Arthur Machen

“ The bird on the wing seems almost as happy as an idle man about town, the bee gathering honey seems almost as good as a Coketown factory hand. But in reality, each is equally busy. And each is absolutely happy because it is living in perfect conformity to the order of its being. Each is leading a single, and not a double, life. A swallow, catching insects, does not long to be a bee, gathering honey. And the bee revelling in the clover does not want to eat flies. These creatures, then, the beasts, are perfectly happy because they are perfectly conformed to the rule and order of their being ”

“ It would be no more possible for a man to doubt of God than to doubt of the nose on his face. Is it likely that the master-truth, the great word of the enigma of the universe would be difficult, hard to understand, full of apparent contradictions?" It is not rational, I say, to talk like that; since we have seen that undoubted truth and pure beauty are hard to be understood, full of apparent contradictions, and, so far as beauty or art is concerned, unprovable. ”

“ It is written that no man hath seen God at any time; but has any man seen a Point or a Line or a Plane Surface at any time? A Point has neither parts nor magnitude—I seem to remember—but only position. ”

“ We all know what it is to see a familiar landscape, a familiar street in the unfamiliar light of dawn. The halls, the towers, and the walls are the same; and yet they are changed, sometimes, it appears, to an awful beauty. So when the great voyage draws to an end, we may be amazed to find that the new haven is in fact the old, though it has been wonderfully transmuted. ”

“ It is the office of religion to unveil for us the incredible mysteries which lie hidden in the visible universe. "Grant, O Lord, that the veils of enigmas which are about these Holy Mysteries may be removed, that they may become gloriously manifest to us" ”

“ For there is no God of infinite amiability—infinite love is a different matter—and the world of the natural order isn't a very pleasant place, never has been a very pleasant place, and never will be a very pleasant place, so long as water drowns and fire burns and steel cuts flesh, and lightning destroys this body. ”

“ We are born to sail through unknown seas, born, as the Flemish saint said, vastissimum pelagus Divinitatis navigare, to navigate the great deep of God. But it is only faith that can lift up our hearts, when the shore is no more to be seen. ”

“ The only solution of the problem which is at all tolerable is to be found by making the adventure of faith. In spite of our difficulties about that mysterious Point of Euclid's, let us believe in it and see where that belief leads us. Let us make the great experiment; even though we make it with quaking hearts. ”

“ The fact is that, by the nature of the case, man is not capable of absolute truth; neither in the heights nor in the depths. Let him go to the very elements of the simplest things of the life about him, and he will find himself in a net of contradictions, obscurities, mysteries. It is idle for him to declare himself a purely rational creature, living in a rational, demonstrable universe: it is not so. ”

“ I do not think that the problem should be very difficult for the orthodox Christian. For he, by the very definition of his belief, grounds all his faith on the fact of the most infamous and hideous act of cruelty and injustice, pursued to the very death, that the world has ever seen. The Christian religion is founded on a certain undeserved punishment, on the story of the Grand Master who was foully and unjustly killed by the rebellious craftsmen: it will not be strange, then, to Christians if the lower grades share the calamity of the highest grade of all ”

“ I concede the possible point; but I still contend that the first requirement of anything worthy to be called religion in its incredibility.
Yes, but it is so. All the acknowledged joys of life, all its great adventures even in the purely physical world are achievements of the incredible. The doctors of Salamanca proved to Columbus that that wild contemplated voyage of his was against the laws of nature. ”

“ The Freethought I have in view is the freethought of the tone-deaf man who insists on becoming a musical critic, so that he may prove to the world that there is no such thing as music, and that the people who say they enjoy music are fools or knaves or both. ”

“ There is in each case a total lack of interest in certain exquisite and beautiful things, perhaps a total incapacity to discern these things. But as a rule, the man who doesn't like the masterpiece of literature or of art is content to keep silence, if you will only leave him alone. But the man who is convinced that the early martyrs were designing and crafty rogues is, often for some obscure reason, anxious to proclaim his conviction to the world, whereby he becomes a burden and a bore. ”

“ Ever since the world of men began mothers have looked on the faces of their innocent and blameless little children, have seen those poor faces tortured and grow dim with the shadow of death, have seen unmerited anguish stilled only in the grave. ”

“ Both are hard; only one is hopeless. It is hard, indeed, as a soldier said to me, to see the obscene horrors and torments of the war, and then to utter the "Almighty and most merciful Father." Yet, individually, we are, most of us, ready to confess that good things are born of torments. ”

“ What man's spirit does not go faint and sick at certain slight painless tremors that assure him that his days in the world are numbered?
The beasts, then, are happy, because they are wholly immersed in their proper businesses; they are fish altogether in the water; they are fishmongers, let us say, who do not even conceive the possibility of making a living by writing sonnets or painting pictures, much less desire such adventures. The bee gathers honey all the day, and would be completely wretched only if you prevented him from gathering honey all the day. ”

“ There is Cobdenism, for example, in our system; the belief that men's lives are a commodity to be bought in the cheapest market, and their work to be sold in the dearest. Heaven forbid that that any man should presume to pry into the counsels of God; but is it altogether unreasonable or against the analogy of things to believe that the white fires and knives that pierce almost to the heart of life should be required to cut out such a cancer as this? ”

“ It is a possible way of looking at things. The chief argument to be urged against it is a practical one: that it would make the world so much more horrible than it is already. It would destroy all art, for art is but a search for that hidden beauty which is God. It would render all the things which we confess to be fine meaningless, for, ultimately, the fine things are the things of God ”

