Arthur Machen

Name: The Secret Glory — III.—iv.
Author: Arthur Machen

The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

Summary

“The Secret Glory — III.—iv.”, is a work by Arthur Machen. It explores elements such as Paradise, valley and pig.

Quotes from The Secret Glory — III.—iv. (Arthur Machen)

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ The life of bodily things is hard, just as the wineglass is hard. We can touch it and feel it and see it always before us. The wine is drunk and forgotten; it cannot be held. I believe the air about us is just as substantial as a mountain or a cathedral, but unless we remind ourselves we think of the air as nothing. It is not hard. But now I was in Paradise, for body and soul were molten in one fire and went up in one flame. ”

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Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ So I began to wonder whether perhaps there are very few people in the world who know; whether the real secret is lost like the great city that was drowned in the sea and only seen by one or two. Perhaps it is more like those shining Isles that the saints sought for, where the deep apple orchards are, and all the delights of Paradise. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ He means, I think, that our great loss is that we separate what is one and make it two; and then, having done so, we make the less real into the more real, as if we thought the glass made to hold wine more important than the wine it holds. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ A hundred of them opened into gardens of delight, pleasure-houses, beautiful bowers, wonderful countries, fairy seas, caves of gold and hills of diamonds, into all the most splendid places. But one door led into a cesspool, and that was the only door that the man ever opened. It may be that his sons and his grandsons have been opening that one door ever since, till they have forgotten that there are any others, so if anyone dares to speak of the ways to the garden of delight or the hills of gold he is called a madman, or a very wicked person. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ And sometimes the saints could stand on the rocks and see those Islands far away in the midst of the sea, and smell the sweet odours and hear the bells ringing for the feast, when other people could see and hear nothing at all. ”

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Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ For just that moment you knew everything and understood the stars and the hills and night and day and the woods and the old songs. They were all within you, and you were all light. But the light was music, and the music was violet wine in a great cup of gold, and the wine in the golden cup was the scent of a June night. I understood all this as she stood beside my bed in the dark and stretched out her hand and touched me on the breast.
"I knew a pool in an old, old grey wood a few miles from the Wern. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ I often think now how strange it would be if it were found out that nearly everybody is like those who stood on the rocks and could only see the waves tossing and stretching far away, and the blue sky and the mist in the distance. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ I mean, if it turned out that we have all been in the wrong about everything; that we live in a 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 dish-cloths, while we worship a great beast—a monster, with the head of a monkey, the body of a pig and the hind legs of a goat, with swarming lice crawling all over it. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ But I have heard the poor women in the town screaming and scolding at their men, and the men swearing back; and when they think they are making love, it is the most horrible of all.
"And it is not only the boys and the poor people. There are the masters and their wives. Everybody knows that the Challises and the Redburns 'fight like cats,' as they say, and that the Head's daughter was 'put up for auction' and bought by the rich manufacturer from Birmingham—a horrible, fat beast, more than twice her age, with eyes like pig's. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ I had never dreamed that there could be anything so wonderful in the whole world. My father had told me of many beautiful and holy and glorious things, of all the heavenly mysteries by which those who know live for ever, all the things which the Doctor and my uncle and the other silly clergymen in the Chapel ... ”

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Source: Wikisource

Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory — III.—iv.

“ I have heard some of the fellows talking about women. Their words and their stories are filthy, and nonsense, too. One would think that if monkeys and pigs could talk about their she-monkeys and sows, it would be just like that. ”

Arthur Machen

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Quotes from The Secret Glory — III.—iv. (Arthur Machen)

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