Weird Stories: Arthur Machen's "The White People"

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2018

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Weird Stories is a series of readings for Weird Studies listeners who want to dig deeper into the themes and ideas discussed on the Weird Studies podcast. In his seminal essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," H. P. Lovecraft named Arthur Machen one of the four "modern masters" of horror fiction, alongside Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, and M. R. James. Born in 1863, Machen burst onto the London literary scene in 1890 with the controversial novella "The Great God Pan." He was briefly considered one of the luminaries of the Decadent movement before falling into obscurity and experiencing a literary rebirth toward the end of his life. In this Weird Stories installment, Phil Ford reads the complete text of one of Machen's most famous works, "The White People" (1904). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectre Vision Radio
0:03.0	Welcome to Weird Stories, a series of readings for the Weird Studies podcast.
0:19.0	In this installment, Phil Ford reads Arthur
0:22.7	Mockin's 1904 novella, The White People by Arthur Machen.
0:40.3	Prologue
0:40.9	Sorcery and Sanctity, said Ambrose, these are the only realities.
0:50.9	Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life.
0:55.8	Cotgrave listened, interested.
0:58.2	He had been brought by a friend to this moldering house in a northern suburb,
1:02.7	through an old garden to the room where Ambrose the recluse dozed and dreamed over his books.
1:09.4	Yes, he went on.
1:13.6	Magic is justified of her children.
1:18.2	There are many, I think, who eat dry crusts and drink water,
1:24.2	with a joy infinitely sharper than anything within the experience of the practical epicure.
1:27.4	You are speaking of the saints?
1:28.3	Yes, and of the sinners, too.
1:32.3	I think you are falling into the very general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely
1:38.3	good, but the supremely wicked necessarily have their portion in it.
1:43.3	The merely carnal, sensual man can no more
1:47.4	be a great sinner than he can be a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures.
1:54.0	We model through the world without realizing the meaning in the inner sense of things,
1:59.6	and consequently our wickedness and our goodness
	...

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