“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.