Arthur Machen
by ROBERT HILLYER
1
WHEN I was a very young writer, I came across the works of the Welsh mystic, Arthur Machen. It was just before the First World War; and during that false era of good feeling, people indulged themselves in a good deal of literature that had nothing to do with ideologies or psychoanalysis or international cartels. I suppose it would be called “escape literature” today. At any rate, Arthur Machen’s books, which were once the delight of budding authors who considered themselves of superior taste, are now neglected, and his first editions are no longer prized items in auction catalogues. The Great God Pan, The Hill of Dreams, and Hieroglyphics, titles which to us were full of rare magic, would today stir no response or even recognition among the serious-minded young realists who compose the large majority of our writing profession. The notion that literature is a form of ecstasy, a revelation in wonderful phrases of the spiritual quest of mankind, would be relegated with a smile to the kitchen-midden of the nineties. But even today, when I open one of Machen’s books and read a sentence or two, some half-remembered association moves me just as some odor makes us recall the happenings of a season long ago. And at the same time I remember the man himself.
It was the summer of 1926. A noon picnic was in progress on top of a great cliff overlooking the sea near Penally in South Wales. From time to time a long moaning roar sounded from the ground near-by as a wave sloshed into one of the blowholes which run from the upper surface down to the beach below, and the air, forced upward, exhaled with a gigantic sigh. We looked down on St. Margaret’s Isle, whore nearly a thousand years ago a colony of nuns passed their days amid the watery solitude. Before us, on the edge of the cliff, were earthworks of an antiquity unknown. The primitive people who built these earthworks would lure their enemy toward them as toward a walled town. Escaping along a path on the cliff shelf, they had the pleasure of seeing their enemy storm the walls and, in their precipitate rush, hurl themselves over the cliffs into the sea. All around us there was the contrast between the clear summer sunlight of today and the overgrown and ruined reminders of incalculable years.
There were six of us in the picnic party: Arthur Machen, his wife, their two children, Hilary and Janet, my wife, and I. Hilary was a gangling boy of fourteen; Janet, about ten, was a tiny child for her age, a pixie-like child with a face forever laughing. Mrs. Maehen was an ample, easygoing woman with ruddy cheeks and a broad smile. She was content to speak with her eyes and her gestures, which seemed to say, “Of course I am aware of the importance of my husband’s books - but listen to him; you’ll find he isn’t like his books at all.”
Nor was he. An occultist, a mystic, and a devout Anglo-Catholic, Maehen had more appetite, zest, bulk, and general enjoyment of the creature comforts of this world than any epicure. He was a sturdy figure. He had a red face, clear china-blue eyes, and a fringe of white hair around the bald dome of his cranium. One did not often see the bald toppiece, for he invariably wore a strange felt hat, too small for him, that rose from a narrow brim to a high peak. He was sufficiently like Dr. Johnson to have been assigned the part of that eminent Londoner at the London pageant of a few years before.
He spoke with a deceptive violence. “O holy saints and angels of high Heaven,” he roared as the children sprang from the grass to escape an invasion of wasps, “is there no serenity to be had in this world? Is there no courage, no poise? Sit down, you fools, sit down. Who was ever stung by a Welsh wasp?” My wife and I, who had been cringing in our places, forced ourselves to ignore the winged menace. Hilary and Janet continued to leap and howl. “By all the— ” Machen started, and then a bewildered expression came over his face. “By all the ladies of St. Margaret’s Isle and their beatified shades forever,” he said with hurt dignity, “I believe I have been stung by a wasp. The wretched thing must have blown over from Devonshire.”
The Machens lived with great sumptuousness on almost no money. Although his books were for a time collectors’ items, they were caviar to the general, and it is doubtful if he ever made much from them. He had a weekly column in one of the London papers that brought in a small stipend. But somehow there was always the atmosphere of generous plenty. He could broach a bottle of cheap Australian Burgundy with such gusto that one had the illusion of sipping a rare vintage wine from France. Furthermore, he had a profound knowledge of all the good things of life which he could not afford, and could give a conversational savor to the simplest meal that would make it surpass a banquet. Always, I knew, that question of money was in the background, and Machen was by no means a practical man. Money, such as it was, was for spending, not hoarding.
He told me of how he had once received a small legacy and had cashed it in one-pound notes that he kept in a trunk under his bed. Whenever he needed a pound he would reach into the trunk and take one, and he described his utter amazement and grief when, reaching into the trunk, he found that the pound notes had come to an end.
2
ON the surface, one might say that Machen’s life was a failure. He never escaped from the poverty that had dogged him since his birth as the son of a High Church clergyman in Wales. The magic which he found in the Roman ruins and prehistoric mounds, the domed hills and strange forests, of his homeland, and all the mystery of the Holy Grail, he summoned into words with as much devotion and skill and industry as an artist could muster, but the profits of an uncongenial age eluded him. He attempted to compromise, to write potboilers, but only succeeded in mystifying his audience. In some cases he was the victim of plain bad luck. For example, some years ago he published an account of Elizabeth Canning, the heroine of a famous kidnaping (or else a tremendous hoax) of the eighteenth century. The work fell flat. Yet in 1945 a book on Elizabeth Canning (and a very good book) by another author was among the season’s successes. And so it went with him even during that brief period when collectors were paying hundreds of dollars for his first editions — from which he derived nothing.
