 or in 1945, his relations, in 1884, thought well enough of it -to decide that journalism was the career for Arthur. It is amazing, in a -way, that a pleasant little group in a country rectory should decide over -a little pamphlet written “about” the pagan rites at Eleusis, that their -youthful relative was destined for a career in journalism. Of course, -relatives are proud of one’s books and equally proud of one’s pamphlets, -even if they do not read them. And so, perhaps, the rector and his family -never bothered too much about the contents of the rarest Machen item -of them all. Doubtless more than one of the ninety-nine copies slowly -disintegrates in a Welsh garret to this very day. - - -5 - -In the summer of 1881 Machen was back in London in quest of a career. -This one too, although it had nothing to do with figures, did not quite -come off. For some time he had thought about journalism as his relatives -advised, but he did not actually follow their advice until some years -later. Meanwhile, he lived in an old red-brick Georgian house in Turnham -Green where he wrote furiously in one manner or another. That Celtic -appreciation of the fine phrase and the glorious sound of words was -strong within him, for almost everything he read struck a responsive -chord, and he would begin at once to compose an epic in the manner of the -author or the book he was currently reading. - -Thus there was a long heroic poem in the manner of William Morris, whose -_Earthly Paradise_ he had just purchased with his tea and tobacco money. -Then there were innumerable verses in the manner of Robert Herrick. Now -and then there would be a strong Swinburnian resurgence. And while all -this furious creation was going on he worked in what was called the -“editorial” department of a publishing house. - -There are many tasks a literary man might do in serving his -apprenticeship and Machen did most of them—or most of the ones current -in the ’Eighties. He had assisted in the “grangerizing” of many old and -odd volumes and he had composed “Shakespearean” calendars, selecting -appropriate quotations from “The Bard” for each of the three hundred and -sixty-five days. These and other more or less literary matters occupied -his days and earned for him the sum of about a pound a week. At Turnham -Green he wrote feverishly and planned prodigiously and read ravenously -... and almost every book he came upon set him off on another venture of -his own. - -There are some writers, and there are certain casts of mind, requiring -exercises of this sort. It is rather odd that these should turn out to -be the more imaginative writers after all. Yet it does seem that they -have to work out for themselves theories of composition and devote much -of their time and talent and energy to perfecting the technicalities -of the trade of writing. Poe, of course, comes to mind, and Coleridge -and Hawthorne. They first developed theories, seemingly so rigid. They -devised formulae, seemingly so mechanical. And then they created tales -and poems, not from their observations and experience, based not on -facts, but on fancy. And they composed them, apparently, with little -regard for the formulae and systems of their own devising. They seem to -leap from the frankly imitative to the fearlessly imaginative, without -ever taking any of the intermediate steps they themselves had postulated, -or calling into use any of the technical and mechanical aids with which -they had practiced their trade. - -Machen in 1881 might recognize and respond to a pattern or formula in -Swinburne, in Burton, in Morris, in Herrick, in Stevenson, in Balzac, in -Rabelais. This is not to imply that Machen merely developed a style “in -the manner of Swinburne,” or of Stevenson or of any of them. To each of -these he brought something of Machen—and as he learned his craft, the -technical tricks, the automatic alliterations and the polished phrasing -were fused into something, a way of writing, no one else has ever had, no -one but Arthur Machen. - -Meanwhile Machen discovered that he disliked his labours at the -publishing house in Chandos Street. The business of composing cultural -calendars to be hung in London kitchens and country parlours did not -interest him, nor did he see why it should interest anyone. He therefore -resigned his position—and in the face of a raise to twenty-four shillings -a week! He then became, of all things, tutor to a group of children, -teaching them, of all things, mathematics! His head for figures seems to -have improved considerably for, on going over the Euclid he was supposed -to pass along to his charges, he found that it did make sense of a sort. - -He had moved from Turnham Green to Clarendon Road—a street destined to -become, one day, as well known as Baker Street, Cheyne Row and many -another London street of literary fame. Machen was already existing on -that famous and fantastic diet of “green tea, stale bread and great -quantities of tobacco.” Fortunately, at first, his tutorial position -entitled him to dinner with his pupils. Later his pupils changed, and -with them his menu. The noon hour was spent in wandering about Turnham -Green or Holland Park, with a pause for biscuit and beer at a convenient -tavern. - -These wanderings became a habit, and through the spring of 1883 -Machen went further afield into the green suburbs to the north and -west of the city. It was on these lonely outings that he first began -to formulate one of his literary theories—that “in literature no -imaginative effects are achieved through logical predetermination.” -Now this theory—so demonstrably true in his own case—was arrived at by -no logical predetermination but by sheer pedestrianism. It came about -on these solitary walks when, as so often happened, the roads that led -so invitingly to green and open country plunged suddenly into a row of -horribly new brick houses or, more startling still, a vast and sprawling -cemetery. - -To the countryman, whose ideal landscape proceeds logically from -valley to hill, from stream to pond, from crossroads to village, from -fence to house and stile to pasture, these monstrous outcroppings of -civilization, these sudden and terrible interruptions of what was and -should have continued to be a pleasant prospect, are more horrible even -than a factory belching smoke from seven stacks. - -And so these pleasant saunters that so often ended before a hideous row -of red-brick houses, the quiet lanes that terminated abruptly before -a vast pile of bricks and boards, created in Machen the beginnings of -that doctrine of the strange and terrifying things that lie so close to -the surface of the quiet and the commonplace. The hideous face at the -window in a story written years later is but a reflection of the sudden -apparition of a raw, new suburb at the end of a quiet lane leading north -out of London. - -For the present these were but things seen and felt, they sank quietly -below the surface and floated deep down in the well of the unconscious. -Tutoring and Turnham Green and the twisting roads of Notting Hill were -sufficient unto the days. The nights in his small room in Clarendon Road -were more urgent—more filled with magic. For here there was not the -sudden sight of a street hastily hacked into a hillside, nor the mounds -and monuments of a cemetery, but great books and greater magic flowing -from the majesty of Gothic cathedrals or the Arthurian romances or the -Divine Comedy. He read by night, lighting candles when the gas meter -clicked off, and passed for a time into the “Middle Ages, walking in -the silvery light with the Masters of the Sentences, with the Angelic -Doctor, listening to the high interminable argument of the Schools.” Out -of these books and studies, and a great deal out of Burton’s _Anatomy of -Melancholy_ came a book that was to be called _The Anatomy of Tobacco_. - -The book was sent to a publisher who, as it happened, liked it and who -was prepared to publish it, after “certain preliminaries” were attended -to. These preliminaries entailed a visit to Caerleon and called for -another conference in the parlour at the Rectory. The family and the -relations, remembering the pamphlet of a few years ago and encouraged by -the news that the new book would contain many times more than sixteen -pages, attended to the preliminaries. - -In due course, in the year 1884, George Redway of London published _The -Anatomy of Tobacco_. And a very handsome book it was, in its cream -parchment boards and brick-red lettering on the spine. The author of -this study of smoking, “Methodized, Divided, and Considered after a New -Fashion” was one “Leolinus Silurensis, Professor of Fumical Philosophy in -the University of Brentford,” in whom we may recognize our old friend, -the former Member of the Hereford Cathedral School. - -This is the book Machen calls “The Anatomy of Tankards” in his _Far -Off Things_. There you may read the whys and the wherefores of this -amazing composition, and the devious means by which Burton and tobacco -and divers other curious books entered into its making. So convincing -is his account of his investigations and research into the matter of -taverns and tankards and such matters that quite a few collectors have -spent considerable time, and were prepared to spend considerable sums, -to acquire a copy of _The Anatomy of Tankards_. Meanwhile, Machen -had quitted the six-by-ten room in the Clarendon Road and returned -to Caerleon and a normal diet. Throughout the winter of 1884 he had -worked on the proofs of the _Anatomy_ and then upon an assignment from -Redway for another book. This was a translation of the _Heptameron_ of -Marguerite of Navarre. Machen blithely undertook the task, despite his -own sworn statement that upon leaving Hereford School he could not have -conjugated the simplest, and most popular, of French verbs. - -The merrie and delightsome tales of the French Marguerite occupied him -through winter and spring in Gwent. Once more he walked in the deep lanes -about Caerleon and alternately missed London and revelled in the luxury -of not being in Clarendon Road. By the time June came to Caerleon he had -sent off the last batch of his translation and Redway had written him -and offered him a job. It did not seem too hard a thing to return to -Clarendon Road with a job, a real one, in the City. He was to catalogue -books—and such books! There were books on Alchemy and Magic, on Mysteries -and Ancient Worship, on the occult sciences and Rosicrucians and all -sorts of wonderful and baleful and mystic and incredible matters. - -Machen became the cataloguer of these curious volumes—and he came -very close to being that wonderful phenomena of the twentieth -century: a publisher’s advertising man! As a matter of fact, Machen -did achieve something few, if any, publisher’s advertising men have -accomplished—either before or since. Two of his catalogues have become -highly prized collector’s items. They were published in 1887 and 1888 -respectively. - -Working in a book-filled garret in Catherine Street, Machen produced one -catalogue which pops up from time to time in Machen bibliographies: _The -Literature of Occultism and Archeology_. Then it occurred to him to -paraphrase a chapter in _Don Quixote_, the one in which the Curate and -the Barber examine the Knight’s library. This chapter was written in a -manner calculated to entice the wary or unwary book collector into buying -the books discussed. The catalogue was issued under the title _A Chapter -from the Book Called The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha_. -The other catalogue, issued in the following year, bore the title -_Thesaurus Incantatus, The Enchanted Treasure or, The Spagyric Quest of -Beroaldus Cosmopolita_. - -It will do little good to look for copies of these catalogues. Vincent -Starret, the fortunate possessor of at least one of them, in his -collection of Machen’s tales, _The Shining Pyramid_ (Covici-Fried, -Chicago, 1923) has included two pieces called _The Priest and the Barber_ -and _The Spagyric Quest of Beroaldus Cosmopolita_. These are taken, of -course, from the catalogues in question. As to whether you will find the -Starret volumes readily available—well, they are worth the search. - -Well then, here was Machen in a hot-bed of the occult and the devilish, -surrounded by books of all sorts, especially the strange, the weird -and the curious. His room in the Clarendon Road held as many books as -it could accommodate along with its occupant—the overflow was stacked -between the rungs of a ladder on the landing outside. He was busy with -notebooks once more, and writing furiously as ever—but in despair rather -than the fine frenzy and high spirits of a few years before. For now -he was deep in Rabelais and Balzac—and these books cast a spell upon -him. They were warm, glowing books in which life was full and rich and -lusty—there were great eaters and drinkers and lovers in those days. They -offered too great a contrast to the cold, lonely room in Clarendon Road -and the diet of tea, tobacco and bread. - -Machen was under the spell of a landscape bathed in a warm sun, with -ruins standing close to roads, and wine flowing from vineyard to bottle -to parched throats all within a few yards of enchanted space. This was a -contrast indeed to the deep lanes of Gwent, the lonely ruins that stood -in the shade and shadow of great hills and forests, and although Machen -had spoken glowingly of the greenish-yellow cider of that land, still, he -rather favored, in his mind at least, the wines of Touraine. - -By night there was this magic of old books and by day there were the -old books of magic, for the garret in Catherine Street was crowded with -old and odd books of every sort, a collection that “represented that -inclination of the human mind which may be a survival from the rites of -the black swamp and the cave.” These studies did induce a frame of mind -that might tend toward the strange and unusual. Living in this strange -mixture of a glowing, gargantuan landscape and the dark labyrinths of the -mediaeval mind, Machen tried, and sometimes desperately tried, to write. - -“A man has no business to write,” said Machen many years later, -“unless he has something in his heart, which, he feels cries out to be -expressed.” And he had nothing to say—had only the urge to write, the -vice of writing for writing’s sake—_cacoethes scribendi_—he called it! -But then Machen has had time to reconsider his pronouncement of 1923, -and to revise his opinion regarding men who wrote—and why they write. - -In a “London Letter” to the _New York Times Book Section_, Herbert W. -Horwill wrote, in September 1935: “A curious literary problem is posed by -that veteran author, Arthur Machen, in John o’ London’s Weekly. Imagine -a man marooned on a desert island, and certain that he would remain -there for the rest of his life. Imagine, moreover, that he possessed the -literary faculty, and had salvaged pens, ink and paper from the wreck or -else had devised home-made substitutes for them. Would such a man write, -knowing that whatever he wrote would never be seen by any eye but his own? - -“Mr. Machen tells us that he once heard this question discussed among a -group of friends. Some answered yes and some no, and, when pipes were -knocked out for the night, the problem was no nearer solution, though, -to the best of his recollection, the ayes were in the majority. He voted -with them himself, and, after further reflection, he still believes -he was right. The hypothetical Crusoe might have no better implements -available than quills of parrots’ feathers, paper made out of the bark of -the guru tree and ink obtained by macerating the root of a certain plant. -But, granted his possession of the literary faculty, he would possess -also the literary impulse. He would write because he liked writing, apart -from whatever fate might be in store for the thing written. The true -spring of imaginative literature, Mr. Machen reminds us, is the delight -of the creator in creation.” - -In the desert island of Clarendon Road, all through the summer of 1885, -Machen wrote. He wrote because he had to, because he was under the spell -of a master of gargantuan languages, because he was enamoured of the -sound of words and because he had an ear for the rich and rolling phrase. -And, of course, he wrote because he had the literary impulse. The pound -a week he was paid by Redway could not afford him the rich living, the -pleasures of Touraine. But then, after despair and after much almost -pointless scribbling, he came at last upon the idea for the Great Romance. - -It was to be a book in which Rabelais and Gwent were mingled ... and -thus began the “History of the Nine Joyous Journeys ... in which were -contained the amorous inventions and fanciful tales of Master Gervase -Perrot, Gent.” Machen had prepared for this great undertaking by -purchasing his ruled quarto paper, his pen points and his penholders. -Quite possibly he envisioned a plaque on the door of his little cell -at 23 Clarendon Road, announcing that Here Had the Great Romance been -Written! There was, however, this difficulty—the vision of the great -romance declined to be more specific. There were no hints as to plot, no -guidance as to characters. He began, at any rate, a Prologue, written in -a flowing and flowery 17th Century manner. - -But now his cataloguing in Catherine Street had come to an end, and -with it his pound or thereabouts per week. Nevertheless, he wrote on, -even though he knew that his composition of the Great Romance might -be abruptly terminated some three or four days in the future. Then, -presumably, he would return to Caerleon, in all probability on foot. As -it happened, he returned hurriedly by train. Just as he had come to the -end of his tea and tobacco and rent money, he had word that his mother -was dying. Aunt Maria thoughtfully sent his fare with the summons. - -Later, he returned to the “great romance,” writing once more in the -familiar room in the rectory where the fire burned and the winds howled -down from Twyn Barlwyn and tossed the branches and beat upon the door. -He wrote late into the morning, long after his father had knocked out -his last pipe and gone upstairs. So passed the winter of 1885. Through -the days he walked in the lovely Gwentian hills and looked down upon the -white farm houses standing in the midst of encircling trees. At night -he worked in that room where he had, as a boy, first read de Quincy and -Scott and the other writers who had helped to bring about the “renascence -of wonder.” And in the following year he was alone. His father died that -spring. - -This was the John Edward Jones whose homecoming from Jesus College, -Oxford, is described in the opening pages of _Things Near and Far_. Now -Machen was more truly alone than ever. His father had been to him a good -companion in his earliest rambles about the countryside. It had been his -father’s hope that Arthur might one day return to Gwent to live, buy a -small newspaper and settle down to a quiet career in country journalism. - -There were certain inheritances that might help, when they came through. -For Machen’s father seldom thought of the good these inheritances would -do for him in his struggle to make ends meet at Llanddewi Rectory. But -now he had gone and then, ironically, the long-lived Scottish relations -went too, and the Scottish lawyers began to look through family Bibles -for the next of kin. - -Through these and other circumstances Machen at length came into -money—smallish amounts which, shrewdly invested or even conservatively -invested, might have stretched themselves out for a score or more years. -This economic policy did not suggest itself or, if it did, was quietly -ignored. The simple expedient of living modestly and comfortably, and -dipping into a box for coins, when coins were required, seemed much the -better plan. - -In 1887 Machen returned to London, to live in Bedford Place, and to -arrange for the publication of the Great Romance, now called _The -Chronicle of Clemendy_. This was accomplished, with perhaps a deeper -plunge into the box of coins, and the book was published that year. It -was printed at Carbonnek, “for the society of Pantagruelists.” And it -did, apparently, quite well. The nine joyous journeys and the merry monks -of Abergavenny pleased Machen and his fellow Pantagruelists—which, in the -year 1888 or 1948, is almost as much as can be asked of any book. - - - - -_Chapter Two_ - -THE LONDON ADVENTURE - - -1 - -In the late 1880’s Arthur Machen had, as he said, “Rabelais on the -brain.” He had been for some years under the spell of the gargantuan -tales and of Balzac’s _Contes Drolatiques_—and perhaps even more under -the spell, literarily if not literally, of the Holy Bottle and the magic -of Touraine and whatever it is about the land of France that so beguiles -the young of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. - -It was under the Rabelaisian influence that Machen had written his “great -Romance,” _The Chronicle of Clemendy_, and made his translation of the -_Heptameron_. And finally he had undertaken to translate and publish an -even more difficult and bizarre book—_Le Moyen de Parvenir_ by Beroalde -de Verville. - -This book, rather highly prized by collectors of at least two sorts, -is incredibly dull. No fault of Machen’s certainly, although he might -have permitted it to remain untranslated. Still, he was at the stage and -of an age when this sort of thing had an appeal. And so he translated -and published it in not one, but two editions. There was a large paper -edition and an “ordinary” edition—both preceded by a very small edition -(four copies) of a portion of the book under the title _The Way to -Attain_. - -Now of course every Machen bibliography lists this title, and many a -Machenite has wished he might obtain a copy. Actually, it is one of -the least important of Machen’s works. For this is merely a portion -of _Le Moyen de Parvenir_—and very probably not an important part at -that. Bibliographers, bibliophiles and bibliomaniacs are at liberty to -go quietly mad in their quest for this queer little item. For queer it -is—Machen himself cannot quite explain its existence. The four copies -were issued in 1889, presumably by the Dryden Press who were to publish -the complete work. A dispute over something or other arose and the -project was dropped—at least by the Dryden Press. All four copies, -apparently, are in the safe-keeping of Danielson, or they were at one -time. - -The other two editions were privately printed at Carbonnek in 1890 under -the title of _Fantastic Tales_. There have been other editions, de luxe -if not luxurious, for what is sometimes known as “the trade.” It may be -assumed that the writer holds no very high opinion of this work. But then -neither does Machen. He has described the book as being somewhat like a -cathedral constructed entirely of gargoyles—as plain a warning as any -ever given by an author regarding one of his works. - -This fantastic collection of “discourses ... on Reformation politics -... many tales, some pointless, a few amusing” while it may provide -puzzles, pleasure and profit for bibliophiles, is important only in -that it marks the finish of the Rabelaisian influence upon Machen. Not -that this influence was ever “Rabelaisian” in the usual sense ... it -was rather like that of various French poets and novelists of several -generations over still other generations of English and American writers. -During certain periods our younger writers and “intellectuals” would have -Verlaine on the brain, or Baudelaire in their bonnets, but eventually -they would go back to writing stark novels about Sussex or Sauk Center, -or Wales or Wisconsin or the moors of the Missouri. - -The extent of this enthusiasm and the depth of this influence may be -estimated from the following rhapsody delivered by Ambrose Meyrick in -_The Secret Glory_. “Let me celebrate, above all, the little red wine. -Not in any mortal vineyard did its father grape ripen; it was not -nourished by the warmth of the visible sun, nor were the rains that -made it swell common waters from the skies above us. Not even in the -Chinonnais, earth sacred though that be, was the press made that caused -its juices to be poured into the _cuve_, nor was the humming of its -fermentation heard in any of the good cellars of the lower Touraine. -But in that region which Keats celebrates when he sings the ‘Mermaid -Tavern’ was this juice engendered—the vineyard lay low down in the south, -among the starry plains where is the _Terra Turonensis Celestis_, that -unimaginable country which Rabelais beheld in his vision where mighty -Gargantua drinks from inexhaustible vats eternally, where Pantagruel is -athirst for evermore, though he be satisfied continually. There, in the -land of the Crowned Immortal Tosspots was that wine of ours vintaged, -red with the rays of the Dog-star, made magical by the influence of -Venus, fertilised by the happy aspect of Mercury. O rare, super-abundant -and most excellent juice, fruit of all fortunate stars, by thee were we -translated, exalted into the fellowship of that Tavern of which the old -poet writes: _Mihi est propositum in Taberna mori!_” - -Well, it was quite a thing while it lasted ... but the Rabelaisian vein -petered out and Machen began to perceive that he was of Caerleon-on-Usk -and not a townsman of Tours or a citizen of Chinon, and that the old -grey manor-houses and the white farms of Gwent had their beauty and -significance, though they were not castles in Touraine. - -Meanwhile he was back at his old trade of cataloguing. He had switched -employers for, when York Street would yield little more than a pound a -week, Leicester Square would give thirty shillings. So back he went to -cataloguing ancient books. Not that he was much good at it, nor that -he preferred it above all other forms of employment. As a matter of -fact he rather disapproved of the whole business and issued what almost -amounts to a Manifesto to Collectors: “I don’t care two-pence,” he wrote, -“whether a book is in the first edition or in the tenth; nay, if the -tenth is the best edition, I would rather have it ... the only question -being: is the book worth reading or not?” - -Nevertheless, cataloguing seems to have been a rather flourishing trade -at the time, and a profitable practice—for the publisher at any rate. For -this was a remarkably literate era, and publishers pandered profitably -to the popular taste ... they were busily at work discovering rare -books, improving some with plates borrowed from others, issuing new and -enlarged editions at the drop of a folio, and discovering the pleasures -and profits to be derived from making translations—particularly from -the French. In the same building occupied by Machen’s employers were -the offices of Vizatelly, the publisher who was even then bringing -out translations of Zola’s works. At about the same time Machen was -working there, Havelock Ellis was editing the Mermaid Tavern Series of -Elizabethan Dramatists for Vizatelly. Ellis notes in his _Autobiography_ -that he was paid the sum of three guineas per volume—an amount he -considered rather small. This may indeed have been a small amount—but he -had a better deal of it than Machen who was asked, at about this time, to -do a translation of the memoirs of Casanova. - -The manner in which this undertaking came about was rather curious and -very casual. One of the Brothers for whom he worked, and whom he does not -otherwise identify in _Things Near and Far_, came to him one day with -an old volume and asked Machen to translate from the place marked with -a slip of paper. Machen set to work and about a year later he completed -his translation of the twelve volumes of _Casanova’s Memoirs_. The place -marked fell in about the fifth volume, and Machen simply translated -through to the twelfth, began again at the first and worked through to -the place in the fifth volume—which was “where he came in” as one says at -the movies. - -This monumental work, and the best translation to date of the _Memoirs_, -was thrown in, as it were, with the cataloguing at thirty shillings a -week. Machen simply remarks that he believes the cost to the firm to -have been “strictly moderate.” Much more moderate than the three guineas -per volume paid to Ellis for his editing. However, Machen was eventually -offered an opportunity of profiting from his work. A few years later -when the translation was about to be published, Machen was granted the -privilege of investing a thousand pounds in the venture. One of the -Brothers suggested that, as he was now an _interested_ party, he might -wish to revise the manuscript. - -Of course publishing was not quite the same game it is today ... there -were publishers then who were, if not actually unscrupulous, a trifle -careless in their accounting and possibly slightly unethical. Vizatelly -was prosecuted and jailed as a result of his translations of Zola. Machen -has remarked upon the irony of the situation—for even while Vizatelly -was in jail, charged with circulating obscene literature, Zola was -being well received on his trip through England. When Vizatelly died -shortly thereafter the Mermaid Tavern series was taken over by another -publisher without so much as a by-your-leave. Ellis’ name was removed -from the volumes, and that, apparently, settled that. Ellis treated the -affair with a silence he knew would not be taken as a sign of contempt. -One gathers that publishers in those days were not very thin-skinned. -However, in his autobiographical sketches describing these events, Machen -offers not the slightest criticism of the Brothers but he did, shortly -thereafter, quit the publishing business. - - -2 - -For almost a decade Machen had been in London, and for most of that time -he had been writing. But he had written rather imitatively; he had, as -he says, “been wearing costume in literature. The rich, figured English -of the earlier 17th Century had a peculiar attraction....” Whether -this was unnatural affectation or natural affinity, he wrote in this -fashion—essays, verse, tales, epistols dedicatory. He even kept, for many -years, a diary written in this manner. _The Anatomy of Tobacco_ was an -“exercise in the antique,” the _Chronicle_ tried to be mediaeval, _Le -Moyen_ was in the ancient mode, the _Heptameron_ a mere finger-exercise -in the composition of a period piece. At this point Machen decided to -write in the modern manner. - -In 1890 Machen began to make an approach to journalism. His Welsh -relations were probably gratified when his pieces and stories began to -appear in the Globe and the St. James Gazette. He was still a long way -from adopting journalism as a profession or career, but he had decided to -do some writing in “the modern manner” and the papers seemed to offer an -outlet. - -Journalism was then, as it is now, a wonderfully agitated world in which -editors knew what their readers wanted and were determined to see that -they got it—whether they liked it or not. Oddly enough, an editor’s -staff never seems to have this happy faculty of knowing what the readers -want, but they do know what their editors want—and so everyone is mildly -unhappy about it excepting the editors—and it is questionable whether an -editor is ever really happy, or ever deserves to be. - -At any rate Machen wrote, on an average, about as much drivel as the -average journalist must, and about as many silly stories as most -journalists have to. Of course it was not as bad as it might have been, -or as bad as it became later, for, according to Machen, editors in the -1890’s presumed a certain standard of education and culture in their -readers. This tendency has been overcome, however, and along with certain -other technical improvements the press as it existed during Machen’s time -was much as it is today. - -His success at writing for the Globe and an acceptance by the St. James -Gazette started him on short stories. These appeared mostly in the -Gazette whose rate of payment was commendably higher than the Globe’s. -The connection did not last too long for one of the stories created quite -a stir. - -Reading it now one wonders at that, and when one remembers a few of the -tales that were to flourish in the decade to follow, Machen’s little -story of _The Double Return_ seems harmless enough. The tale is rather -reminiscent of _The Guardsman_—you will remember the success of the Lunts -in that play on the stage and on the screen. Machen’s tale lacked the -amorousness or even the intent of _The Guardsman_, it merely told of a -man returning home after three weeks in the country. - -“Back so soon?” asked his wife. - -“I’ve been in the country for three weeks,” said he, rather put out. - -“I know,” she said, “but you returned last night.” - -“Indeed not, I spent last night at Plymouth on my way back from the -country,” said the husband. - -Whereupon his wife accused him of being playful and showed him his -cigarette case he had left behind him when he left the house this very -morning. Well, the husband had lost the cigarette case in the country -some days before, and he _had_ spent the night in Plymouth on his way -back to London, and so he couldn’t have returned on the previous night. -There had been a man at his hotel or inn who rather resembled him and so -on. The upshot of it all was that shortly thereafter the husband went to -America, which seems to have been the thing to do in such cases. A rather -harmless little story, not even a boudoir scene or a hint of one. But -_The Double Return_ aroused as much interest in the nineties as the most -daring double entendre might today. - -Oscar Wilde, no amateur at arousing the public, said to Machen, “Are you -the author of that story that fluttered the dovecotes? I thought it very -good.” Well, flutter the dovecotes it did, and one did not flutter the -dovecotes with impunity, at least so far as the St. James Gazette was -concerned. Machen no longer appeared in its august pages. This may or may -not have caused Machen concern. He was also doing stories for some of the -“society” papers and wrote in this same year _The Lost Club_, so very -similar to Stevenson’s story of the Suicide Club, _A Wonderful Woman_ and -others. - -The year 1890 happens to be a year of some significance generally, for it -opens the decade of the delicate decadents, sometimes known as the Yellow -Book Boys. - -Among the many books that have been written about the Eighteen Nineties -is a small and, on the whole, less pretentious volume than most. This -is Bernard Muddiman’s _Men of the Nineties_. In it one finds this brief -mention of Machen: “Arthur Machen, in those days, belonged to the short -story writers with Hubert Crackanthorpe, who was the great imaginative -prose writer of the group.” - -Alas, poor Hubert! Who knows him today as a great imaginative prose -writer? Who, for that matter, knows poor Hubert at all, save for those -who may look into the bound volumes of the Yellow Book to be found -occasionally in the Public Library (under the somewhat bewildering though -accurate classification of “Magazines”)? - -The 1890’s was perhaps the most widely and well publicized decade in -history, surpassing, in this respect at least, the ’Twenties of our own -century. The 1890’s spawned geniuses where the 1920’s only discovered -genius. The analogy between these decades can be carried to even greater -lengths and indeed it will be, in a later chapter, for the ’Twenties also -rediscovered Arthur Machen. - -But for all poor Muddiman’s eulogy of Hubert in his slender volume -eulogizing the men of the Nineties, the late Mr. Crackanthorpe was _not_ -the great imaginative prose writer of the group. Nor was the prolific -Henry Harland, whose contributions to the Yellow Book were in the New -Style—with French phrases popping up half a dozen to the page and -French women putting in appearance among the good English spinneys, and -representative members of the New Woman being forthright and outspoken -for all their “flutter of curls at the brow” and garden hats and “merry -peals of laughter.” Mr. Harland sprinkled his prose with French phrases, -giving them a naughty air (just as, in the Twenties, French phrases -were used to give novels a sophisticated air) and his heroes were made -“interesting” rather than solid or adventurous or empire building. They, -the “interesting” chaps, thought of women as “handsome” or “good-looking” -rather than beautiful or lovely. Such words were reserved for inanimate -things—things animal, vegetable or mineral, but never the feminine. They -further thought of women in terms of “what a _woman_ she is!” Like that, -with an air of invincible surprise. No, it was not Hubert, nor yet Henry, -who was the great imaginative prose writer of the group—it was Arthur -Machen. But then Muddiman may have been right after all, for Machen was -not truly of the group of writers who practiced the purple phrase, who -wrote in pastels and who composed pastiches in praise of practically -nothing. - -It may come as something of a surprise to many admirers of Machen to know -that he was a contemporary of the Yellow Book crowd. Perhaps it will -come as something of a relief to know that Machen was not a member of -the group, despite the fact that his first book of stories appeared in -this period, issuing from the Bodley Head with a title page by Beardsley. -Machen never wrote for the Yellow Book. But for that matter, neither did -Wilde. Still, yellow bookery was rampant at the time and since it is -sometimes said that a man is the product of his age, it might be well to -skirt along the well travelled path trod by the delicate decadents, their -critics and appraisers and appreciators. - -Osburt Burdett, Holbrook Jackson, Richard LeGallienne and other more -talented and serious students have gone over the period with admirable -thoroughness. The magnifying glass has been placed over every one of -Beardsley’s drawings and even the most moribund of the minor poets has -been the subject of at least one monograph. Still, it will be interesting -to review briefly what has been said of the men of the Nineties, if only -because it may be applied, with certain changes and reservations, to the -Twenties and, for that matter, to the period which we are about to enter. -For the birth of the Atomic Age, for all its violent and destructive -debut, cannot have been more shocking, in some respects, than the impact -of the coterie of the green carnation upon the Victorianism of the -Nineties. - -The group known as the Yellow Book boys, or the men of the Nineties, -or the delicate decadents were, as Donald Davidson has remarked, -“time-conscious” to an intense degree. They were nearing the end of a -century, just as the men of the Twenties lived through the end of an -epoch and the men of the Forties enter a new one. There is still, you -see, this strange analogy between the “Tragic Generation” as the men of -the Nineties called themselves, and the “Lost Generation” as the men of -the Twenties called themselves. Whether or not there will be a continuing -analogy between the three decades is an interesting speculation, but -quite beyond the scope of this study. Or is it? - -The men of the Nineties were time-conscious to an intense degree and -they were self-conscious to an even greater degree. Being young men, for -one thing, and acutely aware of the Victorianism of their Victorian age -for another, and rather preoccupied with the importance of being earnest -and alive in the closing years of a century for still another, they were -rather more self-conscious than most young men. - -Now it is an odd thing, when one considers it, that the young and -self-conscious members of the Anglo-Saxon races, in whatever age, -discover in themselves a remarkable affinity and a positive predilection -for the culture and customs of France. This happens time and again, and -whenever it does happen it is accompanied by a profound contempt for the -Anglo-Saxonishness of their Anglo-Saxon contemporaries and compatriots. -No doubt there are excellent reasons for this. It is a strange thing, but -it is by no means unusual, since it has happened with something very much -like regularity ever since William the Norman crossed the Channel—and -perhaps even before that. - -The Saxon nobles who set themselves apart from the peasantry were -probably the first to adopt the manners and language of the Norman court. -Almost any intrigue current at the time, or for the next few centuries, -seemed the more likely to succeed if it acquired a dash of the Gallic. -Even in that most English of all English periods, the age of Elizabeth, -the young blades and the intellectuals felt the more dashing and, -presumably, the more intellectual for a smattering of French oaths and a -short time spent in the courts or chateaux of France, or the alleys and -marketplaces of Paris. - -Well, then, the men of the Nineties acquired their smattering of French -and their translations of Baudelaire and Verlaine and felt the better for -them ... much as our men of the Twenties rode the cattle-boats to the -Left Bank and wrote the “only American literature” of their day. Little -magazines sprang up in the Nineties, verse grew steadily more _libre_, -and there was little difference, spiritually at any rate, between the -Bodley Head in 1890 and the Shakespeare Head in 1920 or thereabouts. -Another lost, tragic generation of self-conscious Anglo-Saxons had “found -themselves”—and France. - - -3 - -To return to the Nineties. There were those, even then, who suspected -that something was up in the state of English literature. Grave and -scholarly men analyzed the state of affairs and speculated on causes -and results. If the young men were pleased with themselves there were -others who were not. There was a certain looseness of thinking and of -phrasing that was not universally approved. The burden of such critical -attitudes is a familiar one—it is the one that attends all new movements -in literature, following change as the night follows the day. - -The first and best expressed of these critical appraisals appeared in, -of all places, the first volume of the _Yellow Book_ itself. Advocating -“Reticence in Literature,” Arthur Waugh wrote: “During the last quarter -of a century ... the English man of letters has been indulging, with -an entirely new freedom, his national birthright of outspokenness, and -during the last twelve months there have been no uncertain indications -that this freedom of speech is degenerating into license which some of us -cannot but view with regret and apprehension.” A familiar note, an old -refrain! - -“The writers and the critics of contemporary literature have, it would -seem, alike lost their heads; they have gone out into the byways and -hedges in search of the new thing, and have brought into the study and -subjected to the microscope mean objects of the roadside, whose analysis -may be of value to science but is absolutely foreign to art.” - -Mr. Waugh then proceeds to make the point that every great productive -period of literature has been the result of some internal or external -revulsion of feeling, some current of ideas. The great periods of -productivity had been those when the national mind had been directed to -some vast movement of emancipation, the discovery of new countries, the -defeat of old enemies, the opening of fresh possibilities. But, Waugh -remonstrates, the past quarter of a century had been sterile of important -improvements, there had been no new territories and no new knowledge. -Because of this sterility the minds of writers had been thrown back upon -themselves and the most characteristic literature of the day had become -introspective. - -“Following one course,” says Waugh, “it has betaken itself to that -analytical fiction which we associate primarily with America; following -another course, it has sought for subject matter in the discussing of -passions and sensations, common, doubtless, to every age of mankind, -interesting and necessary, too, in their way, but passions and sensations -hitherto disassociated with literature.” - -It will be noted that Waugh attributes a certain regrettable trend to -American sources, but then he later says that the tendency for literary -frankness had its origins in Swinburne. Despite the accuracy of many -points made by Waugh, it must be noted that the world in 1890 was not -quite the uneventful place it seemed to him. There had been, it is true, -no wars of any consequence for a fortnight or two, no Armada threatened, -no European paranoiac gazed balefully across the Channel and regicide -was, for that moment, happily unthought of. Such things were, so long as -Victoria sat on the throne, unthinkable—especially the latter. - -But Darwin’s _Origin of the Species_ had been written some years -before, and Karl Marx, who also had something of a London adventure, -had written a book with the stodgy title _Das Kapital_, and the Webbs -and the Socialists and the Fabians were quietly preparing their various -ideologies. Things were brewing, even though under the surface, and -no one paid them much heed, least of all the “irresponsibles” of the -Nineties. - -These things meant little to Waugh, apparently, and seemed of no -particular consequence. They seemed of even less consequence to the -delicate decadents who were staging a well publicized literary rebellion -of their own. It is not our intention to go further into the matter nor -to list the peculiarities of these practitioners of pastel prose, nor to -relate the peccadillos of its precocious and precious poets. We content -ourselves with observing that Arthur Machen had little to do with them, -either as individuals or as a group. - - -4 - -From that day in June 1880 when he first walked in the Strand with his -father, Arthur Machen was fascinated by London. He did not always love -the city, nor was he ever moved to apostrophise London as young writers -have frequently written of Paris. Anyone who reads _Things Near and -Far_ and _Far Off Things_ will wonder, perhaps, why he returned to the -city time and again, and why he spent so much of his life there. One -is appalled by the dismal history of those years, by the portrayal of -the lonely days spent in damp basements and musty garrets pouring over -old books for the endless catalogues, and by the lonelier nights in -that small room in the Clarendon Road. The long walks through obscure -quarters of London and the endless explorations of the suburbs were -often the last refuge of desperation and depression. The encounters and -experiences with publishers and employers were disillusioning enough, the -friendlessness of London was an even greater hardship. You will find all -of this in these two books of sketches and reminiscences—but they are -only incidentally there. For though Machen plainly states his loneliness -and relates the hardships and disillusionments he endured, he neither -emphasizes nor dramatizes them, and if this seems to us a sad story it is -merely that we are appalled by it, and not because Machen has said, “See -how wretched were my days, how lonely my nights!” - -Why then had Machen come to London, again and again? Why had this shy and -retiring scribbler left the orchards and fields of Gwent, the pleasant -rectory in Caerleon, to live in the great stone city on the Thames? -Perhaps it was because his Welsh blood stirred within him and drove him -to see the White Tower under which, centuries ago, they had buried the -head of Bran, facing to the sea to guard against invasion. Perhaps it -was to see the city that had been a city even before the legions came, -the city fortified by King Llud, brother to Caesar’s great opponent, -Cassibelaunus, for whom the city was called Caer Llud and later Caer -London and then Londinium and Londres by the foreigners; that king who -was buried at the gates still called Ludgate in his honor. Or perhaps -it was because in London one could walk into a book shop and ask for -Swinburne’s _Songs Before Sunrise_ as casually as one might walk into the -Hanbury Arms in Caerleon and ask for ale. - -For London was first and always a fascinating city to Machen. It is -apparent in every page of his books. This countryman who could never -forget his beloved country, delighted in the twistings and turnings of -the streets and roads that led through London and eventually emerged from -straggling suburbs into open fields. He notes with pleasure the streets -whose crossings and corners he knew in the ’eighties and ’nineties; he -misses them when, thirty years later, they have been absorbed by some -great block of buildings. He remembers the facades, if such edifices -could be dignified by the term, of the raw, red-brick villas that were -then springing up all about London. He remembers the restaurants and even -the menus, the taverns and the dwellings in the older sections of London, -and the queer individuals and even queerer incidents he encountered over -several decades. - -London was for many years (and perhaps it still is) a city in which -anything might happen. Strange encounters, mysterious strangers—these -seemed to abound in the backwaters and byways of London. The city became -to Machen a sort of Stevensonian Bagdad-on-the-Thames ... and he found in -its streets and lanes, its Inns and Courts, the materials that went into -_The Three Impostors_, _The London Adventure_, _A Fragment of Life_ and -many another story. - -This was true of Machen, and it was true of other writers in that -decade. Despite the great calm postulated by Waugh, and in spite of the -tremendous vacuum in which Waugh and other eminent Victorians fondly -believed England and the world existed, there were great things stirring -... and the stirring was mostly centered about London. Being neither -pamphleteers nor journalists, the writers of that day did not boil and -bubble nor forecast trouble as they might today. To be sure, there was -considerable pother about the New Woman, and the New This and That. But -for the most part they did not try to portray their times. The poets were -quite unaware of the peasants and “bourgeoise” was merely an epithet to -be tossed at an unsympathetic critic on one of the more conservative -journals. Time-conscious they most certainly were, but they aimed only -slightly this side eternity. The delicate decadents, the most prolific -and the best publicized group of that time, scarcely bothered to mention -the undercurrents, but their very activity, their prodigious outpourings, -were one of the manifestations of the stirrings beneath the surface. Then -too, there was but one Shaw for every score of sonnetteers, one Wells for -every dozen dilettante novelists, one Machen for every daring dramatist -of the moment. - -The beginnings of social-conscience and the vanguard of scientific -thought were there, obscured for the moment by the lurid vapors given off -by the writers of the purple phrase. There was, in short, a renascence of -wonder, not another revival of mediaevalism or of neo-Gothicism, but of -the wonder of things that existed behind the veil and seethed beneath the -surface. - -This was reflected as much by the lack of reticence in literature as -in the development of new kinds of fiction ... fiction looking to new -horizons. Shaw had already begun to puncture the balloons of Victorian -complacency, Wells was writing of things that might come, things beyond -our time and beyond our world. Machen began to postulate the existence -of things behind the veil of common appearances. If Wells looked -forward, Machen looked backward. He created a past as strange and as -fearful as the future on some Wellsian planet. He was interested in the -strange sciences of yesterday as Wells was in the sciences of tomorrow. -Machen had read the treatises on alchemy, occult sciences, hypnotism, -spiritualism—and in all of these he found a grain of truth. Alchemy, -especially, interested him. The search for the basic power of the -universe, the power and the ability to transform metals ... he could not -dismiss completely the possibility. Machen was no scientist but he had, -like Wells, a vast respect for the potentialities of science, and a keen -instinct regarding probabilities. These men, at least, were not bringing -in “the mean objects of the roadside” and subjecting them to the cold -stare of the microscope. - -Certainly we cannot afford to overlook the development of the detective -story by Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes was presented not as a member -of the existing force of law and order but as a radical departure from -it. Holmes substituted cerebration for mere procedure. There was then, in -London in the nineties, a small band of adventurers ... men who ventured -to hold new beliefs, who sought for adventure in social as well as -scientific fields, who looked forward (or backward) for strange worlds -to visit. Note how they title their tales—each chapter, each episode is -captioned in the Stevensonian manner as “The Adventure of the Speckled -Band” or “The Novel of the Black Seal.” They searched farther afield than -Paris for their magic—to the South Seas, to India, to the very Poles -themselves—even to America. - -Whatever was new and strange was usable. About this time London began to -hear tales of the Mormons, and of the band called the Destroying Angels. -Stevenson had them in mind when he wrote _The Dynamiters_, Doyle used -them for his _Study in Scarlet_, and Machen used them as the genesis of -an episode of _The Three Impostors_. - -Wonder was in the air—whether it was expressed by a minor poet in terms -of languishing eroticism or by Sherlock Holmes in the cataloguing of -endless varieties of cigar ash. Something was stirring and it stirred -most vigorously in London. Behind the facade of London lurked who knew -what marvels or horrors. Behind the faces of Londoners lurked who knew -what good or evil? London was filled with groups and clubs in search -of the unusual. There were suicide clubs, freak clubs, cults of the -horrible, Hellfire clubs and many others. Man, wondering about his future -and his world, wonders also about himself. The word psychology was used -hardly at all, but men were becoming aware of their minds and its quirks. -Who was there among a group, a club, who might not have been another -Jekyll? - -This, then, was London in the 90’s ... a city on the threshold of still -another century. Machen could not have forgotten that it had been Caer -Llud, that the Romans had been there, and before them the Cymry. The very -stones might burst into bloom, the pavements might ripple and surge and -become as soft under foot as turf, the fogs and vapors of its chimney -pots might become clouds of fragrance as in an orchard, or of incense as -in a great cathedral. - - - - -_Chapter Three_ - -THE WEAVER OF FANTASY - - -1 - -In 1890, although he had begun to write in the modern manner and had -even “fluttered the dovecotes” and startled the readers of the _St. -James Gazette_ with his stories, the Rabelaisian enthusiasm was still -upon Machen. It had, it is true, abated somewhat of late, but when his -translation of _Le Moyen de Parvenir_ came from the bindery, all brave in -blue and cream and gilt lettering, Machen still felt the spell strongly -enough to set out, finally, for Touraine. - -Actually, he had already determined to leave London before _Fantastic -Tales_ came out. He had been living in Soho Street in two rooms where -took place the grim battle of the fleas. London seemed to pall and to -pale after that and he arranged to take a cottage in the Chiltern Hills. -He had already written some of the tales in his most famous manner; _The -Shining Pyramid_, _The Iron Maid_ among them; the idea of _The Great -God Pan_ had been born and the country seemed the place to allow it to -mature. There were certain alterations and repairs to be made on the -cottage and he decided to go to France in the interim. It seemed, one -must suppose, the thing to do—when one has a handsome set of new volumes -one has translated from the French. - -Much has been said herein, and sometimes somewhat slightingly, of the -amazing effect of La Belle France upon the literate Anglo-Saxon. It has -been intimated that Paris has always been something of an occupational -disease among writers and minor poets. And here is Machen, off to France, -like any puerile poetaster upon the publication of his first “slender -volume.” To those who feel some word of explanation is due, some apology -for an opinion seemingly shattered, it will be noted that Machen went to -the South of France, to the countryside—and not to the northern cities -and carefully manicured meadows and pompadoured pleasure-grounds of the -Bois. - -Moreover, and this is important, Machen went to a land that never was. -For when he arrived at last in the land of Rabelais, of Beroalde, of -Balzac—he was greatly disappointed. “The fact was,” he says, “that I -had taken for granted Dore’s wonderful illustrations.” He had supposed -that the enchanted heights, the profound and somber valleys, the airy -abysses of these amazing plates had reprinted, as faithfully at least as -a Chamber of Commerce brochure, the veritable scenery of Touraine. - -The actuality was, alas! pitifully inadequate. Nevertheless Machen did -what all sensible tourists do when the lands of enchantment fail to -live up to the four-color posters—he visited the local taverns. This -has always seemed to offer consolation and compensation in such cases. -At any rate, the “Faisan d’Or” and “Le Caveau de Rabelais” provided -noteworthy compensation for Dore. It took Machen a few days to get over -his disappointment—but it was not too long before he could sit at his -little table in the courtyard at the Faisan and say to himself, “This -night I have had as much good red wine as ever I could drink.” And this -was one of the great moments of his visit to Touraine. It encouraged him, -moreover, and despite his disappointment over Dore, to return to Touraine -every summer for the next ten years or so. - -The landscape of Touraine and the vintages of the Vouvray pleased Machen, -as Paris pleased the poetasters and absinthe appealed (in theory at -least) to the young men who burned with a “hard gem-like flame” and who -wore their passions and their shoes to tatters in their feverish quest -for _la vie_. He discovered that there are, here and there, gardens that -address the heart and spirit and not the florist—as Poe well knew. - -In the autumn of 1890 Machen returned to London and, the cottage in the -Chilterns still lacking thatch or drains or some other matters, he took -rooms in Guilford Street. Now it was in Guilford Street, by one account, -that he was struck by the idea for _The Great God Pan_. It was, he says, -on a dark and foggy afternoon, and with no delay he proceeded to lay -out the story. In another place, however, he relates that it was in the -summer of 1890 that he wrote the first chapter of _The Great God Pan_. -Whichever it was, the tale was completed before he went to his cottage -in the country. It appeared in _The Whirlwind, Vol. ii_ for 1890, which -also carried _A Wonderful Woman_, _The Lost Club_ and an almost entirely -unknown item—_An Underground Adventure_. Another story, _The Red Hand_, -is of this period for it appeared in the Christmas number of _Chapman’s -Magazine_ under the title, _The Telling of a Mystery_. These matters -attended to, Machen retired to the Chilterns early in 1891. - -Of his stay in the country we know remarkably little. He spent two years -there and, when he returned to London in 1893, he reported that he had -“found it nothing.” However that may be, he did accomplish a certain -amount of work. He wrote a number of his best stories there and completed -two books which he promptly destroyed. The contents of these books have -not been entirely lost however, for much of what was in them came to -light another day. At any rate, it was in the Chilterns that he wrote -_The Inmost Light_. - -This famous story was written to a special commission, one of the few -he received in his life. His stories for the _Globe_ and _St. James -Gazette_ had attracted, as has been noted, considerable attention, and a -Miss Bradden wrote Machen, asking him to contribute a tale to an annual -she was getting out. _The Inmost Light_ was written for Miss Bradden and -packed off to her from the cottage in the hills. The affrighted lady -returned it after what must have been one of the most rapid readings on -record. - -At any rate, in 1894, when “yellow bookery was at its yellowest,” John -Lane of the Bodley Head published these two tales under the title _The -Great God Pan_ as Volume V of the Keynote Series. There was a title -page decoration by Aubrey Beardsley—this, and the imprint of the Bodley -Head, indicated that the book was, as one might say today, “aimed at a -particular market.” Presumably it hit the mark, for the tale achieved a -fame that has lasted to this day. For this is the best known of Machen’s -stories and—even though Machen deprecatingly remarks that the book had -“made a storm in a tiny tot’s tea cup”—there was a considerable tempest -aroused. _The Manchester Guardian_ went on record as feeling that Machen -had “succeeded only in being ridiculous.” _The Lady’s Pictorial_ found -it “gruesome, ghastly and dull.” The _Westminster Gazette_ decided that -it was “an incoherent nightmare of sex.” Nevertheless, the book was well -received and gained considerably more of a readership for Machen than -had his previously published exercises in the antique. One wonders what -the Boston reviewers thought of it—for the book was published by Roberts -Brothers of Boston in the same year. - -The _Manchester Guardian’s_ reviewer, a staunch fellow with advanced -ideas, had refrained from saying more about _The Great God Pan_ “for -fear of giving such a work advertisement.” This did not prove to be -particularly effective for the Bodley Head was compelled to bring out -a second edition in 1895. There were other editions: Grant Richards -included the tale in _The House of Souls_ in 1906, and again in 1913. It -was translated into the French in 1901, and reissued again by Simpkins, -Marshall in 1916. Knopf brought it out in 1924, and the story has been -included in numerous anthologies. - -The story of _The Great God Pan_ is simple enough—but it has the touch -of magic. There is a doctor with strange theories and strange knowledge. -He performs an operation on the brain of a simple country girl—an -operation which permits her to see, for a moment, the great god Pan, with -results that were in accordance with the ancient and traditional legends -concerning what might follow such a vision. - -Of course we are all prone, today, to interpret literature according to -our own lights, and we employ, with facility if not always felicity—the -great gift of hind-sight. We may, in 1948, judge the tale neither -as startling nor as horrifying as any one of a score or more pulp -masterpieces. We may find Machen’s doctor not too much unlike Stevenson’s -Dr. Jekyll or Wells’s Dr. Moreau. - -It may even be that _The Great God Pan_ doesn’t stir us a bit—although -that cannot be credited. But in 1894 the story was an amazing one—and -even the comfortably righteous reviewer on the _Manchester Guardian_ -might have pondered, in the depths of the night, this passage: “Suppose -that an electrician of today were suddenly to perceive that he and his -friends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking them for the -foundations of the world; suppose that such a man saw uppermost space -lie open before the current, and words of man flash forth to the sun -and beyond the sun into the system beyond, and the voices of articulate -speaking men echo in the waste void that bounds our thought.” - -Well, our young Manchester guardian of the public welfare very probably -cried, “Bosh!”—and went resolutely back to sleep. - -Machen, having written it, couldn’t sleep on it. In 1924, in a book -called _The London Adventure_, Machen quotes the above passage and says, -“It seems to me that the passage from _The Great God Pan_ is a distinct -prophecy of ‘wireless’; and what would logic have said to it, in 1890, -when that chapter was written?” - -And what, for that matter, says logic in 1948—for we have perceived -again, in another way, that we have been playing with pebbles and -mistaking them for the foundations of the world. For now we think not -only of sending sound to the outermost reaches of space—but man himself, -and at speeds greater than the speed of sound. - -There is another thought that might have bothered the young man of -Manchester. A character in the story has quoted Oswaldus Crollius, “In -every grain of wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star.” Now in 1894 -the reviewer, any reviewer, even the Bostonian, would have muttered -something about “muddled mysticism” and skipped over the sage utterance -of Oswaldus to get along into the “incoherent nightmare of sex.” What -Machen thought of this in ’94 we do not know—but in 1923 or thereabouts -he wrote that he thought this a wonderful saying; “a declaration, I -suppose that all nature is one, manifested under many forms; and so far -as I can gather, modern science is rapidly coming around to the view -of this obscure speculator of the XVII century; and, in fact, to the -doctrine of the Alchemists.” - -Now this was a brave thing to say—even in 1923. The muddled mysticisms -of the ’90’s is today’s theorum—as has been amply demonstrated. The most -fantastic fable or the most ingenious fiction of one decade may become -the newest discovery in the laboratory of today. - - -2 - -The sojourn in the Chilterns was not as unproductive as Machen has -implied. He had written perhaps more than we shall ever know—most of his -stories lived with him for years before they were written, and a book or -two destroyed did not cease to exist. Many of his best tales were born -and others matured in the Chiltern cottage. Still, two years in the -country seemed quite enough. - -When Machen returned to London in 1893 he was a man of property or, if -not property in the Galsworthian sense, of substance in his own. For the -various legacies from deceased Scottish relations that might have meant -so much a few years earlier, had been coming through and accumulating, -and there were now between three and four thousand pounds in the bank. -The days of Clarendon Road, of green tea and stale bread and tobacco, -were over and there were rooms in Great Russel Street and later in Gray’s -Inn. There was Benedictine in the buffet and a growing circle of friends -and companions. - -The possession of several thousand pounds presented problems—at least -the semi-important one of how to invest it. After looking about for -a “good thing,” in a characteristically casual way, Machen thought -of the Brothers—that courteous pair under whose benevolent auspices -he had translated Casanova in a basement. They had, as Machen knew, -a proposition now and then, and he thought perhaps they might have -suggestions. They had, as it happened, an excellent one. The _Memoirs -of Casanova_, which he had translated some years before, was about to -be published. A thousand pounds invested in the project might be a good -thing indeed. Machen had at least that much confidence in the Brothers, -or in his own work—at any rate, he invested. It was then that one of the -Brothers, the more benevolent of the two no doubt, suggested that he -might, since he was now financially interested, wish to polish up here -and there. - -Machen was content, however, to limit his contribution to the -translation and the thousand pounds, and let him polish who so desired. - -The monumental memoirs came out in 1894. Machen’s translation was the -first in the English language and, I believe, the only complete one to -this day. So it is likely to remain until some unsuspecting scholar may -once more be imposed upon, or some highly solvent professor or richly -subsidized fellow undertakes the task. - - -3 - -Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny to her friends and Scheherezade to -her husband, shared or perhaps inspired her husband’s view of London as -a fabulous Bagdad of the West, a city of encounters in which all things -were probable—even such things as might rival the tales of the Arabian -Nights Entertainment. - -Stevenson, that prince of story tellers, who knew as well as any man -how to invent marvelous tales and to tell them in a marvelous manner, -occupied himself and Fanny during an illness by creating _The Dynamiter_. -The book was published in 1885 and came to Machen’s attention at some -time before or during his retreat to the Chilterns. - -Machen had been under the Stevensonian influence for some years. In 1890 -he published a story, _The Lost Club_, which exhibits marked family -resemblance to one of the early adventures in the _New Arabian Nights_. -At any rate the _Three Impostors_, Machen’s next book, is derived from -Stevenson’s _Dynamiter_, and was written somewhere in this period when -_The Great God Pan_ was creating a stir. The manuscript was sent, late in -the winter of 1894, to Heinemann who expressed interest, enthusiasm, and -then, unaccountably, regrets. The reader in the publisher’s office had -been wonderfully encouraging and gloriously flattering. It was better, -said Heinemann excitedly, than Stevenson’s best. Even a man as modest -as Machen marveled at his artistry—and marveled still more when, early -in 1895, the House of Heinemann returned his manuscript with the usual -regrets and the usual phrase about being unable to use the enclosed -manuscript. - -And so, later that year, _The Three Impostors_ was issued by John Lane, -once again in the Keynote Series and once again with the title page -decoration by Beardsley. It failed, Machen says, to set Fleet Street -afire—but it is, of course, one of his best stories. - -Once again, as with so many of Machen’s stories, there were those who -wrote to inquire whether there was not some foundation of fact, some -basis of truth upon which the tale had been built. So willing are men to -suspend their disbelief! People were forever asking him if his stories -were not based upon some legend current in his part of the country and, -of course, there were those who were willing to relate incidents and -occurrences which closely paralleled the fantastic fictions of Machen’s -inventions. - -_The Three Impostors_ combined a number of popular elements. There -was, first of all, a portrait of America, or the American West, as -rugged and rough and uncouth as any Briton could desire. It rivaled -and even surpassed, in some respects, Stevenson’s Western episode in -_The Dynamiter_. The Stevenson story had also served as a model for the -Mormon episode in Conan Doyle’s _A Study in Scarlet_. The resemblances -here are even more marked than in Machen’s tale. As a matter of fact, -Christopher Morley has suggested (in the Saturday Review late in 1947) -that Doyle found the Mormon episode in his occiput following a reading -of _The Dynamiter_ on a rainy evening in 1885. However this may be, _The -Three Impostors_ is a remarkable and absorbing story, even if it did not -do as well as _The Great God Pan_—but it has done remarkably well in the -fifty-odd years since it was written. - -Back in 1923 Knopf published _The Three Impostors_ in the famous -yellow binding, and again in 1930 in a Borzoi Pocket Edition. In his -introduction to the latter book Machen wrote: - -“In the course of a quarter of a century, I have received a good many -letters of serious enquiry about _The Three Impostors_. My correspondents -ask me in various terms and turns of phrase whether there is any -foundation for the strange circumstances and tales narrated in the -book.... I began to get them pretty soon after _The Three Impostors_ -was published in 1895. Then, on the whole, I was rather displeased -than pleased at the question.... I was strongly inclined to resent the -implication that I had embroidered rather than invented.” - -Machen pointed out that the events described in his book not only did not -happen, but could not have happened. That, at least, was his attitude -just after he had written the book. In later years he changed his mind, -for in the Nineteen-twenties he wrote, “I have had experiences which -debar me from returning the absolute negative of earlier years.... -These experiences of mine were trifling enough, but they suggest the -possibility of far greater things and far more extraordinary things for -those with the necessary qualifications.... I am inclined to urge that -the things which I have known may suggest the probable existence of a -world very far and remote from the world of common experience. - -“It may turn out after all that the weavers of fantasy are the veritable -realists.” - - -4 - -Just why _The Three Impostors_, certainly not the most sensational story -published in that sensational year, should have inspired such widespread -belief, or at least so much willing suspension of disbelief, is not too -difficult to understand. The story concerns itself largely with matters -having to do with superstitions and, even if the superstitions involved -were not familiar ones, they had something of the common quality of all -superstitions based on folk-lore. - -The story is told through a series of episodes, in the manner made -popular by Stevenson and Doyle. Certain episodes are represented as being -taken from the journals of some of the characters concerned; others -are set forth in lengthy interviews with still other interested (and -interesting) characters. The story is not overburdened with machinery and -technical tricks, it manages to hang together without evident strain. - -Some of the episodes could stand by themselves as tales in the Gothic -genre—indeed, some of them have so appeared in anthologies and -collections. It is in the telling of these tales that Machen’s skill as -a story teller becomes evident. There is no one manner, but several, and -each is peculiarly Machen’s own—with clever overtones and undertones of -parody and satire. The satire, be it noted, is directed always at the -manner and never the matter of the tale. - -As for the subject matter, _The Three Impostors_ concerns the Little -People and strange powers that have persisted until this very day and -other speculations. If we accept, as did William Gregg, F.R.S., who -figures in one of the stories, the theory that much of the folk-lore of -the world is but exaggeration of things that really happened, we are well -on our way to accepting _The Three Impostors_ as wholeheartedly as did -the people who wrote Machen such curious letters back in 1895. Such is -Machen’s magic, moreover, that we are easily persuaded into accepting -almost anything. - -_The Three Impostors_ also introduces one of the most engaging figures -in English literature. Mr. Dyson is not as well known, perhaps, as Henry -Ryecroft or Stephen Daedalus or Charteris, but he has, it may be, as fine -a future as they. - -Mr. Dyson (if he had a first name, I cannot recall ever having read -it) is a “man of letters” who, in pursuit of his quiet profession (the -chase of the phrase, he called it) does a great deal of wandering about -odd quarters of London. He stumbles into and out of the most amazing -adventures, none of which appreciably affect his composure and seldom -indeed is he startled out of his pompous pedantry. - -Dyson’s companion in adventure and the recipient of his pronouncements -is a Mr. Charles Phillips. Phillips is somewhat younger than Dyson, but -they shared a certain gravity of character and pomposity of manner that -made them mutually acceptable. They met frequently in each other’s rooms -or in the tobacco shop in Queen Street where “their talk robbed the -tobacconist’s profit of half its charm.” Dyson exalted the claims of pure -imagination, while Phillips insisted that all literature ought to have a -scientific basis. - -This precious pair, who shared silence as amiably as they conversed, -wander sedately enough through the astonishing episodes involving the -Young Man With Spectacles, Miss Lally, the sinister Mr. Davis and others. -They are encountered in several other tales of this period. Dyson is -actually an old acquaintance. He first made his bow, and a very courtly -gesture it was, in _The Red Hand_ or _The Shining Pyramid_, whichever -tale, in truth, came first; but it is in _The Three Impostors_ that we -really came to know him. We shall meet again. - - - - -_Chapter Four_ - -A NOBLE PROFESSION - - “_I reflected, then, on my want of prospects, and I determined - to embark in literature._” - - “_Really, that was strange. You seem in pretty comfortable - circumstances, though._” - - “_Though! what a satire upon a noble profession!