“ It is as intolerable as time that it should be so, as unintelligible as space that it is so. But it is the order of the world; and I cannot admit for a moment that the apparent contradiction between this order and the mercy of God is in any way changed by the horrible circumstances of the present war. Water, in certain cases, drowns. That is the proposition. It is not rendered more true by the drowning of a hundred men or a million men. ”

“ I believe that he—and those who follow him—cannot help talking nonsense, simply because they have accepted the supremely nonsensical proposition that there is no God. They have accepted the proposition that two and two make five, and, therefore, the keener their wits, the more cunning their cogitations, the more monstrous are the results that they obtain. ”

“ In the material world we are confronted by absolute contradictions which are yet undeniable, by forces absolutely unintelligible; which we can yet use and make the servants of our comfort. We can send messages and read letters and roast beef by that electric force which remains an absolute mystery; we can move across the room through that unintelligible space ”

“ But as it is certain that those who make the adventure of beauty are not deluded, so it is certain that those who make the greater adventure of God are not deluded. And it is probable that this would be much clearer to many if the Faith were presented, not as a system of morals with certain supernatural sanctions, but as the supreme end of life, the key to all mysteries, the fulfilment of all desires, the quest of all quests.
It is very well that men should live decently ”

“ The true things and the precious things of the life of this world are by no means easy or obvious; why should we expect the true things and the precious things of the life of the world to come to be easy and obvious? ”

“ And if these minor adventures of humanity are to be in the region of incredible things, shall we not expect the supreme adventure of all, which is called religion, to go forth into desperate seas indeed? Our divines and dignitaries are amiable and correct in their anxiety about the four-ale bar and the state of Piccadilly Circus after eleven o'clock at night; but they are bemused when they think that these excellent anxieties have anything to do with the religion of which they are pontiffs. ”

“ We are so made, I think, that our destiny is to voyage into the unknown, so made that we only find our true joys and our veritable treasures when we see the familiar peaks and headlands fade behind us. ”

“ But we must firmly believe in them; for if we did not, then, the whole science of mathematics, and, a fortiori, all science, would become nonsense, and we should be, in fact, madmen, living in a world of chaos. ”

“ If there are enigmas in points and lines and surfaces, is it not to be expected that there should be greater enigmas in the vast scheme of all things? We say that we do not understand how an Almighty and most merciful Father can allow the abomination of the war—can allow any pain or anguish of body or spirit. ”

“ I remember an instance of this incapacity—on the stage of all places! The tone-deaf person was quite unable to reproduce the intonations that the stage-manager gave her for this speech and that.
Then there are colour-blind people who confuse red and green. There are people, again, whose palates cannot distinguish between beef and mutton; they lack the sense of taste. And so, going higher, there are many people, and by no means stupid people, who would never dream of taking down Shakespeare and reading him for the pleasure of it. ”

“ They have not eaten of the fruit of that deadly tree that we have all tasted; and so, though they seem to die, they live with the joy of immortals. Dwelling wholly in the body, they suffer, indeed, the discomforts and pangs of the body; but not the anguish of anticipation and dread which gives their sting to human pains. What man cares, seriously, for the fiercest toothache? ”

“ The truth is that, whether we like it or not, we live, if we live well, in and by and through mysteries. We do not live by bread alone, even so far as mere bread, and our mere physical nourishment and well-being are concerned, but by bread eaten in cheerfulness and with charity. ”

“ The Freethought of which I speak is not that natural hesitation to accept the unprovable—the Faith is unprovable, or else it would not bear the name of the Faith—which is often found in devout and humble minds, which is found to some extent in all minds save in the two extremes of Saints and Simpletons. ”

“ Dawn and sunset would cease to be spectacles of enchantment for us, though they might speak to us as they speak to moths and owls. A court of justice would become a meaningless circumstance to us: the murdered would not claim our pity, nor the murderer our indignation. And lest this should seem a mere flourish, let it be noted that this is the actual state of mind of those persons who are called "Pacifists"; they reiterate that there is no distinction to be made between the German butcher and the Belgian butchered. ”

“ There is a very great deal to be said, I think, for the atheistic position with regard to the universe. It is reported that in the very crisis of the first battle of Ypres, when the scales of the fight were trembling, nay, more than trembling; when they appeared to be descending on the side of the enemy, one of our generals said to himself: "God will never let those devils win." ”

“ There must be many people, it seems probable, who are born without the sense of literature, who are utterly incapable of relishing the exquisite savours of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," or of that great chapter which is intituled, "How they Chirruped over their Cups."
Very well; it is a great pity, and we are sorry for them. We know that they miss a great deal of the pleasures of life—which are none too many. We will not, perhaps, go all the way with Shakespeare, and declare them fit for murders, treasons, stratagems, and spoils ”

“ And it is probable that if the whole race of men "gave it up," came to believe that the puzzle was all nonsense, that the apparent language was not merely obscure, but unmeaning gibberish; then, I suppose, we should turn into sheep and goats that nourish a blind life within the brain. ”

“ He will invent reasons, which are not real reasons, to justify his own incapacity. He is not able to relish a good dinner; so he finds out all kinds of "reasons" to prove that dinner is nonsense, and poisonous nonsense at that. He will write long and learned books to show that savages in all ages liked their dinner; that people who believed in ghosts have always believed in dinner ”

“ But on the other hand, I never knew a man who refused to avail himself of the easements of the telegraph, the telephone, or of the electric light, because he could not comprehend the nature of electricity. ”