Arthur Machen

“ At the same time the essay went on to show that it would never do to say that the eighteenth century was deficient in the sense of art:
"In that art which is of all the arts most pure and exalted, which, above all, is freed from the errors and muddy confusions of the logical understanding, this age of Smollett and Johnson attained the greatest and sublimest heights. Literature, if it is fine literature, speaks ultimately no doubt to the soul, but by necessity it expresses itself through and by the logical sense: it must be capable of logical analysis. ”

“ And man had gazed at the earth and sky, at the clouds and the woods, the seas and the rivers for innumerable ages before the mystery and the beauty of the world were really manifested in the work of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Turner. ”

“ But music alone moves in its own world of pure beauty; and though we are compelled to use the language of the intellect when we speak of it, though we talk of 'a musical idea,' this is mere poverty of speech, since the sphere of music and the sphere of the intellectus are apart and not interdependent. ”

“ This may be difficult to realise: to us Dryden's 'improvements,' on Chaucer seem incredible, and Smollett's desire to replace York Minster by a neat Grecian room appears pure imbecility—but, after all, Que sçavons nous? Unless we take up the position that we have attained to final and absolute and universal perfection; that we have surpassed all the wisdom of the wise, all the art of the ages, all the visions of the seers; that compared with us all precedent humanity is, in all things, as a schoolboy in the multiplication-table to Sir Isaac Newton ”

“ It is everywhere spoken of, yet everywhere ignored, everywhere it is worshipped, and everywhere defiled, everywhere it is sought, and they that seek turn their faces away from it. They dig for it deep in the earth, and in digging trample it under foot ”

“ Though it be secret, yet it is everywhere seen, though it be occult, yet it is not to be sought amongst 'Occultists.' It is rather, to quote the alchemists again, the most common thing in all the wide world, and though it be hidden from all, yet no man is ignorant of it, no man can fail to be possessed of it, and, being possessed of it, truly to comprehend it if light be given him. ”

“ Sometimes, perhaps, they simply bargain for a snug homestead, for well-roofed barns and a pot that shall always have enough of common food within it; and, amazed, they find themselves denizens of Paradise, partakers of magic food and enchanted drink. ”

“ The essay went on to quote from Smollett's denunciation of York Minster as a masterpiece of folly in stone, from Washington Irving's shamefaced admiration for the "barbarisms" of Westminster Abbey. It called many other witnesses to testify to the very singular fact that for more than two centuries men were surrounded by wonderful buildings which they were absolutely unable to see in any true sense of the word. Meyrick also showed that, to a great extent, the same principle prevailed in the regions of literature and painting. ”

“ But then, on the other hand, the essay continued, How are we to estimate the attitude of the period towards Nature, the visible universe generally? Clearly, the Augustans and their successors looked on the world as men blinded, stupified, utterly befogged. Meyrick noted how the trees and streams of that spiritual man Berkeley were taken out of Plato's "Dialogues," while the "poets" went to Hampton Court Gardens and to the famous Maze for Nature. ”

“ For instance, you might investigate the marriage customs of some race more or less primitive, you might satisfy yourself that to all intents and purposes marriage and giving in marriage in the race in question were as prosaic, as much a matter of business as pig-dealing in Wiltshire ”