Page:Arthur Machen, A Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin.djvu/35

Rh emotions that the most degrading images will intrude themselves."

And so on The sense of the futility almost of attempting to explain Machen becomes more pronounced as I progress. You will have to read him. You will find his books (if you are fortunate) in a murky corner of some obscure second-hand bookshop.

Arthur Machen was born in Wales in 1863. He is married and has two children. That is an astonishing thought, after reading "The Inmost Light." It is surprising indeed to learn that he was born. He is High Church, "with no particular respect for the Archbishop of Canterbury," and necessarily subconsciously Catholic, as must be all those "lonely, awful souls" who write ecstasy across the world. He hates puritanism with a sturdier hatred than inspires Chesterton; for a brilliant exposition of this aversion I commend readers to his mocking introduction to "The House of Souls." That work, "The Hill of Dreams," and "Hieroglyphics" were written between 1890 and 1900, after which their author turned strolling player and alternated for a time between the smartest theatres