But he was never daunted. He regarded life with a mixture of awe and high good humor, and had a penetrating sense of proportion. After describing a strange and mystical experience that had happened to him and changed the whole current of his life, he broke off suddenly: “Of course, that was important, but I consider an act of mercy to a homeless kitten far more so.”
He had the power of investing his world with excitement and of communicating it. One day we were passing a large field which was public land — or, as the expression is, “Crown land.” “This tract,” said Machen, gesturing expansively with his pipe, “belongs to our dread Sovereign Lord, the King.” One expected Majesty to make an appearance in person, — not the then reigning monarch, George V, clad in country tweeds, but some magnificent personage out of the Middle Ages, in ermines and silks and with a golden crown on his head.
In Machen’s presence one saw the landscape under the enchanted light of another age. The ruins of St. Margaret’s and Manorbier Castle rekindled with the glories of their ancient pride. One eagerly explored St. David’s Cathedral in search of the little altar which, according to Machen, was in truth the Holy Grail. Perhaps he did fail to summon all this into his pages for the benefit of the common reader, but he lived in it, and when I was with him I lived in it, too. He could change ginger beer into nectar, and Australian Burgundy into Château d’Yquem.
Of course, such an existence might be discounted as a mere escape from life were it not for the fact that the happy illusion was founded on a vast and solid amount of reading and research. Machen was not reconstructing the past from fancy or whim; he could cite you chapter and verse from a dozen authorities to give substance to his vision of the dignity of human life and the necessity of its sacraments. And, on the other side, so strong was his faith in his fellow beings that they were swept into his benevolence. I have never seen a man more at ease with all conditions of people or more easily accepted by them. His mind lived in a classless society, that spiritual democracy which characterized medieval Christianity. And he was naturally kind.
Back in London, at his home in St. John’s Wood, he held open house every Saturday evening. Dog and Duck parties they were called, from the name of a famous punch that he concocted from an ancient recipe. Many of the well-known writers and actors (Machen himself had once been a strolling player with Sir Frank Benson’s company) attended these gatherings. There was the punch, good company, and good conversation, — that was all, and that was enough. It was considered an honor to be asked to one of these gatherings, for there everyone delighted to listen to a man whom the age in general had neglected.
One Saturday evening the secretary of a rather affected American woman writer appeared and proceeded to monopolize the conversation with stories of her employer’s fame, cleverness, and income. One by one the other voices dropped out of the contest, among them some of the most influential in English letters. The secretary though toward the end nearly everyone was showing unmistakable signs of boredom went on for an hour. Machen listened courteously and dispensed his punch. At last the secretary turned with some condescension to her host. “And by the way, Mr. Machen, Miss So-and-so is staving at the Savoy. She has to keep a very strict schedule, of course, but I feel sure that if you will call some day between four and five and make the engagement ahead of time, she will receive you.”
Every body in the room except Machen felt paralyzed. For my part, I was embarrassed beyond words for my compatriot. But the old man casually went over to his desk and got pencil and paper.
“Let me see,”he said, “would Wednesday be convenient? I shall be happy to come.”
But more was to follow. It happened that Machen’s brother-in-law and his niece were at the time popular authors on both sides of the Atlantic, enjoying a success such as he had never tasted.
“Miss So-and-so wanted to know,”the secretary went on, “if you would be kind enough to extend the invitation to your brother-in-law and your niece as well. She would be so glad to meet all three of you.”
So that was it! The lady novelist had not really wanted Machen at all. He was merely the point of contact with his better-known relatives. Still the old man was not perturbed. He added a few words to his memorandum and promised to do his best to produce the desired authors. I subsequently learned that he did produce them. The results of the meeting were evident in the blurb on the dust cover of the lady’s next book, whereon she was described as the friend of Machen’s brother-in-law, his niece, “and other English notables.” Machen himself was not mentioned. He noticed the omission. He was no one’s fool. But it moved him to no more than a laughing comment on the snobbery of American writers. That puzzled him.
He prided himself on his knowledge of America, and American ways. “As the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina,” he would boom, raising his glass. On one occasion, he overheard an Englishman making that annoying remark to me: " But you are not really an American. Why, you are more like one of us.” “ I should consider it a compliment,”said Machen, “if Mr. Hillyer would take me into the fold as a fellow American.”It pleased him that the majority of the letters he received about his works were addressed to him by Americans, and he was punctilious in answering them. In fact - and this is unusual for a writer he was invariably faithful as a correspondent.
After my return to America we wrote back and forth about once a month. My son’s middle name being Hancock. Machen always included greetings for “the Governor.”But I could feel, in spite of his characteristic optimism, an increasing note of anxiety. Not only was the world about him obviously drifting into the new war, but his own circumstances were going from bad to worse. The small and select vogue which he had enjoyed for a brief period dwindled to nothing, and his books ceased to appear. He was well in his seventies; his wife’s health alarmed him. Just when I was beginning to think that he had come to a point where courage and highheartedness could no longer prevail against the unremitting bad luck which fate seemed to have assigned him. I received a buoyant account of the consecration of the new bishop of St. David’s, together with the program of the ancient ceremonies and the liturgical music. At the end there was a postscript: —
“Our gracious Sovereign, King George the Fifth, out of his great bounty and kindness, has awarded me a pension.”
For a moment I had a vision of the fine old man in bardie raiment, receiving a bag of gold from a medieval monarch clad in ermines and silks and with a golden crown on his head.