Page:Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory, 1922.djvu/118

The Secret Glory frankly phantasmal. It reminded him of a trick he had somtimessometimes [sic] played: one chose one's position carefully, shut an eye and, behold, a mean shed could be made to obscure the view of a mountain! So these walls and appurtenances made an illusory sort of intrusion into the true vision on which he gazed. That yellow washstand rising out of the shining wells of the undying, the speckled walls in the place of the great mysteries, a chest of drawers in the magic garden of roses—it had the air of a queer joke, and he laughed aloud to himself as he realized that he alone knew, that everybody else would say, "That is a white jug with a blue band," while he, and he only, saw the marvel and glory of the holy cup with its glowing metals, its interlacing myriad lines, its wonderful images, and its hues of the mountain and the stars, of the green wood and the faery sea where, in a sure haven, anchor the ships that are bound for Avalon.

For he had a certain faith that he had found the earthly presentation and sacrament of the Eternal Heavenly Mystery.

He smiled again, with the quaint smile of an angel in an old Italian picture, as he realized more fully the strangeness of the whole position and the odd humours which would relieve a delight it would be to "play up" at rocker! It seemed was to play a wonderful game of make-believe; 102