_” - - -1 - -This bit of dialogue takes place in one of those chance encounters with -which several of Machen’s tales begins. It might well have ensued between -Machen and some compatriot of far-off Gwent as they met in a London -street early in that daringly decadent decade. - -For Machen, having served an apprenticeship in grangerizing and -cataloguing, having composed calendars and made translations “on the -house” and having written a story that fluttered the dovecotes and -published a book that stirred up a tempest in a tiny tot’s teacup, was -definitely a literary man—or at least he pursued the practice of letters. -He had cause, in later years, to give the choice more serious thought -than he had in the 90’s. He had cause to reflect upon it, but never did -he regret the choice—if choice it was. For if ever a man’s destiny lay in -the art and the practice of letters, that man was Machen. And of course -he knew this—he knew it in the lonely room in Clarendon Road and in the -downstairs parlor at Llanddewi. And he knew it years later when, in -computing his earnings for twenty-odd years labor, he found the sum to be -not in excess of £635. And of course he knew it even when he wondered, as -he some times did, if he had failed in his art. - -Machen had in him, besides the seeds of his destiny, more than a bit -of that delightful fellow Dyson whom he created somewhat to his own -image and likeness. Dyson, you will recall, was “a man of letters, and -an unhappy instance of talents misapplied. With gifts that might have -placed him in the flower of his youth among the most favored of Bentley’s -favorite novelists, he had chosen to be perverse; he was, it is true, -familiar with scholastic logic but he knew nothing of the logic of life -and he flattered himself with the title of artist, when he was in fact -but an idle and curious spectator of other men’s endeavors. Amongst many -delusions, he cherished one most fondly, that he was a strenuous worker, -and it was with a gesture of supreme weariness that he would enter his -favorite resort, a small tobacco shop in Great Queen Street, and proclaim -to anyone who cared to listen that he had seen the rising and setting of -two successive suns.” - -But this isn’t Machen! Of course it isn’t! Nor am I suggesting that Dyson -is a portrait of the artist as a young man. But if you will recall for -a moment Machen’s obvious fondness for his creature, Dyson, his almost -paternal acceptance of Dyson’s pomposities and his benevolent air in -setting down Dyson’s latest preposterous formula, you will realize, I -think, that Machen was the model, and that he rather relished poking a -bit of fun at himself, his younger self at any rate. - -Well then, early in the 90’s Machen had his trip abroad and his cottage -in the country and his gradually accumulated legacies. And now he was, at -last, about to have his rooms in Grays Inn and his summers in the south -of France. He was indeed a man of letters! - - -2 - -_The Three Impostors_, even though it failed to set Fleet Street afire, -did add to Machen’s stature. It gave him something of a reputation -in certain quarters which, if not exactly fashionable at the moment, -were not on the side of the Philistines. The failure, if it was one, -of _The Three Impostors_ Machen attributes to a contemporary crisis in -literary circles. “There were,” he says mildly, “scandals in ’95—which -had made people impatient with reading matter that was not obviously and -obtrusively ‘healthy.’” - -The several tales or episodes that make up _The Three Impostors_, while -they may be neither obviously “healthy” nor obtrusively “healthy,” -were much less unwholesome than most of the literature that was then -circulating in London. Based for the most part on early Celtic folk-lore -and legends of the Welsh border, they developed the theme of primitive -races, of “little people” who have, in some out of the way places, -managed to survive to the present day. - -The nature of the tales does indeed tend toward the horrific and even -the “unhealthy,” but the manner of their telling and the presence of the -almost “deadpan” Dyson in most of these episodes results in a rather -curious blend of pedantry and unpleasantness. Moreover, so faithfully did -Machen follow a Stevensonian pattern that even the Marquis of Queensbury, -had he not been otherwise occupied at the moment, could have taken no -offense. It would seem, then, that it was this almost sedate treatment -that failed to set the bookstalls ablaze. A less restrained publisher -than John Lane would have had Beardsley do the illustrations for the -book—with quite predictable results. There are those, Grant Richards and -George Bernard Shaw among them, who suggest that Lane was rather afraid -of Beardsley—and not without reason. For Beardsley was an unpredictable -and vindictive chap. He was once criticized for having drawn a Pierrot -for a cover design of the “Savoy”—it was not the sort of thing, he was -told, that would appeal to the British public. - -A sketch of John Bull was substituted, accepted and sent out to -subscribers. It was then discovered that Beardsley had taken his revenge -by subtly indicating that John Bull was in a condition in which no Briton -would willingly appear in public. For such sophomoric shenanigans Lane -had given Beardsley the sack. There was never any question of Beardsley -illustrating _The Three Impostors_, nor could there be any question of -the result. Nevertheless _The Three Impostors_ rates perhaps third among -Machen’s works, and has been frequently reprinted. - -The story did cause publishers, from time to time, to ask Machen if he -had something else in “the manner of _The Three Impostors_.” This was not -as flattering to the author’s vanity as might seem. Having gone through -the tale once Machen had no wish to “re-cook the cabbage which was -already boiled to death.” Nevertheless, one doesn’t speak thus bluntly -to publishers—even when they solicitously seek manuscripts. There was -another and, on the whole, very attractive proposition. Two gentlemen, -obviously with an eye for such things, proposed a new weekly paper for -which, they further proposed, Mr. Machen and a Mr. Wells should do a -series of stories—and in their familiar manner, of course. Thus Mr. -Machen was to do a series of horror stories in the manner of _The Three -Impostors_ and Mr. Wells was to do stories in the manner of _The Time -Machine_. - -_The Time Machine_ had appeared about the same time as _The Great God -Pan_. While Machen’s story was stirring up its teacup tempest, a young -gentleman named H. G. Wells had made a very real, and a most deserved -sensation with a book called _The Time Machine_. Mr. Wells had written -his story at a time when he was living from hand to mouth as a journalist -at lodgings in Kent. And so the new paper, to be called the _Unicorn_, -was to feature the works of these two young men who had recently created -something new and exciting and not, as was too often the case in those -days, unfit for general circulation. - -Machen admitted that he was cheered and elated at the prospect ... until -he began to re-cook the cabbage. Possibly Mr. Wells felt the same way, -for the _Unicorn_ ceased to exist before a single one of Machen’s tales -(he wrote four of them) appeared in it, while Mr. Wells contributed but -one story, called _The Cone_. - -Machen realized that the Stevensonian had been done to a turn—and so -he had done with it—there would now be something new. He had already -written _The Shining Pyramid_ for _The Unknown World_, edited by his -friend A. E. Waite, and one or two other tales—but now, once again—and -this time there was no doubt about it—_The Great Romance_. - -Once again there was the question—what was it to be about? Machen labored -mightily over the beginnings of this new book. He sat at his Japanese -bureau in his rooms at Grays Inn, he roamed the deserted streets and -squares of Bloomsbury and pondered at great length the problem—what would -it be like? - -I suppose Dyson would have sympathized deeply with these soul searchings -and solitary soliloquies—for Dyson, too, had often wondered what his -books would be like, and Dyson had _his_ Japanese bureau. At any rate, -and before too long, Machen had the idea. His book would be “a Robinson -Crusoe of the mind” ... and for such a book, Machen had traveled well. - - -3 - -Machen had at last decided, and for the second time in his life, to write -the Great Romance. The first time it had turned out to be _The Chronicle -of Clemendy_, that light-hearted collection of tales having nothing -whatever to do with the Great Romance he had decided to write, and having -nothing in it of the loneliness of his life in London. This time it -became _The Hill of Dreams_, and one knows in reading it that this also -is not the Great Romance: for Machen could not have decided to write _The -Hill of Dreams_ any more than he could have decided to write a “Robinson -Crusoe” of the soul—even though he tells us that this is precisely what -he had decided to do. It is perhaps a coincidence, and a very fortunate -one, that the book did turn out to be just that. - -Machen was, as we have seen, a very careful man with his models. He could -write in the manner of Thomas Browne, or Robert Herrick, or William -Morris, or Robert Stevenson, and very carefully did he cultivate their -manner. When he had perfected the manner, and made use of it, the design -was there but the substance had altered. However meticulously he might -labor perfecting the model, making no conscious effort to improve upon -it, he could not prevent a transmutation from taking place. This is -apparent even in _The Three Impostors_ for, even though the pattern is -recognizable, and even though it is studied and carefully contrived, -there are elements, so strong is the triumph of mind over manner, that -make it peculiarly Machen’s own and not Stevenson’s. - -The new book, Machen says, was born in a phrase encountered in Charles -Whibley’s introduction to _Tristram Shandy_. Whibley described the work -as being “a picaresque of the mind.” And so Machen said to himself,“I -will write a Robinson Crusoe of the soul.” This was no mere decision; -it was, rather, a demonstration of the fact that there is an affinity -of the mind, some minds, for an idea, some ideas. _The Hill of Dreams_, -the picaresque of the mind, the Crusoe of the soul, was at the heart -of Machen’s Great Romance. It responded to a phrase for which it had a -natural affinity and so the Great Romance, _The Hill of Dreams_, was born. - -“It was,” wrote Machen, “to represent loneliness not of body on a desert -island, but loneliness of soul and mind and spirit in the midst of -myriads and myriads of men. I had some practical experience of this -state to help me: not altogether in vain had I been constrained in -Clarendon Road and to have my habitation in the tents of Notting Hill -Gate. I immediately marked down all these old experiences as a valuable -asset in the undertaking of my task: I knew what it was to live on a -little in a little room, what it meant to pass day after day, week after -week, month after month through the _inextricabilis terror_ of the London -streets, to tread a grey labyrinth whose path had no issue, no escape, -no end. I had known as a mere lad how terrible it was on a gloomy winter -evening to go out because a little room had become intolerable, to go out -walking through those multitudinous streets, to see the light of kindly -fires leaping on the walls, to see friendly faces welcoming father, or -husband, or brother, to hear laughter or a song sounding from within, -perhaps to catch half glimpses of the faces of the lovers as they looked -out, happy, into the dark night. All this had been my daily practice and -habit for a long while: I was qualified then, in a measure, to describe -the fate of a Robinson Crusoe cast on the desert island of the tremendous -and terrible London.” - -The writing of this book occupied Machen from the autumn of 1895 to the -spring of 1897. It went very slowly. For one thing, Machen discovered -that the style he had so carefully cultivated for the telling of the -improbable tale of _The Three Impostors_ had to be just as carefully -destroyed and every mannerism eradicated. He had become fluent in the -Stevensonian vein—now he found himself writing with uncertainty, nothing -flowed easily and naturally. His pen could not keep pace with his mind -and his mind was racing rapidly through the garden of Avallaunius in -far-off Gwent. For _The Hill of Dreams_ was to be about, if it was about -anything, a boy’s wanderings and imaginings in a mysterious place he had -found, or dreamed he had found, in the Roman ruins near Caerleon. - -Chapters were written and rewritten, his day’s output varied from -perhaps three lines to three folios. At last the book was finished in -the spring of 1897. He had been at it, quite steadily, for almost two -years, with a summer in Brittany in 1896, most of which he spent thinking -of the book lying untouched in his room in London. In March 1897 Grant -Richards wrote him to ask for his next manuscript. Mr. Richards, a new -publisher, and anxious, no doubt, to get off on the right foot, wanted -something “in the manner of _The Three Impostors_.” He got, instead, -_The Hill of Dreams_. Richards returned the book along with a paternal -letter pointing out to Machen the error of his ways and urging him not -to jeopardize his reputation by publishing such a book. Several other -publishers subsequently did the same and the book remained for years -as it was, still titled _The Garden of Avallaunius_, and still not -published. And then in 1907, after ten years, Grant Richards changed his -mind and published _The Garden of Avallaunius_, but he insisted also upon -changing the title on the plea, perhaps justified, that no one would -properly pronounce “Avallaunius.” It may be, however, that _The Garden of -Avallaunius_ did appear in print before the Richards edition. - -In the summer of 1901 Machen wrote to a friend, a Miss Brooke-Alder: “A -certain story, translated from the English and called _Le Grande Dieu -Pan_, is now appearing in a French review. Maeterlinck is extremely -interested in it and has sent a message to the author asking him to -forward any manuscripts in order that they also may be rendered into -French. I am sending a manuscript called _The Garden of Avallaunius_ -which I finished four years ago, and if the great man chances to like it, -I suppose I shall have the curious fate of finding myself a French rather -than an English author.” - -Whether or not this translation and publication ever took place, I have -been unable to discover. However, the Richards edition of 1907 was the -first of almost half a score that have continued to be largely out of -print up until the present time. - - -4 - -Well, then, the Great Romance was completed in 1897—and they would have -none of it. And so it remained for another ten years, more or less, in -one of the spacious compartments of the Japanese bureau. - -Machen was, at this time, living the literary life, not quite as it was -lived by the swish young men who were then breaking into print and whose -names appeared in the more sensational evening papers and on court writs, -but still, it was the literary life and still—a noble profession. - -The Japanese bureau, its cubbyholes and compartments jammed with notes -and notebooks and scraps of paper, had yielded up many tales and articles -that appeared in this or that journal. Machen had already written _The -Holy Things_, _Psychology_, _Witchcraft_, _The Rose Garden_, _The -Ceremony_, _Midsummer_ and many other. He was becoming well known as the -author of a number of rather strange, rather clever stories. Sometimes -they were called “nasty” or “disagreeable” stories by outraged critics -who were quite likely to view them with an eye jaundiced by too careful -perusal of _The Yellow Book_. The Keynote Series sold quite well and -Machen’s _The Great God Pan_ and _The Inmost Light_ in Volume V, _The -Three Impostors_ and _The Iron Maid_ in Volume XIX had wide circulation. -_The Memoirs of Casanova_, published in the same year as _Pan_, though -limited to a thousand copies, brought him some reputation and recognition -on a more scholarly plane. Still, he made no fortune on these books, -then—or ever. And that was beginning to matter. He was even moved, in -1895, to enter an American short story competition. His entry, _The Red -Hand_, written for the competition, won no prize but it did appear in the -Christmas issue of _Chapman’s Magazine_ for that year. - -It was a quiet life. He had, in those days, few friends and few -acquaintances. His life was in reading books and in writing them. -That no one seemed to be publishing them was, for the moment, quite -unimportant. He describes his daily routine in _Things Near and Far_: -“Every morning after breakfast I read over what I have written the night -before, correcting here and there and everywhere, generally convinced -that the passage which had pleased me so much as I wrote it was, after -all, not magnificent. I took the bulldog for a walk from twelve to one, -and another half hour walk in the afternoon. Then two cups of tea without -milk or sugar at four, and the rigor of the literary game till seven, and -again after dinner till eleven. It was a life of routine, and all its -adventures, difficulties, defeats and rare triumphs were those of the -written page.” - -This was the literary life far removed from the rarified atmosphere of -the Cafe Royale and merry, mad circle of poets and artists of the Dowson, -Beardsley, Conder, Crackenthorpe set who were usually contemplating Soho -or suicide or both. It was the literary life of a recluse, of a Dyson, or -of the brilliant monologist of _Hieroglyphics_. In the course of these -long and thoughtful evenings when the pen scratched and the bulldog -dozed and page followed page into the cubbyholes or into oblivion, -Machen formulated many of the theories of art and literature which were -expounded by the recluse of Barnsbury. Writing of this period some years -later Machen says that literature “is one of the many ways of escaping -from life, to be classified with Alpine Climbing, Chess, Methylated -Spirit and Prussic Acid.” But this was written in 1915 or thereabouts, in -1897 he was less inclined to a mellow cynicism. For it was then not only -an escape from life, but a means, perhaps “the only means of realizing -and shewing life, or, at least certain aspects of life.” - -This preoccupation with literature extended even to his employment, -for through 1898 Machen worked on the staff of “Literature,” a weekly -paper published by the Times. This seems to have been not too happy an -association, for he says he had been harassed and worried for a whole -year in the office of “Literature,” and that he was in high spirits in -May 1899 when he was released from this bondage. - -Besides, there were a great many important things to be done. There was, -of course, another Great Romance. Like its predecessors this one did not -quite come off, or it was never quite finished. What there was of it was -eventually published as _The White People_. There were other irons on -the hearth, and one of these had been heated and re-heated many times -before; but it was never quite forged or beaten into shape. - -This is the story we know as _A Fragment of Life_. It is, in its present -state, a mere fragment of a great work. Machen had lived with the idea -for ten years or more, for the story was born in another tale published -in the Globe or the Gazette or some other paper in 1890 under the title -_The Resurrection of the Dead_, which was not quite what Machen intended -when he originally called it _Resurrectio Mortuorum_. - -This story is about a man who one day recovered his “ancestral -consciousness.” The idea had long fascinated Machen, perhaps because he -was forever on the verge of recovering his own “ancestral consciousness,” -or perhaps because he had never quite lost it. At any rate, it was always -close to him, it greatly influenced his daily life because he never -became used to the contrast between “raw London suburbs and the old gray -houses under the forest near the river” in Gwent. - -This, and _The White People_, seemed to have been of the greatest -importance to him. Neither was finished in that century—nor were they -ever completely finished. Yet in this time he wrote and completed one -of the best of his books, and one of the finest books of our time. -_Hieroglyphics_ was finished in 1899 and it joined the fragments and the -beginnings of the Great Romances that had been written and put aside in -that repository of Great Romances—the Japanese bureau. - -Of _Hieroglyphics_ we shall have much to say later, for it is of greater -significance in this twentieth century than in the nineteenth century in -which it was written. - - -5 - -Now we are come to the end of the year 1899—the turn of the century. -This was, as has been previously noted, an intensely time-conscious -era. The birth of the twentieth century was awaited with perhaps more -interest and excitement than had attended similar events in the past. -For one thing, everyone was conscious of the enlightenment of their age, -progress was almost as much a byword in the Nineties as it became in -the Nineteen-Twenties and the early Nineteen-Forties. And, of course, -there was the minor satisfaction of knowing that it was quite likely -to be the only turn of the century within the memory of living man. -Prophets of doom had their say and their day along with those who -proclaimed new glory and new heights and new horizons. It was, to be -sure, a well-heralded and eagerly awaited event. That a mere clock should -unemotionally tick so momentous a second! - -The more memorable men of the notorious Nineties were, for the most part, -either dead or dying, visibly decaying or decently interred. They passed, -most of them, mercifully before the significant second struck. - -This was a year of great significance in the life of Arthur Machen. For -in this year “a great sorrow which had long been threatened fell upon me; -I was once more alone.” And in another place, he writes, “... and then my -life was dashed into fragments. I ceased to write. I travelled.” - -Again and again he refers to this event, in his two autobiographical -books and in several of the forewords and prefaces he later wrote for -re-issues of his earlier books. Always the references are veiled in -mystery or followed by a recital of strange experiences and a cloud of -mysticism that conceals, as it was intended, the shattering event. - -What was this event? There are a few who know, but they are not likely -to reveal what they know. As recently as 1947, less than a year before -he died, Machen wrote in a letter, “Even now it is painful to recall. I -would rather you did not refer to it.” - -Since this is not intended as a biography, nor a Life, we shall not -pursue the matter. There is this much more to be said, that may give some -clue to the events of the year 1900. Machen wrote in _Things Near and -Far_, - -“I can set down the facts, or rather such of them as I remember, but I -am quite confident that I am not, in the real sense of the word, telling -the truth; that is, I am not giving any sense of the very extraordinary -atmosphere in which I lived in the year 1900, of the curious and -indescribable impression which the events of these days made upon me; the -sense that everything had altered, that everything was very strange, that -I lived in daily intercourse with people who would have been impossible, -unimaginable, a year before; that the figure of the world was changed -utterly for me—of all this I can give no true picture dealing as I am -with what I called facts. I maintained long ago in _Hieroglyphics_ that -facts as facts do not signify anything or communicate anything; and I -am sure that I was right, when I confess that, as a purveyor of exact -information, I can make nothing of the year 1900. But avoiding the facts, -I have got a great deal nearer the truth in the last Chapter of _The -Secret Glory_, which describes the doings and feelings of two young -people who are paying their first visit to London. _I_ never bolted up to -town with the house master’s red haired parlour maid; but truth must be -told in figures.” - - -6 - -Back in 1880, while his family were making plans for him, plans involving -the Royal College of Surgeons, Machen used to walk to the Pontypool Road -station to pick up the London papers. On his way back he would rest for -awhile, (it was an eight mile walk) under the hedges and turn to the -theatrical pages which seemed to him by far the most interesting parts of -the paper, and the stage the most fascinating part of the Fabulous City -of the West. And so, in a sense, he followed the bright lights to London, -and then, having arrived there, set to work in the dark caves (HERE DWELL -PUBLISHERS) of Chandos Street, Leicester Square and Catharine Street. - -There is not the slightest bit of evidence that Machen ever thought -longingly of footlights and grease paint or, for that matter, that he -ever even thought of them at all after he arrived in London. Yet here -in 1901 he dons buskins or whatever and prepares to tread the boards, -and in a travelling company. His first engagements were with the Benson -Shakesperean Company and with them he travelled the length and breadth of -England for several season. He seems to have enjoyed it all tremendously, -although it does not seem to have affected or influenced his later work. -As a matter of fact, with the exception of a brief chapter and a half in -one of his autobiographical books, he does not refer to his career on the -stage at any great length. Sufficient unto the days.... - -And then one day, perhaps when the trees were beginning to put forth, -Machen resumed the London Adventure. In 1902, and without fanfare of any -sort, Grant Richards brought out a remarkable book with a strange title. -It was called _Hieroglyphics_, and it was subtitled _A Note Upon Ecstasy -in Literature_, by Arthur Machen. The book was born, as so many books -are, while the author was reviewing books for a weekly journal. It was -written in the happy period following his release from “the detestable -office life” and as a perfectly normal reaction against it, and it -remains to this day one of the best, and the least known and the most -sadly neglected books of English criticism. - -A noted publisher once told Machen that _Hieroglyphics_ had “influenced -the whole standpoint of English literary criticism.” One wishes it had! -At any rate, Machen read proofs of the book while playing in “The Varsity -Belle,” and he read reviews of it while playing in “Paolo and Francesca.” -And then, when _Hieroglyphics_ seemed unlikely to set Fleet Street afire, -or even to start a small blaze in one of the University debating clubs, -Machen began once more to write and to publish. - -His old friend, A. E. Waite, a distinguished writer in the field of the -occult and the mystic, began to publish Machen’s stories. Waite, who -was also manager for Horlick’s Malted Milk, had managed to persuade -the malted milk magnate to sponsor or subsidize a magazine. This was -certainly the strangest commercial venture on record, for the magazine -published material concerning the occult and mystical topics that -appealed to Waite. Horlick was, presumably, happy to see his name on the -cover and on the masthead of the magazine. It was in this esoteric little -journal that some of Machen’s work first appeared ... _The White People_, -_A Fragment of Life_ and, at long last, _The Garden of Avallaunius_. - -Machen remarks, somewhere, that he did not know that the sale of Malted -Milk was unfavorably affected by the publication of these tales. As a -matter of fact, the stories were quite well received. Such things get -around and, in 1906, Grant Richards collected the best of them, plus -_Pan_, _The Inmost Light_, _The Red Hand_ and published them in a book -called _The House of Souls_. Richards had changed his mind about Machen, -but apparently with reservations, for in 1906 another Machen book, _Dr. -Stiggins_, appeared, but under the device of a little-known publisher. -This book is, in effect, an amplification of some views set forth in the -Preface to _The House of Souls_. Mr. Richards wouldn’t touch this, but he -did bring out _The Hill of Dreams_ in the following year. - -And then there was another change in Machen’s life. He fell into -journalism ... something that had once been devoutly wished for by the -dear, dead folk of Caerleon. - - - - -_Chapter Five_ - -THE LEGEND OF A LEGEND - - -1 - -When the Allied armies achieved the break-through at Saint Lo some few -years ago in that war we call Second, our armored columns fanned out -over the Brittany peninsula and thrust deep into the river valleys of -France. Most of us watched the drive for Paris, shook our heads over that -nasty business at Avranches, and breathed more freely when Paris fell. -From then on it was largely a matter of following, as closely as the -security blackout permitted, Patton’s progress toward the Rhine and the -star-shaped forts at Metz. - -Few of us were then aware of the column under Hodges that began first to -probe, then to thrust northward into Belgium. At the time it was briefly -noted that our push to the Belgian border was even more rapid than the -German drive southward in 1940. And so our entry into and beyond Mons -passed almost unnoticed. Even the Germans were not too well aware of it, -apparently, for it was outside Mons, you will recall, that German tanks -were waved on by American MPs and obligingly clanked into bivouac areas -with the General Shermans and the half-tracks of the American First Army. - -There were, if I remember correctly, and I am sure that I do, one or two -references to the Angel of Mons incident of the last war, but these were -merely notes in passing. The mere mention of Mons meant Machen to me, and -I suppose that, like many another Machenite, I waited with something like -bated breath for a sign of some sort, or a sequel to the legend that had -been born just thirty years ago that very month of September. - -And, I suppose, devout Machenites the world over re-read in that -September of 1944, the invented tale of the wonderful Welshman, the -tale that was at first called simply, _The Bowmen_ and which came to be -called, by popular demand, _The Angels of Mons_. - -It was one of the strangest stories of that first World War and a story -pure and simple it was. But it so captured and fired the imagination -of all Englishmen, and of the world, that people were unwilling for it -to remain merely a magical tale by a Welshman writing strange tales in -the city of London. People must have their miracles, and so Machen’s -invention of the Bowmen became one of the hallowed legends of the war. -You may remember the story, for you must have heard it, in one version or -another, even if you had never even heard of Arthur Machen. - -_It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand_, the tale begins. -The English were in danger of annihilation. At a particularly important -point in the line the German guns had thundered and shrieked all morning. -Finally, their numbers greatly reduced, the English saw a tremendous -host moving against them. German infantry—as far as the eye could see. -Well—the English fought on. One of the riflemen, who happened to know -Latin and other useless things, recalled a motto he had once seen in -a restaurant, _Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius_, which motto he said, -uttered or shouted. As he did so he felt “something between a shudder -and a shock” and behold! the roar of battle died down to a gentle murmur -and a great voice and a shout louder than the thunder cried, “Array, -Array, Array!” This was followed by other battlecries in English and in -French—cries to Saint George. And then he saw, “beyond the trench, a -long line of shapes, with a shining about them. They were like men who -drew the bow,” and their arrows flew toward the German host. Who, as it -happened, were stopped in their tracks. - -Now this invention served its purpose, no less than any inspirational -tale or legend or truth or half-truth. But it became a matter of great -controversy because, as it happened, Arthur Machen, when questioned about -it, blithely revealed that there was not an ounce of truth in it. The -story was pure invention, a piece of fiction which was not, he added, -entirely to his satisfaction as a writer. - -This discrediting of a miracle soon got abroad, and there was a great -hue and cry and indeed a notable hullabaloo about the matter. Machen was -taken to task ... the clergy thundered against him and many a pulpit -was pounded by many a pudgy ecclesiastical fist. Gentle ladies began to -produce “evidence” that the event had actually taken place—that they had -had it from a soldier who was there. A great many witnesses, once or -twice removed, were found and quoted. The controversy grew and with it -the legend. - -As for Machen, he finally wrote a preface to a new American edition -to _The Bowmen_, now called _The Angels of Mons_, published by G. P. -Putnam’s Sons in 1915. In it he wrote: - -“This was in last August, or to be more precise, in the last Sunday of -last August. There were terrible things to be read on that hot Sunday -morning between meat and mass. It was in the _Weekly Dispatch_ that I saw -the awful account of the retreat from Mons. I no longer recollect the -details, but I have not forgotten the impression that was then made in my -mind. I seemed to see a furnace of torment and death and agony and terror -seven times heated, and in the midst of the burning was the British -Army. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it and yet aureoled in it, -scattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred and forever glorious. -So I saw our men with a shining about them, so I took these thoughts with -me to church, and, I am sorry to say, was making up a story in my head -while the Deacon was singing the Gospel.” Well—that is the genesis of -_The Bowmen_ or, if you insist, _The Angels of Mons_. - -It was murmured and hinted and suggested and whispered in all sorts -of quarters, Machen says, that before he wrote the tale he had “heard -something.” The most decorative of these whisperings was this: “I -know for a fact that the whole thing was given him in typescript by a -lady-in-waiting.” And, presumably, as is the custom with all popular -legends, most everyone had a cousin or a brother-in-law who had been -there. By the time the story had been reprinted in parish periodicals and -spread by word of pulpit, it began to seem to Machen that he had failed -in the art of letters. There began to be variations on the theme—such -as one in which the German dead were found to be punctured with arrow -wounds. The occultists next had a go at it, then the scientists began to -talk learnedly of “mass hallucination.” - -The legend was then translated into several languages including, at any -rate, the French. The shining figure of St. George became, variously, -St. Michael the Archangel and St. Joan of Arc. The Germans, for security -reasons no doubt, offered no opinion or explanation of their abrupt -halt or of the tale. However, as Machen observes, “Other versions of -the story appeared in which a cloud interposed between the attacking -Germans and the defending British. In some examples the cloud served to -conceal our men from the advancing enemy; in others, it disclosed shining -shapes which frightened the horses of the pursuing German cavalry. St. -George, it will be noted, has disappeared—he persisted some time longer -in certain Roman Catholic variants—and there are no more bowmen, no -more arrows. But so far angels are not mentioned; yet they are ready to -appear, and I think I have detected the machine which brought them into -the story. - -“In _The Bowmen_ my imagined soldier saw ‘a long line of shapes, with a -shining about them.’ And Mr. A. P. Sinnett, writing in the May (1915) -issue of _The Occult Review_, reporting what he had heard, states that -‘those who could see said they saw ‘a row of shining beings’ between -the two armies.’ Now I conjecture that the word ‘shining’ is the link -between my tale and the derivative from it. In the popular view shining -and benevolent supernatural beings are angels and nothing else, and so, I -believe, the Bowmen of my story have become ‘the Angels of Mons.’ In this -shape they have been received with respect and credence everywhere, or -almost everywhere.” - -Pamphlets were published, as is usual in such cases. The Theosophists -published an “answer to Mr. Arthur Machen.” Another worker in the -field collected “numerous Confirmations, Testimonies, Evidences of the -Wounded” and other materials in an “authentic record” of the event. The -furore died out after the war and the Angels of Mons rested in legend -with only sporadic appearances in the pages of the Sunday supplements. -Within a few years the legend had graduated to the sphere of science or -pseudo-scientific study. - - -2 - -In 1930 there was published in London a book called _The Mystery and -Lore of Apparitions, with Some Account of Ghosts, Spectres, Phantoms and -Boggerts in Early Times_ by Harold Shaylor, an investigator in various -fields of the marvelous. - -The Frontispiece of this comfortably plump volume is “from a Drawing -by A. Forestier, reproduced by kind permission from the Illustrated -London News.” The sketch shows eight or nine soldiers in a trench in -the foreground firing at advancing hordes of Germans. To the right and -standing above the parapet of the trench are three gigantic bowmen, -helmeted and with swords at their sides, launching arrows (visible in the -sketch) at the Germans. A fourth bow and part of an arm are visible at -the extreme right. The Germans are falling in great numbers, at least one -is visibly pierced by an arrow. - -Within the book, among the many marvels, we find this: - -“Considerable discussion took place in the Press during the autumn of -1914 and the early part of 1915, with respect to the phenomena said to -have been seen at the Battle of Mons. - -“The publications of these stories brought forth many others of a similar -character, the veracity of which appears to be unquestioned, and it will -be found interesting to compare them with some of the accounts of phantom -armies told in the preceding pages” (of Mr. Shaylor’s collection). - -There follows then a story told by a non-commissioned officer who was -in the retreat from Mons on or about August 28th, 1914. The weather was -hot and clear and, between eight and nine in the evening, this officer -was with a group of others on guard duty. An officer came up and asked -if they had seen anything “startling.” Two men were sent forward to -see if they could discover what the officer meant. They returned with -nothing untoward to report. The officer then came back and, “taking me -and some others a few yards away, showed us the sky. I could see quite -plainly in mid-air,” says the non-commissioned officer, “a strange light -which seemed to be quite distinctly outlined and was not a reflection -of the moon, nor were there any clouds in the neighborhood. The light -became brighter and I could see quite distinctly three shapes, one in -the center having what looked like outspread wings, the other two were -not so large, but were quite plainly distinct from the center one. They -appeared to have a long, loose, hanging garment of a golden tint and they -were above the German line facing us. We stood watching them for about -three-quarters of an hour. All the men with me saw them, and other men -came up from groups who also told us they had seen the same thing. I -remember the day, because it was a day of terrible anxiety for us. Later -on the Uhlans attacked us and we drove them back with heavy losses. -It was after this engagement, when we were dog-tired, that the vision -appeared to us.” - -Thus the story of the non-commissioned officer as told to Mr. Thompson. -Another account of spectral figures is recounted by a private of the -Lancashire Fusiliers. He is supposed to have given an account of his -experience to a Sister in a hospital. “It’s true, Sister, we all saw it. -First there was a sort of yellow mist like, sort of rising before the -Germans as they came to the top of the hill. Come on like a solid wall -they did. The next minute comes this funny cloud of light and when it -clears off, there’s a tall man with yellow hair in golden armour, on a -white horse, holding up his sword and his mouth open. The men knew it was -St. George. Hadn’t they seen him with his sword on every ‘quid’ they’d -ever seen?” - -Thus the Lancashire Fusilier in Mr. Thompson’s 1930 account. Machen -encountered him just as the Putnam edition was on the presses in 1915. -In a Postscript to that edition of _The Bowmen_, Machen refers to an -article called _The Angelic Leaders_ written by a Miss Phyllis Campbell. -Miss Campbell relates that she was a nurse in France where there came -into her care a Lancashire Fusilier (the same one presumably, mentioned -by Thompson). He said he had seen St. George on a white horse, leading -the British at Vitry-le-Francaise, when the Allies turned. His story was -corroborated by a wounded R.F.A. man who was present. The R.F.A. man said -he saw a tall man with yellow hair, in golden armour, on a white horse, -holding his sword up, and his mouth open (as if, comments Machen, he was -saying, “Come on, boys! I’ll put the kybosh on the devils!”) This figure -was bareheaded and the R.F.A. man and the Fusilier knew that he was St. -George, because he was exactly like the figure of St. George on the -sovereigns. “Hadn’t they seen him with his sword on every ‘quid’ they’d -ever had?” - -The difference between having a quid and seeing one may be significant. -At any rate, Machen makes a rather telling point concerning his -Lancashire Fusilier. The soldiers are said to have known it was St. -George by his exact likeness to the figure on the sovereign. This -strikes Machen as being odd because the apparition is described as being -bareheaded and in armour while the St. George on the sovereign or quid is -just the reverse, since he is quite naked except for a short cape flying -from the shoulders and a helmet. So—the evidence of the quid they’d -either had or seen scarcely presents sufficient identification of the -saint. - -A final vision is presented in C. J. Thompson’s book—this one by a -soldier in an artillery battery in a letter dated June 26th, 1915. He -describes a being like an angel with outstretched wings surrounded by -a luminous cloud which appeared between the advancing Germans and the -British. The artillery man further states, “with regard to the stories -which you have heard about angels and spirits, they may be right but of -course you must remember that trench work is mind-straining as well as -nerve-racking and that may account for a lot of these stories.” - -And indeed, Mr. Thompson ascribes most of these visitations, visions and -miracles to nerve strain or mass hallucination. - -It will be noted that the legend had, by this time, divorced itself -completely from its creator. Mr. Thompson makes no mention of Arthur -Machen, either as the reporter or creator of this astonishing event. Nor -do Thompson’s _Acknowledgments_ or _Index_ contain any mention of Machen, -Arthur; or of his published works. Of course the tale of _The Bowmen_ was -first published in a newspaper, the London _Evening News_ for September -29, 1914, for which paper Machen was then a reporter. Mr. Machen may have -been included in Mr. Thompson’s inclusive word “Press.” - - -3 - -However, the curious turnings and twistings of legend are not yet -finished. The miracles of 1915 became the mass hallucinations of 1930, -and the creator of the slight story of _The Bowmen_ had been quite -forgotten in the furore attending each of them. But by far the most -curious circumstance in the whole curious affair is contained in the -most recent, to my knowledge, mention of the Mons legend. It occurs in -an article by Meyer Berger, entitled _Legends of the War_, published in -_Harper’s Bazaar_ in January, 1944. - -Mr. Berger is an extremely competent correspondent for the _New York -Times_. As a matter of fact, it was out of respect for Mr. Berger’s worth -as a correspondent that I saved from salvage the magazine in which his -article appeared. Early in the spring of 1944 I was cleaning out the -winter’s accumulation of magazines and newspapers and readying them for -the next paper pick-up. The baroque _Bazaar_ is not, usually, to my -taste, but seeing Berger’s name over an article I placed the magazine to -one side and took it up to read some nights later. - -The article concerns _legends_ of the war. Mr. Berger remarks, sensibly, -that war nurtures in the soldier some dormant sense that opens the door -to superstition, to mysticism, and to visions of the supernatural. He -then outlines the various legends of the White Lady on various fronts, -the Christ in Flanders legend and, of course, the Angel of Mons. Mr. -Berger uses the singular, and so one supposes, there is an Angel of Mons -legend as well. - -Mr. Berger outlines the legend briefly, explaining that there was no -earthly reason for the Jerries to have stopped the pursuit, but stop they -did—and the wherefore of this astonishing halt forms the basis for the -story. - -“Arthur Machen said later,” continues the Berger article, “that he -conceived the legend of the Angel of Mons as he daydreamed in church over -the news of the German’s miraculous halt.” This is not quite what Machen -said, of course. Machen explained that he conceived the story of the -Bowmen as he brooded in church over the news of the British _retreat_. -Berger goes on to relate that when Machen’s story appeared in the London -_Evening News_ as fiction it was, to his (Machen’s) astonishment, taken -up and spread all over the world as something that actually happened. -“There is no reason,” remarks Berger, “to question his explanation.” - -On the other hand Berger spoke in France with Tommies who swore that, -Machen or no Machen, they saw the Angel at Mons, though not as he -described it in his piece. “The Machen story said that when the British -were hardest pressed at Mons, there appeared in the heavens, above -the battlefield, an unusual cloud formation. This changed into a giant -likeness of St. George, flanked by rows of medieval English bowmen whose -flights of arrows killed virtually all the German horde. When the bodies -were examined there was no sign of a wound.” - -Whatever this may be, it is _not_ the Machen story. Machen has no cloud, -no giant St. George ... only “a long line of shapes with a shining about -them.” Mr. Berger also talked with a Sergeant Coombs of the King’s Royal -Rifles at an English base hospital in Trouville. Coombs swore he had seen -the Angel of Mons and Berger had reason to believe him, “if only because -he wore the Mons Star.” Coombs describes “a kind of triple cloud” ... a -large center cloud with two clouds at either side. They had no particular -shape at first but they gradually became a great angel ... “the two -smaller clouds were enormous wings, and the angel spread its wings as if -it were signalling the jerries to stop where they were.” - -This seraphic semaphore is a refinement that had not previously -appeared in any of the many versions of the legend. One of the legend’s -variations, writes Berger, “has a faintly humorous side.” It appeared in -the _North American Review_ in August, 1915. - -“It told of a soldier, hard-pressed with the rest at Mons and ready to -drop, who found himself murmuring, ‘Adest Anglis Sanctus Georgius.’ He -knew no Latin and he didn’t know what moved him to the utterance. Even -as it came to his lips, he recalled that he had seen it lettered on a -plate in a vegetarian restaurant in London, before he was called up -to service. It means, roughly, ‘May St. George be a present help to -England.’ Something like an electric shock convulsed the soldier and -his shock-packed ears dimly heard men around him shouting, ‘St. George -for Merrie England.’ From that point, the story followed the Machen -pattern—archers appeared in the sky and the Germans dropped by thousands.” - -Now this version, with the “faintly humorous side,” which appeared -according to Mr. Berger in the _North American Review_ in August, -1915, _is_ the Machen story. Whether or not the North American Review -version was written by Machen I have been unable to discover. There -are differences, of course, even in the very condensed portion offered -by Berger. The _North American’s_ soldier knew no Latin ... he merely -recited, incorrectly at that, and at a very propitious moment, a motto -he had seen in a vegetarian restaurant. Machen’s soldier, although he -had apparently patronized that very same vegetarian restaurant, did know -Latin “and other useless things.” - -And so the legend of the legend of the Angel or Angels of Mons continues -to grow out of Arthur Machen’s tale of _The Bowmen_. - - -4 - -In 1915, possibly because he was then writing _Far Off Things_ and was -in a mood reminiscent, Arthur Machen declared that he had failed in the -art of literature. Most good writers have felt, at one time or another, -a similar sense of failure—or at least of mild frustration. Presumably -they have a particular instance in mind, certainly Machen had his. It was -simply because his tale of the Bowmen had been accepted as truth. - -Now it may seem to many a triumph of art that one’s work is held to be -so life-like and so real that it is generally accepted as the truth, the -whole truth and nothing but the truth. Our realists, for example, are -said to feel that way. They consider the verdict of veracity the highest -critical success. They have mirrored life and that, so help them, was -what they had set out to do! - -Machen felt differently about it. His invention, his creation, was not -only accepted as being true, but his inventiveness and creativeness -were denied him. His magic had been judged mere journalism and that, to -Machen, or to any other creative artist, meant failure. However this may -be, Machen did not fail in his other legends of the war. Possibly because -he called some of them legends—perhaps because the public felt their -“willing suspension of disbelief” already supported too great a load—at -any rate Machen’s further inventions were permitted to remain inventions -and he was accorded a considerable, if not fanatical, amount of praise. - -These other tales, _The Soldier’s Rest_, _The Monstrance_, _The Dazzling -Light_, had in them the very elements that should have appealed to those -who make legends of inventions. They offered much in the way of tradition -blended with mysticism, a mixture that should have drawn credence from a -much less tradition-loving people than the British. Perhaps there was too -much mysticism in these tales—anything less subtle than a warrior saint -might not appeal to the Church Militant. - -But surely _Drake’s Drum_, or the tale called _Munitions of War_ had -the stuff of legend in them, and tradition too. Layed on, as a matter -of fact, with the trowel. _Drake’s Drum_ should have become one of the -glorious legends of the sea-girt Britons, the race of mariners. This is -the tale that relates the events that took place off Scapa Flow, when the -British Navy awaited the German High Fleet in November, 1918 to accept -their surrender. There were rumours that the Germans might possibly fight -and the crews of the British ships stood at “Battle Stations.” Then, as -the first German ship appeared through the mist, a drum began to beat in -the “Royal Oak.” And it beat and it rolled from then until the entire -German Fleet was encircled and helpless. Of course the unauthorized -drumming was investigated, but with all hands at Battle Stations, and -especially upon such a momentous occasion, it was hardly possible, and -highly improper, that there might be anyone aboard ship with the time and -the inclination to beat a drum. However, neither drum nor drummer were -located and there was no choice but to believe that what everyone had -been hearing was Drake’s Drum—“the audible manifestation of the spirit -of the Great Sea Captain, present at this hour of tremendous victory of -Britain on the Sea.” - -Now this is certainly a tale that should have appealed to the Britons, as -indeed it did, but they refused to raise it to the status of a legend. -Then too, the story appeared in 1919, by which time England had less -urgent need of legends. In any case, the perfidious Teutons had by that -time scuttled their ships at Scapa Flow. - -_Munitions of War_, a story published in 1915, also has the stuff of -legend, but somehow it never caught, never quite made the grade. Oh, it -was successful enough as a story, but it never became a legend. Which, -on the whole, pleased its creator. It tells of a traveller who went to a -seaport in the West of England and how he was awakened in the night to -hear vast oaths and burly voices heaving and ho-ing as they loaded ships. -The language used by these stevedores had an other-century quality and -the watcher in the night could only conclude that these men had loaded -Nelson’s ships before Trafalgar. Had this story been written in 1942 -or 1943 instead of 1915 it might have been printed in the “Welders and -Steam-Fitters Gazette,” or some other house organ, and it may even have -been legendized by England’s defense workers and winners of the coveted -“E” award—or its British equivalent. - - -5 - -One of the longest, and by far the best, of Machen’s stories of the war -period is one that made no appeal whatever to the legend-loving instincts -of a people at war but which contained, as we may see in this post-war -year of ’48, something of the nature of prophecy. - -_The Terror_ was first published in 1917. It was obviously inspired by -the reception accorded the tale of the Bowmen combined with more of -Machen’s creative magic. In the opening chapter Machen refers to the -rumours and legends current in the early years of the war—the Bowmen, -and the Russians who traveled through Britain by night on their way to -some great push or other. These absurdities, Machen points out, depended -upon the newspaper for their dissemination. The events described in _The -Terror_ had been held in strictest secrecy and no word had been given to -the Press. For reasons of security all events connected with the Terror -had been hushed up. - -However, continued Machen, in a “now-it-can-be-told manner,” these were -the reasons why “almost two years of war had been completed before the -motionless English line began to stir.” The story of the Terror is, then, -purported to be the secret of the long inactivity of the British Army. - -Things were happening all over England ... very strange things. An -airman had been killed under mysterious circumstances. The circumstances -appeared to have been obvious enough—he seemed to have been attacked by -a flock of birds, a rather mysterious matter in itself. There were other -happenings here and there, and rumors of many more. After a few strange -events had been reported in local papers there were no further accounts, -and sometimes there was no local paper thereafter. Few people would have -connected these events in any case. An airman is killed. A child chases -a butterfly and is seen alive no more. There are strange stories about -munitions works and fiery clouds and bees and horses and dogs. But none -of these may be written up in the papers. - -Well, at long last and with Machen’s usual circumambience and magic the -story reveals that the mysterious deaths and strange events are being -caused by animals—by cows and sheep and dogs and horses and bees and -birds and moths. The explanation? Machen writes— - -“... The source of the great revolt of the beasts is to be sought in a -much subtler region of inquiry. I believe that the subjects revolted -because the king abdicated. Man has dominated beasts throughout the ages, -the spiritual has reigned over the rational through the peculiar quality -and grace of spirituality that men possess, that makes a man to be that -which he is. And while he maintained this power and grace, I think it -is pretty clear that between him and the animals there was a certain -treaty and alliance. There was supremacy on the one hand, and submission -on the other.... ‘Spiritual’ signifies the royal prerogative of man, -differentiating him from the beast. For long ages he had been putting -off this royal robe ... he had declared, again and again, that he is not -spiritual, but rational, that is, the equal of the beasts over whom he -was once sovereign. He has vowed that he is not Orpheus but Caliban. But -the beasts ... perceived that the throne was vacant—not even friendship -was possible between them and the self-deposed monarch. If he were not -king he was a sham, an impostor, a thing to be destroyed.” - -But before these mysteries are resolved there is much talk of German -spies, of mysterious rays, of all sorts of things that attempt to link -the chain of horrors with the Germans. And in the course of these -attempts to implicate the Germans in the Terror, Machen creates several -hypotheses which seemed the very stuff of fiction in 1917—but which in -our time must seem like prophecy. - -It was in 1944 that the Viking Press issued a volume of its Portable -Library devoted to _Six Novels of the Supernatural_. Machen’s tale of -_The Terror_ was one of the six. Thus it happens that I re-read _The -Terror_ at about the time our forces were capturing the platforms -from which the robot bombs were launched at London. Now _The Terror_ -has always pleased me as a tale, a diversion and, as with most of -Machen’s magic, something to think about when the world is quiet and -mysterious—say a midnight in October, or three o’clock of an August -afternoon. Nothing is inconceivable at such times, I think, and anything -can happen—or seem to happen. A long, long look at a tree or a hedge or -a hillside might give rise to disturbing thoughts—and one often finds -oneself looking hastily away before something actually _does_ happen. - -But to return to _The Terror_. I had read it several times before and -I thought I knew it quite well. But reading it in 1944 it seemed quite -new. I had not remembered some things, perhaps because they seemed only -incidental to the plot. They were the sort of thing one skipped over -rapidly to see what would happen next, or when and where the Terror would -strike again. - -Well along into the story a Mr. Merrit, one of Machen’s more talkative -characters, is explaining to a group of friends that “the Terror” is all -part of a German plot, that there are, indeed, Germans established in -England who are doing these things. And this, according to Merrit, is how -it was done: - -“The scheme had been prepared years before, some thought soon after -the Franco-Prussian War. Moltke had seen that the invasion of England -presented very great difficulties. The matter was constantly in -discussion in the inner military and high political circles, and the -general trend of opinion in these quarters was that at the best, the -invasion of England would involve Germany in the gravest difficulties, -and leave France in a position of the _tertius gaudens_. This was the -state of affairs when a very high Prussian personage was approached by -the Swedish professor, Huvelius.” - -Professor Huvelius, according to Merrit (or Machen) was an extraordinary -man. He was personally an amiable individual who gave every penny he -owned to the poor, who dissipated his salary on charity and kindness. He -starved himself in order to help the needy. And he wrote a book called -_De Facinore Humane_, which book proved the infinite corruption of the -human race. - -The amiable Professor preached a cynical philosophy, the main tenets of -which have a familiar sound. He held that human misery was due, by and -large, to the mistaken notion that man was naturally well-disposed and -kindly. Murderers, thieves and other abominable creatures are created -by the false pretense and foolish credence of human virtue. And he goes -on to say that kings and the rulers of people could decrease the sum -of human misery to a vast extent by acting on the doctrine of human -wickedness. - -“War,” says the mild Professor, “which is one of the worst of evils, will -always continue to exist. But a wise king will desire a brief rather than -a lengthy war, a short evil rather than a long evil. And this not from -the benignity of his heart towards his enemies, for we have seen that the -human heart is naturally malignant, but because he desires to conquer, -and to conquer easily, without a great expenditure of men or of treasure, -knowing that if he can accomplish this feat his people will love him and -his crown will be secure. So he will wage brief victorious wars, and not -only spare his own nation, but the nation of the enemy, since in a short -war the loss is less on both sides than in a long war. And so from evil -will come good.” - -This philosophy sounds more and more familiar as Merrit goes on to -expound what he knows of the works of “Professor Huvelius.” The wise -ruler will assume that the enemy is infinitely corruptible and infinitely -stupid, since all men are so. The ruler then makes friends in the very -council of his enemy and among the people of his enemy, bribing the -wealthy and offering opportunity for still greater wealth, and winning -the poor by swelling words. “For,” says the Professor, “it is the wealthy -who are greedy of wealth, while the people can be gained by talking to -them of liberty, their unknown god.” - -At any rate, this Huvelius sold his plan to the Germans. His philosophy -too, apparently, and presumably he donated the moneys thus obtained to -his favorite charity. The Germans accordingly proceeded to buy lands in -certain suitable places in England, secret excavations were made and in -a short time there was a subterranean Germany in the heart of England. -The Germans, having made themselves as secure as Crusoes, waited for “the -Day.” - -This, then, was the plot outlined by Machen as he carefully prepared -the background for his story. It seemed not too incredible in 1915 as -he worked on the book, for there were rumors even then of emplacements -ready for guns discovered by British troops in Belgium and in France, and -certain caves along the Aisne seemed to have been made ready for cannon. - -Now all this imagining in 1915 and 1917 comes pretty close to the events -of 1940. Whether the Germans had read Huvelius or Machen in the years of -the Long Armistice, or confined their reading to _Mein Kampf_, which -seems the more likely, they had certainly covered the ground from Eben -Emael to Quisling. - -At any rate, _The Terror_ is first rate reading at any time, and -certainly a Machen “must.” It is too lengthy to be included in the usual -bibliography—but it is readily available in Viking’s “Six Novels of the -Supernatural.” - - - - -_Chapter Six_ - -THE YELLOW BOOKS - - -1 - -It would be unflattering indeed to imply that Arthur Machen’s books -were quickly discarded by their owners, or that they had ever crowded, -in any considerable numbers, the shelves of the second-hand book shops. -Nevertheless it is a fact that for some years, especially in the late -Twenties and early Thirties, the shelves, counters and sidewalk tables of -Fourth Avenue were high-lighted for browsers by the bindings that blazed -forth the magic of Machen. - -[Illustration: SOME MACHEN ITEMS: Showing one of the famous Knopf “Yellow -Books,” title pages of Knopf edition and Pocket Book, Putnam’s 1915 -edition of “The Bowmen” and several rare items.] - -Mr. Alfred Knopf who undertook in the Twenties to introduce, or to -reintroduce, Arthur Machen to American readers elected, perhaps for -obvious reasons, to issue the odd-sized books in a bright yellow binding. -For this, as well as for his work in bringing Machen across the Atlantic, -Mr. Knopf is to be thanked; but whoever designed the books, having -specified an unmistakable color for the cloth binding, decided also upon -a dark blue paper label with gold lettering—a combination that became, in -a reasonably short time, completely indecipherable. There was, however, -no mistaking a Machen—even when it turned up in the darkest corner of -the most unassuming hole-in-the-wall in Fourth Avenue, Twelfth Street -or lower Lexington Avenue. The adept Arthurian merely looked for the -unmistakable yellow binding with its dark and indecipherable patch. It -must be admitted that the production manager or book designer for Knopf -planned better than he knew, for it seemed that time could not dull, -nor dirt disguise, nor grime diminish the yellow of those bindings. -The experienced browser could spot one at thirty feet in the dimmest -corner of the dingiest shop, sandwiched though it might be between _V. -V.’s Eyes_ and _The Conquest of Fear_ or buried under a pile of Edgar -Rice Burroughs’ Martian romances. A recent convert might, for a time, -respond to the lure of the yellow only to find, on closer inspection, -something about a eunuch by a man named Pettit, or an early Ben Hecht, -or some other ordinary book bound in yellow; but in time he learned to -distinguish that one especial hue. He came to know it, however faded, for -it seemed to fade predictably. - -Thus the yellow books issued by Knopf became the most eagerly -sought-after books along Fourth Avenue. It was not too long of course, -before they became scarce. Soon they were taken from tables and stacked -reverently on shelves, and before very long they were behind glass doors -or in the shelves behind the proprietor’s desk, or even in that holy of -holies—the back room. - -Today they have disappeared from Fourth Avenue. You may find, now -and then, one of the Martin Secker editions, or perhaps one of the -deluxe editions of the Heptameron—or even a set, fabulously priced, of -the Caerleon edition. For the most part, however, the book shops are -Machen-less, a condition that might be remedied, and profitably, by some -enterprising publisher, or even by Mr. Knopf. - -The House of Knopf, however, seems remarkably disinterested in its -valuable property, and a valuable property it is, for not only did the -series include almost all of the best of Machen, but almost every volume -contained a preface or a foreword written especially for these editions -by Mr. Machen. These comparatively recent Machen items are worth a volume -of their own, a proposition warmly advanced by Mr. Joseph Vodrey but -received coolly enough, thus far at least, by Mr. Knopf. - - -2 - -Machen had first appeared in print in America in 1894 when Roberts of -Boston published _The Great God Pan_. There were several other Machen -items published in this country prior to the Twenties. Dana Estes brought -out _The Hill of Dreams_ and _The House of Souls_ not long after the -Richards editions and in similar format. Putnam published _The Bowmen_ in -1915 while the controversy over the legend was still raging. There were a -few others, but the Machen boom was still to come. Mr. Cabell’s tribute -to Machen in _Beyond Life_, published a few years later, undoubtedly did -much to create a body of readers eager for Machen. - -Just how and when Mr. Alfred Knopf became interested in Machen as -a literary property I do not know, one does not with impunity ask -publishers why they seek out certain authors. Certainly Mr. Knopf was of -the opinion that the Twenties was ripe for Machen—anyone who remembers -that era would, even today, vindicate Mr. Knopf’s judgment. Yet somehow, -Machen did not catch on as well as might have been expected. Or perhaps -he did—for the Twenties. For this was certainly a prolific period, -genius was hailed weekly and books sold by the thousands. Perhaps -Machen’s books did sell quite well by the standards of the Twenties. -The Knopf printings seem to have been exhausted within a remarkably -short time and very rapidly disappeared from book stores until their -reappearance on second-hand stalls in the Thirties. Arthur Machen is not -remembered too well as one who was popular in the Twenties, but then all -too few of the writers of the Twenties are remembered at all. - -Who were they? Critics and commentators of the times hailed book after -book, they acclaimed name after name—but most of those names are seldom -mentioned in the current revival of interest in the Twenties. The “best -seller” lists of the day hardly indicate that John Dos Passos, Cabell, -Van Vechten, etc., etc., were what all America was reading. Scott -Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis and one or two others are notable exceptions, -but the real best-sellers of the time would sound unfamiliar even to -students of that era. Most people were reading _The Sheik_, _If Winter -Comes_, _Black Oxen_, _The Green Hat_ and _So Big_. Zane Grey and Ibanez -were more widely read than Sinclair Lewis, even though _Main Street_ had -created a stir. There were outlines of history and of philosophy and even -the “art” of thinking was popularized. There were books about China and -Africa and India—and some of them even became the centers of controversy. -Storms raged over books whose very titles are unremembered today, while -the books we now consider “typical” of the Twenties sold slowly—and in -small editions. One discovers that Eleanor Wylie, Ellen Glasgow, Floyd -Dell, E. E. Cummings and most of the others who, even though they -were hailed on alternate Tuesdays and Sundays as “new stars of great -magnitude in the literary firmament,” were not too widely read, despite -the assistance some of them received from the newly formed book clubs. -Nor are they recalled nowadays with even fond recollection by very many. -It is, therefore, not surprising that Arthur Machen remains one of the -more obscure writers of the American Twenties, as well as of the English -Nineties. - -Interest in Arthur Machen was stirring even before the Twenties, but it -was principally among writers and literary people. James Branch Cabell, -whose _Beyond Life_ was first published in 1919, was perhaps the first to -mention in print the name of Arthur Machen and something of his work. In -one of his lengthy monologues, speaking through the amiable and erudite -Charteris, he says, “I wonder if you are familiar with that uncanny -genius whom the London directory prosaically lists as Arthur Machen? If -so, you may remember that in his maddening volume _Hieroglyphics_ Mr. -Machen circumvolantly approaches to the doctrine I have just voiced—that -all enduring art must be an allegory. No doubt, he does not word this -axiom quite explicitly: but then Mr. Machen very rarely expresses -outright that which his wizardry suggests.” - -It was about this time that Starrett discovered Arthur Machen, perhaps -through Cabell whose work he was among the first to praise. Starrett it -was, along with Paul Jordan-Smith, who tried to popularize Arthur Machen -even before the famous Knopf “yellow books” were issued. A small group -gathered about Starrett and Jordan-Smith to try to prove to publishers -that Machen _was_ important and that his books _were_ being collected. -In 1919 Smith wrote to several publishers about Machen, but they were -not interested. The group then made every effort to have Machen’s first -editions rise from nothing to ridiculous heights. - -They succeeded all too well in this, for as Jordan-Smith says, “There -were only a few of us then, but we seemed to be many, for we were bidding -against one another in a hundred shops all over Britain. We did not -expect the publishers to enter the rare book field. We merely wanted them -to publish new books and reprint old ones by Machen. Instead they made -limited editions and spoiled the whole business.” - -Mr. Starrett, who is one of the most enthusiastic of Machen’s admirers, -finally did something about it on his own. In 1923 he published, with -his friend Covici, a collection of Arthur Machen’s stories and essays -under the title _The Shining Pyramid_. This book was published in an -edition limited to 875 copies. It contained, besides the title story, a -number of pieces that had not previously been published in book form, and -many of which have not since been reprinted. This is one of the better -collections of Machen material which deserves reprinting today. In the -following year Starrett published another collection under the title _The -Glorious Mystery_. This, too, contained much new material and much that -has not appeared elsewhere. - -At the same time, perhaps even before Starrett was preparing to publish -his collections, Alfred Knopf became interested in Arthur Machen and -wrote him with an offer to publish anything of his he could find. -Apparently Knopf’s negotiations coincided, in point of time at any rate, -with Starrett’s plans. In 1925 Machen published in London a collection -called _The Shining Pyramid_. The book was published simultaneously in -New York by Alfred Knopf. It contained an introduction in which Machen -wrote: “_The Shining Pyramid_ is the result of a collaboration. Two years -ago an American man of letters, full of industry, rummaged in old papers, -magazines and manuscripts owing their origin to me, and produced as a -result of his labors a volume published at Chicago, called _The Shining -Pyramid_. The American gentleman, I may say, did not disturb my peace by -consulting me as to the content of the book in question. Then, in 1924, -pleased, I suppose, with the results of his toils, he rummaged a little -more, and, using the same methods, produced a second volume of scraps -and odds and ends from my workshop. This book he entitled _The Glorious -Mystery_.” - -Knopf had, by this time, published quite a number of Machen’s earlier -books. Three books were published in 1922, four in 1923, four in 1924 and -four in 1925, of which _The Shining Pyramid_, with its introduction, was -one. The “yellow books” were finding their way to the more discriminating -and discerning readers in America. - -The publication of two books bearing the same title, one issuing from -Chicago, the other from London and New York, stirred up a controversy. -How far this went and how it terminated is not public knowledge. In -April of 1924 Knopf circulated to the trade a letter on the Alfred A. -Knopf-Arthur Machen versus Covici-McGee-Vincent Starrett controversy. -According to Paul Jordan-Smith the whole thing was the result of a -misunderstanding. “This much I know. Starrett had been given the -manuscripts of two or more books to get published as he could, at a -time when publishers were shy of Machen. Years ago I saw them and at -least one letter advising Starrett to do what he thought best about -publishing them. Then Knopf came along with an offer to publish anything -of Machen’s he could find. How Machen answered this I do not know, but -he did give the rights to Knopf. But in the meantime Starrett had made -arrangements with Covici, his Chicago friend and former book seller. It -was unfortunate, and I fancy Machen’s poverty and Knopf’s established -position made Machen want to transfer to him. Both were rather bitter. -But as I recall the matter over the years I was impressed with the fact -that both had acted in good faith until Knopf’s money made Machen jump. I -think he would not have embarrassed Starrett if he had not been utterly -lacking in money and had not had two small children to feed.” - -Apparently the whole matter was settled amiably, for one of the -subsequent Knopf editions is dedicated to Vincent Starrett. The -“controversy,” such as it was, is not a matter to be revived, nor is it -my intention to do so. Machen, and all who know him, owe too much to both -Mr. Knopf and Mr. Starrett. - -Another early worker in the Machen field was Carl Van Vechten. Besides -making Machen a sort of intellectual “prop” for his precious _Peter -Whiffle_, Mr. Van Vechten wrote some of the earliest appreciations of -Machen. I must confess that there was a time when V. V.’s eyes seemed -to me a trifle jaundiced in his estimate of Machen, and there was -a time when I rather hotly resented the implications of the title -_Excavations_. But time mellows most of us, Machenites especially, and -I have come to regard and to welcome Mr. Van Vechten as a trail-blazer. -It is true that I cannot accept some of his estimates of Machen, and I -dare say I have often thought that he liked Arthur Machen for all the -wrong reasons. However, let the student of Machen the Silurist decide -for himself. _Excavations_, containing reprints of Van Vechten’s earlier -reviews and articles, was published by the alert Mr. Knopf in 1926. - -Vincent Starrett’s study of Machen is, I think, more in sympathy, or -at least more to my taste. The title of the book in which his essay -on Machen appears is _Buried Caesars_—it enraged me no less than -_Excavations_, and at one time I regarded these books as two voices in a -chorus that had come not only to praise Machen but to bury him in rather -extravagant prose. - - -3 - -There has been little news of Arthur Machen or about Arthur Machen since -the late 1920’s. He enjoyed a certain popularity for perhaps five years, -a popularity that lingered much longer in more literary circles. For -the most part Machen had disappeared from the world of literary figures -just as his books had disappeared from the bookshops. That he is still -read today we know, and we know too, that he has been slowly gaining -new readers through the years. In 1933 Machen published his last novel, -_The Green Round_. This has not yet been published in this country, -although it is scheduled for publication this year by August Derleth’s -“Arkham House.” In 1936 there were published in London two collections -of his stories, most of which were reprints of earlier stories with -the addition of some new pieces. These books are _The Children of the -Pool_, published by Hutchinson, and _The Cosy Room_, published by Rich -and Cowan. Within the past few years Machen’s stories have appeared in -anthologies put together by Dorothy Sayers, Somerset Maughan, Phillip Van -Doren Stern, Will Cuppy and, of all people, Boris Karloff! - -August Derleth, the youthful sage of Sac Prarie, has been more active -than anyone else in recent years in his efforts to spread the magic of -Machen. Back in 1937, in the November issue of Ben Abramson’s “Reading -and Collecting,” Derleth published an article on Machen, to which -was appended a bibliography by Nathan Van Patten. Derleth’s article, -the first to appear in almost a decade, followed the pattern of most -previous articles about Machen. But Derleth has gone beyond prose. He -has, from time to time, included Machen’s more macabre pieces in his -various collections of supernatural stories. He has also published, or is -planning to publish, reprints of several Machen books. - -The late H. P. Lovecraft was an admirer of Arthur Machen’s work and a -foremost exponent of the Machen manner in modern fiction. It is difficult -to apply the epithet “pulp writer” to Lovecraft, but that is, after all, -what he was. Recent appraisals of his work, and the publication in book -form of his stories, have done much to raise him out of this category. It -was Lovecraft who introduced Machen to August Derleth and to who knows -how many thousands of other readers. In his essay, recently republished -by Ben Abramson, _Supernatural Horror in Literature_, Lovecraft supplies -one of the most up-to-date, if perhaps one-sided, appraisals of Arthur -Machen’s work. Lovecraft concentrates his attention, naturally enough, on -Machen’s tales of horror and the supernatural. The result is a valuable -piece of Machenania but one that should be approached only by an adept. -The chance reader or the casual reader would receive a rather specialized -view of Machen. - - -4 - -More than one observer of the literary scene has drawn the obvious -parallel between the 1890’s in England and the 1920’s in our own country. -Both periods were characterized by a sharp break with tradition. In both -periods the younger writers found themselves voluntary exiles from their -own country and both groups selected the same European city as the scene -of their exile. There are other parallels, ... the flood of “little” -magazines, the cultivation of the “continental” attitude, the revival of -the art for art’s sake tradition and a general letting down of the bars -once again. Mr. Waugh, the 1890 Mr. Waugh, might well have written his -_Reticence in Literature_ for the benefit of the new generation of bold, -bad, young intellectuals. - -Peter Munro Jack, writing in Malcolm Cowley’s symposium _After the -Genteel Tradition_, called this the “James Branch Cabell Period,” and -Alfred Kazin, in _On Native Ground_, refers to the writers of the -Twenties as “The Exquisites,” while “All the Lost Generations” seems to -him a suitable chapter heading to cover a brief history of the Twenties. - -Mr. Jack credits it all to Cabell’s _Jurgen_ and to novels by Carl Van -Vechten and Eleanor Wylie. “These books,” says Mr. Jack, “brought to -our shores the very spirit of Rabelais and Voltaire, Balzac, Anatole -France and Horace Walpole, Pater, Wilde, Machen, Max Beerbohm and Aldous -Huxley ... and converted a barbarous literature over-night into an -airy dance of verve, irony and Gallic sophistication.” Mr. Kazin also -begins with _Jurgen_, which apparently ushered in “a vogue of elaborate -decadence and enthusiasm, very wicked, world-weary and ornate.” Kazin -goes on to indicate that “just as the pale, imitative exoticism of the -late Nineties had marked not merely the beginnings of revolt against -the old parochialism but a leisure-class psychology in an America that -had finally attained a leisure class, so that the new literature of -sophistication that came in with the James Branch Cabell School was -fundamentally the ambitious baroque luxury of a period that had finally -obtained a self-conscious splendor of its own.” - -Mr. Kazin writes from the vantage point of 1942, and anything can happen -to a critic, a book, or a period in a dozen or more years. Hindsight -used to be considered superior, in some ways, to foresight—but such is -the condition of the world today that this is no longer particularly -true. Mr. Kazin, writing in the heyday of the four evangelists of modern -American fiction—Don