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.