The Secret Glory

The Secret Glory

Some years ago I met my old master, Sir Frank Bensonhe was Mr. F. R. Benson thenand he asked me in his friendly way what I had been doing lately. "I am just finishing a book," I replied, "a book that everybody will hate." "As usual," said the Don Quixote of our English stageif I knew any nobler title to bestow upon him, I would, bestow it"as usual; running your head against a stone wall!" Well, I don't know about "as usual"; there may be something to be said for the personal criticism or there may not; but it has struck me that Sir Frank's remark is a very good description of "The Secret Glory," the book I had in mind as I talked to him. It is emphatically the history of an unfortunate fellow who ran his head against stone walls from the beginning to the end. He could think nothing and do nothing after the common fashion of the world; even when he "went wrong," he did so in a highly unusual and eccentric manner. It will be for the reader to determine whether he were a saint who had lost his way in the centuries or merely an undeveloped lunatic; I hold no passionate view on either side. In every age, there are people great and small for whom the times are out of joint, for whom everything is, somehow, wrong and askew. Consider Hamlet; an amiable man and an intelligent man. But what a mess he made of it! Fortunately, my heroor idiot, which you willwas not called upon to intermeddle with affairs of State, and so only brought himself to grief: if it were grief; for the least chink of the door should be kept open, I am inclined to hold, for the other point of view. I have just been rereading Kipling's "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat," the tale of the Brahmin Prime Minister of the Native State in India, who saw all the world and the glory of it, in the West as well as in the East, and suddenly abjured all to become a hermit in the wood. Was he mad, or was he supremely wise? It is just a matter of opinion. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 35637
Author: Machen, Arthur
Release Date: Mar 20, 2011
Format: eBook
Language: English