Passos, Hemingway, Farrell and Steinbeck, looks -back upon the era of “baroque luxury” and “self-conscious splendor” -with anything but nostalgia. Malcolm Cowley, contributing an essay on -Dos Passos to his own symposium, an essay which preceded Kazin’s book -by five years, and to which Mr. Kazin is somewhat indebted, remarks -that Dos Passos had entered college in those olden baroque days, “at -the beginning of a period which was later known as that of the Harvard -aesthetes.” This is noted with an almost, but not quite, imperceptible -touch of pride—or of snobbishness. These young Cantabrians, our boy Dos -Passos among them, are reported to have acted in a manner befitting the -Elizabethans, or least the men of the Nineties, or any other generation -that felt it was living in a Golden Age. They read, Dos Passos still -among them, Pater and _The Hill of Dreams_, and they explored the -slums of Boston—which must have seemed to them at least as romantic as -Cheapside or Houndsditch. - -At any rate Machen was accepted and more or less widely hailed as one -of the more important importations by some of the little magazines -that began to spring up at this time. “The Reviewer,” one of the most -important of the new journals, published Machen along with Ellen Glasgow, -Joseph Hergesheimer, Ernest Boyd, Ronald Firbank, Ben Ray Redman, Edwin -Muir and others. His public and enthusiastic acceptance by Van Vechten, -that inveterate organizer of torchlight parades, was quite enough to -launch Machen successfully with the intellectuals who, in those halcyon -days, had scarcely an ideology among them. - -It has been said that the writers of this period, motivated no doubt -by the cynicism they either created or absorbed, or both, tended to -escape from this world they never made and produced in the process of -escaping some of the most exciting and readable books ever written in -America. Of course neither Mr. Cowley nor Mr. Kazin draws exactly these -conclusions—they are rather scornful of the Twenties and of the books -produced in the Twenties. - -They are both, Mr. Kazin more than Mr. Cowley since he came in later, in -rather a hurry to get on to the Thirties when the Four Horsemen of the -Apocryphal were beginning to gallop madly down the back-country lanes and -through the congested streets of cities and the back-yards of milltowns. -Nevertheless it must be apparent to even the most ideological reader of -these weighty volumes that, for all their efforts at deprecating the -self-conscious splendor of the period, both Mr. Cowley and Mr. Kazin -manage to make the Twenties sound vastly more entertaining than the dull -period to follow, when the leftist interpretation of literature placed -black Marx against every novel that showed signs of having been written -for the sheer pleasure of writing, or the desire to create a character or -to tell a story. - -This seems to be the great fault that is found, by such men as -these, with the novels of that era. They were not so judged in the -Nineteen-Twenties. The sentiments expressed by Arthur Machen in -_Hieroglyphics_, and echoed in Cabell’s _Beyond Life_, were rather widely -accepted at the time, not only by a large portion of the reading public, -but also by members of the more critical profession. Dyson, however -much he may have fussed with his pipes and his pencils, his notes and -his notions, expressed what was the literary credo of the day; “I will -give you the task of a literary man in a nutshell—to create a wonderful -story and to tell it in a wonderful manner.” And so Cabell and Wylie and -Fitzgerald and Hume and Wilder and many others created wonderful stories. -In this time of man and to this manner of writing Machen was admirably -suited. - -People who found New York in the Twenties as fabulous a city as Machen -and Stevenson found London in their day, were delighted with the -yellow-bound books that came out under the Borzoi imprint. For many a -speakeasy in the mid-Forties, or in the Village, offered possibilities as -extraordinary as Stevenson’s _Suicide Club_ or _The Lost Club_ of Machen. -Indeed there are undoubtedly those who can recall when their favorite -haunt disappeared over-night and then, as if by magic, reappeared in the -brownstone house across the street. The city parks, as yet uninhabited -by muggers, were magical places after midnight and lonely as the sunken -lanes of Avalon. Those who delighted in the doings of Dyson and the -adventures of the Young Man in Spectacles were enchanted by the curious -byways of London, and they shared the satirical views of the dyspeptic -Doctor Stiggins and the Hermit of Barnsbury. It pleased immense numbers -of people who tired of Dreiser to find, in _Hieroglyphics_, this perfect -reflection of their own attitude: “Imagine having to spend twenty years -with _such_ people.” - -The crash in the fall of 1929 was followed by a stunned silence—and -presently one began to hear the hoof beats of the four frightening -Horsemen and the voices of the economical evangelists crying, and -wreaking, havoc. - -The realists began to be heard because realism seemed to be what people -wanted—politically, at any rate. The polemics disguised as novels began -to appear in greater and ever-increasing numbers. It has since become -obvious that realism of this sort was a one-way street to despair—and it -was the realists, not the now-silent “romanticists,” who were called, -in their own time, “The Irresponsibles.” But with the rise of the -proletarian novel, the heroic mill-hand and the long, dreary lines of the -unemployed, the period came to an end. Machen, along with the others, -ceased to be read except by those who re-read him, or discovered him in -the dusty bookshops where the yellow binding gleamed from the darkest -corner. - - - - -_Chapter Seven_ - -MACHEN’S MAGIC - - -1 - -Of recent years there has been a tendency to regard the novel as -something it has become rather than what it should be. Most novels -that do not fall neatly into one of several categories created by the -critics and reviewers are judged to be poor novels indeed. As a matter of -fact, the whole of fiction, as well as of poetry, has come to be judged -according to standards which, while they may be excellent standards when -applied to journalism or the so-called “documentary,” serve fiction -rather poorly. It has become the custom to label all stories, novels -and poetry that may fall outside the special categories set up by such -standards as “escapist.” It is a convenient enough classification, and -it is an apt enough description, but the word has come to be used in a -rather derogatory sense. - -Now it may be demonstrated by an application of these very standards -that almost every one of the world’s great books, and every one of the -world’s heroic poems, is “escapist.” And that is, after all, what they -were intended to be. But we are concerned with the telling of a story -and the manner of its telling. To tell a wonderful story in a wonderful -manner, this, says Arthur Machen, is the function of the writer. There -is another equally fine description of the writer’s task, this time by -James Branch Cabell, another story teller of some eminence. - -There is in almost all great stories a certain magic that becomes -apparent from the first sentence. One picks up _Moby Dick_ and reads: -“Call me Ishmael.” There is a quality of strangeness in the name and -abruptness of introduction that serves to set a mood, a mood that -persists through the entire book. Many of Poe’s stories have this same -strangeness and this same quality. One finds it too, in many of Machen’s -stories. The opening sentence, for example of _The Hill of Dreams_: “The -sky glowed as if great furnace doors had been opened.” - -The magic of Machen depends as much upon his style as it does upon -the magical things of which he writes. His finest stories appeal to -an essential and basic desire for “escape” from the common life. They -depend for their effect upon that willing suspension of disbelief of -which Coleridge wrote (and for which Coleridge is known by far too many -who would turn its meaning to their own uses), a suspension of disbelief -which it is Mr. Machen’s happy fortune to bring about almost at will. - -And yet, apparently, there is much more to it than the mere suspension -of disbelief—it is rather a desire to accept such matters as may be set -forth, whether or not they challenge belief—simply because they make an -appeal to _instinctive belief_. One doesn’t have to try very hard to -believe in the existence of certain powers, especially those which cannot -be, or have not yet been, explained as any known existing force. From -this point onward the development of a story by Machen may hinge upon -the manner of telling as well as upon the selection of the materials for -the tale. There must be no fumbling of the matter, no crude effects, no -creaky props, no bolstering up by the shabby tricks and melodramatic -artifices of the penny dreadfuls. Machen’s magic is very simply achieved. -In each of his tales an improbable, but not implausible, theme is stated; -usually one that is based upon something involving an instinctive belief, -for example: the existence of “little people,” the continuance of some -ancient power under certain circumstances, and in explaining certain -occurrences or events for which no rational explanation exists. Folk -tales, superstitions, local legends and mythology, most of these embody -certain elements in which most of us have at least an instinctive belief. -Then, too, a great deal of Mr. Machen’s own particular magic is achieved -through his ability to see things and to present things that are “removed -from the common life.” - -Most of Machen’s characters are not unusual people, they are not -especially “peculiar” in any accepted sense except as they may be -affected by certain occurrences in the earlier development of the story. -For example, the young man in _The Novel of the White Powder_, the boy -in _The Novel of the Black Seal_, and the Vaughan girl in _The Great God -Pan_. But for the most part his characters are, or were, very ordinary -people; ordinary, that is, in the sense that Dyson and Phillips, and even -Lucian Taylor, are quite ordinary people. Indeed the very ordinariness of -some of these people becomes the starting point of an entire sequence of -extraordinary events. Just as it was the ordinary qualities of a young -married couple visiting relatives of a Sunday night in a dull, stodgy, -respectable suburb of London that resulted in the strange story called _A -Fragment of Life_. - -Machen’s characters are completely believable, whatever events may occur, -simply because of their very ordinary qualities. Lucian Taylor, the -“hero” of _The Hill of Dreams_, an introvert we would call him today, -was a normal school boy who did not conform too well to the rigors of -the Public School System, and whose solitary home life conditioned him -to react as he did to the strangeness of his environment and to succumb -to the influences, real or imagined, of the Roman ruins near his home. -To the development of such a simple and ordinary character, in this -particular story, must be added one very important magical element—the -influence of landscape upon character. - -For the peculiar potency of Machen’s magic owes much, if not most of its -force, to landscape and to the subtle influence of the weird topography -of his stories. Many of Machen’s most telling effects are achieved -through the mere portrayal of a brooding landscape, the sombre background -of mountains, the deep, rutted lanes that run along between head-high -hedges, solitary hilltops shimmering in heat waves, old grey houses that -sit somberly at the edge of the forest and rivers that coil in slow esses -through forests and skirt the walls of mountains. There is no doubt that -the wild Welsh countryside had this effect upon Machen himself. - -Machen’s first book, it will be remembered, was written by one “Leolinus -Silurensis”—and Machen frequently calls himself a “Silurist.” For Gwent, -in the old days, the days before Arthur and before the Romans, was the -home of the Silures, one of the three great tribes in this last corner -of the West. The Silures seem to have been more Iberian than Celtic—they -dwelled in the Black Mountains and along the estuary of the Severn. It -was, then, this dark and ancient land that formed the background of -Machen’s life and most of his work. Machen explains, and illustrates, the -influence of his homeland in _Far Off Things_: - -“This, then, was my process: to invent a story which would recreate -those vague impressions of wonder and awe and mystery that I myself had -received from the form and shape of the land of my boyhood and youth; -and as I thought over this and meditated on the futility—or comparative -futility—of the plot however ingenious, which did not exist to express -emotions of one kind or another, it struck me that it might be possible -to reverse the process. Could one describe hills and valleys, woods and -rivers, sunrise and sunset, buried temples and mouldering Roman walls so -that a story should be suggested to the reader? Not, of course, a story -of material incidents, not a story with a plot in the ordinary sense of -the term, but an interior tale of the soul and its emotions; could such a -tale be suggested in the way I have indicated? Such is to be the plan of -the great book which is not yet written.” - -But of course this book was written, not once but over and over again. -One finds its content in almost everything Machen ever wrote. One -discovers too, the influence of landscape upon Machen and his work. One -notes the feeling for landscape as much in his work as in the work of -Poe or Coleridge or Hawthorne. One day, no doubt, a learned scholar -will write a lengthy monograph upon what might be called _The Influence -of Landscape Upon the Creative Imagination_. There are already many -footnotes available for such a work. - -Machen recognized this influence, it became apparent to him as he walked -in the land of the Silures and as he read in the evenings in the drawing -room at Llandewi. This snug, old fashioned “parlour” in the Rectory was -the treasure house of the Machens. Here were their china and silver, -and here the books gathered by the Rector and his forebears. It was -here that Arthur Machen, on his vacations from school at Hereford, -discovered the wonders of Waverly and DeQuincy. Here, too, was Parker’s -_Glossary of Gothic Architecture_. This book initiated Machen into the -spirit of Gothic and, as he says, “that is one of the most magical of -all initiations.” Gothic meant to Arthur Machen “the art of the supreme -exaltation, of the inebriation of the body and soul and spirit. It is -not resigned to dwell calmly, stoically, austerely on the level plains -of this earthy life, since its joy is in this, that it has stormed the -battlements of heaven. And so its far-lifted vaults and its spires rush -upward, and its pinnacles are like a wood of springing trees. And its -hard stones, its strong based pillars break out as it were into song, -they blossom as the rose; all the secrets of the garden and the field and -the wood have been delivered unto them.” - -Machen early developed this sense of wonder in the land. In his reading -he discovered, in the age of Coleridge and Wordsworth, the “renaissance -of wonder.” His taste for Scott and DeQuincy and Coleridge and Poe and -Hawthorne and Parker; his taste, in short, for the “Gothic,” supports -and explains this. For landscape and its influence are important -elements in that which we have come to call “Gothic” ... and it is this -Gothic-ness that is also one of the elements in Machen’s magic. - - -2 - -And then of course there is the final test of the story-teller’s magic. -Mr. Machen’s inventions have frequently been taken for truth. The tale -of the Bowmen at Mons is the classic example. Machen has told how he -received letters following the publication of some of his books—letters -in which the writers sought explanations of the stories, letters which -were undoubtedly prompted by a belief in some basic truth on which they -suspected the story had been built. - -Many years ago Vincent Starrett wrote, in his preface to the Chicago -edition of _The Shining Pyramid_, that there were three Machens—Machen -the Saint, Machen the Sorcerer and Machen the Critic. It is, of course, -Machen the Sorcerer whose work is most popular, or shall we say, the -best known. Machen himself once wrote: “Sorcery and Sanctity, these are -the only true realities.” We might interpret these to mean religion and -science—although it is doubtful if all of the admirers of Arthur Machen -make this interpretation. At any rate it is the works of Machen the -Sorcerer that have been most widely anthologized. These are the stories -one finds classified under such headings as “supernatural stories, tales -of terror, horror stories” and the like. - -Let us admit that supernatural fiction, supernatural tales, have quite -a respectable lineage. It must not be imagined, as some intellectuals -do, that the tale of terror is something to which only the readers of -pulp magazines are addicted. The supernatural tale has been the subject -of several excellent studies. One has only to mention the work of such -admirable scholars as Dorothy Scarborough, Edith Birkhead, Montague -Summers and Eino Railo. - -It has been said by some of these scholarly investigators that almost -every English writer of any importance has, at one time or another, -written at least one story or novel that fits somewhere into one of these -categories. And then, of course, the scholarly investigators proceed to -give reasons for the interest in such stories, and they point out that -the interest as well as the belief in such matters is always in direct -proportion to the ruggedness of the terrain. And they also list, as -evidence of the extent of their research, the means whereby the best -effects may be achieved in this particular field. Basically these have to -do with landscape, architecture, antiquity and a whole collection of odds -and ends, of props and stage settings that form the background for the -venerable school of Gothic literature started many years ago by Horace -Walpole in _The Castle of Otranto_. - -One thing all of these tales have in common is, naturally enough, -strangeness. A strangeness in landscape, a strangeness in character. -Basically too, one supposes, these stories are written about, and because -of, men’s fears. That is why they are called ghost stories, or horror -stories, or tales of terror. This fear is not merely a fear of the -dead returned, but of the past. For these stories concern themselves, -even when not with actual ghosts, with past glories, past powers, past -civilizations, and ancient ceremonies. - -It is not that man seeks to frighten himself that he reads these stories -and is fascinated by them. Psychologists, of one sort or another, have -said that the popularity of ghost stories and mystery novels can be -traced to a desire to enjoy vicariously the precarious situations in -which characters in these tales find themselves; and that by substituting -themselves for the characters involved the readers may obtain a certain -stimulation which is lacking in their humdrum, calm and civilized lives. -This, it seems to me, is not particularly true. It is rather because the -past _is_ the past—simply that and nothing more. For the past is the -one thing man can never alter, although it has become fashionable for -us to try even that. The present is here, the future is attainable and -forseeable and it may even be influenced. The past is unattainable and -will always remain so, therefore man remains fascinated by it. The more -shrouded in the mists of time and of antiquity, the more fascinating. Man -does not read of the past to frighten himself any more than he drinks -in order to experience a hang-over. Nor does the average reader of -supernatural stories identify himself with primitive men’s fears any more -than he identifies himself with the abstract forces for good or evil when -reading detective stories. Man is a curious creature and his curiosity -leads him into strange places. His curiosity concerning his amazing -curiosity leads him to even stranger conclusions. - -This preoccupation with the Past is part of man’s eternal preoccupation -with Time; is now, and always shall be, world without end; from the -days of the early Greeks, who knew that Chronos was the father of -great Jupiter himself—the parent of the father of the Gods. Many years -ago J. W. Dunne wrote a strange and tantalizing book, _An Experiment -with Time_, a book much remarked by critics and book reviewers in the -practice of their trade, but seldom quoted beyond a mere mention of its -title. This is an extraordinary book, perhaps out-dated now, in this -age of the supersonic and the expanding universe and the expanding ego. -Nevertheless, H. G. Wells and Kipling have been influenced by it; and -many another creator of the marvelous and the wonderful. One may read -many strange and wonderful books, one may even read strong and powerful -and significant books—but one never forgets such books and plays written -about the Time theme as _The Time Machine_ and _Berkeley Square_, -Priestley’s _I Have Been Here Before_, Ford Madox Ford’s _Ladies Whose -Bright Eyes_ and many others. - - -3 - -The magic of Machen is due no less to his wonderful style than to his -wonderful material. In these days when one can scarcely speak of style -without being considered stuffy and perhaps even pedantic, to praise a -writer for his style is almost to damn him with faint praise. This is -undoubtedly because we have had no stylists for the last several decades, -for which, on the whole, we may well be grateful! It is possible that -stylists fell into disrepute because so many of them, in the past, -concealed a tremendous vacuum and a cavernous nothingness beneath and -behind a facile facade of fluency. - -Yet Arthur Machen has a distinctive style, the perfection of which, -while it appeals to the pedantic and soothes the scholarly, must be -apparent even to the readers of those horrendous anthologies which have -reprinted Machen while the scholars were busily interring him in their -fascinating mausoleums. This matter of style is rather a tricky one. It -is the sort of thing of which one might say, as some have, and when all -definitions fail, “Either one has it, or—one hasn’t!” However feelingly -and with whatever academic finality this axiom may be delivered—style -is obviously more than that, and more than the man. More, too, than -words and a certain way of putting them together, and much more than a -mere choice of words or dexterity in manipulating them. We have come to -think that many of these things _do_ constitute style. Indeed, a certain -publisher recently hailed a new book (one of his own, of course) as being -in the “tradition of the English Stylists.” Simply because the writer -employed, here and there, a compound-complex sentence, composed with a -certain felicity and manufactured of polysyllabic words or those with a -certain antique charm. It is felt, then, that a matter of phrases makes a -Fielding—which is no more the case than that the use of a quotation from -Donne makes a writer one to stand with the Elizabethans. - -Style is, like so many other things, more apparent in the breach than -in the observance, which comes perilously close to the didactic dictum, -“Either you have it, or—you haven’t.” But not quite. To be sure, every -written word or group of words has style, even roadsigns, notices of -trespass, mayors’ proclamation, editorials in the Daily Worker, even -soap operas have style. The most popular writers of pot-boilers have a -style—and many of them have so pronounced a style that they can be and -have been recognizably parodied. - -It might be said of a good style that it is one that cannot be parodied. -An examination of Machen’s style would indicate that it is, in his case -at least, quite true. For Machen’s style is a blend of many things; of -words with magic connotation, of sentences that create moods, of passages -that suggest, subtly and almost unconsciously, the exact atmosphere for -which they were intended. Mr. Machen is a master at evoking the willing -suspension of disbelief, and he does it without employing any of the -stock properties listed by Coleridge and other authorities as having -the proper connotative value for the creation of a “Gothic” mood or -atmosphere. - -When all is said and done, however, it must be admitted that Machen’s -style is merely a reflection of his faith in the credo of a literary man -as set forth by the admirable Dyson. And here, of course, we come to the -crux of the matter, and as close as we may to an explanation of Machen’s -magic which cannot, after all, be appraised in rational terms. In that -wonderful book called _Hieroglyphics_ Machen poses a series of questions: - - “Explain, in rational terms, The Quest of the Holy Graal. State - whether in your opinion such a vessel ever existed, and if you - think it did not, justify your pleasure in reading an account - of the search for it.” - - “Explain, logically, your delight in color.” - - “Estimate the value of Westminster Abbey in the avoirdupois - measure.” - - “Faery lands forlorn. Draw a map of the district in question, - putting in principal towns and naming exports.” - -Machen agrees that one cannot express art of any kind in the terms of -rationalism, and that “If literature be a kind of dignified reporting, in -which the reporter is at liberty to invent new incidents and leave out -others, and to arrange all in the order that pleases him best; then, let -us have as much “common sense” and “rationalism” as you please ... but -if literature is a mysterious ecstasy, the withdrawal from all common -and ordinary conditions ... [we had better] confess that with its first -principles logic has nothing to do.... For if Rationalism be the truth, -then all literature ... is simply lunacy.” - - -4 - -There are, sometimes, certain superficial resemblances between the -works of imaginative writers that are outside the province and beyond -the charge of plagiarism. An age produces a culture, a culture produces -works of art, and all the while the individual consciousness, or -sub-consciousness, feeds upon and is nourished by the raw materials -and the basic elements of the culture. For in any age there are bound -to exist certain individuals in whom combinations of common experience -develop along certain lines and who may be expected to react in almost -predictable patterns to identical stimulae ... just as certain identical -combinations of chemical elements may be expected to react in identical -manner under identical circumstances. Which is, after all, no major -discovery but merely a restatement of the obvious fact that lies behind -the continuity of any culture, or even, on a smaller scale, of any -literary movement, or on occasion, of something less significant than a -literary movement. - -This fact also lies behind the periodical resurgence of certain ideals of -culture or revivals of interest in certain abstractions such as realism, -naturalism, romanticism and the like. And it explains, in individuals, -the influence one writer may have over another, or the appeal of certain -types of material to certain similar individuals. - -Superficial resemblances are a common manifestation of spiritual -relationships. Some years ago a rather clever critic of music wrote a -book called _Music for the Man Who Enjoys Hamlet_. Now, the resemblance -between people who enjoy Hamlet no doubt extends to a great many things -other than the stage and Shakespeare and music, and, for all we know, -it might even be established that such people have a mutual preference -for a specific cocktail or a certain brand of cigarette. Our critic did -not attempt to prove this, he contented himself with discussing music of -a type to soothe the Hamlet-enjoying intellect. And so the superficial -resemblances between Poe and Coleridge and DeQuincy extend far beyond a -need or addiction, accidental or otherwise, to stimulants of one sort -or another. The lines that connect and link these individuals, feature -for feature, element for element, with an incomplete analogy here, and -a broken chain there, would no doubt resemble a physicist’s laboratory -model of the atomic structure of the very newest isotope of the most -recently discovered element. - -Perhaps individuals themselves constitute the electrons and protons of -a cultural atom. We might link individuals of a certain sort, the men -who enjoy Hamlet, for example, or Poe, DeQuincy, Hawthorne, Coleridge, -and find isotopes here too—Brockden-Brown, Walter Scott, Tieck, Machen, -Sheil, Stevenson, Wells and so on and so on. And we would find that -these elements or individuals had certain affinities, certain properties -in common. They are not alike merely in that they wrote in a certain -fashion, or that they wrote about more or less similar ideas, or that the -moods they created were more or less identical. There are certain other -qualities, perhaps insignificant, but revealing. - -Poe, like Coleridge, was fond of designing title pages and planning -magazines and journals of a very literary sort. We find that Poe and -Coleridge shared a facility for creating exotic and quite unreal -localities. For example Coleridge’s Pleasure Palace of Kubla Khan and -Poe’s Domain of Arnheim are very similar in conception. The conception -of tremendous wealth appealed, in a most impractical way, to both Poe -and Coleridge. And, finally, both shared a great liking for names of -Oriental origin ... there is no distance at all, on the literary map, -between Xanadu and the kingdom by the sea; and the River Alph or one of -its tributaries, empties into the tarn of Auber. Machen’s own landscape -is not too far removed. It was first peopled by the dark people who came -from Defrobani, which is to say the City of the Golden Domes, far to the -east on the shores of Marmora. And Machen’s eternal preoccupation with a -Great Romance is akin in many ways to Poe’s grandiose schemes for epic -compositions no less than it is to the complete unpublished works of -Coleridge. - -There was magic in these men and in their manner of telling a tale. -There was, in each of them, an ability to create that which made its -strongest appeal to that love of strangeness in most men’s minds. - -DeQuincy, alone in London; Hawthorne, so solemnly settled in Salem, -Coleridge surrounded by blue-stockings and blue lakes; Poe in his erratic -course from salon to saloon ... these men made magic of a sort no realist -could ever devise. Machen’s magic is of this sort. - - - - -_Chapter Eight_ - -THE PATTERN - - -1 - -Toward the close of the first quarter of this century Mr. Alfred Knopf, -being ready to reissue _The Anatomy of Tobacco_, asked Arthur Machen to -write a new introduction for the volume. The _Anatomy_ had been written -some forty-three years before and it seemed time a new edition and a -new introduction were called for. The _Anatomy_ is a slight book, and -a rather dull and pretentious one, turned out as a sort of sophomoric -exercise under the influence of Burton and other pedantic antiquarians. -Machen had no objection to writing a new introduction to the book of -“Leolinus Siluriensis” and so he sat down at once to do so. - -Most of Machen’s work, and certainly all of the best of it, had already -been written and published ... there was no Great Romance on the fire -just then. Several years before he had written his memoirs, or come as -close to writing them as he ever would. _The Confessions of a Literary -Man_ appeared serially in the London Evening News through several months -of 1915. Secker issued the _Confessions_ in 1922 as _Far Off Things_. -A year later Machen wrote _Things Near and Far_; another two years -later came _The London Adventure_. These three books are Machen’s -autobiography, although it has been said that almost everything he ever -wrote was, to a great extent, autobiographical. At any rate, Machen -saw the books in print and occupied himself with journalism, which he -detested, and with thinking over the books he had written which, on the -whole, he rather enjoyed. And so when, in the 1920’s, he began the New -York Adventure, Machen sat down and wrote not one but a whole series of -new introductions. There is no nonsense about these introductions, and no -“graceful writing.” The introduction to the new edition of the _Anatomy_ -begins quite simply: - -“It struck me once, during a long meditation on literature, that every -man who has written has had but one idea in his head. To the best of my -recollection, the particular example in my mind at the time was Edgar -Allen Poe, who executed a wonderful series of variations on one theme.” - -Now this idea had been in Machen’s mind for a great many years. A year or -two before completing his introduction for Mr. Knopf he had been engaged -in writing a book called _The London Adventure_. The book contains much -material that is found in neither the _Confessions_ nor in _Things Near -and Far_. While writing the book he became intrigued with some old note -books he had kept many years before. In reading them he was reminded of a -story by Henry James, _The Pattern on the Carpet_, in which is expressed -the notion of a man of letters who had written many books and was quite -surprised to find that one of his admirers had failed to recognize that -all these tales of his were variations on one theme; that a common -pattern, like the pattern of an eastern carpet ran through them all. -In the story the novelist died suddenly without revealing the nature -of the pattern. Nor does Henry James, in whose works one might also -trace a common pattern. He too leaves it to his readers to discover for -themselves the mystery of this one design, latent in a whole shelf of -books. - -Machen himself has such a pattern, and such a theme. It occurs again and -again in all of his works, in his short stories as well as in his novels: -in the slightest of his essays as well as in _Hieroglyphics_. This theme -he defines in several places quite briefly and simply. It is, he says, -“The sense of the eternal mysteries, the eternal beauty hidden beneath -the crust of common and commonplace things: hidden and yet burning and -glowing continuously if you care to look with purged eyes.” - -We have noted, several times over, Machen’s preoccupation with a Great -Romance. Many years ago he wrote, “There is a great book that I am hoping -to write one of these fine days. I have been hoping to write it, I may -say, since 1898, or ’99, and somewhere about the later year I did write -as many as a dozen pages. The _magnum opus_ so far conducted did not -wholly displease me, and yet it was not good enough to urge me forward -in the task. And so it has languished ever since then, and I am afraid -I have lost the manuscript that contained all that there was of it long -ago. Seriously, of course, it would not have been a great book if it had -been ever so prosperously continued and ended; but it would have been at -least a curious book, and even now I feel conscious of warm desire at the -thought of writing it—some day. For the idea came to me as follows: - -“I had been thinking at the old century end of the work that I had done -in the fifteen years or so before, and it suddenly dawned upon me that -this work, pretty good or pretty bad, or as it may be, had all been the -expression of one formula, one endeavor. What I had been doing was this: -I had been inventing tales in which and by which I had tried to realize -my boyish impressions of that wonderful magic Gwent.” - -Now this great book was not only written but it was rewritten under -various forms, in entirely different ways, and with no surface -similarities at all. For almost sixty years he had written purely to -please himself, nor did he hesitate to publish, at his own expense, the -books he wrote for his own pleasure. It was his feeling in this that -there was no reason why a beginner should not be willing to pay his own -way. And yet, as he says, it is a queer pleasure when one does write to -please oneself. For, as Machen says, - -“I wrote purely to please myself; and what a queer pleasure it was! -To write, or to try to write, means involving oneself in endless -difficulties, contrarieties, torments, despairs, and yet I wrote on, and -I suppose for the reason which I have given, the necessity laid upon most -of us to create another and a fantastic life in order that the life of -actuality may be endurable.” - -In these excerpts from Machen’s autobiographical sketches one encounters -over and over again certain keywords: ‘escape,’ ‘common life,’ ‘eternal -mysteries,’ ‘removal’ and so on. And these same key words are, of course, -the underlying themes of every story he ever wrote. They constitute the -criteria by which he judged the literature of past and present as well. - - -2 - -Machen had been brought up on Scott and Coleridge, Hawthorne and Poe and -all the authors one would naturally expect a school boy to encounter -in an English public school in the 1880’s. In addition to these there -were the books he found in the rectory at Llanddewi. These included one -especially significant book by Parker on Gothic architecture. - -We have already noted that Machen early became aware of the beauty -of the Gothic and that he was all of his life more or less under its -influence. His conception of the Gothic was not quite the same as Horace -Walpole’s. It stemmed rather from Parker and from Coleridge, from whom -he learned that there is “in the spectacle of external nature something -much more than mere pleasantness or sensuous beauty.” The rugged terrain -of the land of the Silures would seem to offer little of pleasantness or -sensuous beauty ... yet it did act upon Machen in much the same way that -such a landscape had acted upon the imagination of such a lyrical poet -as, for example, Wordsworth. - -As a matter of fact, Machen did not hesitate to refer to Walpole’s “sham -Gothic,” and he assumes that Walpole had a sort of “vague idea that there -was something in a particular architecture of a particular era which was -somehow or other curious and admirable.” Machen further remarks that one -cannot possibly compare the school of Coleridge in its appreciation of -nature with the school of Walpole in its appreciation of the Gothic. And -then, he poses a question in which there lies the answer to his own and -to many another writer’s problem. “May it not be that Coleridge and his -fellows were but the forerunners of a new doctrine which was not fully -revealed to them.” - -We have remarked that Machen employs none of the traditional trappings -of the Gothic tale. There are no clankings and bumpings and ghosties in -the night. There are no ruined castles, no hermits in caves. Instead we -find deserted houses in Lambeth and in Clerkenwell, and sometimes the -houses are not even deserted. Nor are they occupied by monks or knights -or old families in whose closets lurk the most deplorable of skeletons. -The typical Gothic “hero,” either the sardonic Byronic or the melancholy -Manfred type is never encountered. Machen’s heroes, if such they be, are -rather ordinary young men like Lucian Taylor and Ambrose Meyrick, or -perhaps you may wish to call the ever-present Dyson and the companionable -Phillips heroes. There are, of course, sinister characters in Machen. -Mr. Davies, outwardly ordinary, is as black a villain as can be found -anywhere in the whole school of Otranto. Miss Lally, or Miss Leicester, -are as horrific in their own quiet way as any harpy or hag encountered in -the novels of Radcliff. - -Arthur Machen is much more closely related in his work to Hawthorne and -Poe