New-York tribune., 1922-05-21

teries thereof is to be explained only
in his own terms, and readers must
seek the explanation and that of other
mysteries in this same "Hieroglyphcs," !"
one of the truest volumes Of interpre-
tation and criticism ever penned. The
assault on the public school system (to
return to "The Secret Glory'D is re-
lentless and savage; the fantastic ex-
aggeration and irony is furious. Alec
Waugh, in "The Loom of YOUTH" was
thought to have slapped the face Of the
English public school with hard hand
but Machen kicks it in the stomach
No doubt his very violence hurts him
as a reformer, but certainly reformer
is the last thing he would care to be-
An abolishcr, perhaps, but never re-
former
EROM these fercely satiricsl pages
he turns. at intervals to his be-
loved Welsh hills and to his delicate
analysis of n human soul ravshed by a
| mirage of transcendent beauty sym
bolized by the visible beauty about it.
His concern with the phenomena Of
nature, which was so striking note
in "The Hill of Dreams again is
manifest in "The Secret Glory" In
the changing form and color of clouds,
in the writings of little rivers and the
grotesque gesturings Of trees, in the
stiffness of silent valleys, in the CLEAN
and glow of a rising star, in the weary
undulations of ploughland and meadow,
there is for Arthur Machen an awful
Significance In an instant. over an
incredible area, he beholds the vapors
of the cloud world change from rolling
crystal mountains to dark and impos-
sble shapes of evil; dun hillside
touched by the sun becomes a.realm of
faary, and ineffable voices vouchsafe
fragments of mystery.
What suggests Mr.. Machen, if 1t
turned out that we have all been in- the
wrong about everything ?--"that we
live in world of the most wonderful
treasures, which we see all about US,
but we don't understand, and kick the
jewels into the dirt, and use the
chalices for slop-pails and make the
| holy vestments into dishcoths, while
we worship a great beasta monster,
with the head of a monkey, the body
Of a pig and the hind legs of goat. :"
One is never so ready to believe it as
when reading Arthur Machen.
Speaking of one of the works of
Ambrose Meyrick," the author, al
though too modestly, describes his own
work. He says: "The whole treatise
of which this extract is fragment in
a rudimentary and imperfect stage, is
Of course, an impassioned appeal for
the restoration of the quickening
exuberant imagination, not merely ir
art, but in all the inmost places OF
life. There is more than this, too
Hero and there one can hear, as II
were, the whisper and the hint OF
deeper mysteries, visions OF a great
experiment. and a great achievement
to which some men may be called"
And soon. This review is getting
away from me, as I was afraid il
would, so I shall end quickly.
In tho notebooks of Ambrose Mey-
rick are many truths and many beauti-
full hazards at truth, and the note
books of Ambrose Meyrick are patent
ly the notebooks of Arthur Machen
To assert that this strange tale is an
autobiography would be unfair; it is
dangerous too closely to identify a
writer with his work; but that it Is
autobiography in the wide sense that
etl great works of fiction are autobio-
graphical, is beyond question. Intel
lectually, at least, Ambrose Meyrick Is
Arthur Machen, and Arthur Machen is,
as have been accused Of saying too
often, n genius of the first rank slow
ly coming into his inheritance.