ARTHUR MACHEN: 30+ Horror Classics, Supernatural & Fantasy Books (Including Translations, Essays & Memoirs). Arthur Machen

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СКАЧАТЬ the girl died or recovered from her strange attack; but the scene had haunted his mind in boyhood, and now the recollection of it came to him with a certain note of warning, as a symbol of dangers that might be in the way.

      It would be impossible to carry on the history of Edward Darnell and of Mary his wife to a greater length, since from this point their legend is full of impossible events, and seems to put on the semblance of the stories of the Graal. It is certain, indeed, that in this world they changed their lives, like King Arthur, but this is a work which no chronicler has cared to describe with any amplitude of detail. Darnell, it is true, made a little book, partly consisting of queer verse which might have been written by an inspired infant, and partly made up of 'notes and exclamations' in an odd dog-Latin which he had picked up from the 'Iolo MSS.', but it is to be feared that this work, even if published in its entirety, would cast but little light on a perplexing story. He called this piece of literature 'In Exitu Israel,' and wrote on the title page the motto, doubtless of his own composition, 'Nunc certe scio quod omnia legenda; omnes historiæ, omnes fabulæ, omnis Scriptura sint de ME narrata.' It is only too evident that his Latin was not learnt at the feet of Cicero; but in this dialect he relates the great history of the 'New Life' as it was manifested to him. The 'poems' are even stranger. One, headed (with an odd reminiscence of old-fashioned books) 'Lines written on looking down from a Height in London on a Board School suddenly lit up by the Sun' begins thus:—

      One day when I was all alone

       I found a wondrous little stone,

       It lay forgotten on the road

       Far from the ways of man's abode.

       When on this stone mine eyes I cast

       I saw my Treasure found at last.

       I pressed it hard against my face,

       I covered it with my embrace,

       I hid it in a secret place.

       And every day I went to see

       This stone that was my ecstasy;

       And worshipped it with flowers rare,

       And secret words and sayings fair.

       O stone, so rare and red and wise

       O fragment of far Paradise,

       O Star, whose light is life! O Sea,

       Whose ocean is infinity!

       Thou art a fire that ever burns,

       And all the world to wonder turns;

       And all the dust of the dull day

       By thee is changed and purged away,

       So that, where'er I look, I see

       A world of a Great Majesty.

       The sullen river rolls all gold,

       The desert park's a faery wold,

       When on the trees the wind is borne

       I hear the sound of Arthur's horn

       I see no town of grim grey ways,

       But a great city all ablaze

       With burning torches, to light up

       The pinnacles that shrine the Cup.

       Ever the magic wine is poured,

       Ever the Feast shines on the board,

       Ever the song is borne on high

       That chants the holy Magistry—

       Etc. etc. etc.

      From such documents as these it is clearly impossible to gather any very definite information. But on the last page Darnell has written—

      'So I awoke from a dream of a London suburb, of daily labour, of weary, useless little things; and as my eyes were opened I saw that I was in an ancient wood, where a clear well rose into grey film and vapour beneath a misty, glimmering heat. And a form came towards me from the hidden places of the wood, and my love and I were united by the well.'

      The White People

       (1904)

       Table of Contents

Table of Contents

       Prologue

       The Green Book

       Epilogue

      Prologue

       Table of Contents

      'Sorcery and sanctity,' said Ambrose, 'these are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life.'

      Cotgrave listened, interested. He had been brought by a friend to this mouldering house in a northern suburb, through an old garden to the room where Ambrose the recluse dozed and dreamed over his books.

      'Yes,' he went on, 'magic is justified of her children. There are many, I think, who eat dry crusts and drink water, with a joy infinitely sharper than anything within the experience of the "practical" epicure.'

      'You are speaking of the saints?'

      'Yes, and of the sinners, too. I think you are falling into the very general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely good; but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The merely carnal, sensual man can no more be a great sinner than he can be a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner sense of things, and, consequently, our wickedness and our goodness are alike second-rate, unimportant.'

      'And you think the great sinner, then, will be an ascetic, as well as the great saint?'

      'Great people of all kinds forsake the imperfect copies and go to the perfect originals. I have no doubt but that many of the very highest among the saints have never done a "good action" (using the words in their ordinary sense). And, on the other hand, there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an "ill deed."'

      He went out of the room for a moment, and Cotgrave, in high delight, turned to his friend and thanked him for the introduction.

      'He's grand,' he said. 'I never saw that kind of lunatic before.'

      Ambrose returned with more whisky and helped the two men in a liberal manner. СКАЧАТЬ