than he is to his English contemporaries and predecessors. As Paul -Elmer More has noted, Hawthorne and Poe are the only two writers in -America who have won almost universal renown as artists, and that these -two are each, in their own manner, a sovereign in that strange region of -emotion which we name the weird. Their achievement, as Mr. More points -out, is not at all like the Gothic novel introduced by Horace Walpole. -There is little in them of the revival of medieval superstition and gloom -which marked the rise of romanticism in Europe. - -The unearthly visions of Poe and Hawthorne were not the results of -literary whim or unbridled individualism but, according to Mr. More, were -deeply rooted in American history. Now this is a rather strange matter, -for there is nothing nationalistic in the nature of the work of these -American writers. It follows a well established tradition, but it is not -the tradition of the English school of the Gothic revival. It was greatly -influenced by Germanic mysticism, just as Coleridge was influenced -by Teutonic theory. These American writers seem to have missed the -dilettantism that was associated with the Gothic revival in England. In -this they are very close to Machen and his work. Both these writers were -greatly influenced by their surroundings and by the influence of their -own native landscape. The personal alchemy of each one transmuted the -elements of that landscape and created a time and place that never were. - -Poe especially, and to a far greater extent, was affected by landscape -not only of his native Virginia but of every place he ever visited. Some -years ago John Cowper Powys, a visiting, but much more sympathetic than -usual, Englishman commented upon this aspect of the writings of Poe: - -“For myself, as a traveller for a score of years between all of Edgar -Allen Poe’s particular cities, and knowing the country round them a good -deal better than I know my own, I confess—though it may be because of -a kindred sensibility toward the ghostly, the weird, and the horror -hinting: I have found even in those districts, though of course far -more in the deeper south, elements here and there that correspond with -disturbing closeness to the frightening things in his imaginary landscape. - -“But it is not from those pine haunted woods and those morasses and those -treacherous estuaries and those Lethean wharfs that the darker vistas and -more troubling visions of Poe’s inspirations comes. - -“They are conjured up from the symbols of pre-incarnate tremblings that -we all find written on the nerves of our race—though only a few abnormal -individuals can render articulate these hieroglyphics of holy terror. - -“... We all conceal within us, inherited from an immemorial past, a -secret yearning to enjoy by some magical shortcut the hidden potencies of -nature. A responsive pulse begins to beat irrepressibly within us when -Faust makes the sign of the Macrocosm, for there is not one among us for -whom the idea of forbidden joys and an unnatural power over the forces of -nature has not got a seductive appeal.” - -Machen made this comment in a letter on the subject of the Gothic novel. -“The fact is, I believe, that all the Gothic romances are sham Gothic -romances. I mean that the people who put back their period into the -middle ages, had hardly the faintest notion of what life in the middle -ages, in a Gothic castle was really like. This, let me note, is nothing -against their books as literature or else we should be laughing at a -highly esteemed writer for supposing that ninth century life at Elsinore -had the remotest resemblance to the life which is depicted in _Hamlet_.” - - -3 - -The books of Arthur Machen which have gained the greatest amount of -attention are, naturally enough, the more sensational stories in which -he touches upon themes that approach what is, or what has been in the -past, forbidden territory. It seems odd that Arthur Machen, whose works -have been so generally neglected, should have been scolded on occasion -by various critics for his use of sexual themes. Actually there is no -sexuality as such in any of Arthur Machen’s books. It does enter into -some of the stories through the medium of mythology, Roman or Celtic, -and sometimes aboriginal. And yet, such a critic as the gentle A. E. -Houseman, could write of him, “Mixing up religion and sexuality is not a -thing I am fond of.” Mr. Houseman, had he possessed something of Machen’s -scholarship, would have perceived that religion and sexuality were not -mixed up by Arthur Machen but rather by his own Celtic or Teutonic or -Scandinavian ancestors. It is the more surprising, however, that such -opinions as that expressed by the later great poet have not resulted in -greater popularity for at least some of the work of Arthur Machen. - -By far the most important elements in the pattern that runs through -Machen’s work are the very ones he himself expressed many years ago, “The -sense of the eternal mysteries and the eternal beauty hidden beneath the -crust of common and commonplace things.” - -The reputation of Arthur Machen undoubtedly rests most securely on a -single book, _Hieroglyphics_, and on perhaps a half dozen of his essays. -His definition of what constitutes fine literature is, even today, beyond -dispute. His thoughts on realism, or naturalism, a movement that was only -just beginning to be felt in his youth have been admirably expressed in a -passage in his book _The Secret Glory_. - -“Of course, he said, (Ambrose Meyrick) I take realism to mean absolute -and essential truthfulness of description, as opposed to merely -conventional treatment. Zola is a realist not—as the imbeciles suppose -because he described—well, rather minutely—many unpleasant sights and -sounds and smells and emotions, but because he was a poet, a seer; -because, in spite of his pseudo philosophies, his cheap materialisms, -he saw the true heart, the reality of things. Take _La Terre_, do you -think it is realistic because it describes minutely, and probably -faithfully, the event of a cow calving? Not in the least; the local vet -who was called in could probably do all that as well or better. It is -realistic because it goes behind all the brutality, all the piggeries and -inhumanities, of those frightful people, and shows us the strange, mad, -transcendent passion that lay behind all those things—the wild desire for -the land—a longing that burned, that devoured, that inflamed, that drove -men to hell and death as would a passion for a goddess who might never be -attained. Remember how ‘La Beauce’ is personified, how the earth swells -and quickens before one, how every clod and morsel of the soil cries for -its service and its sacrifice and its victims—I call that realism. - -“Of course, there may be people who think that if you describe a pigsty -well you are a realist, and if you describe an altar well you are -romantic.... I do not know that the mental processes of Cretins form a -very interesting subject for discussion.” - -Frank Norris, an early apostle of realism, wrote, while he was still at -college, this analysis of realism and of Zola: “Naturalism, as understood -by Zola, is but a form of romanticism after all ... the naturalist -takes no note of common people, common in so far as their interests, -their lives and the things that occur in them are common, are ordinary. -Terrible things must happen to the characters of the naturalistic -tale. They must be twisted from the ordinary, wrenched from the quiet, -uneventful round of everyday life and flung into the throes of a vast and -terrible drama that works itself out in unleashed passions, in blood and -in sudden death.” - -There are many provocative passages on this subject in Machen. Take, for -example, these thoughts expressed in Machen’s _The Art of Dickens_: - -“... it is not the main point in the finest literature to draw people so -well that the reader begins to think that they must be ‘real’ people, -and that the author is a sort of journalist with supernatural means of -finding all the facts about them.” - -“If we want to go to Margate, it would be idle to take a fairy barque, -and _simili modo_ it would be but faint praise of a Gothic cathedral to -say that it was quite weather proof.” - -“What does it profit a painter to delineate a tree which is very like -a tree, unless it is something much more—unless it is also the symbol -and the revelation of some great secret of nature? If this were not so, -then the camera would be superior of Turner, and the shorthand writer -would look down from his desk on poor blind Homer, who talks of gods and -goddesses of fairy isles, and giants with one eye in their foreheads.” - - -4 - -Vincent Starrett many years ago made the statement that there was little -humor in Arthur Machen’s works. Of humor, in the broadest Mark Twain, or -even in the gentle Stephen Leacock vein, there is very little. But there -is in almost all of Machen a wry, dry humor with perhaps a rather bitter -taste. There are passages, even in _The Hill of Dreams_ that are as -humorous as anything by Leacock. One reads his account of the publishing -business as it was in his day with a realization that Machen is as much -at home in satire as in sorcery. His autobiographical books are filled -with humor, this time not so bitter. Many of his essays employ humor and -satire in generous doses. Shortly after the publication of _The Hill of -Dreams_ and _The House of Souls_ Arthur Machen wrote several essays on -the subject of the Holy Graal. These essays, the first of which appeared -under the editorship of A. E. Waite, aroused quite a bit of attention and -resulted in a certain amount of controversy in antiquarian circles. The -Graal legends through their association with Arthur and Caerleon had been -of great interest to Machen from his earliest years. - -He knew every legend and every theory in the literature of the Graal. His -first essay was at variance with some of the new theories that were then -springing up. Chief among these was the theory that the Graal legends had -their basis in a fertility cult which persisted in Wales right up until -Norman times. Machen promptly branded this theory as absurd. “Let us -grant,” he wrote, “that the question of fertility, which is the question -of life, both for ourselves and for our cabbages, is behind everything. -If we go far back enough, it is clear that we can do nothing in this -world if we are so unlucky as to be dead: and this applies equally to -the Phallic hypothesis of the origin of everything, which can be worked -in very well with the fertility hypothesis. The whole point of a great -many of the rites in fertility ceremonies seems to be built about the -hypothesis that fertility could be enduced by certain ceremonies that -were expected to put nature in a mood to be fertile.” And then Machen -quotes from one of the experts who clung to this hypothesis, “Just as the -sailor imitates the wind that he desires by whistling for it, so did the -countrymen imitate the trees in the wood by making a mock tree called the -Maypole.” - -Machen seems willing enough to accept these theories but he asks, -“What light shall we gain as to the actual emotions and intent of the -seventeenth or sixteenth century people who danced about the Maypole? I -venture to say none whatever ... they were not addressing any invocation -to the woods or anything else. They were being jolly or merry at a -certain time of the year in a traditional manner. For all I know, our -learned people may decide that the game of marbles was originally a -reminder to the spheres to keep on rolling. If I am told so, I shall not -deny the doctrine, but I shall maintain that the boys who play marbles -on London pavements know nothing of it. Granted this hypothetical origin -of marbles, it has nothing whatever to do with the game of the twentieth -century.” - -The note books of Arthur Machen, as fragmentarily revealed in _The London -Adventure_, are as fascinating as are the notebooks of Hawthorne, which -as a matter of fact they much resemble. For example there are many notes -concerned with patterns—and these bear a direct relationship with the -earlier material in this chapter. Most of the notes concern labyrinths, -mazes, spirals and whorls. He asks the question: Why was this form common -to all primitive art? And then, in almost the same place in his note book -one finds the sentence: “Literature began with charms, incantations, -spells, songs of mystery, chants of religious ecstasy, the Bachic chorus, -the rune, the mass.” This sentence is the basis for _Hieroglyphics_. It -is, according to Machen, the thesis of the book fairly well summed up in -one sentence. - -And this same pattern occurs in most of his stories. Among his notes -we find this, “The maze was not only the instrument but the symbol of -ecstasy; it was a pictured ‘inebriation,’ the sign of some age old -process that gave the secret bliss to men, that was symbolized also by -dancing, by lyrics with their recurring burdens, and their repeated -musical phrases: a maze, a dance, a song: three symbols pointing to one -mystery.” - -It would require a thorough examination of the notebook of Arthur Machen, -if such a thing were possible, by a man with the skill and scholarship of -a John Livingston Lowes to trace and to tell the complete story of the -pattern in Arthur Machen. Yet here, in brief, and in all his works, the -pattern is everywhere apparent. - -There are, undoubtedly, those who prefer Machen the essayist to Machen -the story teller. Certainly his greatest work, _Hieroglyphics_, is -sufficient reply to those who have tried to dismiss Machen as the creator -of “shockers” concerned with demonology and sensational horror stories. -The delightful pieces that appeared serially in the Lyons Mail and the -Illustrated News and the London Graphic would please even the Manchester -Guardian or A. E. Houseman, who once wrote that he found Machen not quite -to his taste. His essays on the Grail legend are authoritative without -being archeological, witty without being flippant or, what would have -been unbearable, satirical. - -And yet, in the essays no less than in the stories, the pattern is there -and is recognizable. One is forever running across a phrase or a notion -one has encountered before—some where, some time, some place—and the -place usually turns out to be another Machen essay. For the pattern of -Machen’s thinking is as obvious as the pattern in the rug; as obvious, -and as simple, as the definitions supplied in _Hieroglyphics_. The -pattern is, as we know, summed up in the phrase: “removal from the common -life.” It may be simplified further in the one word: “ecstasy.” - -Now the word “ecstasy” has caused some confusion in the minds of -certain of Machen’s detractors as well as among his admirers. There was -a tendency, in the Twenties, as well as in the Nineties, to give the -word “ecstasy” a connotation or a meaning similar to that employed by -the popular novelists of the time. “Ecstasy” seemed to many to be the -“ecstasy” of the pallid, perverted creatures of the Cafe Royale and, -later, a sort of Elinor Glynn-ish, sinnish quality. It was a word much -favored by the writers of romances, the practitioners of the purple -phrase. And so we encounter, at times, this “novelist of ecstasy and sin” -sort of nonsense. - -It should be pointed out that _Hieroglyphics_, that excellent volume -of literary criticism having little to do with passion, in or out of -the desert, bears the illuminating subtitle: “_A Note Upon Ecstasy in -Literature_.” And _this_ ecstasy is of the mind—it is an exultation of -the spirit of men. It is, to go back to the more descriptive phrase, the -removal from the common life. - -This pattern exists everywhere in Machen, sometimes it is developed by -the characters and circumstances in his tales, or again it is carried -out by argument or analysis in his essays, but always, upon closer -examination, the grand design is apparent. - -One may read, for example, the essay called _The Hidden Mystery_ and -find that it is almost exactly the same as _The Mystic Speech_. And then -one reads _The Secret Glory_ and finds, once again, the same theories, -the same logic, the same figures and the same conclusions, expressed -and explained as only Machen can set them down. This may send the -casual reader, or even the amateur bibliographer, hunting from volume -to volume with pencil and reading glass, for there seems to be indeed a -hidden mystery, a mystic speech, a glorious secret in these passages and -paragraphs. - -Actually, of course, one is merely becoming aware of the pattern, and one -is becoming impressed with the simplicity and the one-ness of everything -Machen ever wrote. Of course there are actual resemblances between the -essays mentioned and strong connections between them and the book. For -the essays were written years before, and one of them was actually -delivered as a lecture before the learned Quest Society of London. They -are all a part of the book that is now known as _The Secret Glory_. - - - - -_Chapter Nine_ - -THE VERITABLE REALISTS - - -1 - -Our modern civilization is, if nothing else, a well-documented one. No -sooner were we at war than we began to talk about the post-war world. -Our introduction to the marvels of the post-war world began very shortly -after Pearl Harbor. Prophets sprang up in every advertising agency and -began to lead us into the promised land of the push button and the -ever-present plastics—where every prospect was pleasantly postwar-ish and -only man seemed likely to remain vile, as indeed he proved by brilliantly -discovering how to smash the atom. It was significant that the art of -propaganda, perfected to the point of art by the original perpetrators -of the war, should become the means of showing us the wondrous shape of -things to come. - -So well indoctrinated were our people, so thoroughly documented had we -become, that it occurred to many to venture opinions on the state of man -in this almost perfect state of the future. It was obvious, even to the -prophets, that man would engage in activities other than pushing buttons -to start and to stop things, to change climate or a record, to launch a -war, a ship or a new hydro-electric plant. It seemed obvious, even to -the prophets, that there might be malice in this wonderland. - -Man, with more leisure than ever before, would undoubtedly manage to stir -up more trouble than ever before. And while we certainly were not going -to sell apples on street corners, we knew enough, we said, to look for an -increase in crime, a new wave of disillusionment and, most certainly, a -new point of view. - -We were quite resigned to these things. We were prepared to usher in a -brave new world to the tune of some fantastic Gotterdammerung in the -Bavarian Redoubt. The suicide of the Austrian Corporal was anti-climax -indeed, since everyone knew, had known for years, that he had it in him. -Things shuddered to a slow halt in Europe and the post-war world seemed -about to be launched with nothing more stupendous in the offing than -the truth about V-1, 2 and 3. The atom’s howl at Hiroshima came as the -cataclysmic climax. - -Well, then, once again we had fought in a great war and once again had -emerged comparatively victorious. Because victors always anticipate -a certain course of events which, we have yet to learn, never follow -victory, we had already anticipated the cynicism that was to follow. At -least we have learned to anticipate the cynicism, and that of course is -an achievement. It represents, one must admit, progress. In developing -and enlarging upon our visions of the push-button world we had not -neglected to include the conception of push-button wars. This could be -called the crowning cynicism—and a less disillusioned world might well do -so. - -But it is probable that our cynicism is really not quite so bitter as -it was the last time, because one isn’t really cynical at discovering -that what one never believed in does not exist. At any rate we felt, and -perhaps we still do, that there was a pattern to be followed. We have had -some prior knowledge of the pattern—it was becoming familiar to us. There -might be, of course, some slight variations here and there. For example: -in tracing out the pattern before, our cynicism resulted in an escape -into realism—and this time it might result in an escape from realism. -Cynicism in 1947 or 1948 might very well be an isotope of uranium 235, -with a few unknown qualities but with a predictably high escape-velocity. - -The post-war era seems to be fairly familiar. The political scene -conforms in a great many respects—but our reactions do not. That we will -do exactly the same thing about exactly the same problem is not only -unthinkable, it is extremely unlikely. Blunder we very probably will, but -we will have found new ways of blundering. After all, we do progress. And -this time we can blunder with no more effort than is required to push a -button. It might be argued, then, that it is extremely unimportant to -ponder about the sort of things that will be written in this postwar -world—escapist or realist. But that one may predict, in the face of this -reality, an escape from realism seems at once probable and inevitable—and -there are certain indications that seem to favor the inevitable. - -Superficially we might consider that a number of critics and writers -have remarked upon certain similarities between the late Forties and -the early Twenties. And, so linked have the two decades become, a -mere mention of the Twenties leads inevitably to a rediscovery of the -Nineties. The Modern Library, which was more than just a publishing -venture in the 1920’s, began its series of reprints with Oscar Wilde’s -_Dorian Gray_. One of the first in a recent cycle of films developed -about psychological themes was a somewhat sinister version of _Dorian -Gray_. A recent theatrical season featured simultaneous presentations of -a play about the Twenties and of several about the Nineties. Indeed, _The -Importance of Being Earnest_—a likely title that!—gave fashion its first -really fashionable color since before the war. Yellow, said a foremost -fashion magazine was _The Color_. To be sure, these are only superficial -similarities. That Wilde was revived in the Twenties and in the late -Forties is a manifestation without much meaning in itself. That Yellow -became a favorite color of the season was perhaps no more than a reaction -to our khaki consciousness of the war years ... but there were other, and -more significant, indications. - - -2 - -There have been, this past year or so, a number of articles appearing -in various literary journals, and even of late in the more popular -magazines, the burden of which seems to be something between a call for a -new estimate of literature and a prediction that such an estimate is in -the making. Certainly the recent years, during which more books were read -by more people than at any time in history, have given practicing writers -the wider audience they had, for centuries dreamed about. The writers -for small cliques have had every opportunity to expand their cliques. -The writers for the masses had such a market as even the most popular -of them had never imagined. The Big Names ran to bigger printings than -even a publisher had dreamed of. That we were in the midst of an almost -world wide paper shortage seemed at least the most obvious result of this -promiscuous reading and writing. But what have been its literary effects? - -Have the realists gained in favor as they predicted, and had been -predicting for years, that they would? Have the proletarian novelists -grown in stature now that, at long last, the proletariat were not only -reading but buying books? Have the multitudinous novels about the Common -Man, the Little Man, the Man in the Street, been widely accepted by the -Common Man, the Little Man, the Man in the Street? In this, the Century -of the Common Man, such a conclusion would seem to have been foregone. -The writers for the Common Man, spurred on by the foregone-ness of their -conclusions, became commoner and commoner—but the Common Man began to -show that he had developed a few rather uncommon tastes indeed. Aside -from the comic books, which he consumed by the shipload (and they can -scarcely be called realistic), he has done all sorts of queer things. He -has granted the greatest gift in his power, sales running to a million -or more, to a book about a lady and an egg, and to a group of the most -outrageously escapists novels that have ever cluttered up a publisher’s -list. Historical novels which were neither good history nor good novels, -became the new opium of the masses. Lusty rogues and busty wenches went -through their amorous routine with a dream of empire in their roving -eyes. The Common Man went in heavily for mediaeval glamour and colonial -swashbuckling. This may be explained on the always convenient grounds -that the popular taste is lamentably lacking in it. - -What about the intellectuals? They have shown a remarkable predilection -for mystery novels with overtones of Kraft-Ebing and undertones of -Freud. The “psychological” novel has enjoyed a vogue on a grand scale, -and most popular novelists have had a shot at it themselves. Several -novelists of a generation or two ago have been revived. Henry James has -been the subject of half a dozen serious studies and most of his novels, -the less boring ones, have been republished, re-reviewed and hailed as -masterpieces by the Sunday reviewers. Trollope, too, has undergone the -full treatment. The 1920’s have been rediscovered once again, this time -complete with cartoons and photographs. We may anticipate that Charles -Dickens will shortly become the subject of an intense and enthusiastic -revival. - -The _Saturday Review_ has called for new gods. _Life_ magazine demands -to know whether or not fiction has a future, thinks not. The ladies’ -fashion magazines, progressing rapidly in the opposite direction, present -a gallery of “Significant writers” with photographs only slightly less -rococo than their elegantly gowned caryatids, including one precious -young fellow in a checkered weskit and the most engaging bangs. - -In short, the Little Man, having digested an overdose of reading matter, -seems about to form certain dietary preferences, and they are not going -to be along the anticipated lines. Now this is not to be greatly -wondered at. In any period of intense literary activity (and we must use -the term very loosely), when, in short, “publishers will put covers on -almost anything,” two things are bound to happen. The more popular novels -set new records for sales and for bad writing. New writers are rushed -into print before they’ve bothered to become good, and old established -writers are tempted and inevitably, invariably and immediately succumb to -the lure of mass sales. They are tricked into competing on the commonest -possible grounds with the homesteaders. The more intellectual writers -from their peaks in Darien gaze down upon ever widening horizons and -find it difficult to focus upon anything of significance. They, too, are -tricked into deserting their small, comfortable cliques and finally, -after preliminary castings about, fall back upon the reliable old -revival, or they hail with delirious delight some new master. Then, when -this stage has been reached, a reaction sets in. - -The awesome sight of so very many bad novels shocks even those who had -succeeded in shocking themselves into insensibility. The critics are -appalled by the flood they have helped to loose and, while waiting -for the waters to abate, they keep themselves dry and in fairly good -spirits by chanting a litany composed of the names of Tolstoy, Zola, -Dostoievski, Gorki, Swift, Proust, Stendahl and a number of traditional -but largely unreadable masters. Now and again they discover a sort of -Cardiff Giant and exhibit it reverently to the masses. Books are written, -critical studies composed, translations arranged for, editions planned. -Critics, scholars, publishers and others solemnly take part in the usual -ceremonies attendant upon the presentation of a new writer named, let us -say, Smerv. - -Alois Smerv is, or was, a Montenegran mystic. Comparatively little is -known about his work, most of it has never been published, none of it -can be readily understood. Nevertheless his name finds its way into -practically every review devoted to anything but juveniles. Smerv seems -to have been obsessed by most of the commoner manifestations made famous -by various Viennese psycho-analysts. It is said that his books, had they -ever been published, would have attracted the unfavorable attention -of the fascist authorities and would undoubtedly have resulted in his -expulsion from his homeland or his installation in a concentration -camp. This, of course, is pure supposition, all that we know for -certain is that Smerv died of acute myopia in 1942 in an obscure town -in the Balkans. His note books, scrap books, ration books and a mess -of mss. found their way into the sympathetic hands of an international -litterateur—with the inevitable result. This, then, is one of our latest -literary idols. - - -3 - -And now we come to the point of conceding that Arthur Machen is not -and never has been a “naturalist,” that is, he has never written in -the manner which we have come to call naturalism or realism. A great -deal of modern American and English fiction over the past forty or -fifty odd years has been of this sort. It stemmed, following one of the -periodical Anglo-Saxon reversions to the Gallic, from Zola, the father -of naturalism. One need hardly wonder what Machen might say today of -naturalism and Zola, he said it some fifty years ago in _Hieroglyphics_ -and again in _The Secret Glory_. And Machen was saying _then_ a great -many of the things the critics of today are just beginning to discover. - -To take an excellent example; we have the case of one of our best known -and most highly regarded novelists; one whose realism has begun to -transcend reality so much that his last book has been called an allegory. -His characters are so super-real as to be almost “arch types,” and they -may eventually come to be regarded, unless they are entirely lost in the -shifting of values, as sketches worthy to stand in a Dickensian gallery -along with Micawber and Pickwick. - -For this is assuredly the direction of our drift—we are not only turning -away from naturalism and realism, we are beginning to wonder why we ever -turned to them at all. For literature as a removal from the common life, -or art as an interpretation rather than a portrayal of life, has little -to do with either naturalism or realism. It may be that, within this very -decade, we will decide that the whole trend of the past thirty or forty -years has been up a dead-end street inhabited by the dead-end kids of the -literary world, whose greatest talent was to shock each other with the -words they chalked up on the walls and fences of their realistic little -slum. - -It has become increasingly obvious, even to the more advanced critics, -that there had come to exist but a very narrow line between the -realistic-naturalistic novel and the journalism of the day. Not so long -ago it was considered the highest praise to call a novel “a significant -social document.” Now it is becoming more fashionable to refer to a -novel as a rather poor novel _as_ a novel, _but_ a significant social -document. We are, it would seem, about half-way round the circle. Mr. -Sinclair Lewis wrote a book a year or two ago which is also a case in -point. Although the critics were unanimous in pointing out that it was -a very bad novel, they admitted that it was significant. So too, the -flood of books about alcoholism, insanity, race prejudice and other -social problems. Most of these books defy honest criticism on almost any -grounds, since almost everyone is more or less opposed to the same things -these books are against. - -Of course these problems do exist, and they are urgent problems indeed; -but they do not necessarily constitute the stuff of great or even good -literature. Nor should the importance of the problem automatically confer -importance or significance upon any writer, good, bad or indifferent, who -chooses to deal with it. Today’s tabloid may be as raw a slice of life as -today’s top ranking best seller—but no one calls it literature. As for -the revolt against “the genteel tradition,” it was a natural reaction -against stuffiness, Victorian morality and overly “nice” novels—but -the course taken by those who rebelled against these things was not -necessarily the right one. It was, or soon became, quite as stuffy and -even more unreal. Still, there is much to be said on the subject, for -realism, by which we _can_ mean honesty, cannot be, and should not be, -eliminated entirely as a literary force. - -It cannot be said that Dickens, that eminent Victorian, was not a realist -or that he was not realistic. No Hemingway he, to be sure, but still, -no Harold Bell Wright. Nor can we say of many a writer relegated to -oblivion by the realists that they were not realistic. John Galsworthy -wrote as realistically of the upper-middle classes as John Steinbeck -writes of paisanos—and Soames Forsyte is as much a person, a _real_ -person, as the youth with the acne. Now this is a very close to the heart -of the matter, for the realists, and the naturalists, have claimed that -writers like Galsworthy are not realists—and of course their point would -be that Galsworthy wrote of Soames Forsyte and Steinbeck wrote of bums -and vagrants, of the dispossessed and the youth with the acne. - -It would seem, then, that they quarreled rather with Soames than -with Galsworthy—that Soames was, for some reason or other, less real -than, for example, an earnest young picket-line marcher. Indeed, -it has been almost a prime principle, that the realists write of -the so-called “underprivileged,” and all that was needed to earn a -reputation for a book was a fairly accurate portrayal of life in the -less-desirable quarters of any city or town. If a few scenes of drunken -quarrels, beatings by cops (classically called Cossacks) and tableaux -in which oppressed mill-workers were being violently oppressed, so -much the better. Of course not all realists wrote exclusively about -the underprivileged. Many wrote of the upper classes, for this was -considered realism too—but only if the upper classes were portrayed in -an unfavorable light. So it becomes apparent that almost the whole of -realism has been a social rather than a literary movement. For a time, -and under special conditions, this seemed reasonable enough, but there -are indications that it is in the process of being rejected as the only -literary criterion. - - -4 - -Of the novelists whose names have formed a sort of literary litany this -past decade or two: Hemingway, Dos Passos, Farrell, Faulkner, Caldwell -and Steinbeck—the work of Steinbeck offers most in the way of material -for analysis according to the lights of both realists and romanticists. -For Steinbeck has been hailed as a great realist, and it was he who -first seems to have transcended reality, and certainly he comes closest -to approaching the “removal from the common life” postulated by Machen -as the prime requisite for the creative writer. _The Grapes of Wrath_ -was and is a wonderful book—as great a piece of journalism as has been -produced in an age that specializes in that peculiar literary form—the -documentary; and it was saved from being mere competent journalism, or -even inspired journalism, by characterization alone. Here again we must -look to Machen for, if not a direct reference to Steinbeck, at least an -applicable parallel. - -For Steinbeck’s characters, the Joads, the Paisanos, the Hermit with his -dogs, the bums in _Cannery Row_—these are all figures of such proportion -and created in such a perspective as that described by Machen in his -essay on Dickens. Machen points out that Dickens was a symbolist ... -no such persons as Pickwick or Micawber ever walked the earth. “They -are creatures,” says Machen, “of the world of vision, of that other -world which is beside us always, which transcends the sight of unpurged -eyes.” And then Machen goes on to define the “true realist” as one who -symbolizes “by means of phenomena, eternal verities.” - -This deftness of Steinbeck’s in drawing portraits has led him into -trouble with his devoted critics for whom, apparently, realism can be -carried to extremes. A case in point is the Colonel in _The Moon is -Down_. This German, if not Nazi, officer, it will be recalled, was quite -a controversial figure back in the war days when the book was published. -Now the Colonel had every right, actually and literarily, whether as an -actual person or an imagined one, to act as he did. It may have been a -none too happy choice for Steinbeck—he could have given us the Eric Von -Stroheim figure we all expected of him, but he gave us instead the Major -Stanhope type. This was not a very popular choice with the ardent and -articulate admirers of Mr. Steinbeck’s realism. - -Then there was the matter of _Lifeboat_, a motion picture shown during -the war. Mr. Steinbeck did the script, or worked on it, or did whatever -it is established writers do in Hollywood. At any rate Steinbeck was -taken to task by at least one film critic and not a few columnists who -stepped out of their roles long enough to have a look at the films. The -story, a Hitchcock natural, involved a group of people thrown together -in a lifeboat. Among the group was a German submarine officer—perhaps -the Captain. The thing that angered the erstwhile admirers, confounded -the critics and dismayed the defenders of Democracy, was that the German -was portrayed as the most capable man aboard the lifeboat. Not only -did he show qualities of leadership which were found to be detestably -proficient, but other members of the crew, all Allies of one sort or -another, were shown to be a confused and sometimes cowardly lot. This -outrageous invention by a man with a reputation for realism upset the -critics and the columnists. No less an authority than the American Sybil -cried out against the extravagance of the invention in which an officer -and a seaman was permitted to exercise both authority and seamanship. -Of course most of these outcries may be attributed to the fact that we -were then at war with both the confoundedly charming Colonel and the -confoundedly capable Captain. - -Nevertheless everyone breathed easier when _Cannery Row_ was announced -as a return to the “early Steinbeck” even though, by this time, realists -everywhere had become aware of a chink in the armor, and the left-wing -critics took a decidedly dim view of the light-hearted way in which -Steinbeck’s social outcasts took their social ostracism. - -When _The Wayward Bus_ rattled onto the literary scene the critics -scanned the faces of the passengers as eagerly as relatives waiting at -the depot. Sure enough—there were cries of recognition from several -groups. One crowd hailed the youth with the acne—Johnny had come marching -home again to swell the ranks of the realists. Others, remembering the -Colonel and the Captain, recognized at least a lineal descendant in -the girl who sat in wine glasses. She was, for a girl who sat in wine -glasses, sufficiently incredible to belong to the gallery of allegorical -figures set up for the specific purpose of puzzling the proletarians. -And so the bus pulled in with apparently the right character for almost -everyone waiting at the depot. - -This somewhat didactic digression, while it seems to have no direct -bearing upon either Arthur Machen or his works, is offered in explanation -of some of the theories expressed in _Hieroglyphics_—under the subtitle, -if you wish, of _The Ultimate Fate of a Realist_. - - -5 - -We have arrived at a point in our literary history (or, if you prefer, -our social progress, our ideological advancement, our cultural -development) when there is need for a new estimate of the task and aims -of our modern literature or at least the re-establishment of certain -values and standards previously set aside. - -We must once again divorce literature from life, if by that we will -understand that literature is not, and never was supposed to be, a -mirror held up before our common life. We must discard the so-called -“true-to-life” standard by which our critical attitudes have been -governed for so many years. Above all, we must renounce the propaganda -psychosis, and we must admit that even good propaganda is never -literature and that even great literature is seldom propaganda. We have -those, of course, who will rise to point out that such and such a book -or novel or play was excellent propaganda for such and such a cause -or event. To which we may answer: it was not so conceived. For the -glibness with which the word propaganda is used is rivalled only by the -glibness of the propagandists themselves. To make a case for any work of -literature as a bit of effective propaganda for any cause is to distort -and debase the purpose for which it was created. - -There is much too much to do with literature today that has nothing -to do with literature at all. We must learn again that the weavers of -fantasy are, after all, the veritable realists. For it must be admitted -that we have at hand ample evidence that this is so. - -There is realism in great literature, but realism alone does not make -great literature. The writer, or observer, who sees an event or an -occurrence, however rare or moving an event it may be, who is moved to -write about it merely to describe, with minute realism, what he had -observed is no more creating literature than the earnest New Englander -who writes to the Times or the Globe to report the first robin. But -Arthur Machen has said these things before—and said them better. - -You will find, in the closing pages of _Hieroglyphics_, this passage, -which seems an excellent closing passage for this digressive chapter: - -“Have you noticed how many of the greatest writers, so far from desiring -that compliment of ‘fidelity to life,’ do their best to get away from -life, to make their books, in ordinary phraseology, ‘unreal.’ I do not -know whether anybody has compared the facts before or made the only -possible inference from them; but you remember how Rabelais professes -to derive his book from a little mouldy manuscript, found in a tomb, -how Cervantes beginning to _propria persona authoris_, breaks off and -discovers the true history of _Don Quixote_ in the Arabic Manuscript of -Cid Hamet Benengeli, how Hawthorne prologizes with the custom-house at -Salem, and lights, in an old lumber-room, on the documents telling him -the story of _The Scarlet Letter_. _Pickwick_ was the transcript of the -‘Transactions’ or ‘Papers’ of the Pickwick Club, and Tennyson’s _Morte -d’Arthur_ shelters itself, in the same way, behind the personality of an -imaginary writer. There is a very profound significance in all this, and -you find a trace of the same instinct in the Greek Tragedies, where the -final scene, the peripeteia, is not shown on the stage, but described by -a ‘messenger.’ The fact is that the true artist, so far from being the -imitator of life, endures some of his severest struggles in endeavoring -to get away from life, and until he can do this he knows that his labor -is all in vain.” - - - - -_Chapter Ten_ - -THINGS NEAR AND FAR - - -1 - -The original outline for this book included a chapter to be called -“Hieroglyphics.” This was to be composed largely of what other writers -had said or written about Arthur Machen. It seemed a good title and a -sound enough notion, and certainly there has been enough said and written -about Machen to compose a fine chapter indeed. - -And then it occurred to me that there was a rather cynical note being -struck here, that the use of that particular word in such a connection -might imply (and I am quite sure that at one time it was meant to imply) -a certain lack of respect for some of the material to be grouped under -that heading. Much has been written about Machen, not as much, certainly, -as one would like to see; and some of it, unfortunately, is the sort of -thing with which one cannot agree. As, for example, the views of the -anonymous Manchester guardian, the reviews of some of the early books as -they appeared in London newspapers, and the estimates of Miss Dorothy -Scarborough in her otherwise excellent book about the supernatural -elements in English literature. - -[Illustration: THE MACHENS IN LONDON: Photo taken by Holbrook Jackson in -1937. Left to right, Montgomery Evans, Mr. and Mrs. Machen and Bertram -Rota before whose bookshop photo was taken.] - -On the other hand: one cannot always agree with the idolizers and the -cultists. These are, at times, even more annoying and sometimes rather -embarrassing. - -The admirers of Arthur Machen are probably as heterogeneous a collection -as one is likely to find anywhere outside the membership lists of the -Book of the Month Club, the Literary Guild and a distinguished After -Shave Club. There are, among the more ardent Arthurians, poets and -pedants, dilettantes and divorcees, men of letters and three-letter -men from the universities, reviewers and romanticists, critics and -connoisseurs, columnists and collectors of every description—a rare -assemblage that numbers sincere admirers, warm friends, not a few dreads -and some drolls. Mr. Machen’s works are known to the Librarians at Yale -and at Stanford. They are known also to the librarians at Liggetts and -Walgrens—for recently several anthologies have appeared on the forty-nine -cent table and several Machen stories have made the grade in the corner -drug store through the medium of the quarter pocketbooks. This is passing -strange company for a man whose first editions were published in Vigo -Street under the Sign of the Bodley Head and whose American triumphs were -under the auspices of the aristocratic Borzoi. - -Mr. Machen’s published works have fared as variously. His stories have -appeared in anthologies whose sales have run into thousands, and there is -noted in Van Patten’s bibliography a small work published in an edition -of two copies. - -How does one decide upon an edition of two copies? It must be admitted -that, to his fervent admirers at least, the peddling of Machen to the -millions along with the malteds and lunches at Liggetts is to be -preferred to the arch-conservativeness that confines a Machen item to a -very limited edition of two copies. It may cause shudders to run up and -down the arthritic vertebrae of many a venerable Machenite to suggest -such a thing, but I find myself wishing that Winchell would one day give -Machen “the works.” And who knows but that he may? With realism and the -realists in disorder, if not retreat, in disarray if not utter rout, -with realism seen from a rapidly shifting focal point, with reviewers -suggesting that the work and the world of our realists may be, after all, -allegory—who knows but the Sunday Night Sage may not admonish Americans -from coast to coast to demand from their bookseller a copy of _Dog and -Duck_, or the _Anatomy of Tobacco_ (LSMFT) or even _Hieroglyphics_? - -Such unscholarly suggestions may seem unworthy, may even draw the fire -of many Machenites who will deeply resent such facetious flippancy—but -they are offered merely as an antidote to the equally absurd and equally -unworthy tactics of some collectors who come to praise and to bury Machen -in the same devout breath. - -I must confess that, while I envy certain men and mausoleums the -possession of many a Machen item, I am pleased beyond measure to find -_The Great God Pan_ or _The Cosy Room_ or _The Novel of the White Powder_ -in the gaudiest, grizzliest anthology of horror stories displayed for the -delight of the drug store trade. - -However, to return to the Arthurians, whether of the cultivated or the -common garden variety. The response to a prospectus describing this -volume when it was in its projected state was enlightening. There -were letters on fine paper bearing the crests of famous colleges and -libraries, there were scribbled notes from, obviously, “stfans” in Kansas -City, Dallas, Scranton and the Coast. These letters did affect the -construction of this book in one important respect. I determined then to -add to the book a bibliography that would direct the reader of Machen to -the stories and essays of Machen wherever they may be found. The scholars -and the specialists know in which vaults the more valuable manuscripts -are under lock and key. Let them rest in peace. One day, perhaps, they -will be released and they will be read as it was intended, by the man who -wrote them, that they should be. Meanwhile it may be amusing to compile -a list of the unlikely and out of the way corners of literature in which -there are mentions of Machen—and to the true Machenite the mere mention -of Machen is rewarding. - -We’ve wandered from Wilde to Winchell, but there are many more unexpected -encounters awaiting the ardent Arthurian. For example, Tiffany Thayer, -_enfant terrible_ of the late Twenties and early Thirties, whose books -were rather lurid things, made use of Machen in certain passages. We -find, if we dredge deep enough, a passing reference to Machen, and one -that might conceivably outrage the true believer. - -An even more strange, and not too flattering, reference is found in one -of the books of William Seabrooke. Mr. Seabrooke, who visited strange -places and saw strange things, once visited, as a client, and I violate -no confidence, an asylum. Since Mr. Seabrooke wrote a book about his -experiences therein, any hesitation on my part would be a needless -delicacy. - -Mr. Seabrooke’s mention of Machen is even given a title: Self-Portrait -of a Dementia Praecox Case on First Reading the works of Machen. The -“self-portrait” follows: “Sweet spirits of my own dementia praecox! -womb-wailing guide calls reechoing throughout sub-cavernousterraneous! -fuga, fugae. Corncopios fugalations in depths arbeitung -verstaltheight.... I have just read _The Hill of Dreams_! By the brazen -buttocks of that brimstone bellona who lolls in lakes of lava, never -in my life have I read or even imagined that such a piece of escapist -literature existed. He is superior to Dunsany and to Algernon Blackwood -who though almost not an escapist may be classed with them. The book -is filled with black magic. The man’s powers of psychotic invention -are almost unbelievable and his familiarity with certain phenomena of -abnormal psychology is creepy. Are you acquainted with Tchaikovski’s -scherzi? especially the waltz-scherzo of his Fifth? It moves in this same -weird, uncanny way. Now I wish I were dead....” - -Seabrooke’s d.p. exhibits astonishing lucidity toward the end, is -apparently versed in intellectual small talk, and displays a familiarity -with the works of James Joyce as well. - -It is sometimes fascinating to compare different reactions to certain of -Machen’s tales. Basil Davenport writing in the _Saturday Review_ some -years ago noted: “... there are some stories which portray a non-moral -fall into a moral gulf; someone’s foot quite innocently slips, and there -is no stopping above the bottom of hell ... that is what makes Mr. -Arthur Machen’s stories supreme of their kind ... and such a story of -irrational, irresistible temptation as Mr. Machen’s _The White People_ -... about a little girl whose nurse happens to be a witch, and who -becomes a devil-worshipper without the least idea of what she is doing.” -Carl Van Vechten says of this same story: “Was ever a more malignantly -depraved story written than _The White People_ (which it might be -profitable to compare with Henry James’s _The Turn of the Screw_?).” - -Mr. Carl Van Vechten’s _Peter Whiffle_ probably did as much to popularize -Arthur Machen in the Twenties as any score of reviewers, but it also -had the effect of rarifying Machen and conditioning him for a specific -audience. It was Mr. Van Vechten’s (or rather, Peter’s) audience more -than it was Machen’s. It was this audience, I think, that prompted Walter -Winchell to report, breathlessly, that Arthur Machen was “tops among the -literati.” Peter was a delightfully “naughty” character—there were so -many of them in the Twenties! When he spoke of Machen he was speaking -mostly about Peter. Nevertheless he was an able press agent. Said Peter, -in part, and to paraphrase a phrase, we quote: - -“It is a byword of the day that one only takes from a work of art what -one brings to it, and how few readers can bring to Machen the requisite -qualities, how few readers have gnosis! Machen evokes beauty out of -horror, mystery and terror. He suggests the extremes of the terrible, -the vicious, the most evil, by never describing them. His very reserve -conveys the infinity of abomination.... But his expression soars so high, -there is such ecstasy in his prose, that we are not meanly thrilled or -revolted by his necromancy; rather we are uplifted and exalted by his -suggestion of impurity and corruption, which leads us to ponder over the -mysterious connection between man’s religious and sensual natures.” From -this point on Peter’s bizarre rhapsody over Machen includes references to -so many Florentine painters, Arabian necromancers, Asiatic messiahs and -French Symbolistes that the average Machenite loses sight of his idol in -the confusing blaze of intellectual pyrotechnics. - - -2 - -And then we have the testimony of C. Lewis Hind, a sort of literary -journalist who once saw Machen plain. Mr. Hind did essays and sketches -of literary people about London and collected them into books called -_Authors and I_ and _More Authors and I_. He remembers having met -Machen once at a dinner given for Sir Frank Benson and members of his -Shakespearean Repertoire Company; he also recalls having seen Machen -“slouching through the interminable corridors of the Evening News.” - -An article on Machen, published in one of his collections, he credits -to a letter from Vincent Starrett. Mr. Starrett’s enthusiasm apparently -moved Hind to do a piece on Mr. Machen. The encounter described in the -article was, apparently, a chance encounter of the sort in which Machen -himself delighted. - -Mr. Hind had gone, one evening, to call upon an acquaintance who lived -in one of the London Inns of Court. While he was peering at the names -inscribed on the oak door the door was opened—by Arthur Machen! “My -friend was not in, but the author of _Hieroglyphics_ and I had some -good, rapid talk. He is an admirable monologist when in the mood (see -_Hieroglyphics_). For some reason or other I have a vivid recollection -of that brief encounter—the open door, the snug room beyond, the books -and a lamp, warmth and stillness, and Arthur Machen standing in the -passage—smiling and talking, ready to talk but also ready to go back to -his folios.” - -Machen was, according to Mr. Hind, “a heavily built man, with a large -genial, yet brooding, clean-shaven face; a good companion, I think, but -one who keeps many of his thoughts to himself.” Mr. Hind was, in short, -charmed and impressed, but he obviously did not consider Arthur Machen a -V.I.P. It would be interesting to read Machen on Hind. - -One of the most curious estimates of Machen is made by Professor -Cornelius Weygandt in his _A Century of the English Novel_. Professor -Weygandt admires Machen somewhat for his essays, and classifies him as -a “lesser late Victorian” along with Baring-Gould, Quiller-Couch, Marie -Corelli, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Walter Pater -and others—a very curious group indeed! - -The professor devotes a full page to Machen, which is not at all bad, and -well above the average, for lesser late Victorians! Machen’s great fault, -the professor finds, is that he is not a story-teller, he has not taught -himself the craft. He has little sense of the creation of character -and his own life is, obviously, very narrow. As an essayist, however, -concedes the Professor, Machen is often a bringer of delight. _The Hill -of Dreams_, on the other hand, is saved from futility only by some good -writing. So sayeth Professor Weygandt. - -Wagenknecht, in his _Cavalcade of the English Novel_, is much more to -my taste than the austere professor. He introduces Machen as “one of -the most remarkable examples of sustained devotion to creative work in -literary history.” He finds that Machen reveals a gift for breathless -narrative to match LeFanu’s, but he feels that this quality is lacking in -the book generally regarded as Machen’s masterpiece—_The Hill of Dreams_. -Nevertheless, Wagenknecht considers Machen “important,” he rates him with -Blackwood and de la Mare, and has included Machen’s _The Terror_ in his -collection _Six Novels of the Supernatural_ published a few years ago by -Viking. - - -3 - -The student of Machen is not content to have read everything Machen has -ever written (and there are few who have), he must also read everything -that has ever been written about Arthur Machen. He may begin, naturally -enough, with a study of the period in which Machen first appears. -There have been quite a few books written about the Nineties, these -unaccountably yield but little material on Machen. Richard LeGallienne, -Holbrook Jackson and Osburt Burdett, whose studies of that period are -very carefully written and copiously annotated, scarcely mention Machen -at all. - -One then moves on to memoirs and biographies of the men who lived and -wrote in this period, and even consults the critical studies on the whole -vast subject of English literature. One picks up dozens of such books and -soon develops the habit of examining them from the back cover forward, -for a glance at the index reveals whether the book is worth while, from -this viewpoint, or not. Too often one finds mention of Macaulay, Lord; -MacCarthy, Desmond; MacLeod, Fiona; even Mackenzie, Compton—but few are -the mentions of Machen. - -One finds too that the index of a book can be a very revealing thing -indeed. We have before us, for example, the memoirs of a Literary Figure -of, let us say, the 1890’s and the early 1900’s. The index indicates -that our man knew everyone worth knowing. We find Shaw and More, Shelley -and Kelley, Shakespeare, Rossetti and Donne, Keats and Yeats, Whistler -and Wilde, Moore and Hardy and a generous sprinkling of the nobility. It -would seem, from the index, that our man lived a very full and eventful -life, that he was close, as they say, to the heart of things. - -The book itself is rather likely to be pretty dull stuff—mostly about -our man’s preoccupation with his public school and his dislike of games, -the amazing and discouraging tenacity with which his great aunt in Bath -clung to life, the duplicity of publishers and the simply astonishing -things that can and do befall an Englishman in Naples, Nice or Florence. -Throughout the book, however, one encounters reports of what Whistler -said to Pennell or Pater or both; what G.B.S. wrote to the brash American -journalist and how Lord Lymph responded to a quip tossed out by Lord -Lissom. Hence the index. One can only conclude that reviewers, and -possibly publishers, read the index more carefully than the book itself. - -Occasionally, however, the slow unrewarding progress through the shelves -of the public library does yield a choice bit or two and these, be it -noted, more frequently in books by Americans than by Englishmen. - -Mr. Grant Richards who wrote in 1895 to Arthur Machen asking if he had -anything he would care to have published, has written at least two books -of his experiences as one of England’s most enterprising publishers. -Neither of them contained a single mention of Arthur Machen although -Richards published several of Machen’s books, and at a time when Machen’s -name was certainly an asset to any publisher’s list. - -The index of Richards’ book about A. E. Housman (Oxford, 1942) arouses -hope. There are three references to Machen. The first of these is -contained in a letter from Housman to Richards. The context, in full, -follows: “I don’t think Machen ought to drink port on the top of -Burgundy.” One may wonder, one is tantalized, by the implications of -that brief note. Does it imply that Machen did drink port on top of -Burgundy—or that he merely contemplated doing so or sought advice on the -advisability. If he did, were the results memorable, and in what respect? -Does it imply that Housman is a purist in these matters? A Tory in -tippling? Does it hint at “an incident”? - -Another reference is even more brief and profoundly unimportant. “We know -too that Housman read Arthur Machen and Frederick Baron Corvo.” The most -significant entry is this, from another Housman letter: “Thanks to you, -I believe I possess Machen’s complete works. He is always interesting -(except in the _Evening News_) and to some extent good. Mixing up -religion and sexuality is not a thing I am fond of, and in this book the -Welsh element rather annoys me. The imitation of Rabelais is very clever.” - -We know, at any rate, that Housman read Machen, quite a bit of him. He -was not fond of the Welsh, nor of mixing religion and sexuality nor, for -that matter, of mixing port and burgundy. - -What we would like most to know from Mr. Richards, I think, is why it -took him ten years to change his mind about _The Hill of Dreams_, and why -he changed it when he did. Of this, unfortunately, we have no hint. - -The Machen revival of the Twenties lasted through to the end of the -decade and, to some, to the end of an era. Machen appeared at rare -intervals in public life, preferring the countryside of Wales and the -company of his friends, a great many of them Americans. Paul Jordan-Smith -and Robert Hillyer and Montgomery Evans have given us sketches of Machen -through this period. For the most part, however, his work was done. In -the early Thirties Machen wrote a novel, _The Green Round_. It has not -yet been published in this country nor is it very well known. Machen says -it is “sorry stuff.” As for _Tom O’Bedlam_, it was an essay “written to -order of an American.” Machen never saw the book in print. - -In 1936 there was a brief revival of interest in Machen occasioned by -the publication of two collections of his stories and essays. Hutchinson -brought out _The Children of the Pool_ in which there appeared seven -stories not previously collected. Rich and Cowan brought out a collection -called _The Cosy Room_, consisting of essays and stories collected over -a period from the late 1880’s to the late 1920’s. Each of the pieces -included in this collection is given a date—apparently the year in -which it was written. Some of the dates supplied, presumably by Machen, -give rise to bibliographical speculation. Most of these pieces had been -published elsewhere although some of them, obviously “the wreckage of -discarded and abandoned books,” appeared in print for the first time. - -The dust-jacket of Hutchinson’s _Children of the Pool_ carried an -“Appreciation” of Machen, one of the finest and most admirable I have -ever encountered. To find it on, of all places, a dust-jacket! This -is no publisher’s blurb but an analysis that deserves to be included -in this or any book about Machen. The author of the following tribute -is unknown, to me at least: “Mr. Machen creates his own world. This -world is a fusion of the world that is accepted in every day reality—in -which events and their causes are explicable by traditional and humdrum -interpretations—and one that is distinguished not only by the weird -and extraordinary effects. The author does not try to present a state -of affairs so topsy-turvy and bizarre that you are intrigued merely by -its very madness. The supernatural insinuates itself subtly into these -stories. They have an air of common reality until the author develops -their mystical undercurrents. And in this blending Mr. Machen’s art is -supreme. It has an infinite capacity for producing what E. J. O’Brien -describes as “a willing suspension of disbelief” [_this fine phrase -has also been attributed to Dr. Canby, Bennet Cerf and, of course, -Samuel Taylor Coleridge_]. That Mr. Machen’s faculty in this direction -can extend beyond the circle of sympathetic readers and convince -masses has been proved by the fact that his imaginative treatment of -a very famous occasion was accepted by thousands of men and women as -literal description. These stories offer varied excursions into realms -simultaneously unfathomable and alluring, and on that account alone they -are memorable. But there is also Mr. Machen’s craftsmanship, and his -style which is a delight to read. A character in the book says: ‘A man -must know the grammar of his business, whatever it is; the rest, if it is -to be the first order, must be the work of the hidden flame within.’” - -Now and then Machen did an introduction or preface for a book or -collection, none of them are of particular importance as Machen -“items.” In 1937 Hutchinson brought out Philip Sergeant’s _Witches and -Warlocks_ with a preface by Machen. The book was, according to the -publisher, suggested to Sergeant by his old friend Arthur Machen. In -his introduction Machen quotes some of the theories expressed in _The -White People_ and _The Great God Pan_. He hints, in other words, and in -justification of his friend’s labours, that there are more things in -heaven and earth than mere hawks and handsaws. - - -4 - -In the years since the publication of the “yellow books” by Knopf and the -attendant enthusiasm for his works, Arthur Machen has been very little -in the public eye. The Machen vogue of the 1920’s seemed to exhaust -itself almost as soon as the Knopf editions were exhausted. The Caerleon -Edition, published in 1923 by Seeker in London, quickly disappeared, and -we entered once again upon a lengthy period of “neglect”. - -Actually, Machen has not been as neglected as we might suppose. It is -true that he has not been accorded the recognition that is his due, but -there are hundreds, possibly thousands, who have never neglected nor -forgotten Machen. The late Alfred Goldsmith, one of New York’s most -amiable booksellers, wrote me, a year or two ago, that there is and -always has been a constant, if small, demand for his books. Ben Abramson -of the famed Argus Book Shop has his North Wall addicts who are always -eager for Machen items. August Derleth, the one-man wonder of mid-western -publishing circles, knows the value of a Machen story in a collection -issuing from Arkham House. A new generation of booksellers on New York’s -Fourth Avenue know Machen by reputation, even though many of them have -never seen one of the eagerly sought-after books. - -Machen himself went into retirement some years ago. For years there -were gatherings at his home in St. John’s Wood, gay parties attended by -writers and theatrical people and journalists—and Americans. Machen has -always had a tremendous appeal for Americans—possibly because of our -Hawthorne and Poe, and possibly because we managed to avoid the stagy -school of the Gothic novelists which he so disliked. And Machen liked -Americans, too, as Robert Hillyer related in his _Atlantic_ article. -It pleased Machen that the majority of the letters he received about -his works were from Americans. On one occasion he told Hillyer he would -consider it a compliment to be taken “into the fold as a fellow American.” - -Later, when Machen retired to Wales, there were picnics on the cliffs -overlooking the sea. Robert Hillyer has given us an amusing account of -one of these festive occasions in his recent article on Machen. With the -coming of the war these visits were impossible, of course. Montgomery -Evans, late of the U. S. Army, member of the Salmagundi Club and resident -of Greenwich, was the last of Machen’s visitors before the war. - -Evans had known Machen since 1923. It was his pleasant practice to give -parties with the Machens on such American occasions as the Fourth of July -and Thanksgiving. These parties promoted Anglo-American understanding -with “American food and French wine” and such guests as Augustus John, -Holbrooke Jackson, Tommy Earp and others. Evans happened to be again in -England when World War II broke out. Machen had written an introduction -for a book Evans was about to publish. Book and introduction went to the -bottom of the North Atlantic with the torpedoed _Athenia_ as Evans was -bound for home when the war was only a few days old. - -Throughout the dark years of the war Machen corresponded with his -American friends—Evans, Jordan-Smith, Goldsmith and others. These were -unhappy days: Machen’s health was poor, his eyesight was failing rapidly, -his son Hilary was in a German prison camp, letters were few and far -between and Machen too old to contrive legends as he had done in the -darker days of 1915. - -After the war Machen was placed on the King’s List—the result of a -movement instituted largely through the efforts of Montgomery Evans. In -a letter to Robert Hillyer Machen wrote: “Our gracious Sovereign, King -George the Fifth, out of his great bounty and kindness, has awarded me a -pension.” - -Mr. Hillyer’s reflection at this news is worth repeating here: “I had a -vision of the fine old man in Bardic raiment, receiving a bag of gold -from a mediaeval monarch clad in ermine and silks and with a golden crown -on his head.” - -Machen’s Street Fleet days were over now, he no longer appeared, a -Johnstonian figure, in the streets of London, nor was he ever again to -impersonate the great Doctor in pageants. There were occasional articles -in magazines and one last book, _The Holy Terrors_, published in 1946. - -With the close of the war, correspondence was resumed on a more regular -schedule. Machen was failing badly, his eyesight was almost gone, his -hand had lost its grace but his letters were, as Montgomery Evans notes, -“as charming and Johnstonian as ever.” Hilary had been released from -the Germans and returned home. Scarcely had the family been reunited -at Amersham, however, when another blow fell—Machen’s wife died. This -“ample, easy-going, good natured woman,” as Hillyer describes her, meant -much to Machen and their two children. She was, she must have been, a -woman of great understanding and of infinite patience. She accepted -poverty, hoping always for the recognition she felt was her husband’s -due. And of course she knew, as well as he, that what he wrote might -interest, at most, comparatively few. After her death Machen declined -rapidly. His letters had to be written by his son, but the mind that -composed them was still that of “the greatest master of English prose -in our time.” Then, in the closing days of the year 1947, in a private -hospital in Beaconsfield, Arthur Machen died at the age of 84. - -Machen’s passing was not unnoticed. _The New York Times_ (Dec. 16, 1947) -printed his photograph and an obituary under the heading: “Author of the -Story That Led to ‘Angel of Mons’ Legend Dies at 84—Won Success at 60.” -A few other papers in the country carried similar stories—there were no -bulletins, no eulogies by electronic commentators. Subscribers to the -_Atlantic Monthly_ probably recalled Robert Hillyer’s article on Machen -in the May issue. Letters passed between friends expressing regret for -there were, as Nathan Van Patten wrote, “some who mourn.” - -Chief among these, perhaps, are the members of the Arthur Machen Society. -This Society was formed early in the spring of 1948 by Nathan Van Patten, -Vincent Starrett, Paul Jordan-Smith, Carl Van Vechten, Montgomery Evans, -Robert Hillyer (all names that will long be associated with Machen) as -well as August Derleth, Joseph Vodrey, Ben Abramson, James T. Babb, -William P. Wreden, Frederick Coykendall, Cyril Clemens, Gilbert Seldes, -Ashton Stevens and a score of comparative newcomers in the great society -of the admirers of Arthur Machen. - -This is an informal group which hopes, in the words of its president, Mr. -Van Patten, to stimulate an interest in Arthur Machen’s work. There is to -be an exchange of information and privately printed Machen material, with -possibly an annual or quarterly publication. - -In the summer of 1948 Alfred Knopf issued _Tales of Horror and the -Supernatural_, the largest and the best collection of Machen’s stories -ever published. Edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, it included a reprint -of Hillyer’s _Atlantic_ article. The book was reviewed with interest by -Orville Prescott and John Dickinson Carr in the _Times_. _The Nation’s_ -reviewer thought the atmosphere of the tales did not “compensate for -his failure to explain the inexplicable.” Mr. Knopf’s ad-men, applying -modern techniques, exhorted readers to “remember Machen, it rhymes with -crackin’.” - -The Arthur Machen Society has already begun to make good its promise to -stimulate interest in Arthur Machen: - -Mr. Joseph Kelly Vodrey of Canton, Ohio, a specialist in Machen -bibliography, has printed and distributed to the members of the Society a -booklet: _There Are Some Who Mourn_, written by Nathan Van Patten. - -Mr. Van Patten, a distinguished professor of bibliography at Stanford -University and dean of Machenites, has printed a handsome booklet, -limited to fifty copies, of Arthur Machen’s _The Gray’s Inn Coffee House_. - -There will be others. At long last something is being done to right the -wrongs of which Mr. Cabell wrote so many years ago. - - - - -EPILOGUE - - -One might devote a great amount of time and give considerable thought to -the final pages of a book about Arthur Machen. It is not easy for anyone -who admires Machen to leave off talking or writing about him. - -This book was planned and begun while Arthur Machen still lived. He -knew of its creation, its aims and its purpose, and he gave the book -his “plenary blessings.” The early chapters were sent in galley form to -Amersham. Machen read the proofs or, his sight failing badly, had them -read to him by his son Hilary. The proofs were returned with a little -note and sometimes with comments or corrections written in the margins. - -I have hoped many things for this book—that it would arouse more interest -in Machen, that it would bring about a great revival of reading his -books. He has been sadly neglected as a writer, we all feel that, and -yet Machen writes: “I question whether what you call the neglect of my -work is due to any fault of publishers or public—the real cause of it, -I believe, is the fact that I have been interested as a writer in a -variety of things which only interest a few people. This is a matter of -individual constitution: it is incurable.” - -We who are incurable, and we are not few, can only hope to interest many -people in the variety of things about which Arthur Machen wrote. - - -FINIS - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - “_I am sure that Bibliography is a capital game, but it is not - my game._”—_Arthur Machen_ - - “_I don’t care two pence whether a book is in the first edition - or in the tenth, nay, if the tenth is the best edition I would - rather have it._”—_Arthur Machen_ - - -A complete and comprehensive and correct bibliography of the works -of Arthur Machen would be a wondrous work indeed. It would include -such important matters as colors of cloths and types of bindings, the -number of pages and the presence of prefaces and plates. It would, one -hopes, clearly indicate such dates as were of importance and many other -fascinating facts to delight and bedazzle the bibliographer. - -There is no such bibliography of the works of Arthur Machen in existence, -nor does this one pretend or propose to fill that need. What is also -needed, however, and by readers rather than collectors, is a complete -listing of the works of Machen, together with notes on their appearance -in print and clues to their possible location. Such a listing presents -certain typographical problems which I have tried to work out without -having to resort to the cabalistic symbols common to certain catalogues -and all time tables. - -It is my belief that people who like to read Machen like also to read -about Machen, therefore I have added a listing of books and articles -in which there appears more than a mere mention of Arthur Machen. -Furthermore, since I feel that I have not listed all of these, nor all -the Works for that matter, I have provided several blank pages for the -use of the eventual owner of this book. Such additional information as -he may gather may be entered on these pages under the general heading of -“Notes.” - -This then is the purpose of the unconventional bibliography that follows: -to lead and direct the general reader to the work of Arthur Machen, and -to direct him to certain books and sources in which may be found material -of interest to the admirers of Arthur Machen. - - -_THE ESSAYS_: - -The Essays of Arthur Machen are listed alphabetically below. Machen was, -for many years, a practicing journalist, writing for many papers and -journals. Obviously not all of his pieces, nor even all of the best of -his pieces, have appeared in book form. Obviously, too, it is impossible -for anyone to obtain copies of the many papers for which he wrote, or -even of the various journals and magazines listed herein. This listing is -therefore far from being complete—it lists only those pieces which are -available, or should be, or have been, in print. Many of these pieces are -undated, except as having appeared between dates that may be a decade -apart. This is, unfortunately, unavoidable. There is little we can do -about it, except to suggest that someone establish a Fellowship for the -sole purpose of investigating and excavating the complete published works -of Arthur Machen. - - ADELPHI, FAREWELL! an essay first published in the _LYONS - MAIL_, appears also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, London, 1924 and - Alfred Knopf, New York, 1924. - - ADVENTURE OF THE LONG LOST BROTHER, an essay first published - in the London _GRAPHIC_, appears also in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, - Secker, London, 1926 and Knopf, New York, 1927. - - APOSTOLIC IDEAL, THE, an essay, first publication (?), appears - in Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Covici-McGee, Chicago, - 1924. - - APRIL FOOL! an essay first published in the _LYONS MAIL_, also - in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - ARS ARTIUM, an essay, first published (?), appears in - Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923. - - ART OF DICKENS, THE, an essay, first published (1910?), appears - in _THE WAVE_, Chicago, 1922. Also in Starrett’s _THE SHINING - PYRAMID_, Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923. - - ART OF UNBELIEF, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_ but - rejected. Appears in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - BEFORE WEMBLEY, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_, - appears also in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, - 1927. - - BOWMEN AND OTHER NOBLE GHOSTS, THE, a group of essays relating - to the story, _THE BOWMEN_, appears in the Simpkins, Marshall - 1915 edition, of which there were two issues, and the Putnam - 1915 edition. - - CAMPDEN WONDER, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_, also - in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - CASANOVA IN LONDON, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, appears - in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - CEREMONY ON THE SCAFFOLD, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, - also appears in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, - 1927. - - “CHARACTERS,” an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, also appears - in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - CHIVALRY, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included in - _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - CHRISTMAS MUMMING, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - appears also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - CONCERNING COCKTAILS, an article written for _BOOK NOTES_, - London, April, 1928. - - CONJURING TIME, essay, first published (?), appears in - Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - “CONSOLATUS” AND “CHURCH MEMBER,” an essay, first appearance in - Vincent Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - CUSTOM OF THE MANOR, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - DARK AGES, THE, an essay, first appearance (?). Appears in - Starrett’s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - DEADLY NEVERGREEN, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_, - also included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Seeker, 1926 and Knopf, - 1927. - - DISSENTING LOGIC, an essay, first appearance (?). Included in - Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - DOG AND DUCK, an essay and a punch made famous by Machen. Also - title of a collection of essays originally written for the - _LYONS MAIL_. Published by Cape, London, 1924 and Knopf, New - York, 1924. - - DOUBLES IN CRIME, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included - in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - ECCLESIA ANGELICANA, (I-II), essays first published (?), - included in Starrett’s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, - Chicago, 1924. - - EDUCATION AND THE EDUCATED, an essay, first published in - Starrett’s _SHINING PYRAMID_, Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923. Also - appears in Knopf’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1925. - - ENGLISH AND IRISH, an essay included in Vincent Starrett’s - collection, _ET CETERA_, Chicago, 1922. - - EUSTON SQUARE MYSTERY, THE, an essay first published in the - _GRAPHIC_, also included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926; - Knopf, 1927. - - FAITH AND CONDUCT, an essay first published (?), included in - Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - FALSE PROPHETS, an essay first published (?), included in - Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - FRAGMENTS OF PAPER, an essay first published (?), included in - Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - GRAY’S INN COFFEE HOUSE, THE, an essay by Machen, appeared in - “Wine and Food,” London, 1938. Published for Members of Arthur - Machen Society, by Nathan Van Patten, Stanford, 1949. - - HAPPINESS AND HORROR, an essay first published (?) by Vincent - Starrett in _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - HIDDEN MYSTERY, THE, an essay, first appeared in _THE ACADEMY_, - London (1907?) Also in Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, - Chicago, 1923; _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - HIGHBURY MYSTERY, THE, an essay written for the London - _GRAPHIC_ and included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926; - Knopf, 1927. - - HOW CLUBS BEGAN, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included - in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - HOW THE RICH LIVE, an essay appeared in the _GRAPHIC_ and in - _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - HOW TO SPEND CHRISTMAS, an essay first published in the _LYONS - MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - IN CONVERTENDO, an essay, first appeared in _THE ACADEMY_, - London, 1907. Included in Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, - Chicago, 1923 and Knopf, 1925. Part of the book called _THE - SECRET GLORY_. - - INGENIOUS MR. BLEE, THE, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - INTOLERANCE, an essay first published (?), included in - Starrett’s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - ISLINGTON MYSTERY, THE, an essay included in Starrett’s - collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_ and in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich - & Cowan, London, 1936. Also in _BLACK CAP_, edited by Cynthia - Asquith. - - JULY SPORT, an essay first published in the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - LA DIVE BOUTEILIE, a fragment surviving from Machen’s - Rabelaisian period. Included by Starrett in his collection, - _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - LAMENT FOR LONDON’S LOST INNS, an essay written for the - _GRAPHIC_ and included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and - Knopf, 1927. - - LITTLE PEOPLE, THE, an essay, first published in the _GRAPHIC_ - and included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, - 1927. - - MADAM RACHEL, an essay written for the London _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - MAN FROM NOWHERE, THE, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - MAN WITH THE SILVER STAFF, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, - also included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, - 1927. - - MANDATUM NOVISSIMUM, an essay first published (?), included in - the Starrett collection, _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - MARCH AND A MORAL, first published in the _LYONS MAIL_, appears - also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - MARRIAGE OF PANURGE, an essay, first published (?), appeared in - _THE WAVE_, Chicago, 1922. - - MARTINMAS, an essay, first appeared in the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - MATTER OF ROMANCE, an essay, first published (?) in Starrett’s - _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - MERRY MONTH OF MAY, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_. Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, A, an essay first appearing in the - _LYONS MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, - 1924. - - MODERNISM, an essay, first published (?) in Starrett’s - collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - MORDUCK THE WITCH, an essay first published in the _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - MORE INNS, an essay first published in the _GRAPHIC_, included - in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - MORNING LIGHT, THE, an essay, first published (?) included in - Starrett collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - MR. LUTTERLOH, an essay first published in the _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - MY MURDERER, an essay, first appearance in London, included in - collection by Vincent Starrett, _ET CETERA_, Chicago, 1922. - - MYSTIC SPEECH, THE, an essay, first delivered as a lecture in - London, between 1915 and 1920. Included in Knopf’s edition of - _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1922. - - NEW LAMPS FOR OLD, an essay, first published (?), included by - Starrett in _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - OLD DR. MOUNSEY, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, included - also in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - ON HOLIDAYS, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, included in - _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - ON SIMMEL CAKES, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - ON VALENTINES AND OTHER THINGS, an essay published in _LYONS - MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - ONLY WAY, THE, an article, first published (?), appeared also - in _PUBLISHERS WEEKLY_, New York, Feb. 16, 1924 and _THE FLYING - HORSE_, 1924. - - PAGANISM, an essay included in Starrett’s _THE SHINING - PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923, first publication (?). - - POE, EDGAR ALLEN, an essay, first published (?), included in - Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - POLITE CORRESPONDENCE, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - POOR VICTORIANS, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - POWER OF JARGON, THE, an essay first published in the - _GRAPHIC_, included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and - Knopf, 1927. - - REALISM AND SYMBOL, an essay first published (?) in Starrett’s - _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - ROAST GOOSE, an essay first published in the _LYONS MAIL_, also - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - SAD HAPPY RACE, an essay, reminiscent of Machen’s days on the - stage, first published (?), included in Starrett’s _THE SHINING - PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - SANCHO PANZA AT GENEVA, an essay, first published (?), included - in Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - SANGRAAL, THE, the title of at least two essays on the Grail, - one of them a reply to Alfred Nutt’s “Reply to Arthur Machen,” - included in Starrett’s _GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924, also - in Knopf’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1925. - - SECRET LANGUAGE, A, an essay, part of the book that became _THE - SECRET GLORY_, published in whole or part in _THE ACADEMY_ - (1907?) London, included in Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, - Chicago, 1924. - - SECRET OF THE SANGRAAL, THE, an essay written in 1907, possibly - first published by A. E. Waite, included in Knopf’s _THE - SHINING PYRAMID_, New York, 1925. - - SEVEN-B, CONEY COURT, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - SIR BENJAMIN, THE BARON, an essay written for the _GRAPHIC_, - included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926 and Knopf, 1927. - - SIR WALTER SCOTT, an essay contributed to W. J. Turner’s - collection, _GREAT NAMES_, New York, 1926. - - SIX DOZEN OF PORT, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - SOME FEBRUARY STARS, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924 and Knopf, 1924. - - SPLENDID HOLIDAY, THE, an essay, first published (?), included - in Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - SPLENDOUR, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, included in - _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924; Knopf, 1924. - - ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, an essay written for the _LYONS - MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, 1924. - - STRANGE CASE OF EMILY WESTON, THE, an essay written for the - _GRAPHIC_, included in _DREADS AND DROLLS_, Secker, 1926; - Knopf, 1927. - - STRANGE ROADS, an essay published by The Classic Press, London, - 1923. Limited Edition, sketches by J. Simpson, R.B.A. - - STUFF AND SCIENCE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape, 1924; Knopf, 1924. - - TALK FOR TWELFTH NIGHT, A, an essay written for the _LYONS - MAIL_, included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924. - - THOROUGH CHANGE, A, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924. - - THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, THE, an essay, first publication (?) - in _THE REVIEWER_, Richmond, Virginia, 1924. - - TREASURE OF THE HUMBLE, an essay, first publication (?), in - _THE REVIEWER_, Richmond, Virginia, 1924. - - UNCONSCIOUS MAGIC, an essay, first publication (?) included - in _AMONG MY BOOKS_, by H. O. Traill, London, 1898. Also in - Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - VICE OF COLLECTING, THE, an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, - included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924. - - VISION IN THE ABBEY, an essay included in _CENOTAPH_, edited by - Moult, published in London by Cape, 1923. - - WHERE ARE THE FOGS OF YESTERYEAR? an essay, written for the - _LYONS MAIL_ and included in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, - 1924. - - WHY NEW YEAR? an essay written for the _LYONS MAIL_, included - also in _DOG AND DUCK_, Cape and Knopf, 1924. - - WITH THE GODS IN SPRING, an essay, rather an autobiographical - sketch, published along with _STRANGE ROADS_ by The Classics - Press, London, 1923. - - WORLD TO COME, THE, an essay, first published (?), included in - Vincent Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - - _THE TALES_: - - The Tales of Arthur Machen including, of course, the novels, - in whole and in part, are listed alphabetically below. Their - appearance in various papers, journals, editions, collections - and anthologies is presented as accurately as possible, in - chronological order. It must be admitted that there are some - matters on which even the experts differ, and some on which - Machen himself differs with the experts. In such cases we have - assumed an almost arbitrary attitude. - - ANGELS OF MONS, THE, the tale known also as _THE BOWMEN_, title - used in the Simpkin, Marshall, (London) 1915 edition; also the - Putnam, New York, 1915 edition. - - AWAKENING: A CHILDREN’S STORY, a tale in the manner of 1915 but - written in 1930. Published in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, - London, 1936. - - BOWMEN, THE, the story of the Angels of Mons, first appeared - in the London _ILLUSTRATED NEWS_, Sept. 29, 1914. Published by - Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., London, 1915; Putnam, - New York, 1915; also included in the _NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW_ - (?); in the collection _PAUSE TO WONDER_, Random House, N. Y., - 1945, and _TALES OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL_, Knopf, 1948. - - BRIGHT BOY, THE, a comparatively recent tale, included in - _CHILDREN OF THE POOL_, Hutchinson, London, 1936; also _TALES - OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL_, Knopf, 1948. - - CANNING WONDER, THE, book-length treatment of the case of - Elizabeth Canning. Published first by Chatto & Windus, London, - 1925; Knopf, 1926. - - CAPITAL LEVY, THE, a tale of the period of World War I, first - published in Vincent Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, - 1923. - - CEREMONY, THE, fragment of one of the novels, written in 1897, - published in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - CHANGE, one of the more recent tales, included in _CHILDREN OF - THE POOL_, Hutchinson, London, 1936. Also included in _TERROR - BY NIGHT_, Avon Publishing Co., 1947. - - CHILDREN OF THE POOL, title story of collection published by - Hutchinson, London, 1936. Also appears in _TALES_, Knopf, 1948. - - CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY, THE, The History of the IX Joyous - Journeys; first privately printed in 1888, included in Secker’s - New Adelphi Library, Vol. 28; published by Knopf in 1926. - - COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON, a Christmas story included in Rich & - Cowan’s collection, _THE COSY ROOM_, 1936. - - COSY ROOM, THE, title story of Rich & Cowan’s collection, 1936. - This story is dated 1929. Also appeared in a collection of - “suspense” stories edited by Will Cuppy. - - DAZZLING LIGHT, THE, one of the legends of the war written for - the London _EVENING NEWS_, also in the 1915 edition of _THE - BOWMEN_. - - DOUBLE RETURN, A, one of the earliest tales, appeared first in - the _ST. JAMES GAZETTE_, London, 1890; included in _THE COSY - ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, 1936. - - DRAKE’S DRUM, one of the legends of the War, written in 1919, - first appeared in _THE OUTLOOK_, London, 1919. Included in - Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923 and _THE COSY - ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - EXALTED OMEGA, THE, published in Hutchinson’s 1936 collection, - _CHILDREN OF THE POOL_, also included in August Derleth’s - anthology, _WHO KNOCKS_, Farrar & Rhinehart, New York, 1947. - - FRAGMENT OF LIFE, A, first called _RESURRECTIO MORTUORUM_ and - published in a London newspaper in the 1890’s. Re-written - and published in _HORLICK’S MAGAZINE_ in 1904; included in - _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, Grant Richards, London, 1906, and in - _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_ by Knopf, New York, 1922. F. B. Millett, - _CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LITERATURE_, (N.Y. 1935) mentions this - title with date 1928. - - GARDEN OF AVALLAUNIUS, THE, original title of _THE HILL OF - DREAMS_. First published under this title in _HORLICK’S - MAGAZINE_, London, 1904, issued by Grant Richards in 1907. May - have appeared in a French publication sometime between 1902 and - 1907. - - GIFT OF TONGUES, THE, a recent title (1927) included in - _STRANGE ASSEMBLY_, edited by Gawsworth, London, 1932. Rich & - Cowan’s _THE COSY ROOM_, London, 1936. - - GREAT GOD PAN, THE, possibly the most famous of the tales, - first published in _WHIRLWIND_, London, 1890. Appeared in John - Lane’s _KEYSTONE SERIES_ as Volume V, London, 1894. A second - edition in 1895, translated into the French in 1901. Included - in _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, Richards, 1906 and reprinted by - Richards in 1910. Published by Simpkin, Marshall of London in - 1916. Included in _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, Knopf, 1922. Included - in the _CAERLEON EDITION_, Secker, 1923. Included in The New - Adelphi Library, Vol. 24, Secker; also appears in _GREAT TALES - OF THE SUPERNATURAL_, Random House, 1941 and _TALES_, Knopf, - 1948. Roberts Brothers of Boston also published it in 1894. - - GREAT RETURN, THE, written in 1915 and first appeared as a - serial in the London _EVENING NEWS_. Published by The Faith - Press, London, 1915. Included in the _CAERLEON EDITION_, - Secker, 1923. Also in _TALES_, Knopf, 1948. - - GREEN ROUND, THE, a novel published by Benn, London, 1933. Has - been announced for publication by August Derleth’s _ARKHAM - HOUSE_ for 1950. - - HAPPY CHILDREN, THE, a tale of the War period, included in _THE - SHINING PYRAMID_, Knopf, 1925. Also in the _TALES_, Knopf, 1948. - - HILL OF DREAMS, THE, best known novel of Arthur Machen. See - also _THE GARDEN OF AVALLAUNIUS_. Published by Grant Richards - in London, 1907. Issued by Secker, 1916, reprinted 1922, 1924. - Included in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 32, by Secker, Dana - Estes, 19-? Also by Knopf, New York, 1922. - - HOLY TERRORS, THE, Machen’s last book, published in England, - 1946. - - HOLY THINGS, THE, an early tale, written in 1897, included in - Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924, also in Rich - & Cowan’s _THE COSY ROOM_, 1936. - - INMOST LIGHT, THE, first appeared with _THE GREAT GOD PAN_ in - the Keynote edition, 1894. Included in _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, - Richards, London, 1906. Knopf’s _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, 1922, - Knopf’s _TALES_, 1948. - - IRON MAID, THE, an early tale, first appeared in the _ST. JAMES - GAZETTE_, 1890, published with _THE THREE IMPOSTORS_ in Keynote - Series, Volume XIX, London, 1895. Included in Starrett’s _THE - GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - LOST CLUB, THE, a tale in the Stevensonian manner, first - appeared in _THE WHIRLWIND_, 1890. Included also in Starrett’s - _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923 and _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich - & Cowan, London, 1936. - - MARTYR, THE, a fragment of _THE SECRET GLORY_, first appeared - in _THE ACADEMY_, London (1907?). Included in Starrett’s _THE - SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - MIDSUMMER, a fragment of one of the Great Romances, written in - 1897, included in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - MONSTRANCE, THE, another of the legends of the War, probably - written for the London _EVENING NEWS_, included in Simpkin, - Marshall edition and Putnam’s edition of _THE BOWMEN_, 1915. - - MUNITIONS OF WAR, written in 1915, probably for the London - _EVENING NEWS_, included in _THE GHOST BOOK_, Scribners, New - York, 1927. Also in _THE COSY ROOM_, London, 1936. - - N, one of the more recent tales, written about 1935. Included - in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. Also in - _TALES_, Knopf, 1948. - - NATURE, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE COSY - ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - NEW CHRISTMAS CAROL, A, a Christmas story written in 1920. - Appears under this title in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, - London, 1936. Appears also under the title _SCROOGE: 1920_, in - Starrett’s collection, _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, Chicago, 1924. - - NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL, an episode in _THE THREE IMPOSTERS_, - sometimes published separately as in Dorothy Sayer’s _OMNIBUS - OF CRIME_ (1929); _THE TRAVELERS LIBRARY_, Somerset Maugham’s - anthology, Doubleday, Doran, 1933, and Knopf’s _TALES_, 1948. - - NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER, an episode in _THE THREE IMPOSTORS_, - sometimes published separately as in _TALES OF HORROR AND THE - SUPERNATURAL_, Knopf, 1948. - - OPENING THE DOOR, a story, dated 1931, included in _THE COSY - ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. Also in _TRAVELLERS IN - TIME_, edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, Doubleday, 1947. - - OUT OF THE EARTH, a story of the “Bowmen” period, included - in Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. Also in - Knopf’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, 1925 and Knopf’s _TALES_, 1948. - - OUT OF THE PICTURE, a tale included in _THE CHILDREN OF THE - POOL_, Hutchinson, 1936. Also included in August Derleth’s _THE - SLEEPING AND THE DEAD_, Pellegrini & Cudahy, Chicago, 1947. - - PSYCHOLOGY, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE COSY - ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - RED HAND, THE, first appeared in _CHAPMAN’S MAGAZINE_ as _THE - TELLING OF MYSTERY_, London, 1895. Included in _THE HOUSE OF - SOULS_, Grant Richards, London, 1906. Also in Knopf’s _THE - HOUSE OF SOULS_, 1922 and 1928. - - RESURRECTIO MORTUORUM, a source of _A FRAGMENT OF LIFE_. First - published in a “forgotten paper” in London, 1890. - - ROSE GARDEN, THE, first appearance in the _NEOLITH_, London, - 1918. Also included in Starrett’s _THE GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, - Chicago, 1924. Knopf’s _ORNAMENTS IN JADE_, New York, 1924. - Published in a limited edition by Nathan Van Patten, Stanford - University. Also included in Gawsworth’s _STRANGE ASSEMBLY_, - London, 1932. Included in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, - London, 1936. - - SCROOGE: 1920, a Christmas story included in Starrett’s _THE - GLORIOUS MYSTERY_, 1924. See also _A NEW CHRISTMAS CAROL_. - - SECRET GLORY, THE, published by Secker, London, 1922; Knopf, - New York, 1922. Two chapters appeared in _THE GYPSY_, London, - 1915. Other chapters and a number of essays (In Convertendo, - The Martyr, The Hidden Mystery) appeared also in _THE ACADEMY_, - London, 1906. - - SHINING PYRAMID, THE, a story first published in _THE UNKNOWN - WORLD_, London, 1895. Also in Starrett’s 1923 collection, in - Secker’s 1925 edition and Knopf’s 1925 collection of that - title. Appeared also in _GREAT WEIRD STORIES_, by Neale, - Duffield, 1929. Included in Knopf’s _TALES_, 1948. - - SOLDIER’S REST, THE, one of the “legends of the War,” written - in 1915 for the London _EVENING NEWS_, included in London and - New York editions of _THE BOWMEN_, 1915. - - TELLING OF A MYSTERY, THE, original title of _THE RED HAND_. - Appears under that title in _CHAPMAN’S MAGAZINE_, London, 1895. - - TERROR, THE, novel first published serially in the London - _EVENING NEWS_ in 1917. Published by Duckworth, London, 1917, - and McBride in New York, 1917. Appeared in abbreviated form - in the _CENTURY MAGAZINE_. Also included in the _CAERLEON - EDITION_, London, 1923. In Viking’s _SIX NOVELS OF THE - SUPERNATURAL_, New York, 1946. Also included in Knopf’s - _TALES_, 1948. - - THREE IMPOSTORS, THE, published by John Lane, Volume XIX of the - Keystone Series, London, 1895; Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1895. - Included in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 15, Secker, London. - Also by Alfred Knopf, 1922. Pocket Edition, 1928. Caerleon - Edition, 1923. - - TORTURE, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE COSY - ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - TRANSMUTATIONS, THE, subtitle of _THE THREE IMPOSTORS_. - - TREE OF LIFE, THE, a story included in _THE CHILDREN OF THE - POOL_, Hutchinson, London, 1936. - - TURANIANS, THE, a fragment written in 1897, included in _THE - COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, London, 1936. - - UNDERGROUND ADVENTURE, AN, an early tale, appeared in _THE - WHIRLWIND_, London, 1890. - - WHITE PEOPLE, THE, one of the early tales, first published in - _HORLICK’S MAGAZINE_, London, 1899. Included in _THE HOUSE OF - SOULS_, Richards, 1906. Knopf’s _THE HOUSE OF SOULS_, 1922 and - 1928. Also in _THE HAUNTED OMNIBUS_, edited by Alexander Laing, - 1937 and the _TALES_, Knopf, 1948. Caerleon Edition, 1923. - - WITCHCRAFT, a fragment, written in 1897, included in _THE COSY - ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, 1936. - - WONDERFUL WOMAN, A, one of the earliest tales, written for _THE - WHIRLWIND_, London, 1890, included in Starrett’s _THE SHINING - PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. Also in _THE COSY ROOM_, Rich & Cowan, - London, 1936. - - -_TRANSLATIONS_: - -The translations made by Arthur Machen must certainly be listed among -his major works, although they are not the most important. All of them -are from the French, all of them were made early in his career as a -writer (and some of them under unusual circumstances). Of these, the -most important is his translation of the Memoirs of the redoubtable -Casanova. The listing that follows is not complete, I am quite sure that -_Heptameron_ and the _Memoirs_, at least, have appeared in many editions -of which I have not heard and which may not be credited to Machen. - - CASANOVA, MEMOIRS OF, translation made by Machen as part of - his “duties” while working for a London bookseller. Privately - published in London, 1894. Also published by L. C. Page, - Boston, 1903; Knopf, New York, 1929. - - CASANOVA’S ESCAPE FROM THE LEADS, published in London in 1925 - and by Knopf, New York, 1925. - - FANTASTIC TALES, Machen’s translation of Beroalde de Verville’s - “Le Moyen de Parvenir.” Privately printed at “Carbonnek” (James - Wade, London), 1890. - - FORTUNATE LOVERS, THE, described by Machen as a “drawing room - edition” of the _HEPTAMERON_. Published by Redway, London, 1887. - - HEPTAMERON, THE, translation of the memoirs of Marguerite, - Queen of Navarre. Privately printed by the Dryden Press, 1886. - Issued by Knopf, New York, 1924. There are other editions. - - WAY TO ATTAIN, THE, a portion of Beroalde de Verville’s “Le - Moyen de Parvenir” or _FANTASTIC TALES_, published in 1889 by - Dryden Press. - - REMARKS UPON HERMODACTYLUS, translated by Machen from the - French of Lady Hester Stanhope. Published in 1933. - - -_MISCELLANEOUS_: - -The man of letters, the practicing man of letters that is, finds himself -doing all sorts of things in the practice of his trade. Machen was -a working man of letters for most of his eighty-odd years. He wrote -articles and “leaders” and “turn-overs” and “fills” and many another -journalistic oddity. He composed calendars and catalogues in his time -and, I daresay, book reviews. To attempt to collect or to list all of -this material would be to display the Machen-mania in its most advanced -stages. - -This classification seems to me a proper one in which to include, for -example, Machen’s first published work, the elusive _Eleusinia_, the -classic _Hieroglyphics_, the autobiographical books and the collections -of his works, certain prefaces and introductions and one or two of the -better known catalogues and “fugitive pieces,” to use a rather pedantic -term. I am being, I suppose, rather arbitrary here too, but I do not -consider that every “fugitive piece” is worthy of the chase. - - ANATOMY OF TOBACCO, THE, by Leolinus Siluriensis, published by - George Redway, London, 1884 and Knopf, New York, 1925. - - CADBY HALL, important mostly as a curiosity, an advertising - booklet written for a London Confectioner. - - COLLECTOR’S CRAFT, THE, written as a supplement for a catalogue - of rare books issued by First Edition Bookshop, London, 1923. - Afterwards reprinted in limited edition as a booklet. Appeared - also in _PUBLISHERS WEEKLY_, New York, October, 1923. - - CONFESSIONS OF A LITERARY MAN, articles appeared serially in - the London _EVENING NEWS_, March to June, 1915. Published by - Secker, 1922 and Knopf, 1922, as _FAR OFF THINGS_. - - DOG AND DUCK, title of a collection of essays and sketches, - originally written for the _LYONS MAIL_ and published in 1924 - by Cape of London and Knopf of New York. Contents listed - separately under “Essays.” - - DR. STIGGINS, a book subtitled: His Views and Principles. - Published by Griffiths, London, 1906 and Knopf, 1925. - - DREADS AND DROLLS, title of a collection of essays originally - written for the London _GRAPHIC_. Published in London by - Secker, 1926 and in New York by Knopf, 1927. - - ELEUSINIA: By a Former Member of H.C.S. This is Machen’s first - published work, a 16-page poem written when he was seventeen, - published at Hereford in 1881. Only one copy known to exist. - - FAR OFF THINGS, one of Machen’s three autobiographical books. - Published serially as “Confessions of a Literary Man.” Secker - of London issued large paper and ordinary editions in 1922. - Later reprinted by Secker in New Adelphi Library, Vol. 2. Also - published by Knopf in 1922. - - GLORIOUS MYSTERY, THE, a collection, published in Chicago in - 1924 by Covici-McGee. Contained material from old newspapers, - periodicals and manuscripts. Authorized, according to Vincent - Starrett by Machen. - - GRAND TROUVAILLE, THE, subtitled: A Legend of Pentonville. - 3-page introduction to a catalogue of rare books issued by the - First Edition Bookshop of London, 1923. Subsequently issued as - a pamphlet in a limited edition. - - HIEROGLYPHICS, a book, subtitled: A Note On Ecstacy in - Literature. First published by Grant Richards in London, 1902. - Re-issued by Secker in 1910. Published in New York by Knopf, - 1923. Later included in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 19, - Secker, London. - - HOUSE OF SOULS, THE, a collection of Machen’s best-known tales. - First Published by Grant Richards in 1906, issued also by Dana - Estes. Published in New York by Knopf, 1922, Pocket Edition by - Knopf, 1928. London and New York collection differ in contents. - - LONDON ADVENTURE, THE, Machen’s autobiographical account - following the pattern set by _FAR OFF THINGS_ and _THINGS NEAR - AND FAR_. First published by Secker in London, 1924, Knopf of - New York, 1924. - - NOTES AND QUERIES, a collection published by Spurr & Swift, - 1926. - - ORNAMENTS IN JADE, title of a collection of Machen’s essays and - stories published in New York in a limited edition by Knopf, - 1924. - - PRECIOUS BALMS, a collection of criticisms of the work of - Arthur Machen, collected by Machen and published in London in a - limited edition in 1924. - - PREFACES, written especially for the Knopf editions in the - early 1920s. Most of them are rather autobiographical, all of - them are authentic “firsts”. The Knopf books containing these - prefaces are: The Three Impostors, The House of Souls, The Hill - of Dreams, Dr. Stiggins, The Anatomy of Tobacco and possibly - one or two others. The Introduction to _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, - which refers to the Starrett collection of the same name, was - presumably written for the London Edition, published in London - by Secker, 1925. - - PREFACES: Machen wrote a number of introductions, prefaces - and forewords for various books, translations, etc. The - professional collector and bibliographer would be inclined, no - doubt, to treat these in a different manner. For our purpose we - find it sufficient to list them as follows under this heading: - - GHOST SHIP, THE, by Richard Middleton, London, 1912. - - PAGEANT OF ENGLISH LANDSCAPE, G. A. Dewar, London, 1924. - - AFTERGLOW: PASTELS OF GREECE EGYPT, M. S. Buck, London, - 1924. - - ONE HUNDRED MERRIE AND DELIGHTFUL TALES, translated by R. - B. Douglas, Carbonnek, 1924. - - HALT IN THE GARDEN, THE, by Robert Hillyer, London, 1925. - - PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE, THE, by Brillat-Savarin, London, 1925. - - DRAGON OF THE ALCHEMISTS, THE, by Frederic Carter, London, - 1926. - - MAINLY PLAYERS: BENSONIAN MEMORIES, by Lady Benson, London, - 1926. - - HUMPHRY CLINKER, by Tobias Smollett, Modern Library, New - York, 1929. - - CASANOVA LOVED HER, by Bruno Brunelli, London, 1929. - - OUR FATHER SAN DANIEL, by Gabriel Miro, London, 1930. - - WAY TO SUCCEED, translation of Beroalde de Verville’s _Le - Moyen Parvenir_ by Oliver Stonor, London, 1930. - - ABOVE THE RIVER, by John Gawsworth, London, 1931. - - WITCHES AND WARLOCKS, by Philip Seargeant, London, 1936. - - PRIEST AND THE BARBER, THE, introductory matter to a pamphlet - written for a bookseller (George Redway) of occult literature. - Published 1887. Published in Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, - Chicago, 1923. The pamphlet is also known as Don Quijote De La - Mancha. - - SHINING PYRAMID, THE, a collection of stories and essays - compiled and published by (A) Vincent Starrett and published by - Covici-McGee, Chicago, 1923. (B) by Arthur Machen, differing in - content, published by Secker in London, 1925 and (C) the same, - published by Knopf in New York, 1925. - - SPAGYRIC QUEST OF BEROALDUS COSMOPOLITA, THE, this is an - introduction to a catalogue of books on alchemy and magic, - published by Wyman & Sons, London, in 1888. Included in - Starrett’s _THE SHINING PYRAMID_, Chicago, 1923. - - TALES OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL, a collection of the best - known of Machen’s tales, published in 1948 by Knopf. Edited and - with an Introduction by Philip Van Doren Stern. Also contains - Robert Hillyer’s article on Machen. - - THESAURUS INCANTATUS, title of a pamphlet, issued in 1888, - catalogue of books sold by a London firm. Also known as the - “Spagyric Quest” see above. - - THINGS NEAR AND FAR, title of one of Machen’s three - autobiographical books. Published in London by Secker, 1923, - also in The New Adelphi Library, Vol. 8; in New York by Knopf, - 1923. - - TOM O’BEDLAM AND HIS SONG, written for “an American gentleman” - and published by the Appelicon Press in Westport, Conn., 1930. - - WAR AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, first appeared as articles in the - London _EVENING NEWS_, published by Skeffington in London, 1918. - - -MORE ABOUT MACHEN - -The admirers of Arthur Machen, as we have remarked before, will want -to read as much about him as they possibly can. There are not too many -articles or studies of Machen available. Standard reference books list -Machen, of course, but few of them present more than a brief sketch. Many -standard critical works mention Machen in connection with his period, -the 1890’s, or his genre, the supernatural tale. Book reviews have, of -course, appeared by the hundreds. These might be interesting to read -again, but they are unavailable. The general reader, meaning in this -case, the admirer of Machen, will wish to check this listing: - - -SPECIFIC - - ARTICLE in “The Bookman” for July, 1925. - - ARTICLE in “The Sewannee Review,” July, 1924. - - ARTICLE in “The Saturday Review of Literature” by Basil - Davenport, “The Devil Is Not Dead,” February 15, 1936. - - ARTICLE in “Harper’s Bazaar” by Meyer Berger, “Legends of The - War,” January, 1944. - - ARTICLE by August Derleth in “Reading and Collecting,” Ben - Abramson’s delightful monthly, Chicago, November, 1937. - - ARTICLE in “Atlantic Monthly” by Robert Hillyer, May, 1947. - - BIBLIOGRAPHY by Henry Danielson, published in London, 1923. - Contains sketch of Machen by Savage, notes by Machen. - - BIBLIOGRAPHY by Nathan Van Patten, appended to Derleth’s - article in “Reading and Collecting,” Chicago, 1937. - - BIBLIOGRAPHY by Nathan Van Patten, published in Kingston, - Ontario, Canada, 1928. - - BIBLIOGRAPHY by Paul Jordan-Smith, published in “For The Love - of Books,” Oxford Press, New York, 1934. - - SKETCH of Machen in “More Authors and I” by C. Lewis Hind, - London, 1922 and Dodd, Mead, New York, 1922. - - SKETCH of Machen in “Buried Caesars” by Vincent Starrett, - Chicago, 1923. - - SKETCH of Machen in “Excavations” by Carl Van Vechten, Knopf, - New York, 1922. - - SKETCH of Machen by Paul Jordan-Smith, in “On What Strange - Altars,” New York, 1924. - - SKETCH of Machen in the Danielson Bibliography, written by - Henry Savage, London, 1923. - - SKETCH of Machen by St. John Adcock in “Glory That Was Grub - Street” and “Gods of Modern Grub Street,” London, New York, - 192-? - - SKETCH of Machen by Vincent Starrett, appears under title - “Arthur Machen: Novelist of Ecstacy and Sin,” published along - with two poems by Machen, Chicago, 1918. Sketch also appears in - “Buried Caesars,” Covici-McGee, 1922. - - -GENERAL - - AFTER THE GENTEEL TRADITION, symposium edited by Malcolm Cowley. - - ASYLUM by William Seabrook, contains material quoted herein. - - AUTHOR HUNTING by Grant Richards, mere mention of Machen. - - BOOKS AND BATTLES, Irene and Allen Cleaton, Boston, 1937. - - BEYOND LIFE by James Branch Cabell, contains Cabell’s famous - tribute. - - CAVALCADE OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL by Wagenknecht, contains several - passages relating to Machen. - - CENTURY OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL by Cornelius Weygandt, contains a - brief study of Machen and his works. Harcourt-Brace, N. Y. - - CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LITERATURE by Fred B. Millett, - contains a brief sketch of Machen and a short bibliography. - Harcourt-Brace, N. Y. - - CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LITERATURE by Manly and Rickert, brief - sketch, bibliographical notes. Numerous references. - - HOUSEMANS by Grant Richards, brief mention of Machen, quoted - herein. - - INNOCENCE ABROAD by Emily Clark, Knopf, 1931. The history of - “The Reviewer” (Richmond) to which Machen contributed while it - was edited by Cabell, 1924-25. - - LOST CHORDS by Arthur Rickett, contains a parody of Machen, - “The Yellow Creeper,” London, 1895. - - MEN OF THE NINETIES by Bernard Muddiman, brief mention. - - ON NATIVE GROUNDS by Alfred Kazin, mention of Machen in the - Twenties. - - ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS by Harold Begbie, an “answer” to _THE - BOWMEN_, London, 1915. - - SMOKE RINGS AND ROUNDELAYS, edited by Wilfred Partington, - London, 1924. Contains several contributions by Machen. - - SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE by H. P. Lovecraft, - Abrahamson, New York, 1945. Studies of most of Machen’s works. - - SUPERNATURAL IN MODERN ENGLISH FICTION by Dorothy Scarborough, - New York, 1917. - - OLD GODS FALLING by Malcolm Elwin, mere mention, MacMillan, - 1939. - - TWENTIETH CENTURY AUTHORS by Kuntz and Haycraft, a sketch and - brief bibliography, New York, 19(?) - - MAINLY VICTORIAN by S. M. Ellis, mentions Machen, London, 1925. - - SOME MODERN AUTHORS by S. P. Mais, mentions Machen, 1923. - - WHEN I WAS A CHILD, anthology edited by Edward Wagenknecht, - contains portion of Machen’s autobiography under the title: - _BOY OF CAERLEON_. - - - - -NOTES - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARTHUR MACHEN: WEAVER OF -FANTASY *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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