
The Secret Glory

It is probable, I think, that there is a point where the ascetic principle and the aesthetic become one and the same.
Arthur Machen • The Secret Glory
but even then with but little knowledge I was rapt at the thought of this marvellous knight-errantry, of this Christianity which was not a moral code, with some sort of metaphorical Heaven held out as a reward for its due observance, but a great mystical adventure into the unknown sanctity.
Arthur Machen • The Secret Glory
The imbeciles are not content to calumniate, to persecute, to make wretched the artist in his lifetime. They follow him with their praise to the grave—the grave that they have digged! Praise of the populace! Praise of a race of pigs! For, you see, while they are insulting the dead with their compliments they are at the same time insulting the livin
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it seems that we are forced to the conclusion that we do not altogether understand the management of the universe.
Arthur Machen • The Secret Glory
Crambe bis cocta;
Arthur Machen • The Secret Glory
Inexorable in its sad reiterations, in its remorseless development, that music wailed and grew in its lamentation in my own heart; heavy it was, and without hope; heavy as those still, leaden clouds that hung motionless in heaven. No relief came to this sorrowing melody—rather a sharper note of anguish; and then for a moment, as if to embitter bitt
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that is impiety, since it accuses the Zeitgest, who is certainly the only god that ever existed,
Arthur Machen • The Secret Glory
confusion—but Don Quixote failed and fell, while Sancho Panza lived a fat, prosperous peasant.
Arthur Machen • The Secret Glory
With Meyrick this mode of feeling had grown stronger by provocation; the more he was injured, the more he shrank from the thought of returning the injury.